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Search in titles only Search in Letters and Communications only
Letters and Communications
Serial Killers Communiqués
As you know I think that Jack the Ripper communicated with the police. And I think he did so at least through 6 different sources, perhaps more.
Here are some examples of other serial killers communications with the police. And it could hypothetically give you a picture of what sort of communications I would expect from Jack the Ripper:
The Lipstick Killer of Chicago:
"For heaven’s sake, catch me before I kill more; I cannot control myself"
(http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol9is2/guillen.html)
The Zodiac Killer of San Francisco:
"Dear Editor, This is the Zodiac speaking I am back with you."
(ibid.)
The BTK killer:
"...How about some name for me, its time: 7 down and many more to go. I like the following. How about you? 'THE B.T.K. STRANGLER', 'WICHITA STRANGLER', 'POETIC STRANGLER'"
The Weepy-voice killer of Minnesota
called the police to say the newspaper accounts of some of the murders were inaccurate.
(ibid).
Happy Face Killer of Oregon:
A message was found scrawled on a wall at the Greyhound Bus Depot in Livingston, Montana: "I killed Tanya Bennett Jan. 21, 1990 in Portland, Oregon. I beat her to death, raped her and loved it. Yes, I’m sick, but I enjoy myself too. People took the blame and I’m free".
The Zodiac Killer of New York:
To The New York Post August 4th 1994: "Hi, I’m back".
Regards Pierre
Last edited by Pierre; 11-18-2015, 03:34 AM.
MysterySinger
Well I suspect we've seen examples of all of these with regard to Jack The Ripper except I can't think of an example of the first one - i.e. where he's actually asking for help.
Pcdunn
Druitt's suicide note, perhaps? (Obviously not signed 'Jack the Ripper', but it is what it is-- and Mary Kelly died on a Friday).
Pat D. https://forum.casebook.org/core/imag...rt/reading.gif
Von Konigswald: Jack the Ripper plays shuffleboard. -- Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut, c.1970.
Originally posted by MysterySinger View Post
Originally posted by Pierre View Post
I do not agree with this.
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Home Global Equity Venezuela: ETF and ADR Playbook Should the Turmoil Subside
Venezuela: ETF and ADR Playbook Should the Turmoil Subside
Shubham Bubna
Venezuela continues to reel under a socio-economic crisis
Venezuela, one of the world’s largest oil producing countries, an OPEC member and Latin America’s largest crude oil company is on the verge of a major crisis. The current alarming situation in Venezuela enters a new phase as President Maduro plans to rewrite the constitution.
The deflationary situation that Venezuela faces began with the election of President Maduro in April, 2013. Venezuela had earlier attracted attention from foreign investors but since the socio-economic crisis began, investors have pulled out their investments from the country.
The average growth rate in Venezuela for the past five years is –4.24%. For 2017, the IMF forecasts Venezuela’s GDP to contract by –12%. It recently revised its forecast for 2017 from –7.4% to –12% as the country’s economic situation worsened. The extended economic recession currently prevailing in the country and along with the governance of President Maduro, has Venezuela in a critical position.
Venezuela has been highly dependant on petroleum as its main source of revenue for many decades now. The fall in crude oil prices since 2014 has caused subsidies to become unsustainable, and have led to the depletion of Venezuela’s foreign reserves.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan benchmark index, IBVC index (IBVC) has surged 541% YTD (as of 24th August 2017). The index has reached an all-time high on 28 August 2017 following its lowest historical point in April 2013. $1000 of local currency purchased during the presidential election in 2013 is assumed to be worth $1.34 today.
The possibility of U.S. sanctions has caused Venezuelan bond prices to tumble sending shockwaves across the whole country. The latest economic and governmental changes have washed out the possibility of a stable political transition. However, optimism remains that the country will find its footing in the long-term. Investors of the same mind have a number of options to consider.
The largest 5 ADRs in Venezuela as of August 2017, trading on US OTC markets were as follows:
Mercantil Servicios FIN – ADR (MSFJY)
Fondo De Valores Immobiliarios (FNDOY)
Manufacturas de Papel-Manpa (MDPAY)
Siderurgica Venez SIV (SDNVY)
Ceramica Carabobo (CCOOY)
Currently, no funds provide exposure to Venezuelan equity markets. Investors seeking exposure to Venezuelan bond markets could instead consider the following ETFs.
In terms of exchange traded funds, the iShares Emerging Markets High Yield Bond ETF (EMHY) seeks to track the investment results of an Index composed of U.S. dollar denominated, emerging market high yield sovereign and corporate bond. The ETF has an exposure of 4.04% in Venezuela. YTD the ETF has a return of 7.93%.
Also, the VanEck Vectors Emerging Markets High Yield Bond ETF (HYEM) invests in a basket of 350 dollar-denominated high-yield debt securities from corporates in emerging markets. Bonds issued by the Turkish Bank, Yapi Ve Kredi Bankasi form 1.45% of its holdings and is the top holding of this ETF. Bonds issued by the Venezuelan oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) form 0.5% of its portfolio as compared to 3% previously. YTD the ETF has a return of 6.25%.
Lastly, the iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond exchange-traded fund (EMB) tracks an index composed of US dollar dominated sovereign debt issued by emerging market economies. This fund primarily invests in sovereign debt with Turkey, Russia, and the Philippines forming its top three holdings. Venezuelan bonds form 1.85% of this ETF’s portfolio. YTD the fund has returned 8.34%.
EMHY
HYEM
president maduro
Previous articleThe 10 Largest Emerging Market Stocks Listed on the London Stock Exchange
Next articleIndonesian And Malaysian Palm Oil At A Crossroads
ETF Comparison: The Top Five US-Listed Emerging Market Funds Versus Non US-Listed Counterparts
The Relationship Between The Dollar And Emerging Markets Bonds: Closer Than Equities?
3 Reasons Why Multinationals Are Making Bold Moves Into Côte d’Ivoire
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October 2009 iPhone 4 Prototype Shows Up on eBay [Update: Listing Pulled]
Thread starter MacRumors
News and Article Discussion
MacRumors.com News Discussion
macrumors bot
As noted by 9to5Mac, an early iPhone 4 prototype has shown up on eBay running Apple's in-house diagnostics software.
A number of high-quality photos are included with the listing, showing a complete lack of Apple branding on the exterior of the device. Most notably, the Apple logo has been replaced with a distinct logo that was previously seen in a Twitpic posting in February 2010. The standard "iPhone" text on the rear of the device has also been replaced by "Prototype", along with text noting that the device has not been approved by the Federal Communications Commission and can not be sold until such authorization is granted.
Sonny Dickson has also provided an overview video of the device showing off several of the features of the device including the software and a lack of screws on the bottom of the device that is consistent with some of the earlier leaked prototypes.
As seen in the video, the serial number of the device indicates that it was manufactured during the 43rd week of 2009, which corresponds to late October, nearly eight months before the device was made available to the public.
The auction for the prototype currently carries a single bid of $4,500, with the seller advertising in the listing that a $10,000 offer would be acceptable to halt the auction process and simply purchase the device.
Update: The listing has been removed.
Article Link: October 2009 iPhone 4 Prototype Shows Up on eBay [Update: Listing Pulled]
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/22/october-2009-iphone-4-prototype-shows-up-on-ebay/
MoxFulder
No screws would've been cool!
rh1
Who'll be taken to court for this one?
World Citizen
macrumors regular
It looks like the aluminum is plastic...
charlieegan3
Don't understand the need for the lack of apple branding?
HarryKeogh
macrumors 6502a
Samsung has an eBay account?
AQUADock
charlieegan3 said:
Maybe to hide that it's an apple product.
joelisfar
Well before the iPhone 4 came out, some might not have guessed this was an Apple device.
I like it sort of! I'd use it.
jamesryanbell
$4500?? $10,000??? Seriously? It's a crappy prototype. Shouldn't be a dime over $1,000, if that.
"There are only a few of these though"
So what? What are you going to do with it?
I guess I don't get it.
troop231
Pokémon logo - almost
umiwangu
Where do people find these things?
mrxak
Drifting through space in a broken escape pod
You don't put your branding on a prototype, just in case the prototype gets leaked or lost. You don't want to scream to all your competitors exactly what you're working on.
My mother grew up near Detroit, and says she often saw unbranded vehicles driving around. You could usually still tell which car manufacturer had made it, based on styling and such, but they were prototypes and the companies didn't want to put their hood ornament or whatever on the cars so it was easy for their competitors to see who was working on what.
Any, pretty cool logo. I'm sure Apple uses different ones all the time to switch things up.
devilbond
Steve allowed this.
AQUADock said:
In that case the "Prototype" written in Myriad Pro on the back pretty much gives it away.
If it wasn't of that one could think (prior to the iPhone 4 announcement) that this is simply a phone from another vendor they have never seen.
OldSchoolMacGuy
Looks a lot more like the cheap Chinese knockoffs that can be had online for around 100. Why would a prototype not run the standard iOS and instead a crappy knockoff OS? Someone is about to be taken for their money.
iapplelove
Prototypes are out there,know the right people and I'm sure it's not that easy to get your hands on one
FSMBP
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
I don't think you understand Apple's prototype process. That UI is the development UI for hardware testing purposes...It's been well documented that early iPhone prototypes use that same basic development UI early on in the process.
Abazigal
I wonder how hard it is to modify an old iphone4 to make it look like some primitive prototype to sell on ebay for big bucks...
phillipduran
Maybe in case it is photographed or seen in public. It will make it less obvious that it is an Apple device.
terraphantm
Thats the same testing software found on early iPhone 2Gs, and is presumably used on all iPhone prototypes in the early stages.
MoxFulder said:
no way, its easy to replace a broken glass back the way it is now
edit: nvm, u clamp it over the phone, seems pretty cool
Allenbf
Elsewhere, USA
Is he saying "Skank-phone" on the one app? They have an app for that??
MacFather
umiwangu said:
at a bar
I'd buy that for a dollar.
USA,OHIO
it could be fake
ghostface147 said:
i will pay 5 dollars
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GoGeomatics Meetups
Category: Education & Careers
Robert Maher
2012, 2015, activity, Arctic, Bob Maher, Book, books, communication, community, contribution, course, Culture, Darrel Varga, DEM, development, economic activity, economy, education, election, Erebus, Fast, Franklin, Franklin Expedition, Free, Geographer, geographic, Geography, Harold Innis, History, ICT, Knowledge, Language, like, LIS, magazine, Maritime, media, north, Notes from Nunavut, Nunavut, online, opinions, opportunity, parks Canada, Place, policy, power, press, professor, QA, question, RAC, rank, research, rigid, ROV, search, series, Space, Student, Study, sue, TCO, test, thinking, Toronto, University, university of toronto, Wiki, writing
A Canadian Geographer’s Notes from Nunavut
Arctic Ventures, Iqaluit
For the last five years, I have annually had the opportunity to spend time in Iqaluit, Canada’s fastest growing community in Canada’s fastest growing territory or province. On arrival, I check out the selection of new books at Arctic Ventures and the screening of new movies about the North. This year, there was the chance to see John Walker’s Passage and to buy a copy of Darrell Varga’s book of the same name in the Canadian Cinema series.
HMS Terror (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
This hybrid film (fictional non-fiction) describes the search for the Franklin expedition, the role of John Rae and in particular, the Inuit perspective. Unravelling the Franklin Mystery’s doomed 1845 quest to find the Northwest Passage is a compelling and impressive inquiry into a part of Canadian history, and given the recent discovery of the Erebus and Terror that would not have been possible without Inuit knowledge. Therefore I highly recommend that you also check out David Woodman’s, Second Edition ‘Unraveling the Franklin Mystery. Inuit Testimony‘ or go online, for an update from Parks Canada, or Canadian Geographic magazine. Parks Canada has announced it will work together with the Inuit of the Kitikmeot region to develop a National Historic Site in Nunavut dedicated to Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition.
In Darrell Varga’s book, he places the cinematography of John Walker into the larger context of NFB documentaries, as well as the intellectual influence of Harold Innis.
‘The question of space and time informs our relationship to place and community as is the dominant force structuring communication, and it can also be understood as a key framework for understanding Passage’. p.103.
Innis was Professor, Poltical Economy at the University of Toronto, some of his books include ‘The Fur Trade in Canada‘. and ‘The Cod Fisheries: the History of an International Economy‘. He established what is known as the staples thesis of economic history, whereby the development of a nation state is understood as an outcome of formative resource-based economic activity.
‘Innis’s method of study included what he called ‘dirt research’ which involves extended visits into the far-flung territories of the country, from the north to the maritime outports, and even included long canoe trips down fur-trade routes such as the Churchill River. At the time, no other scholar took this kind of hands-on interest in the ‘regions’ of Canada.’ p. 104
This is very similar to the process of a documentary film making. ‘Passage does this through poetic representation of the North, while also reminding us that a sense of place is mediated by the writing of history, by perspective, and especially by the camera itself. p.105
‘For Innis, a key contribution of Canadian intellectual discourse is the perspective on power formulated at a remove from the centre. Passage takes as its foundation the resistance to empire from the margins.’ p. 110.
Darrel Varga – John Walker’s Passage
Varga states: ‘ it is my contention that documentary film, at least in the hands of a reflective artist like John Walker, has potential to provide what Innis wanted : that is, a space for free thinking not under the rigid spell of technology, power and administered society. In this way, it is a return to oral culture … It is a space of dialogue that may take a variety of forms, including writing, but what is important is the concept of dialogue as a means of transforming the monopoly of power attendant to mass media and in the structure of contemporary society’. p.116.
‘What Innis advocated was a society that fostered a balance between spoken and written texts and thus allowed a balance between the oral and spatial bias of communication … The spatial bias is offset by specific practices exemplified in Passage. Of particular note is a research methodology that included dialogue with many Inuit elders, who provided an oral history that has a direct line with the time and space of Franklin’s expedition’. p. 117
‘While the oral tradition functions to maintain the coherence of small and closed communities, it also requires mobility – the student has to seek out the elder or the scholar because knowledge is not readily available in portable form, in the written word … In the case of nomadic Inuit, mobility is closely integrated with an understanding of space.’ p. 118
The film treats space as vast and sublime terrain, but also as geography formed out of a dialectic of power stretching from empire to margin.’ p. 118.
Notes from Nunavut
‘The filmmaker’s tactics come into play in the trenches of policy formation, but also in struggles with the ruins of history and the challenges of representation. Passage demonstrates how vital and engaging are these struggles. From Innis we can learn to connect these issues with the history of language and power, space and time., p.122.
In conclusion, we need to get back to more hands on ‘dirt research’. Meanwhile, I highly recommend that you watch John Walker’s Passage; read Varga’s book; so that you yourself can reflect on the writings of Harold Innis and its relevance to the present state of Canada as a nation.
Darrell Varga. 2012. John Walker’s Passage. Canadian Cinema 9. University of Toronto Press.
David C. Woodman. 2015. Unraveling the Franklin Mystery. Inuit Testimony. Second Edition. McGill Queens University Press.
John Walker. 2008. Passage. Co-production with NFB.
Connect with Robert Maher
Bob Maher obtained his Ph.D in Geography from the University of Western Ontario. He subsequently went to teach at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Department of Geography – Quantitative Methods, Computer Mapping and Biogeography. In 1980, he joined the faculty at the Nova Scotia Land Survey Institute and was instrumental in its transformation into the College of Geographic Sciences (COGS). Between 1988 – 1999, he was a GIS consultant in Indonesia, and worked for ESRI in the United States, and across Canada with universities and government agencies. He returned to COGS in 2000 taking up the position of Senior Research Scientist in the Applied Geomatics Research Group (AGRG). He retired from AGRG in 2011.
View articles by Bob
3 comments on "A Canadian Geographer’s Notes from Nunavut"
Bob Maher says:
I received email from Ken Beardsall, Curriculum Consultant. He mentioned a link to the Grade 8 Social Studies Unit in Nunavut. Umiaqtalik: Inuit Knowledge and the Franklin Expedition.
http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/franklin/home/homeintro_en.htm
Ken Beardsall says:
Thanks Bob,
Good article, close to my heart. I’m not sure I like Innis’ term “Dirt Research” since it makes it seem dirty or less beautiful than text based research, but I suppose he was using the term as a bit of a poke at his fellow scholars who didn’t like to get out of their offices and libraries.
We worked with Louie Kamookak on a grade 8 Social Studies Unit called, “Umiaqtalik: Inuit Knowledge and the Franklin Expedition”. It was amazing to hear him pass on the stories he learned as a boy from his Great Grandmother about the strangers that visited their lands back in the 1840’s. The Unit is connected with this web site http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/franklin/home/homeIntro_en.htm which you may find interesting. A group from U Vic has been developing “Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History” for students. We joined in on this one since it was about Nunavut.
I will try to get a copy of Varga’s book and also see the film!
Thanks again for sharing and enjoy the rest of the time in Iqaluit. They had a display at the museum about Franklin, I’m not sure if it’s still there but it’s worth checking out if you’re are down in that part of town. Aaron Watson at the Visitor’s Centre is usually showing some great films too (maybe that’s where you saw Passages??)
thiet ke biet thu dep sai gon says:
Good essay !
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GOPUSA Illinois
December 11 Morning Edition
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: Democrats promote Democrats.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2019/12/10/21010113/lauren-underwood-impeachment-illinois-corruption-president-donald-trump-nancy-pelosi-usmca
— Chicago’s Standard Club asks members for financial help The 150-year-old institution warns of possible closure as it struggles to pay bills. – David Roeder
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/12/10/21010192/standard-club-chicago-financial-help
— Can Chicago grow to 3 million people again? Sure — and here’s how Reversing black flight is what has to happen for Mayor Lightfoot’s vision to become reality. – Ed Zotti (DIERSEN: Ever-increasingly, Chicago and other municipalities in Illinois make it clear that members of the following groups are not welcome: Trump supporters, Protestant, conservative, patriotic, Republican, American, White, male, older, non-poor, gun owners, German American, draft avoiders, and/or those whose ancestors have been in America for a long time.)
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2019/12/10/21010315/chicago-growth-population-african-american-black-flight-ed-zotti-lori-lightfoot
— How we die, how we fear we may die, and the misperceptions between the two – JERRY DAVICH (DIERSEN: My 89-year-old aunt is spending $267-a-day or $8,116-a-month or $97,390-a-year out of her life savings for her assisted living.)
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-media-vs-google-vs-reality-st-1209-20191206-c3s3qupi2ff27gnccft6bsbdgi-story.html
— Lots of buzz about marijuana in the workplace – Michael Hyatt (DIERSEN: I would not want to work for, work with, or supervise anyone who uses pot. I should write a book about my “three-martini lunch” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-martini_lunch ) superiors and supervisors at GAO.)
https://www.dailyherald.com/business/20191211/lots-of-buzz-about-marijuana-in-the-workplace
— Are high taxes driving an exodus of high net worth people from Illinois? – Bill Price (DIERSEN: Ever-increasingly, elected officials in Illinois take actions that drive out and turn away those who are Trump supporters, Protestant, conservative, Republican, American, White, male, older, non-poor, gun owners, German American, and those whose ancestors have been in America for a long time. Ever-increasingly, elected officials in Illinois take actions that keep and attract those who are Trump-haters, non-Protestant, liberal, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, RINO, illegal, minority, female, younger, poor, non-gun owners, non-German American, and those whose ancestors have not been in America for a long time.)
https://www.dailyherald.com/business/20191211/are-high-taxes-driving-an-exodus-of-high-net-worth-people-from-illinois
CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS
— Property Taxes: The other financial storm threatening to capsize Illinois’ economy And no, it’s not underfunded pensions. – JOE CAHILL
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/joe-cahill-business/other-financial-storm-threatening-capsize-illinois-economy
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: Pot pushers push pot.
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/marijuanacannabis/drag-club-pot-shop
— Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to file motions for first cannabis conviction clearances Wednesday (DIERSEN: Your past predicts your future. If you have used pot, you have shouted a) that you have put “getting high” ahead of being a contributing member of society, b) that you have disrespected the rule of law, c) that you have disrespected the body that GOD gave you, and d) that you have had big trouble dealing with reality. Pot users should not be allowed to seek or hold any kind of government or political position or any other kind of responsible position.)
https://abc7chicago.com/kim-foxx-to-file-motions-for-first-cannabis-conviction-clearances-wednesday/5745632/
WBBM 780 RADIO
https://wbbm780.radio.com/articles/in-depth-recreational-marijuana
MEDILL REPORTS
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Democrats want minorities to be pot pushers.
https://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/becoming-social-equity-is-nearly-a-must-for-opening-an-adult-use-cannabis-dispensary-in-illinois/
SPRINGFIELD STATE JOURNAL REGISTER
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Sangamon County Board voted Tuesday night to allow marijuana-related businesses in unincorporated parts of the county – Dean Olsen
https://www.sj-r.com/news/20191210/county-board-allows-cannabis-related-businesses-limits-dispensaries-to-2
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: Democrats shout at refugees, and at everyone else, that Republicans are White supremacists, Nazis, KKK members, haters, racists, sexists, bigots, and even worse things who should be gotten rid of once and for all.
https://www.rrstar.com/opinion/20191210/our-view-community-leaders-right-to-keep-doors-open-for-refugees
KANKAKEE DAILY JOURNAL
— Progressive tax will prompt multiple problems
https://www.daily-journal.com/opinion/commentary-progressive-tax-will-prompt-multiple-problems/article_8512987c-1a89-11ea-9135-cbd077b1993c.html
— Immigrants In Illinois Should Stay Away From Marijuana – Maria Ines Zamudio (DIERSEN: Everyone should stay away from marijuana.)
https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/immigrants-in-illinois-should-stay-away-from-marijuana/2a63403c-842e-4a2b-9216-035f66bbe00e
PEORIA PUBLIC RADIO
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Local Cannabis Shop Expects Long Lines on New Year’s Day – TIM SHELLEY (DIERSEN: If you are going to use pot legally, you shout a) that you put “getting high” ahead of being a contributing member of society, b) that you disrespect the body that GOD gave you, and c) that you have big trouble dealing with reality. Pot users should not be allowed to seek or hold any kind of government or political position or any other kind of responsible position.)
https://www.peoriapublicradio.org/post/local-cannabis-shop-expects-long-lines-new-years-day#stream/0
WCIA NEWS
— Syverson promoted casino project backed by his business partner, major campaign donors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkIU8Wbxo-U
OAK LAWN PATCH
— OUTSTANDING: Oak Lawn Trustees Vote ‘No’ To Pot Shops – Lorraine Swanson
https://patch.com/illinois/oaklawn/oak-lawn-trustees-vote-no-pot-shops
OSWEGO PATCH
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Oswego Village Board Approves Cannabis Commercial Zoning – Dave Byrnes
https://patch.com/illinois/oswego/oswego-village-board-approves-cannabis-commercial-zoning
CAPITOL FAX
— The 1 percent is making more money and paying less taxes (DIERSEN: Ever-increasingly, to curry favor with Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and RINOs, members of the 1 percent paint themselves as being anti-Trump, anti-Protestant, anti-conservative, anti-patriotic, anti-Republican, anti-American, anti-White, anti-male, anti-older people, anti-rich people, anti-gun owners, anti-German Americans, anti-draft avoiders, and/or anti-those whose ancestors have been in America for a long time.)
https://capitolfax.com/2019/12/10/the-1-percent-is-making-more-money-and-paying-less-taxes/
— Biden Paid Women Less Than Men in Each of His 35 Years as Senator Women working for Biden made as little as 44 cents for each dollar earned by men, analysis finds – Collin Anderson
https://freebeacon.com/issues/biden-paid-women-less-than-men-in-each-of-his-35-years-as-senator/
— Tucker Carlson: Democrats claim ‘no one is above the law,’ but act like they are – Charles Creitz
https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-democrats-trump-impeachment-above-the-law
— Open Borders Inc.: Michelle Malkin exposes the problem – John Dale Dunn
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/open_borders_inc_michelle_malkin_exposes_the_problem.html
— Bloomberg: When I’m President I’ll Pack the Supreme Court With Anti-Gun Justices – Beth Baumann
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/12/10/icymi-bloomberg-promised-to-pack-the-supreme-court-in-order-to-push-his-antigun-agenda-n2557804
— The Millennials-Versus-Boomers Fight Divides The Democratic Party (DIERSEN: What divides the Republican Party in Illinois? Those party leaders who reject the traditional family, right to life, immigration, Second Amendment, illegal drugs, gambling, and/or equal opportunity (no race or gender based preference giving) planks want to get rid of those like me who support the aforesaid planks.)
https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2019/12/millennials-versus-boomers-fight-divides-democratic-party/
— Fairness for all? Not really – Chris Woodward
https://onenewsnow.com/culture/2019/12/11/fairness-for-all-not-really
— Corruption probe roils Illinois political machine – REID WILSON
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/473999-corruption-probe-roils-illinois-political-machine
— California universities using SAT for admissions are violating civil rights, lawsuit claims – LI COHEN (DIERSEN: How much education and money did your parents have? Neither of my outstanding parents attended college. My father was the first of his ancestors to earn a high school diploma. My mother never attended high school. My father almost always worked second jobs to pay the family’s bills. He did not buy a new car until he was 45 in 1967 and it was a bottom of the line 2-door Chevy.)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sat-scores-university-of-california-requiring-sat-test-for-admission-violates-civil-rights-lawsuit-2019-12-10/
(FROM THE ARTICLE: The University of California is being sued for requiring incoming students to take the SAT and ACT. The lawsuit claims that the tests have a well-known “discriminatory effect” and “exacerbate the inequities” for underrepresented students. The lawsuit says the University of California (UC) is legally obligated to provide equal access to all students. The SAT and ACT, the lawsuit says, “reflect demographic and socioeconomic characteristics like family income, parental education and race” instead of measuring “academic ability or mastery of curriculum.” The College Board, the organization behind the SAT, released a 2019 assessment of the SAT/PSAT in California that found 45% of white students scored 1,200 or above, while 12% of Latinx students and 9% of Black students got the same score. Parental education levels were also directly related to student scores — only 21% of test-takers whose parents did not receive a high school diploma met SAT benchmarks while 77% of those whose parents have graduate degrees met benchmarks.)
— This Is What Racism Looks Like in the Banking Industry A JPMorgan employee and a customer secretly recorded their conversations with bank employees. – Emily Flitter
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/business/jpmorgan-banking-racism.html
— Congress is poised to approve paid family leave for federal workers – Paige Winfield (DIERSEN: Government is nasty. Politics is nasty. Democrats are nasty. Virtually all my superiors, supervisors, coworkers, and subordinates in the federal government had spouses and/or children to support. They hinted/implied/argued/shouted that employees who had dependents should get preference over employees like me who never had dependents.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2019/12/11/the-health-202-congress-is-poised-to-approve-paid-family-leave-for-federal-workers/5deffc5488e0fa51665bfe2c/
— She Argued Facebook Is a Monopoly. To Her Surprise, People Listened. Dina Srinivasan says that rather than raising prices like an old-school monopolist, Facebook harms consumers by taking ever-increasing amounts of personal data—and the idea has had unexpected resonance – Jeff Horwitz
https://www.wsj.com/articles/yale-law-grads-hipster-antitrust-argument-against-facebook-findsmainstream-support-11575987274
— Farms recruit Mexican veterinarians for animal scientist jobs, but end up milking and cleaning – Maria Perez (DIERSEN: When I earned a bachelor’s degree in management from NIU in 1970 when I was 21 years old, I accepted the only job offer that I got, it was from Firestone Stores to be the “Retail Sales Manager” in its Chicago Heights Store. Seven months after I started, my duties included pumping gasoline, installing tires, batteries, etc., changing oil and filters, delivering large appliances, and cleaning white wall tires hanging on store walls while the store was open. Employers were reluctant to hire me because they saw me as being draft bait. They did not believe that my financial hardship draft deferment application would be approved.)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/12/08/mexican-veterinarians-recruited-by-american-farms-low-skill-work/4352557002/
MILWAUKEE COMMUNITY JOURNAL
— New Study Takes Unprecedented Look at Being Black in Corporate America (DIERSEN: I should write a book about being a Republican working for GAO 1980-1997, IRS 1971-1980, and Post Office 1966-1969. I should write a book about being conservative and being a Milton Township Republican Central Committee member since 1999, TAPROOT Republicans of Illinois chairman 2005-2012, Wheaton Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee member 2003-2011, Illinois Center Right Coalition Steering Committee member 2003-2007, American Association of Political Consultants Midwest Chapter board member 2001-2004, etc.)
https://communityjournal.net/new-study-takes-unprecedented-look-at-being-black-in-corporate-america/
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Pot pushers push pot.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenbobrow/2019/12/11/ten-must-experience-events-for-the-cannabis–psychedelic-community-in-2020/
— Which groups earn the most at Intel? Company offers peek at pay data other tech firms won’t show White, Asian males were top earners in almost all occupation categories – LEVI SUMAGAYSAY
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/10/intel-offers-peek-into-pay-data-that-most-other-companies-wont/
— Tucker Carlson Guest Suggests Illegal Immigrants Make New York Dirty – Matt Stieb
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/tucker-carlson-guest-suggests-immigrants-make-new-york-dirty.html
— How the world’s most admired companies drive diversity and inclusion – Alina Polonskaia and Mark Royal (DIERSEN: From what I see, ever-increasingly, the more of the following that you are, you will not be hired, retained, or promoted and you will be gotten rid if you are a Trump supporter, Protestant, conservative, patriotic, Republican, American, White, male, older, non-poor, gun owner, German American, draft avoider, and/or if your ancestors have been in America for a long time.)
https://hrexecutive.com/how-the-worlds-most-admired-companies-drive-diversity-and-inclusion/
FEDERAL NEWS NETWORK
— Lawmakers unveil details of ‘historic’ federal paid parental leave benefits – Nicole Ogrysko (DIERSEN: Government is nasty. Politics is nasty. Democrats are nasty. Virtually all my superiors, supervisors, coworkers, and subordinates in the federal government had spouses and/or children to support. They hinted/implied/argued/shouted that employees who had dependents should get preference over employees like me who never had dependents.)
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2019/12/lawmakers-unveil-details-of-historic-federal-paid-parental-leave-benefits/
Author: David Diersen
The opinions that I express in GOPUSA ILLINOIS emails are based on experience that I have gained doing many things since 1948. I base my opinions on what I learned a) working for the federal government for almost 30 years -- Post Office 1966-1969, IRS 1971-1980, and GAO 1980-1997, serving on the Executive Committee of the Association of Government Accountants Chicago Chapter 1983-1996, and being a union member while I worked for the Post Office and IRS; b) earning an MBA from Loyola in 1976, a masters degree in accounting from DePaul in 1980, and a masters degree in financial markets and trading from IIT in 1997; c) passing the CPA examination on my first attempt in 1979 and passing the Certified Internal Auditor examination on my first attempt in 1981; c) serving as a Republican Precinct Committeeman since 1999, the GOPUSA Illinois Editor since 2000, the TAPROOT Republicans of Illinois Chairman 2005-2012, a member of the 2008 Illinois Republican Party (IRP) Platform and Resolutions Committee, a Wheaton Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee member 2003-2011, the Milton Township Republican Central Committee webmaster 2008-2010 and 2000-2004, an Illinois Center Right Coalition Steering Committee member 2003-2007, and an American Association of Political Consultants Midwest Chapter board member 2001-2004; d) attending the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 IRP State Conventions as a delegate; e) being the subject of a nasty 4-page article in the February 1978 issue of Money Magazine; f) pursing litigation including Diersen v. GAO and Diersen v. Chicago Car Exchange; g) being married since 1978; h) living in Crete 1948-1972, in University Park 1972-1976, in Chicago 1976-1978, and in DuPage County, Milton Township, and Wheaton since 1978; and i) being baptized, raised, and confirmed as a Missouri Synod Lutheran. View all posts by David Diersen
Author David DiersenPosted on December 11, 2019 December 11, 2019 Tags amendment, ancestors, cannabis, County, democrat, diversity, employee, Facebook, Family, federal, female, gambling, Gao, german, google, gun, illegal, Illinois, immigration, inclusion, IRS, male, marijuana, minority, old
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Our World / What's happening / Tires 101: How To Read Your Tire Sidewall
Tires 101: How To Read Your Tire Sidewall
There are a lot of letters and numbers molded into the sidewall of tire, and they’re there to make sure you put the right equipment on your vehicle. Unfortunately, most tires aren’t sold with a vocabulary card that lets you identify what all those marks mean. But if you know what you’re looking at, reading a sidewall and identifying a tire can be a quick & easy process.
Metric or P-Metric Sizing
A tire sidewall showing its size in metric lists the width first, then the sidewall height (shown as a percentage of the tire width), followed by a letter to designate what type of carcass construction, and lastly the wheel/rim size.
Let’s look at the sidewall of this 245/245ZR17 G-Max AS-03:
245 is the section width (mm)
45 is the aspect ratio (%)
ZR with “R” representing radial construction & “Z” showing it’s rated for 149mph +
17 is the wheel diameter (inches)
95 is the load index
W is the speed rating
This G-Max tire is 245mm wide (about 9.6 inches wide), 25.6 inches tall, and fits a 17-inch wheel. It has a carrying capacity of 1,521 lbs and a maximum operating speed of 168 mph. Note that metric sizing uses both millimeters and inches, and requires conversions. Also, the speed rating references the testing and does not imply that the consumer drive at these high rates of speed.
American Sizing
Certain light truck and heavy-duty tires use American (aka American standard, aka imperial) measurement in inches. The tire height (or diameter) is most often listed first, followed by the section width, then the carcass construction type, and lastly the wheel size that the tire fits.
Let’s take this 33x12.50R17 Grabber AT2 for example:
33 is the tire height, or diameter (inches)
12.50 is the section width (inches)
R represents the carcass construction (radial)
105 is the load index
Q is the speed rating
The tire is 33 inches tall, has a width of 12.50 inches, and fits onto a 17-inch wheel. It has a carrying capacity of 2,039 lbs and maximum operating speed of 99 mph.
Tire diameter
For American standard sizing, the tire height, or diameter, is listed directly in inches. On a metric tire, you’ll need to do some math. For metric sizing, take the section width and convert it to inches (divide by 25.4), then multiply that by the aspect ratio (shown as a percentage) to get the sidewall height. Next, take the sidewall height, double it, add the wheel diameter, and you’ll have the diameter of a metric tire.
This is shown in either millimeters or inches, but it refers to the overall carcass width, not the tread width.
Carcass construction
Most light truck and passenger vehicle tires built today are built with radial construction (“R”). This is shown before the wheel size. There are three basic types you can find produced today:
R Radial
B Bias belted
D Diagonal bias
Wheel size is shown in inches, regardless if it’s a metric or American sized tire.
The load index shows the tire’s weight carrying capacity. While the load index is a numerical value, it is just a representative symbol for a certain carrying capacity and does not numerically correspond to carrying capacities (Example: Load index 85 indicates a carrying capacity of 1,135 pounds, not 85 pounds or 850 pounds or 8,500 pounds).
In the early 1990s, tires started being labeled with speed ratings, showing the maximum operating speed of the tire. A “Z” rating was given to tires tested to be “safe over 149 mph,” and while the speed rating is usually shown after the load index on a tire, many manufacturers chose to represent the high-speed rating in the tire size with a “ZR” designating a radial construction capable of operating over 149 mph. As performance and technology increased, two more specific (higher) speed ratings were made up: “W” & “Y.”
Speed rating Maximum operating speed
Z 149+
(Y) 186
Prior to (or sometimes following) the tire size—on both American and metric sizing—a tire may or may not have a letter showing the service type. Most consumers will deal with tires stamped with either “P” standing for passenger vehicle tire, or “LT” standing for Light Truck. But there are a number of others.
Here’s a quick reference guide:
P Passenger tire, often referred to as “P-metric”
LT Light Truck tire
T Temporary tire, or spare tire
ST Trailer tire (Special Trailer service)
C Commercial tire
Tackling the Mackenzie Trail
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The Holy War/Las Vegas Bowl- BYU vs Utah(Pick against spread 12-19)
David Delano NCAA Football December 17, 2015 May 7, 2016 1 Minute
The Las Vegas Bowl brings an early renewal to the Holy War. The Brigham Young University Cougars and Utah Utes, annual rivalry was suppose to take a two year break after the Utes 20-13 victory in 2013. Thanks to the Las Vegas Bowl, the rivalry will pick up again earlier than expected.
Seven weeks into the season, Utah appeared to be a legit college football playoff contender, the Utes then suffered a 42-24 loss at USC, and finished the season by dropping two of their last three games overall, and last three against the spread.
The Utah defense has led the way in the majority of the Utes victories this season. The Utah rushing game has been the strength of the offense, while the passing game led by quarterback Travis Wilson has been underwhelming at times.
BYU comes into the game riding a two game winning streak with explosive offensive performances against Fresno State and Utah State.
BYU is in a unique spot with head coach Bronco Mendenhall, who has led the team since 2005, coaching the Cougars in this bowl game, despite the fact that he has already been hired as the new head coach of Virginia.
If there is one bowl game that I talked myself out of based on my first impression, it is this one. Currently 90% of the betting public has picked Utah against the spread. Utah however is 1-5 against the spread in its last six games. BYU was 8-4 against the spread this season, 3-1 as an underdog.
Anything can happen in the Holy War, and both of these teams are very evenly matched in talent.
Despite seeing this game as a toss up, I am going with the BYU Cougars +3 , who I believe will break their four game losing streak to Utah, sending coach Mendenhall out a winner.
(BYU 27 Utah 21)
Bet Sports Strong Rating “C”
***Bet Sports Strong Ratings***
A-Bet with confidence
B-Strong lean, but bet with caution
C-Slight lean, enjoy the game but be careful with your money
D-Prediction but not a good feel either way
Twitter @BetSportsstrong
E-mail: Betsportsstrong@gmail.com
Published December 17, 2015 May 7, 2016
Previous Post New Mexico Bowl-Arizona vs. New Mexico (Pick against spread 12-19)
Next Post Camellia Bowl-Ohio vs. Appalachian State (Pick against spread 12-19)
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Dave Berri's Dismal Science
Ever since Malcom Gladwell first endorsed The Wages of Wins in the New Yorker last summer, Dave Berri’s secular science of Iverson-bashing has been subject to an endless stream of criticism from pro basketball’s actuarial heavyweights. ESPN’s John Hollinger , Salon’s King Kauffman , and APBR’s Dan Rosenbaum have all traded blows with Berri and his co-authors, leading Dan Shanoff to name Wages of Wins the most controversial sports book of 2006. In many ways, the volume of criticism directed at Wages testifies to the durability of its thesis. Everyone seems to agree that the book is flawed, but no one can definitively say why. The reason for the stalemate, I believe, is a confusion over the nature of the flaw. The problem with Wages isn’t the statistics – its the economics from which they derive.
As Mathew Yglesias has wisely noted , the central issue in Wages is the weak correlation between payrolls and wins. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that increases in NBA payrolls do not correspond to increases in team success. Given that player salaries are determined by conventional measures of productivity – in particular, scoring – Berri argues that these measures must be flawed: otherwise, higher payrolls would mean greater productivity, and by extension, wins. The aim of Wages, then, is to develop a more accurate model of player productivity – one which could, if adopted by GMs, eliminate the disjunction between wages and wins, and thereby usher in a more economically efficient league.
I won’t go into detail about Wages’ methods, which are well summarized here . The basic idea is to use regression analysis to estimate a single measure of players’ marginal productivity, called ‘Win Score’ (WS). The crucial difference between Win Score and existing metrics (like PER) concerns the valuation of scoring. Unlike conventional measures of offensive efficiency, which penalize players only for the shots that they miss, Berri recognizes that even when a shot is made, a resource – a possession – has been expended. Because teams average roughly 1 point per possession, a 1pt opportunity cost is deducted for each field goal attempt, regardless of whether it goes through the hoop. Thus, when Kobe Bryant shoots 26-50 for 52pts, his marginal impact on team wins (52pts – 50pos = +2) is the same as that of Ronny Turiaf shooting 2-2 for 4pts (4pts – 2pos = +2), or Andrew Bynum grabbing 2 defensive rebounds (2pos = +2).
Now, the economics. Suppose that Berri is basically correct, and that Win Score is an accurate measure of players’ marginal productivity. According to orthodox economic theory, the “price” (i.e. wage) that players receive in an efficient market should be determined by their Win Score. However, recent economic models have demonstrated that the existence of this “efficient market”, and its capacity to correctly “price” player inputs, depends on a highly unrealistic assumption: namely, perfect information. For a GM to sign a player on the basis of his Win Score, he must first know, with relative certainty, what a player’s Win Score will be.
In his book, Berri argues that player productivity can be predicted, with sufficient certainty, on the basis of past performance. Using data from 1994-2004, he shows that Win Scores from the previous season are highly correlated with current performance (R-sq = .70). The problem with this line of reasoning is that “Win Score” as such doesn’t actually exist, but is instead a composite of various inputs. Now, suppose we distinguish between scoring input (points – true shot attempts), and non-scoring input (rebounds + steals - turnovers….). When we reexamine Berri’s 1994-2004 data, we find that non-scoring production is almost perfectly consistent from year to year (R-sq = .85). Yet when we consider scoring production alone, the correlation between past and current performance is much, much weaker (R-sq = .30). Thus, contrary to the assumptions of Berri’s economic model, the ability of GMs to accurately “price” a players’ scoring production is a highly uncertain (i.e. risky) business. From the perspective of players, the risk involved in scoring production appears even starker. Except for super-efficient producers (i.e. Shaq or Duncan), even above-average career shooters face a significant risk of ending a given season with negative scoring production, and thus, scoring income. Berri’s data shows that in any two season interval, over 30% of all players switch between positive and negative scoring Win Scores.
The uncertainty of point production has profound implications for Berri’s analysis. Under the assumption of perfect information, efficient scorers know whether they will shoot efficiently each season, and thus will continue to shoot up to the point where it becomes unproductive for the team. In reality, however, players are uncertain as to their actual scoring efficiency, and as such will be risk-averse when attempting to maximize that aspect of their income. Thus, if scorers were to be paid the true value of their marginal products – if economic rewards were distributed on the basis of Win Score – there would emerge a profound divergence in what teams and players perceive as an optimal level of shot attempts. Insofar as their investment is ‘diversified’ across the entire roster, teams will prefer that the above-average scorer shoot liberally, despite the occasional below-average season. In contrast, the player, fearing the possibility of a sudden career-ending injury, and thus relatively more risk-averse than his employer, would likely under-invest in shot attempts – if not eschew scoring altogether – rather than risk a negative scoring year.
The problem of underinvestment is further compounded once we consider that players themselves can, at any given moment, choose between scoring (risky) and non-scoring (risk-less) production. Thus, rather than take a high-percentage field-goal attempt, a player may opt for a potential assist (WS = +.5), or focus on grabbing an offensive rebound (WS = +1). The problem here is analogous to the one identified by economist Joseph Stiglitz in his analysis of the sharecropping system. Stiglitz argues that in situations where workers can choose between more- and less-risky farming techniques, there will arise “a conflict of interest between the landlord and workers. At any specified share contract, the landlord wants only to have the worker choose whatever technique or crop maximizes expected output; the worker is willing at the margin to sacrifice some mean output for a reduction of risk”. For above-average scorers, shooting will generate more overall career utility than, say, offensive rebounding. Yet offensive rebounding may nevertheless be more attractive since it poses essentially no risk of a loss. If scoring was “priced” on the basis of Win Score, even the most efficient shooters would likely under-produce on offense, choosing instead to maximize other, less-risky forms of production.
Berri and Co. are certainly correct in their claim that scorers are overpaid relative to their marginal impact on team wins. Yet in their rush to offer a correction, the authors never fully consider why this is the case? Why is it that scoring statistics explain 63% of player salaries, while equally-important possession statistics (i.e. rebounding) combine to explain just 1%? To the extent they address these questions, Berri and his co-authors fall back on an unconvincing appeal to the “bounded rationality” of GMs. They argue that the “myth” of scoring’s importance has only survived because people in the NBA do not process information efficiently, and that once they are exposed “to new and better information”, their decisions will change accordingly. In other words, the reason mangers overpay for scorers is that they haven’t read Wages of Wins!
The recognition that scoring is a uniquely risky mode of production, and that determining its “price” is fraught with uncertainty, affords a far more convincing explanation of its disproportionate value and compensation. What first appears as irrational, suboptimal behavior under the orthodox assumptions of neoclassical economics can now be understood as economically rational (if not perfectly efficient) outcomes in situations of uncertainty. Consider the question of why scoring is valued more than possession statistics, even though their marginal effect on wins is the same. Traditional economics tells us that in equilibrium, the price of labor depends on its quality (i.e. marginal productivity): if scoring and rebounding are equally productive activities, their prices should be equivalent. In contrast, Stiglitz and other economists have shown that in situations of uncertainty, quality often depends on price: here, workers with a certain labor capacity will only expend the necessary effort if they are paid an above-market wage. Put simply, the production of points in the NBA – due to the relative uncertainty of success – requires that scorers receive more than the value of their marginal product. Otherwise, players with the capacity to shoot efficiently WOULDN’T TAKE THE RISK OF TRYING TO SCORE.
By way of conclusion, let me just say that there is something peculiar about three academic economists second-guessing the propriety of NBA salaries. Well-paid professionals of all other persuasions are rarely subjected to such skepticism. Asked to account for the exorbitance of CEO compensation, for example, and your average economist will more likely cut off his own arm than conclude it anything other than optimally wealth-enhancing. Compared to CEOs, one would think that high-scoring basketball players – whose performance is subject of infinitely more surveillance, and who negotiate their contracts with infinitely less bargaining power – would be worthy of at least the same benefit of the doubt. Yet Berri and Co. simply jump to the conclusion that these players are overpaid.
The reason, it seems to me, is that below its ostensibly neutral surface, Wages of Wins is as much ideology as science. Note the familiarity of Berri's targets (Melo, AI), his conspicuous affection for "Playing the 'Right Way'" (see Chapter 10), or the undisguised moralism of the title’s jeu de mots. Or consider the following from the authors' blog :
Certainly NBA coaches, like Auerbach, are aware that rebounds, shooting efficiency, and taking care of the ball are important. But players can see that the highest paid are the scorers. And players also see that the money still comes even if they perform poorly with respect to many of the other parts of the game Auerbach knew led to wins and championships. So next time you see a player focus more on how many touches he has and less on winning, remember the incentives the players face. And ask yourself, what would you rather do, collect millions or win a basketball game?
The irony of this passage is that it recognizes (albeit tacitly) that the quality of scoring production is a function of its above-market “price”. Yet rather than exploring the obvious conclusion – that such incentives are necessary for motivating scorers’ labor – the authors instead retreat to the well-trodden canard of player selfishness. What we have in Berri’s book, then, is Calvinism masquerading as social science – not the other way around.
posted by SilverBird5000 @ 1/16/2007 12:43:00 AM 67 comments
At 1/16/2007 5:13 AM, Anonymous said...
Thank you! Finally someone produces an intelligent analysis of Wages of Win, rather than the crap that passes for analysis on most sites. I don't necessarily agree with your conclusions, but I'm very pleased to see such a thorough and analytical post.
It's crucial to note that Berri's weighting of the numbers is arbitrary.
Did I mention this is crucial?
One can use Berri's methodology while massively overweighting blocks to show that Alonzo Mourning "produces the most wins" of any player in the NBA, and the numbers will align perfectly. Team wins will still align with reality. Deciding which statistics are most important in a system like Berri's is utterly subjective.
Berri, on the other hand, overweights rebounds. In order for us to agree with Berri's weightings, we have to credit Berri's subjective understanding of the NBA game.
Most importantly, Berri goes to extreme lengths to obfuscate the subjective nature of his weightings. HIs attempts to give the impression that his weightings are based on objective criteria are what make him a con man, not just wrong.
Dan Rosenbaum has ably shown the nature of the fraud, not that anyone has paid much attention.
And tangentially, does anyone on the planet actually accept that Dennis Rodman "produced more wins" than Michael Jordan, or that Caron Butler "produces more wins" than Gilbert Arenas?
At 1/16/2007 5:33 AM, SilverBird5000 said...
Petey- good point. I doubt many readers of Wages caught this admission, burried in footnote 28:
One should note that our explanatory power in the regression of wins on efficiency measures is the same as what one uncovers when you regress wins on points scored and allowed per game
In other words, one could use the same methodology as Berri and arrive at the conclusion that points alone are important for winning. As you note, Rosenbaum has been on this since Day 1.
That said, just because Wages' weighting is arbirary doesn't necessarily make it wrong. What makes it wrong, I think, is the economics, not the methodology.
make that footnote 28 of Chapter 6 (pg. 244).
At 1/16/2007 10:05 AM, Anonymous said...
Generally well said, but I believe you and the book you decry (which I have not read) are missing one large independent variable in the regression of contracts: profit production. True, the argument is based in win shares, or the effectiveness of on the court play, but contracts are not completely comprised of on the court ability. What we could presumably call off the court ability (jersey sales, ticket sales, tv revenue, etc.) also factor into contract negotiations, and have a real impact both on the court, and through the ultimate evaluation of a player in the leagues mind, price. Accordingly, AI may have a poor win share, but his added value is far greater than all of his teammates combined.
Thanks for publishing the first critique of Wages of Wins that has some validity. One small point to quibble with (which I'm guessing Berri will more than quibble with if he responds to this post): Win Score is their easy to calculate measure. It is the more refined WP that they make their claims of predictive power.
That said I appreciate your talking about the need to create an incentive to score. While I don't think that your criticism necessarily undermines Wages of Wins powers as a tool of analysis, it does undermine the idea that its system should be adopted by the NBA and perhaps fatally undermines it's criticism of the linkage between scoring and salaries.
At 1/16/2007 10:20 AM, SilverBird5000 said...
kidscoach-
You're right that Wins Produced is the more refined of the two measures. However, the relation between the WP coefficients and the WS coefficients is the same. So, according to Win Score, a 2-point FG, Rebound, and Steal all equal +1. According to WP, they all equal (roughly) +0.033. So I don't believe the difference between the metrics changes my critique.
At 1/16/2007 11:03 AM, Steve Sailer said...
Berri missed the basic economic concept of declining marginal returns when it comes to shooting. When Wilt Chamberlain scored 50 points per game in 1962, he shot .506 from the field. When he scored 14 points per game in 1973, his shooting percentage was .727. Same guy, just fewer and thus less risky shots. That was a coaching decision that Wilt should concentrate on quality rather than quantity of shooting in 1973.
If Berri's beloved Kevin Garnett shot as much as Kobe Bryant, his shooting percentage would go down too. But Garnett's team might win a few more games per year if he was less efficient and more productive. It's not like Garnett's teammates are taking up the slack when he makes 7 of 11 for 17 points.
"Put simply, the production of points in the NBA – due to the relative uncertainty of success – requires that scorers receive more than the value of their marginal product."
I think it's all a lot simpler than that.
Berri just radically underweights the value of scorers in terms of winning basketball games.
Scorers don't need to be overpaid to compensate. With a less insane statistical weighting than Berri's, top scorers would get paid lots without any overpayment being necessary since top scorers create lots of wins.
But that said, I do think your pegging of Berri as Calvinism run amok, (I'd just say he's a playa-hater), accounts for why Berri has subjectively chosen to weight his stats in the way he has.
Is over overinvestment in shooting by high percentage shooters and underinvestment by low % shooters necessarily a bad thing?
If you track Berri's stats carefully, you'll notice that most high % shooters with high win scores (and, after all, it is win score, not shooting efficiency, that berri wants to map to salary) excel in other aspects of the game (rebounding, assists, steals, etc...). So if an above average shooter dips below average one season, this should be offset by other aspects of his game. This will certainly decrease his Win Score, but the decrease in productivity shouldn't be as significant as lower productivity that results from a poor shooter with a low WS who takes an unreasonably large number of shots. Further, it's unclear to me that underinvestment is necessarily a bad thing. For players who are poor shooters and have low WS, getting them to focus on other aspects of the game may not be a bad thing. For poor shooters with high WS, getting them to engage in less risky behavior for bigger payoffs also may be a good thing. For example, if Allen Iverson took less shots and passed the ball more to high percentage shooters (to boost his assists and WS), this would probably be better for the Denver Nuggets than him taking 40-50% of the shots. Also, if someone like Jason Kidd (high WS, terrible shooter) took less shots and focused more on being a pure point guard with exceptional rebounding skills, this would probably be better for the Nets.
Part of the problem with your critique is that risky behavior is typically encouraged because of its potential upside. Part of what Berri is getting at, though, is there really is no potential upside to overcompensating bad shooters who take a lot of shots. The most egregious example being Allen Iverson.
Also, Berri is proposing a more statistically rigorous (perhaps flawed) approach to evaluating and predicting player performance. Though this means some NBA salaries will be decreased, others will correspondingly be increased. So I'm not exactly sure what your salary beef is. Berri isn't attacking NBA salaries in the aggregate (or even star salaries), just who should be getting star salaries.
Finally, I think there is a way of justifying Auerbach's model without resorting to the "well-trodden canard of player selfishness." If a player scores a lot of points, he gets a reputation for being a scorer whether he scores efficiently or inefficiently. If he scores inefficiently, this will create a huge distortion because he will get a disproportionate number of shots based his final tally as opposed to his per-possession efficiency. Again, the obvious example is Allen Iverson. It's not his selfishness that is the problem; rather, it is other players misplaced confidence in his ability to make the most out of every possession that Auerbach's model helps overcome.
No, but underinvestment by high % shooters is. As I argue in the post, most high % shooters won't know, with any certainty, whether or not they will shoot efficiently in any particular season: in any given two-year interval, 30% of players will swing between red and black vis-a-vis the scoring element of Win Score. So, if players were paid exactly according to that metric, many high % shooters would be risk-averse and thus underinvest in scoring.
As for the question of whether underinvestment in scoring would be a bad thing per se...From the perspective of teams, no. But from the perspective of David Stern, it would be a hugh problem. Take an extreme example: it would be easy to argue against the introduction of the shot-clock on the grounds that it leads to more inefficient shot selection. Without it, though, the league could kiss those multi-billion dollar t.v. contracts goodbye. An entire game-theory paper could be (has been?) written on the inherent conflicts between individual team and league-wide interests.
Lastly, I wasn't criticizing the 'Auerbach model' itself, just Berri's reading of it.
At 1/16/2007 12:17 PM, Anonymous said...
"Part of what Berri is getting at, though, is there really is no potential upside to overcompensating bad shooters who take a lot of shots. The most egregious example being Allen Iverson. "
Right. The thing I don't understand is why Iverson doesn't pass more to good shooters like Steve Blake. Why would Iverson take 21 shots when Blake was converting so much more effectively than he was? And why wouldn't George Karl orient the offense to get Blake 30 - 35 shots per game?
"Also, Berri is proposing a more statistically rigorous (perhaps flawed) approach to evaluating and predicting player performance."
The problem isn't that Berri's model is flawed. Any pure statistical measurement of individual NBA players is going to be flawed. The problem is that what Berri is doing isn't "statistically rigorous" by any reasonable definition of that term.
He's subjectively valuing certain stats over others, while doing his utmost to avoid discussion of his subjective choices. There are many terms that are applicable for that kind of approach, but "statistically rigorous" is certainly not one.
Instead of the shooter getting essentialy 1 pt for a basket based on expected FG% and no other player besides the direct assist man getting any credit, I think it would be better to fully allocate the 2 or 3 pts with perhaps 50% credit to the shooter, 20% to the assister and 10% to the other 3.Or something close to this.
I think +/- scoring should move from the other way- from 5 equal shares- to a similar credit split.
It neither makes sense to give the shooter full credit or to give everyone equal credit. The exact split can be argued but something in that middle range seems more realistic/fairer to me.
Back in the days when people used to argue whether Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan was the best player in the NBA (am I showing my age here?), Jordan critics used to say that Magic could have scored just as many points if he had been equally selfish / surrounded by lower-quality teammates and shot as often as Michael. In response, Phil Jackson made a similar point: that Jordan was so good that he could shoot twice as often as anyone else and still maintain a better than league average shooting percentage. Jordan was creating more average-percentage shots than anyone else in the league was capable of.
One thing I have been thinking about is that all of these methods use shooting 100% as the optimal in shooting efficiency. But because that is not how it really works in BBall (people hardly ever shoot %100) a better measuer of optimal efficiency would be the leauge average for position or, maybe just something like 48% -50%, for 1s, 2, 3s, and 50% tp 55% for centers. This way you are actually comparing players vrs other players rather than against some mythical standard that is very rare achieved in real life.
Another thing. While the statistical side of it is fun and interesting, I wonder how many people involved int his ever played much actual basketball. I think I see mistakes based on incomplete understanding of subtlties of the game. Take scorers for instance. If you are on a team with someone like Iverson or Michael Redd, it's kind of a double-edged sword for most of the game and then a real good thing at other parts. It's a really really good thing to have a guy who can create a reasonable shot at the end of close games and in those diffficult to quantify times when you "need a bucket." BBall is a really dynamic sport. Lots of things can strongly effect the course of a game. Psychology is one of those. There are times in the game when you really need to score some buckets. The other team is pulling away, what you are doing isn't working, you coach can't come up with the right adjustment... and the game is on a tipping point between you competing and demoralization. At points like these it's really good and to have an iverson, who can carry the offense for a while whie you regroup. On the other hand, if your gunner takes over the game too much, the rest of the team will start to stand around (these are all clieches, but all really true). Not to have everyone involved in some meaningful way in the offence is sub-optimal. You can still win games but not as many as you could if everyone was suffficiently involved. This is why the Wiz (sorry matt) are not going far. As a rebutle, you might say, look at Wade though, what he did last year. I think that was kind of an aberation, though. I think that was a better example of demoralization on the Mavs part. Plus Wade does a good job of balancing between taking over and keeping everyone involved.
Anyway this kind of contrast between team and individual offence would be something interesting to look at statistacally.
this isnt really an academic response, but these incentives for how to play seem at least partially ridiculous. Jkidd can be 10 times a worse shooter than he is, but when he is wide open for a j from 15 feet, he needs to shoot, not look for an assist. i know the argument against stats has been made 1000s of times, but its not the way the game unfolds
Another point is that Berri puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that payroll doesn't correlate well with wins, and concludes that GMs don't understand well what wins games. That seems right superficially but what he forgets is that the NBA is anything BUT a free, unregulated labor market. It's probably one of the most regulated labor market that you can think of and in top of that, the regulations are expressly designed to produce the kind of inefficiency he criticizes. The draft, the free agency rules, the regulation about contract length and maximum salary, the salary cap, the luxury cap, all have the declared purpose of limiting the influence of money in winning. ¿Maybe that has something to do with the issue?
At 1/16/2007 1:00 PM, T. said...
Taking a look salary list (http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm) it seems as if Berri's central thesis of salaries being linked to scoring doesn't really seem to hold up.
At 1/16/2007 1:05 PM, Anonymous said...
My problem with the use of "shooting efficiency" as a worthwhile metric is that it a player's efficiency is that it is considered an intrinsic quality.
Illuminative example: Tony Parker, Amare, and Eduardo Najera are all shooting over 50%, and all are above-average shooters for their positions. Thus, they are all 'efficient' scorers and should be well-paid/encouraged to shoot more, right?
Well, Tony Parker creates his own shot by driving the lane, so his efficiency seems to be a part of his game. And, recalling some of Amare's most dominant performances, it seems like he can shoot a great deal and still be efficient.
But Eddie, much as I love him as a player, scores mostly off offensive rebounds or cuts facilitated by guards' penetration of the lane. So, even if he wanted to, he couldn't just decide to take more shots and have a prayer of continuing to score efficiently. His high shooting % is a product of extrinsic factors--his role in the offense.
To close with a quick defense of AI: the way he passes, he should be averaging 15 assists since the trade. I watched the Nuggets-Rockets game, at which he scored the team's first 10 points, and, believe me, it was not for lack of trying to get his teammates involved--they just couldn't hit an open shot.
petey- your steve blake-AI question just points out another of berri's problems. you ask why AI doesn't pass more to the more efficient blake, but doesn't the model need to account for the fact that blake may be more efficient because AI is drawing the defense and creating the efficient shots for others? you have to shoot alot (including bad shots) to be able to have that effect. and i know the model gives credit for assists, but this sort of impact is more than just the dime.
on another note, i think it's bizarre when a big scorer is injured (or suspended) and folks wonder about how the team is going to "replace" their scoring. like a team averaging 110 with a 30 point guy should suddenly be averaging 80 without him. that makes it seem like his points are coming in addition to everyone else's rather than instead of. somebody is going to still get those shots. (granted, the degree of the effect depends on the missing player, their efficiency and their role in the offense, etc). and i think berri's model shares that flawed way of thinking, especially with the way things are weighted. certainly in re: his thoughts on scoring, but maybe more with rebounds and steals being equal. when a shot is missed somebody is going to get that rebound. there has to be a rebound on the play. steals are different- when artest rips someone, there's no way to say that happens without him on the floor.
"doesn't the model need to account for the fact that blake may be more efficient because AI is drawing the defense and creating the efficient shots for others?"
Hence my modest proposal for having the ultra-efficient Blake shoot 30 times a game.
It's no accident that Blake had a career game in his second outing with Iverson. Iverson has the most valuable attribute that exists in the NBA - the ability to force the defense out of straight-up coverage in an attempt to contain him. If you can catch and shoot when left wide-open, playing with Iverson is going to make you look very, very good. Ask Kyle Korver if he wasn't a helluva lot happier two months ago.
I'm looking for Blake to be outstandingly productive all season when playing alongside Iverson and 'Melo, in a somewhat similar way that Mikki Moore is suddenly an all-star when running alongside Kidd, Jefferson, and Carter.
"To close with a quick defense of AI: the way he passes, he should be averaging 15 assists since the trade. I watched the Nuggets-Rockets game, at which he scored the team's first 10 points, and, believe me, it was not for lack of trying to get his teammates involved--they just couldn't hit an open shot."
If the assist rule was changed so that a pass leading to a shooting foul were considered an assist, I think Iverson would benefit more than any other player in the league.
Given the way Iverson scrambles the defense, a lot of his inside passes result in shooting fouls, which don't accrue to his assist total.
I'd love to see someone find a way to run the numbers on that one.
See, you let Petey in the door, and the whole neighborhood goes to hell...
Seriously though I heartily second the comment above which questions Berri's understanding of basketball on anything more than a numerical level. Petey hints at it in his defense of AI, but Berri makes no effort to understand the interaction between players. While he may well have an excellent understanding of how stats on a team level contribute to wins (but seriously, how hard is it to say 'shoot a high percentage, rebound, don't turn it over?'), Berri makes no effort at all to allocate the credit for those outcomes amongst the players on the floor. For Rodman to get a rebound, somebody had to miss a shot, and presumably the other 4 players had something to do with that (or maybe they didn't, maybe the guys just missed. But the thing is, we don't know). Yet Rodman gets all the 'credit' in Berri's system.
Basketball is not baseball, where everything can be atomized, counted, and analyzed individually. It's just not, the game is too dynamic to allow that level of analysis. And the hubris to think otherwise is the real root of Berri's wrongness.
At 1/16/2007 1:58 PM, salt_bagel said...
I'd guess the biggest beneficiaries of that rule are whoever makes the most post entries to Tim Duncan.
My take on these objective measures is this: If you want to consider the value of rebounds, steals, etc. as equal to the value of a possession, shouldn't you acknowledge that the expected value of a possession for your team is directly tied to your offensive efficiency? Isn't it correct to say that a Camby offensive rebound has a greater value if Iverson happens to be on the floor than if not? You can only expect so much return from shifting resources from scoring ability to, say, offensive rebounding before it the strategy loses profitability.
Also, I think that very few of the stat gurus take into account the capacity these stars have for shouldering an offensive load. Anon 12:24 hit it on the head with the mention of Jordan producing quality shots at such great numbers despite using more and more possessions. I still think Dean Oliver gives a great explanation for this when he talks about individual possession stats and possession usage. For example, the most efficient offensive players in the league are always the 3-point specialists, i.e., Blake and Korver. However, you can easily track their efficency as a function of possession use, and see that it falls off dramatically as usage goes up. Whether this is just the nature of all 3-point specialists or something about a particular player doesn't matter. Either way, you just can't expect to give this type of player more possessions at the expense of the scorer like Iverson, or Jordan. To me, its this capacity that differs and has value over and above what is measured as a plus/minus number.
Lastly, I haven't read anything in this thread about the supply side. Scorers are just more scarce, right?
Dean Oliver
I'm glad you brought him up, because unlike Berri, or to a lesser degree, Hollinger, he's very upfront about where and how statistical analysis of basketball is insufficient to be especially meaningful, especially WRT to what we have learned to expect from the SABR approach to baseball.
"See, you let Petey in the door, and the whole neighborhood goes to hell..."
Perhaps so, but my swag is phenomenal.
When I hit the "Submit Comment" button, I don't even stick around to watch the comment fly through the internets. I just turn around and walk away with a scowl on my face. I know my comment is going to hit nothing but the bottom of the net.
There's a lot of talk about Michael Jordan in the comments, and I think it's entirely misplaced. Berri has stated multiple times that his stats clearly establish Jordan as the greatest SG of all time, and given the margin between his greatness and other SG, a strong statistical case can be made for him as the greatest player of all time.
That Berri's model makes Iverson less appealing has been taken by some to imply that this must also mean Jordan was inefficient. Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout his career, Jordan was a high efficiency shooter (unlike Iverson). Also, Jordan could rebound and pass (averaged almost 6 boards and 6 assists per game throughout his career). These are pretty impressive for a SG, whose main function is to score. Finally, Jordan had relatively few turnovers a game. There seems to be a high correlation between TO and number possessions. The players who turn the ball over most also tend to be the players who score the most and are on the floor most. Given that, it's amazing that Jordan didn't turn the ball over more.
Iverson has become an above passer recently. But outside of that, the only other area where he excels is steals. He's still an inefficient shooter and can't rebound.
The shouldering comment strikes me a bootstrapping argument. People shoulder burdens because everyone think they are the one to shoulder the burdens. But if everyone is wrong about this, then they are shouldering the burden when they shouldn't be. The mere fact that AI tried to will Philly to victory could be less due to his actual greatness and more due to the fact that everyone believed he was great and their only hope and made him shoulder that burden.
The other thing I don't understand is how obvious it can be to everyone that Berri's model is wrong. The book came out last year. He made predictions at the beginning of the year. At the end of this year we'll have some evidence of the predictive power of his model.
But that aside, do people really doubt that scoring is way overvalued?
"Berri has stated multiple times that his stats clearly establish Jordan as the greatest SG of all time ... a strong statistical case can be made for him as the greatest player of all time."
Given that Berri's model says that Jordan produced fewer wins than another player on Jordan's own team, you've lost me.
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/on-jordan-and-rodman-again
I am really knock-over over by all the commentary worthy of talmudic scholars----too bad we don't the same grey matter figuring out how to extricate the nation from the Iraqui bog.
It would be interesting to track those players who switch between positive and negative scoring Win Scores. It would be nice to filter out those players who benefit from playing with a star (did that player find more minutes due to that increases scoring production, thus leading to less time on the floor with said star player or did that player leave to a new team where he could be the "guy").
Using regession analysis is a tough thing to do in basketball, it cant be looked at like baseball, its more dynamic, and it looks like, from the surface of things, that Berri has approached his methodology in this way.
"http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/on-jordan-and-rodman-again"
Read it carefully. Berri is saying that Jordan is extraordinary for a SG, but his model still has Rodman "producing more wins" than Jordan during their time together.
He's not denying Jordan's greatness, he's just saying Jordan in his prime was the second most valuable player on his own team.
Similarly, I'd guess Berri would admit that Arenas is an exceptional player for a 6'4" combo guard even though his model says that Caron Butler "produces more wins".
Berri has made some subjective decisions that make his model radically overvalue rebounds and radically undervalue scoring. These subjective decisions have no statistical basis outside of Berri's whims, and they make his model wildly bizarre.
At 1/16/2007 3:18 PM, Kirk Krack said...
what is the address for the SB5k English Civil War blog?
At 1/16/2007 3:21 PM, Brown Recluse, Esq. said...
http://theenglishrevolution.blogspot.com/
I haven't read the book but from this post, it sounds like Berri came up with this bunk Wins Score equation to support his Iversons-are-overpaid campaign as silverbird suggests. Can someone who's read the book explain his justifications for this model?
Can someone who's read the book explain his justifications for this model?
Since payroll does not correlate to wins, he's trying to find what does. And, I have little beef with his findings on a team level. As I said above, it's not rocket science: shoot more efficiently, rebound, don't turn it over - the problem is that his lack of knowledge of basketball (as opposed to basketball statistics) leads him to do very silly things in terms of valuing players as opposed to teams.
Maybe I'm just reiterating something said earlier, but it also seems like scorers are MUCH harder to replace than players who would do well under Berri's formula.
It's much easier to find David Lee's than it is to find AI's.
Also, anecdotally (and this has been suggested elsewhere), AI and other scorers see better defenders and more double teams which has an adverse effect on shooting percentage. However, if one player is drawing the main attention of the defense that would have a positive correlation on the offensive efficiency of the other four players. Is Anderson Varejao really that good? No, he's an average NBA big with awesome hair and energy, but every time LeBron drives to the bucket, his defender rotates over to contest the shot. Take away his uncontested dunks off of LeBron hand-offs and his FG% would plummet.
Does all of this mean that scorers should pass more? Not necessarily, because if they stopped scoring, they'd stop getting the double teams.
Okay be nice. First time commenter.
thanks...best website on the internet!
Players may perceive passing up some tough shots (to reduce misses) as a useful stat and income maximizing strategy but the better GMs and advisors if they watch enough tape will assess this aspect of the game. Maybe it is underconsidered and uncharted but I dont think it is completely absent from consideration. Guys with this behavior dont tend to get or keep jobs on the good teams or at least it may affect their role and playing time.
So is it safe to say that Berri's model, like most economic models, is based on a set of naive assumptions that knowingly excludes a number of crucial elements for the sake of simplicity and ease of explanation? I guess that means that the real purpose of this post is to expose Berri for the Iverson hater he is.
petey,
actually, you should reread my comment and the post. Quote from the Berri post:
"Of course when one looks at standard deviations about the average, Jordan was still more productive than Rodman."
Point of my post: while Rodman may have produced more wins when Jordan and him played together, you have to adjust for position when evaluating how players from different positions compare with each other. Given the rebound bias in Berri's model, forwards who can rebound exceptionally well and are high percentage shooters will produce a lot of wins. This, however, DOES NOT mean that there is any priority between positions.
Given Jordan's productivity for his position, it's plausible to argue he was more important during the Bulls stretch than Rodman, because Jordan did things no other guard could do (just like Magic's ability to play the point well made the Lakers so dominant in the 80s). Power Forwards are supposed to rebound. SG are not supposed to be exceptional rebounders.
So I don't think it's logically inconsistent to say Jordan was better than Rodman, once you adjust for position, even though Rodman generated more wins than Jordan.
Kidd is a perfect example of this in the modern era. Kidd is unique in that he is a PG who can pass exceptionally well and rebound like a small forward. You can't just replace Kidd with another point guard. There are no point guards in the league who can do what he does.
To followup and be clear- passing up a tough shot with enough time on the clock for someone to get a better one is a good behavior. (conversely, taking a marginal shot too soon can be various degrees of a negative.) Passing up a tough shot on a rapidly expiring clock when the probability is high that the team will end up with a worse shot or no shot is a harmful choice. It is a judgment call for the player and the observer. Neither will be perfect but those who have been around the game long enough and are successful have to get a feel for this.
Given the rebound bias in Berri's model, forwards who can rebound exceptionally well and are high percentage shooters will produce a lot of wins.
Given this, wouldn't one look some askance at the model itself?
And this makes no sense at all:
Better necessarily implies more contributions to winning, otherwise we might as well be watching Streetball.
The shouldering comment strikes me a bootstrapping argument. People shoulder burdens because everyone think they are the one to shoulder the burdens. But if everyone is wrong about this, then they are shouldering the burden when they shouldn't be.
That's what the hypothesis is, but some prior work (Oliver is one) produces evidence against this.
It seems to me like the existing analysis shows that the big scorers (Jordan, Wade, maybe not Iverson) are the only ones who can shoulder the load. The lesser players can only produce at high efficiency for fleeting moments or in very specific situations. All the rest of the production is due to the creation that comes from high-quality scorers (or even more rarely, an enabler such as Magic or Nash).
At the very least, one should admit that individual players' production levels are more interdependent than these metrics assume. The best example the argument about how much partial credit the players should get for a bucket when one passes to the other. It's very hard to separate the two contributions and do so accurately for each instance.
You can carry the same logic to the team-wide level. It must be the case (to me, anyway) that part of the measurable production of someone like Kyle Korver actually originates from being on the same floor as AI. The difference between the stats gurus is that some realize this, try to measure it as best as possible, and admit that it's inexact; while others gloss over it and use the stats as if each individual player is the sole generator of his own stats.
Does anyone else find that the frame of argument is partly driving the controversy? You could do the same statistical analysis, but title it Why doesn't a player as good as Allen Iverson win as much as he should?, and the people's take on it would be totally different. Whether that's conscious or unintentional, it's still on Berri.
Stickpiano- The idea that it is difficult to find scorers has always been a point of contention for me. I've often wondered how many current NBA players, if placed in the right system where there would be no fear of failure in taking missed shots, couldn't be dynamic scorers. Don't forget that players like Tony Delk and Tracey Murray have gone for 50 points in a game before. Obviously no one expects them to keep up that kind of pace, but if every play was run for them, what kind of scorers could they be? We'll never know. How often does reputation dictate performance, rather than performance dictating reputation?
To take or not take a tough shot is based on ability and role. Some are instructed to pass in these situations and some listen and some don't. Guys who are supposed to shoot these will probably catch heat from the coach if they don't and it might affect their next contract.
Spurs are a good example of a team stocked with veterans now in smaller roles who previously took more of tough shots and so while they pass to the primo guys when they can, they are also experienced enough and good enough to make a good % of the tough shots they should take for the good of the team.
On AI he bounces from being good in the clutch to somewhat weak but I think dominating the clutch shots leads to deference, lack of guts and overloaded defenses. i've looked a lot at clutch shooting stats but just recently just to also looked at team win % in the clutch duriong a star's time on the court to set the star's behavior- and impact- in context. This year Iverson clutch shooting went from 40% eFg in Philly to 50% in Denver but team % in clutch has been 17% in both places. In most of the previous years Philly with Iverson were close to .500 in the clutch. Ok but not a dominating closer.
Denver with Melo (before Iverson) was winning 44% of the clutch minutes (down from 60% the previous season). With Melo and AI will it be 60%, 50%, 44%, or lower?
All the minutes count of course. Team with AI at PG is doing much worse on win % with AI at PG.
With Melo and Smith back does AI play more PG? Do the early results change? His PG/SG time split is a challenging question as it always has been.
should be... Team with AI at PG is doing much worse on win % than with AI at SG.
Melo back next week then the we begin to get deeper into the story. will the AI trade make team better? Playoffs will be the main answer.
Excellent work Silverbird. My only complaint is that this post led me to spend an hour reading the comments on Gladwell's blog in response to his odd defense of the Enron execs.
"With Melo and Smith back does AI play more PG? Do the early results change? His PG/SG time split is a challenging question as it always has been."
If I were George Karl, I'd want him spending a serious chunk of his time off the ball doing his Rip Hamilton schtick.
I loved the Steve Blake deal because it seems like a perfect way to get Iverson off the ball with Blake playing the role of Eric Snow circa 2001.
The question for me is where to find J.R. his tick once 'Melo gets back.
From what I've seen, they aren't JR's shots/minutes to lose. Extra-practice one-on-ones with Melo aside, he got killed by the Spurs just being run through screens.
Steve Blake not only runs the ball upcourt (which some of us have been waiting for for years, no thanks to Miller/Boykins), but he also generally shoots only after first passing the ball off and then getting it back. Blake/AI looks promising, and like where the team is headed for now.
As for Melo's return, it's definitely not clear where the minutes will go, but they certainly aren't JR's to lose. In my opinion, he's going to need to develop as a ballhandler and as a man-to-man defender to earn his time.
And that's all I want to hear about analysis of "nuggets with AI", since the other guys on the floor for those "clutch minutes" are Linas Kleiza and Diawara...
I think that a rotation of AI, Melo, JR and Blake at the 1-3 (with maybe some minutes from Diawara as well) will do fine.
My concern is whether Blake will continue to shoot as well as he has done so far. Past performance all the way back to Maryland says no, but we'll see.
"And that's all I want to hear about analysis of "nuggets with AI", since the other guys on the floor for those "clutch minutes" are Linas Kleiza and Diawara..."
I dig Kleiza. He's horrible right now, but I could see him evolving into someone with a Nocioni vibe.
And while I'm looking forward to the Real Nuggets showing up next Monday, I've gotta say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching the CBA Nuggets of Iverson, Boykins, Kleiza, and Diawara. They weren't ever going to win many games, but they were competitive and compelling.
"they aren't JR's shots/minutes to lose. Extra-practice one-on-ones with Melo aside, he got killed by the Spurs just being run through screens."
Yup. He did look absolutely awful on both sides of the ball in the Spurs game, but J.R. is just an excitable boy, and it was his first game back from the suspension.
I agree with you on his larger weaknesses, but he's still got some high level talent, and the Nuggs need to find minutes for him if they want to compete with the big boys of the West come playoff time.
With a healthy Nene and a productive J.R. who knows his role, I can see them giving a real series to Dallas or S.A.
"My concern is whether Blake will continue to shoot as well as he has done so far. Past performance all the way back to Maryland says no, but we'll see."
His career NBA 3pt percentage says yes.
He brings up the ball. He does a bit of distributing and playing traffic cop between Melo and AI in the halfcourt. He helps run the transition offense. He knocks down wide open 3pts at 40%. And he chases the Tony Parkers and Devin Harrises and Leandro Barbossas of the world on defense.
Voila! All of that is within Steve Blake's game. And if he can play within that game on a reliable basis, he's going to make a career for himself over the next 5 months.
I hope so, because what team wouldn't want Bubbles' boy Johnny running the point?
I can wrap my head around the fact that Jordan was "better" than Rodman even when Rodman was generating a higher WS. I'm no statistician, but it does seem, as some here have said, that comparing players' "Win Scores" to others at the same position is much more instructive than looking at cross-positional comparisons, particularly when you consider the overweighted nature of the rebound. In fact, I take this into account when considering any of these sabermetrically influenced attempts at valuing basketball players.
I also agree with the notion that this metric lacks greatly in that you can't account for differences in offensive efficiency for each basketball action given who's on the floor. One Suns posession when Nash is on the bench has measurably lower expectations than those when he's bringing the ball up, obv. This is why I'm a fan of the plus/minus in hockey, even with all its warts (the defensiveman bias, etc.).
At 1/16/2007 10:38 PM, tegwarrior said...
if win scores can't be compared across players, they hardly seem like an effective catch-all tool for considering player worth when crafting a team/ salary scale.
economists would say this whole project suffers from a 'missing markets' problem. where's the really effective data on defensive play (i.e. yes there are steals and blocks, but the not so simple act denial defense or causing your man to shoot terrible percentages routinely are not tracked/ trackable). besides, how do you separate one individual's contribution within the team framework on that end. this is all something worth paying for.
marginal anything is not determined by quality as is stated above- the relative scarcities and the relative prices (values) determine marginal contributions. listen to athletes talk, and they'll tell you successful rebounding is more a result of effort than skill (assuming they're right). which can be restated as: rebounders are plentiful, cutting their wages (regardless of the value one puts on rebounding).
and let's all just admit that it's a bit silly to penalize a player for shooting (missing: yes, shooting: no). shooting is, oddly enough, the only way to score. yes, you shoot and you 'lose possession'. or rather, you trade possession for an opportunity at points. but given the shot clock, you were going to lose that possession anyway, might as well get some points for it. comically, the ideal team might just run around for the whole shot clock trying to get fouled, making the first free throw, missing the second and hopefully rebounding the miss to repeat all over again. this is how 5 rational guys in a contract year would behave?
A little economic sociology is desperately needed among the moneyball wannabees. It's pretty obvious that the actors in an NBA game are not playing according to a rational calculus but operate according to cultural scripts that place different kinds of value on the various economic variables being tracked. A charge taken by Battier is not always just a turnover or foul, and a block by Mourning may not just be a failed possession. It might instead be something that instils doubt in the minds of the offensive player about driving the lane, and this will change the offensive strategy and then what kinds of shots are available to the team, and the relative effectiveness of different kinds of scorers.
As mentioned by others above, what scorers like Kobe, AI and even the hated Arenas bring to the table is not purchaseable off the shelf: the ability to be a threat, which changes the fabric of the game. This is why Marion has never been considered an MVP candidate while putting up the numbers.
The statistical arguments are interesting in terms of trying to develop heuristics that provide shortcuts to qualitative analysis, but at the end of the day, just as in macroeconomics, there is little truth to be found there, merely an epistemology which lacks the conception of human space and time. Which is why you ain't gonna meet chicks at yr fantasy sports gig.
Nice takedown in the article though!
The basketball team, as a firm, is supposed to accomplish two goals rather than just one. Everyone here is talking about one goal, winning games, and ignoring the other, which is to turn a profit in conventional business terms. I assume that all personnel decisions are made with both of these factors in mind, and it's not at all surprising that in a given market it's determined that bringing in the stereotypical selfish scorer will fill the seats, raise the ad rates, and increase profitability, even in the absence of any positive impact on wins vs. losses. only a certain kind of market, for instance, will value a "win the right way" team (the mirror-image stereotype) even if it's successful n the court.
In hockey terms, winning championships by using the neutral-zone trap will fill the seats in (e.g.) Detroit, but it probably won't in Nashville.
We have a trade! Golden State just got a whole lot more Free Darkoer.
This all just points up the fundamental problem with the current fad for economic orthodoxy dressed up as sociology of the future: it's still all the same crowd jumping up and down saying that something just is - it is! it is! - because their precious model says so. Economists are just fishing for ways to save a discipline that pooped out on fresh insights five seconds after the General Theory hit the racks by colonizing other fields. You know how people sort of chuckle down their sleeves at Derrida now? That's Levitt and Landsburg and Berri and all these other clowns tomorrow. Resist!
At 3/06/2007 4:13 PM, JM said...
There is a massive level of misunderstanding of the claims of Dave Berri in these comments here.
1. the weights are not arbitrary
2. the correlation doesn't hold for just points scored, it holds for points scored AND allowed, which can be measured on a team basis, but not for individuals, and it amortizes the net effect of all the blocks, steals, turnovers, and rebounds, and fouls.
3. Thing are not "just is! it is!" because they say so, they are that way because they have predicitve power. That has real practical usefulness, it is real tangible evidence that the model is good.
The author of this post has made the most twisted and insane argument i have ever heard to try and continue believing that the NBA doesn't overvalue scoring.
It is a fact as plain as day that the NBA is failing to properly evaluate the producivity of players who score a lot with low efficiency. If you take the time to understand the math you can know it too.
Hi Nice Blog .This labor time tracker is used to track the time and attendance of employees, and at the same time track labor activity against specific parts, jobs, and operations.
lampungyoutube
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Storage Heartbreak
jupiter broadcasting friday stream friday mit the computer chronicles ssd storage akaw pocket zip mini disc jaz disk floppy disk nvme retro computing computer chronicles time capsule trains history utc timezones soska sisters sirens of scream
We share stories from a time when computer storage was very precious, and the types of storage were still battling it out for the standard.
Plus our proposals to do away with time zones, and a special guest helps give away some games.
The radical plan to destroy time zones - The Washington Post — The plan was strikingly simple. Rather than try to regulate a variety of time zones all around the world, we should instead opt for something far easier: Let's destroy all these time zones and instead stick with one big "Universal Time."
How India's single time zone is hurting its people - BBC News — The sun rises nearly two hours earlier in the east of India than in the far west. Critics of the single time zone have argued that India should move to two different standard times to make the best use of daylight in eastern India, where the sun rises and sets much earlier than the west. People in the east need to start using their lights earlier in the day and hence use more electricity.
Sirens of Scream Podcast — Three lady geeks explore the dark side of comics, games, film and tv. The spooky and sinister, the gory and gross; nothing is off limits.
SirensPodcast on Twitter
Time Capsule For The Year 2957 Discovered at MIT — As we’ve seen time and again, most time capsules are incredibly boring. But MIT recently discovered a time capsule filled with some amazing materials from 1957 inside. It’s not supposed to be opened until the year 2957, and thankfully MIT is honoring that wish.
A Moment in Time: Time capsule found during construction at MIT — Back in the early stages of construction for MIT.nano, members of the crew stumbled upon something that clearly didn't belong: A time capsule buried in 1957 as part of the dedication to the Compton Laboratories.
Relic from last century | MIT News — During excavation for MIT.nano, the Department of Facilities unearthed an unexpected relic between buildings 12 and 26: a time capsule buried on June 5, 1957, to commemorate the opening of the Karl Taylor Compton Laboratories.
A partially disassembled IBM 350 (RAMAC)
Iomega Jaz (1996 – 2002) | Museum of Obsolete Media — Introduced by Iomega in 1996, the Jaz disk was a removable hard-disk storage system, that initially had a capacity of 1 GB (a 2 GB version was released in 1998).
Jaz drive - Wikipedia — Following the success of the Iomega Zip drive, which stored data on removable magnetic cartridges with 100MB nominal capacity, the company developed and released the Jaz drive. Initially the drive featured 1GB capacity per removable disk; this was increased to 2GB in 1998.
MiniDisc - Wikipedia — MiniDisc (MD) is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74 minutes and, later, 80 minutes, of digitized audio or 1 gigabyte of Hi-MD data. Sony brand audio players were on the market in September 1992.
PocketZip - Wikipedia — It was known as the "Clik!" drive until the click of death class action lawsuit regarding mass failures of Iomega's Zip drives. Thenceforth, it was renamed to PocketZip.
Music | AKAW! — Intro: Bird Brain Outro: El Guapo
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When we see the popularity of World of Tanks, we should certainly consider whether games with similar themes and mechanics can stand a chance against the famous publisher. Well, they can. And not only stand a chance, because this Russian game named “War Thunder” beats WoT in many ways.In the beginning, we can select the type of ...
Star Conflict is a MMO game that is an incredibly extended space simulation. As in all games of this type, we can choose to play alone and carry out the missions or to play in a team where the cooperation is one of the most important features! The part of creating our character is a very interesting aspect of this game. So, ther...
WarTune
WarTune is a browser MMO free-to-play game.The game offers us a multitude of quests and features that will make our time with it really enjoyable. WarTune allows not only actions available in an ordinary role-playing game, but we can also improve our city, run our own house or work on a farm. All this taking break from turn-base...
Please keep in mind that the offer is ONLY for the new users! Do whatever you want, wherever you want in Roblox, a free-to-play MMO social gaming platform, where the creativity makes the imagination come to real!In this game, it's up to the players to create their own, virtual worlds and games, as it is up to the players which g...
Crossout is a MMO action game based in a post-apocalyptic world. It has been developed by the creators of the famous War Thunder and brings to us a completely refreshed gameplay on somewhat different terms.If you think Crossout is an other clone of the Wargaming games or War Thunder, then this will bring you a pleasant surprise ...
For sure every fan of the Soul Calibur series will be extremely happy to see his favourite characters in this browser game, created by the studio Game Spirit. This free MMO RPG game is a new version of a well-known production. What character will you choose this time? You have a possibility to choose a hero ( Yun-Seong, Raphael,...
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Tag Archives: Action role-playing game
Legends of Aethereus Now Available on Steam
GOTLAND, SWEDEN – September 27, 2013 – ThreeGates, an independent game development studio focused on Action Role-Playing Games, today released Legends of Aethereus, on Steam at the introductory price of $23.99 at: http://store.steampowered.com/app/248410/. Players can now enter the world of Aethereus and start their … Continue reading →
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software • Tagged action role playing games, Action role-playing game, Aethereus, CO-OP, independent game development, launch day, Player versus environment, Player versus player, role playing games, RPG
Valhalla Knights 3: Character Class Trailer
Embark on an adventure through a massive prison and fight against the evil tyrant ruling within. Get to know the various classes that you can select when creating your character in Valhalla Knights 3, which launches for PS Vita on October 15th.
By Vampero • Posted in PSV • Tagged Action role-playing game, Gaming, PlayStation Vita, Ps Vita, valhalla knights, Valhalla Knights 3, Vita
Dragon Age: Inquisition – A World Unveiled
The team at BioWare discusses the creative vision for Dragon Age: Inquisition, the first of the next generation of BioWare RPGs, and talk about player freedom as a guiding principle of the design.
Explore a vast, fantasy world at the brink of catastrophe in this next-generation action RPG. Your journey awaits. Learn more at: http://www.dragonage.com
Dragon Age: Inquisition arrives in the Fall of 2014 for PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One and PC.
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, PS3, PS4, XBOX 360, XBOX ONE • Tagged Action role-playing game, Bioware, dragon age, Fantasy world, Inquisition, PlayStation, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
The World of The Dark Eye – Demonicon Shown off in new gamescom 2013 Trailer
Bracknell, UK – 19th August 2013 – Kalypso Media has today released a new gamescom trailer illustrating the world of The Dark Eye – Demonicon. The trailer features some of the varied locations in the upcoming third person action-RPG, as well as some of the undead and human foes you will encounter on your adventures.
The Dark Eye – Demonicon is a thrilling action-RPG set in the extraordinarily popular universe of “The Dark Eye”, a richly crafted fantasy universe beloved by fantasy gamers throughout the world.
Demonicon tells the tragic story of a brother and sister who become pawns of sinister forces in a world of cruelty and depravity. In this bleak yet magical world, their affection is both a blessing and a curse. Both are constantly threatened by mortal danger and demonic temptation, and must find a way through their tortured lives by facing serious moral decisions. Their common destiny will determine that of the entire continent, and will be decided by the choices they make. Hordes of fiends block their way to freedom and peace, and only through battle and magic they will truly become free of the darkness.
Features include –
A third-person action-RPG featuring brutal melee attack combos and dazzling magic spells
Powerful storytelling with an elaborate narrative rich with twists, as well as believable conflicts and ethical decision-making opportunities
Action-packed battles, where pin-point timing and clever tactics play important roles
Unique magic system: a dark talent grants the player devastating mystical powers
Important events in “Demonicon” will be part of “The Dark Eye” universe’s history
State-of-the-art 3D visuals using the powerful “Vision” engine
The Dark Eye – Demonicon is out in October 2013 for Windows PC with console versions releasing in 2014. For more information, please visit www.worldofdemonicon.com. Or like the game on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter @KalypsoMediaUK
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, PS3, XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, Dark Eye - Demonicon, dazzling magic, fantasy gamers, Kalypso Media, Microsoft Windows, RPG, talent grants, videogames
Dragon Age: Inquisition Official E3 2013 Teaser Trailer – The Fires Above
Dragon Age: Inquisition – Explore a vast, fantasy world at the brink of catastrophe in this next-generation action RPG. Your journey awaits. Learn more at: http://uk.dragonage.com
Welcome to Dragon Age: Inquisition, where your choices shape and drive the experience. You’ll make your mark in an expansive, story-driven open world filled with complex characters, challenging combat and difficult decisions. This upcoming video game will be released in 2014.
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, PS4, XBOX ONE • Tagged Action role-playing game, Bioware, dragon age, Electronic Arts, Fantasy world, Inquisition, Open world
DARK SOULS 2 – I AM UNDONE
Developed by From Software, Dark Souls II is the highly anticipated sequel to the punishing 2011 breakout hit Dark Souls (9.5/10 Gamespot, 9.0/10 IGN). The unique old-school action RPG experience captivated imaginations of gamers worldwide with incredible challenge and intense emotional reward.
Pre-order now at www.darksoulsii.com Follow us on Facebook facebook.com/darksouls
By Vampero • Posted in XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, Dark Souls II, From Software, Namco Bandai Games, RPG
Path of Exile Open Beta Trailer
Path of Exile will enter Open Beta on January 23, 2013. For more information, please check out http://www.pathofexile.com
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, RPG • Tagged 23 January 2013, Action role-playing game, Free-to-play, Path of Exile
Legends of Aethereus Kickstarter in Final Stretch With First Two Stretch Goals For OUYA and VIP Room Achieved
14 Hours Left to Fund Windows/Linux/Mac Action RPG
GOTLAND, SWEDEN – July 21, 2012 – ThreeGates announced that is has reached its first two Kickstarter stretch goals above the $25K in funding the studio was looking to raise for Legends of Aethereus,its forthcoming action Role-Playing Game (RPG). The first two stretch goals include a special member’s only room where crafting materials and special items will be dropped at random intervals as an ongoing thank you to Kickstarter supporters. The studio will also be picking up an OUYA dev kit since the community has asked ThreeGates to explore a version for the recently announced console and the stretch goal to pick up the kit was met on Thursday night. To help fund the game, check out the Kickstarter project page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/460738485/legends-of-aethereus-co-op-hack-n-slash-action-gam
“The final stretch goal is less than $3,900 away now,” said Don Geyer, CEO of ThreeGates. “Getting accomplished game designer Scott Foe onboard to craft a special quest line would be a really awesome addition to the game.”
At $35K, ThreeGates will sign on legendary game designer Scott Foe for a specially designed bonus quest line. Foe is known for his work on Phantasy Star Online and Reset Generation, as well as numerous other titles. He is believed to be one of the most creative designers making games today.
“Getting Foe on board is pretty epic,” Geyer continued. “This is something he would be doing to help us and give the community something really special. It’s an amazing opportunity.”
Legends of Aethereus is a high action RPG with up to four player co-op and a variety of PvP game types. Join forces in online multiplayer cooperative expeditions as the Inventor, Astrographer or Officer and venture into the uncharted wilderness of Aethereus seeking fame, glory and untold riches.
Invite your friends to your own customized Nexus City-State to battle in your arena or just show off how cool you’ve personalized your city using the statue-maker, banner creator and other customization features.
Embark on a variety of story driven hand-crafted expedition levels or explore the wilderness through a variety of procedurally generated exploration quests. Design and build new gear and weapons while you develop your character across a diverse and expansive skill tree allowing for a multitude of character strategies.
• Physics-based combat system including traps, set-up weapons and interaction with environmental objects
• Expedition system combines hand crafted levels with procedurally generated areas that allow for virtual infinite replayability
• The Statue-Maker, Banner Creator and other customization features allow you to personalize your own city environment
• PvP, CO-OP and Single Player combat in your own City-State Combat Arena
• Crafting and Materials system allows for virtual limitless customization
About ThreeGates
ThreeGates was formed in late 2010 by a group of people who all have years of experience in the game industry. The team has worked in the games field; as game designers, graphic artists, programmers, event producers, marketers and educators, in other constellations and on other projects, but always with the same drive and passion. Now they’ve teamed up with a common goal: to make great games. ThreeGates’ strengths are a tight-knit team, the ability to move fast, willingness to work hard and a drive for excellence. For more information, please visit: http://www.threegates.se
By Vampero • Posted in MMORPG, PC Software, RPG • Tagged Action role-playing game, Kickstarter, Legends of Aethereus, Player versus player
By Vampero • Posted in MMORPG • Tagged Action role-playing game, Free-to-play, Japan, Phantasy Star Online 2, SEGA
Enter the Darkness with New Demonicon Screens !
Bracknell, UK, 14th March, 2012 – In the world of Demonicon, there is only darkness and the grey line that divides man from demons. Today, Kalypso Media is pleased to release new screenshots which illustrate the darkness that permeates the world of Demonicon, the action-RPG set for release on PC and next generation consoles in Q1 2013. Download the new screenshot pack for a look into a world where heroes are few and far between, and the line between good and evil is razor thin.
Demonicon is a thrilling action-RPG set in the extraordinarily popular universe of “The Dark Eye”, a richly crafted fantasy world beloved by fantasy gamers throughout the world.
· A third-person action-RPG featuring brutal melee attack combos and dazzling magic spells
· Powerful storytelling with an elaborate narrative rich with twists, as well as believable conflicts and ethical decision-making opportunities
· Action-packed battles, where pin-point timing and clever tactics play important roles
· Unique magic system: a dark talent grants the player devastating mystical powers
· Important events in “Demonicon” will be part of “The Dark Eye” universe’s State-of-the-art 3D visuals using the powerful “Vision” engine
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, RPG, XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, Dark Eye - Demonicon, Fantasy world, Kalypso Media, Magic, PC, Personal computer, RPG, Xbox 360
Mythos Global Open Beta Coming Soon, Now Available for EU Players !
LOS ANGELES – January 9, 2012
Hanbitsoft and T3Fun are happy to announce the open beta for their highly-anticipated online action RPG, Mythos Global. Beginning February 2, 2012, the fantasy world of Uld will be teeming with danger and adventure.
T3Fun has good news for European players. The OBT for Mythos Global will also be available to most of Europe. Mythos’ loyal supporters have been heard and now European fans will also be able to join in the action once the server opens for the open beta test.
To lead up to the launch of the open beta, the Mythos team has prepared a full month of activities for the fans. Every week in January, there will be new stories, exclusive interviews, mini-games, quizzes and more. Visit the Mythos Global website, forums, and fan page to take part in this month-long series of events. Keep checking back to discover what’s new each week before the open beta begins next month.
For more information about Mythos Global, please visit:
http://mythos.t3fun.com/Home/Home.aspx
By Vampero • Posted in MMORPG • Tagged Action role-playing game, HanbitSoft, Mythos, Mythos Global
Dungeon Defenders Available Today on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam
Join Forces with Up to Three Friends Local or Online to Strategically Block the Invading Waves of Ogres, Goblins and Orcs in this Addictive Tower Defense/Action-RPG Hybrid
Twain Harte, CA–October 19th– Trendy Entertainment, D3Publisher and Reverb Publishing today announced that Dungeon Defenders is now available for download on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation® Network and Steam. Dungeon Defenders brings together the best elements of tower defense and action-RPG progression in a fully 3D environment; spreading the four-player co-op mayhem out across 15 unique maps – 30 challenges, four difficulty settings – in all its loot-raiding, spell-casting, level-up stacking glory.
Players control one of four distinct heroes – Squire, Apprentice, Huntress and Monk – in an epic bid to fight back an ancient evil. Each character comes with distinct functionalities, and players can create and customize an armory of weapons and equipment. The campaign, whether with friends or solo, has tons and tons of gameplay with hundreds of loot drops (all upgradeable and customizable) to make each character that much more distinct.
Character trailers can found here: http://dungeondefenders.com/media
With drop-in/drop-out four-player co-op online or off, tons of gameplay modes and gorgeous visuals, this is one dungeon players will never want to leave. Tower defense fans and RPG nuts alike will find themselves enthralled by the depth of the character progression. Each class has a slew of towers and skills in their arsenal with 70 levels worth of stat building. All this makes for a chaotic, fun romp of a time in expertly crafted dungeons full of monsters attacking from every angle.
Additionally, the PlayStation Network version provides full 3D technology and PlayStation Move controller support.
Dungeon Defenders is rated E10+ by the Entertainment Software Review Board and is available for download now on Xbox LIVE Arcade for 1200 Microsoft Points, on PlayStation Network and Steam for $14.99. For more information on the game, visit www.dungeondefenders.com, follow the game on Facebook facebook.com/dungeondefenders or follow the Trendy team @TrendyEnt.
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, Dungeon Defender, Microsoft, Microsoft Points, Tower defense, Video game, Xbox
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Bosses Vignette
“The enemy knows you have entered here. What hope you had in secrecy is now gone.”
– Celeborn, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings
Today, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Snowblind Studios are releasing a new vignette for their upcoming Action RPG, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North.
Middle-earth is home to creatures more fearsome than orcs. More cunning than trolls. More loathsome than giant spiders.
Lurking in the forgotten tombs of Barrow-downs, dwelling amongst the fallen dead, the Barrow-wights wait under reign of the Barrow-wight Lord. Revealed in this new video, the Barrow-wight Lordhas overtaken this sacred Ranger burial ground. He uses magic and minions most foul to spread the rule of evil in the darkness and death of his lair.
The battle cry of the dwarf, the sword of the human, the staff of the elf – all must be used to best this most despicable boss and its hordes of skeletal servants. The Barrow-wight Lord uses his powers to pit man against man, friend against friend – only the strongest of Fellowships will best him.
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, RPG, XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, Action RPG, Lord of the Rings, lord of the rings war in the north, Middle-earth, Snowblind Studios, Warner Bros, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
DARK SOULS BRINGS DEATH TO THE NORTHERN REALMS TODAY
This Year’s Most Challenging and Rewarding Dungeon Crawler, Dragon Brawler Out Now
SANTA CLARA, Calif., – October 4, 2011 – Prepare to die, frequently and violently, because leading video game publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that Dark Souls™ is now available for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. With tense dungeon crawling and fearsome enemy encounters, Dark Souls is the most gratifyingly challenging action-role playing game (RPG) since the launch of 2009’s critically acclaimed spiritual predecessor Demon’s Souls, winner of GameSpot’s “Overall Game of the Year” and “Best PS3 Game”, and IGN’s “Best RPG for PS3” awards.
Developed by FromSoftware, the seamlessly intertwined world of Dark Souls is full of extreme battles, rewarding challenges, nuanced weaponry and magic, and the flexibility to customize each character to suit any desired play style. The innovative online component allows gamers to draw from the collective experience of the Dark Souls community as they either help or sabotage each other on the journey through the Northern Realms to save the land from darkness. With a massive, seamless open world design, Dark Souls encourages deep exploration and an adaptable gameplay experience.
“Gamers have been eagerly anticipating the release of Dark Souls since falling in love with the uniquely challenging gameplay first pioneered with the PlayStation 3 exclusive Demon’s Souls,” said Carlson Choi, vice president of Marketing, NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “With Dark Souls available on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, more gamers than ever will get the chance to explore the massive, seamless open world of the Northern Realms as they save the land from darkness. I hope they’re prepared. To die.”
Dark Souls is available throughout North America today, and in Europe on October 7, 2011. For More information on the game please visit www.PrepareToDie.com and www.facebook.com/DarkSouls
By Vampero • Posted in XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, Dungeon crawl, NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Role-playing game, Xbox 360
HELL FREEZES OVER — DIABLO III TO SHIP IN EARLY 2012
Blizzard Entertainment extends beta test for hotly anticipated action role-playing game
IRVINE, Calif. – Despite a sterling record of always hitting its release targets, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the expected launch window for Diablo® III, the next title in the company’s critically acclaimed series of action role-playing games, will be moving into early 2012.
“With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn’t put so many years of work into Diablo III to release a game that was almost ready,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “The beta test is going very well, and we look forward to making the most of the extra time we’re taking to deliver an experience that lives up to our vision for the game and the expectations of our players. Next year is going to be an incredibly busy one for Blizzard, and we hope an incredibly fun one for Blizzard gamers.”
Blizzard will use the additional time to extend the Diablo III closed beta test, which began September 20, potentially adding more testers than initially projected. Players who have an active Battle.net® account with any Blizzard game attached to it should visit Battle.net account management to opt in for a chance to participate in the beta test. Additional testing phases, as well as further details regarding the launch plans for the game, will be announced on the company’s Diablo III community website: www.Diablo3.com.
By Vampero • Posted in PC Software, RPG • Tagged Action role-playing game, Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo III
Blizzard Entertainment Begins Closed Beta Test for Diablo III !
IRVINE, Calif.: Blizzard Entertainment announced today that the closed beta test for Diablo® III, its highly anticipated sequel to the best-selling Diablo action role-playing game series, has begun. The company has started issuing the first wave of invitations to participate in the testing process and is planning to add more participants over the course of the beta test. While enjoying an early look at the game, beta testers will provide valuable feedback as they help Blizzard Entertainment test server stability and hardware.
In the Diablo III closed beta test, participants will be able to fight their way through part of Act I as any of the five hero classes – barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk, and demon hunter – and go head-to-skull against the Skeleton King, taking him on alone or playing cooperatively with other adventurers. They’ll also get to meet up with some of the artisans, followers, and other key characters from Sanctuary, and try out the game’s skill and crafting systems.
“This closed beta test is an important milestone for us as we enter the final stages of development on Diablo III,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Our goal is to create the best action role-playing game experience to date, building on everything we’ve learned since the release of Diablo II and incorporating the powerful features of the new Battle.net® platform. We hope players enjoy participating in the beta test and we look forward to hearing their feedback.”
Diablo III will continue the epic Diablo storyline, with players playing their role in the ongoing struggle to save the world of Sanctuary from the corrupting forces of the Burning Hells. Diablo III will also be the definitive action role-playing game, with players adventuring through rich and varied settings, engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses, growing in experience and ability, and acquiring items of incredible power. As the sequel to Diablo II, the game will feature the easy-to-use interface, fast-paced action, and visceral gameplay that Diablo players have come to expect and enjoy. Designed from the ground up to leverage the power of Battle.net, Diablo III will also provide gamers with industry-leading matchmaking and communication tools; convenient character- and inventory-management options; and the Diablo III auction house, which will support a robust player-driven economy.
Diablo III will be localized and released in multiple languages; however, the beta will be English-only. Release timing and region-specific details such as pricing and supported languages will be announced at a later date. For more information on Diablo III, please visit the official website at http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/. To set up a Battle.net account and sign up for a chance to participate in the Diablo III beta test, please visit the official Battle.net website at http://www.battle.net.
By Vampero • Posted in MMORPG, RPG • Tagged Action role-playing game, Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo III
DARK SOULS APPROVED TO ARRIVE IN STORES OCTOBER 2011
NAMCO BANDAI Games Announces Production Underway on its Epic Blockbuster Fall Release
SANTA CLARA, Calif., – September 21, 2011 – Leading video game publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that Dark Souls™ has been approved for production for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, releasing in North America on October 4 2011, and Europe on October 7.
Spiritual successor to 2009’s critically acclaimed PlayStation®3 system exclusive Demon’s Souls – winner of GameSpot’s “Overall Game of the Year” and “Best PS3 Game”, and IGN’s “Best RPG for PS3” awards – Dark Souls is a new action-role playing game (RPG) developed by FromSoftware. Stricken by the curse of undead, gamers are abolished to the northern realms and must battle hideous demons and unimaginable monsters to collect souls and find the Eternal Flame of Life, which is losing its light, to survive and cure the curse of undead.
With tense dungeon crawling and fearsome enemy encounters, the seamlessly intertwined world of Dark Souls is full of extreme battles, rewarding challenges, nuanced weaponry and magic, and the flexibility to customize each character to suit any desired play style. The innovative online component allows gamers to draw from the collective experience of the Dark Souls community as they either help or sabotage each other on the journey through the Northern Realms to save the land from darkness. With a massive, seamless open world design, Dark Souls encourages deep exploration and an adaptable gameplay experience.
Gamers can pre-order the Dark Souls Collector’s Edition for $59.99, the same price as the standard edition, which will include a limited edition art book containing premium illustrations of characters and environments from the game. The package will also include a mini-strategy guide, original game soundtrack and behind-the-scenes videos provided for digital download via a uniquely redeemable online code printed on a specially marked card inside each Collector Edition box. All of this will come packaged with the standard edition game in a custom-designed metal case.
Dark Souls will be available throughout North America and Europe in October 2011. For More information on the game please visit www.PrepareToDie.com and www.facebook.com/DarkSouls
By Vampero • Posted in XBOX 360 • Tagged Action role-playing game, From Software, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, Xbox 360
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Grand Challenges
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Grand Challenges is a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems. Each initiative is an experiment in the use of challenges to focus innovation on making an impact. Individual challenges address some of the same problems, but from differing perspectives.
Date AwardedDate AwardedTitle (A-Z)Title (Z-A)
Patricia GarciaUniversidad Peruana Cayetano HerediaLima, Peru
Point-of-Care Diagnostics
Patricia Garcia of Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru will aim to understand the needs for point-of-care diagnostic tests for antenatal and child care in developing countries, and to develop and test a model for enhancing rapid and sustainable uptake of these tests using social and business innovation, which could have a significant impact on maternal and child health globally.
Development of a Hand-held, DNA Aptamer-based Surface Enhanced Resonance Raman Scattering (SERS) Biosensor for Direct Identification and Quantitation of Biomarkers and Pathogens in Complex Biological Samples at Point-of-Care
Jonathan BlackburnUniversity of Cape TownCape Town, , South Africa
Jonathan Blackburn of the University of Cape Town in South Africa will use tuberculosis as a model disease to develop a low-cost, hand-held biosensor that combines the selectivity of antigen-specific DNA aptamers with the exceptional specificity of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy in order to reliably quantify pathogen biomarkers present in patient specimens at the point-of-care.
Development of a Rapid, Inexpensive, Equipment-free Nucleic Acid Extraction System
Qimin YouUstar Biotechnologies (Hangzhou) Ltd.Hangzhou, Zhejiang Sheng, China
Quimin You of Ustar Biotechnologies (Hangzhou) Ltd. in China will develop affordable, rapid, and simple nucleic acid extraction devices and an affordable, rapid and simple isothermal nucleic acid amplification assay that can be performed at the village level by minimally trained personnel.
Fabric Chips: A Versatile Platform for Low-Cost, Rapid and Multiplexed Diagnostics
Dhananjaya DendukuriAchira Labs Private LimitedBengaluru, , India
Dhananjaya Dendukuri and colleagues at Achira Labs in Inida are developing weaving as a platform for the manufacture of Fabchips (Fabric chips) that can be used to perform lowcost, rapid and multiplexed diagnostic tests. Textile weaving is a mature process that can help make reagentfunctionalized chips in a convenient, affordable and scalable manner.
Implementation Research for Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Visceral Leishmaniasis in India
Pradeep DasRajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical SciencesAgamkuan, Bihar, India
Pradeep Das of Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences in India will determine how to ensure that people with Visceral Leishmaniasis, a neglected infectious disease of poverty in Bihar, India, receive the necessary pointofcare diagnosis needed to receive treatment and save lives. Many people die from this disease because they do not receive the available diagnosis and treatment.
Improving Regulatory Oversight of In-vitro Diagnostics in the Developing World
Rosanna PeelingLondon School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineLondon, United Kingdom
Regulatory approval for diagnostics is costly, lengthy and lacks transparency in many countries. It is seen as a major barrier to innovation and access. We seek to survey the regulatory landscape and develop a clearly defined set of standards and a critical path for streamlining the approval of a new generation of diagnostics that are affordable, easy to use and work on plug-and-play type devices. We will work closely with product standards setters, departments of health, the diagnostic industry, regulatory authorities and regional harmonization working parties to develop a transparent model framework for rapid and efficient approval of this novel class of diagnostics, and for the harmonization of regulatory processes in the developing world to ensure that patient needs are met in all resource settings. The second phase of the project is to develop and pilot a streamlined and harmonized regulatory process for the approval of a point-of-care (POC) IVD. We will combine scientific, technological, social and business innovations to seed regulatory reform. We will work with regional harmonization working parties as implementing partners to focus on four potential areas of harmonization: 1) a Standard Technical Document (STED) for registration of POC IVDs; 2) convergence of standards for quality audits of POC IVD manufacturing sites: 3) a mechanism to reduce duplication in clinical trials for validating the performance of a POC IVD; 4) a system for post-marketing surveillance. The project will deliver a set of harmonized regulatory standards and project outcomes will be disseminated for adoption by regions and countries.
Integrated Innovation Approaches to Point-of-Care Diagnostics Regulation Harmonization
Regulatory approval for diagnostics is costly, lengthy and lacks transparency in many countries. It is seen as a major barrier to innovation and access. This project seeks to survey the regulatory landscape and develop a clearly defined set of standards and a critical path for streamlining the approval of a new generation of diagnostics that are affordable, easy to use and work on plug-and-play type devices. It will work closely with product standards setters, departments of health, the diagnostic industry, regulatory authorities and regional harmonization working parties to develop a transparent model framework for rapid and efficient approval of this novel class of diagnostics, and for the harmonization of regulatory processes in the developing world to ensure that patient needs are met in all resource settings.
Investigating the Feasibility of a Multi-disciplinary Point-of-Care Laboratory in an Active HIV Treatment Clinic and Determining the Impact of Point-of-Care Testing on Patient Outcome
Wendy StevensWits Health Consortium (Proprietary) LimitedSouth Africa
Wendy Stevens of the National Health Laboratory Service and the University of Witwatersrand will lead a multi disciplinary team to assess the safety, cost effectiveness and impact on clinical outcome of implementing pointof care testing for HIV and tuberculosis in several different clinical settings in South Africa. The aim is to create a sustainable vehicle for future pointofcare evaluation and expansion and to provide sufficient information to inform national policy decisions, bearing in mind the need for equity, affordability and accessibility.
Multi-Pathogen Point-of-Care Diagnostics (MPDx) in East Africa
Achilles KatambaMakerere UniversityKampala, Uganda
Achilles Katamba and investigators from Makerere University, Northwestern University, the Indian School of Business and the University of Chicago are pioneering a methodological approach to inform the design of point-of-care diagnostic platforms and create a decision support tool to enable implementation of these platforms once they become available.
Optimization and Evaluation of Flocked Swab Transport Systems for the Identification of Enteric Pathogens
David GoldfarbUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
The objective of this Botswana-based collaboration led by David Goldfarb was to design and evaluate a user-friendly flocked-swab specimen collection system for the identification of enteric infections. This would have immediate impact in much of the world where diarrheal disease remains deadly and for the large part undiagnosed. Using an inexpensive innovation in specimen collection, the team diagnosed previously unrecognized pathogens that had caused the severe diarrhoea of over one-third of children in a group of southern African hospitals. McMaster University researchers designed and tested in Botswana a specially-designed "flocked swab" for collecting samples from children admitted to hospitals with severe diarrhoeal disease. The flocked rectal swab eliminates the wait and biohazard involved in obtaining and transporting a bulk stool (faeces) sample from an infant or child. This efficiency enabled implementation of a randomized clinical trial evaluating same-day diagnosis and treatment for a broad number of pathogens – the first study of its kind anywhere.
Sample Collection and Processing for Multiplexed Blood-based Point-of-Care Analysis
Nguyen TrungNational Hospital for Tropical DiseasesVietnam
Nguyen Trung and Nguyen Van Kinh of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Vietnam will develop a patienttochip microfluidics component for the collection and processing of whole blood into plasma and cells for downstream testing to target highly prevalent tropical diseases.
Sample Preparation/Nucleic Acid Extraction from Biological Samples
Chandrasekhar NairBigtec Private LimitedBengaluru, Karnataka, India
Chandrasekhar Nair of Bigtec Labs in India aims to create a low-cost, reliable, automated sample preparation system that can be interfaced with nucleic acid detection techniques such as real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Loop-Mediated Isothermal PCR (LAMP), thus enabling molecular diagnosis at the point-of-care. The technique involves the creation of a device to extract pathogenic DNA/RNA from biological samples such as blood, sputum, urine, and nasal/throat swabs.
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How Dangerous Is Natural Asbestos When It's Blowing in the Wind?
Sarah Zhang
Filed to:asbestos
Most of us, when we think of asbestos, think of the insulation in old buildings up for demolition. But asbestos fibers are naturally occurring minerals, and their natural habitats are deposits that meander all over the U.S., concentrated especially in the West. When wind blows asbestos off the hills, exactly how dangerous is it?
That's the question at the heart of a controversy in Nevada, where geologists are locked in a battle with the state's health department. In the New York Times, Deborah Blum reports on the work of geologists Brenda Buck and Rodney Metcalf, who have mapped Nevada's naturally occurring asbestos in more detail than ever before.
In the past, when we still used asbestos, the fibrous minerals were mined from large deposits in the West. In Libby, Montana, the site of a former asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mine, one-fifth of the residents ended up with asbestos-related lung disease. The long, skinny shape of asbestos fibers means they are easily lodged in the lungs, and a type of cancer called mesothelioma is often associated with asbestos exposure.
The asbestos mine in Libby, Montana. AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
Are Nevada's asbestos deposits, abundant but unmined, harming people? When an epidemiologist Francine Baumann conducted a preliminary analysis that she says found an unusual number of mesothelioma cases, Nevada responded by shutting down her access to the state cancer registry. The state health department says they've conducted their own analysis finding no danger and Baumann's research was simply misguided. The Times has much more detail on the controversy.
Cancer clusters are rarely as clear-cut as Hollywood portrays it in Erin Brockovich. More often than out, it comes out to an unglamorous arguments over statistics. But naturally occurring asbestos is more prevalent than we previously thought. Geologists are finding them in the midwest and on the east seaboard. Asbestos have been around us all along, but we're only now beginning to figure out exactly how dangerous they are. [New York Times]
Top image: A sample of tremolite, a type of asbestos. AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
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By Navjosh Music December 20, 2019
Stream Currensy’s New Album ‘Back at Burnie’s’ Feat. Rick Ross, Juicy J & More
Currensy initially announced his Back at Burnie’s album in 2018 and had set a March release date for it. But somewhere along the way, he pushed the album back and instead dropped other projects like Parking Lot Music, Hot August Nights, Gran Turismo with Statik Selektah, 2009 with Wiz Khalifa, and FETTI with Freddie Gibbs.
But the hard working rapper has finally decided to offer the long pending album to fans, featuring a total of 10 songs and guest appearances from Young Dolph, Juicy J, Rick Ross MadeinTYO and more. Stream it below.
Currensy Re-Releases ‘Hot August Nights’ Album with Features from Rick Ross, G-Eazy & More
Stream Smoke DZA & Currensy’s New Project ‘Prestige Worldwide’
Stream Mac Miller’s Posthumous Album ‘Circles’
Stream The ‘Bad Boys for Life’ Soundtrack Ft. Meek Mill, Rick Ross, City Girls, Bryson Tiller
Dreamville Releases ‘Revenge of The Dreamers 3’ Deluxe Edition: Stream
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Watch Now: FOX 2 News FOX 2 TV Schedule Autos
$10 million gift to the Kinder Institute at Missouri
Posted 6:37 am, November 13, 2019, by Associated Press
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri has received a $10 million gift from the Kinder Foundation, which will be used to support two new degree programs.
The university announced Tuesday it will offer a bachelor’s degree in constitutional democracy and a master’s degree in Atlantic history and politics. The gift will support expanding faculty and staff for the new degrees.
Rich and Nancy Kinder of Houston, Texas, formed the Kinder Foundation in 1997. Rich Kinder, a Cape Girardeau native, under bachelors and law degrees at Missouri in the 1960s.
The foundation provided a $25 million gift in 2015 to establish the Kinder Institute of Constitutional Democracy.
The new gift also will support a Kinder Institute Residential College for students pursuing the new bachelor’s degree, as well as study abroad opportunities with the University of Oxford’s Corpus Christi College.
FOX 2 News is Everywhere You Go!
Streaming TV, podcasts, FREE apps, social media and much more! Click HERE to CONNECT with FOX 2 News.
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Winter Weather: Snow, sleet and freezing rain is on the way, here’s a timeline
79-year-old woman yanked from vehicle by carjackers in Central West End
One on One with Blues Coach Craig Berube
Cardinals Winter Warmup – Day 1 – 1/18/20
St. Luke’s Urgent Care/Fox 2 Athlete of the Week – Aliyah Williams – January 18, 2020
People brave cold air, strong winds to enjoy outdoor festivities
Meet the former Navy SEAL turned doctor who will soon be an astronaut
Couple give $10 million to University of Northern Iowa
Nine-year-old child genius to graduate university with electrical engineering degree
Hillsdale College, Univ. of Missouri settle lawsuit over endowment
Alderwoman Cara Spencer to challenge Mayor Lyda Krewson in 2021 primary
Auditor: Closed St. Louis charter school owe state millions
Redistricting may change the balance of power in Missouri
United Church of Christ wipes out medical debt for over 11K St. Louisans
Retired St. Louis County police chief dead at 71
Kansas City names its first female fire department chief
Bobby Petrino hired as the new football coach at Missouri State
Tigers Introduce Eli Drinkwitz as their new head football coach
More than 20 million people under flood watch after killer storms power through Midwest, East
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You may also view a list of all blog entries.
FQXi BLOGS
Emergent Reality: Markus Müller at the 6th FQXi Meeting
By IAN DURHAM • Jan. 10, 2020 @ 19:55 GMT
At the 5th International FQXi conference in 2016, participants were given a marker and asked to write something on their conference badge that might serve as a conversation starter. It could be a bold statement or a single word. The only requirement, if I recall, was that it had to have something loosely to do with the theme of the conference (that is, the organizers didn’t want anyone putting random words like “potato” on their badges). In what I perceived as a show of defiance against certain elements in the community, I wrote “objective reality exists” on mine. No one noticed. To be fair, I don’t think anyone actually paid much attention to anyone else’s name tag. Nevertheless, in my own mind, it felt like I took a stand on something important (feel free to laugh at that).
I still firmly believe that objective reality exists in some form, but in the past few years, I have begun to think that the story may be a bit more complicated than I’d originally thought. I have always thought that there are aspects of the universe that are necessarily emergent and I have also long believed that “reality” is fundamentally relational in a certain sense. As an anonymous reviewer once wrote in Philosophical Magazine (which, despite its name, is actually a physics journal), science is the “rational correlation of experience.” That is, if we view science as uncovering the parts of the world that can be “objectively” known, then this knowledge is necessarily correlative and therefore relational.
To be clear, this does not deny that there is a reality outside of this correlative experience. It simply says that this experience is what constitutes an objective reality since it assumes that objectivity, in this sense, is common experience that can be rationally agreed upon. Certainly this is not a perfect definition, but there is an element of truth to it. Falsifiability only has real weight in a relational sense since it requires some kind of comparison.
At any rate, this all suggests a number of things. First it suggests that objective reality is emergent (though, again, it does not outright deny a more fundamental, non-emergent reality). But it also suggests that the very concept of objectivity requires observers of some sort. To put it another way, if science is the rational correlation of experience, then there must be observers whose experience is being rationally correlated.
In his talk at the 6th International FQXi conference, Markus Müller
Markus Müller at the 6th FQXi meeting in Tuscany.
pointed out that this suggests that perhaps the laws of physics themselves only apply at the observer level. The external world described by these laws would thus be emergent. Specifically what Müller suggests is that this objective external world must be an emergent approximation of something more fundamental but potentially inaccessible.
Müller’s work, which is developed in detail in a recent preprint, specifically makes reference to John Wheeler’s concept of “law without law” according to which there actually are no fundamental laws and the universe’s basic building blocks are random, possibly chaotic quantum phenomena.
Physicist John Wheeler, originator of the concept of
He begins by committing to the first-person perspective of observers as being fundamental. This is in contrast to most theories which take the third-person perspective representing “the world” to be fundamental. In other words, Müller does not assume that there is necessarily an objective, external world. Rather, he seeks to place the question “What will I see next?” at the center of the story. Using algorithmic information theory, he then proceeds to show that an objective, external world naturally emerges from a basic set of postulates that includes the first-person perspective under the guise of “observer states”. Specifically he shows that, in the presence of enough information, the first-person and third-person perspectives are equivalent; absent sufficient information, they are not. Müller goes on to show that switching to a fundamental first-person perspective can dissolve the famous Boltzmann brain problem from cosmology and can offer interesting insights into the brain emulation problem from AI.
Ludwig Boltzmann, who originally proposed the idea of Boltzmann brains.
To be clear, Müller isn’t necessarily making the claim that this is how the world works. He’s simply attempting to show that one can devise a self-consistent theory that begins with a first-person perspective and that then leads to an emergent third-person perspective. As with most physical theories, the aim is to chip away at our understanding of the world. In Müller’s case, it is to say that maybe we should reconsider how we formulate our theories, which overwhelmingly assume a third-person perspective.
As I mentioned before, though I firmly hold that objective reality in some form exists, I have come to realize that it may not come in quite as simple a form as I had originally thought. One of the reasons for the change in my thinking on this topic is my recent involvement in a program called Science for Monks and Nuns which aims to bring science to Tibetan Buddhist monastic communities. (Several FQXi members have been involved in this program including Tim Maudlin, George Musser, Howard Wiseman, and the late David Finkelstein.) Buddhist philosophy, like science, does not have a single, established view on reality. Rather it is divided into various schools of thought. One such school of thought, known as Cittamātra or Yogācāra, sometimes referred to as the “Mind Only” school, flatly denies the existence of an objective, external world. By contrast, Madhyamaka, also known as the “Middle Way”, posits that the external world is essentially one of co-dependent origination. That is, it posits that nothing has its own intrinsic nature. In other words, nothing has any meaning without reference to something else.
A Buddhist philosophy classroom at the Tibetan Government in Exile compound in Dharamsala, India.
In his FQXi conference talk, Müller employed the phrase “mind before matter” to emphasize the point that, in his model, the observer state is fundamental and gives rise to an objective, external world. His model seems to include elements of both the Mind Only and Middle Way schools of Buddhist philosophy. Similar to the Mind Only school, Müller’s model takes first-person perspective observer states as fundamental. However, his model allows for the mutually dependent emergence of a third-person external world in a manner that is reminiscent of the Middle Way’s co-dependent origination.
I want to emphasize that I am not an expert on Buddhism by any stretch. But my time working with the monks and nuns has changed my perspective on reality and I found the similarities with Müller’s purely scientific model to be striking.
At any rate, I think Müller’s model holds a great deal of promise for explaining the quantum/classical contrast. Perhaps the world really is fundamentally quantum and the objective reality of classical physics is an emergent phenomenon. It doesn’t make that reality any less real. It simply might be that it’s not fundamental.
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2019: The Physics Year in Review
By ZEEYA MERALI • Dec. 29, 2019 @ 19:47 GMT
As 2019 draws to a close, we're counting down some of the biggest stories in foundational physics and related fields.
Once again, items have been chosen by quantum physicist Ian Durham, of Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.
In the first part of the rundown, Ian lists a few highlights that haven't quite made his top 5, but which are nonetheless noteworthy. I'll be posting his top 5 soon. Listen to the podcast and let us know, if you agree (or disagree) with his choices.
And in the second part, Ian completes his list -- and admits he struggled with which of top two should come in first.
Free Podcast
2019: Year in Physics Review Part 1 Beginning our countdown of the biggest stories of the year in physics, as chosen by quantum physicist Ian Durham.
Go to full podcast
2019: Year in Physics Review Part 2: Concluding our countdown of the biggest stories of the year in physics, as chosen by quantum physicist Ian Durham.
Consciousness in the Physical World: Call for Proposals
By DAVID SLOAN • Dec. 28, 2019 @ 16:56 GMT
We're happy to announce that we are opening a call for proposals to focus on 'Consciousness in the Physical World'. Generously supported by the Fetzer Franklin Fund, we're looking for ideas coming from a broad range of scientists on the nature of consciousness and what makes for a conscious agent.
Following on from our calls on intelligence and agency, this time the focus on consciousness aims to promote the use of the large swath of recently developed tools and ideas to look for new insights.
The complete timeline is available, together with an FAQ and some examples of ideas and questions.
We have around $1.8 million in total funding available, so get your thoughts and ideas together, build a proposal and head over to the application form.
Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability - FQXi's New Essay Contest
At FQXi we're excited to launch our latest essay contest, with generous support from the Fetzer Franklin Fund and the eter and Patricia Gruber Foundation. The topic for this contest is: Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability
For a brief time in history, it was possible to imagine that a sufficiently advanced intellect could, given sufficient time and resources, in principle understand how to mathematically prove everything that was true. They could discern what math corresponds to physical laws, and use those laws to predict anything that happens before it happens. That time has passed. Gödel’s undecidability results (the incompleteness theorems), Turing’s proof of non-computable values, the formulation of quantum theory, chaos, and other developments over the past century have shown that there are rigorous arguments limiting what we can prove, compute, and predict. While some connections between these results have come to light, many remain obscure, and the implications are unclear. Are there, for example, real consequences for physics — including quantum mechanics — of undecidability and non-computability? Are there implications for our understanding of the relations between agency, intelligence, mind, and the physical world?
In this essay contest, we open the floor for investigations of such connections, implications, and speculations. We invite rigorous but bold and open-minded investigation of the meaning of these impossibilities for reality, and for us, its residents. The contest is open now, and we will be accepting entries until March 16th.
Note: Despite a slight slip on the contest page, we aren't looking at time travel for essay entries! The real timeline is available which might be more helpful to those who don't have access to a flux capacitor
Watching the Watchmen: Demystifying the Frauchiger-Renner Experiment — musings from Lidia del Rio and more at the 6th FQXi Meeting
By GEORGE MUSSER • Dec. 24, 2019 @ 19:04 GMT
Credit: Lidia del Rio
Even by their usual excitable standards, the physicists and philosophers who study the foundations of quantum mechanics have been abuzz about a thought experiment first proposed in 2016 by Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner at ETH Zurich, and later published in Nature Communications (Frauchiger, D., Renner, R. Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself. Nat Commun 9, 3711 (2018)). A blog post about it by Scott Aaronson of the University of Texas drew nearly 300 comments, and sparks flew at the two most recent FQXi meetings. So it was high time for me to buckle down and make sense of the experiment.
An amped up version of the Schrodinger Cat Paradox spells trouble for all quantum interpretations -- according to its architect Renato Renner. He tells Zeeya and Brendan how the controversial thought experiment works, and why he thinks it is bad news for fans of Many Worlds and quantum parallel universes, QBism, Collapse models and (less so) for Bohmian interpretations of quantum mechanics. But not everyone agrees.
You can listen to a detailed rundown of the thought experiment for beginners, in which Renner talks through each step, on the podcast. He also describes the controversy his paper caused, and how fans of various interpretations of quantum mechanics—including Many World's, QBism, Bohmian mechanics and Collapse models—argue that the paradox actually supports their preferred model, while ruling out its rivals. But Renner, as you'll hear, disagrees, explaining that in his opinion, no current interpretation can provide a satisfactory way out of the paradox.
I've come up with my own way of describing it—vetted by Renner—and put it into the form of a quantum circuit that I've run on IBM's cloud quantum computer. Renner says it is the first experimental implementation of his experiment. (A closely related experiment proposed by Časlav Brukner of Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Vienna has already been performed (Science Advances 20 Sep 2019: Vol. 5, no. 9, eaaw9832).) The interpretive dispute will no doubt rumble on. But what makes quantum physics fun is the journey, not the destination.
The experiment engineers a contradiction between third- and first-person views: the objective perspective that physics traditionally provides and the experience of an embedded observer. "In physics we try to build a theory of the world as seen from the outside, as God would see it," Renner's colleague Lídia del Rio said at this year's FQXi meeting in Tuscany. "But of course, to do this, we have only, as a basis, our own observations. We are always talking about the point of view of some observers, and the best we can do is talk to each other, compare observations, and try to build a consistent picture." In the Frauchiger-Renner experiment, observers find themselves weirdly unable to do this. "The agents will make some inferences about each other's results, which in the end will be contradictory," del Rio said.
These days, especially, it seems naïve to expect that we could reach consensus through dialogue. But et tu, physics?
Becoming One With Nature
As usually presented, the experiment involves a convoluted series of measurements and logical deductions. But stripped to its essence, all you are doing is measuring a pair of entangled particles in two different ways. Normally, the first measurement of a particle would disturb it, spoiling the second. But Frauchiger and Renner propose a trick to measure and remeasure the particle in its pristine state: combine a direct and an indirect measurement. One observer measures the particle, and another measures the first observer. The first measurement transfers the state of the particle to the combined system of particle and observer, making it available for a second look. Frauchiger and Renner argue that, in specific cases, the indirect measurement is just as good as a direct one.
So, this experiment has the feature that observers are themselves observed. In most presentations of the experiment, the observers are human beings, but they could be just particles. All they have to do is make a prediction on the basis of quantum theory, and, for Frauchiger and Renner's scenario, that is a simple logical operation. Swapping particles for people makes the whole business of observing-the-observer seem less mysterious and implausible. That said, it also lessens the philosophical puzzle, because only if the observers are people can they be said to have a first-person viewpoint.
This procedure requires four observers in all, two for each of the entangled particles. Let's call those making the direct measurement the "friends" and those making the indirect measurement the "Wigners," in homage to the physicist Eugene Wigner, who was one of the first to note that observing the observer is a useful test case for interpretations of quantum theory. If the particles are photons, the observers measure their polarization using a special light filter. The friends orient their filters horizontally, and the particle either passes through (0) or reflects off (1). The Wigners orient theirs diagonally, and again the particle either passes through (+) or reflects off (–). So, that's four results to compare:
1. What a friend saw for the first particle vs. what a friend saw for the second
2. What a Wigner saw for the first particle vs. what a friend saw for the second
3. What a friend saw for the first particle vs. what a Wigner saw for the second
4. What a Wigner saw for the first particle vs. what a Wigner saw for the second
The team creates and measures multiple pairs of particles to see the statistical trends. The particles are entangled in a way devised by Lucien Hardy of the Perimeter Institute in 1993. This state can be written in four equivalent ways corresponding to the above cross-comparisons:
1. |00> + |01> + |10>
2. |+0> + |+1> + |–1>
3. |0+> + |1+> + |1–>
4. |++> + |+–> + |–+> – |– –>
To write these is just an exercise in geometry, using the fact that diagonal is part horizontal and part vertical. I am neglecting the exact probabilities for these sundry outcomes; Hardy considered a range of values. What's important is that, in the first three formulas, only three of the four possible outcomes arise, whereas in the fourth all can occur. Hardy showed that such a pattern is hard to explain and seems to require some spooky coordination among the particles.
Frauchiger and Renner have a different aim. They don't seek to explain how the particles could exhibit this pattern, only what happens if they do. Because the first three formulas contain a restricted set of outcomes, a friend can sometimes be certain what a Wigner will see, and vice versa. Based on that, we can draw some conclusions for what they will see and surmise.
When the first friend measures 0, she can conclude the second Wigner will measure + (per #3).
When the second friend measures 1, she knows the first friend must have measured 0 (per #1) and concluded that the second Wigner will measure +. The second friend adopts this prediction as her own, on the assumption that if you know that someone knows something, you know that thing, too—a principle that philosophers call "closure."
When the first Wigner measures –, he knows the second friend must have measured 1 (per #2). He now adopts the friend's prediction.
But sometimes when the first Wigner measures –, the second Wigner will measure –, too (per #4). That violates the prediction. Paradox!
Winding Back the Clock
When critics such as Aaronson say Frauchiger and Renner got it wrong, they are not disputing that the experiment gives the results it does. It's the interpretation that riles them.
Many have latched onto the strange feature that the observers are themselves observed. Observation is not a passive operation, but a thoroughgoing alteration. In the course of doing their indirect measurement, the Wigners undo the friends' direct measurement and wipe their memory. The friends see something, then un-see it. To them, it is as though nothing has happened; when the experiment wraps up and everyone else goes out for after-work drinks, the friends are still sitting there asking, "When will the experiment start?" In some descriptions of the experiment, it's even worse: they enter a Schrödinger-cat-like state of complete ambiguity. This makes The Matrix or brain-in-vat scenarios look tame by comparison. It's one thing to imagine that our world is a virtual projection, another that someone could reach directly into our brains and decide what we think.
At the meeting in Tuscany, Aaronson and Raphael Bousso at U.C. Berkeley argued that if you can't trust in your own integrity as a reasoning agent, you shouldn't be surprised to encounter contradictions such as the one in Frauchiger-Renner. By screwing with the friends' temporal continuity, the experiment smashes the chain of logical statements. If someone has made an observation and then un-made it, you can't base any conclusions on that observation.
Renner and del Rio reply that the experiment is staged to avoid this problem. The friends do get wiped, but by that point, they have no further role to play in the experiment. Whatever they saw and concluded has already been incorporated into the analysis, and nobody refers to it again. Now, you might wonder, if their memory is wiped, then how can any record of their observation endure? This is the most critical part of the experiment. Most of the time, it is true that no record endures. But when the conditions I laid out above are satisfied—namely, when observers are able to make definitive predictions for one another—information lives on. That happens for one in six trials (given the specific Hardy state used by Frauchiger and Renner), and a contradiction arises in half those cases. Thus the experiment walks a line: in undoing an observation, it sometimes preserves a trace of it.
Making the Circuit
This can be illustrated by a quantum circuit—that is, an algorithm that can be implemented on a quantum computer. If you're new to quantum circuits, this section will probably make zero sense. The main takeaway is that the circuit shows how the observers don't need to be humans. Also, the circuit lays bare the sequence of events and the conditions under which information can endure, allaying some of the skeptics' misgivings.
I've implemented the circuit using Quirk, an online quantum simulator created by Craig Gidney in Google's quantum-computing group. (Gidney has his own circuit version of the Frauchiger-Renner experiment.) You can run and modify the circuit for yourself.
I'm attaching a PDF version of this circuit to this post. If you scroll down to the bottom of the post, you can click "Quirk_circuit.pdf" to open a larger version, so you can more easily see the details.
Here, the observers are abbreviated F1 and F2 (the friends) and W1 and W2 (the Wigners). The first two wires (horizontal lines) are qubits representing the entangled particles. The next two are flags indicating whether a given observer is able to make a firm prediction. The following two are the actual predictions. Although we have four observers, we need only two sets of wires, since we track only two observers at a time. The bottom wire is a workspace where observers compare their results and confirm they are entitled to make the inferences they do—an aspect of the Frauchiger-Renner experiment that tends to get overlooked.
Quirk has a nice set of probes—colored green or cyan—that show the qubit values and their correlations at any stage nondestructively. The two boxes with four little yellow circles are custom operations to create or manipulate the Hardy state. The rest of the symbols are standard quantum circuit symbols.
The steps in the procedure are:
1. Hardy state preparation
2. F1 measures particle 1. If 0, F1 is able to make a firm prediction—namely, that W2 will measure + (0). Otherwise F1 assigns equal probabilities to + (0) and – (1).This gives formulation #3 of the Hardy state.
3. F2 measures particle 2. If 1, F2 is able to make a firm prediction—namely, that F1 measured 0. Otherwise F1 assigns equal probabilities to 0 and 1. This gives formulation #1 of the Hardy state.
4. If F2 does make a firm prediction for F1, she can further conclude that F1 has made a firm prediction for W2—namely, that W2 will measure + (0)—and hence can provisionally adopt that prediction as her own. Because of the sign conventions adopted in this circuit, F2’s prediction for F1 (in the 0/1 basis) is automatically a prediction for W2 (in the +/– basis).
5. F1 and F2 confer and check for two errors. First, whether, when F2 is able to make a firm prediction for F1 and W2, F1 either (i) could not make a firm prediction for W2, or (ii) made a different prediction. This tests the assumption of transitivity of knowledge. Note that F2 can adopt a prediction only if it is firm; if she tried to adopt probabilistic predictions, the next step would fail. A firm prediction can be made without using two-qubit gates. This selective reasoning is the main asymmetry in the experiment.
6. F1’s role is over, so her measurement can be undone, clearing the way for W1 to make his. F1’s prediction qubits can be put to other uses.
7. W1 measures particle in the +/– basis. If – (1), W1 is able to make a firm prediction—namely, that F2 measured 1. Otherwise W1 assigns weighted probabilities to 0 and 1. This gives formulation #2 of the Hardy state.
8. If W1 does make a firm prediction for F2, she can further conclude that F2 has made a firm prediction for F1 and thus for W2 and hence can provisionally adopt that prediction as her own. Because of the sign conventions in this circuit, we have to invert W1’s prediction for F2 in order to interpret it as a prediction for W2.
9. W1 and F2 confer and check whether, when W1 is able to make a firm prediction for F2 and W2, F2 either (i) F2 could not make a firm prediction for W2, or (ii) made a different prediction. As in step #5, W1 can adopt only a firm prediction or else the next step would fail.
10. F2’s role is over, so her measurement can be undone, clearing the way for W2 to make his.
11. W2 measures particle 2 in the +/– basis and obtains statistics for formulation #4 of the Hardy state, including -- (11) one run in 12.
12. W1 and W2 confer and check whether W1 erred, i.e. whether he predicted + (0) with certainty yet W2 obtained 1 (–). And he did err for one run in 12, half his predictions.
Just for fun, and just because I could, I ran this circuit on the IBM Q Experience online quantum computer. IBM's interface is sleek and easy to use, but I had to strip down the circuit to accommodate the hardware's limitations, not all of which are documented. I'm grateful to Paul Nation at IBM's Quantum Computing group for his help. The output is now a single error bit signaling a paradox: the second Wigner didn't observe – (1) as the other observers had predicted.
First I ran the circuit on IBM's own simulator and got such an error in 86 of 1024 trials, closely matching the theoretical prediction of one in 12. Then I ran it on an actual quantum computer located in Ourense, Spain. It was just as easy as running the simulator and took less than a minute. I got 461 errors in 1024 trials. This higher value suggest that the device is rather noisy. The other processors that IBM makes available gave similar results. I also checked some of the intermediate values and, not surprisingly, the early steps roughly match theory, while later ones deviate significantly.
So, if the strange wiping of memory doesn't account for the paradox, what does? It comes down to the unpalatable choice between quantum physics and the objectivity of knowledge.
Quantum physics says the second friend does not—and could not—measure the second Wigner directly. If you can't measure something even in principle, most physicists would question whether that thing exists, in which case there isn't any such thing as a direct comparison of these two observers, and the observers commit a fallacy by pooling their knowledge to draw the comparison nonetheless. Yet pooling knowledge is what scientists do. They couldn't function otherwise.
If you accept quantum mechanics as hard fact, but then weaken the category of "hard fact," haven't you swallowed your own tail? Physicists created the theory and proved it experimentally by stringing together inferences. Every measurement they make is indirect—a long chain of "if this, then that" stretching from the state of a particle to a signal a human can perceive. Those who would give up objectivity to save quantum mechanics may lose both. (That said, maybe quantum mechanics has a theory of knowledge tucked inside it in the form of quantum Darwinism, see "The Evolution of Reality.")
Carlo Rovelli and others have argued for years that quantum mechanics is perspectival: there is no third-person view at all. They still accept some kind of postulate of consistency: observers' viewpoints may differ, but must mesh whenever they come into contact, so that no out-and-out contradiction arises. Yet they remove the most natural explanation for that consistency: a world independent of us. Frauchiger and Renner's experiment might nudge more people to adopt a perspectival view, but heightens the puzzle of how we ever come to any agreement.
attachments: Quirk_circuit.pdf
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Author H Chris Ransford wrote on Jan. 18, 2017 @ 22:04 GMT
Essay Abstract
This paper examines whether and how sentience and intentions can emerge from pure mathematical laws. It reaches the conclusion that the answer quite surprisingly depends on a particular metric of the universe or multiverse.
H Chris Ransford is the author of 'The Far Horizons of time' (de Gruyter), and most recently of 'God and the Mathematics of Infinity' (Ibidem Verlag)
Download Essay PDF File
John C Hodge wrote on Jan. 19, 2017 @ 05:44 GMT
Ransford
Thanks for commenting on my paper.
Look around. You are in a single universe. If you mean 1 and only 1 universe , then you have misinterpreted the phrase. If you mean to postulate multiverse, then you have it backward -there is no unique evidence that more than our universe exists. That would require evidence. (The multiverse is an interpretation of QM. Many...
Look around. You are in a single universe. If you mean 1 and only 1 universe , then you have misinterpreted the phrase. If you mean to postulate multiverse, then you have it backward -there is no unique evidence that more than our universe exists. That would require evidence. (The multiverse is an interpretation of QM. Many interpretations of QM exist. To accept a multiverse requires observation evidence that rejects all the other interpretations and does not reject multiverse) .
I like a modified Bohm Interpretation (BI) with a partice light (photon) being directed by a pilot wave. The weakness of BI is it omits how and where the pilot wavw originates. Consider General Relativity. Matter warps space ( medium like an aether) ant the warp directs matter. So, the pilot wave in the BI is caused by matter. (Unity of GR and the small?)
The advantage of BI is that there is an experiment that rejects all QM interpretation except the modified BI.
The following papers present an experiment that is easily done that rejects a wave like nature of the light (photon) and by extention the electron.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc0mfCssV32dDhDgwq
LJjpw
Then play the video titled Photon Diffraction
http://intellectualarchive.com/?link=item&id=1603
"Diffraction experiment and its Stoe photon simulation program rejects wave models of light" click on mse42MY.pdf .
As you said more documentation than 10 pages allow except as a reference.
Science logic has to have some postulates. The paper postulated the emergence philosophy was a Emergence Principle of the universe. From that it follows the single TOE exists.
Another thing to note, the QM model as a probabilistic model is an indiator of a set of agents unknown but existing. I think they are my plenum (continous that supports wave action and hods matter). This was mentioned.
If you chose another assumption, find the data.
BTW. In the STOE model there has to be a Source (at the center of spiral galaxies) and a Sink (elliptical galaxies). These have to come and go from somewhere, perhaps another type of universe. But not a 3D+time.
There is considerably more evidence to support the Emercence Principle than the multiverse from QM.
I regard words/concepts such as intent, free will, conscious, mind as being without merit in science because they lack sufficient definition. Look at these papers, they use the same words and mean different things. For example, look at the phrasing of "Delayed Choice experiment". Especially "choice" as if that is what is being measued - Its not. Like the ancient Greeks the matter has no "Choice" or other human abstract quality. My papers above show there is a deterministic model to explain Young's and Hodge's experiments.
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Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 19, 2017 @ 11:39 GMT
Hello Mr Hodge and Mr Ransford,
Thanks for sharing your works to both of you.It is relevant because indeed we search the laws of this universe.The philosophical point of vue is important.About multiverses and the causes of laws.It becomes complex when we insert indeed the maths.This to explain that the domains chosen so become philosophical.We arrive so at how must we interpret the...
Thanks for sharing your works to both of you.It is relevant because indeed we search the laws of this universe.The philosophical point of vue is important.About multiverses and the causes of laws.It becomes complex when we insert indeed the maths.This to explain that the domains chosen so become philosophical.We arrive so at how must we interpret the uniqueness and the entire entropy above this physicality in complexification.Multiverses for me of Mr Tegmark are more subtil than we can imagine because that extrapolates towards personal singularities ,like if we had our own universe.I have even said him that he could create the multispheres where personal psychology and gravitational soul are extrapolated.But of course we arrive at a complex play of maths and subjective analyse but what I find relevant is that subjectivity and objectivity can converge.But if I can it is important to consider the principle entropiqua the principle of uniqueness,the singularities, personal and gravitation are linked.We die electromagnetically ,not gravitationally.When we consider these singularities, quant ,personal and gravitational,we can also consider that all turns around this cosmological singularity implying this uniqueness;That is why the aether is gravitational and that we must consider multispheres like subjective and mathjematical about the singular soul of each uniquenss serie.We retrun always to this uniquenss at all scales.The multispheres return always at this uniquenss due to main causes from this entropy considering a central BH for this universal sphere.Eisntein said that god does not play at dices, newton and tesla were fervent thinkers in this infinite entropy above our understanding creating a physicality with codes and informations of evolution.The uniquenss seems foundamental on this irrversible entropical Arrow of time....I like a lot your line of reasonings to both of you.We search answers after all, we know so few still about this universal sphere and its quantum sphères for me.They turn so they are.
Another possibilty to your 2 is that "mind" is isufficienctly defined. Therefore, the phrasing of the question is meaningless.
Infinities and singularities are unreal. If a math answer is infinitiey or singularity then the physics incorrectly models the universe.
You postulate the other universes are dlike ours. So light from another universe should behave in ours. The spaces should meld. As you maynote above, the other universes could be very different (ie 2 D).
Francis Duane Moore wrote on Jan. 19, 2017 @ 19:05 GMT
The author analyzed the question about mindless math and aims and intentions, which was nice but I thought the questions intention was to stimulate creativity concerning representation theory of some aim or intention of the science of Physics
Author H Chris Ransford replied on Feb. 10, 2017 @ 13:12 GMT
Please do read to the end? Thanks
Branko L Zivlak wrote on Jan. 19, 2017 @ 20:26 GMT
Mr Ransford
You say:
„There is, as of yet, no consensus on whether our universe or multiverse is finite or infinite.“
About infinity?“ (word universe is enough).
We should be precise on what is meant.
I cited Ruđer Bošković “Now, although I do not hold with infinite divisibility, yet I do admit infinite componibility“.
Therefore I say: mass and space of the universe and any other phenomenon is finite but the number of their combination is infinite and Universe is eternal.
Generally speaking your statement about role of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences is quite acceptable.
Zivlak
Just a mention maybe, you state that Quote mass and space of the universe and any other phenomenon is finite but the number of their combination is infinite Unquote
I take it you use the word 'infinite' here as meaning 'extremely large' rather than mathematically infinite (elementary combinatory analytics says that you cannot reach infinity from a combination of any finite number of elements, however large)I tend to prefer to stick to the mathematical definitions rather than using words in their more 'popular' definitions.
There are many different views and possible scenarios as to the ultimate fate of the universe, maybe the statement 'the uiverse is eternal' needs to be further examined.
Stefan Weckbach wrote on Jan. 20, 2017 @ 10:46 GMT
Dear Chris Ransford,
you made some good points in your essay by asking what ingedients of nature could be more fundamental than others, some Ur-mind ‘stuff’ or explicitly material stuff. I like that you try to argue with already established scientific/mathematical results to find out what these results can say about the limits of their own field of investigation.
I think it is...
I think it is important to think about scientific arguments which involve infinities and investigate if the consequences of these infinities are all consistent with each other. As you, i think that defining the ‘universe’ as an infinite hierarchy of infinities, is highly problematic. As you describe, it would lead us to think of reality as some kind of infinitely dimensional Hilbert-Hotel where former impossibilities necessarily must transform into necessities.
But one conclusion of yours I couldn't trace to be logically valid. You wrote “Thus, we have come to a fork in the road: if our universe or multiverse is finite, then mathematics must be the ultimate truth.”
I highlight the word ‘must’ here. I cannot see that there is the logical necessity for a finite universe to be fundamentally grounded only on mathematics. If this could be logically derived (as you seem to have done), then one should be able to formalize this logical necessity via a mathematical proof. But such a proof could only prove what it assumes in the first place as an axiom. So we are stuck with the axiom that a finite universe must have its fundamental basis in mathematics, but this ought-to-be fundamental basis isn’t able to deliver what it should deliver out of itself: a mathematical basis (means proof) that it is the fundamental basis of a finite universe.
Therefore i consider the assumption that mathematics should have the ultimate priority when defining the most fundamental ingredient of our universe as highly questionable. I see the fact that mathematics cannot prove itself to be the ultimate truth as an indication that it has its fundamental limits. If so, the corresponding material reality should reflect this. Indeed, as you may know quantum mechanics reflects these limits. For example Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle has found to gain its fundamental validity not only due to the limits of accurate measurements, but as a matter of a natural principle (see for example https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120116095529.h
tm).
It is hard for me to reconcile the above results with mathematics as being the one and only ruler of the universe. Surely one can hopefully extrapolate the hitherto empirical successes of mathematics in science into the future. Surely one can assume, similar to Turing’s halting problem, that every instance of it will necessarily halt in the future. But isn’t this just a counterfactual assumption in the light of the Heisenberg’s uncertainties, because due to the latter it cannot ever be proven to be empirically correct? What do we make out of an assumtion which is neither empirically nor mathematically provable – in principle – due to fundamental limits in both fields of investigation? My anser is that the question of what we until now assume to be the fundamental layer of reality (maths and determinism) may alter and enrich its meaning by refering it to its own fundamental limits.
Author H Chris Ransford replied on Jan. 20, 2017 @ 11:09 GMT
Great post Stefan,
Thank you ...
This post format is probably not the best vehicle to respond with any degree of cogency (or for that matter exhaustiveness) but suffice to say I agree with most of what you say here.
To complete my foregoing answer
1- There is an element of 'semantics' involved, terms must be defined with a high degree of accuracy, and 'mathematics' does not mean the same thing to all people (cf. Tegmark et al.)
2- A lot of your answer seems to assume that perhaps the universe is indeed finite? I tend to think that the balance of likelihoods points the other way (but of course, as I stress in the essay, there is no proof either way.)
Now you know :-) why this post format is not necessarily the best - dealing exhaustively with point 2 above would be book-length ....
Joe Fisher replied on Jan. 20, 2017 @ 16:50 GMT
Dear Author Ransford,
Thank you for warning me that you have no idea what reality am.
One real visible Universe must have only one reality. Simple natural reality has nothing to do with any abstract complex musings such as the ones you effortlessly indulge in. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not as complicated as theories of reality are.
Joe Fisher, Realist
Don C Foster wrote on Jan. 21, 2017 @ 03:41 GMT
Rodney,
I read your essay with interest, but must disagree with your statement that “our universe is purely mathematical,” suggesting that mathematics is somehow more real than the universe it describes. I may be admitting to feet of clay here, but from my perspective, the weakness in this argument is that, unless mathematics is to be entirely self-referential, there must be something on the other side of the equal sign. Those two little parallel lines mean a great deal. Mathematics is always in an adaptive-loop relationship, edging toward the equilibrium moment that signals conformity with some actual dynamic. The universe is its own best equation. Mathematics is at best a refined “stone rubbing” of that underlying reality.
Dear Mr. Foster,
The real visible Universe am not mathematical. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not as complicated as finite mathematical constructs are.
Lee Bloomquist wrote on Jan. 23, 2017 @ 08:38 GMT
The author writes:
"…the question ' How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?' contains two markers of possible illegitimacy. The word 'mindless' is stated but not proven, and the phrase 'give rise' posits a stated but as yet unproven time sequence. There would be, for example, no a priori grounds to dismiss the remote possibility that, like humans and apes, both...
"…the question ' How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?' contains two markers of possible illegitimacy. The word 'mindless' is stated but not proven, and the phrase 'give rise' posits a stated but as yet unproven time sequence. There would be, for example, no a priori grounds to dismiss the remote possibility that, like humans and apes, both mathematical laws and mindful aims and intentions spring from an ultimately common source, rather than one from the other."
I took this question a different way. The principle of least action, for example, has no variables for representing intention, decision, information, possibilities, information channel, etc. Yet Richard Feynman has described a particle as "smelling" the possibilities in such a calculation, when the mathematics is "mindless" on this account. There is no "smelling" in the mathematical statements. But the idea is strongly intuitive for Feynman and he uses it.
Are there any categories of mathematics in which we could find such things as "goals," intentions," etc.?
Yes. Game Theory for example.
And— there is another category where "information channel" is the central mathematical object. This is covered in Jon Barwise and Jerry Seligman's book "Information Flow: The Logic of Distributed Systems."
Relativity is a good example.
Water and air afford information channels for messages carried by sound. Applying this to space, the idea before Einstein was that the "aether" afforded a similar information channel, in the same way that water and air afford information channels.
But this does not work.
So the choice is either (a) give up on the idea that an information channel carries the message and signal from Einstein's clocks.
Or, (b) hold onto the principle of the information channel; but in relativity (and perhaps regarding intentions), look for an information channel to exist as something different from space.
That complex numbers can be used to model "possibility" allows me to take a next step (cf. An Overall Approach.)
An information channel comprises a system of parts, one part carrying information about another part. But in relativity, we cannot say that space is such a system. We have to expand the search.
Well, the wave function is a complex number. So say, for the moment, that there is a wave function for the Universe and that it is the system of possibilities we are looking for.
Then insofar as the wave function of a particle is part of the wave function of the Universe, the possibilities for, say, particle A can convey information about, say, the possibilities for particle B, by virtue of the system of possibilities (the wave function of the Universe) which now constitutes an information channel carrying information about possibilities from one particle to another.
Or, if you prefer something other than "wave function of the Universe," Bohm and Hiley's Holomovement also works as an information channel for broadcasting possibilities. (ibid. The Holomovement is a stream.)
Georgina Woodward wrote on Jan. 25, 2017 @ 09:11 GMT
the light carries the information, as frequency and intensity.
Chris, I liked the way you clearly set out your arguments throughout. Your questioning of the question at the start was a nice introduction.
Harry Hamlin Ricker III wrote on Jan. 31, 2017 @ 15:19 GMT
Hi, This essay is commended for trying to address the essay contest topic. However, I was not convinced by the arguments presented. In addition I thought that the essay presented a fallacy in the idea that mathematics exists independent of human beings who invented it. That is a Platonic concept and it has some severe problems in convincing people it is true. I wasn't convinced.
Greetings Harry,
Thanks for the thoughtful post. The dichotomy between the Platonic and the Aristotelian views of reality is still hotly debated, with little consensus in sight. My years in physics and physical chemistry make me rather strongly lean towards the Platonic view, but I recognize that it's not everyone's view.
A full argument would of course be book-length, and still I fully respect that some might still not be convinced: that's how science works, with consensus only established after considerable work on the part of all.
Some of the opposition to the Platonic view has sometimes come from its purported "insane consequences" - witness for instance Dieter Zeh's comments, etc. One of the most utterly strange books I have ever read has to be Colin Bruce's, who espouses the view of multiple copies/near copies etc. across the metaverse . I believe that whatever we do, and whatever our take is on the nature of reality, we must remain very, very careful with our mathematics.
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta wrote on Feb. 8, 2017 @ 02:28 GMT
Hi Chris Ransford,
An excellent analysis on the FQXi question for the contest itself...
Can you please through some light on your words...."the evidence that the universe is indeed purely mathematical is overwhelming."
Have a look at my essay also...
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Mar. 18, 2017 @ 10:04 GMT
Hi CR
I want you to ask you to please have a look at my essay, where ……………reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will be having a purpose or goal, Different Galaxies will be born and die (quench) etc…just have a look at the essay… “Distances,...
I want you to ask you to please have a look at my essay, where ……………reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will be having a purpose or goal, Different Galaxies will be born and die (quench) etc…just have a look at the essay… “Distances, Locations, Ages and Reproduction of Galaxies in our Dynamic Universe” where UGF (Universal Gravitational force) acting on each and every mass, will create a direction and purpose of movement…..
I think intension is inherited from Universe itself to all Biological systems
For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.
Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example ‘Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary’ (1994) , ‘Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe’, About “SITA” simulations, ‘Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required’, “New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations”, “Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background”, “Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.”, in 2015 ‘Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, ‘Explaining Pioneer anomaly’, ‘Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets’, ‘Observation of super luminal neutrinos’, ‘Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up’, “Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto” etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.
With axioms like… No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.
Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain
Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading…
http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/
st wishes to your essay.
For your blessings please…………….
=snp. gupta
Branko L Zivlak wrote on Feb. 11, 2017 @ 17:39 GMT
Dear Mr. Ransford
Yes you are right. Bošković use the word 'infinite' here as meaning 'extremely large'.
Also, maybe the statement 'the uiverse is eternal' needs to be further examined.
So I confirm. We should be precise on what is meant.
I think the solution lies in the irrationality of mathematical and physical constants.
Clair Wilson wrote on Feb. 14, 2017 @ 12:36 GMT
an interesting read..some of your ideas are pretty novel..and yeah probably not all will agree with your statements still your ideas should exist and you should work on developing them..looking forward to reading more from you..and will tell this jet writers about you so that they pay attention to your work and promote them a little..best
Dear Clair,
Thank you for your kind comments
H Chris
George Kirakosyan wrote on Feb. 21, 2017 @ 05:58 GMT
I have read your essay and I have seen there things very close to me, as examples:
//When attempting to answer any question, we must remember that not all questions are legitimate // - in my view, this can be accepted as a main criterion to distinguish intelligent man from not so smart!
// … the question ' How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?' contains two markers of possible illegitimacy // - you just have touched on the target on a 100%!
I am highly welcome your essay, with clear soul!
Good wishes
Thanks for the kind words George,
Some people have commended this essay and given it high marks (see some of the comments on RG for instance), and some have attacked it with a measure of furor, including one person who insulted me and the FQXi for good measure.
It reminds one of the ratings on, say, Amazon, where a same piece of creative work is routinely given a high 5 stars by some and 1 star by others.
It seems to me that some works resonate with some people, and simply don't with others. Part of this likely has to do with everyone's individual backgrounds. Beyond that, an observation is that with non-fiction rather than with art, some low graders just do not or did not get it - perhaps because, in some cases, their background has not prepared them for the concepts discussed.
That happens, of course, with all of us, but most of us will just refrain from commenting on items we are not equipped to appreciate or judge. As a case in point, I submitted my latest book(God and the Mathematics of Infinity) to a few theologians, and some absolutely loved it and some others loathed it with a passion. Perhaps a handful of those who loathe non-fiction works are those whose worldviews are challenged by the work? I understand fully how painful it can be to see long-held views, views around which one has built a life structure, come under questioning - no matter how logically so. But then again, life is about growing, isn't it? Aren't our cherished life structures at their most useful when they provide the buttress and backstop to prepare us for the next step up? If we do not accept that, it means that we assume that we can reach wisdom here on Earth - whereas, just perhaps, all we can ever achieve is growth...
George Kirakosyan replied on Feb. 21, 2017 @ 10:14 GMT
Thank you that you have shared with me by your right remarks and judgments, and what we can do with this, my dear? It is the life (,,Se la vi!,,) say Frenches. We must always be ready to meet this!
Héctor Daniel Gianni wrote on Mar. 12, 2017 @ 22:19 GMT
Dear Chris Ransford
I invite you and every physicist to read my work “TIME ORIGIN,DEFINITION AND EMPIRICAL MEANING FOR PHYSICISTS, Héctor Daniel Gianni ,I’m not a physicist.
How people interested in “Time” could feel about related things to the subject.
1) Intellectuals interested in Time issues usually have a nice and creative wander for the unknown.
2) They usually enjoy this wander of their searches around it.
3) For millenniums this wander has been shared by a lot of creative people around the world.
4) What if suddenly, something considered quasi impossible to be found or discovered such as “Time” definition and experimental meaning confronts them?
5) Their reaction would be like, something unbelievable,… a kind of disappointment, probably interpreted as a loss of wander…..
6) ….worst than that, if we say that what was found or discovered wasn’t a viable theory, but a proved fact.
7) Then it would become offensive to be part of the millenary problem solution, instead of being a reason for happiness and satisfaction.
8) The reader approach to the news would be paradoxically adverse.
9) Instead, I think it should be a nice welcome to discovery, to be received with opened arms and considered to be read with full attention.
11)Time “existence” is exclusive as a “measuring system”, its physical existence can’t be proved by science, as the “time system” is. Experimentally “time” is “movement”, we can prove that, showing that with clocks we measure “constant and uniform” movement and not “the so called Time”.
12)The original “time manuscript” has 23 pages, my manuscript in this contest has only 9 pages.
I share this brief with people interested in “time” and with physicists who have been in sore need of this issue for the last 50 or 60 years.
Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich wrote on Mar. 13, 2017 @ 15:36 GMT
Dear H Chris Ransford!
I appreciate your essay. You spent a lot of effort to write it.
If you believed in the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, then your essay would be even better. There is not movable a geometric space, and is movable physical space. These are different concepts.
I invite you to familiarize yourself with New Cartesian Physic
I wish to see your criticism on the New Cartesian Physic, the founder of which I call myself.
The concept of moving space-matter helped me: The uncertainty principle Heisenberg to make the principle of definiteness of points of space-matter; Open the law of the constancy of the flow of forces through a closed surface is the sphere of space-matter; Open the law of universal attraction of Lorentz; Give the formula for the pressure of the Universe; To give a definition of gravitational mass as the flow vector of the centrifugal acceleration across the surface of the corpuscles, etc.
New Cartesian Physic has great potential in understanding the world. To show this potential in essay I risked give «The way of The materialist explanation of the paranormal and the supernatural” - Is the name of my essay.
Visit my essay and you will find something in it about New Cartesian Physic. Note my statement that our brain creates an image of the outside world no inside, and in external space.
Do not let New Cartesian Physic get away into obscurity! I am waiting your post.
Dizhechko Boris
Lorraine Ford wrote on Apr. 5, 2017 @ 05:04 GMT
H Chris,
I’m sorry for insulting you. I absolutely abhor the views about of the nature of reality expressed in your essay, and I feel that these views are wrong.
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HANZZmade
what Hannah Krueger's hands make
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Archive | movie RSS for this section
in movie, video
Tough to be a T-Rex
made a NEW Hannah-mation
in movie
T-Rex Teaser
made an advertisement
Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a Red Carpet Premiere of short animated films made by Fourth and Fifth grade students at the school where I teach. Not only did I get to help the kids and their families bring their own super sweet stories to life, but I also got to work on my own movie while imparting knowledge on youngsters.
Throughout this filmmaking process I got to teach the kids about the steps of movie production, from pre-production and storyboarding, to production and shooting, to post-production and editing, all the way down to publicity and advertisement. Soooo…. Tomorrow I will be posting my “Hannah-mation”, Tough to be a T-Rex, here FOR YOU!
in harry potter, movie, Remembering Hogwarts, video
Remembering Hogwarts
Just a few years ago, the Harry Potter book series was complete and soon followed the film series that was adapted from it.
To commemorate the magical moments of those books and films, I started making an animated tribute series, Remembering Hogwarts. In a very short amount of time I animated scenes from the first three Harry Potter tales, but then took a very long time to create a scene from the fourth, The Goblet of Fire.
Though I had a strong vision of what I wanted to do (I made the background in February of 2012), the thought of how much time it would take to build the additional scenery and props (trees, tents, fires) and make hire all the extras (Death Eaters and Victims) was daunting – and on top of it I had to shoot and edit?? Needless to say, I kept this project in the background (on my dresser) for quite a while.
But I finally did it… After three straight days of set design and hiring the talent (crafting), seven-hours of shooting and two of editing, I finally did it…
made a scene from The Goblet of Fire
in construction paper, movie, video
Thanks for Waiting
made an animated original
made a stop-motion scene
Thursday I’ll be starting a 5-week long afterschool program to teach some fourth graders and their parents how to use iPhoto and iMovie to make their own animations. I wanted to make one before the program started so I spent a good part of today in pre-production (cutting and gluing construction paper pieces), production (taking pictures, moving construction paper pieces, taking pictures, moving construction paper pieces, taking pictures, moving construction paper pieces…………), and post-production (editing!) to make this 45-second gem.
Altogether roughly one hour of work for every ten-seconds of footage.
I meeeeeaaaaan…
I enjoyed myself… Sooooooo, hopefully the nine-year-olds will too 😛
made a scene from Prisoner of Azkaban
This third scene in my Remembering Hogwarts Series is really more than one!
(Don’t you just love trick endings?)
I spent A LOT of time on set and prop design for this vid, building an entire car of the Hogwarts Express, the end of Platform 9 3/4 AND an unattended snack trolly. The “location” offered tons of opportunity to play up details and background animation. I’m pretty proud of the scenery as it moves with the train out of London, through city and forest, towards Hogwarts Castle. I used receipt paper for the effect… Talk about an obsolete item- I had to buy a 12 pack to get the 3-feet of slim, rolled paper I needed for this project… And that was a success only had after traveling to four different stores.
At least they have teacher discounts at Office Max.
Too bad the same kind of discounts aren’t offered on Harry Potter action figures…
I might have purchased Draco on Amazon just for this scene.
made a scene from Chamber of Secrets
Expect Remembering Hogwarts to get better and better – I guarantee it to be filled with surprises with each coming scene (in which I set out to do one for each epic Harry Potter tale with epic Harry Potter music).
The set design alone sets this second scene apart from the first . I recreated Moaning Myrtle’s deserted toilet chamber completely with cardboard, a hot glue gun ❤ , and elmer’s paint. Myrtle herself is simply tracing paper.
Keep your brain’s guessing for Prisoner of Azkaban!
Dementor! Dementor!
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Managing and Leading
Being Happy at Work
How to Use Failure to Motivate Yourself
Susan Peppercorn,
04 mins read
In a presentation to a group of executive job seekers in transition, a recruiter made the point that after years of reviewing C-level résumés, she had noticed a commonality: None of these top professionals had escaped having some setbacks, rejections, or missed opportunities. This information surprised the audience of recent layoff victims, who realized that they were in good company when it came to career misfortune. The recruiter was right: Failures and regrets need not derail your career, and, in fact, can propel it forward if handled wisely.
To find out how successful people dealt with situations when they didn’t get what they wanted, I interviewed a range of accomplished consultants, coaches, and other business professionals, asking them: “What rejection did you experience that turned out for the best?”
Failures and regrets need not derail your career, and, in fact, can propel it forward if handled wisely.
When thinking back on jobs they weren’t offered or turned down, graduate schools that didn’t admit them, or promotions that went to someone else, all respondents agreed that they were better off in the long run. Although most were initially disappointed, gaining perspective over time helped them realize that those early frustrations afforded them the chance to try something different and to gain valuable insights.
One of my interviewees, self-reinvention thought leader Dorie Clark, explained that she was turned down by every doctoral program that she applied to. “I ultimately discovered that the minutiae of what a dissertation demands would have killed me,” Clark said.
Gina Warner, CEO of the National AfterSchool Association, told me: “I didn’t pass my bar exam the first time, which meant I couldn’t accept the position I’d been offered at the district attorney’s office. But it did mean I could volunteer on a U.S. Senate campaign, and when that candidate won I got hired to work for her, a much better opportunity for me.”
When people attribute setbacks to lack of fit instead of blaming themselves or another person involved, they’re less likely to give up and more motivated to improve.
Executive coach Nihar Chhaya was rejected by all of the top consulting firms he interviewed with when he was an MBA student at Wharton. “I took it pretty hard,” he admitted. “When you’re in the most competitive school, where everyone is asking who got what, you don’t want to graduate without a job after investing all that work and money in a program you thought would make you set for the future.” But in time, Chhaya realized that he had actually “dodged a bullet”: “I hustled and absorbed everything I could in my position at the Corporate Executive Board, realized that coaching and leadership assessment was my passion, and moved to build a career there.”
These individual ”aha” moments contain some universal truths that professionals at any level can benefit from. Here are three strategies for recovering and thriving when a career goal you once coveted slips away.
Acknowledge the Emotional Pain
“Rejection often triggers painful emotional doubts about our own competence and self-worth, so we either try to avoid it or pretend that it doesn’t matter,” writes consultant Ron Ashkenas in his HBR article “Rejection Is Critical for Success.” But it’s important not to dismiss how you are feeling. Being rejected hurts, and the physiological response it creates in our bodies and minds is akin to physical pain. The reason a negative reaction or rejection causes such strong emotions traces back to our primitive history, when having to leave the tribe after a rebuttal might have resulted in physical danger or even death. If rejection didn’t hurt, our ancestors might have put themselves in harm’s way by storming off into the path of a wild animal or an armed enemy. When you recognize that the emotions you feel are both primal and normal, it can help you move past the ache faster.
Ask Yourself, “Was it me, was it them, or was it us?”
When Chhaya was passed over as a consultant, his first response was to seek an explanation. Why did his classmates get hired and he didn’t? Was it something he did wrong or failed to do? Or was it that the interviewer couldn’t see his potential and the value he brought to the table? The reality is that when you aren’t chosen for an opportunity, the reason often is a problem with fit — such as a values mismatch between you and the other party — rather than something that you (or someone else) did wrong.
Chhaya eventually came to realize that his real interest lay in coaching. “I don’t think I would be where I am today if I had gotten the acceptance back then, because it never would have made me want to push for my own passion versus compete with what I think I ‘should’ have done relative to my classmates,” he said. There’s an added benefit to this shift in thinking: Recent studies confirm that when people attribute setbacks to lack of fit instead of blaming themselves or another person involved, they’re less likely to give up and more motivated to improve.
Embrace Your Strengths
Following Dorie Clark’s rejection from PhD programs, she started writing and consulting, areas of strength and interest for her. Today she is the author of three best-selling books, writes for major publications, and has a thriving consulting business. Recognizing that a PhD wasn’t the only chance for success, Clark let go of her first dream in order to spot the next one, so she could maximize her talents without regret. If you look back for too long, rather than soldiering on in a direction where your talents can shine, you risk the possibility of neglecting fresh opportunities. Consider Gina Warner’s decision to volunteer for a U.S. Senate campaign instead of dwelling on not passing the bar exam. Making a conscious effort to look forward rather than back can lead to personal growth and the discovery of creative options.
Being able to identify the silver lining in a perceived failure or missed opportunity can help you move on to bigger and better things — while maintaining your self-confidence in the process. As Wharton professor Adam Grant puts it: “We are more than the bullet points on our résumés. We are better than the sentences we string together into a word salad under the magnifying glass of an interview. No one is rejecting us. They are rejecting a sample of our work, sometimes only after seeing it through a foggy lens.”
Have questions or feedback for us? Write to us at hbrascend@hbr.org
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Susan Peppercorn
Susan Peppercorn is an executive career transition coach and speaker. She is the author of Ditch Your Inner Critic at Work: Evidence-Based Strategies to Thrive in Your Career. Numerous publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, the Boston Globe, and SELF Magazine have tapped her for career advice. You can download her free Career Fit Self-Assessment and 25 Steps to a Successful Career Transition.
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Home › News and Events › Visit of High Commissioner to Gurudwara Sahib in Greater Montreal D.D.O
Visit of High Commissioner to Gurudwara Sahib in Greater Montreal D.D.O
On the invitation of Gurudwara sahib of Greater Montreal D.D.O., High Commissioner accompanied by Minister(Community & Cultural Affairs) and Second Secretary(PIC) attended the 320th Vaisakhi celebrations in the Gurudwara Sahib on 14 April, 2019.
The High Commissioner was greeted warmly by Mr. Surinder Singh Bains, Chairman, Mr. Gurdeep Singh Sohal, President, Mr. Amar Singh Kaura, General Secretary and the Management Committee of the Gurudwara Sahib. The visit started with a meeting with the Management Committee which was also attended by two Members of Canadian Parliament, Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia, and Mr. Frank Baylis. HC announced that a Consular camp will be organised in the Gurudwara Sahib itself during the next 2-months at a mutually convenient day where all concerned Indian community persons can avail of services such as Life certificate, etc. This announcement was warmly welcomed by entire congregation.
After the meeting the HC proceeded to prayer hall where more than 500 members of the Punjabi community were listening to the Shabad Kirtan. After the Kirtan, the HC was invited to address the Sangat. HC spoke about contribution of the Sikh Gurus to the Humanity, contribution of Guru Gobind Singh Ji to Sikhism and briefed about celebrations of 550th Birth Anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji by GOI by organising special events all over the world through the Indian Missions. HC remarked that at the core of Sikh teachings about equality and oneness is the langar, a free community kitchen where everyone is welcome regardless of social or religious distinctions He briefed the gathering about various policies of GOI for the benefit of Indian Diaspora like OCI cards, e-visa facility, Know India Program, etc. High Commissioner further informed the gathering about ‘Connect with Your Roots’ program of Punjab government to connect with their motherland. He closed his address by inviting the Diaspora to keep the dialogue between High Commission and them as a 2-way dialogue to enable the Mission to listen to the suggestions for improvement in various areas. The High Commissioner alongwith his two Community officers took the Prasad with the Sikh community members in the Langar Hall.
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Outside the Lines: Endorsement
endorsement, love, mihee kim-kort, Outside The Lines, queer, spirituality
I endorsed a new book, Outside the Lines by Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort.
It is an important book…so get a copy!
God’s love for us breaks every boundary. So should our love for each other.
Mihee Kim-Kort is a wife, a mom, and a Presbyterian minister. And she’s queer. As she became aware of her queer sexuality, Mihee wondered what that meant for her spirituality. But instead of pushing her away from God, her queerness has brought her closer to Jesus and taught her how to love better.
In Outside the Lines, Mihee shows us how God, in Jesus, is oriented toward us in a queer and radical way. Through the life, work, and witness of Jesus, we see a God who loves us with a queer love. And our faith in that God becomes a queer spirituality–a spirituality that crashes through definitions and moves us outside of the categories of our making. Whenever we love ourselves and our neighbors with the boundary-breaking love of God, we live out this queer spirituality in the world.
With a captivating mix of personal story and biblical analysis, Outside the Lines shows us how each of our bodies fits into the body of Christ. Outside the lines and without exceptions.
“As someone raised in traditional Christian culture regarding sexuality, I applaud Mihee Kim-Kort’s new book, Outside the Lines. It invites us all, whatever our sexual self-understanding, to ponder afresh the wonder of what it means to be embodied humans with attractions and desires. It presents queerness as a needed theological viewpoint with unique gifts to offer. And beyond that, this book is beautifully, clearly, courageously written.” –Brian D. McLaren, author of A Generous Orthodoxy, The Great Spiritual Migration, Seeking Aliveness
“Mihee Kim-Kort’s Outside the Lines is a work of critical importance. She not only theorizes queerness as a site of theological possibility, she also models how to best craft a book whose form is queer–exceeding the boundaries of discipline and style. Outside the Lines is about the specific and expanded forces of love, intimacy, hospitality, pleasure, grace and the Divine. And Mihee expertly–with immense beauty and care–blends the personal, the political, and the theological in a way that models pastoral care and scholarly inquiry. She wrote a book I wish I had access to as an inquisitive seminarian.” –Darnell Moore, activist, speaker, and author of No Ashes in the Fire
“Mihee Kim-Kort does a beautiful, sacred thing in calling us back to love–love for our bodies, love for one another, but above all, God’s relentless love for us. With grace, elegance, and vulnerability, she weaves together elements of theology, church history, and her own story. With the heart of a pastor and the kindness of a friend, she demystifies queerness, opening up expansive possibilities for a liberated, whole life of faith.” –Jeff Chu, author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?
“I needed Outside the Lines more than I knew. This book made me face so many assumptions about God, others, and myself that I was unaware of. This is a book that offers insight and clarity around queerness, around faith, and around what it means to be human. I can’t recommend it enough.” –Mike McHargue, co-founder of The Liturgists and author of Finding God in the Waves
“In this moving celebration of queerness, Mihee Kim-Kort casts a vision for the church to become a place of generosity, hospitality, and expansive love. Her reflections on theology and identity help us imagine a church where every person–with all their questions, quirks, and insecurities–is affirmed as a gift. With vulnerability and compassion, Mihee welcomes us into a faith that is vibrant and liberating–a faith where we can exhale and find rest. Outside the Lines gives me hope for who we can become.” –Julie Rodgers, writer, speaker, and advocate for LGBTQ Christians
“Kim-Kort’s work is as personal as her own skin. She sees a thing, sees a body, sees a way of being and calls it by a name, queer. What was once a term of insult is now an honorary, a benediction, a name. In a time of ‘othering,’ her voice insists on naming–warmly, fiercely, pastorally.” — Nadia Bolz-Weber, author of Accidental Saints
“This book pulses with passion, a vibrant faith, calling every reader to see beyond convention and embrace the radical love of Jesus. Let Mihee Kim-Kort’s words into your heart, and you will never be the same.” — Diana Butler Bass, author of Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks
Outside the Lines, is a spectacular provocative journey of self-discovery that explores the image of the church as the body of Christ and the concept of love as we experience it. Kim-Kort’s open, vulnerable self-disclosure invites us to explore our own sexuality, love and desires. This theological extravaganza is imaginative and accessible, and for all who seek to love ourselves, others and God. —Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Associate Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion and author of many books including, Embracing the Other and Mother Daughter Speak
Mihee Kim-Kort is an ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA) and lives with her family in Indiana. She is author of Making Paper Cranes (2012), editor of Streams Run Uphill (2014), and coauthor of Yoked (2016). Her writing can be found in the Christian Century, Sojourners, and On Being. She is pursuing a PhD in Religious Studies at Indiana University (Bloomington).
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Posts tagged ‘Cows of Bashan’
Lamentation To The Cows Of Bashan – By Izuchukwu Okeke.
By Izuchukwu Okeke
It is 9 am as I stepped finally into the long-stretched passage. It was empty; no teacher, no students; only me. I was late, quite unfortunately. The lectures start at 9 am, and it is expected everyone be in the class at least 8:55 am. And, surely, here, once it is 8:55 the lecturers all file out to the various classes. And once it is 9 am, the classes start. If you arrive a minute past 9, you are late, as I was this day.
The reality of this empty passage sent my mind back to the country I was coming from. I was not even comparing the punctuality of the academic cadre or the standard of education itself. I was thinking of the massive collapse of its essence, its availability and the poverty of its prospects.
The night before, I read it on the Internet that lecturers in the Polytechnics were still on strike. They had been before the University lecturers joined in the middle of last year and continued till early this year. University students sat through 6 months dining with the two worst devils of life: idleness and boredom. The Polytechnic lecturers took few months break and had resumed strike again. And, as it seems, politicians are busy carpeting and cross carpeting; somehow they are not interested in the rants of these distracting academic hordes. So when will the students in Polytechnic go back to class? It is not even known.
I live in Korea, and in this country education is everything. I think it is not necessary to blow anymore horn about the strength of this nation’s economy, standards of their infrastructure and quality of their living standards; all hinged on the power and value of their education system. But it is worth mentioning what I found to be the major discrepancy between these two nations. Here, psyche is the central and most respected national resource; human resources are the strength of the government, the economy and the society, which is why education is everything. Every effort is invested and legitimately dispensed at developing the individual to become a global brand, to earn the capacity to compete with his mates anywhere they are found in the globe.
This country situated on the peninsula betwixt China, North Korea and Japan squat on a total of 100,210 km sq area of land. But unfortunately 72 percent of this land is hills, plateaus and mountains. Meaning that their populations of a little over 50,000,000 people live within the remaining clusters, in relatively higher density, 501.1/km2, higher than most nations of the world. From the shackles of Japanese domination in 1950, this country has risen in leaps and bounds. Among its endearing statistics is the fact that within these decades that followed its independence South Korea economy has been transformed into a G-20 major economy and has the second highest standard of living in Asia, having an HDI of 0.909.
Yes, South Korea is Asia’s fourth largest economy and the world’s 15th (nominal) or 12th (purchasing power parity) largest economy. But Korea has no Crude Oil, Tin, Iron Ore, Gold or Diamond Mines. This economy is export-driven. South Korean corporations like Samsung and LG (ranked first and third largest mobile phone companies in the world in the first quarter of 2012 respectively) dominate world markets, among the many beautiful, yet daunting stories of their transformation.
Behind this testimony of exemplary 50 decades of industrial development is an educational and social philosophy that underscores, perfectly well, that the true wealth of a nation is not its natural resources as much as it is its human resources. And each new day as I walk towards the class in Sunkyunkwan University, I am reminded of this philosophy. And also of wholly dedicated, hard-working, cheerful teachers who can go to any length to impart knowledge to the students. How many times I pity the extent of their personal sacrifice to advance the academic goals of their students. But they all work according to this country’s educational philosophy.
The classes are fully equipped with advanced learning infrastructure. The chalkboard a long time ago had given way to a board fully equipped with Power Point presentation facility, digitalized and connected to the Internet. Our test books are online and everything we have to do is online based and of the best standards compared to anywhere in the world.
Here, sadly, a 60 mark/grade after an exam is just a pass! Not even a credit. So any score less than 70, you have to go through a review to step you up and you have to write an exam to prove the review produced the expected result. And this and other factors have driven this nation from the brinks of poverty to industrial heights.
But, somehow, as I entered the class with these thoughts, I began, once again, to nurse that deep gorge of guilt that comes to me when I remember my country, Nigeria. That feeling also comes along with a certain gnawing pain of the advanced nature of ignorance spawned by our system on both the leaders and the lead that seems to suggest nothing will change soon. Since I was born the story has always been that the situation is bad for the common man. It had gone from worse, to worst, until there is no relative adverb to describe the situation now.
I did not cause Nigeria’s problem. I did not steal anybody’s money to be here. My father until his demise was a poor village farmer. My mother is still living off her labour in the farm. I am only a fortunate candidate of a scholarship programme. But this feeling when it comes doesn’t leave me soon. It keeps digging deep hole on my moral fibre. I keep wondering if there is a way I may have contributed to making Nigeria what it is. Leaving over 70 percent of her human population disillusioned and gasping for life, not knowing how and from which source the next meal will come. Seeking miracle in anything mentioned to possess divine power.
I was also keep wondering how Nigerian students abroad whose parents are part and parcel of this system that created the rot feel. How do they feel knowing their parents have left many of the nation’s youths disoriented and confused? How do they feel when their parents pay so much for them to study in this kind of environment, and knowing that this money, by every legitimate standards their parents cannot earn it? How do they feel when they remember that having messed up the system and exported them abroad to acquire the best education their parents left the system back home in total pell-mell. How do they feel to learn that their mates down in the villages are giving up legitimate endeavors and making career prospects in kidnapping and robbery? How do they really feel? Worse than I do? Or maybe they do not feel anything at all?
In the last one-month a drama has been playing out between the Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi on the one hand and Ministries of Finance, Petroleum and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, on the other. As it were the whole nation focused on it, because of the whopping amount of money involved. And as that drama played out, the reality of the hopelessness of the Nigerian situation dawned so much on me. That drama defines us in the mean time. Nobody in Nigeria’s governance system has an alternative thinking—or may be just a tiny minority of wayward thinkers who do not even possess the gut and grit to make it to the positions of governance.
To many of them there now at the corridors of power, be it political or bureaucratic, all they want is money. Everyone is talking money, oil money; how it is stolen, how it is not stolen! No one else is thinking. To Nigeria and Nigerians this oil money is everything. You have it, you have everything, you don’t have it, and you don’t have anything. That charade at the House of Assembly also defines the 2015 and the slapsticks of cross-carpeting that have become a daily news menu. Because everybody, everybody politician, wants to place himself at the vantage position to have a bite of the piece of the cake come 2015. They have been eating, and they want to keep eating.
Google, two regular guys’ idea is about to worth more than our oil. The Facebook founder is just 24 years old. But where are Nigerian youths? Is anybody concerned at the mess we left him or her? Of the frustration we are building up among them? Just education! Give them education, a qualitative one, so that they can on their own change their world, compete with their fellows elsewhere. No! Nigerian politicians do not see the resource in the youth. They are only tools used and dumped during elections.
In this generation Nigerian leaders are wired in pursuit of oil blocks and loots because in our clime ideas do not sell and if ideas sell, regular guys will become threats to Nigerian politicians. May be that is the fear. Because I do not see the big deal in investing 30 percent of our resources in revamping the educational system, and establishing it on the best standards and employ it to eliminate this endemic poverty in our clime.
As I sit in the class this day carrying this feeling and thinking these thoughts, the pain gnaws even harder that nothing will change. What will I write more than have been written these years, and what will I say that that has not been said? Like Amos in the bible called their likes, they are cows of Bashan. But we will keep lamenting to their ears. Even when they refuse to change, heaven will bear witness that we told them, as our fathers did.
Izuchukwu Okeke Job
KGSP Scholar
Sungkyunkwan University
Suwon, South Korea
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
African Politics.
72 percents
ASUU strike
Cows of Bashan
Diezani Alison-Madueke
digitalized
Mallam Lamido Sanusi
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
Oil blocks in Nigeria
Peninsulabetwixt China
Power Point presentation facility
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Posts tagged ‘Stuart Rothenberg’
WSJ: GOP Making Bold, Massive Bid to Take Senate.
Scott Brown, left, and Ed Gillespie
By Melissa Clyne
In its bid to gain the Senate majority in the midterm elections later this year, the GOP is crafting its strategy straight from the 2012 Democratic playbook, according to The Washington Post.
Republicans are casting a wide net to pick up the six seats needed to secure a majority, putting up viable candidates in a plethora of states where they hope to capitalize on President Barack Obama’s dismal job performance ratings as well as the national furor over Obamacare.
“The key to the Republican strategy is making the next tier of seats [and recruits] as large as possible since a few candidates will flame out, some incumbents will prove tougher to beat than they appear, and the national political environment could shift several times between now and November,” the Post notes.
Republicans need to win six new seats to flip the current Democratic majority of 55-to-45. In the current political climate, they are expected to gain between four and seven seats, according to the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report.
States where the GOP can prevail include Alaska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota, Virginia, and possibly Minnesota. Five of the vulnerabilities stem from retirement announcements by Democratic senators Max Baucus of Montana, Carl Levin of Michigan, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and South Dakota’s Tim Johnson.
Midterm elections are historically unkind to the sitting president’s party. Add to that the hysteria over a botched healthcare law rollout and millions of Americans receiving notices of canceled insurance plans and it’s a recipe for an ouster.
According to the Wall Street Journal, five states Obama won in 2012 — Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Virginia, and New Hampshire — are now considered vulnerabilities.
In Virginia, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie should be “a very credible contender who can raise considerable money,” according to the Rothenberg Report, and former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown trails New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen by just three points and he hasn’t even announced whether he intends to run.
“I’d be more worried if I were a Democrat than if I was a Republican,” Rothenberg Report editor Stuart Rothenberg told the Journal. “The Republicans’ prospects in the existing targets are improving because of the president’s approval ratings, and they are continuing to put other races on the board.”
By offering voters strong GOP alternatives in a variety of states, even those historically blue, Republicans hope that hijacking the Democrats 2012 strategy proves to be a winner.
“One thing’s for sure,” political columnist Chris Cillizza writes in the Post. “If they make it over the top this November, Senate Republicans should send their Democratic counterparts a nice thank you gift for showing them the way.”
Midterm Election Strategy Tops Obama Meeting with Senators
GOP Poised to Retake Senate as Disillusioned Democrats Depart
Chris Cillizza
Senate Majority
Stuart Rothenberg
Tom Harkin
Rove: Democrats Unlikely to Retake House in 2014 Elections.
Thursday, 15 Aug 2013 11:17 AM
By Dan Weil
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Democrats have little chance of winning control of the House in next year’s elections, says Republican strategist Karl Rove. Indeed, the odds are better for Republicans to increase their advantage, he claims.
The Republicans now hold a 234 to 201 majority, meaning Democrats need to pick up a net 17 seats to regain the upper hand.
“One difficulty for Mr. Obama is that there are few open seats,” Rove writes in his weeklyWall Street journal column.
Special: Should Obama’s Health Plan Be Overturned? Vote Here Now!
“Ten Republicans and six Democrats have announced they are retiring or running for higher office. All of these 16 seats appear safely in the incumbent party’s hands, making it difficult for either side to make significant gains.”
Top election analysts Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato and Stuart Rothenberg estimate the number of competitive seats at 36 to 49, Rove says. “By comparison, more than 100 congressional seats were in play during the 2010 mid-terms, most of them held by Democrats.”
Democrats occupy more of the competitive seats this time around too, Rove says. Cook, for example, sees eight Democratic seats as tossups, but only one Republican tossup. And Rove says that Democrats this time around will not be able to ride the coattails of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign
“The number of Democratic seats at risk is likely to grow,” Rove states. “There are 13 Democrats who won with 52 percent or less in 2012, all in districts Mr. Obama carried. Without a presidential campaign to help pull them to victory, some of these Democrats could go down.”
Democrats also may suffer more from primary challenges, Rove says. While the Club for Growth threatened to find primary opponents for 10 Republican congressmen, it has produced only one viable challenger so far, he says. Meanwhile, Democrats face six competitive primary contests.
As for fundraising, the average House member of either party has about $555,000 in campaign money, Rove says. “The 17 Republican congressmen in districts carried by Mr. Obama have an average of $792,000, while the nine Democratic congressmen in districts carried by Mr. Romney have an average of $510,000.”
Meanwhile, the 13 House Democrats who won with 52 percent or less of the vote in 2012 have an average of only $406,000 in cash, Rove says.
“At this moment, the relative paucity of competitive races points to a mid-term where there are likely to be only modest changes in the House, most likely in the GOP’s direction,” he writes.
Democrats will seek to benefit from their strong get-out-the-vote technology and major super-PAC fundraising, Rove says. “These would help. But if conditions next year are anything like this year — with a soft economy, low presidential approval numbers and problems implementing Obamacare — tactics alone won’t deliver a House Democratic majority,” he maintains..
“It will take Republicans shooting themselves — either by grossly overreaching or, more likely, by failing to articulate a positive conservative agenda for jobs, health care and prosperity.”
Election News.
Poll: Support for More Gun Control Sliding.
Public support for new gun control measures is decreasing, according to a USA Today poll conducted April 18-21.
The survey shows 49 percent of Americans favor a new, more onerous gun control law, while 45 percent are opposed.
In early April, 55 percent supported a stronger gun control law, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. And that was a drop from 61 percent in February.
Most of those who support a bill don’t want to see compromise in it. A total of 61 percent says congressmen “should only agree to a stronger version of the bill, even if it might not pass.” Only 30 percent say they should “accept a weaker law” that can win approval.
“So much of the support for gun control is emotional, following the Newtown tragedy,” Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report, tells USA Today. He was referring to the Connecticut school shooting that killed 26 in December.
“The longer you get away from there, people start thinking of other issues. They start thinking about terrorism or jobs or immigration, and not surprisingly, then some of the momentum behind gun control starts to fade,” Rothenberg says.
By Newsmax Wires
Weapon News.
Polls favor Obama. A conspiracy by Democrats and the media?.
More voters consider themselves Democrats rather than Republicans, and this is reflected in opinion polls showing Barack Obama ahead of Mitt Romney. Critics say the results are skewed.
Recent polling – especially in key battleground states – showsPresident Barack Obama with a widening lead over challenger Mitt Romney. It’s dispiriting to Republican leaders, and it would seem to put more wind into the Obama campaign’s sails headed into next week’s first presidential debate.
But among conservative commentators and some in the GOP, that just proves one thing: That the polls are rigged to give Democratsan apparent advantage, and that the mainstream media is buying into what amounts to a conspiracy by playing up such survey results.
“They’re trying to wrap this up before the debates even start,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show this week. “I think they’re trying to get this election finished and in the can by suppressing your vote and depressing you so that you just don’t think there’s any reason to vote, that it’s hopeless.”
Why do Election 2012 swing states matter? 5 resources to explain.
The essence of the complaint is that pollsters are basing their reports on too many Democrats having been surveyed – that when results showing Obama ahead by 6-8 points are properly weighted by party affiliation, the race is dead-even with Romney actually ahead in some places.
The response from professional pollsters is that any difference in the party balance of those surveyed is a reflection of how voters identify themselves today: 35 percent Democrats, 28 percent Republicans, and 33 percent Independents.
As both campaigns know, it’s also a fluid situation with how voters identify their party leanings right now more important than how they last registered. It’s why both campaigns are angling for cross-over voters and especially Independents. If Obama and Romney were to get everybody who identifies with their party plus half the Independents, Obama – today, at least – would win by 7 points.
“Party identification changes as political tides change,” Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor-in-chief, wrote this week in his response to the controversy. “General shifts in the political environment can affect party identification just as they can affect presidential job approval and results of the ‘Who are you going to vote for?’ question.”
Gallup puts its question to voters agreeing to be surveyed this way: “In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent?” “Note that this question does not ask, ‘What was your party identification in November 2008?’ Nor does it ask, ‘Are you registered with one party or the other in your state?’” says Mr. Newport. “Our question uses the words ‘as of today’ and ‘consider.’ It is designed to measure fluidity in political self-identification.”
The key thing for campaigns and those reporting on them is too look at the bigger picture over time. Today’s snapshot – and this includes polls by the relatively conservative Fox News and Rasmussen Reports – shows Obama ahead during this period between the party conventions and the debates.
“If I don’t focus on an individual poll here or there and look at the dynamic of the race, and the broad array of polls, it tells me that the president has a significant lead at this point,” Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, told Reuters.
A related conservative complaint is that reporters and editors can become too obsessive about opinion polls.
“This produces headlines and TV coverage that seem intentionally designed to demoralize Republicans and persuade undecided ‘swing’ voters – who have a tendency to vote for the candidate they perceive as the likely winner – to support Obama,” writes Robert Stacy McCain at the American Spectator. “That such poll-driven coverage could function as a self-fulfilling prophecy – in factcreating the result it pretends to predict – is an increasing worry for conservatives.”
Not all conservatives are beating up on poll-takers and the media over the string of voter surveys showing Romney trailing in the race.
“I’ve been in politics long enough to know that the louder one side gets complaining about the polls, the more likely it is that this is the side that, in reality, actually is losing,” Erick Erickson, editor of theRedState blog, wrote this week.
“The reality is that Mitt Romney is behind, but that does not mean this thing is over,” Mr. Erickson writes. “It is close and Romney can very much still win this election.”
Source: YAHOO NEWS.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Christian Science Monitor
Robert Stacy McCain
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Home News Energy Five Huge Advancements in Alternative Energy to Watch for in 2015
Five Huge Advancements in Alternative Energy to Watch for in 2015
Dixie Somers
The alternative energy industry continues to surge in the global marketplace, and technological advancements promise rewards for both consumers and investors.
These innovations are normally brought about through improved renewable energy system efficiency and increased popularity for these systems in high growth, regional markets.
Here are some of the top renewable energy innovations that will be in the spotlight throughout 2015.
Marine Energy Technology
On the heels of hydroelectric renewable energy comes an effective new form of water power known by some as offshore marine energy. Since ancient times, sailors have maintained a love/hate relationship with the sea. The same body of water upon which they made their livelihood was the same foe that could kill them mercilessly when they came into contact with powerful, storm-induced waves.
Today, technological advancements can harness energy bound within the movement of ocean waves. Although the idea of producing energy from ocean currents is not original to offshore oil companies, these isolated oil rig crew members were some of the first to lend their voices for praise of the new technology.
It was a company called Minesto, however, that spent several years researching and developing ways to convert low velocity ocean current into usable electric current efficiently. The company is scheduled to go into full production in 2015.
Biofuel Development
While many are adopting a plant-based diet for health reasons, energy producers are spying out plants as a new source of renewable, clean energy.
Although there are mixed reviews on the ethical implications of producing energy with plants that could be used to feed the world’s growing population, there are more winning arguments for the use of these clean energy sources than there are for the opposition.
Renewable energy companies are currently conducting research and development on plants like marine algae for their renewable energy projects because cultivating and harvesting these aquatic plants do not require the use of scarce land resources.
Bio-Waste Energy Products
Some biofuel energy companies are attempting to kill two birds with one stone by using waste products for energy production. The waste products can include anything from unused plant-based food to sewage.
This form of alternative energy is attractive because it reduces waste products in landfills and it comes from an abundant renewable source.
When the new gas is used by vehicles, its emissions are significantly less than vehicles that use diesel fuels. An example of a recent success story is the bio-bus developed by GENeco that runs from Bristol to Bath in the United Kingdom on gas made only from treated human waste and food waste.
Landfill Gas to Energy
Clearing landfills seems to be the secondary mission of many renewable energy projects. The lure of taking a mass of unwanted material and turning it into usable energy is just too strong.
The organic matter in landfills decompose to produce methane gas that environmentalists claim contribute to global warming and poor air quality. United States-based renewable energy companies like LFG Technologies seek to turn the methane gas produced in landfills into usable energy, thereby reducing the amount of the gas that escapes into the atmosphere.
2015 promises to be the year that these companies press on with more landfill gas projects across the nation.
Marine energy is not the only source of power that energy companies seek to capture on the high seas.
The unobstructed wind that characteristically blows over open water is now a candidate to be the energy source for the latest renewable wind energy projects of many alternative energy companies. While solar energy has been the alternative energy of choice for some time, innovation in wind turbine technology enables an increased capacity for wind energy systems.
When these higher capacity wind turbines are set afloat on offshore rigs, the opportunities for collecting substantial amounts of energy for use on land, on marine vessels or on offshore oil rigs are promising.
These types of renewable energy systems are not the only energy trend that will be evident in 2015. The popularity of traditional (as well as innovative alternative) energy systems is spreading—even to developing nations that have opportunities to build infrastructure from scratch to accommodate these efficient, cost effective renewable energy systems.
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Smart Technology, Smarter eDiscovery: How to Integrate Artificial Intelligence into eDiscovery
Artificial Intelligence, Blog
Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, document review, early case assessment, ECA, eDiscovery, electronic discovery, processing, review, TAR, technology-assisted review
Artificial intelligence (AI) is permeating every aspect of our lives: it’s telling us what to buy and when we need to buy it, when we need to get up from our desk to take some steps, which emails to read using filtering techniques, and what to watch next on our smart device or TV.
While AI can make our personal lives much simpler, it also has the capability to revolutionize our approach to eDiscovery—if we take advantage of its benefits. Here are some examples of ways AI can transform your eDiscovery processes, from start to finish.
AI and Early Case Assessment
AI can reveal critical relationships between documents and people as well as important matter timelines—even before you’ve collected a single document for discovery. Early case assessment tools powered by AI often offer visualization tools that highlight patterns in communications so you understand the context of the case quickly and make decisions about which custodians to interview, which documents to collect first, what keywords to use to search for data, and, ultimately, whether to proceed with litigation or an investigation or resolve the matter quickly. In addition to building a case strategy earlier in a matter, using technology early in a case can lead to significant savings later in discovery by reducing the volume of data collected, processed, and reviewed.
AI and Processing
Parties can use AI early in the EDRM to cull their data sets. In fact, parties have reduced their data volume significantly—sometimes by 90% or more—by applying technologies such as these to their data sets:
· deNISTing: removing files unlikely to contain relevant information, such as system files;
· deduplication: removing exact duplicates;
· near deduplication: grouping similar documents together, such as emails that have been forwarded;
· other natural language processing tools such as concept clustering: grouping documents with related ideas together; and
· email threading: collecting related conversations together to avoid redundant work and inconsistent reviews.
AI and Document Review
Technology-assisted review (TAR) expedites review. There are two types of TAR: predictive coding and continuous active review. In a nutshell, with predictive coding, reviewers code a sample of documents, called a “seed set,” that is fed to a computer algorithm. The algorithm analyzes the document coding and “learns” from it, applying its learning across the data set. With continuous active learning, there is no seed set; the computer observes as human reviewers code and begins feeding the reviewers the documents that it deems to be the most relevant based on their past coding. The computer continuously learns, improving its results as the review continues. Both forms of TAR save both time and money—and yield more accurate results than human review alone.
If you aren’t already using AI in your eDiscovery workflows, it’s time to start. Want to learn more about how you can improve the accuracy of your results and reduce your litigation budget with AI tools for eDiscovery? Get in touch.
2018-March
Early Case Assessment
eDiscovery Readiness
Legal Procurement
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The Sixties And The Negro Revolution: Terror Over The San Francisco Bay
The Sixties And The Negro Revolution
Terror Over The San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Side Of Bay Bridge
It was back in’59 of the old century that I was discharged from the US Navy at Treasure Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. Thus my adult life began as the Sixties dawned. Who knew? It was a terrifying period for me.
Treasure Island After The Warships Had Left
I was to take up residence in Oakland the crown jewel, so to speak, of the East Bay. In the three years I had been gone, that is in the cocoon of the Navy, the country had not so much changed as advanced very rapidly. I was more than slightly out of touch. The country was on the cusp of a gigantic leap in scale. I wasn’t.
Without myself, or as I think, anyone else realizing it, or using the term, the Negro Revolution was in full swing.
As Charles De Gaulle, the President of France, once noted: The US while being a White country acted as a colored country. Thus the US knowingly and purposely sabotaged European relationships with the colored or, as it was known, The Third World. The vast majority of the US was in favor of this course being of a sanctimonious nature feeling quite superior to the evil Europeans. I was opposed to it, I liked the way the maps were colored. But, I was very nearly in a minority of one.
Thus, however, when the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya erupted the US sympathized with the black Africans. When Ho Chi Minh defeated the French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu a year later most Americans believed justice had been served on the evil Europeans. None of us knew at the time that those howitzers bombarding the FFL were not provided by the USSR; they were of US manufacture shipped to Hanoi from Okinawa when they were not needed for the conquest of Japan. Unknowingly the French were fighting both the Reds and the US.
Negro revolutionists in the US were turned loose in 1954 when the Supreme Court subverted American freedom by beginning compulsory integration of the races with the Brown vs. The Board Of Education of Topeka decision. The hounds of war were loosed. All hell broke loose in Alabama as the famous and mourned Bull Connor began his legendary career of opposition.
Abetting the Negro revolution in the US, in 1957 the African State of Ghana was granted its independence by the withdrawal of Great Britain and then beginning in 1960 colony after colony was made independent until the former virtual colony of Europe was a congeries of African States filled with warring tribes. I, so far as I know, alone viewed this with great sadness. The great Quest for the Source of the Nile as detailed in Alan Moorehead’s great work The White Nile also published in 1960 had ended in disaster. The nature and extent of the disaster wouldn’t be realized until the Africans began the invasion of Europe shortly thereafter.
But I was just taking the first baby steps leading to the rest of my life. Even if I had been knowledgeable of the contending forces I would have been a drop in the illimitable ocean. Still, as my own entity, I considered myself the center of the universe. I considered the planet the center of the universe, indeed, the only part of the universe that counted. What effect could the light emitted by stars from a billion years in the past, the source of which might even no longer exist, have on me or my home on Earth? None. I and it were where it was at.
So there I was a small lone figure, a stranger in the strange land of California, the Fool of the Tarot deck, taking the first step to begin my journey of a thousand miles.
Although from Michigan I had always considered San Francisco my spiritual home especially the San Francisco Bay Area and now I would become intimate with it in its entirety and even most of Northern California from Bakersfield to Redding.
Mt. Diablo
The Bay is an immense thing stretching from Sacramento and Stockton down to Santa Clara County, San Jose and what has become known as Silicon Valley. It is like a great wound separating the communities that border it North and South and East and West. In the attempt do bind it into a unit great sutures known as bridges crossed the vast waters, the Bay Bridge is eight miles long, to make the various communities into one.
Even a great tunnel beneath the waters called the BART- Bay Area Rapid Transit- would be drilled beneath the bay. A truly astonishing achievement among such astonishing achievements as the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay Bridges.
Further to the South the equally amazing but built over shallow water is the San Mateo Bridge and below that the rather commonplace Dumbarton Bridge. To the North above the Bay Bridge is the major construction of the San Rafael Bridge and above that the Carquinez Straights bridge. In the Sixties all these bridges were readily passable without long waits or even waits.
For now the story is of Oakland. Henry J. Kaiser one of America’s great industrialists, ran his shipyards there where the so-called Liberty ships were built. Sixteen million White men were impressed into the wars of the ‘40s. They were all removed from their jobs into their uniforms. From this distance I doubt that sixteen million men were needed at one time, but they were taken leaving behind the women and Negroes. The Negroes were in the South so they were entrained to the factories of the North. This is called the Great Migration.
After the wars were over and the White men returned wanting their jobs back the Negroes kept coming North and West. However the returning Whites were now competing for the jobs with the Negroes who hadn’t been there when they left. Then in ’54 came the criminal Brown decision. The Negroes had been living the high life during the war enjoying wages that could never have imagined while the Whites were getting their asses shot off around the world.
The Negroes kept coming although there were no longer enough jobs for both veterans and themselves. During the fifties and sixties thousands per month arrived in the Bay Area transforming it into a different peoplescape, especially Oakland. There was a strict segregation.
Oakland is divided East and West by the great street of East 13th. That street runs from the Bay all the way through Oakland and the adjoining cities of San Leandro and Hayward all the way through Niles and Warm Springs, then independent towns to the Nimitz Freeway where the five towns were incorporated into a city called Fremont. Fifty miles or so.
In Oakland it was determined that the west of East 13th, West Oakland, would be abandoned to the Negroes. Now, West Oakland had a history dating back to the founding of Oakland. It was a fine neighborhood. It had been home to some families for a hundred years. This was an established area. No matter.
As the Negroes came in their in their thousands and tens of thousands the Whites were just moved out, a block or two a month. The rudely displaced Whites, I mean this was a sight to see, had to have a place to live so huge apartment buildings and great housing developments beyond the San Leandro border into Hayward and over into Contra Costa County popped up like mushrooms in Springtime. Orchards and farmland disappeared beneath concrete.
Contra Costa (Against the Coast) County just East of Alameda County and its Oakland was a barren desert irrigated into immense fruit and nut orchards. Truly a desert had been made to bloom.
These orchards were uprooted and piled along the roads as bulldozers moved in to clear the land for the houses that would populate that huge desert. Thus an undesirable social situation was created as tens of thousands Southern socially crude Negroes displaced tens of thousands of Whites who had to form new communities and associations. Everyone was unhappy and it showed. Tensions were unbearable. A great depression settled over the entire Bay Area from Sacramento to San Jose and all the Peninsula below San Francisco and the East Bay. It was fairly congenial to me as I was suffering from a childhood induced depression myself. It was pretty pathetic though.
Oakland was in turmoil. It had always been a rough town. If you want a nice portrayal of its early days check out Jack London’s Valley Of The Moon, a very nice near memoir. So anyway, you had his tremendous influx of really raw material, the rawest, displacing almost overnight the whole of West Oakland.
I’m not being critical but as people these Negroes were completely out of touch with a modern technological world and when I say out of touch I mean neither myself or any White I knew had any idea of why things were happening or even what was happening that’s how out of touch they were.
What I write is a matter of placing in context what I study compared with what I remember. Some things, like Freudian motifs, I dimly perceived then, the Mafia presence of course was or should have been obvious to everyone except J. Edgar Hoover but I couldn’t tell you the first time I heard he CIA mentioned and I had no idea what the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations were doing. The Foundations one discovers were instrumental in many social situations.
The West Side that the Negroes appropriated was a very nice area in a modest way, very desirable tree lined streets. It was not a slum when the Negroes arrived. Being a flat level naturally air conditioned apron of the Bay the displaced were indeed unhappy being translated to the desert of Contra Costa. Only the Negroes could disparage West Oakland as ‘the Flatlands.’
Huey Graduated High School And Attended OCC Without Knowing How To Read
The Negroes had no social graces or knowledge of what they called ‘the White Man’s law.’ What was to them natural behavior was condemned by the White Man’s law. By the time I began showing up in Oakland in the late fifties they were threatening 98th Street, the boundary between Oakland and San Leandro. The latter city had a Sundown law or custom, at least. Temporarily at least the Negroes couldn’t advance beyond 98th.
In the meantime the behavior that was criminal according to White Man’s law but normal to the Negro mind multiplied to the detriment of the White population exponentially plus. No exact accounting is possible but take the situation at Oakland’s Castlemont High School as an example. Castlemont was out on the cusp of the eighties and nineties. The Negro invasion was in the seventies crossing over into the eighties in ’58 when I spent my liberty time in Oakland. Castlemont was half White at the time and wholly hell for that half.
The Negroes were in beat down and rape mode all the time. The White students got no sympathy from the community, they were on their own while any fights the boys had to get involved in were always charged to them while the guilty Negroes were exonerated. The rapes of the girls were either disregarded or unreported. They just expected it.
It was absolutely essential for them to clear the school directly after the last bell. Negro boys roamed the halls looking for the tardy girl. I knew a girl from Castlemont and witnessed the situation. It was shameful, even criminal, what those parents made their children endure. I have often wondered what happened to some of them.
As for the disorder cast into the lives of the Whites who had been forcefully evicted from homes of perhaps two or three generations it was astonishing to see and also hazardous for them as they all fought for a shred of old self-esteem and standing. Many lives were destroyed, but, we all had to survive. As the chef says, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
Some chose rough behavior while serial murders began in earnest probably being more common than recognized. Those were taut times in the Bay Area. You had to watch your step and it got progressively worse. About ’63 and into ’64 before I entered college full time I had a job with a mortgage banking firm, Lowell, Smith and Evers. It was there I learned every square inch of Northern California, except Contra Costa County. When I started the territory was divided equally but I eventually did all the work except for Contra Costa because my senior partner, I forget his name, call him Dale, always retained CC for himself. Perhaps the extreme depression suited his mental state. What with all the population transfers CC was a fairly rough place, everyone suspicious of the other. I learned enough about rough places myself so Dale could have CC and welcome to it.
Located in Contra Costa is Mount Diablo- Devil Mountain. Dale trained me in CC. Dale was a graduate of Stanford University over on the Peninsula. I forget his major but it had no commercial value so that upon graduation the only job he could get was selling coffee to grocery stores in Chicago. Thus he, a graduate of Stanford University, had to deal with store managers who at best were high school graduates as equals. It was more than he could bear. He couldn’t handle the differential in expectations. He quit Chicago and came back to the Bay Area.
Our job was not a quality job, it barely kept us in the white collar class. I never could understand why he accepted it. He still worked with high school graduates like myself but even though we were equals he could consider himself the senior member. This still left him very bitter. His was a desperate situation. I still had he college option.
Although declassed or perhaps because of it he lived near the UC Berkeley campus where he dropped a tab of acid every day before he left to work CC. Berkley had an LSD experimental lab so Dale was well supplied. On the first day he offered me a tab but I declined. For lunch break that day as every day of training we got a sandwich and he drove half way up Mt. Diablo to a magnificent lookout spot. Work was just leisure for Dale so these were two, three, four hour lunches where he would let his acid drenched mind rove through he stars. He delivered some magnificent raps that were thoroughly engrossing. I mention this in detail because the Zodiac killer began his depredations four years later in 1968. Zodiac also had some very cosmic thoughts centered on Mont Diablo not too different from Dale’s. I have often wondered if Dale was Zodiac.
By 1964 when Dale and I sat on Mt. Diablo I’d been taking night classes from three different Junior Colleges- Merritt Campus of OCC- Oakland Community College-, Marin Jr. College, and Chabot Jr. College in Hayward. Fall term of ’64 I quit Lowell, Smith and Evers and entered California State College at Hayward- now styled California State University East Bay- full time.
OCC was an old high school on the Oakland-Berkeley border so it had a special character, Oakland with a Berkeley flavor. Of course ’60 to ’62 when I attended was pre-hippie so there was a different psychology but the flux and change of demographics had its own special quality.
As I said, the Bay Area was in turmoil. If you had a taste for it it was quite wonderful. There was a change from the culture of the old San Francisco of the thirties through the fifties in which the DJ Don Sherwood who was on the way out had been representative and the transition into the sixties of Herb Caen and LSD, rock and roll and the Black Panthers. I began OCC at the same time Huey Newton did. Our paths did cross one time. The Neo-Abolitionist Whites had seized Oakland City College. They were ardent practitioners of Columbia University’s Eric Foner’s Unfinished Revolution. They were there to finish it so we were part of the continuation of Reconstruction. Phase two. The forces of evil were on the march.
In the course of my college career I attended the previously mentioned Jr. Colleges plus Cal State, and grad school at UC Berkeley and UOregon. While all the schools were Liberal none was involved in the Negro Revolution and Reconstruction like OCC.
In addition the Homosexual Revolution was in full bloom in the Bay Area while the faculty at OCC was heavily if not morally infected. This would involve an additional twist of fate for me. The whole Liberal Coalition was composed of justified sinners who considered themselves above the law, vigilantes in effect.
The Neo-Abolitionists who actually believed they were continuing Reconstruction against the Rebels now styled us as ‘racists’ were intent on exterminating us as they had been the Southerners. The homosexuals as a semi-secret society were at war with we heterosexuals. By 1969 and the Stonewall Riots in NYC they actually won a major battle and took possession of the field. Identifying themselves with law and virtue they felt no compunction at committing crimes they could conceal. As Voltaire advised his followers: strike but conceal your hand.
Faculty pressure was put on students to compel them to adopt Neo-Abolitionist attitudes, rigged so-called debates and really if one were vocal, expulsion. For some reason the NeoAs seemed to believe that no one had experience with homosexuals and Negroes even though Oakland’s high schools were actual rape factories and war zones. Affirmative Action was the order of the day that is, egregious crimes against Whites.
In my own instance I sat in class next to this forty some year old Negro. In passing back test papers we had taken I noticed that this Negro had gotten a B while I had received a C. But then I noticed that he had a score of 64 while I had a 76. Thinking that the homosexual teacher had made an error I pointed out the incongruity of scores and grades. The teacher sneered at me telling me that it was time for Negroes to get a few advantages to redress old grievances.
I can’t believe I was picked out to be the recipient of this ‘social justice’ so I presume the teacher was indulging himself in random acts of criminality. In the event there was no remedy for this crime so I was somewhat dazed and bewildered not able to understand what was happening. Discrimination of this kind was going on constantly.
There appeared to be agents or spies attempting to trap the unwary into making comments that could be interpreted as ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ although those terms were not yet in use. Once identified, as I look back, it seems clear that spies or agents tried to discredit any so identified. A homosexual trick was to inject themselves into conversations then correct the pronunciation of the victim trying to make him look ignorant.
This notion was probably patterned on the tricks of John F. Kennedy who was running for president at this time which was 1960. Anyone who noticed that Kennedy was an Irish Catholic was shouted down as a bigot yet the 1960 election was a transfer of power from the Anglo-Saxons to the Celts and from Protestants to Catholics while the Kennedys- Jack, Bobby and Teddy- passionately embraced the Negro side of the race war. Teddy in 1965 would be instrumental in changing the immigration act which would allow Africans and West Indians to immigrate to the US. Most people either discounted the Irish Catholic background of the Kennedys or were shamed into silence but Kennedy’s Celtic and Catholic background would be an element in his assassination three years later.
The Kennedys’ election triumph was a major change of direction for the country. Had Jack not been assassinated it is probable that a Jack, Bobby, Teddy succession amounting to twenty-four years of Irish Catholic rule would have guaranteed a significant if not total shift in mores not unlike the current Clinton-Bush-Obama succession. It was not for nothing that Jack’s presidency was styled Camelot after the Celtic King Arthur of Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.
As if to characterize the change as a break Jack began to change the pronunciation of words. Thus mobile always pronounced as mobul became mo-bile to the approval of the press corps. In subsequent years whole dictionaries would change regularly to keep people on edge. Wholesale name changes from Peking to Beijing and Bombay to Mumbai would take place.
In seeming keeping with Jack’s linguistic gymnastics as I was talking to a couple people an aggressive homo came over. I was talking about the movie producer Elia Kazan. As in his movie America America in which he introduced himself as Eel-ya. I used that pronunciation.
The homo contradicted me. You could have seen the loss of credibility on the faces of my listeners. I countered with a request for the correct pronunciation to which the homo offered E-lie-a. I of course offered Elia’s own pronunciation from the movie that, fortunately, the others had seen so turning that charge back. The psychological warfare went on as continually as the racial warfare but unrecognized as such.
Coming from the cocoon of the Navy I wasn’t aware of the changes taking place while I was away. They occurred at work as well as at school. In 1961 I was employed by the trucking firm P.I.E.- Pacific Inter-Mountain Express- since defunct. I had worked my way up to entry office job suffering fair humiliation in the process. One had to actually beg to get one. And entry level was as a mail boy. Once there an opening occurred at the Commission Agency Desk for which I applied and my mailroom supervisor as a favor allowed me to take the job with many admonitions to watch my step.
I had been at the desk for a few months when it was announced that we would be employing a Negro, we were all White to that point. The Negro had been recruited. He had no training or experience. He was to given a grade 4 pay rate. I was a 3 while 4s were rare.
I had been working full time while attending night school. As noted when I applied I had to beg my way into a mailboy job. As a boon I had been granted the grade 3 job at the Commission Agency Desk. Let us say that I had felt the whip on my back.
Now this unprepared Negro was being given for free a grade 4 as Affirmative Action which was a term not yet heard and management knew the guy wasn’t capable of doing the work. They proposed that I take the desk next to his which was also a grade 4 and do that work as well as his for him. Thus I would be doing two grade 4 jobs, and grade 4s were fairly complex, for the pay of one. I would have done it for a grade 5 but they were too cheap. They’d rather pay a Negro for nothing than add a dime an hour to my paycheck. C’est la vie.
The guy came to work but had no interest in learning to do his job. He soon drifted up to a cluster of desks handled by several attractive young girls where he spent his days romancing them. For some unknown reason he was soon gone. Perhaps he quit unable to endure the burden of having to be anyplace let alone at a consistent 8:30 in the morning.
Unable to endure such social injustice I quit. I had no further encounters with Negroes in either jobs or other educational institutions until the early seventies.
That doesn’t mean the Negro revolution didn’t continue to develop in the Bay Area as well as the curious White attitude toward Reconstruction.
In 1966 the rapist ‘with intent to murder,’ Eldridge Cleaver was released from prison due to the efforts of several Jewish women. He had served only eight years having been incarcerated in 1958. He was very far from reformed, that is, he was still in paramilitary mode.
Cleaver, as a Negro, was a vicious person. He said he developed his raping skills on the West side of East Thirteenth then crossed over to hunt the big game, White women. While rape may be a crime by White Man’s law as the Negro thought of it assaults against White people or their property were acts of war therefor laudable and not reprehensible. Only White thickness prevents their seeing the difference in point of view. Thus all Negroes can be seen as paramilitary troops.
While Cleaver’s crimes are heinous enough the attitude spread to Whites. Since 1954 and the criminal BOE decision there had been a steady deterioration of manners and attitudes toward crime among Whites. White criminals, or revolutionaries in their term, raised the slogan of expropriating the expropriators which led to wholesale theft and crimes of violence on an ideological basis.
The adoption of Negro manners by an increasing White minority led to the corruption of the entire White generation. One learned rudeness in self-defense. I altered my behavior in order to compete beginning in 1961. This was all the result of the Board Of Education decision. A well-meaning but ignorant folly.
The Negro attitudes were aided and abetted by Freudian psychology. The White ideal until the Second Reconstruction began, for that is what it is, was the notion self-control and consciousness, the abatement of violent or what Freud would call ‘instinctive’ behavior. He called the suppression of ‘instinctive’ behavior repression.
Freud thought repression was bad for the person and his health. He called for the indulgence of the unconscious or liberating the repressed. During the fifties and sixties the unconscious was increasingly indulged, the abandonment of repression, or more accurately self-control, was embraced while self-control was abandoned. The result was disastrous resulting among other things in the Me generation.
In 1966 then Cleaver was released while at the same time, perhaps not coincidentally, Huey Newton now six years older than when I met him in 1960, formed the Black Panthers. Rather than a new idea the Panthers was a logical development of previous years. In Chicago a paramilitary outfit called The Blackstone Rangers had been formed. Their crimes they, of course, thought of as military operations. Only White Man’s law called them crimes.
In addition a series of Negro insurgencies, styled riots by Whites, in which cities were severely damaged had taken place in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and of course the famous Watts explosion of LA in 1965. These insurgencies would be a continuing recurrence all through the sixties especially in the major eruptions of ’67 and ’68 which virtually engulfed the country much like he Tet offensive in Viet Nam. So, Huey’s Black Panthers were just the next logical step.
Cleaver on his release was set on creating his own paramilitary group but opted to join Newton and the Panthers. Newton was not so militant although he was convicted of murdering an Oakland policeman so that a rift developed between the two men. Cleaver did lead an insurgency in West Oakland that resulted in several deaths. The failure of the insurgency led to his famous flight to Algeria. It was then my path crossed with the Negroes once again.
At the time I was attending grad school at UOregon in Eugene where I had opened a record store as the ’66 to ’78 golden age of phonograph records, vinyl, was beginning to take off. Nineteen sixty-eight to seventy-four was a period of constant unbearable turmoil that had to negatively affect the national psyche.
The Hippie emerged in 1966. By 1967 I was one too. Although the Negroes were a privileged group the Hippies weren’t. Restrained in their activities with Negroes the cops turned their fury on we Hippies. All regards for rights and laws were thrown out the window. I fully sympathize with the Negro hatred of the police.
The Black Panthers engaged in all sorts of bogus community projects that were merely extortions and shakedowns. At the same time paramilitary operations continued. The biggest was the confrontation with authorities at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. This was a major battle with the authorities involving the Panthers, the Blackstone Rangers and others.
While slightly beyond the sixties paramilitary operations increased leading through drive by shootings in San Francisco to the Zebra assaults of ’72 and ’73. The stated intent of the Zebra operations was to activate the race war but the ever tolerant Whites refused to play the Negro game preferring to call the assaults ‘crimes’ according to White Man’s law and riots rather than battles according to the law of war.
Hell, even the 9/11 paramilitaries who leveled the Twin Towers killing 3000 or so people while devastating NYC were tried as criminals. Three thousand murders and tens of billions in damages were treated as a light crime. What do you have to do? How thick can the authorities be?
Now, aiding the Negro revolutionaries were the acts of the Jews.
To back up a little bit and blend the Negro Revolution with the Jewish Revolution that was going on at the same time. In the Bay Area at UC Berkeley from 1964 to 1966 the Jews fomented the so-called Free Speech Movement. This was double speak for its opposite, the suppression of free speech, the subordination of the university to the Jews
By 1966 the Jews were in control of the university attempting to compel submission to their program. In some zany way they had convinced the mainly upper income White students that they were a privileged class without the merit of earning it. Essentially they claimed the Whites had stolen their places from equally qualified Negroes on the basis of their White skin. I and 60-70% of Whites had no illusions of benefitting from White Skin Privilege. We had worked damn hard to get where we were although it was still not anywhere from nowhere. Yet these absurd masochist upper income White students claimed to represent all White people. It was demanded of all we rest to sacrifice our wellbeing for the benefit of Negroes.
Huey Newton and his Panthers then stepped in to fill this vacuum of self-abnegation.
Now, Jewish women had done the heavy lifting to get the rapist with the intent to murder, Eldridge Cleaver, out of prison. Another very dedicated paramilitary Negro, George Jackson, was also raising hell in prison. Jewish women set to work to free him also. A hysterical female Jewish lawyer representing Jackson somehow even managed to fuck him through or around the barriers then went home and expected her husband to congratulate her.
Your brain spins when you read this stuff with the author relating his story in the same tone as: I went to the grocery store and bought a loaf of bread.
Jackson was smuggled some guns into San Quentin then in total rage tried to blast his way out of the prison. It should come as no surprise that he was killed in the shootout. Angela Davis, of the East Village, then organized the subsequent shootout in the Marin County court room that was truly an insurrectionary act.
While it was clear that Davis was as guilty as Bomber Billy Ayers of the Weather Underground she as he was able to boast ‘Guilty as hell, free as a bird.’ Quite clear that both had somebody watching over them. Someone very, very powerful. Like Ayers she was rewarded with a PhD. He to go on to become a ‘distinguished professor’ at UIllinois while she has an honored position at California’s Red campus UC at Santa Cruz. She probably attended Panther human bar-b-ques out there in the woods. Huey was given his PhD at Santa Cruz also. There are some bennies for being Black.
Negroes have continued to receive favored treatment down to the present when Liberal Whites installed their pet Negro Barack Obama in the White House.
Also outside the scope of the Sixties a man of questionable intelligence, the singer Bob Dylan, put his queer shoulder to the wheel in 1976, the US Bi-Centenary, during his Rolling Thunder tour of the home of the American Revolution, New England. Perhaps Dylan thought he was leading the second American Revolution celebrating the takeover of the country by his Jews. As if to mock the Whites he played the tour in White Face, that is white grease paint.
Hurricane Carter was a Negro boxer who had been convicted of murder once and then a second time on his appeal. Dylan wrote a song called Hurricane Carter in an attempt to generate sympathy for the murderer and free him from prison. Perhaps this was a symbolic repetition of Lincoln freeing the slaves. We’ll probably never know but the song was the focal point of the tour. It did result in the freeing of Carter.
Dylan was rewarded for his courageous defense of Carter when the Negro Obama was elected president. One of his first acts was to summon Dylan and his fellow Red Joan Baez to Washington for a command performance for himself and Michele. Bob responded with his anthem Blowin’ In The Wind. A song that every flatulent person loves.
While I wasn’t aware of it at the time or, at least, didn’t view the situation as a race war, it is clear now that the government’s, by this time of Richard Nixon, duty was to suppress the Negro paramilitaries. Bear in mind that a time we had a race war at home and a foreign war in Viet Nam.
Coming to the Viet Namese’s aid in 1968 the Red Chinese had initiated a cultural invasion and war in the US inciting a type of Civil War. Things were getting pretty hot. To defeat the Negro insurgency a program called Cointelpro was formed. While this agency affected Whites not at all, I never heard of it ‘til years maybe decades later. The Jews defamed and belittled this US effort to quash the Negro revolt as ‘un-American.’ What would they know about it?
By 1970 the Negro, Jewish and Homosexual Revolutions had succeeded. The country was in deep turmoil, nearly anarchy, at home and abroad. Check out movies like Putney Swope, Midnight Cowboy,Death Wish, Dirty Harry, Cruising and a host of others.
While I have never admired Nixon, like Warren G. Harding in 1921 in his suppression of the Communist insurrection, Nixon was able to defuse the situation and return the country to a simulacrum of what Harding called ‘normalcy.’ This was no mean feat although Nixon under the guidance of the Jew Kissinger botched the job.
In 1923 Harding died a mysterious death. While there is no hard evidence as yet that he paid that price for defeating the Red takeover can it be coincidence that Nixon was driven from office for the same offence?
Part 3 broadens and returns to New York.
Posted in America, Bay Area, Bob Dylan, Civilization, Eric Foner, Jews, Liberals, R.E. Prindle, Reviews, San Francisco, The Revolution, Writing | Tagged Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Essays, George Jackson, Huey Newton, Jack London, Oakland, San Francisco | Leave a Comment »
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Memory (Made Popular By "Cats") [Karaoke Version]
Rock Wit'cha (Made Popular By Bobby Brown) [Karaoke Version]
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My Heart Will Go On (Dance Remix) (Made Popular By Celine Dion) [Karaoke Version]
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Always And Forever (Made Popular By Heatwave) [Karaoke Version]
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HOLLYWOOD ( and all that )
hanging out and hanging on in life and the movies (listening to great music)
JAMES EARL JONES REMEMBERS ( Filming “THE COMEDIANS” with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Alec Guinness )
Long before he provided the ominous tones for Darth Vader and created the most iconic-sounding villain in screen history, James Earl Jones made his mark in a number of major productions of stage and screen. It was his role in Jean Genet’s groundbreaking play The Blacks, first staged in New York in 1961, and running for a record-breaking 1408 performances, that led to one of his most memorable early film experiences.
James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson in The Blacks
Polish poster for The Comedians
Peter Glenville
Peter Glenville, a leading British director of the time who had closely collaborated with Graham Greene and Tennessee Williams, was looking for a number of black actors to take roles in his forthcoming film of Greene’s The Comedians, set amidst the turmoil of ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier’s Haiti. Going to The Blacks, which was one of the top off-Broadway hits of the decade, Glenville was presented with an embarrassment of acting riches. Jones was not the only one to be cast in the film as a result of his performance in the play: joining him were Cicely Tyson, Zakes Mokae, and Roscoe Lee Brown. Also in the film was a young Gloria Foster, who later made a mark as the Oracle in the first two Matrix pictures.
For Jones, working on The Comedians was memorable both on, and off, screen. For rarely can a young actor have found himself spending time with such a luminous A-list cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov, not to mention the legendary star of silent pictures, Lillian Gish.
Peter Glenville (c., standing) with the cast of The Comedians
A few years ago I produced an oral history of the life and work of Peter Glenville, and James Earl Jones kindly agreed to share his reminiscences with Susan Loewenberg, Producing Director of L.A. TheatreWorks, who commissioned the history on behalf of the Peter Glenville Foundation.
Peter Glenville directing Ustinov and Taylor
The segment about The Comedians was my favorite, enlivened by Jones’s commentary, his extraordinary presence, and that voice. (In a technical sidebar, that voice was so resonant with bass frequencies that the engineer had quite some trouble recording it without distortion).
Now you can enjoy his story too……
https://hollywoodandallthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/filming-22the-comedians22.m4a
Narrator: Martin Jarvis. Voice of Peter Glenville: Simon Templeman.
by hollywoodandallthat
filed under Acting, Actors, Audio, Film, Film History, Hollywood, James Earl Jones, Memoir, Movie Stars, Movies, Political Thrillers, Popular Culture, Radio Work, The Comedians, Theatre
tagged as Acting, Actors, Alec Guinness, Cicely Tyson, Elizabeth Taylor, Graham Greene, Haiti, Hollywood, James Earl Jones, Jean Genet, Lillian Gish, Mark Ward, Martin Jarvis, Movie Stars, Movies, Papa Doc, Peter Glenville, Radio Work, Richard Burton, Roscoe Lee Browne, Simon Templeman, The Blacks, The Comedians, Zakes Mokae
Film Work: “Clinic E”
Radio Work
A MUSICAL METAMORPHOSIS by ORLANDO DI LASSO
THE MAKING OF DAVID BOWIE’S “HEROES”
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE DOCTOR WHO THEME
THE “OTHER” TERMINATOR ( MARVIN THE PARANOID ANDROID )
BRANDO ON SET OF “APOCALYPSE NOW” ( Photos by MARY ELLEN MARK )
JOHN BOORMAN IN HOLLYWOOD ( “QUEEN AND COUNTRY” AT THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE )
BEETHOVEN TRANSFIGURED ( THE NEUEN EFFECT )
EINSTEIN’S MONSTERS ( Martin Amis, the Bomb, and Thinking the Unthinkable )
JAMES BOND on the SOUTH BANK SHOW
THEMES FOR SECRET AGENTS ( The Phase 4 Stereo Effect Part 1: James Bond, Roland Shaw, et al. )
The Wit and Wisdom of Nora Ephron
HAPPY 450th, BILL! ( How I Celebrated Shakespeare’s Birthday with Sir Ian McKellen )
THE MAN IN THE MACHINE ( Kraftwerk Live at Disney Hall )
IN A HOLLYWOOD STATE OF MIND
( HOW MANY MILES TO ) BABYLON?
The Story of British Prog Rock
The Making of Peter Gabriel’s “Security”
Composing “E.T.” ( Happy 82nd Birthday, John Williams )
TRIPPING THE SOUND FANTASTIC ( Dramatizing “THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER” for Radio )
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER ( Full Dramatization )
“CLINIC E” ( A Dark Comedy about Getting The Test )
“We’ll Meet Again” ( Celebrating 50 Years of “Dr. Strangelove” )
The Wit and Wisdom of Sir Alan Parker
THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING MUSIC CUE ( or How “An American Werewolf in London” Lost Its Bite )
NAPOLEON REDUX ( The Emperor of Films Returns )
A Little Birthday Gilliam ( without so much rat in it )
WHEN MARTIANS ROAMED THE EARTH ( THE STORY BEHIND “THE WAR OF THE WORLDS” )
FILMMAKERS on FILMMAKERS ( ALAN PARKER on KEVIN BROWNLOW )
Celebrating Rita Hayworth
LILLIAN GISH in “The Wind”
Drawn to Greatness ( Richard Williams at the Academy )
HOLLYWOOD by STEICHEN
How to draw Bugs and a Certain Coyote
THE GARBO EFFECT
Terry Gilliam on the Art of Animation
Paul Thomas Anderson on Max Ophuls
Kubrick’s Favorite Movies ( Happy 85th Stanley! )
The Original British Bad Boy: Terence Stamp at 75
Happy 75th Miss. Natalie
INTERMISSION: 60s-STYLE
50 years of Fellini’s 8 1/2
THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE? ( “NAPOLEON” on BASTILLE DAY )
HAPPY 130th BIRTHDAY, FRANZ! ( Kafka meets Welles in “The Trial” )
KUBRICK at LACMA
Bert shoots Marilyn… (and Marilyn shoots Bert)
Audrey by Bert
MY DAD ON EVEREST AND BEYOND ( OF GOD AND SCIENCE )
Watching every Hitchcock cameo….
RAY HARRYHAUSEN ( ANIMATING THE IMAGINATION )
FAVORITE TOPICS
Mt. Everest
And All That
HOLLYWOOD AND ALL THAT on Facebook
Follow HOLLYWOOD ( and all that ) on WordPress.com
THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING MUSIC CUE ( or How "An American Werewolf in London" Lost Its Bite )
Visions of Hollywood ( and all that )
THEMES FOR SECRET AGENTS (Roland Shaw and his Orchestra/Phase 4 Stereo)
Our Man Flint
Theme from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Let the Love Come Through
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The Bold And the Beautiful Spoilers: Will Thomas Lose Custody of Douglas?
SpoilersThe Bold and The Beautiful
By Carol Cassada On Oct 17, 2019
The Bold and the Beautiful (B&B) spoilers indicate that Thomas Forrester (Matthew Atkinson) may lose custody of his son Douglas Forrester (Henry Joseph Samiri).
Fearing that Thomas is a danger to Douglas, Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang) is spearheading a campaign to get Douglas out of Thomas’ life. Brooke is trying to convince her daughter Hope Logan (Annika Noelle) to fight for custody of the boy.
Hope is still legally Douglas’ stepmother and has a right to him. She and Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton) feel that they could provide a good home for Douglas and will try to protect him from Thomas.
The Bold and the Beautiful Spoilers: Liam Flip Flops Between Steffy And Hope – History Repeats Itself Again
Bold And The Beautiful Spoilers – Ridge Forrester Supportive Of His Son
While everyone seems to be trying to keep Thomas from Douglas, Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye) is supporting his son. Ridge knows Thomas has done horrible stuff, but he believes that his son deserves a second chance. He’s seen how much Thomas loves Douglas and is going to help keep the two of them together.
Ridge knows what it’s like to have a child kept from its parent. When Thomas was a baby, his paternity was kept from Ridge until Taylor Hayes (Hunter Tylo) finally told him the truth.
Years later, Ridge and his wife Caroline Spencer (Linsey Godfrey) tried to keep Douglas’ paternity a secret when they learned Thomas was the father. But eventually the couple told the truth, and an overjoyed Thomas was able to be a father to Douglas.
Bold And The Beautiful Spoilers – Hope Logan Has A Case For Custody
Now Thomas’ happiness about being a father is going to be taken away thanks to Brooke and Hope. While Brooke and Hope think they’re doing the right thing, they don’t realize how hard it will be on Douglas. The boy loves Hope and considers her his mommy, but he also loves his daddy. Thomas is the only parent he has left and being ripped away from his dad is going to affect the boy.
The Bold and the Beautiful Poll: Who Deserves Custody of Douglas? @celebratesoaps https://t.co/UKUrcEBxV9 #bb #boldandbeautiful
As the custody battle heats up, it looks like Hope has a case against Thomas. Given his past misdeeds, Thomas’ chances don’t look good. Whether he wins or loses, Thomas is going to need a lot of support from his family.
Do you think Thomas will lose custody of Douglas? Hollywood Hiccups is a leading source for everything linked to The Bold and the Beautiful. Check back regularly for B&B spoilers and news!
Carol Cassada
Carol’s love of soap operas began when she was a kid when she watched an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful with her mom. Since then Carol’s love of soap opera began and she became a lifelong fan. These days her main soaps are B&B and Y&R. When she’s not writing about the soaps, she’s busy working on her next romance novel and playing with her fur babies.
The Bold and the Beautiful Spoilers: Eric in the Middle with Brooke and Quinn –…
The Bold and the Beautiful Spoilers: Monday, January 20 – Quinn Vows To Make…
Bold And The Beautiful Spoilers: Zoe Played By Thomas – Goes After Hope –…
The Bold and the Beautiful Spoilers: Friday, January 17 – Eric Tries To…
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Israeli military continue to target water wells in the West Bank
September 15, 2011 2:14 AM George Rishmawi Israeli attacks, Jordan Valley, News Report 0
An Israeli military force invaded Al-Far’a area in the eastern part of the West Bank near Tubas near the Jordan Vally. The military took photographs of the existing water aquifers in the area, and informed the residents that they will come back to destroy the aquifers.Hussein Al-Hmud, head of the village council of Al-Far’a said that destroying the aquifers will harm most of the residents who highly depend on these water resources for their agriculture which is their only source of income.
In addition destroying the water resources will deprive all the region from its main source of drinking water which will cause a serious problem in the area.
Israel controls most of the water resources in the West Bank. Palestinians are not allowed to dig for water wells without Israeli approval, which is rarely granted.
Palestinians buy their water from Israel who pumps it out from West Bank aquifers and pay more than Israeli citizens and settlers pay.
« Settlers assault workers and hit a boy with car in the West Bank Palestine Today 09 14 2011 »
George Rishmawi
Video: Palestinian Woman Arrested at Al-Aqsa After Alleged Stabbing Attempt
Three Palestinians Detained Near Bethlehem, Including a Former Prisoner
At Least Five Worshipers Injured by Israeli Police at Al Aqsa
PCHR Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (09 – 15 January 2020)
Al-Haq: Release UN Database on Businesses Profiting from Israel’s Settlement Enterprise 15 Jan 2020
Ramallah-based Al-Haq Human Rights organization, on Tuesday, called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to [more]
After original bill stalled in 2019, Rubio & Coons introduce new bill expected to give Israel at least $38 billion over the next 10 years – over $7,000 per minute 13 Jan 2020
News analysis by Alison Weir – Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Chris Coons have introduced legislation expected to give Israel a [more]
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Tag Archives: ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS OF THE MISWAAK
Sunnah of the Prophet
The Importance of the Miswaak in Islam
June 6, 2016 islamreigns 2 Comments
WHAT IS A MISWAAK? – Miswaaks are twigs of certain trees that were used, and should be used, on a regular basis by Muslims. Miswaaks were used for centuries by Muslims (and all Prophets— alayhimussalaam) to maintain oral hygiene and gain the pleasure of Allah Ta’ala. It is a “natural toothbrush”, not only does it provide spiritual benefits, but it is also beneficial to the everyday maintenance of one’s mouth, gums, teeth, and general well-being.
Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) laid great stress on the use of the Miswaak. The Miswaak was in use for brushing and cleansing the teeth long before the advent of our Holy Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam). In fact the records of our Nabi Muhummad’s (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) Ahadith indicate that the Miswaak was the practice of all the Ambiyaa (Prophets of Allah) — Alayhimussalaam.
Hadhrat Abu Ayyub (Rahmatullah alayh) narrates that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “Four things are amongst the practices of the Ambiyaa —Circumcision, Application of perfume, Miswaak and Marriage”. (AHMAD & TIRMIDHI)
In fact, the importance of the Miswaak is such that at one stage our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) was under the impression that Allah Ta’ala might decree the use of the Miswaak Fardh (compulsory) upon the Ummah (Islamic Nation). We learn from this Hadith that the Prophet (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) liked to clean his teeth with Miswaak with every Salaat, but he did not make it obligatory for the reason that it would be inconvenient for his followers. It shows that he was extremely affectionate and kind to his Ummah.
This Hadith also shows that using Miswaak is an admirable act. Every Muslim should make it a routine to use it as frequently as possible especially before performing prayers.
Allamah Sha’rani (Rahmatuallah alayhi) states in Kashful Ghummah that the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “Whoever spurns or rejects the Miswaak is not of us (Muslims).”
Hadhrat Ibn Mubarak (Rahmatullah alayh) said: “If the inhabitants of a city spurn and reject the use of the Miswaak, the Ruler should wage battle against them like he would wage war against the renegades or murtad-deen”. (KHAANIYAH)
All the aforegoing Ahadith of our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) and the statements of the learned jurists of Islam point clearly to the tremendous importance of the Miswaak in Islam. However, despite its elevated status, significance and importance, this noble practice is neglected and generally discarded by present day Muslims. Needless to say, this is one of the examples of the spiritual and worldly decadence that have set into the Muslim Nation.
The revival of the practice of using the Miswaak instead of the various substitutes is of utmost importance to Muslims. In times such as the present age when we are confronted and surrounded by the satanic forces of irreligiosity, materialism, atheism, vice and immorality, it is of greater importance that Muslims strive most ardently to re-instate the practices or the Sunnah of our beloved Nabi (sallallahu alayhi wasallam). And, of these is the Miswaak.
To revive a “lost” or a forgotten Sunnah of our Nabi (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) carries a great and mighty Thawaab (Reward). In this regard our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “He who holds on firmly to my Sunnah at a time when my Ummah are (grovelling) in corruption will receive a reward of a hundred martyrs”.
ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS OF THE MISWAAK
(1) Eliminates bad odour and improves the sense of taste. The wisdom underlying the use of the Miswaak after rising from sleep is that during sleep bad vapours rise from the stomach towards the mouth. This causes bad odour in the mouth as well as a change in the sense of taste. Use of the Miswaak eliminates the bad odour and rectifies the change which occurred in the taste. (NALE WA TA’LEEQ)
(2) Sharpens the Memory. Hadhrat Ali (Radhiyallahu anhu) said that: “Miswaak sharpens the memory”.
(3) Sharpens the Intelligence. Four things increase the Intelligence—
(i) Shunning of nonsensical talks (ii) Use of the Miswaak
(iii) Sitting in the company of the pious, and
(iv) Sitting in the company of the Ulama. (TIBB E NABAWI)
(4) Eliminates Slime. Hadhrat Ali (Radhiyallahu anhu) said that: “Miswaak removes slime”. (IHYA-UL-ULOOM)
(5) A Cure for Illness. Hadhrat Aisha (Radhiyallahu anha) said that: “Miswaak (its constant use) is a cure for all illness excepting Death”. (REPORTED BY DAYLAAMI IN FIRDAUS)
6) Miswaak creates fragrance in the mouth.
(7) Miswaak strengthens the gums.
(8) Miswaak prevents tooth decay.
(9) Miswaak prevents further increase of decay which has already set in the teeth.
(10) Miswaak is a cure for headaches.
(11) Miswaak assists in eliminating toothaches.
(12) Miswaak creates lustre (Noor) on the face of the one who continually uses it.
(13) Miswaak causes the teeth to glow.
(14) Miswaak removes the yellowishness of the teeth.
(15) Miswaak strengthens the eye-sight.
(16) Miswaak is beneficial for the health of the entire body.
(17) Miswaak assists in the process of Digestion.
(18) Miswaak is a cure for a certain mouth disease known as Qilaa’. This is stated in Hujjatul BaalIghah.
(19) Miswaak clears the voice. This is stated in Tibb e Nabawi.
(20) Miswaak facilitates the appetite (Tibb e Nabawi).
(21) Miswaak increases the eloquence of one’s speech. Abu Hurairah (Radhiyallahu anhu) said that “Miswaak increases the eloquence of a person.”. (AL-JAAMI‘)
(22) Miswaak (i.e. its constant use) will be a factor to ease the pangs of Death. The continuous use of the Miswaak makes it easy for the Rooh (Soul) to depart from the body when its appointed time arrives. (SHARHUS SUDOOR)
(23) Through the constant use of Miswaak, In sha-Allah the Kalimah will be easy to recite at the time of death.
(24) Miswaak increases the Thawaab (reward) of Salaat (prayer) from seventy times to four hundred times. (HADITH)
(25) Miswaak is a factor which will earn higher ranks in Jannat for the one who uses it.
(26) The Angels sing the praises of the one who uses the Miswaak.
(27) Use of the Miswaak displeases Shaitaan.
(28) Use of the Miswaak graces one with the companionship of the Angels.
(29) And, the greatest benefit of using the Miswaak is the attainment of Allah Ta’ala’s Pleasure. Hadhrat Ali (Radhiyallahu anhu), the fourth Khalifa of Islam said: “Make the Miswaak (i.e. its use) incumbent upon you, and be constant in this practice because Allah’s Pleasure is in it and it increases the Reward of Salaat from ninety-nine times to four hundred times”.
TIME WHEN USAGE OF THE MISWAAK IS SUNNAT
1. For the recitation of the Qur’an.
2. For the recitation of Hadith.
3. When the mouth emits an odour.
4. For the learning or teaching of virtues of Islam.
5. For making Thikrullah (Remembrance of Allah, meditation).
6. After entering ones home.
7. Before entering any good gathering.
8. When experiencing pangs of hunger and thirst.
9. After the signs of death are evident.
10. At the time of Sehri.
11. Before meals.
12. Before undertaking a journey. 13. On returning from a journey. 14. Before sleeping.
15. Upon awakening.
One of the Sunnats of Wudhu is to use a Miswaak. Wherever a Miswaak is available and is not used, the full beauty and complete thawaab of the Wudhu is not realised. Those who neglect the use of the Miswaak invite upon themselves a great misfortune by being deprived of the tremendous amount of thawaab (Reward) which this noble practice carries.
HOW LONG SHOULD A MISWAAK BE?
A Miswaak should not be longer than a “span” i.e. the maximum distance between the tips of the thumb and little finger, and it should not be thicker than a finger’s breadth.
HOW SHOULD A MISWAAK BE USED?
A Miswaak should be held in such a manner that the small finger and thumb is below the miswaak and the remaining fingers on its upper side.
Brushing technique:
The techniques employed for removing plaque mechanically are similar to that for the toothbrush and the chewing stick; i.e., vertical and horizontal brushing. The cleaning movement should always be directed away from the gingival margin of the teeth (away from the gums) on both the buccal (outer cheek) and lingual (inner cheek) surfaces.
Care should be taken to avoid damaging the soft tissues of the mouth. Satisfactory cleaning can be achieved if this procedure is followed for five minutes.
There are two basic holds: Pen-grip (three-finger) or palm-grip (five finger-grip). In each case the aim is to ensure firm but controlled movement of the brush end of the Miswaak within the oral cavity, so that every area of the mouth is reached with relative ease and convenience.
Freshness:
Miswaak should be freshly cut so that it is supple, easily chewed, and still rich in active constituents. The root should be whitish-brown in color; a dark brown color indicates that the Miswaak is no longer fresh.
If a stick is dry, the end for chewing should initially be soaked in fresh water for 24 hours. It should be noted that soaking for unduly long periods causes loss of active constituents and diminishes the therapeutic properties, although the mechanical effects on the teeth can still occur.
The end: Before Miswaak is used, the end should be washed with water. It is then chewed repeatedly until the fibers stand out like the bristles of a toothbrush. These fibers should be trimmed every 24 hours.
When to use Miswaak:
In general, the Miswaak should be used a minimum of five times a day (i.e. before each prayer). However it is recommended to use it all the time, whenever possible.
Common mistakes in Miswaak use:
1. The end is either too thin or too thick.
2. Keeping it in the mouth while doing other things.
3. Not cutting the end every day. 4. Forgetting that teeth have five faces (inner, outer, two sides, and biting/chewing face), and only using Miswaak to clean the outer faces.
AADAAB (Etiquette) OF THE MISWAAK
(1) The Miswaak should be a straight twig, devoid of roughness. (2) The Miswaak should be clean. (3) The Miswaak should not be too hard nor too soft.
(4) The Miswaak should not be used while one is lying down.
(5) The new Miswaak should be approximately 8 inches (a handspan) in length.
(6) The Miswaak should be the thickness of the forefinger.
(7) Before using the Miswaak, it should be washed.
(8) After use, it should be washed as well.
(9) The Miswaak should not be sucked.
(10) The Miswaak should be placed vertically when not in use. It should not be thrown onto the ground.
(11) If the Miswaak is dry it should be moistened with water prior to use. This is Mustahab. It is preferable to moisten it with Rose water.
(12) The Miswaak should not be used in the toilet.
(13) The Miswaak should be used at least thrice (brush three times) for each section of the mouth, e.g. brush the upper layer of teeth thrice, then the lower layer thrice, etc.
(14) The Miswaak should not be used at both ends.
(15) The Miswaak should not be taken from an unknown tree as it may be poisonous.
AHADITH RELATING TO USAGE OF THE MISWAAK
Hadhrat Ibn Umar (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “Make a regular practice of the Miswaak, for verily, it is healthy for the mouth and it is a Pleasure for the Creator (i.e. Allah is pleased with the Muslim who uses the Miswaak).” (BUKHARI)
Hadhrat Abu Umamah (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “Use the Miswaak, for verily, it purifies the mouth, and it is a Pleasure for the Lord. Jib-ra-eel (Alayhis salaam) exhorted me so much to use the Miswaak that I feared that its use would be decreed obligatory upon me and upon my Ummah. If I did not fear imposing hardship on my Ummah I would have made its use obligatory upon my people. Verily, I use the Miswaak so much that I fear the front part of my mouth being peeled (by constant and abundant brushing with the Miswaak).” (IBN MAJAH)
Hadhrat Ibn ‘Abbas (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “I was commanded so much to use the Miswaak that I thought Wahi of the Qur’aan (Revelation) would be revealed, regarding it (i.e. its use).” (ABU YA’LAA)
Although the use of the Miswaak was not made Fardh (compulsory) upon the Ummah, nevertheless its use was Fardh upon our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam). This is borne out by the following Hadith: Hadhrat Aisha (Radhiyallahu anha) narrates that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “These (practices), viz., Miswaak, Witr Salaat and Tahajjud Salaat, are Sunnat for you and Fardh for me”.
Hadhrat Abu Hurairah (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) would use the Miswaak (regularly) prior to sleeping and after rising from sleep.
Allamah Sha’rani (Rahmatullah alyay) states in the Kitaab, Kashful Ghummah, that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) advised: “Whenever you retire for sleep, use the Miswaak”.
Hadhrat Ibn ‘Umar (Radhiyallahu anhu) says that many a time Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) used the Miswaak as much as four times in a single night.
Hadhrat Aishah (Radhiyallahu anha) narrates: “Verily, the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) would use the Miswaak before making Wudhu (ablutions), whenever he arose from sleep, whether it be during the night or during the day”. (ABU DAWOOD)
Similar Ahadith have been narrated by Imam Ahmad and Abu Ya’laa (Rahmatullah alayhim). Imam Ghazali (Rahmatullah alayh) has mentioned in his Ihya-ul-Uloom that a person before sleeping at night should keep his water and Miswaak ready and close at hand. As soon as he wakes from sleep during the night he should immediately use the water and the Miswaak, and engage in the remembrance of Allah.
Hadhrat Ibn ‘Abbas (Radhiyallahu anhu) states: “The Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) would use the Miswaak at night time (i.e. Tahajjud time) after every two Rakaats Salaat he (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) performed”. (IBN MAJAH)
It is clear from this Hadith that two types of benefits accrue from the use of the Miswaak. These could be categorised as follows:
(1) Benefits which relate to the Hereafter.
(2) Benefits which relate to this worldly life.
The 1st category comprises the various thawaabs (Rewards) which the Servant of Allah will obtain in the Hereafter for using the Miswaak. The 2nd category comprises the immediate benefits or advantages accruing to the physical human body by the constant use of the Miswaak.
The prime motive of the true Believer in his use of the Miswaak is his desire to obtain the first category of Benefits, the obtainal of the second category benefits being a necessary corollary. This is so, since the only factor which governs the motive and intention of the Believer in his Ibaadat (Worship) is the Pleasure of Allah, our Creator, Nourisher and Sustainer.
MERITORIOUS MOMENTS FOR USAGE OF THE MISWAAK
MISWAAK UPON ENTERING HOME: Shuraih (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that he asked Aa’isha (Radhiyallahu anha): “What was the first thing Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) did upon entering the house?” Aisha (Radhiyallahu anha) replied: “Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) would use the Miswaak”. (MUSLIM)
MISWAAK UPON LEAVING HOME: “Whenever Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) left the house he would use the Miswaak.” (KASHFUL GHUMMAH)
MISWAAK BEFORE AND AFTER MEALS: “Abu Hurairah (Radhiyallahu anhu) said: “I have used the Miswaak before sleeping, after rising, before eating and after eating, ever since I heard the Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) advising so”.
MISWAAK BEFORE RECITING THE HOLY QUR’AAN: Hadhrat Ali (Radhiyallahu anhu) said: “Verily, your mouths are the pathways of the Qur’aan (i.e. you recite with your mouth), therefore cleanse your mouth with the Miswaak thoroughly”. (IBN MAJAH)
MISWAAK ON FRIDAYS: “Ibn Sabaaq (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said on one Friday: “O gathering of Muslims, Allah has made this Day (Friday) a Day of Eid for Muslims, therefore, bathe (on this day), use perfume and regard the use of the Miswaak (on this day) as an obligation upon you”. (MUWATTA IMAM MUHAMMAD)
Suhail Bin Hanief states that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said that to bathe and use the Miswaak on Fridays are of the Huqooq (Rights or Duties) of Friday.
MISWAAK DURING FASTING: Aamir Bin Rabiyah (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates: “I have seen Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) using the Miswaak many a time while fasting”.
In another Hadith our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said that one of the best characteristics of a fasting person is his use of the Miswaak.
The majority of the Ulama have opined that it is Sunnat to use the Miswaak while fasting. It is recorded in Fataawa Siraajiah that a fasting person may use a dry or a moist (i.e. fresh, green) Miswaak.
THE SAHABAS (COMPANIONS) AND THE MISWAAK
The Sahabas (Radhiyallahu anhum) who were the best and the noblest examples and teachers of the Sunnah of our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) viewed the Miswaak in a very serious light and regarded it as a practice of supreme holiness. Their constant use of the Miswaak, their continuous exhortations to use the Miswaak and their warnings to those who neglect the Miswaak are ample evidence of the nobility and the importance attached to this practice of using the Miswaak.
Ibn ‘Abbas, Ali and Ataa (Radhiyallahu anhum) said: “Regard the Miswaak as an obligation on you, and do not be neglectful of it. Be constant in using it, for verily, in it lies the Pleasure of Allah, The Merciful, and in it is greater reward for Salaat”.
Hassaan Bin ‘Atiyyah (Radhiyallahu anhu) said: “Miswaak is half of Imaan, and Wudhu is half of Imaan”. (SHARHU IHYA-ULULOOM)
Abdul Aziz Abu Dawood (Radhiyallahu anhu) said: “Two things of a Muslim are among the best of practices—(1) Performing Tahajjud Salaat, and (2) Constancy in the use of the Miswaak”.
THE ULAMA AND MISWAAK
‘Allama Shawkani (Rahmatullah alayh) said: “Miswaak is one of the Laws of Shariah. And, this fact is as clear as daylight. This has been conceded by the people of the world”. (NAILIL AUTAAR)
Hadhrat Sha’rani (Rahmatullah alayh) said: A pledge has been taken from us on behalf of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) that we be steadfast in the use of the Miswaak at the time of making Wudhu. Should any of us be forgetful then he should tie the Miswaak with a string and hang it around his neck or keep it in his turban (so that it will be at hand when making Wudhu).
The general public has broken this pledge. It (constancy in the use of the Miswaak) is indicative of the strength of one’s Imaan and the degree of respect one has for the Laws of Allah and His Rasool (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam). The Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) emphasized the use of the Miswaak. And, Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) was not satisfied merely with issuing an order once, but repeatedly exhorted his followers (regarding its use).
Allamah Aini (Rahmatullah alayh) says: “Abu Amr (Radhiyallahu anhu) said that upon the significance of the Miswaak concensus of opinion exists. There is no difference of opinion on this score. According to all learned men of Islam, Salaat performed after using the Miswaak is far nobler than a Salaat without Miswaak.
Shaikh Muhammad (Rahmatullah alayh) said: “Verily, over a hundred Hadith have been narrated regarding the significance of the Miswaak. Therefore, it is a great astonishment to behold that so many among mankind as well as among the learned neglect such an important practice which has been emphasized to such an extent.
AADAAB OR RESPECTS TO BE OBSERVED REGARDING THE MISWAAK
The majority of the ‘Ulama hold the view that the use of the Miswaak is not Fardh (compulsory). However, despite it not being decreed Fardh by the Shariah, it is of utmost importance. It is likewise essential that all the Aadaab pertaining to the Miswaak be observed. Neglect of the Aadaab is a sign of spiritual indolence and weakness of Imaan. In order to achieve the thawaab of a particular practice in full measure it is necessary that the Aadaab relating to the practice be observed. If neglect is shown towards the Aadaab, the final result will be the neglect of that very practice. In the Kitaab, Ta’leemul Muta-allim the following is stated: “He who becomes neglectful about the Aadaab is deprived of the Sunnats; and he who becomes neglectful of the Sunnats is deprived of the Faraa-idh (compulsory acts); and he who becomes neglectful of the Faraaidh is deprived of the Hereafter”.
Faqih Abu Laith al-Samarqandi (Rahmatullah alayh) states: “As long as the Servant of Allah safeguards the Aadaab shaytaan does not attempt to assault him (i.e. mislead him). However, when he neglects the Aadaab shaytaan makes advances into the Sunnats (i.e. misleads the Servant from the Sunnats). Thereafter follows shaytaan’s assault on the Faraa-idh (compulsory duties). This is followed by shaytaan’s assault on Ikhlaas (sincerity), and finally on Yaqeen (Faith). Hence, it is necessary for a person to protect the Aadaab of all his affairs and actions, eg. the Aadaab of selling and the Aadaab of Wudhu, Salaat, buying, etc. (BUSTAANUL AARIFEEN)
TYPES OF MISWAAKS
It is permissible to take for a Miswaak all types of tree twigs provided these are not harmful or poisonous. It is forbidden to use a Miswaak from a poisonous tree. Miswaaks from the following trees are not permissible:
(1) Pomegranate
(2) Bamboo
(3) Raihaan
(4) Chambelie
Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) FORBADE THE USE OF Raihaan as Miswaak because it causes the sickness, Juz-zaam
The following are the types of Miswaak are recommended:
(1) Peelo tree
(2) Zaitoon or Olive tree
(3) Bitam or
(4) Any bitter
(5) Walnut tree
Miswaak of the Peelo Tree: “And, the best of Miswaaks is the Peelo, then the Olive.” (KABIRI) The best type of Miswaak is that which is taken from the Peelo tree. In the Kitaab, Ta-heelul Manaa-fi’ it is mentioned that the miswaak of the Peelo tree is excellent for obtaining the glow or glitter of the teeth.
Our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) also praised and recommended the Peelo tree for Miswaak purposes. Besides recommending the Peelo tree, Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) as well as the Sahaabas (Radhiyallahu anhum) used Miswaaks of this tree.
Ibn Sa’d (Radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that Abu Khabrah (Radhiyallahu anhu) said: “Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) presented me with a Miswaak of the Peelo tree, and he (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: “Use the Miswaak of the Peelo tree”.
Ibn Mas’ood (Radhiyallahu anhu) said: “I always kept a stock of Peelo Miswaaks for Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)”.
In the Kitaab, Mawaahib, it is stated that the Companions of Imam Shafi (Rahmatullah alayh) have recorded Concensus of Opinion among them on the fact that the use of the Peelo Miswaak is Mustahab (i.e. an Islamic practice which carries much thawaab (Reward) if upheld, and in the event of not fulfilling it no punishment will be meted out).
Miswaak of the Olive Tree: Rasullulah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) has spoken highly of the Miswaak of this tree as well. The following Hadith brings out the significance of the Olive tree Miswaak: “Use the Miswaak of the Olive tree. It is the Miswaak of a Mubarak (auspicious or gracious) tree. It purifies and makes wholesome the mouth. It removes the yellowishness of the teeth. It is my (i.e. Rasulullah’s—Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) Miswaak and the Miswaak of the Ambiyaa (Prophets) who came before me”. (MUNTAKHAB)
Miswaak of the Bitam Tree: In another Hadith it is stated that in the absence of the Peelo tree, the Olive tree should be used, and in the absence of the Olive Miswaak, the Bitam tree Miswaak should be used. (MUNTAKHAB)
Miswaak of some bitter tree: If none of the three abovementioned types of Miswaak is available, a Miswaak of any bitter tree should be used. Miswaak of a bitter tree removes odour of the mouth to a greater extent.
In Alamgiri it is stated that the Miswaak of a bitter tree makes the mouth wholesome, strengthens the teeth and the gums.
Miswaak of the Walnut Tree: Miswaak of the Walnut tree has been recommended as well.
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE MISWAAK
The Fingers
In the case of the non-availability of the Miswaak the fingers should be used to cleanse the teeth. This method will serve the purpose of the Miswaak as far as the thawaab is concerned, i.e. if a Miswaak is not available the thawaab (Reward) attendant to the Miswaak will be realized by using the fingers as a substitute provided that Niyyat (intention) of Miswaak be made when the fingers are used for this purpose. Rub the teeth with the forefinger and the thumb.
Hadhrat Amr Bin Auf Muzni (Rahmatullah alayh) states that the fingers could be used as an adequate substitute for the Miswaak in the case of the latter’s absence.
Imam Tahtaawi (Rahmatullah alayh) says: “The promised Reward (of using the Miswaak) shall be obtained in the event of the nonavailability of the Miswaak, and not in the event of its availability”. In other words, if a Miswaak is available and you are able to use same then the Sawaab of it will not be realised by using a substitute.
A coarse piece of cloth may also be used in case of the non-availability of a Miswaak. Those who have no teeth should use the fingers or a cloth as substitutes for the Miswaak, and they will obtain the thawaab. But Niyyat of the Miswaak should be made. And, the significance of the Miswaak shall be obtained even though the finger or a cloth be used in the event of the non-availability of the Miswaak (SHURAMBALI)
If the toothbrush is made of bristles (pig’s hair) then its use is not permissible. If bristles are not used, the use of the toothbrush is permissible. However, the toothbrush will not serve as a substitute in the case of the Miswaak being available. If a Miswaak is available Reward will not be realised by using the toothbrush. The same applies to toothpowder or any other means of cleansing the teeth. It should be remembered here that during the time of our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) substitutes, e.g. Byzantinian tooth-powder, etc., existed, but our Nabi (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) never equated these with the Miswaak. Therefore, the argument of the modernist that the toothbrush today takes the place of the Miswaak is fallacious.
WONDERFUL FACTS ON THE MISWAAK
The Miswaak is a natural tool for brushing the teeth. It is taken from the roots and branches of particular desert trees. It differs from one region to another, but in Arabia and Asia it is taken from the Arak tree. This is the most famous variety, and is the kind that was used by the Prophet (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam)
The Miswaak is also obtained from other trees. In Africa, for example, it is cut from Lime and Orange trees, and in America some are cut from the Senna tree. As the Arak tree is so well-known, and as it was the kind that the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) used, it has been scientifically studied. The following summarize the various discoveries regarding Miswaak.
Health effects of Miswaak: Physically, the Miswaak is a natural toothbrush. It is composed of a compact group of minute natural fibers that perform exactly the same function as a normal toothbrush except that it is made of natural rather than plastic fibers. For this reason it may be more gentle on the gums.
Miswaak’s natural toothpaste is made up of many substances that are important for cleaning teeth. Many researchers have studied the Miswaak in depth, and have proven that Miswaak contains over ten different natural chemical compounds considered essential for good oral and dental hygiene.
They are: fluoride, silica, tannic acid, resins, alkaloids (salvadorine), volatile oils (sinigrin), sulfur vitamin C, sodium bicarbonate, chlorides, calcium, benzylisothiocyanate (BIT), and others including salicylic acids, sterols, trimethylamine, saponins, flavenoids.
Some of these components are stain removers and teeth whiteners, some protect teeth against caries, some are bactericidal and antiseptic, some help in healing and to repair tissues, some promote remineralization (building) of tooth enamel, and some give the pleasant taste and smell.
Cytotoxicity:
Results of cytotoxic tests showed no cytotoxic (cell damaging) effects from using freshly cut Miswaak. However, the same plant used 24 hours after cutting did contain harmful components.
Based on these findings, researchers recommend cutting the used portion of the Miswaak after it has been used for a day and preparing a fresh part.
Scientific comparison between Miswaak and toothbrushes:
A clinical trial study on Ethiopian schoolchildren, comparing Miswaak with the conventional toothbrush, found Miswaak to be as effective as the toothbrush in removing oral deposits. The study also found instruction and supervision to be important since the children in the sample were not familiar with techniques for using Miswaak. (source: http://miswak.org/)
Potential Dental Benefits With Regular Use:
Research shows that the bark of the “Toothbrush Tree” contains an antibiotic which suppresses the growth of bacteria and the formation of plaque in the mouth. Research also suggests that the regular use of Miswaak significantly reduces plaque, gingivitis, and the growth of cariogenic bacteria. No toothpaste required! Miswaak, naturally contains many components such as fluoride, astringents, detergents, resins (a possible enamel protectant) and abrasives. (source: http://miswak.org/)
Scientifically as well, it has been proven that Miswaak is very good for gums maintenance and it kills bad odour, overall, it improves your taste buds and makes your teeth whiter. Research also indicates that Miswak suppresses decay-causing bacteria, gingivitis and plaque formation among many other benefits.
1. Natural way of brushing teeth. 2. It is an organic product.
3. Keep you safe against all teeth diseases.
4. Kills bad odour.
5. Requires no toothpaste.
6. Easy to carry around. It has no harmful side-effects. (source: http://alkhaircqw.com)
A Miswaak or is probably an alien thing to the western world. But, it’s a twig which a majority of people from Muslim countries use daily to brush their teeth. Although it might sound outdated to use twigs from trees for cleaning your teeth, studies conducted on the Miswaak prove otherwise. Studies have inferred that Miswaak is better than toothpaste for preventing gum disease. It is being known as chewing stick in the western world and is being looked upon as a form of alternative medicine. So, let’s analyze this “wonder twig” keeping documented scientific studies as proofs. The use of Miswaak is well spread in the Muslim population of the world, and is a common entity in Muslim countries. The reason for common use of Miswaak by Muslims can be attributed to religious beliefs. The last messenger of Islam used it frequently and also instructed his followers to do the same and hence the practice continues widely in Muslim countries. There are 70 benefits of Miswaak as suggested by Islamic Literature and many of these have been scientifically proven.
You might be wondering what exactly a Miswaak is in the first place. The Miswaak is obtained from the twigs of the Arak tree (Peelo tree) although a few other trees can also be used to obtain it such as walnut and olive.
A few important benefits of Miswaak
* Kills Gum disease causing bacteria.
* Fights plaque effectively.
* Fights against caries.
* Removes Bad breath and odour from mouth.
* Creates a fragrance in the mouth.
* Effectively clean between teeth due to its parallel bristles.
* Increases salivation and hence inhibits dry mouth (Xerostomia)
Scientific Studies on the Miswaak:
Although the 70 benefits of Miswaak range widely, the main one we are examining is its effect on oral health. So, let’s throw some light on scientific studies conducted on Miswaak.
The Wrigley Company made a study on Miswaak which was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The study found that mints laced with Miswaak extract were 20 times more effective in killing bacteria than ordinary mints. A small testimony to this fact is that after half an hour, the mints laced with Miswak extract killed about 60% of the bacteria where as the ordinary mints managed only 3.6%
In the August issue of Journal of Periodontology (2008) appeared a study conducted by Swedish researchers on Miswaak. The study apparently found that suspended Miswaak pieces in a petridish (medium for culturing bacteria) were able to kill bacteria that cause periodontal disease with out being in physical contact with the bacteria. The researchers suggested that Miswak might be giving antibiotics as gases trying to explain this phenomenon.
A study which compares toothbrushing and using Miswaak (Miswak ing!) can be seen on http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15643758 . The study concluded that Miswaak was more effective than toothbrushing in reducing plaque and gingivitis provided it was used correctly. Similar studies found on the same website and elsewhere vouch for the effectiveness of Miswaak over toothbrush.
A study conducted by a group of dentists at King Saud University concluded that using Miswaak was at least as good as tooth brushing, if not better. There have been plenty of published studies on Miswaak and infact entire books published which study its oral and systemic benefits. Now, with all those studies chucked at you, you couldn’t help but wonder why it is so effective. This can be attributed to its strong antibacterial properties. Another important aspect to consider is that its bristles are parallel to the handle rather than perpendicular which means effective cleaning between the teeth. Now, that’s one natural toothbrush cum toothpaste cum floss. (Source: http://www.dentalhealthsite.com/what-is-miswak)
AADAAB (Etiquette) OF THE MISWAAKAADAAB OR RESPECTS TO BE OBSERVED REGARDING THE MISWAAKADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS OF THE MISWAAKAHADITH RELATING TO USAGE OF THE MISWAAKHOW LONG SHOULD A MISWAAK BE?MERITORIOUS MOMENTS FOR USAGE OF THE MISWAAKMISWAAK DURING FASTING:SUBSTITUTES FOR THE MISWAAKTHE SAHABAS (COMPANIONS) AND THE MISWAAKTHE ULAMA AND MISWAAKTIME WHEN USAGE OF THE MISWAAK IS SUNNATTYPES OF MISWAAKSWONDERFUL FACTS ON THE MISWAAK
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Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks
Bizarre, Columns, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics December 17, 2018 December 17, 2018
“Let’s Just Send A Couple Of Guys Over”: Comey Admits Another Violation Of Department Protocol and Policy
Below is my column in The Hill Newspaper on the recent admission by James Comey that he intentionally circumvented the White House Counsel and Justice Department protocol to send two agents to interview then National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. It is a subject that will hopefully be raised this week when Comey appears again before Congress on Monday. Comey describes his sudden realization that he could “get away with” sending “a couple guys over” to the White House. Comey’s epiphany could be his epitaph.
Here is the column:
“I probably wouldn’t have … gotten away with it.” Those words this week from former FBI Director James Comey could well be chiseled in marble as his epitaph. He was explaining another violation of bureau policy during his tenure days after meeting behind closed doors with House members.
What was shocking was not that Comey violated protocols or policies again but the reaction of the audience to his admission. In describing how he set up a critical meeting with Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Trump, the audience was audibly thrilled by his cleverness in keeping Flynn unrepresented by legal counsel and unaware of the true nature of the meeting. Scheduled to testify to House members again next week, Comey may find a less rapturous reception in Congress.
In his interview in New York City, Nicole Wallace asked him, “It’s hard to imagine two FBI agents ending up in the State Room. How did that happen?” The audience erupted when Comey said dryly, “I sent them. Something we’ve, I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration. In the George W. Bush administration … or the Obama administration, two men that all of us, perhaps, have increased appreciation for over the last two years. In both of those administrations there was process.” He revealed, “So if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel and there would be discussions and approvals and it would be there. I thought, ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple of guys over.’”
Just send a couple of guys over. One line could not more aptly capture Comey and his own professed view of “ethical leadership.” The interview confirmed what some of us have written about Comey for more than two years. The media consistently reinforced his image as a rules driven and principled public servant, often referring to him as an almost naive Eagle Scout. The Washington Post even ran the headline, “Boy Scout James Comey is no match for Donald Trump.” Yet, the history of Comey shows both an overriding interest in his own actions as well as a willingness to violate rules to achieve that interest. But his comments, including a call to the public to defeat Trump in a “landslide” in the next election, have stripped away any remaining pretense. The fact is, there often was more pretense than principle in his final years as director.
Consider his conduct during the 2016 presidential election, leading up to his controversial press conference and public announcements, which were widely condemned by both Republicans and Democrats. As here, Comey failed to inform the Justice Department or the attorney general of his intended action. In doing so, he was far outside the clear policies and protocols. Indeed, the first public act of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was to issue a memo excoriating Comey for his “serious mistakes” and citing former federal judges, attorneys general, and leading prosecutors who believed that Comey “violated longstanding Justice Department policies and tradition” along with “his obligation to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the traditions of the department and the FBI.” Rosenstein further added that Comey “refused to admit his errors.”
Then there was Comey’s response to being fired. He removed memos on his meetings with President Trump related to the Russia investigation, then leaked those to the media. The Justice Department rejected Comey’s claims that these were his memos, not FBI material. Some of the material was classified. He violated core FBI rules in removing the memos, and the man tasked to find leakers became a leaker as soon as it suited his own interests. He also undermined the investigation by revealing to Trump and others that the memos existed, information that investigators likely preferred to remain secret before they conducted key interviews.
Then Comey published a book, a sharp departure from prior directors, that discussed the ongoing Russia investigation. He did not pause before rushing it to the shelves, revealing details of the investigation and various meetings while making a fortune for himself. Now Comey has again admitted to violating rules and protocols, by setting up Flynn. Ironically, Comey criticized Trump for breaking protocols in meeting with him alone and asking about an ongoing investigation. He was right in that criticism because there is a formal process for communications between the FBI and the White House. Yet, the same protocols go the other way. If the FBI seeks to interview White House officials in an investigation, they go through the Justice Department, which communicates with White House counsel to arrange the interview. He evaded both in ordering the move.
What was Comey’s justification? Because he could. He refers to the “process” of other administrations. That process, however, was still in place and did not change. Moreover, he noted that he thought he could get away with it because this was “early” in the administration. That is not principle. It is opportunism. He was supposed to work through the Justice Department and not simply follow the rules only if he might be caught breaking them. Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates is cited in some recently released FBI material as being irate over his decision.
There is a reason for the policy of conferring with counsel. It protects not just the individual but the institution. It prevents rogue or impulsive actions and maintains a clear chain of command within the Justice Department. It is part of the internal rules in how the components of the executive branch function and communicate with each other to preserve both independence and proper review. It is part of the very delicate relationship that Comey accused Trump of violating. There was nothing noble in Comey seeking to reduce the chance that Flynn might have legal counsel. Those same liberals applauding him wildly would presumably be appalled if a police detective proudly described how he prevented a criminal suspect from speaking to a lawyer simply because he could.
Flynn ultimately bears responsibility for any false statements. As special counsel Robert Mueller noted in a court filing, he should have known better, and we should not forget that Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to lying. However, that does not mean the circumstances or the conduct of FBI officials are irrelevant. The agents, including Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, who were both later fired by the FBI for their actions in this investigation, admitted that they discussed warning Flynn about criminal liability for false statements. They warned other witnesses, like former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. Yet, they not only omitted that warning with Flynn but did not raise a conflict in his denying that sanctions were discussed with Russian diplomats. They also encouraged Flynn not to bring a lawyer or to inform the White House counsel. Instead, they arranged a meeting just hours after a telephone call with McCabe.
Ultimately, the agents recounted that they did not believe Flynn deliberately lied at the time. Moreover, Flynn told McCabe that he assumed McCabe had read the full transcript of his conversation with the Russian ambassador, an apparent reference to his knowledge that Russian embassy phones were tapped. The comment further raises the question of why Flynn would lie about discussing sanctions if he recalled the discussion and knew of the wiretap. Yet, Comey seemed to delight the audience by taking credit for keeping Flynn in the dark about the FBI interview. When Wallace asked what Flynn thought the FBI agents wanted, Comey replied, “I don’t think he knew. I know we didn’t tell him.” Actually, Comey didn’t tell anyone. Not the White House counsel, not the acting attorney general, not the Justice Department. He “just sent a couple of guys over” to the White House because he could “get away with it.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
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182 thoughts on ““Let’s Just Send A Couple Of Guys Over”: Comey Admits Another Violation Of Department Protocol and Policy”
Mark M. says:
The fanboys and ball baggers of the day glo bozo might want to ponder the words of one Paula Duncan as they ponder that crescendoing ticking sound, by considering that
“the essence of American governance was best summed up by Paula Duncan, the Trump enthusiast who was among the jurors who found Mr. Trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort guilty of fraud, even though she had hoped he wouldn’t be convicted.
Explaining her decision after the verdict, she told Fox News, ‘No one’s above the law.’”
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls….
Paul C Schulte says:
The NPC Marky Mark Mark runs the “day glo bozo” script.
enigmainblackcom says:
After the sentencing hearing today, anybody here still wish to claim Flynn was entrapped or didn’t really lie? The judge was ready to send him to prison on the spot and made him and his attorneys back off even the suggestion the FBI acted wrongly. He also questioned in open court whether the government could have charged Flynn with treason? Fox News is working overtime I’m sure trying to spin this in Flynn’s favor. The war hero that was wronged.
enigma – and yet, Judge Sullivan put off the sentencing again. Sullivan ripped Mueller’s lawyers and still did not sanction or hold them in contempt. I think we seeing some Kabuki Theatre.
If what you got out of the hearing was that Judge Sullivan ripped Mueller’s team, you should check the transcript. It was Flynn’s lawyers that had to take responsibility for the suggestion that Flynn wasn’t really a liar and somehow didn’t know he was breaking the law. The thing Mueller’s lawyers might be guilty of is giving Flynn too good a deal.
enigma – Sullivan ripped Mueller’s team in an earlier hearing. Sorry if I confused you. I just do not want you to get your hopes up. 😉
Paul – My hopes are buoyed by 17 separate criminal and civil investigations, multiple indictments and guilty pleadings and many more to come. Every day breaking news of Trump criminality, today the State of New York forcibly shut down the Trump Foundation, banned the Trump’s from serving on any New York charity boards and is dispersing the remaining funds lest Trump use them for more self-dealing like buying portraits of himself. It was a good day!
enigma – I am buoyed by the selling of tickets to Clinton events at a discount on Groupon. 😉
Paul – The judge told Flynn he, “sold out his country.” How do you spin that?
enigma – it is still Kabuki Theatre.
Paul – The Kabuki Theatre is the mere notion that Trump and the majority of his administration think of America first. I wonder how many will be left standing, including the President by the end of his first term?
ProsecutorMilesEdgeworth says:
Here are some more gifts that are sure to make Trumpies sweat:
President Donald Trump’s personal charity will shut down and disperse whatever funds it still has under a new agreement announced Tuesday by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.
The attorney general’s office sued the Trump Foundation in June, alleging the president and several of his children used it for their personal and political benefit. That lawsuit, which seeks millions of dollars in restitution, will continue, even as the foundation agrees to cease existence.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/18/trump-foundation-to-shut-down-1067924
So much for Darrell Issa’s prediction that Flynn’s conviction would be thrown out.
But you got to love the Republican excuse making. It is OK to lie to law enforcement until they warn you that lying is criminal. The party of corruption truly.
This is absurd says:
Not much of a prosecutor, are you?
The ‘crime’ which he committed does not exist in New York State law and in regard to federal law, they had to stretch to get it to apply to his case. They were also interrogating about matters none of the FBI’s busines.
Partisan Democrats are innocent of honor, innocent of decency, and should be given no quarter.
Mueller’s team rebutted these claims by noting the FBI officials followed proper interview protocol, releasing the details notes from bureau agents about the White House sit-down.
Both Mueller and Flynn agreed in court that he did lie to the bureau. The FBI has also never concluded Flynn didn’t lie.
Democrats in Washington aren’t the ones lying to the FBI right now. The Trumpies are.
Horuss says:
Comey may have his issues but whatever they are, they aren’t partisan. He is a lifelong Republican and an Ashcroft protégé. He’s no closet liberal. But he is a sane man who saw that pack of grifters in the White House for the crooks and corrupt hustlers that they were and are. I’m glad he did everything he did and I don’t think he has any reason to be either more diplomatic or less open in condemning our crooked President or his even more crooked deputies.
So you’re glad the head of our premier law enforcement agency violated internal agency policy and laws to clear a proven violator of the law so she could run for president, and at the same time facilitate the weaponization of his agency against her political opponent. Hmm, I don’t care what his party affiliation is, who his mentor was, or whether he leans Left or Right; that conduct is criminal and anyone that supports it is a threat to civil society.
Haha. Right. You’re in the exact same boat as the “Kenyan” “Uranium One” “Benghazi” “the dead guy” and “some foreign chick with computers” wackjobs are. Don’t try to spin like you give two sh*ts about “justice” or “I don’t care what party” or “care whether they lean left or right.” You are judged by the company you keep; your fellow travelers are nothing more than a gaggle of gullible rubes, dupes, klan wannabees, pocket-traitors (and so many of them?!) and grifters on the make. Enjoy your repartee with your cohorts as you collectively ponder that most salient of questions: “What is that ticking sound?”
this is to “I’m ‘secret’ friends with hannity on facebook” olly
The NPC Marky Mark Mark runs the “kllan wannabee” script, tagging on the Hannity script.
You still read that garbage? When I see a post from him I look for the tag line and scroll on by.
Horuss – Comey is a crook who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and now is complaining about it. He is a disgruntled fired employee. Fired for good cause.
Tom Nash says:
PC Schulte,
I would agree with the statement by Horuss that Comey was pretty much non-partisan.
But he did manage to do more damage to the FBI than any Director since Hoover.
Comey probably places himself above partisan politics, and I think that’s largely true in the sense that he is non-partisan.
Comey also seems to place hinself above virtually any human being as The Great Moral Arbitrator; that observation was widely made long before he was fired, and it was an accurate and largely bi-partisan criticism of Comey.
It is that characteristic that caused him to overstep his position as head of the FBI and blunder into putting himself and the FBI front and center into political firestorms.
Judging by the actions of his top deputies like Strzok and McCabe, Comey did not seem to have firm leadership and control of the agency he headed for c.3 years.
In that short span, however, he did manage to become the most famous FBI Director since J. Edgar Hoover.😉😊
https://www.politico.com/blogs/james-comey-testimony/2016/07/what-party-is-james-comey-registered-as-225223
Looks like just Making Stuff Up.
Supposed to be a reply to Independent Bob.
David Benson is the God Emperor of Making Stuff Up and owes me twenty-four citations (one from the OED, one from the town ordinances and two from the Old Testament), an equation and the source of a quotation, after twenty-six weeks, and needs to cite all his work from now on. – you would know if anyone was making stuff up if any one did.
Yes, unlike you, I have a good grip on reality.
David Benson is the God Emperor of Making Stuff Up and owes me twenty-four citations (one from the OED, one from the town ordinances and two from the Old Testament), an equation and the source of a quotation, after twenty-six weeks, and needs to cite all his work from now on. – I am not the one who is typing in “place holder” for a comment. Make sure those students are doing a wellness check on you every day.
Independent Bob says:
If only Trump didn’t win, then we wouldn’t have had to go through all this. The Washington establishment does not like outsiders coming to their party.
Jim Comey, the deep state personified.
Oky1 says:
Bob, write Trump now! Send this letter & add your comments.
Ask him WTF, why haven’t you arrested those that are clearly Traitors to the nation.
PH says:
Presidents don’t make arrests, Oky. We don’t give them power. The founding fathers feared that presidents like Trump would abuse such power.
WoW!, you’re surely sh*ting me?
I guess George Washington shouldn’t have Ordered those Deserters to line up & have their heads blown Off!
Yelling…. Trump, Don’t Arrest Them, just line them up for the Firing Squad as PH recommends! LOL;)
WoW, I don’t know you were that hard core being from Hollywood & all. LOL
Bob Miller says:
Oh, I am very sure that the abuse you refer to was done by the Obama admin., and the Clinton Admin. So, don’t be so holier than thou.
Haha. Riiight. Riddle me this: which administration has had more indictments and guilty pleas? Pro tip: President Clinton has been out of office for over 20 years; you, your ilk, hannity and the other wackjobs need some new material.
this is to “crimes are okay as long as old white guys doing them” bobbie
The NPC Marky Mark Mark runs the “I’m pretending to be a real person” script.
NDAA:
Here’s more info on what Trump could do to Rat Rosenstein,Mueller, his crew, including Comey, MCCabe the jerk of Stroker & Page, etc, Obama, H Clinton:
Mr Kurtz says:
hey, sounds like China! government can call anybody an enemy and detain them without warrant, habeas corpus, nothing. wow~!
well, hope we can use that on them before they use it on us!
https://youtu.be/ngIKjpucQh8
veteran retired CIA analyst and patriot Ray McGovern on Russians and the CIA and Hillary and the whole kit and caboodle.
Ray is not a Trumpophile, he is a sincere liberal, voted for Jill Stein, but breaks down the truth of the matter
Mr Kurtz,
I like Ray McGovern & he has at least one great idea: Get the CIA completely out of operations & limit them to gathering Intel & writing reports.
Another great idea comes from Dr Steve Pieczenik, former under Secretary of State, right after 911 when agents told him they knew the attack was coming but said knowing because their pensions.
I’ve heard that excuse fore inaction myself on the local level.
Dr Pieczenik’s solution Get Rid of All Government Pensions!!!!
I couldn’t more strongly agree!
The Great Zambini says:
@Kurtz, love to see this guy on OAN or FOX do a couple hour breakdown on all this stuff. I say OAN or FOX based on his own analysis of MSM.
Excellent. But you left out infowars, brietbart and the other random, obscure, loser-loner wackjob sites. Please post more materials Just. Like. This.
this is to “I’m tuned into the ‘real’ news here in mom’s basement” zambi
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Hi Fi and Low Expectations
Posts Tagged ‘Sail
AWOLnation “Megalithic Symphony”
By nymike Leave a Comment
Categories: General Opinion, Indie, Other, Punk and Rock
Tags: Aaron Bruno, AWOLnation, Megalithic Symphony, Not Your Fault, Sail
AWOLnation is frontman Aaron Bruno, formerly of Under the Influence of Giants, Christopher Thorn, Hayden Scott, David Amezcua, and Kenny Carkeet. The band’s name was derived from Bruno’s inexplicable avoidance to say ‘goodbye’ to anyone, hence the term AWOL.
They are signed to Red Bull Records, after Red Bull offered Bruno some free studio time where he recorded a couple songs for the band’s first album Back From Earth
You’ve undoubtedly heard the first single from the album “Sail” all through last summer and fall. As this album was released in March 2011.
They have a unique mix of punk and electronic music that brings out the best of both worlds. They are what, to me, is a perfect amalgamation to be an appealing live show. No completely pre-recorded tracks *cough* Skrillex *cough* or a DJ just sitting there tapping buttons on a sound board with an Apple symbol burning into your forehead. This style preserves the uniqueness and fun that a live show should offer.
They are the epitome of what music has lost in the past decade of the digital revolution. Something that is embodied by the Foo Fighters (and probably why we still love them) and this carries over to AWOLnation as well. FUN.
Just having fun with what you’re doing, you make music, you’re not going to get Isreal and Palestine to drop their guns Bono. You’re not going to stop the killing in Sudan by standing outside an embassy in the USA George Clooney.
Somewhere along the way musicians forgot their place. You’re here to entertain us. You want to spend all that money you make off of album sales to help those people? Go ahead. But to preach to the public that WE need to do more is stupid, especially considering you don’t pay taxes in Ireland (of all places) U2.
Hypocrisy runs rampant when you make a ton of money and tell people to do more with theirs. Which is why the term “they sold out” permeates bands that we once held near and dear (yes, Green Day too.) Remember when they were just about having fun? Now we have to listen to “Jesus of Suburbia” yuck.
AWOLnation reminds me of a time when bands knew what they were their purpose was. That they were making a living traveling the globe and brightening peoples’ days. Megalithic Symphony is just that, an album that let’s you find meaning in your own way.
“Not Your Fault” is a perfect example of this. They took an opportunity to make a really heavy handed music video but took the road that seems to be cracked and unkempt. They had fun with it. So besides these two singles that’ve made waves on the charts, my favorite track has to be “People” as it gives a nice little gem that speaks to me as the problem with the world today:
We were born to rage
We’re the price of pain
We’re a single voice
We’re the second choice
What happened to our passion and sticking together? Where is the next great revolution going to come from? What is the next big “movement” going to be? It feels like between the government and corporate America, we’ve lost the world that was once our oyster. That it feels nobody can change it, that the machine is just too big to throw a cog into. That’s what this song says to me and this is why punk rock will live on; even if the sound we remember from the 80’s and 90’s has changed.
I found something in Megalithic Symphony that I like. A different sound in a time where punk bands seem to be a dying breed. Where the next generation identifies more with electronic beeps and boops than they do lyrics that help them understand and derive answers to the world.
Bob Dylan is not amused.
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Blue Beauty Awards
Past Attendees
Forces For Change by INNOCOS
In light of the latest buzz surrounding HRH The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle’s guest editing of Vogue magazine, we have decided to publish our very own Forces for Change segment.
At INNOCOS International Beauty Innovation Summits, held over the past few years, we hosted many inspiring leaders and disrupters from the global beauty and wellness industry. We take this opportunity to recognize those past speakers by featuring them in our own Forces For Change list.
These 15 luminaries appear on our cover, with the 16th space signifying a mirror for the reader’s reflection. The list includes: (from top left to right)
Grace Fodor, Founder Studio 10 Beauty, for embracing beauty at every age and empowering to look and feel your best at any age.
Brandi Leifso, CEO and Founder at Evio Beauty Group, for her vision of breaking stigmas to create a more conscious future with products that are good for your skin, your planet and community.
Carol Zhou, SVP, head of business innovation and investment, for women empowerment and creating beauty innovation that will improve the lives of consumers everywhere.
Jeannie Jarnot, Founder & CEO of Beauty Heroes, for her outstanding work leading the project Blue Beauty, spotlighting the brands that are using their business to create a better, bluer planet.
Marie Drago, Founder, Gallinée, for her achievements in beauty science and business, discovering the enormous benefits of harnessing good bacteria, that helped her to create Gallinée formulations.
Esi Eggleston Bracey, EVP & COO NA Beauty and Personal Care, Unilever, for embracing diversity in teams and inspiring them to grow.
Zak Normandin, Founder & CEO at Iris Nova, for revolutionizing physical retail.
Lauren Brooke Steinberg, Founder at Queen V, for empowering women to get educated about their health and inspiring them to use their voice to pursue something they are passionate about because let’s face it, when women feel their best, they can take on the world!
Daya Fields, SVP, marketing & product development, Alaffia, for her contribution to the social enterprise business and Mission-Driven organizations transforming Digital Platforms, Marketing, PR and Communications.
Melody McCloskey, Founder & CEO at StyleSeat for her vision of digitalizing beauty services and building the largest destination of beauty and wellness services
Michelle Pacynski, VP of Digital Innovation, for leading the digital innovation team at Ulta Beauty, through the combination of building a cross-functional team of digital leaders within Ulta, along with experts who have joined the team in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality.
Parham Aarabi, CEO of Modiface, for revolutionizing beauty through Augmented Reality.
Angela Cretu, Group Vice President Central Europe at Avon, for her multiple projects in women’s well-being and empowerment.
Sian Sutherland, Co-Founder of A Plastic Planet, for inspiring the world to turn off the plastic tap.
Michael Dubin, CEO of Dollar Shave Club, for building one of the most successful e-commerce DTC brands for men in a span of just five years.
There are many more game-changers in beauty, whom you can get to know by signing up for the upcoming Summits. Get notified about the next INNOCOS in Europe, USA or Asia here>>>
Who is YOUR Force For Change?
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NFL Tag
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A data-collecting wearable for the seaside!
from A data-collecting wearable for the seaside!
by John Weir
It may sound strange, but if you think about the droves of creatures studied by scientists every year, there are technically a lot of “animal wearables” (usually called tags) in circulation. We’ve made smartwatches, fitness-tracking rings and more to be comfortable and flexible, but tags attached to underwater creatures are often heavy, uncomfortable and, most of all, invasive (involving drills or clamps). The inventor, Joanna Nassar says marine scientists told her the bulky tags limited what kinds of species they could work with — and, therefore, the kind of data they could collect on marine life.
With Bluefin, MMH Labs aims to turn that idea on its head. It made use of flexible, stretchable electronics to develop a product that could monitor levels of salinity, pH, temperature and depth, along with the physiology (or muscle strain) of a creature’s movement underwater. Bluefin can be fitted onto an animal in less than 30 seconds, and scientists can release it more than one mile below the surface. It can then track a Bluefin’s satellite location and, after retrieving it from an animal, collect the data wirelessly using Bluetooth.
The post A data-collecting wearable for the seaside! first appeared on Wearable Tech | CrunchWear.
Original article: A data-collecting wearable for the seaside!
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If Burke did it… timeline scenario of JonBenet Ramsey’s death
Maybe Burke DID do it? Here is a plausible scenario.
If Patsy accidentally killed Jon Benet Ramsey
JonBenet Ramsey Evidence
Darlie Routier Wrongfully convicted by silly String
Cern & FTL travel
UFO Tips & Tidbits
Denver Airport Murals
Near Earth Asteroid
Bohemian Grove (ID photos)
Friedman, Shermer & MUFON gov’t Disinformation jackals
Those little things between the lines
Published October 18, 2016 by mmc7
This is a free WordPress website with a free URL. I don’t earn anything from this site. If any ads appear, they belong to WordPress. I can’t view them if any appear. They are invisible to the holder of the site.
This site & any others I have are merely platforms to express my personal ideas & opinions to compare with those which others may share in common. I have no way to know if my ideas or opinions are correct or incorrect. I have no expertise or personal knowledge of these issues. They are simply personal opinions as the Constitution allows each of us to freely express. They are not intended to be harmful or authoritative in any manner. No personal affrontery is intended.
These are speculations just as someone might speculate on the shape of a cloud and have no further meaning or implication beyond that. Everyone should make their own decision on the speculations based on all sources of information. These are merely one idea of hundreds of possible scenarios and possible participants. Blogs are simply a form of entertainment by sharing personal ideas & opinions.
Published October 9, 2016 by mmc7
This is a possible & plausible series of events which may have occurred if Burke was the culprit in JonBenet’s death; based on Burke’s own words in his interviews and evidence stated by investigators & law enforcement. I did not see either documentary. I have only seen the Dr Phil interviews of Burke & his father & recently; the film Perfect Murder, Perfect town on Youtube. I have no knowledge of the contents of either the A&E or CBS productions except what I read. Therefore, neither had any bearing on this plausible scenario.
However, this scenario is different from the documentaries. It better explains how she was killed in the basement, not the kitchen and where the DNA came from the cellar floor where Burke was fighting her. Tracked in on shoes. This scenario also provides a more logical explanation of the garrote & when he spread the feces which indicated the amount of rage he had just prior to her death. Burke could have done all of this while both parents were in bed asleep. While Burke was alone with JonBenet in the cellar. Then he left her there covered under her blanket after he killed her & went to bed… until Patsy woke up and found JB missing. This scenario makes more sense.
This is one possible scenario speculating how Burke may have harmed JonBenet the night she died.
#1 John Ramsey’s own words during interview with Dr Phil
JB had fallen asleep in the car.
John carried JonBenet upstairs to bed.
John used a flashlight and left it upstairs.
Patsy Ramsey undressed JonBenet for bed.
They used flashlight so not to wake JB.
They also put Burke to bed.
They all went to bed and did not eat anything.
John said he did not use the home alarm system.
John said he may have closed basement window just prior to finding JB.
#2 Burke Ramsey’s own words during interview with Dr Phil
Burke said he went downstairs after everyone was asleep
Burke said he was not done playing with one of his presents
He did not deny using the flashlight his father left upstairs.
He said he might have eaten pineapple.
Burke also said he owned hiking boots, contradicting his Lawyer.
(Most kids clothing is bought by the mother. John would have had no idea what brand of boots Burke had or if he even had boots. Even the mother who bought them would unlikely remember the brand. Only the store. Nor would a child remember the brand. So for John to even speculate about a child’s clothing article of which he would have had no knowledge, would be indicative of practiced responses.)
However Burke did admit he owned hiking boots.
Burke placed himself downstairs at the scene of the crime with opportunity and motive.
It is also unlikely any intruder was lurking with Burke awake and wandering through the house.
#3 Evidence found
An FBI investigator said they found Burke’s feces in JonBenet’s room and on her presents and a box of chocolates she got for Christmas and on the walls
The housekeeper had found a grapefruit sized wad in JB’s bed and on the walls on earlier instances.
For feces to be on her presents, he would have had to have done it after they came home when Burke was up wandering around in the dark with a flashlight after everyone else was asleep. Not after she died… but just before when he first got up.
His sneaking around her room may have been what woke JB up.
Spreading feces in his sister’s room and on her Christmas presents at the age of 9 is a serious issue. Apparently there were multiple incidents.
It shows the level of jealousy and hate toward his sister on the very night she died.
Perhaps the parents had overindulged JB and Burke did not get what he wanted for Christmas.
Or JB may have taunted her brother.
The garland tangled with her hair may have occurred when her father carried JB upstairs to her bedroom.
#4 Plausible Events based on evidence
JonBenet, was possibly awakened by her brother smearing feces
JB followed Burke downstairs while dragging her blanket.
Little girls her age often drag a favorite blanket around the house.
JB ate some of Burke’s pineapple.
Burke’s fingerprints were on the glass of tea next to the bowl.
The mother’s fingerprints on the bowl could simply have been from her putting away the clean dishes
or from placing a bowl of pineapple inside the refrigerator.
Perhaps left over from glazing a ham or used for cereals, etc.
Pineapple is not something a mother would feed a child without something else to go with it Such as cereal or cottage cheese, etc.
A bowl of pineapple was something a child would find easy to snack on from the refrigerator. It still had the serving spoon in it when put away in a hurry.
This indicates it was Burke who got the pineapple out of the refrigerator along with some tea to drink.
Burke said he may have eaten pineapple.
JonBenet had undigested pineapple in her. Since there was only one bowl, JB helped herself to some bites from his bowl
The mother would not have served a child such a large amount with a serving spoon to eat. This was a bowl of left over pineapple which Burke found in the refrigerator.
This indicates both children were awake and eating pineapple while the parents were asleep.
#5 Basement
JonBenet followed her brother into the basement… still dragging her blanket
Their train was set up in the basement
Burke said they played down there often.
Perhaps one of the new toys was for the train setup.
JonBenet may have seen Burke doing something he should not have done.
Perhaps Burke was climbing outside the window to get something from the car or from outside.
Or perhaps Burke was climbing outside to smash up JB’s new bicycle.
All of which would have left his hiking boot print on the suitcase or perhaps he had left the prints on an earlier occasion.
Burke also may have been doing something else inappropriate.
JonBenet saw him and threatened to tattle on him to their parents.
Burke attacked her, hitting her and she fell backward onto the train track section on the floor during their struggle.
JB screamed and Burke hit her in the head with a flashlight or bat which he later tossed outside to shut her up and make her stop screaming.
A neighbor heard her scream (which would have carried through the broken window.)
I believe their parents room was on other side where less likely to be heard.
Authorities said she was unconscious for over 45 minutes.
Burke may have thought she was dead.
Burke could have made the vaginal abrasion
Or it was not associated with this incident
Or Patsy may have done it much later while staging to appear as molestation
JonBenet regained consciousness and either went into convusions; scaring Burke
Or woke up threatening to tattle
Or woke up screaming and crying
So Burke grabbed a nearby rope and choked her
Either to stop her convulsions
Or to stop her from screaming and crying or tattling.
The rope was NOT a garrote. He just used it as such.
The rope with the paintbrush handle was used for flying kites
Or used to pull behind her new bicycle on skates
Or other such benign use. It was not created as a garrote.
Burke saw it nearby and used it to choke JB.
This explains the multiple injuries which no intruder or molester or angry parent would do.
This was a jealous brother who had spread feces in her room a short time earlier.
These are the acts of an angry brother.
Beating up JB in a fight
Injuring her back when she fell on a train track on the floor
Hitting JB on the head with flashlight or bat to shut her up
Knocked her unconscious for over 45 minutes
Thinking her dead for over 45 minutes
She woke up either convulsing from head injury or screaming
Then choking her with a rope he found nearby.
Burke then covered her up with her blanket and went back to bed to pretend he was innocent.
The main issue is the rope was already tied to the paintbrush handle for other uses
It was not intended as a garrote
Burke just used it as one.
However, any scout (boy or girl) learns how to do intricate knots & braids by age 7 (second grade) and would be capable of creating this garrote.
So all 3 Ramsey’s could have tied the rope around the paintbrush handle.
Burke could have done so while JB was unconscious.
Or it was simply created to fly their kites, etc., and was lying in the basement.
Either the public & authorities were never scouts or the scouts have changed immensely since then.
We made all kinds of things for camping with similar and advanced knots at age 7.
The instructions are in the scout manuals
#6 The staging
Burke covered up his sister with her own blanket
which JB had dragged downstairs when she followed Burke
He went back upstairs and to his bed to pretend innocence.
Patsy woke up and went to check JonBenet’s room for a wet bed.
Parents with bed wetters always check the child’s bed when they get up.
Patsy discovered JonBenet was missing and pried the details from Burke
Burke may have claimed ignorance… the typical “I don’t know” response
He may have even made up a story
but Patsy figured it out and realized he was in serious trouble
Kids were often tried as adults and sent to Juvenile hall.
She knew his life would be ruined.
She dressed in previous night clothes.
She staged the ransom note.
It was clearly written by a college educated female with maternal familiarity.
The punctuation, grammar & size of each character was meticulous
Despite efforts to alter slant and style. Many characters were consistent throughout such as “e” “r” and “g tails”. Punctuation was too advanced for a child. Words used were college level. Every “i” and “t” were perfectly centered, dotted & crossed.
Patsy is described as a perfectionist in her writing.
The details were absurdly overdone on Patsy’s own pad and pen inside the house
Police say there was a practice letter as well. Someone spent over an hour writing this in the house… then left the child behind.
Not the words of an intruder.
Info known only to Patsy or John.
Note more reminiscent of the Patty Hearst kidnapping.
Patsy may have placed the tape on JB’s mouth to imply abduction
Police say tape was applied after JB was dead.
No mouth movement or tongue protrusion behind tape.
John woke up and Patsy informed him of situation
I almost would have believed Patsy did not tell John what really happened except for the 911 conversation following the call sounds like he did know. Maybe more than we all suspect.
Then Patsy called 911
Since John had just learned of situation, it explains the recorded conversation after 911 call where he was angry with Burke.
Burke was sent to his room where they claimed he was asleep until police arrived, and stuck a flashlight into his face… according to Burke. Sounds like a strange way to wake up a child.
#7 The Aftermath
Despite the repeated ransom warning about JB being killed or beheaded if they spoke to anyone; even a stray dog… they called over a houseful of friends and clergy who were there with police when JB was supposedly missing.
This implies they had no fear of their daughter being harmed due to the house full of guests and police despite ransom note warnings.
However, the houseful of guests did taint the crime scene and any evidence the police might have found.
Police were unable to get support to contain and control scene of crime & evidence.
Burke was sent to a friends house.
First searcher did not find JB in basement because he did not recognize her blanket.
John went to basement with a friend to search again.
John said he may have closed basement window
(why would he do that if it indicated a route an abductor may have taken?)
John recognized JB’s blanket, looked under it and found his daughter
John then carried his daughter upstairs, disturbing the crime scene.
Shortly afterward, John called his pilot to arrange flight out of Colorado.
#8 Innocent transfer of DNA
The family was at a Christmas party & visiting friends.
JonBenet was playing with other kids, shaking hands
and sitting directly on her panties on the floor and furniture in her dress.
All are innocent sources of DNA.
Little girls don’t know how to wrap their skirt under them so they sit directly on their panties.
Especially in her expensive dresses to prevent wrinkling the fabric.
This allows her underwear to pick up DNA where she sat.
The playing with other kids and grabbing hands would get foreign DNA on JB’s hands or under her nails which JB may have transferred while scratching herself or pulling up her drawers.
Little girls also drop their undies around their ankles onto the bathroom floor… another DNA source.
JB’s grandmother also said JB would ask any nearby stranger (male or female) to wipe her on the pot or help her pull up her drawers.
Long johns & tights are particularly difficult for children to pull up.
While disturbing, this is another innocent source of DNA obtained during the party or visiting their friends homes that night.
Another source of DNA could be the floor of her own bathroom at home.
Or the most likely source was the basement floor where she was fighting Burke that night.
The Ramsey’s had many guests in their home as well as workmen that week doing renovations.
Using their bathroom, tracking through spit outside and tracking it into the bathroom or cellar floor.
Perhaps the workmen even spit on the floor of the cellar.
But even spitting outside can be tracked in on shoes where she could have transferred it while sitting, lying or fighting on the cellar floor.
Men who wear boxer shorts are frequently shedding pubic hairs down their pants legs onto the floor where it can be tracked to another location.
These are all innocent sources of DNA. Especially touch DNA.
Without the presence of semen or saliva on JonBenet’s body, none of this touch DNA is viable and is easily transferred by innocent means.
Unfortunately, the authorities and public are not well informed enough about the innocent transfer of touch DNA and easily misinterpret the meaning.
Some innocent person will likely end up being falsely accused just to appease the Ramsey’s sue-happy attorney and the parents 20 year coverup for a bratty son.
Touch DNA is sadly misinterpreted and never should have been used to exonerate the Ramsey’s.
Law enforcement, politicians and the general public do not have the scientific or medical knowledge to fully understand DNA.
Especially touch DNA without body fluids present.
Even those with body fluids can be planted although unlikely in this case.
Authorities in particular need to be seriously educated on how to understand the innocent transference of DNA and pubic hairs and how to interpret their meaning.
Attorneys and DA’s also need to learn the same.
Otherwise, innocent people could be convicted based on innocently transferred DNA.
This should also be a warning for men to think twice about spitting or wearing boxer shorts as to how easily their DNA could be transferred to a crime scene.
#9 Other Strange Details
There is a website which lists 10 little known facts about the Ramsey’s. Some we already know and some are strange but irrelevant, while others are downright disturbing. Here is what they reported
The suitcase in the cellar below the window with the footprint. Patsy claimed it wasn’t theirs and must have been brought by the kidnapper to carry JB’s body —- turned out to belong to John’s grown son John Andrew Ramsey. The contents are most disturbing. A semen encrusted blanket and a Dr Seuss book. DNA confirmed the semen belonged to John Andrew Ramsey but he wasn’t in town that night. However, finding such items in the home of a child found to have signs of long term molestation is very disturbing indeed. I think they should recheck his alibi. Perhaps this is why there is no film or photos of their 1996 Christmas
The 911 call from the Ramsey’s three days before her death but someone hung up. Either something was going on… or perhaps someone simply touched a 911 autodial by mistake.
The vaginal abrasions and blood stains could have been caused by Burke. Sibling molestation is more common than people think. Burke was alone with her while she was unconscious. However, since there was no semen, no saliva and no foreign DNA the injury could have been staged with an inanimate object by Patsy to mislead toward the intruder theory.
There was vaginal irritation when she was 3 twice recorded as bubble bath irritation but I would vote for the owner of that suitcase.
Then they listed the fecal spreading problem which the FBI found in Jon Benet’s room after her death on her presents and wall. The DNA turned out to be Burke’s. In order to be on her presents, Burke had to have spread the feces that same night when he got out of bed after everyone else was asleep… before she died. She had just gotten those presents earlier that day.
Strange but irrelevant, John Ramsey dated Natalie Holloway’s mother after Patsy died. John later remarried a fashion designer and moved to Las Vegas.
Burke age 9 said his mother was going psycho looking for JonBenet and how she was overreacting. This sounds like a peek into Patsy’s initial reaction at discovering JB was missing. Before she got the truth out of Burke. It also sounds like he was getting a kick out of her reaction. It seems he was also punishing his parents for overindulging JB and getting even for slighting him.
The grandmother was the pageant pressure who was also crowned as was her daughter, Patsy. She said JB would have been forced to go if she had faltered.
John’s grown daughter died 4 years before JB in a car wreck
The Ramsey’s traveled with Police when they went to question John’s first wife.
The website list http://toptenlisted.com/10-strange-little-known-facts-about-jonbenet-ramseys-family/
#10 Overview
I have followed this case from the beginning. I had always believed it was Patsy who had accidentally overreacted to a wet bed whom had caused JonBenet’s death. Burke had been kept under wraps by his parents for 20 years, so we never heard from him before.
But after hearing and seeing Burke’s interview and inappropriate reactions, placing himself at the scene of the crime downstairs after everyone else was asleep with opportunity and motive, it has changed my mind. Burke would and could easily have harmed his sister.
Would you grin if someone asked you if you harmed your little sister? Would you grin if someone asked if you hit or molested your sister? Most people would be offended. They certainly would not grin. This is not Asberger’s as some have said. This was clear narcissism from someone who likes to be the center of attention. There is a difference between shy and secretive. Burke was thrilled to be the center of attention, hence all the smiling. I saw no awkwardness in his reactions. He was loving being on TV. There were also sociopathic indicators of someone without a conscience who doesn’t know right from wrong, who responds inappropriately.
Any competent, qualified psychotherapist would have noted his inappropriate responses as indicators of a serious, deep seated psychological problem… much less Burke’s spreading feces in JB’s room the night she died. I did find it interesting when someone said Dr Phil had the same lawyer as the Ramsey’s and that lawyer was a key guest during the interviews which Dr Phil catered to him. Allowing the attorney to vet and prepare their responses.
Since Burke’s feces was on JB’s presents and on her wall, it had to have been done that night since she had just received them that day. So he must have done it while in her room to get the flashlight before he went downstairs. There was no reason for him to do it after her death. This indicated serious jealousy and hate toward his sister on the night she died.
Perhaps the parents overindulged JB for Christmas and Burke did not get what he wanted. Or perhaps JB taunted him. But it was clear they fought in the basement. He knocked her unconscious and then choked her with a nearby rope when she regained consciousness or began to have convulsions from the head injury. He did it to either shut her up or make her stop convulsing.
A lot of people and authorities obsess that the rope tied onto the paintbrush handle was created as a garrote to kill JonBenet or stage the crime. But no one considers that it was already tied to the paintbrush handle to be used when they flew kites or pulled behind a bicycle on skates and Burke just found it lying nearby and used it to choke his sister. However, any 7 year old scout could do those knots so it is possible he made it while JB was unconscious. But I think it was already made by someone in the family for their kites. It was a perfect design for flying their kites. It would also make a good pull handle for a drop down attic ladder. These are just a few uses it may have been used for before Burke strangled his sister with it. Who knows what ideas he may have had from movies or video games.
Just two weeks later, this 9 year old acted happy to be the only child and said he was moving on. There was no grief or sorrow from this child talking about his dead sister just days later. He was delighted to be the center of attention and an only child.
It would be interesting to hear from those other kids who knew Burke and JonBenet to find out how he acted and behave.
I would also like to hear more about this grown brother who owned the suitcase. Gross. And more about Burke as an adult… especially since he depicts the very same behavior he did as a child. Something is not right about him or his half brother.
There have been studies done on serial killers and serial rapists whom all seemed to start out with feces spreading and killing animals. Some killed other children while they were children themselves. Then their behavior progressed to things such as voyeurism, serial rape and serial killing. The parents covering up Burke’s behavior and deeds did not provide the treatment Burke should have had out of fear someone would discover what he had done. So it is quite possible that he could do something worse as an adult. This would make the Ramsey’s accountable for shielding a dangerous child. Especially if the choking of his sister was done with the pent up anger and hate indicated by the feces spreading he had done that very night and deliberately killed her. Maybe he thought he could blame it on an intruder… which is how Patsy got the idea for her ransom note and created a Patty Hearst style terrorist note. No sensible person reading that note could believe it to be genuine. It was clearly created by Patsy to protect her son.
Those elected officials must have been friends with the Ramsey’s and possibly were financially helped in their campaigns. Lou was clearly closed minded and actually helped the Ramsey’s by sharing the details of the police investigation and evidence. He was clearly not impartial. It makes you wonder about his other investigations.
I recommend the movie “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town. It gives an excellent overview of the fighting between the authorities and how the police efforts had been deliberately blocked. They tore each other to pieces in the media and leaked all kinds of information. Many people quit over this and everyone was suing each other. It was ridiculous.
However, it does tell us one thing. If you have enough money and can hire the meanest lawyers, you can get away with just about anything, even with blatant evidence against you… Just like OJ Simpson with his custom gloves covered in blood, his DNA at the scene. The victim’s DNA at his home… got away with it… but the public hate was so intense he finally paid for it after another crime in another state who made him pay for both crimes.
Let us hope that some innocent person is not convicted of JonBenet’s death based on misinterpreted touch DNA.
While this is just one possible scenario as to the events after Burke had gotten out of bed, wandering through the house:
It wasn’t an intruder
wandering around the house that night after the parents went to sleep,
nor spreading feces in JonBenet’s room.
Nor eating pineapple with her.
Nor writing the overly wordy ransom note on Patsy’s pad and pen with personal info and wording then leaving the child behind… dead or alive.
Burke stated that he had gotten up after his parents went to bed and went downstairs to play with a toy he wasn’t done with yet.
Unfortunately, JonBenet followed him downstairs where the parents couldn’t hear them.
Posted in: JonBenet Ramsey
This article was written before I found out about the feces which Burke had spread throughout JonBenet’s room that very night which he would have had to have done after he got up to go downstairs after everyone else was in bed. It was on her presents and a box of chocolate she had just received that day as well as on her walls and a grapefruit sized wad in her bed according to an FBI investigator they found in her room during their investigation. For a 9 year old, this indicates extreme jealousy and hatred of his sister. Perhaps he did not get what he wanted for Christmas or their parents overindulged her. Maybe JonBenet taunted him. But this was Burke’s mindset just an hour before she died. He may have woken her up while he was in her room and she followed him downstairs. So this has been included in the next article about the Burke scenario timeline and how she may have picked up the DNA from the cellar floor while fighting with Burke and how she was injured on the train track on the floor while fighting. I strongly recommend reading the Burke timeline scenario which has all of the evidence included.
Since this case began, I have always believed Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter JonBenet Ramsey by accident when she was upset over a wet bed.
However, after listening to her brother Burke Ramsey speak to Dr Phil in an interview, I am having very disturbing doubts about his innocence based on what he disclosed in the interview. It should be noted that I did not see the recent CBS Documentary but I have followed this case from the beginning. However, Burke was kept under wraps by his parents for 20 years so no one really had a chance to hear from him until now.
In the Dr Phil interview (which was truly lopsided and catering to John Ramsey and their attorney), Burke Ramsey admitted to some very disturbing details about the night his sister JonBenet was killed. His father, John also shared a few details which were new to me such as he had taken the flashlight upstairs when he put his children to bed. He carried JonBenet to bed and her mother undressed her.
Burke said he came back downstairs after everyone else was asleep because he was not done playing with one of his presents. He did not deny he brought the flashlight downstairs with him (which was probably left in JonBenet’s room). He also contradicted their lawyer and said he did have a pair of hiking boots. Burke also said he may have eaten pineapple.
This places Burke at the scene of the crime with his sister; with opportunity and motive which I will explain. No intruder was in the house with Burke prowling around.
Here is the plausible Scenario based on Burke’s own admissions:
JonBenet may have woken up when Burke was prowling around her room looking for the flashlight. Or she woke up after wetting the bed. I suspect Burke woke her up. JonBenet followed Burke downstairs dragging her favorite blanket with her. (I used to drag my blanket around when I was her age).
They both ate pineapple. (However, her mothers fingerprints on the bowl could have gotten there when she put the dishes away or placing the bowl of pineapple into the refrigerator.) Burke’s fingerprints were on the glass of tea next to the bowl of pineapple left on the table.
Burke went down to the basement. JonBenet followed him.
JonBenet either saw Burke climbing out the window to get something from the car or something outside OR she saw him doing something else and she threatened to tell their parents. I caught my own son (then age 6), trying to climb out of his bedroom window late at night. Some other kid was outside encouraging him. Kids do things like this.
Burke attacked her to keep her from tattling. She fell backward on the floor onto the toy railroad track. (They had a model train set in the basement and played down there quite often). JonBenet screamed when she fell on the section of track. (a neighbor heard her scream) easily through the broken window. But the parents probably didn’t hear.
Burke hit her with something to shut her up (flashlight or the bat he threw outside). They said this knocked her unconscious for about 45 minutes. Burke may have thought she was dead. But when she regained consciousness, either she went into convulsions which frightened him, OR he was afraid she was going to tattle on him… so Burke grabbed a nearby rope which had a paintbrush handle tied to it and choked her to “either make her stop convulsing or to prevent her from tattling.”
The rope tied to the paintbrush handle was NOT a garrote even though Burke used it as such. The kids probably used it as a handle to fly their kites or as a pull rope to skate behind a bicycle (JonBenet had just gotten a bike for Christmas). The parents probably made it for the kids to use for Kites or other activities.
When JonBenet was dead, Burke covered her up with her blanket and went to bed. Kid’s hide when they do something bad.
Patsy woke up and went to check on JonBenet’s bed to see if it was wet. Parents do this when they have a bed wetter. She discovered JonBenet was missing and got the story from Burke as to what he had done. He probably said he didn’t know at first. All kids say this when they are guilty. “I don’t know.” He may have even made up a story but Patsy figured it out enough to know Burke was in big trouble.
Fearing that her son would end up being tried as an adult and placed into Juvenile Detention, Patsy wrote the Ransom note to protect him. There is a long list of items which shows it was written by a female familiar with John Ramsey, well educated and a perfectionist about punctuation, grammar and letter sizing despite efforts to alter the slant and style. It also had info which only John or Patsy would know. The details were also absurdly overdone and the wordiness clearly showed it was a female and not a kidnapper. Besides, who would leave a ransom note AND leave the child (dead or alive).
Patsy staged the note and probably added the tape to JonBenet’s mouth since police said it was applied AFTER the child was dead. Very little staging would have needed to be done. JonBenet was left as Burke had left her in the basement.
John probably woke up just prior to the 911 call and Patsy told him what happened. Can you imagine what it must have been like to explain this to her husband? Everyone would have been in tears and impossible to understand. Since John had just learned about this, it explains why he said what he did to Burke at the tail end of the call… and Patsy’s comments as well. It all fits with this scenario.
Burke was sent away from the house after police arrived and his parents circled the wagons for 20 years.
The first person who searched the basement did not see JonBenet because she was covered under the blanket.
John Ramsey said he closed the window. He also would have recognized JonBenet’s blanket, looked under it and carried her upstairs to the police.
Few people would believe a 9 year old was capable of such an act… but Burke was described as frequently spreading feces through the house and in JonBenet’s room. This was not a 2 year old. Burke was 9. This was a serious issue for a 9 year old. It shows extreme jealousy and hate. There is also a pattern to these things like killing animals.
It would be interesting in hearing interviews of Burkes friends between ages 8 and 10 (or otherwise) to find out how he behaved with other kids. He could have been secretive about the things he did. He certainly needed counseling. His video interviews 2 weeks after the death of his sister were very disturbing. He was quite happy to be an only child. He hasn’t improved much as an adult. He was downright creepy the way he inappropriately grinned all through his interview. In fact, the only times that grin dropped from Burke’s face was when Dr Phil brought up a question or subject which troubled Burke. Such as specific accusations against him.
I’m surprised Dr Phil made so little of Burke’s reactions. This is a key symptom competent qualified psychologists look for as an indicator of problems. I clearly saw narcissism and sociopathic tendencies (someone who has no conscience and doesn’t know right from wrong.) Plus the inappropriate responses. Not just now, but in those videos 2 weeks after her death as well.
Those types of behavioral patterns such as spreading feces and killing animals can progress into something much worse, such as voyeurism, serial rape or serial killing. They have studied many serial killers and serial rapists who started off like that.
Dr Phil was too busy accommodating John Ramsey, Burke and his attorney. When the attorney is a key guest, you can rest assured that the show is geared toward the attorney’s expectations and satisfaction. Not toward public interest or finding truth about her death. He only asked what the attorney allowed him to ask… and his clients were fully prepared by the attorney with their responses before they appeared. But we did get these tidbits of information from Burke which explained a lot about what happened that night. Especially when included with the other details of the case.
The “touch DNA” was nothing more than JonBenet playing on the floor with other kids at the party and from people she asked to help her wipe & pull up her drawers.
JonBenet’s grandmother said JB would ask any nearby stranger (male or female) to help wipe her on the pot and pull up her drawers. Long johns are hard for kids to pull up.
While disturbing, this was innocent DNA when someone helped her. Or JonBenet could have transferred innocent DNA from playing & shaking hands and later transferring it when she pulled up her own drawers. No body fluids. No DNA on JonBenet except under her nails from playing with other kids or grabbing hands. All DNA was innocent touch DNA easily transferred & easily misinterpreted.
I’ll bet it matches a kid or party attendee or friends guests. Woe be to the party guest who helped pull up her long johns or shook her hand & she transferred their DNA when scratching herself or going to the pot. Since the authorities don’t have a good understanding of how easy it is to transfer & misinterpret touch DNA, or how little girls drop their panties onto the bathroom floor around their ankles or sit directly on their underwear when wearing a dress, their underwear picks up DNA off the floors, furniture, etc., they never should have used it to exonerate anyone… much less the Ramsey’s.
Men also like to spit outside which is an excellent source of DNA when someone walks through it and tracks it elsewhere. Also, men wearing boxer shorts are constantly shedding pubic hairs down their pants leg which gets tracked elsewhere and that doesn’t begin to include all the other hairs and skin cells which everyone sheds continuously.
Since the authorities don’t seem to understand how easy it is to transfer and misinterpret touch DNA… some innocent person is going to be crucified for this… just so the Ramsey’s lawyer doesn’t sue the city. Getting the Ramsey’s off the hook for a 20 year cover up to protect a bratty son.
If they really understood touch DNA, they would never have exonerated the Ramsey’s. The only reliable DNA is obtained from body fluids… as long as it has not been planted at the scene by the perpetrator or by accident. It is crucial for the authorities and the public to understand the nuances of DNA technology. Otherwise, innocent people are going to be crucified for something they have not done due to the mere presence of a transient DNA source or touch DNA.
As for JonBenet Ramsey, it is clear one of their family was responsible… probably by accident and most of us Agree that Patsy staged the letter. As I mentioned in my scenario, that probably was not a garrote. It may have been a rope and handle to fly a kite or pull behind a bicycle or some other purpose. it was probably lying nearby when he used it.
This speculated scenario is based on Burkes statements in his interview about getting up after everyone else was asleep and going back downstairs because he wasn’t done playing with his present yet. And his admission about the hiking boots, pineapple and flashlight. That puts him at the crime scene, with opportunity and motive. It also eliminates a hiding intruder since Burke was awake and wandering around the house downstairs and eating pineapple with his sister.
While it is speculation, it is a plausible theory as to what may have happened while Burke was awake and wandering around the house and basement with his sister in the middle of the night while their parents were asleep. This scenario gives a possible “benefit of the doubt” explanation behind the attack. It is possible that the attack could have had a more violent intent by the brother which we may never know.
However, if his school friends would come forward and tell us about the Burke they knew at age 9 before and after his sister’s death, the incident and intent may become more clear. They would also be around 30 years old today and are probably afraid of the Ramsey lawyers… but perhaps they could give us their insight anonymously? It might answer a lot of questions.
What we have learned, is if you have a lot of money to hire the meanest lawyers, you can get away with just about anything. We saw this with OJ Simpson as well… among others.
Posted in: Forensics, JonBenet Ramsey, Uncategorized
Published September 30, 2016 by mmc7
This article was written before I saw the interview of Burke. After hearing him speak and describe how he went back downstairs after everyone was in bed asleep, he placed himself at the scene of the crime, with opportunity & motive. This really changed my opinion about his guilt. I recommend reading the Burke timeline article.
It was Patsy Ramsey who accidentally killed daughter Jon Benet Ramsey. Not Burke.
Patsy told police that Burke was sleeping until police arrived. However, Burke could be heard on the 911 call in the background asking what was going on. He wouldn’t have done that if he killed his sister. He was just a child at the time.
The ransom note was a long 3 page wordy letter with specifics on John’s bonus amount. It was written on Patsy’s writing pad with Patsy’s pen from inside the house. Several previous letter attempts were found discarded. No kidnapper would sit in the house writing a long letter. They would have brought the letter with them and it would be short & brief. Women write long wordy letters. Rarely men and certainly not kidnappers. Why would anyone leave a random note and not take the child if Jon Benet was not abducted.
The family was planning to leave on a plane flight early in the morning. A wet bed left unattended could start a spontaneous combustion fire so a mother rushing to pack & get ready to leave would have been enraged at having to deal with washing sheets and the mattress. Jon Benet had also gotten up and eaten pineapple.
I would suspect she was not allowed to eat or drink at bedtime to prevent wetting so this would have broken the rules. So Patsy would have been outraged about the wet bed & her daughter up eating pineapple because she was pressed for time for their early flight.
Patsy either woke up because she heard her daughter was up or else she had gotten up to get everything ready for their plane flight early that morning. She found Jon Benet in the kitchen eating pineapple (which was still on the table when the police arrived). Her mother likely knew the bed was wet from the odor on her daughter and was angry about the wet bed and her daughter eating pineapple at night which was probably against the rules. Eating & drinking at bedtime promotes bed wetting.
I think Patsy angrily took Jon Benet into the bathroom, washed her bottom with the washcloth police found & tests determined it had urine on it from Jon Benet. Only a mother would have washed her child to remove the urine. So this proves Patsy was awake after the bed had been wetted because the soiled washcloth was found by police. Then Patsy gave her clean underwear to wear instead of her soiled garments which Jon Benet probably removed before her mother found her. No intruder would have given her clean dry underwear from her dresser after she wet the bed.
Then Patsy may have pushed her daughter’s head against the toilet (like pushing a puppy’s nose into the spot where it peed) and said “that’s where you are supposed to pee!” She probably pushed her head down too hard and cracked the side of her head on the toilet.
Jon Benet likely immediately began to go into convulsions from the brain injury and died. That would have been very scary for her mother to see. Patsy likely became hysterical and went into panic. A temporary insanity and fear of going to jail.
It doesn’t take much force to crack a skull when impacting a hard surface. I had my forehead split open when the edge of a goose’s wing clipped me. I was holding a large, adult pet goose and he decided to fly. I barely felt the bone on the edge of the wing because it was covered with feathers. It just felt like a mild bump on the head. I didn’t know I was injured until the blood ran down my face.
I think her mother accidentally pushed Jon Benet’s head against the toilet a little harder than she had intended. Or she could have hit her head on the sink or the bathtub. But the toilet is the most likely. Porcelain is very hard.
I don’t think it was intentional abuse. Patsy was tired and stressed. They had come home late from a party and only had a few hours sleep before she had to get the family ready for their trip early that morning.
Likely, Jon Benet began convulsing and died. Patsy panicked. Jon Benet had a 7 or 8 inch impact injury on the side of her head. A perfect match for a toilet impact which could easily have created the injury. Instead of calling the hospital and saying her daughter slipped on the wet bathroom floor barefooted and struck her head or that she had found her daughter lying on the bathroom floor… Patsy was terrified she would go to jail and her son would grow up without a mother.
I suspect her husband John helped. Either because he didn’t want his wife to go to jail or because Patsy blackmailed him to help. Either way, the girl was carried downstairs and her hair tangled with the garland on the staircase on the way down… the garland tangled in her hair indicates she was being carried downstairs. So the injury occurred upstairs after she was washed and after she ate pineapple.
Patsy put duct tape over her daughter’s mouth and created a ligature around her neck with a broken handle from one of her paint brushes and some rope. (the police determined these items were all Patsy’s) The ligature rope and tape had been bought by Patsy just a couple days earlier… probably to use for sealing boxes for shipping. They found the receipt and proof of her purchase. The rope and tape used on Jon Benet matched the ones she bought.
What crook would have used Patsy’s writing pad, her pen, her paintbrush handle, her rope and her duct tape? There was no evidence that Jon Benet fidgeted or expressed her tongue against the tape over her mouth… meaning she was unconscious or dead when she was strangled. There was no petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes… meaning she was not alive when she was strangled. Patsy wanted it to look like an intruder. Jon Benet was also wrapped in a blanket but not the wet blanket from her bed. She was still in her underwear so the blanket was an act of a parent’s compassion to not lay their child on a cold basement floor even if she was dead. The child clearly died from the 8 inch impact on her head according to the report. Likely from hitting the toilet but the police didn’t figure that out. However, I still think this was an accident during a sudden surge of anger due to the stress of rushing for an early plane flight.
Patsy was not thinking clearly. She made it look like an intruder, then she sat down and wrote that 3 page rambling letter…. making several attempts which she discarded in the trash. She was also trying to disguise her handwriting. She probably wore gloves and tried to make it sound like one of those Patty Hearst terrorist kidnapping ransom letters. But kidnappers don’t leave the child nor leave a letter when the child is dead in the house. Nor do they sit for 2 or 3 hours composing a letter using Patsy’s writing pad and pen. Nor would they leave a ransom note spread out on a step on the narrow spiral staircase. It wasn’t even the main staircase. It was a back staircase to the kitchen (I think). A genuine kidnapper would leave it in the child’s bed or on the front door or in the kitchen on the table. And it would have only been a couple sentences long. A genuine ransom note would not be 3 pages rambling and a bizarre exact sum of John’s Christmas bonus of 118,000.
A genuine ransom note would be something like, “We have your daughter. We want $120,000 for her return. Do not call police. We will contact you with instructions.” Not nonsensical terrorist ravings.
Interestingly, John waited until the police arrived and he had a friend as a witness to accompany him in a search for his daughter when the police asked him to take another look around the house for his daughter or anything out of place. That was when John and his friend went downstairs and walked right to Jon Benet’s location as if he knew exactly where to go. He picked up the child and carried her upstairs, disturbing the crime scene with his friend who could witness and back up his story that he had innocently found the dead child. John also claimed to have broken into that basement window a few days earlier when he was locked out… just in case he needed to explain any evidence of his presence at the scene without being blamed for staging. There were no footprints outside in the snow except perhaps one but not sure about prints but they had contractors there.
The fact that John and his friend went directly to the location of the child when the police asked him to look around the house again, indicates John was aware of Patsy’s situation and either helped Patsy or he remained quiet… either for fear of arrest or blackmail or trying to help keep Patsy out of jail. He took an unsuspecting friend with him so he could have a witness.
I also doubt the police bothered to check the cars to see if the hoods were warm from being driven.
Why would a crook, strangle a dead child? They also said there were signs of molestation without semen or saliva. This could have been done with a paintbrush handle or broom handle to make it appear to be a molestation. They were never specific on this issue. Again, part of the crime staging. Patsy was clearly in a panic and not thinking. But in a bad enough panic to do terrible things to her child’s dead body to make it look like an intruder.
As I suggested, she should have said she found the child dead in the bathroom or have said the child slipped and hit her head. But people don’t think straight when they are scared of ending up in prison for life and fear for their other child. If the local police are notorious for going after the innocent that could also be a significant reason.
As I previously stated on my other post, the DNA on the “Outside” of her underwear was found years later. Little girls drop their underwear around their ankles and let it lay on the floor when they go to the bathroom…. where it can pick up all sorts of DNA from a bathroom floor. Little girls also sit on the floor or carpets with their underwear contacting the floor or furniture when they sit while wearing a dress. Again, this picks up DNA from those places. As for the single pubic hair on the blanket, men who wear boxer shorts are constantly shedding pubic hairs. Especially when they scratch themselves. It drops down the leg of their pants onto the floor as they walk around. Jon Benet was wrapped in a blanket on the basement floor where workmen had been renovating. See how easily DNA could convict an innocent man? You should think twice about those boxer shorts. A stray hair transported on a shoe could convict an innocent man. Courts & jurors are so certain of DNA infallibility. A discarded used Condom could be used to set up an innocent person as a killer or rapist. The contents, if immediately used to possibly impregnate for paternity.
If the child had been molested that day, the DNA would be inside her panties and on her body where she was handled. Most child molesters are oral sex addicts. So saliva would be there. Especially since a child her age would not be able to accommodate an adult male. Also, the child would not have been wearing underwear if someone were molesting her. Why strangle a dead child and put her underwear back on her?
If you had tape across your mouth you would be trying to remove it and using your tongue to unstick it. Also, strangulation causes the tongue to protrude and pinpoint hemhorraging in the eyes. Jon Benet showed no sign of struggle or strangling.
By the time Patsy finally agreed to a polygraph… quite some time after the event, she had been under the advice of a lawyer and was taking medicines to keep her calm. Drugs which would surpress the indications of deception during a test. Patsy also took many practice polygraph sessions setup by her lawyer. So she was well covered by her lawyer for a polygraph. I remember it was a long time after. Their lawyer did an excellent job of threatening to sue the police every time they suggested the possibility that the parents knew something. There was also something weird about their relationship with the DA who did not follow the jurors recommendation to try the parents for the child’s death.
Even the police felt Patsy’s handwriting significantly matched the ransom letter. But there was never enough evidence to try the parents. Plus they left the state and made it impossible for the police to do their jobs… as did the DA who seemed to be a friend or beholding to John. Perhaps they were both Freemasons… or Jaycees. You often see politicians and business owners join these organizations for contacts and they have a code to support each other. It would be the most likely explanation for the DA’s behavior. They may also have been friends and Ramsey may have funded or helped the DA’s political campaign or had dirt on the DA. I heard some talk about that at the time. Whatever the case, the DA refused the grand jury’s recommendation to indict the parents and try them for the death of their daughter… and had the records sealed for over 10 years to hide the grand jury’s decision.
As I said, I think it was an accident when Patsy was upset about her wetting the bed and having to prepare everything for an early plane flight. Patsy just hit her daughter’s head against the toilet too hard in her anger… as I said, it doesn’t take much of an impact to cause such damage to the head when skull bone hits a hard surface. Patsy panicked when her daughter convulsed and died. Instead of saying the child slipped and hit her head, Patsy went into a panic meltdown and tried to make it look like an intruder. But hospital’s were always terrorizingly questioning children if their parents hurt them and not taking no for an answer. They did this to my child when he was 2 years old & he got his finger caught in the window of a toy truck. 6 hospital employees descended upon him when he was in x ray and they separated us. They kept badging him over and over if his parents did this and he kept saying cruck for truck. Thankfully he stuck to his cruck but what if he hadn’t from their bullying of him. This is how they terrorized innocent parents and children. His finger was barely red. I just wanted to make sure his finger wasn’t injured. It was not. It teaches you not to trust hospitals. So I can see why Patsy panicked with this type of mentality. If she had said her daughter slipped they would have descended upon her. Children also get bruises playing but Child services sees every bruise as abuse. I am covered with bruises every day as an adult & I don’t remember most. My entire family bruises easily.
Patsy was guilty of involuntary manslaughter but I just wanted to show the mentality of authorities & why she panicked.
Also, the fact that the child had been washed off after peeing her bed indicates there was no intruder. An intruder would not stop to wash off the child or feed her pineapple. Give her clean, dry underwear. She was clearly carried downstairs because her hair had tangled with the garland on the staircase. So she had eaten the pineapple then went back upstairs where she was washed and hit her head. Either from being pushed into the toilet like scolding a puppy for peeing… or possibly slapped and fell against the toilet.
Again, an intruder would not have fed her, taken her back upstairs to wash her, give her clean underwear, wrap her in a clean blanket, attach the tape to her mouth, then carried her back downstairs where her hair tangled with the garland, taken her to the basement, then struck her in the head, molested (without leaving DNA on the body), strangled her with Patsy’s rope tape & paintbrush handle, replaced the child’s underwear, then gone back upstairs and spend a couple hours to write a long wordy 3 page letter with specific details about John’s bonus no one else would know… using Patsy’s pad and pen and throwing out letter starts in the trash can (in the kitchen I think) which shows the location where the letter was written, leaving the wordy 3 page ransom on the stairs for a dead child which was left lying inside the house in the very basement room where John had broken the window… then the instruder left without leaving footprints. Does any of this sound likely to you?
Also, a neighbor heard a scream around 2 AM. I’m not sure of the exact time but it was early.
Just the letter alone should tell you that the guilty party was Patsy. When you include the fact that it was Patsy’s writing pad and the discarded pages still had imprints of previous things she had written in her own handwriting, her pen, her paintbrush handle, her rope, her tape, the wet washcloth used to wash the pee from the child,, the pineapple on the table and in the child’s stomach means she got out of bed to eat it since the parents claimed she was asleep when they returned home from the party and put her to bed without waking her up…. so she had to have gotten up after peeing the bed to eat and be washed where she was likely injured. Then wrapped in a clean blanket, carried downstairs, a staged molestation and strangulation ligature of a dead child, then writing the 3 page letter for ransom of a dead child still in the house which asked for the exact amount of money of John’s Christmas bonus.
Then there is Burke who was supposed to be asleep until the police arrived who could be heard in the background of a 911 call asking what was going on. This alone should clear him. He was a child. He wouldn’t have been asking what was going on if he did it. There probably aren’t any of the original investigators around who still remember about the 911 call 20 years ago.
It was clearly the mother… Patsy who did it by accident and staged a kidnapping to cover it up.
The only alternate scenario would be if Patsy had gotten up and found John molesting their daughter and he struck the girl for not cooperating and she accidentally struck her head or her mother hit her with something out of jealousy… then she blackmailed John to keep them both out of jail. They said there were signs of previous, older molestations. This is usually damage to the Hymen which covers the vagina until broken during sex when old enough to accommodate a male organ. It can be damaged with hands or objects when a child is very young. But Patsy could have known about previous molestations her husband had done. My sister sat back and allowed her husband to molest his and her own daughter and others. So if you think a mother would not permit such an act, you are wrong.
Patsy had Jon Benet dressed up to look like a miniature woman for those pagents and even to show her off at parties and such. The perfect lure for a predator, including a family member or even a father. But dressing her up like that with makeup, hair styles and outfits like an adult was painting a target on her daughters back. We can not be sure her father was the culprit or if Jon Benet was ever molested at all… but it could have been a catalyst in this alternate scenario. But I think John was compelled to help due to blackmail or panic or sympathy for his wife to keep her out of jail. He either kept quiet or helped in some minimal way. The extent of his involvement is unclear. I think most or all was done by Patsy while panicking and she had already done the staging to cover her tracks before John ever woke up. From the 911 call, Burke clearly had just woken up when they made the call to report their child was missing and finding a ransom note because Burke did not know what was happening in the background of the recording. So he is clear for sure… although he may have learned details later. So that TV show, which I did not see, made a huge error in blaming him. He was also a child at the time.
The parents immediately lawyered up. I believe they may have called the lawyer before calling police. There is nothing wrong with this because the police often accuse innocent parents instead of searching for a criminal. Police make so many errors and almost always go after the parents, so it would be unwise to talk to the police without legal protection. It is not a sign of guilt to get a lawyer. Everyone in a similar situation should always have a lawyer immediately. But in this case, the lawyer was so effective that the Ramsey’s were never held accountable. But since I believe it was an accident, there wouldn’t be much point or anything to be gained by imprisoning the parents… however, they should have spent a couple years in prison for tampering with the crime scene and the abuse of the child’s body in making it appear to be a crime scene and false testimony to the police, but Patsy could have gotten off since she was clearly temporarily insane with panic over what she had done and all reason and common sense had left her. Again, no point in taking her to trial. So you can see how the police just dropped the issue. They either saw no point or they just did not have enough solid evidence. Only circumstantial evidence which clearly pointed to Patsy but would not be enough to convince a trial jury to convict. The grand jury could see the evidence pointed to Patsy and possible John was an accessory after the fact… but when it comes to finding someone guilty and sentencing them beyond a reasonable doubt, that is where the system would fail. No jury could convict beyond a reasonable doubt on the circumstantial evidence despite the fact it overwhelmingly pointed to Patsy. The jury would not be able to look past the “beyond reasonable doubt” part of the trial sentencing or guilt. Her prints on the ransom letter would have been the type of evidence needed. But I don’t think they found any prints at all. Or if they even checked for prints from the hand. She likely wore gloves when writing it. So these are the possible reasons they never tried the case.
The public has always demanded an explanation and the name of the guilty party who could have killed such a beautiful child. They would not be able to step back and see it as an accident or unintended manslaughter. They simply want someone to pay. At the very least, the public would like to know who did it and why. It is a shame Patsy did not leave a sealed confession with her lawyer to be read after her husband died. It is unfortunate that the boy is now unfairly being blamed for his sisters death. He is completely innocent of killing or even staging his sister’s death. The 911 recording exhonerates him… although he may have found out the truth later by accident… but I don’t think so. Patsy was the type who obsessed on what other people thought. She was a former pageant queen herself. So she would never confess to anyone, even if it was an accident. As I said, she should have said the child slipped in the bathroom… unless there were marks on the child from a spanking, slap or other issues which prevented her and she had to create a fictitional villain to cover it up. The letter was the most foolish and even sounded like her when the letter said John would need to get rest and sleep for the ransom instructions he would be receiving. And of course, none ever came because the entire letter was a piece of fiction as was the terrorist group she invented. What terrorists would go after the owner of a business franchise and why bother with a child when they could kidnap the owner of the business…. John Ramsey himself. You have to step back and look at the entire picture to see how ludicrous the staging was. However, the proof the child was dead before the strangling was definitely solid. That does prove her cause of death was staged to hide the evidence of the injury to the side of her head.
I can clearly remember every detail of the Jon Benet killing from the very day it occurred and all the details which followed as I can also remember all the minute details for Laci Peterson, OJ Simpson and Darlie Routier. Every detail about Jon Benet Ramsey was broadcast daily for years. So I remember each item as they found out about it. Not like the millenials who were spoonfed only selected details after the fact. The same for the X generation who were still in their teens when Jon Benet was killed. It is the parents of the X gen and those older generations who were old enough at the time Jon Benet was killed to remember the details.
Here is a general list of things I remember:
Patsy’s note pad
Patsy’s pen
long, wordy 3 page letter
listed exact amount of John’s bonus. Not rounded off
several discarded letter starts
Letter written in house. Likely took a couple hours to write it.
Impressions of previous letters on pad
neighbor heard scream about 2 am (?)
Patsy’s broken paint brush handle
Rope and tape Patsy purchased day’s earlier
No DNA on child or inside underwear
No petechial hemhorraging
No evidence of struggle or movement behind tape on mouth
No tongue protrusion from strangling
wetted bed
Wet washcloth in bathroom used to wash child after bed wetting
Clean dry blanket lovingly wrapped around child.
Hair tangled in stairway garland
Pineapple in kitchen on table when police arrived
Pineapple in child’s stomach. Was not served at party they attended.
crime scene disturbed by John removing the child from basement.
The house was filled with friends when police arrived.
The entire crime scene was tainted by too many people
Police did not control the scene or remove people from it
police didn’t preserve much evidence from scene.
No precautions to avoid contamination
did not check vehicles for warm engines.
home had also been contaminated with construction workers renovations
Burke just woke up when parents called 911
Burke’s voice in background asking what was going on
I believe Patsy called friends and lawyer before calling police
Friends were inside the house when police arrived.
Parents would have called police first in true kidnapping.
The crime scene contamination & asking friends over was deliberate.
Parents did not cooperate much except for initial description of events
Then parents lawyered up
Procrastinated further interviews
Refused police interview of son
Procrastinated polygraph
took medications during polygraph
took practice polygraphs with attorney before police
avoided police instead of helping to find supposed killer
remained out of state to avoid investigation
years later DNA tested. no chain of custody protection
only found DNA on exterior clothing. It is often found on brand new clothing
District Attorney refused to comply with grand jury recommendation
Grand jury findings were sealed for over 10 years.
Grand jury said parents were the likely culprits.
Findings that head injury was cause of death
likely was an accident in my opinion
Scene was staged to look like kidnapping
Child was never removed from home and was dead
Yet a ransom note was left even though child was left behind.
Findings that child had signs of older molestation injuries.
Phony terrorist group
Posted in: Conspiracy, JonBenet Ramsey, Uncategorized
Published February 5, 2016 by mmc7
I owe my friend Bob a huge apology. He kept insisting there was an asteroid in danger of hitting the earth. I did not believe him and I thought for sure we would be informed.
However, this asteroid has been circling our orbit for over 100 years & only got close to Earth in 2003, It is long gone now & probably wont return for another 100 years. So there is no imminent danger. However, I do not agree with their horseshoe orbit reversal explanation & future 600 year predictions. Gravity does not work like that. Corkscrew orbits tend to get faster & tighter. Not assuming Stationary orbits. Nor do they suddenly stop & reverse direction as they show on the second diagram below.
Just because someone works at NASA, does not make them an expert in every field or even in one field of expertise. They are no better & no more experienced than your own coworkers. Nor do they know everything which NASA has been involved in (even if they think they know everything, They don’t). The employees are actually compartmentalized & isolated in their tasks & positions as the gov’t does with most of their classified projects in the military, DOD contractors, gov’t depts, etc.
The 3 conflicting diagrams of this one asteroid below is a perfect demonstration of NASA’s shortcomings and our failing educational system.
My point of displaying the asteroid info was to show there was a very close call in 2003.
I got the information and animations about asteroid 2002 AA29 from NASA’s Near Earth object website. When you see the orbit of this asteroid, it will make a believer out of you too as to how close some of these asteroids have come. Anyone with any experience whatsoever about orbits and gravity can tell you that an orbit like this which corkscrews around the Earth as Earth orbits the sun will get faster and faster as well as tighter and tighter until it smashes into us.
Keep in mind it only takes us a year to orbit the sun. They are showing this asteroid on our same orbit so no matter how fast or slow it goes, the earth should encounter the asteroid no less than once per year but they imply a 100 years so there is something seriously wrong with their animations & explanations.
This type of tightening corkscrew orbit will NOT become a fixed satellite like our moon in 600 years as NASA products. It will continue to tighten until it eventually strikes the Earth in the future which none of you need to worry about.
Look at NASA’s animations and see for yourself.
I heard the gov’t is expecting an asteroid strike in 2026 but after rereading their risk charts, I do not believe it will be this asteroid they are expecting in 2026.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/
I included the NASA page I obtained the animated images of this asteroid’s orbit. However, I do not buy that this asteroid reversed itself. That is not how gravity works. But I did notice how after NASA claimed it was going to reverse itself they completely stopped talking about it. That is usually a sign of “classified info”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this asteroid was corkscrewing a tightening loop orbit around us.
I pasted their animations below. All of which end in 2003 – 2005. I would wonder where it disappeared since this is clearly not a fly-by asteroid. I also noticed that they never mention the size of this asteroid.
But it is apparently gone & posing no imminent risk. If there were a risk, we would be able to see it in the sky like we see the moon (if we can find out how big it is.) Anything closer than the moon should be visible to us.
But notice how they have the asteroid approaching the earth on the second Animation then stopping & reversing direction. Not only does that make no sense whatsoever since gravity does NOT function like this, none of these 3 animations show the same scenario. Nor have they included the orbital timelines. There is clearly deception or incompetence between these 3 animations. We are not being told the full truth about this asteroid.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/2002aa29.html
Here is also a link to a chart for near earth asteroids.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
Published January 28, 2016 by mmc7
I have a number of photos of the Bohemian grove attendees as they arrived & departed in private Jets from the Sonoma county airport in 1985. Surrounded by security personnel as they arrived in private jets & left in limos or SUV’s. Then vice versa upon return at the end of their vacation at the Grove. Unfortunately, when leaving the grove, they were facing away from camera as they reentered their private jets.
I have positively identified Donald Rumsfeld as one of the attendees in the first 2 photos below. Several others look familiar. I’m hoping some of you can help identify these Bohemian Grove attendees in 1985. I have held onto these photos I took all these years ago.
Below is an official photo of Donald Rumsfeld in 1985 compared to his photo arriving to attend the Bohemian Grove & full photo of his arrival below. Some people had trouble recognizing him as windblown & rumpled when he departed his plane. But you can clearly see it is Rumsfeld on the side by side comparison.
Photo #2 Rumsfeld rumpled & windblown hair below. See comparison above.
Photo #3 below. Please help identify person below. I have several photos of him but this was a good clear shot for identifying who he is.
Photo #4 below Looks like James Coburn. Needs to be verified or identified.
Didn’t like having his picture taken as he noticed the telephoto lens. Please ID
Photo #5 below The younger man in dark hair looks like Jeb Bush.
photo #6 below Unknown, Please ID Possibly Teddy Kennedy & Jeb Bush
Photo #7 below Unknown. Please ID
photo #8 below Unknown. Looks like Teddy Kennedy. Please ID.
Photo #9 below unknown. Please ID.
Photo #10 below. Looks familiar. Please ID. Possibly an actor
photos #11 below. unknown. Please ID
photo #12 below. Looks familiar and didn’t seem to mind the cameras. Please ID.
Photo #13 below. Several photos of this one with high security. Please ID
Photo #14 below with heavy security. Another photo of same guy. Please ID
Photo #15 below. Unknown. Please ID
Photo #16 below. Looks familiar. Unknown. Please ID
Photo #18 below. Looks like Prince Charles. Please ID
Photo #19 below. Unknown. Please ID.
Photo #22 below. Please ID
Photo #23 below. Looks Like Jim? in hat who was at Bilderbergers in Canada wearing same hat with Alex Jones. Please ID.
Photo #25 below. Unknown. Please ID. Possibly a Kennedy?
Photo #28 below. Unknown. Please ID Possibly Prince Charles far right
Photo # 29 below. Unknown. Please ID. Possibly James Coburn
I also have a few private jet photos. All of these arrivals in private jets & limos were all guests at the Bohemian Grove in Sonoma County. I believe it was around July 1985. I would have to check.
Please help ID the photos.
Friedman, Shermer and MUFON are all government disinformation hirelings who are tasked to destroy the credibility of anyone who leaks information such as UFO’s. Friedman sold out his allegiance to the Feds in exchange for the information he wanted to know about Ebe’s in exchange for his compliance in helping the gov’t discredit whistleblowers who reveal covert information. The reason he had worked at so many places is because he was not very popular with his coworkers. Shermer and MUFON are front companies for intelligence organizations. Usually the CIA but other intelligence groups are also known to set up these gov’t front groups. Shermer’s skeptic Magazine is typical for CIA or FBI UFO bashing efforts. MUFON would be typical of USAF intelligence or CIA to control investigations, collect data, control the evidence test outcomes to discredit witnesses. The worst is how MUFON terrifies the witnesses and sends Jackal agents to scare and discredit them. This is especially effective in Central and south American countries.
The public has been backing these gov’t loudmouths whose sole purpose is to attack and discredit anyone who leaks information the gov’t wants kept secret.
These whistleblowers like Col Philip Corso and Bob Lazar and Philip Schneider and Jesse Marcel have risked their necks and their families welfare to come forward and tell the public these truths they know because they think the public is entitled to know these things. So what does the public do? They turn into rabid animals at the urging of the gov’t loudmouth hirelings or sellouts who are paid to attack these whistleblowers. Instead of being grateful and supporting these whistleblowers, our ignorant, spineless sheep join the bandwagon of turning on these whistleblowers and joining the gov’t hirelings in the attacks. They eat their own.
It is these ungrateful turncoat sheep to whom are beneath contempt. These whistleblowers gave their lives to come forward so you would know the truth. They need the support of the public. Not a kick in the teeth. Have you no shame? These turncoats are the type of people who allow bullies to beat up on innocent victims while they stand around cheering and egging on the bullies. Bloodlusting packs of wild dogs are what they have become. They don’t deserve to know the truth. Now they have proven what kind of ingratitude the whistleblowers will receive for their efforts. So no more will come forward… just exactly what the government wants. These sheep handed over control to the gov’t jackals to do their thinking for them.
The public is also programmed by targeted documentaries produced with gov’t funding to create kneejerk responses to certain phrases such as “Conspiracy Theory” to attack anyone associated with those words like Pavlov’s dogs.
In my opinion, the public does not deserve to know the truth. They have repeatedly been told the truth by people who risked their necks, many have died for coming forward… only to have the public join the gov’t hireling pitbull attacks against the whistleblowers to discredit them.
Here is your clue as to who are the gov’t hirelings and who are telling the truth. Those whistleblowers who tell you the truth about UFO’s and other dirty linen of the Gov’t are always under attack by every disinformation hireling the gov’t can find to throw at them. The gov’t will go to any extreme to have them discredited. Some killed. The worse the attacks on those who come forward to tell the public what they know… the more significant the information they are revealing… the worse the attacks against their reputations including destruction of their records by the gov’t to destroy their proof of jobs or education.
Those who are gov’t hirelings like Friedman, Shermer or front companies like MUFON and Skeptic Magazine among others… are never attacked because the gov’t knows better than to attack their own…. which is more than I can say for the undeserving, unappreciative, ignorant sheep who cannot think for themselves and allow the gov’t attack dogs to destroy those who risked their necks to tell the public the truth. A public who turned on those whistleblowers like rabid dogs following the gov’t hirelings attacks.
Those who are under attack are the ones who are telling the truth no matter how unbelievable that truth may be. Support them. Many have died risking their necks to tell the truth.
Gov’t hirelings, jackals, pitbulls, front organizations, etc. are never under attack. You won’t see anyone discrediting them. These are the bad guys.
MUFON and Skeptic Magazine are front companies set up by gov’t intelligence agencies to control, acquire and discredit any evidence, witnesses, investigators and information leaks, etc.
The real truth is more unbelievable than anything you can possibly imagine. Just because you cannot wrap your brain around it doesn’t mean it is untrue. The gov’t has programmed the public to think no piece of evidence or proof is ever good enough. I’ll tell you right now, there are ebe colonies on the moon and Mars. They’ve been here over 50,000 years. Earth belongs to them, not us. They were here first. We were laborers because they cannot tolerate our heavy gravity and high oxygen levels… which is why they stay on the moon except when coming to Earth to replenish their water and supplies each week. They are not visiting underwater bases. They are filling their water tanks. If you knew who to believe you would know all these details. You have already been told the truth. You failed to listen. No one else is going to come forward and risk their necks for such unappreciative sheep. This is exactly what the gov’t wants. Congratulations. You helped destroy every chance you ever had to know the truth.
Bob Lazar was telling the truth. He proved his employment with Naval Intelligence on his W2. Only someone who has worked in S-4 would know it was under the control of Naval Intelligence. Friedman is an idiot which is why anyone who listens to him never comes up with info through FOIA. The USAF owned the Nellis Range and Nellis AFB. Groom Lake is a separate base with at least 2 more secret covert separate bases within a base. S-4 and A51 are separate bases from Groom Lake. Access is cordoned off and blocked from Groom Lake. ALL who work or visit A51 which is underground at the top of the hill with the false pond launch ramp must park and ride at the barricade in provided secure base vehicles with blacked out windows and 2 armed escorts. S-4 is also a separate blocked access where employees are usually transferred to a similar secure bus which takes them to their destination on the back side of the mountain with camouflaged hangars within the mountain on the edge of Papoose lake. Most workers fly into Groom Lake from the Las Vegas airport. Control of A-51 and S-4 were under Naval Intelligence until 2005 when Bush gave the control of Space & Space technologies to the USAF. Prior to 2005 it was controlled by the US Navy and Naval Intelligence. The CIA also had an area as well. The reason no one could get records from the USAF about the areas is because the records were held by the Navy. So the USAF was telling the truth. This goes to show you just how “in” Friedman wasn’t if he did not even know this fact… which he ran his mouth on every show as to how he kept trying to get those records from the USAF. Only after Aug 2005 did the USAF have control. Records prior to 2005 were through Naval intelligence. They say Friedman worked at so many places because he did not get along with his coworkers. He was as obnoxious on the job as he is on TV.
Friedman claimed Lazar wasn’t a true employee of Los Alamos because he was paid by the Zia Corp. Zia corp and University of California have managed the personnel, personnel records and paychecks of the Los Alamos employees since it first began in the 1940’s and still do. My uncle was a Senior Scientist on the nuclear programs who worked for Los Alamos for 8 years until he died. He was a full time employee and Senior Scientist of Los Alamos and he was also paid by Zia. I have all of his records including the job offer letter from Los Alamos. Over 1000 pages. Zia is the payroll and employee management division of the University of California. The gov’t set up these arrangements when Los Alamos was first created so they didn’t have to deal with the mundane details of employee payrolls and records while working on the nuclear development. This also shows just how much Friedman DOESN’T know.
Col Philip Corso was over the NSC (NSA) for 5 years IN the White house under Eisenhower. He was later at the Pentagon over Army R&D reverse engineering artifacts. He testified about communist infiltration of the CIA to the Senate and reported what he knew to RFK about the Kremlin spies in the CIA and Eisenhower’s cabinet. That should tell you something about Eisenhower when he choses intelligence directors and cabinet officers who are soviet sympathizers. He also worked on the Army’s project Horizon moonbase until they discovered the moon was already occupied and it was cancelled. Corso then was a National security advisor to Senators Thurmond and Eastland. This is a man of impeccable spotless Career which his records have corroborated. How dare some sellout like Friedman cast a stain upon this man of impeccable loyalty and patriotism who risked his neck and career to come forward with what he knew because he felt the American public deserved to know the truth. How dare our ungrateful sheep to allow the gov’t hirelings to kick him in the teeth and then the ungrateful public turned on him like a pack of dogs. You don’t deserve to know the truth. He also testified about the American POWs from WWII and Korea which were still being held in Soviet Gulag work camps in Siberia while their families were told they were dead. They were ignored by every administration but Corso who learned of their plight when he was over the NSC, continued to testify to congress about their captivity. Because he was a man of integrity who died soon after his book was published. He risked everything to come forward to the American public because he was an honorable man with an impeccable reputation and career who thought we deserved to know the truth. You had your chances to know everything and you blew it. Nor deserve to know it.
Philip Schneider also came forward to tell what he knew about the underground ebe and gov’t labs in Dulce, NM in addition to other info. You didn’t want to believe such bizarre stories. As I said, the truth is so extreme, none of you would believe it. You have all been spoon fed gov’t propaganda for so long you no longer recognize the truth when you hear it. You join in the attacks on these men, many who gave their lives to tell you the truth. Schneider gave personal lectures of his experiences while dying from his health issues due to a weapons fight with the Ebe’s of Dulce. He was saved from that battle by a soldier who gave his life to save Schneider. Schneider was later murdered after sharing what he knew with the public. The gov’t agents took personal revenge in torturing Schneider before they killed him as he sat in his wheel chair, disabled. Choked from behind where his oxygen and IV tubing had been used to strangle him and knotted behind his neck where he could not have accessed since he was missing many fingers and was extremely disabled and incapable of tending to his own needs much less tying his tubing in a knot behind his head… which was labeled a suicide by the “honest” authorities. Not to mention the fact that he was also brutalized by the attackers. A sick bunch of attackers could only have come from the CIA.
Even though most of you don’t deserve it, you can still know the truth imparted by these brave men who risked their necks and some died to tell you the truth. Read Corso’s book “The Day after Roswell”. Not only does he tell you the truth about the EBE’s, he also shares what he knows about the KGB administration of Eisenhower and the KGB infiltrated CIA under the direction and approval of Allen Dulles who built the organization with its soviet loyalties until Kennedy fired him… then Kennedy was killed soon after. His assassination organized by someone who had built the CIA and knew every contract killer they had… the former director Dulles, Deputy director Cabell and Bissell who had set up Kennedy with the Bay of Pigs to weaken and destroy his presidency and to provide justification for the Kremlin to move in their missiles. All set up by CIA Dulles, Cabell and Bissell. Incidentally, Cabell’s brother was the Mayor of Dallas at the time. Better pay attention to what Corso says about the CIA and soviet sympathizers in Ike’s white house while he was the NSC director there. He said the entire white house was crawling with soviet sympathizers who provided the Kremlin with everything they knew. Allen Dulles’s brother was also Ike’s Sec of State. Allen Dulles was also the OSS Berlin Station chief when 3 previous attempts on Patton’s life were made in 45 and then the final car crash and toxic medication mixture of Digitalis and Mercuperia 12 days later to finish Patton off. Dulles & Donovan reported to Ike even though the OSS had been terminated by Truman. Ike was still using a shadow OSS as a personal assassination squad to eliminate anyone who threatened his campaign to be president which he incidentally launched on Dec 10 1945. The day Patton was supposed to return to the US but had been injured in a car accident just a day earlier. Patton had told everyone he was going to reveal Ike’s dirty laundry and his ties to the soviets and how Ike allowed thousands of POW’s to be taken to Soviet Gulags where they were never returned. 3 Generals and a Lt Colonel were killed in Europe just in Dec 45… including Patton and later Pattons daughter, mistress, wife and anyone else who might reveal Ike’s dirty linens to the public were all killed. There was quite a long list.
Anyone who worked in the Bell System in the 50’s through the 70’s knew about the Bell Labs agreement with the gov’t regarding the Roswell transistor technology. Bell Labs was allowed to take credit for the development but they were not allowed to own sole propriety. They had to agree to make the transistor technology available to anyone who wanted it, including competitors. EVERYONE knew this. Then there were the two engineers at Corning in the 70’s who reverse engineered fiber optics from the very sample which Corso had given them. Before I ever knew Corso’s name, I knew about these two engineers who could not be given credit for reverse engineering ebe technology. So for 30 years, the Nobel prize committee could not give them credit for fiber optics because it was an EBE technology. Finally, after 30 years, they gave them an award for “Developing the Process” to create fiber optics. You can look this up. It should be listed. Many of these greedy, megalomaniacal scientists who were given ebe technology to reverse engineer, claimed all credit which they did not deserve. Townes for instance tried to claim his microwave technology was the same as the laser technology he claimed credit for. Corso did his best to give the technologies to those scientists and labs who were closest to working with these specific types of technologies. You wouldn’t give these things to someone who knew nothing about the field. So yes, most of them were working in these fields when Corso chose them. Dupont was working on Fabrics, so they were the choice for Kevlar. But let us never forget that our extreme leaps in technologies are from those very EBE technologies distributed by Corso. If he had done what most military branches would do and kept those technologies locked up for themselves, then none of us would be the recipients of the many technologies we now enjoy because Corso made sure they were given to companies which could assure shared technology applications for public benefit as well as military. He also had to ensure the CIA double agents did not get their hands on it for the Kremlin. But make no mistake, regardless of their blustering and arrogance, our scientists and engineers were decades if not centuries behind the EBE technologies.
Without reverse engineering, you would not have the computers, cell phones, wireless and fiber optic, laser and many other technologies we enjoy today. They actually had many of these technologies developed by the 90’s when the computer industry, TV, wireless, memory & capacities and many other technologies (CD’s DVD’s, USB’s, Sandisks, etc.) were decided to be released in increasing increments every three years. All of the companies in those technologies agree not to release the more advanced technologies faster than the other companies in their fields. This is to keep the customers buying new computers and phones every 3 years as they release technologies they’ve been holding back for 20 years in predetermined timelines so they can keep sucking money out of you for these upgraded versions… which they could have released all at once 20 years ago instead of bilking the public with built in obsolescence. The same with your vehicles except they use cheaper designs to shorten the lifespans of your vehicles and appliances now. Such as cheap plastics, aluminum instead of Brass distributor caps, etc. Building appliances and cars that last 20 years is bad for sales and profits.
Some technology developments were delayed due to other needed technologies. Integrated circuit chips required the development of an electron microscope before that technology could be reverse engineered. Fiber optics required laser technology to create a signal to send through the fiber and an exterior cladding to keep the signal light flowing within the fiber without signal loss. So these reverse engineered technologies took longer than the others. For some reason… which I think we can blame on Townes own inability to comprehend laser, they were unable to reverse engineer the laser scalpel. His expertise was in microwave signals. I find it utterly unbelievable that they could compare that technology with laser. He clearly was a bad choice for reverse engineering. I think they should take another look at this laser scalpel device if Townes didn’t destroy it in his efforts to copy the technology. If the development of IC chips had come first, then some of these bulkier developments would have also come faster. But when reverse engineering, it requires other sophisticated technologies to unwravel their functionality.
Thirteen:
This is the way things are and the way these technologies were developed. If you don’t believe it… too bad. You’ve been told the truth. If you refuse to accept the truth, then that is your problem. So why should the rest of us continue to give the public information they neither understand nor willing to step past their closed minds to listen to those who know the truth. But you can rest assured that no one else will stick out their necks to tell you the truth so you can turn around and kick them in the teeth the first time the gov’t sends some disinfo hireling to attack them.
Fourteen:
However, you can still learn the truth by reading Corso’s book and watching Lazar’s interviews and Schneiders DVD’s. There was also a Brazilian military officer who was strangled after he gave his interview about the ebe’s they encountered. Despite over 1500 detailed pages of reports, diagrams, films & photos submitted by this officer and his division and doctors reports and eye witness attacks on a coastal village which the Brazilian military observed for weeks which the Brazilian gov’t made available… MUFON’s gov’t hirelings declared there was insufficient scientific evidence. Just exactly WHAT do they think is sufficient evidence? A captive alien? They had everything else imaginable on official documents, films and photos. Look at the Navy’s Clemetine satellite images of the moon and Nasa’s images of Mars and other official imagery sources such as ESA, RSA, etc. If you look very closely, you will see many interesting structures and crafts which their censors missed. Increase the DPI resolution settings on the images to enlarge without losing resolution. Then lighten all the darkening contrast added by the censors so you can see what they have been hiding.
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Key Peninsula Student Chosen for Tacoma IDEA High School
Matthew Dean, KP News
Alyssa Garcia is excited by learning options at a specialized high school. Photo courtesy Audra Garcia
Eighth-grader Alyssa Garcia has been accepted to Tacoma’s new Industrial Design, Engineering and Art (IDEA) high school.
A former Key Peninsula Middle School student and current Key Peninsula resident, Alyssa is currently studying at Seabury School, a school for the gifted in Tacoma. She plans to attend IDEA this fall after her graduation.
Alyssa has experimented with several different subjects, but is currently considering a focus on architectural engineering. “I only realize now that it’s called architectural engineering, but over the course of my lifetime I’ve done a lot of things related to it,” said Alyssa, who remembers planning out buildings and communities for fun at a young age. “I specifically remember as a kid doing this weird thing where I collected all the branches that my mother or father had cut down the previous day, and trying my hardest to make them into an actual structure.”
The IDEA school is the latest in a series of specialized high schools that Tacoma has opened over the past two decades; the School of the Arts (SOTA) and the Science and Math Institute (SAMI) are both part of the same program. Students from the Tacoma school district and the surrounding area are chosen by lottery after their applications are reviewed. “My understanding is that the majority of people are wait-listed, but [Alyssa] got in right off the bat,” said her mother, Audra Garcia. “They only accept 125 kids per year to the school…so it’s kind of a big deal, I guess.”
IDEA opened in 2016 and mostly accepts students from the Tacoma area, meaning that Garcia and her daughter had to do some searching. “I started asking around about what was next; Bellarmine seems to be where everyone in the area sends their kids, if they’re going to send them out of area, and that didn’t seem like something that would work for her. I had to start doing some homework and asking questions,” said Garcia.
Alyssa discovered IDEA after her school promoted it as an option for eighth-graders. “I found IDEA through that because there were a lot of posters around the school about it,” Alyssa said.
The school is known not only for its special facilities and learning opportunities but also for its collaborations with companies. Businesses can partner with the school to send working professionals to teach and offer opportunities to graduating students.
“They have architectural engineers coming and they teach architectural engineering to the kids, then they provide internships,” said Garcia. “They’re actually creating a forward path into the next level of education for them.”
Alyssa is excited to pursue her passions through some of the resources at IDEA, especially through the hands-on learning centers and workshops. “When I entered the school, there was a wood shop. The smell of wood shop, and wood in general, is beautiful,” said Alyssa. “They had boats in the making, they had everything…that’s the biggest thing I am excited for in this whole entire school.”
Longbranch Marina Upgrades Will Benefit Filucy Bay
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PreviousLongbranch Marina Upgrades Will Benefit Filucy Bay
NextSalmon to Benefit from Hatchery Upgrade
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Zambia to soon access $40 mn credit from India for farm mechanisation
Zambia expects to access a $40 million line of credit from India soon for farm mechanisation, a diplomat of the southern African country said on Monday.
"We expect to access a $40 million line of credit from Indian government soon for farm mechanisation.
It is in an advanced stage, " said Acting High Commissioner H Sikapale Chinzewe.
"There is huge potential in Zambian agriculture sector.
About 58 per cent of land is arable and 14 per cent of it is being utilised, " he said at an event - 'Doing Business with Zambia' organised by MCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Zambia has already accessed a $50 million line of credit from Indian government for setting 650 health posts (clinic) in its rural areas, he said.
In addition, the African country received a grant of $5 million for projects in health, education and social sectors, he said.
In order to boost tourism in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana, these four south African countries developed a system where tourists can move freely among these countries with a single visa.
"We have prepared a unique visa system which enables tourists to move around in the four countries with a single visa.
Tourists' footfalls rose by 25 per cent in the region of four countries after implementing the system, " said Namunda Lubinda Mwitumwa, Second Secretary (Immigration) in the Zambian High Commission.
mechanisation implementing agriculture government potential organised footfalls education developed countries
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‘Yuvraj,’ India’s champion breeding buffalo
In India a champion breeding buffalo named ‘Yuvraj” is a hit at animal shows. He is 10 feet long, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs almost one thousand pounds.
Kamis, 01 Des 2016 17:26 WIB
The prize winning bull Yuvraj with his owner (Photo: Jasvinder Sehgal)
The bull is so popular some have even offered to buy him for exorbitant amounts.
Jasvinder Sehgal meets the bull and his owner in the Rajasthani city of Jaipur.
Transcript -
Musicians are beating their drums at the Global Rajasthan Agri-tech meeting here in Jaipur.
The beat quickens in the lead up to a special announcement. The arrival of a magnificent beast.
His body is shining; and nostrils wet, and he is chewing on large green leaves.
Meet “Yuvraj” the giant bull taking India by storm.
Height, weight, and length - Yuvraj is a giant in all measurements. Almost twice the size of a normal bull. 48 year old Karamveer Singh is his owner.
“He drinks 20 kilograms of milk and eats 15 kilos of fruit every day. He is fond of dry fruits too. Apart from this he also eats large quantity of greens, dry fodder and concentrates,” Karamveer explains.
“He walks three miles every day to exercise. He bathes twice a day after getting massaged by mustard oil. So I spend almost 70 dollars on him each day.”
But the bull is not a financial liability. Yuvraj earns more than what is spent on his keep.
“The semen of Yuvraj is taken once in a week at a frozen semen bank,” explains Karamveer.
“Between 700 and 900 doses of artificial insemination are prepared from one ejaculation. I sell these doses from my home. The farmers, dairy owners and semen traders come to my house to buy the semen of my bull.”
Karamveer continued, “I earn $120 000 a year by selling his semen. By this earning I am able to rear my other animals. His semen has produced 250 thousand calves.”
Yuvraj also earns money by winning different buffalo and livestock contests, collecting up to five thousand dollars each time.
Karamveer says that his home is filled with trophies won by Yuvraj.
“He has been judged the best animal 17 times in different national level animal shows.”
“People from different parts of world like Brazil, Latin America, South Africa, and Venezuela come to see him. He has been offered a price of $14 000 but I will never sell him,” vowed Karamveer.
Many have come to see Yuvraj and are curious abut how much he is worth.
Animal husbandry experts say Yuvraj is the type of animal that is born once in a blue moon.
Cows are the most sacred animal for Hindus. And many in India worship the animals.
Among them is 30-year-old Barun Yadav, who takes Yuvraj to his village every year, as part of a government-funded initiative.
“In my community we have a tradition of worshipping cows, especially bulls. I take Yuvraj to my village every year to worship him. He will bring good luck to us,” said Yuvraj.
“Half a million people worshipped him this year.”
India is home to more than half of the global buffalo population and is the world’s top milk producer.
But bulls like Yuvraj are a one of kind, cash cow.
india bull yuvraj jasvinder sehgal
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ArticleAging Free access | 10.1172/JCI15883
EphB6 crosslinking results in costimulation of T cells
Hongyu Luo,1 Guang Yu,1 Yulian Wu,1,2 and Jiangping Wu1,3
1Laboratory of Transplantation Immunology, Centre Hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada2 Department of Surgery, Second Affiliated Hospital of the Zhejiang Medical College, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China3 Nephrology Service of Notre Dame Hospital, Centre Hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada
Address correspondence to: Jiangping Wu, Laboratory of Transplantation Immunology, Research Center, Notre Dame Hospital, Centre Hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal, University of Montreal, Pavilion DeSève, Room Y-5616, 1560 Sherbrooke Street East, Montreal, Quebec H2L 4M1, Canada. Phone: (514) 890-8000 ext. 25164; Fax: (514) 412-7596; E-mail: jianping.wu@umontreal.ca.
Find articles by Luo, H. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar
Find articles by Yu, G. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar
Find articles by Wu, Y. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar
Find articles by Wu, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar
First published October 15, 2002 - More info
Published in Volume 110, Issue 8 on October 15, 2002
First published October 15, 2002 - Version history
Received: May 8, 2002; Accepted: August 20, 2002
Erythropoietin-producing hepatocyte (Eph) kinases represent the largest receptor tyrosine kinase family. Some of them are expressed in the T cell compartment, but their function in T cells is unknown. In peripheral blood, EphB6 was predominantly expressed on T cells, and was upregulated after culture. EphB6 crosslinking by anti-EphB6 mAb or ephrinB2 in the presence of suboptimal T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation led to drastic T cell proliferation, suggesting that EphB6 can co-stimulate T cells. The proliferation was accompanied by enhanced production of several lymphokines, such as IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-10, TGF-β, TNF-α, and GM-CSF, but not IL-2 and IL-4. Sorted EphB6+ T cells had significantly stronger response to anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 stimulation than EphB6– T cells had. Taken together, these data suggest an important role of EphB6 in normal T cell activation. Within two minutes of anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 stimulation, EphB6 aggregated and colocalized with TCR, and this provides a morphological basis for EphB6 to enhance TCR signaling. The capping was followed by p38 MAPK activation, showing that EphB6 is capable of signaling, in spite of its lack of intrinsic kinase activity. This study demonstrates that interaction between EphB6 and its ligands facilitates T cell responses to antigen.
Protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) are important enzymes in signal transduction that could be divided into two classes: cytoplasmic and cell-surface PTKs. Most of the latter are important growth factor receptors that are classified as the insulin receptor family, the EGF-R family, the PDGF-R family, the FGF-R family, the nerve growth factor receptor family, the HGF-R family, and the erythropoietin-producing hepatocyte (Eph) kinase family (1). It is obvious from the nomenclature that the immunological significance of most of these receptors is not striking, because they do not have preferential activity or expression in immune cells.
The Eph family is the largest receptor PTK family, comprising about 25% of known receptor PTKs. They are now named the EphA’s (EphA1 to EphA8) and EphB’s (EphB1 to EphB6) according to their sequence homology (2). Eph ligands are expressed mainly on cell surfaces and are now termed ephrins. EphrinA’s (ephrinA1 to ephrinA5) are ligands of EphA’s and are glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins. EphrinB’s (eph-rinB1 to ephrinB3) are ligands of EphB’s and are transmembrane proteins. EphA’s bind to ephrinA’s and EphB’s bind to ephrinBs with loose specificity; generally, EphA’s do not bind to the ligands of EphB’s, and vice versa. The transmembrane ephrinB’s can also function as reciprocal receptors for EphB molecules and transduce signals into cells (3). Since both Eph receptor kinases and their ligands are cell surface molecules, they can interact with each other only if expressed on adjacent cells. Not surprisingly, the clearly demonstrated function of these receptors and ligands is to control accurate spatial patterning and cell positioning. Most of these findings are derived from studies in the CNS, where most Eph kinases have high-level expression (4–10). Recently, it has been found that ephrinB2 and its ligand EphB4 are involved in angiogenesis (10); this function is consistent with the known roles of Eph kinases in controlling spatial structure formation.
Expression in immune cells has not been examined for many members of the Eph family, but only a few of those that have been studied are expressed in immune cells. EphA3 is expressed in pre–B cell lines (11). EphA2 (12), EphB4 (13), and EphB6 (14) are expressed at high levels in the thymus. The function of this important family of PTKs in the immune system has not been explored, to the best of our knowledge, with the exception of our recent publication on EphB6 (15). However, Shimoyama et al. have recently reported the expression pattern of EphB6 in hematopoietic cells (16).
EphB6 shares about 47–60% homology with other members of the EphB subgroup, but the homology between human and mouse EphB6 is more than 90% (14, 17). This high degree of homology suggests an important conserved function of EphB6, although it lacks intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity due to a mutation in its kinase domain (14, 17). EphB6 is expressed at high levels in the brain and thymus (14, 17) and in Jurkat cells, a human T cell leukemia line (15). Its mRNA is detectable in normal T cells and B cells, with the former having much higher expression (15). Our recent work showed that crosslinking EphB6 on Jurkat cells leads to increased secretion of GM-CSF accompanied by Fas-mediated apoptosis (15). Crosslinking EphB6 augments protein tyrosine phosphorylation, indicating that signals can indeed be transduced into Jurkat cells through EphB6. EphB6 signaling is likely achieved by its association with a number of adaptor proteins, such as Cbl, Grb2, and CrkL, that are involved in signaling pathways (15).
In this study we examined expression of EphB6 in immune cells and explored its function and signaling in normal T cells.
T cell purification and culture. Human PBMCs were isolated by Lympholyte gradient (Cedarlane Laboratories Ltd., Hornby, Ontario, Canada) as described elsewhere (18). T cells were purified from PBMCs by negative selection (deletion of cells positive for CD11b, CD16, CD19, CD36, and CD56) with a magnetic cell sorter (MACS; Miltenyi Biotech, Auburn, California, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The purified cells were more than 98% CD3-positive. In some experiments, these cells were further selected by anti-CD4, anti-CD8, and anti-CD45RO magnetic beads. In some other experiments, these T cells were cultured in medium for 48 hours in order to enhance EphB6 expression. These cells were then stained with biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 mAb followed by phycoerythrin-conjugated (PE-conjugated) streptavidin, and then sorted by high-speed flow cytometry. Cells with the highest 30% and lowest 30% fluorescence intensity were collected and designated as EphB6+ and EphB6– cells, respectively. These cells were more than 98% CD3-positive, and were less than 2% propidium iodide– and annexin V–positive, indicating high purity and viability. In some experiments, T cells were cultured in wells coated with anti-CD3 mAb (clone OKT3), anti-EphB6 mAb (clone 4F12; ref. 15), anti-CD28, or mouse ephrinB2-Fc. The cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 supplemented with 10% FCS, L-glutamine, and antibiotics. 3H-thymidine uptake was measured as described previously (18).
Generation of human EphB6-Fc and mouse ephrinB2-Fc. The coding sequences of the extracellular domains of human EphB6 from positions 799 to 2,442 (GenBank accession number NM004445) and mouse ephrinB2 from positions 29 to 684 (GenBank accession number NM010111) were cloned in-frame upstream of the human IgG1 Fc coding sequence in expression vector pCMVh-Fc. The constructs and pcDNA3 were then transfected into CHO/dhfr– cells with Lipofectamine (Invitrogen, Burlington, Ontario, Canada). The cells were cultured in selection medium, which was α-MEM without ribonucleosides and deoxyribonucleosides, but with 5% dialyzed FCS, 0.01 mM methotrexate, 0.8 mg/ml G418, and 0.1 mg/ml gentamicin. After 2 weeks of culture, well-isolated clones were handpicked and expanded in the selection medium without G418. The culture supernatants were assayed by ELISA for human IgG-Fc–positive clones, which were then expanded. The fusion proteins were isolated from their supernatants by protein A columns, analyzed with 12% SDS-PAGE to confirm their molecular sizes, and verified by N-terminal peptide sequencing.
Flow cytometry. Two- or three-color flow cytometry was employed for measurement of EphB6 expression in different cell populations. Cells were labeled with biotinylated anti-EphB6 mAb 4F12 followed by PE-conjugated streptavidin (Sigma-Aldrich, Oakville, Ontario, Canada) in combination with FITC-labeled anti-CD4 (clone SFCI12T4D11; Beckman Coulter Inc., Burlington, Ontario, Canada), FITC-labeled anti-CD8 (clone UCHT-4; Sigma-Aldrich), Quantum Red–labeled anti-CD45RO (clone UCHL-1; Sigma-Aldrich), FITC-labeled anti-CD45RA (clone F8-11-13; Sigma-Aldrich), FITC-labeled anti-CD20 (clone HI147; Caltag Laboratories Inc., Burlingame, California, USA), or FITC-labeled anti-CD14 (clone MO2; Beckman Coulter Inc.). Activation markers and an adhesion molecule on T cells were detected by one-color flow cytometry on MACS-purified T cells, using FITC-labeled anti-CD25 (clone M-A251), FITC-labeled anti-CD69 (clone FN50), or PE-labeled anti-CD54 (clone HA58). These mAbs were from Pharmingen (San Diego, California, USA).
Cytokine measurement. Culture supernatants of T cells placed in anti-CD3– and/or anti-EphB6–coated wells were harvested 48 hours after initiation of culture. IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ, TNF-α, TGF-β, and GM-CSF in the supernatants were quantified by ELISA (Quantikine; R&D Systems Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Laser scanning confocal microscopy. MACS-purified T cells were cultured for 48 hours. The cells were incubated on ice for 40 minutes with Alexa Fluor 488–conjugated anti-CD3 mAb (0.5 μg/106 cells) (Molecular Probes Inc., Eugene, Oregon, USA) and anti-CD28 mAb (1 μg/106 cells). After washing, the cells were reacted with rabbit anti-mouse IgG (1 μg/106 cells) at 37°C for 2 minutes. Cells were immediately fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde on ice for 30 minutes and then stained with biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 mAb (clone 4F12; ref. 15) or biotin-conjugated anti-CD45 (clone HI30; Caltag Laboratories Inc., Burlingame, California, USA), at 1 μg/106 cells, followed by Alexa Fluor 594–conjugated streptavidin (1 μg/106 cells). The cells were then examined by laser-scanning confocal microscopy.
Immunoblotting. T cells were added to 6-well Nunc plates (Nalge Nunc International, Naperville, Illinois, USA) coated with anti-EphB6 mAb, anti-CD3 mAb, or both. The cells were harvested after 4 hours or 20 hours in culture, and were lysed with 1% NP-40 lysis buffer. Cleared lysates were resolved using 10% SDS-PAGE with 50 μg protein per lane, and were then blotted onto PVDF membranes. The membranes were sequentially hybridized with rabbit Ab against tyrosine phosphorylated p38 MAPK and rabbit anti-p38 MAPK Ab (Cell Signaling Technology Inc., Beverly, Massachusetts, USA). Signals were revealed by enhanced chemiluminescence. Details of the immunoblotting method have been provided in our previous publication (19).
EphB6 expression in immune cells measured by flow cytometry. We examined EphB6 expression on the immune cell surface. CD4+ and CD8+ cells were double-labeled with anti-CD4/anti-EphB6 or anti-CD8/anti-EphB6 and analyzed by flow cytometry. Cells having EphB6 intensity above the mAb isotypic control were designated EphB6-positive cells, which were not a separate population but a continuum extended from EphB6-negative cells. In freshly prepared cells, 12.6% CD4+ cells and 10.6% CD8+ cells were EphB6 positive (Figure 1a). More detailed study revealed that CD4+ and CD8+ cells rapidly upregulated their EphB6 after culture in medium. For CD4+ cells, the upregulation was significant within 4 hours, when 39.3% were found to be EphB6+ (Figure 1a). At 24 hours, 52.9% were positive, and this high expression lasted for at least 72 hours. The upregulation was reflected not only in the percentage increase of cells in the EphB6-positive region, but also in the increase of EphB6 expression intensity of the whole CD4+ population, which was shifted to the right in histograms. For CD8+ cells, the upregulation was similar in scale and duration to that of CD4+ cells, but occurred at a slower pace; it became significant only at 24 hours. The upregulation was not due to stimulatory factors in FCS, since T cells cultured in serum-free medium also upregulated their EphB6 (Figure 1b). Interestingly, T cells cultured in fresh autologous serum failed to significantly upregulate their EphB6 (Figure 1b). This suggests that certain serum components prevent EphB6 upregulation on T cells; this phenomenon probably has physiological significance (see Discussion). We further determined that constitutive as well as upregulated EphB6 expression in vitro depended on de novo protein and mRNA synthesis. As shown in Figure 1c, inhibition of protein and mRNA synthesis by cycloheximide and actinomycin D, respectively, for 4 hours started to prevent EphB6 upregulation; at 24 hours, they both totally eliminated EphB6 expression on CD4+ and CD8+ cells. This implies that the preexisting EphB6 mRNA or protein has a turnover rate of less than 24 hours, or else the mRNA or protein will maintain EphB6 expression during this period in the presence of mRNA and protein synthesis inhibitors.
Flow cytometry analysis of EphB6 expression on immune cells. (a) MACS-purified CD4+ or CD8+ T cells (more than 98% pure) were cultured for different times and analyzed for EphB6 expression by two-color flow cytometry using FITC-labeled anti-CD4 or FITC-labeled anti-CD8 in combination with biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 and PE-streptavidin. Histograms show EphB6 expression on cells gated on CD4+ or CD8+ populations. Percentages represent EphB6+ populations in the gated regions after deducting background staining (isotypic Ab, shaded area); this is also the case for all other histograms in Figure 1. (b) MACS-purified T cells were cultured in regular RPMI 1640 medium, 100% fresh serum from the blood donor (autologous serum), or serum-free medium for 24 hours. EphB6 expression was examined by one-color flow cytometry. (c) MACS-purified CD4+ or CD8+ cells were cultured in the presence of PHA (1 μg/ml), actinomycin D (AD; 4 μg/ml), cycloheximide (CHX; 20 μg/ml), or in medium (Med) alone for the indicated time periods. Cells were stained and analyzed as described in a. (d) MACS-purified T cells were cultured for 24 hours and then stained with Quantum Red–labeled anti-CD45RO, FITC-labeled anti-CD45RA, and biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 followed by PE-streptavidin. The CD45RO+ and CD45RA+ cells were separately gated, and their EphB6 expression was assessed. (e) The T cell–depleted fraction of PBMCs was stained with FITC-labeled anti-CD20 or FITC-labeled anti-CD14 in combination with biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 and PE-streptavidin, and analyzed by two-color flow cytometry. EphB6 expression on cells gated on CD20+ or CD14+ populations is shown.
Interestingly, mitogen (phytohemagglutinin; PHA) activation marginally increased EphB6 expression in CD4+ and CD8+ cells at 4 hours compared with cells without stimulation (39.3% in unstimulated versus 49.8% in PHA-stimulated CD4+ cells; 13.9% in unstimulated versus 16.4% in PHA-stimulated CD8+ cells), but downregulated EphB6 expression at 24 hours to levels below those of fresh cells, with only 7.8% and 5.3% EphB6+ CD4+ and CD8+ cells, respectively (see Figure 1c). Again, the mitogen-induced increase followed by a decrease was reflected not only in changes of EphB6+ percentages, but also in the fluorescent intensity of the whole population. The downregulation of EphB6 expression on the cell surface after mitogen stimulation was consistent with our previous finding that EphB6 mRNA was reduced after T cell activation (15). Such downregulation could be a mechanism for T cells to terminate EphB6 signaling after their activation.
We also examined EphB6 expression on T cells that had experienced activation (CD45RO+) or those having a naive phenotype (CD45RA+). As shown in Figure 1d, both types of T cells expressed EphB6 after 24 hours in culture, although CD45RA+ cells had higher expression than CD45RO+ cells. This was consistent with the finding that T cell activation led to downregulation of EphB6 expression.
EphB6 expression in freshly isolated B cells and monocytes/macrophages was very limited, with only 1.9% EphB6+ cells in the CD20+ population, and 3.4% EphB6+ cells in the CD14+ population (Figure 1e). Unlike T cells, B cells or monocytes/macrophages cultured in medium did not have enhanced EphB6 expression (data not shown). Therefore, in the immune system, EphB6 was expressed predominantly on T cells, and consequently, its major role in the immune system should be related to T cell function.
Crosslinking EphB6 enhanced the T cell response to T cell receptor stimulation. In a recent publication, we reported that EphB6 and suboptimal anti-CD3 co-crosslinking resulted in Jurkat cell apoptosis (15). It is known that with strong (not with suboptimal) T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation, Jurkat cells undergo apoptosis. We speculated that EphB6 crosslinking enhanced signaling strength through TCR and increased TCR stimulation from suboptimal to strong, which led to Jurkat cell apoptosis. We therefore reasoned that EphB6 crosslinking should enhance the activation of normal resting T cells triggered by TCR stimulation. Testing of this possibility showed that suboptimal anti-CD3 or anti-EphB6 alone caused negligible T cell proliferation (Figure 2a), but anti-EphB6 dose-dependently induced proliferation in the presence of anti-CD3. Next, T cells were cultured in wells coated with an optimal amount of anti-EphB6 and various amounts of anti-CD3. As shown in Figure 2b, anti-EphB6 augmented T cell proliferation when anti-CD3 was used, at all concentrations tested. This result showed that EphB6 crosslinking reduced the T cell response threshold. Therefore, in a broad sense, EphB6 could be considered a novel T cell costimulatory molecule.
EphB6 crosslinking enhances the T cell response to TCR stimulation. Representative results are shown. (a and b) MaxiSorp 96-well plates were coated overnight at 4°C with a suboptimal concentration of αCD3 mAb (clone OKT3, 0.2 μg/ml) along with various concentrations of αEphB6 mAb (clone 4F12) (a), or were coated with an optimal concentration of αEphB6 (4 μg/ml) along with various concentrations of αCD3 (b). MACS-purified T cells were cultured in these plates for 72 hours, and 3H-thymidine was added for the last 8 hours of culture. (c) MASC-purified T cells were cultured in these wells in the presence or absence of soluble EphB6-Fc or a control protein (control-Fc) (10 μg/ml) as inhibitor. (d and e) MaxiSorp 96-well plates were coated with α-CD3 plus α-EphB6, or with α-CD3 plus αCD28 (4 μg/ml) as described above. T cells were purified from PBMCs by MACS and subsequently fractionated into CD4+ cells, CD8+ cells, CD45RO+ cells, and CD45RO– cells (pure T cells depleted of CD45RO+ cells) using MACS beads. The cells were cultured for 1–3 days, and their thymidine uptake was measured for the last 8 hours of culture. (f) Costar 96-well plates were first coated with α-CD3 (0.2 μg/ml) overnight. After washing, the wells were incubated with mouse ephrinB2-Fc or a control recombinant protein with an Fc tag (control-Fc) (5 μg/ml or 10 μg/ml, as indicated) for 2 hours at 37°C followed by 2 hours on ice. MACS-purified T cells were cultured in the wells for 48 hours, and thymidine uptake was measured for the last 8 hours of culture. α, anti.
To show the specificity of anti-EphB6 stimulation, recombinant EphB6-Fc was added to the culture. As shown in Figure 2c, soluble EphB6-Fc, but not a control fusion protein with an Fc tail, reduced solid-phase anti-CD3 plus anti-EphB6–stimulated T cell proliferation.
We further demonstrated that CD4+ cells and CD8+ cells responded similarly to EphB6 costimulation, although CD8+ cells had a tendency to reach their proliferation peak later than CD4+ cells (Figure 2d). This was in keeping with the slower EphB6 upregulation in CD8+ cells shown in Figure 1a. The magnitude of co-stimulation by EphB6 was slightly lower than, but on the same order of, that using the classical costimulating molecule CD28 (Figure 2d). We also showed that both CD45RO+ and CD45RO– T cells proliferated well upon EphB6 costimulation (Figure 2e).
To show the physiological relevance of EphB6 in T cell activation, we used ephrinB2, the natural ligand of EphB6 (20), for the crosslinking. As we have not yet generated human recombinant ephrinB2, mouse ephrinB2 was used instead. (Mouse ephrinB2 shares 95% and 97% homology with human ephrinB2 in its extracellular domain at the mRNA and protein levels, respectively.) T cells were cultured on solid-phase mouse ephrinB2 along with a suboptimal amount of anti-CD3. As shown in Figure 2f, T cells proliferated vigorously upon stimulation by solid-phase ephrinB2 in the presence of a suboptimal concentration of solid-phase anti-CD3. Thus, the natural ligand of EphB6, as with anti-EphB6 mAb, could costimulate T cells in the presence of TCR ligation. It is acknowledged that since ephrinB2 could bind to other EphB family members, notably EphB4, which is expressed in lymphoid cells (14), the stimulatory effect of ephrinB2 in this experiment might be mediated by more than one receptor. Nevertheless, considering both the specificity of the anti-EphB6 mAb and the effect of EphB6’s natural ligand ephrinB2, we have shown that EphB6 crosslinking can costimulate T cells.
EphB6 costimulation led to upregulation of activation-related surface markers and lymphokine secretion by T cells. Flow cytometry was used to analyze cell-surface molecules 24 hours after EphB6 and CD3 co-crosslinking (Figure 3a). IL-2 receptor CD25, adhesion molecule CD54, and T cell activation marker CD69 were drastically upregulated. In all these cases, crosslinking CD3 (a suboptimal amount) or EphB6 alone had no apparent effect. Thus, T cells showed typical activation surface marker expression with CD3 and EphB6 co-crosslinking; this was consistent with their enhanced proliferation, as described in the previous section.
Activation marker expression and lymphokine secretion of EphB6-costimulated T cells. All experiments were carried out more than three times and were reproducible. Representative results are shown. (a) MACS-purified T cells were cultured in wells coated with anti-EphB6 mAb (4 μg/ml) plus anti-CD3 mAb (0.2 μg/ml) as described in Figure 2. Their CD25, CD54, and CD69 expression at 24 hours was assessed by one-color flow cytometry using FITC-labeled anti-CD25, PE-labeled anti-CD54, and FITC-labeled anti-CD69. Percentages represent positive populations in the gated regions after deducting background staining (isotypic Ab, shaded area). (b) MACS-purified T cells were cultured in wells coated with anti-EphB6 mAb (4 μg/ml), anti-CD3 mAb (0.2 μg/ml), or both, for 48 hours. IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ, TGF-β, TNF-α and GM-CSF in supernatants were measured by ELISA, with samples in duplicate. Data are expressed as mean ± SD.
We next assessed the functional consequence of T cell activation by EphB6 costimulation in terms of lymphokine production. T cells stimulated with solid-phase anti-EphB6 or suboptimal anti-CD3 alone had basal levels of eight tested lymphokines (Figure 3b). When the two stimulations were combined, there were ten- to 100-fold increases in IFN-γ, TGF-β, TNF-α, and GM-CSF secretion, and a two to threefold rise in IL-10 and IL-6 production after 48 hours. On the other hand, secretion of IL-2 and IL-4 was not induced on day 2. These were not detectable on day 1 or day 3 (data not shown). This excluded the possibility that the failure of detection of these cytokines was due to consumption or due to a shift in secretion kinetics.
EphB6 costimulation occurred among T cells. If EphB6 is important in T cell activation, what will happen if T cells are EphB6 negative? To answer this question, we cultured T cells for 2 days to allow upregulation of their EphB6, and then sorted the cells according to their EphB6 expression. T cells with the highest 30% and lowest 30% EphB6 fluorescence intensity were de-fined as EphB6+ or EphB6– populations, respectively (Figure 4a). These two populations were both more than 98% CD3-positive, and less than 2% were positive for propidium iodide and annexin V (data not shown), indicating high purity and viability of the sorted cells. The cells were stimulated with a suboptimal amount of solid-phase anti-CD3 plus an optimal amount of anti-CD28. After 24 hours, cell surface activation markers were examined by flow cytometry. As shown in Figure 4a, EphB6+ cells had higher CD25 expression than EphB6– cells when stimulated with anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28 (69.9% vs. 46.8%). For CD69 expression, almost all cells in both populations became CD69-positive (last panel, region A, 97.9% vs. 98.6%), indicating that EphB6+ and EphB6– cells were viable and activable. However, 95.3% of the EphB6+ cells expressed high-intensity CD69 (region B), while only 58.1% of the EphB6– cells did so. The rest of the EphB6– cells expressed CD69 at intermediate intensity. On the other hand, when stimulated with anti-CD3 alone, EphB6– cells were better than EphB6+ cells at upregulating CD25 (21.4% vs. 10.9%) and CD69 (35.2% vs. 6.9%). The underlying mechanism of this difference is not clear at this time.
Activation marker expression and proliferation of EphB6+ versus EphB6– T cells. All experiments were performed more than three times and were reproducible. Representative results are shown. T cells were first purified from PBMCs with negative selection using MACS beads. The T cells were cultured in medium for 48 hours to achieve high EphB6 expression, and then stained with biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 mAb followed by PE-streptavidin. The cells with the highest 30% and lowest 30% EphB6 fluorescence intensity were sorted by high-speed flow cytometry. (a) The top row shows EphB6 expression of sorted EphB6+ and EphB6– T cells. The lower two rows show CD25 and CD69 expression after stimulation with solid-phase anti-CD3 mAb alone (0.2 μg/ml during coating) or with anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28 mAb (4 μg/ml during coating) for 24 hours after sorting. Solid lines represent EphB6+ T cells and dotted lines represent EphB6– T cells. The percentages represent cells in CD25+ or CD69+ regions after deducting background staining (isotypic mAb). For the last panel, region A represents all CD69-positive cells, and region B represents cells with high CD69 intensity. (b) Sorted EphB6+ (solid line) and EphB6– (dotted line) cells were cultured in wells coated with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28, as described above, for an additional 1–3 days. Their thymidine uptake was measure for the last 8 hours of culture.
EphB6+ and EphB6– T cells were significantly different in terms of proliferation, as shown in Figure 4b. Upon stimulation with solid-phase anti-CD3 and anti-CD28, EphB6+ cells had vigorous proliferation, whereas EphB6– cells did not. Since there were only T cells in this system, the enhanced response in EphB6+ T cells must be due to costimulation of their EphB6 by their ligands on other T cells. Thus, EphB6 was involved in cooperation among T cells for optimal T cell activation.
EphB6 signaling. To understand how EphB6 provided costimulation to T cells, we first examined the localization of EphB6 on the T cell surface by confocal microscopy. In resting T cells, EphB6 was distributed in a diffused fashion on the cell surface (Figure 5a). When the T cells were activated by anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 crosslinking, the TCR complex, which was stained green by Alexa Fluor 488–conjugated anti-CD3, formed caps within 2 minutes, as expected. Interestingly, within this time frame, EphB6 (which was stained red by biotin-conjugated anti-EphB6 followed by Alexa Fluor 594–conjugated streptavidin) congregated and colocalized with the TCR caps. This provided a physical basis for EphB6 to interact with the TCR signaling machinery in the caps and to enhance the TCR signaling. The co-capping of CD3 and EphB6 in this experiment was not due to nonspecific trapping of EphB6 during anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 crosslinking, since the same procedure did not cause another cell-surface molecule, CD45, to co-cap with CD3 (Figure 5b).
EphB6 signaling. (a) Rapid colocalization of EphB6 with TCR caps after anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 crosslinking. All experiments were conducted more than three times and were reproducible. Representative results are shown. MACS-purified T cells were cultured for 48 hours in medium and then incubated with Alexa Fluor 488–labeled anti-CD3 mAb and anti-CD28 mAb on ice for 40 minutes, followed by rabbit anti-mouse IgG crosslinking at 37°C for 2 minutes. Cells were immediately fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde and stained with biotinylated anti-EphB6 mAb followed by Alexa Fluor 594–conjugated streptavidin. The cells were then examined by confocal microscopy for CD3 (green) and EphB6 (red) localization. (b) CD45 does not translocate to TCR caps after anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 crosslinking. The cells were crosslinked and stained as in Figure 5a, except that biotinylated anti-CD45 mAb was used in place of biotinylated anti-EphB6 mAb. (c) Immunoblotting of p38 MAPK and tyrosine phosphorylated p38 MAPK (phospho–p38 MAPK). MACS-purified T cells were added to wells coated with anti-EphB6 (4 μg/ml) and/or anti-CD3 (0.2 μg/ml). The cells were harvested after 4 hours or 20 hours, as indicated, and analyzed by immunoblotting. Signals of p38 MAPK and phospho–p38 MAPK on the same membrane are indicated by arrows. (d) Effects of the p38 MAPK–specific inhibitor on EphB6-enhanced T cell proliferation. MACS-purified T cells were preincubated for 1 hour in complete culture medium containing the p38 MAPK–specific inhibitor SB203580 (10 μM), its nonfunctional structural analogue SB202474 (10 μM), or vehicle (DMSO; 0.1%). The cells were then transferred to wells coated with the anti-EphB6 mAb 4F12 (4 μg/ml), the anti-CD3 mAb OKT3 (0.2 μg/ml), or both, and cultured for 72 hours. 3H-thymidine was added to the culture for the last 8 hours, and thymidine uptake by the cells was measured. MW, molecular weight; WB, Western blot.
EphB6 has no intrinsic kinase activity but is associated with several adaptors such as Cbl, Grb2, and CrkL (15). It probably uses these to interact with other signaling pathways. We examined the activation of p38 MAPK, a downstream signaling molecule in the Ras pathway, after EphB6 crosslinking. As shown in Figure 5c, a combination of EphB6 and suboptimal CD3 crosslinking led to a long-lasting increase of p38 MAPK phosphorylation from 4 hours to 20 hours, while these two crosslinkings had little effect independently, according to immunoblotting. The membrane was reprobed with anti-p38 MAPK Ab, and p38 protein levels showed no apparent change. Activation of p38 MAPK in this case was an essential and relevant event in T cell activation after EphB6 and CD3 co-crosslinking, since the p38 MAPK-specific inhibitor SB203580 but not its nonfunctional analogue SB202474 strongly suppressed T cell proliferation (Figure 5d).
In this study, we report for the first time to our knowledge on the biological functions of an Eph kinase in normal human T cells. Eph kinases represent the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases, and several of them, including EphB6, have high mRNA expression in the T cell compartment of the immune system. It is surprising that up to now, the expression and function of EphB6 in the immune system has evaded our notice, despite many successful attempts in generating Abs against T cell surface proteins using either fresh or activated T cells as immunogens. We think the major reason for this is that EphB6 has low expression on freshly isolated blood (Figure 1), and T cell activation further reduces its expression. The drastic increase of EphB6 expression from 10% to about 50% T cells after culture is interesting. There are several possible mechanisms for low EphB6 expression on freshly isolated T cells and its subsequent upregulation in culture: (a) EphB6, like some other receptor kinases, is downregulated after encountering its ligand(s) in vivo. This is a distinct possibility, because its known ligand, ephrinB2, is expressed on the endothelium of blood vessels (10). Moreover, the fact that pure EphB6+ T cells responded much better than EphB6– T cells to TCR stimulation suggested that EphB6 ligand(s) is expressed on the cell surface as well. It is plausible that in vivo, when T cells are closely packed in lymphoid organs or have frequent contact with endothelial cells, EphB6 and its ligand(s) are constantly engaged, and EphB6 is consequently downregulated. (b) EphB6 expression on T cells is suppressed by serum factors. (c) Serum proteases constantly cleave EphB6 from the T cell surface. The evidence favoring the latter two mechanisms is that when T cells were cultured in serum-free medium, they rapidly upregulated their EphB6 expression, while fresh autologous serum prevented it. All these possibilities are currently under further investigation.
Constitutive and upregulated EphB6 expression on T cells depended on constant de novo protein and mRNA synthesis, since blocking these two processes for 24 hours resulted in total disappearance of EphB6 expression. Why does the immune system waste energy constantly making new EphB6 but at the same time trying to eliminate its surface expression? There are three interesting observations related to the answer of this question: (a) EphB6 reduced the response thresholds to concomitant suboptimal TCR stimulation in resting T cells; (b) T cells precrosslinked by anti-EphB6 also strongly responded to subsequent suboptimal TCR crosslinking (data not shown); and (c) EphB6 on T cells probably has intimate and constant contact with its ligands in vivo, as explained above. A combination of these three events makes T cells in lymphoid organs ever ready to respond with low thresholds to antigen. This is likely one of the reasons why immune responses take place preferentially in these organs. Continuous emergence of new EphB6 molecules allows signals to be transduced through them, while old EphB6 is eliminated because the signaling machinery it associates with is exhausted due to constant receptor engaging. The energy wasted in EphB6 synthesis and elimination might well be compensated for by energy saved in decreasing the T cell response threshold and by the advantage gained in having an ever-ready highly responsive T cell population. Further study is necessary to prove this theory.
PHA-stimulated T cells have repressed EphB6 mRNA levels (15), and can no longer express EphB6 (see Figure 1b). The need for EphB6 in costimulation and the suppression of EphB6 expression after mitogen stimulation seem paradoxical at first glance. However, this becomes logical if EphB6 signaling is needed only in the first several minutes or hours of T cell activation. Indeed, when T cells were stimulated by TCR and CD28 co-crosslinking, which mimicked in vivo T cell response to antigen-presenting cells, EphB6 rapidly congregated (within 2 minutes) and migrated to the TCR caps. This provides a morphological basis for EphB6 to enhance TCR signaling by physically engaging the EphB6 signaling platform with that of TCR. As this event occurred almost immediately after TCR crosslinking, it is reasonable to assume that EphB6 signaling is employed very early in the T cell activation process, but is unnecessary or even harmful after T cells are activated. This justifies the need for subsequent EphB6 downregulation.
It is worth mentioning that EphB6 costimulation was effective in the pure T cell system as shown in Figure 4, suggesting that it can happen between T cells. This finding was not an artifact due to use of anti-EphB6 mAb during cell sorting, nor was this due to Eph expression being merely a sign of, and not a cause for, better T cell responsiveness. We know this because purified T cells from EphB6 gene knockout mice also had a significantly compromised response to CD3 and CD28 stimulation compared with that from wild-type littermates, while the cellularity and immune cell composition in the spleen and thymus of the knockout and wild-type littermates were comparable (unpublished observations). It is well known that T cells need to reach a certain density in culture to optimally respond to TCR stimulation; this is often attributed to the need for cytokines in culture. Without discounting the importance of cytokines, costimulation between T cells via membrane-bound Eph’s and ephrins can well explain the cell density requirement for their activation. It can also explain why in vivo T cell responses occur in densely populated T cell regions. Such T cell–T cell co-stimulation certainly does not exclude the possible coexistence of T cell–antigen-presenting cell costimulation involving Eph’s and ephrins.
Costimulation by EphB6 led to secretion of many lymphokines, but IL-2 was notably absent. We wondered whether there was a lack of IL-2 secretion because EphB6 activated only CD8+ cells or recently activated T cells, which are low IL-2 producers. This did not seem to be the case, because CD4+ cells and naive CD45RO– T cells also vigorously proliferated in response to EphB6 costimulation. It is quite possible that other lymphokines compensate for the function of IL-2 in supporting T cell proliferation.
The pattern of lymphokine secretion stimulated by EphB6 costimulation is distinctive from that of CD28 costimulation, besides the lack of IL-2 production in the former and abundant IL-2 production in the latter. When pure T cells were stimulated by anti-CD3 and anti-CD28, both IFN-γ and IL-4 were produced (21). However, EphB6 costimulation led to no IL-4 secretion, while IFN-γ production was intact. This raised the possibility that ephB6 costimulation preferably drives T cells to differentiate into a Th1 phenotype. On the other hand, EphB6 costimulation also enhances TGF-β secretion, which is reportedly associated with conditions favoring Th2 phenotype differentiation (22). Therefore, EphB6 does not seem to provide classical costimulation like CD28, and might serve a different purpose. Indeed, we recently came to the understanding that there are multiple costimulating pathways with different consequences. Some examples: signals through inducible costimulator (ICOS) affect activated T cells, and this pathway enhances IL-10 but not IL-2 production (23); costimulation via signaling lymphocyte activation molecule (SLAM) enhances IFN-γ production and directs memory T cells toward Th0/Th1 responses (24); crosslinking of 4-1BB preferentially promotes CD8+ cell proliferation (25); and ligation of OX40 increases Th2 responses (26). The precise role of EphB6 costimulation on Th1/Th2 differentiation and on other aspects of T cell biology apparently needs to be further elucidated; such study is currently in progress.
A recent study showed that T cell activation depends on cytoskeletal reorganization (27), which facilitates the formation of focal contact sites between T cells and antigen-presenting cells (28). The known function of Eph kinases in the CNS is spatial patterning and cell positioning. Such a function logically depends on altering cytoskeletal structures. Indeed, EphA5/REK7 activation disrupts cytoskeletal organization in the growth cone of neurons (29). Quite likely, EphB6 costimulation in T cells is related to the eventual effect of EphB6 on the cytoskeleton, as with other members of Eph kinases in the CNS. Small GTP-binding proteins such as Rac-1, Cdc42, and Rho transduce signals the cytoskeleton and are implicated in the effect of other Eph kinases (30, 31). We demonstrated that p38 MAPK, which is a downstream signaling molecule in the Rac-1/Cdc42/Rho/Pak-1 signaling pathway (32, 33), is activated after EphB6 and CD3 co-crosslinking. These are circumstantial pieces of evidence suggesting the involvement of the cytoskeleton in EphB6 costimulation. Recently, it has been reported that EphB2 activation results in inhibition of p44/p42 MAPK in neuronal cells (34), and that EphA activation leads to inhibition of this kinase in several cell lines of endothelial and epithelial origin (35). Obviously, these reports deal with cell types, Eph kinases, and MAPKs that are different from those in our study. The consequence of Eph activation in other cells is different from that in T cells as well. In neuronal cells, endothelial cells, and epithelial cells, Eph activation does not induce cell proliferation, while in T cells, it does. Further comparative studies on EphB6 signaling in immune and nonimmune cells are warranted.
Our study on the function of Eph kinases has revealed previously unknown functions of this largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases in the immune system. We believe that some of these molecules are important in T cell activation, differentiation, and homeostasis, based on our current findings.
This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR; MT-15673, P-57321, and MOP-57697); the CIHR/Canadian Blood Service Partnership Program; the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec; the Kidney Foundation of Canada; the Roche Organ Transplantation Research Foundation, Switzerland (ROTRF; 474950960); the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, USA (5–2001–540); and the J-Louis Levesque Foundation (to J. Wu). J. Wu is a National Researcher of the Quebec Health Research Foundation. The authors acknowledge the editorial assistance of Ovid Da Silva, Redacteur, Research Support Office, Research Center, CHUM-Hotel-Dieu, Montreal, Canada.
Conflict of interest: No conflict of interest has been declared.
Nonstandard abbreviations used: protein tyrosine kinase (PTK); erythropoietin-producing hepatocyte (Eph); magnetic cell sorter (MACS); phycoerythrin (PE); phytohemagglutinin (PHA); T cell receptor (TCR).
Abraham, RT, Karnitz, LM, Secrist, JP, Leibson, PL. Signal transduction through the T-cell antigen receptor. Trends Biochem Sci 1992. 17:434-438.
Unified nomenclature for Eph family receptors and their ligands, the ephrins. Eph Nomenclature Committee. Cell 1997. 90:403-404.
Holland, SJ, et al. Bidirectional signaling through the Eph-family receptor Nuk and its transmembrane ligand. Nature 1996. 383:722-725.
Flanagan, JG, Vanderhaeghen, P. The ephrins and Eph receptors in neural development. Annu Rev Neurosci 1998. 21:309-345.
Xu, Q, Wilkinson, DG. Eph-related receptors and their ligands: mediators of contact dependent cell interactions. J Mol Med 1997. 75:576-586.
Leighton, PA, et al. Defining brain wiring patterns and mechanisms through gene trapping in mice. Nature 2001. 410:174-179.
Kullander, K, et al. Kinase-dependent and kinase-independent functions of EphA4 receptors in major axon tract formation in vivo. Neuron 2001. 29:73-84.
Holmberg, J, Clarke, DL, Frisen, J. Regulation of repulsion versus adhesion by different splice forms of an Eph receptor. Nature 2000. 408:203-206.
Gerlai, R. Eph receptors and neural plasticity. Nat Rev Neurosci 2001. 2:205-209.
Wang, HU, Chen, ZF, Anderson, DJ. Molecular distinction and angiogenic interaction between embryonic arteries and veins revealed by ephrin-B2 and its receptor Eph-B4. Cell 1998. 93:741-753.
Lackmann, M, et al. Purification of a ligand for the EPH-like receptor HEK using a biosensor-based affinity detection approach. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1996. 93:2523-2527.
Andres, AC, et al. Expression of two novel eph-related receptor protein tyrosine kinases in mammary gland development and carcinogenesis. Oncogene 1994. 9:1461-1467.
Ciossek, T, Lerch, MM, Ullrich, A. Cloning, characterization, and differential expression of MDK2 and MDK5, two novel receptor tyrosine kinases of the eck/eph family. Oncogene 1995. 11:2085-2095.
Gurniak, GB, Berg, LJ. A new member of the Eph family of receptors that lacks protein tyrosine kinase activity. Oncogene 1996. 13:777-786.
Luo, L, Wan, X, Wu, Y, Wu, J. Cross-linking of EphB6 resulting in signal transduction and apoptosis in Jurkat cells. J Immunol 2001. 167:1362-1370.
Shimoyama, M, et al. T-cell-specific expression of kinase-defective Eph-family receptor protein, EphB6 in normal as well as transformed hematopoietic cells. Growth Factors 2000. 18:63-78.
Matsuoka, H, et al. Expression of a kinase-defective Eph-like receptor in the normal human brain. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 1997. 225:487-492.
Luo, H, et al. Inhibition of in vitro immunoglobulin production by rapamycin. Transplantation 1992. 53:1071-1076.
Chen, H, et al. Impaired signaling in alloantigen-specific CD8+ T cells tolerized in vivo. Employing a model of Ld-specific TCR transgenic mice transplanted with allogenic hearts under the cover of a short-term rapamycin treatment. J Immunol 1996. 157:4297-4308.
Munthe, E, et al. Ephrin-B2 is a candidate ligand for the Eph receptor EphB6. FEBS Lett 2000. 466:169-174.
King, CL, Stupi, RJ, Craighead, N, June, CH, Thyphronitis, G. CD28 activation promotes Th2 subset differentiation by human CD4+ cells. Eur J Immunol 1995. 25:587-595.
Seder, RA, et al. Factors involved in the differentiation of TGF-beta-producing cells from naive CD4+ T cells: IL-4 and IFN-gamma have opposing effects, while TGF-beta positively regulates its own production. J Immunol 1998. 160:5719-5728.
Hutloff, A, et al. ICOS is an inducible T-cell co-stimulator structurally and functionally related to CD28. Nature 1999. 397:263-266.
Aversa, G, Chang, CC, Carballido, JM, Cocks, BG, de Vries, JE. Engagement of the signaling lymphocytic activation molecule (SLAM) on activated T cells results in IL-2-independent, cyclosporin A-sensitive T cell proliferation and IFN-gamma production. J Immunol 1997. 158:4036-4044.
Shuford, WW, et al. 4-1BB costimulatory signals preferentially induce CD8+ T cell proliferation and lead to the amplification in vivo of cytotoxic T cell responses. J Exp Med 1997. 186:47-55.
Flynn, S, Toellner, KM, Raykundalia, C, Goodall, M, Lane, P. CD4 T cell cytokine differentiation: the B cell activation molecule, OX40 ligand, instructs CD4 T cells to express interleukin 4 and upregulates expression of the chemokine receptor, Blr-1. J Exp Med 1988. 188:297-304.
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Meima, L, et al. AL-1-induced growth cone collapse of rat cortical neurons is correlated with REK7 expression and rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton. Eur J Neurosci 1997. 9:177-188.
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Cano, E, Mahadevan, LC. Parallel signal processing among mammalian MAPKs. Trends Biochem Sci 1995. 20:117-122.
Salojin, KV, Zhang, J, Delovitch, TL. TCR and CD28 are coupled via ZAP-70 to the activation of the Vav/Rac-1-/PAK-1/p38 MAPK signaling pathway. J Immunol 1999. 163:844-853.
Elowe, S, Holland, SJ, Kulkarni, S, Pawson, T. Downregulation of the Ras-mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway by the EphB2 receptor tyrosine kinase is required for ephrin-induced neurite retraction. Mol Cell Biol 2001. 21:7429-7441.
Miao, H, et al. Activation of EphA receptor tyrosine kinase inhibits the Ras/MAPK pathway. Nat Cell Biol 2001. 3:527-530.
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Airdrie Trust
Hopefully you will have seen the photos on Twitter/FB of the superb display of shirts for the televised Airdrie game. Many thanks to Dougy Allsop and his team of helpers who carefully laid out 6,300 shirts on seats around the ground and then had to pack them all up again immediately after the game.
It was an impressive sight and drew interest on various sites. When you consider Airdrie's average home attendance is less than 1,000, that amount of collected shirts is an incredible total.
A comment from one bright spark asked if they did it at every home game to boost the attendance!
Thanks Dougy and to all of the guys from Airdrie Supporters Trust, you have been brilliant supporters for the last 3 years now. Sorry about the result of the game though!
October 22, 2016 /0 Comments/by kitaid
/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/red-black-flat.png 0 0 kitaid /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/red-black-flat.png kitaid2016-10-22 00:00:002017-08-22 11:22:02Airdrie Trust
Everton in the Community (EITC)
We had a really great meeting with EITC and our friends from the Everton Heritage Society in October. This will be our first official partnership with a Premier League club and the meeting went really well.
There will be a kit collection at the Everton v Swansea game later this month followed by a further collection at the home game v Watford next May.
EITC will promote the collections and involve a number of players who have African and South American heritage. We came away from the meeting really impressed with EITC, who are a fantastic example of a community club supporting many worthwhile projects. Look out for more news, we're sure this partnership will be a massive boost for KitAid.
/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/red-black-flat.png 0 0 kitaid /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/red-black-flat.png kitaid2016-10-22 00:00:002017-08-22 11:22:02Everton in the Community (EITC)
Tweets by KitAid
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Finding a home for your unwanted football kit in Africa and beyond.
Kitaid is a charity registered in England & Wales no. 1113968.
Website design & build and hosting donated by Switch.
© Kitaid
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kpunet.net
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Three Positive Takeaways From BYU’s Loss Against Kansas
Cougar Tracks
By Mitch Harper, KSL Sports
LAHAINA, HI - NOVEMBER 26: Kolby Lee #40 of the BYU Cougars and Ochai Agbaji #30 of the Kansas Jayhawks jockey for position during a free throw attempt during the second half at the Lahaina Civic Center on November 26, 2019 in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Photo by Darryl Oumi/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY – It’s no surprise that BYU lost to the No. 4-ranked Kansas Jayhawks. Especially when you consider BYU played without their star player in Yoeli Childs.
Within the loss against one of college basketball’s blue blood’s, BYU showed promise in areas of the game that have to get people excited about the impact head coach Mark Pope is making on the Cougars program.
Here are my three positive takeaways from BYU’s 71-56 loss against No. 4 Kansas in the Maui Invitational.
#1 BYU can play defense
Before the season started, head coach Mark Pope told members of the local media that his team’s defense was further ahead than the offense. Through seven games, it’s pretty clear, BYU can “D up” against teams, including national powerhouses like Kansas.
Excellent defense from Haws on Dotson. All over him. That was great to see.#BYU #BYUhoops #KUvsBYU
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) November 27, 2019
BYU limited Kansas to only 29 points in the first half and the Jayhawks only shot 22-percent from three.
Throughout the West Coast Conference era (since 2011), BYU has been known as a program that can light up a scoreboard. But the defense has been viewed as a liability. Pope has this BYU team playing even hard, even in games where they were clearly outmatched from a personnel standpoint like they were on Tuesday night.
#2 Kolby Lee has been a pleasant surprise
BYU center Kolby Lee drew some criticisms for his play against San Diego State and Southern Utah. But since those two games at home, he’s been really good. Against Kansas, Lee had 13 points on 6-8 shooting from the field.
This clip reminded me of a quote from Pope about Kolby Lee after #BYU returned from Italy.
"He ran the floor so hard (in Italy). I tell him, it's not pretty when he runs the floor, aesthetically, but he sure is pretty in terms of what we get done, man. It's really beautiful." https://t.co/BIe8TTf48A
Lee needs to continually improve on the glass and help the mob mentality at pulling down more rebounds, but he was facing the best frontcourt he will see all year in Kansas’ Udoka Azubuike and David McCormack.
The way Lee operates might not be visually pleasing, but it has done a nice job in relief of the suspended Yoeli Childs. When Childs comes back, BYU will suddenly have a lot more options in the frontcourt because of the confidence Lee has gained from this experience.
#3 Not going to see a better team than Kansas this season
Jay Bilas Slams NCAA's Suspension Of Yoeli Childs During BYU/Kansas Game
No. 4 Kansas Overwhelms BYU As Cougars Fall In Maui Semifinals
I know BYU is in a conference with the Gonzaga Bulldogs, and believe me, the Zags are head and shoulders better than everyone in the WCC right now. But I would argue that Mark Few’s teams aren’t as deep and athletic as the one Bill Self trotted out on the floor against the Cougars in Maui. The speed from players like Devon Dotson is not seen in the West Coast Conference, even on the Zags’ talented rosters.
BYU can take away some valuable lessons from their loss against Kansas and build on that moving forward. They were many open shots against the Jayhawks, they just couldn’t knock them down to keep the game closer. But it was a game that can leave BYU feeling good about the way they are playing through nearly one month of the season.
BYU closes out the Maui Invitational tonight at 9:30 p.m. (MT) against the Virginia Tech Hokies in the third-place game of the Maui Invitational.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.
BYU Cougars Schedule - CFB
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Research of Two Different Types of Modeling on Polymer Membranes
London Journal of Engineering Research
Volume | Issue | Compilation
Authored by mansoor kazemimoghadam , Zahra Amiri
Keywords: Modeling, Dehydration, Polymer membrane, COMSOL Multiphysics, Artificial Neural Network.
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In this research, two different types of modeling for the decontamination process of organic compounds using polymer membranes are investigated. In this research, experimental results are analyzed using the neural network algorithm as well as the Composol software.The reserarcher in this study used a Feed Forward multilayer Perceptron neural network with a back propogation algorithm and Levenberg- Marquardt function with two inputs and two outputs. The output values of Artificial Neural Network modelling were compard with the real values of pervaporation for separation of water from Ethanol and Acetone. The results revealed that the proposed model had a good performance. Moreover, the output of COMSOL software for pervaporation of five different alcohols were compared with the real values, and the error percentage of the actual amount of flux was calculated with the modeling value by means of related membranes. The results of COMSOL modeling showed that the error percentage of 3.049 achieved for dehydration process of Acetone.
Mansoor Kazemimoghadamα & Zahra Amiriσ
In this research, two different types of modeling for the decontamination process of organic compounds using polymer membranes are investigated. In this research, experimental results are analyzed using the neural network algorithm as well as the Composol software. The reserarcher in this study used a Feed Forward multilayer Perceptron neural network with a back propogation algorithm and Levenberg- Marquardt function with two inputs and two outputs. The output values of Artificial Neural Network modelling were compard with the real values of pervaporation for separation of water from Ethanol and Acetone. The results revealed that the proposed model had a good performance. Moreover, the output of COMSOL software for pervaporation of five different alcohols were compared with the real values, and the error percentage of the actual amount of flux was calculated with the modeling value by means of related membranes. The results of COMSOL modeling showed that the error percentage of 3.049 achieved for dehydration process of Acetone.
Corresponding author α: Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Malek- Ashtar University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
σ : Department of Chemical Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Use of pervaporation for separation of organic compounds has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. Pervaporation is one of the complicated membrane separation processes in which transfer through non-porous (non)polymer takes place in three phases of absorption, penetration, and evaporation (or disposal) [1-5]. As a result, selectivity and permeation is generally based on the interaction between membrane and penetrating molecules, the size of leaking molecules, and the empty volume of membrane. This process is generally very good for excluding little impurity from a liquid mixture. In general, pervaporation is accompanied with penetrating material phase change from liquid to gas. The passed product through the membrane will be separated as low-pressure steam from the other side of the membrane. The product will be collected after changing into liquid. In fact, this process is the known evaporation process, while a membrane is used between the two phases of liquid and gas. The presence of membrane adds selectivity to the process and increases the advantages of the process. With the help of such process, it is possible to separate two liquids from each other [6]. Due to such advantages as excellent performance and high energy efficiency, this process has recently gained attention of many industries. In most pervaporation processes, the driving force is the pressure difference between the feed stream and the permeate stream. The vacuum pump provides the driving force for mass transfer of components [7].
The results of this study by use of ANN reflected a suitable accuracy. The graph of error percentage for the real outputs of separation factor and flux and the modeled separation factor and flux by the related membranes for pervaporation performance were drawn in dehydration of ethanol and acetone. Moreover, the error percentage for the real flux and modeled flux by the related membranes for each of the five alcohols were modeled by the COMSOL Multiphysics.
3.1 Modeling dehydration of organic compounds by use of Neural Network
In this research, the influence of ANN input parameters (volumetric flow and temperature) as well as the feed characteristics (the feeds are the network output) (separation factor and flux) on the efficiency of dehydration process. Two ANNs were designed for analysis of the separation factor and flux parameters. Feed-forward multilayer perceptron ANN and Levenberg-Marquardt function with two inputs and two outputs were used. The Tansig transfer function was used for the hidden layer, and Purelin was utilized for the output layer. Five neurons were determined for the hidden layer. After data processing, 70 percent was dedicated for learning, 15 percent was dedicated for validation, and the remaining 15 percent was dedicated for testing. Such organic compounds as Ethanol and Acetone were selected in this research; and, Matlab version R2012a (7.14.0.739) was used. Figure 1 displays a schematic view of a two-layer ANN with only one hidden and output layer. The inputs are multiplied by a value, and there is a bias factor (b) that is added to the input (bias is a fixed value that is added to the input in order to increase the accuracy). Afterward, the result will undergo a function and the resulted value will be multiplied by a weight and added with a bias. The final result will pass another function (with different form and functionality) and output is made. There are five neurons and two inputs on the first layer; however, the number of neurons in the output layer is the same as the number of outputs.
Figure 1: A schematic view of the ANN
The following points about the algorithms must be considered:
The Data Division compartment totally scrambles the defined data for the system. This compartment randomly defines the Train, Validation, and Test data, so that there will be samples from everywhere of the environment.
Levenberg-Marquardt function was used in Training phase.
The Mean Squared Error (MSE) functions for performance measurement.
The default settings were used for derivative issue.
Figure 2: Algorithms compartment in ANN
The number of data for modeling ethanol dehydration was 326. By use of polydimethylsiloxane and Polyvinylidene fluoride membrane for the output of separation factor, the following results were achieved [8]:
The whole procedure is displayed through some status bars in the progress compartment. The initial values are displayed on the left side of the status bar, and the present value is displayed on the right side.
Epoch is accepted from iteration 0 to 1000. It means the weights consecutively changed for 1000 times based on the Levenberg-Marquardt function, and the training procedure was done. If the iteration number reaches 1000, the procedure stops (here it stopped at 24). There was no limit for time (but it could be set for training to stop after 30 seconds for example).
The performance rate was 3.08 at the beginning. If this rate reaches 0, the error would be acceptable. Finally, the error rate reached 0.00403.
Gradient is the error function and it means the value of derivatives. The range for this variable starts from 9.77, and would be acceptable if it reaches 1.00e-05. Finally, it reached 0.00171.
Mu is one of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm parameters.
Validation check is the maximum number of times that network failure can be tolerated.
Figure 3: Graph of Water and ethanol dehydration progress by Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
The performance graph shows the number of phases based on the errors. As shown in Figure 4, the network performance for Train, Validation, and Test has decreased to an acceptable level. Phase 18 that is marked with a circle was the best validation performance; i.e. there were fewer errors before the circle, and excessive training phase started after the circle.
Figure 4: The water- ethanol dehydration performance by Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
The training state graph shows different status in training phase. The first graph is for gradient error function. The second is for Mu, and the third is for validation fail. Regarding the fact that the third graph reached 6 in the vertical axis and stopped, it shows failure. Moreover, the validation fail graph shows that the system has been stable for 18 times, and failed 6 times afterward; consequently, excessive training happened for it.
Figure 5: State training graph for water- ethanol dehydration by Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
The regression graph demonstrates regression separately. The horizontal axis displays the outputs of the target parameters (in fact, what to be achieved). The vertical axis displays the ANN output. As a result, the graph is drawn based on these two parameters. If the ANN would be able to model exactly, the graph should be placed the line (a line with a slope of 1 that passes the origin of coordinates). In order to statistically calculate the best line with the lowest error, the linear equation achieved in all graph must be used:
The result would be better if the value of F will be closer to 1. This shows the fitting desirability, i.e. there is a low difference between the target outputs and the ANN outputs in the modeling. In general, the regression coefficient for all the data was calculated to be 0.99871 that is considered a very good result.
Figure 6: Regression graph for water-ethanol dehydration by Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
Figure 7 displays the water- ethanol figure graph for Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride. According to this figure, with increase of temperature and decrease of volumetric flow rate in ethanol dehydration, the separation factor increases in the beginning, and decreases afterward.
Figure 7: Figure graph for Water- ethanol dehydration by Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
The graph for calculation of error percentage of real output and modeling output is as below. Using the related formula, the error percentage of the real data and modeling data can be achieved. The lower percentage of error would be more desirable. As an example, a number of accidental cases of data were selected, and their error percentage were calculated. A comparison between the separation factor of the real values and the modeling values was conducted then. The results of the comparison revealed that there was a little difference between the real data and the modeling data. As a result, the modeling has been successful.
As shown in Figure 8, with increase of temperature and decrease of volumetric flow rate, the separation factor increases first, and decreases afterward.The cause of this phenomenon is that the propulsion increases with the increase of temperature at first. However, as the temperature continuously raises, the difference between the water- athanol solubility and diffusion rate decreases, and the separation factor declines accordingly.
Figure 8: A comparison between the error percentage of real separation factor and the modeling separation factor for water and ethanol Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
The output of overall flux in water- ethanol dehydration through ethanol Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride, with 326 data is as follows.
In the performance graph, the best validation performance was in the twenty-first repetition, and the excessive learning started afterward.
Figure 9: Performance graph for water- ethanol dehydration by ethanol Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
Figure 9 displays the regression graph. As depicted in ALL graph, the best line with the lowest error would be as follows:
Figure 10: Regression graph for water- ethanol dehydration by ethanol Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
As shown in the figure below, with the increase of temperature and volumetric flow rate in dehydration of ethanol, the total flux increases. With the increase of temperature, the driving force of mass transfer and the saturated vapor pressure of useful compounds while penetration in membrane increases, and the flux increases accordingly.
Figure 11: Figure graph for water- ethanol dehydration by ethanol Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
The figure below displays a comparison between the error percentage of the real outputs and the modeling outputs. According to this figure, with increase of temperature and volumetric flow rate in water- ethanol dehydration, the overall flux increases.
Figure 12: Comparison of error percentage for overall flux in reality and modeling for water- ethanol dehydration by ethanol Polydimethylsiloxane polymer membrane and Polyvinylidene fluoride
91 data were used for dehydration of acetone, and Polyacrylonitrile and polyethylene glycol membranes were utilized. The results for separation factor are as below [8-10]:
The best validation performance in performance graph was in the twenty-seventh repetition.
The regression coefficient for all the data in regression graph was equal to 0.99946 that was a very good result.
The graph for calculating the error percentage of the real output value and the modeling output value is displayed below. As reflected in this graph, with increase of temperature and volumetric flow rate in dehydration of acetone, the separation factor decreases. This phenomenon can be justified in this manner: continuous increase of the feed temperature decreases the water-acetone penetration and solubility difference, and decreases the separation factors of acetone accordingly.
Figure 13: Comparison of the error percentage for real separation factor and modeling in water-acetone dehydration by Polyacrylonitrile and polyethylene glycol membranes
The results of overal flux output in dehydration of acetone by Polyacrylonitrile and polyethylene glycol membranes are as follows:
The best validation performance in the performance graph was in the seventeenth repetition.
The regression coefficient for all data in the regressio graph was calculated to be 0.99909 that is a very good result.
The graph for calculation of the error percentage for real flux and modeling is as follows. It can be seen that with increase of temperature and volumetric flow rate in dehydration of acetone, the overal flux increases. This phenomenon can be justified in this manner: with increase of temperature, the driving force of mass transfer and the saturated vapor pressure of useful compounds while penetration in membrane increases, and the flux increases accordingly.
Figure 14: Comparison of error percentage for overal flux in reality and in modeling of aceton dehydration by Polyacrylonitrile and polyethylene glycol membranes
3.2 Modeling dehydration of organic compounds by use of COMSOL Multiphysics Software
The organic compound including acetone was utilized in this study, and the COMSOL Multiphysics version 4.2.0.150 was implemented to data analysis. The procedure description is as follows:
Mesh is the starting point for the Finite Element method that partitions geometry into simpler and smaller units.
Figure 15: Meshing the membrane module in the water- alcohol processing by different membranes
In this method, you can see counters in the results section that includes temperature (ht), mass fraction, flux (chcs), velocity (spf), and pressure (spf).
Under the temperature of 3133.15 kelvin, the separation coefficience of 57, the flux permeability of 1.023 kg/m2h for dehydration of acetone aqueous solution of 20% wt, the pressure was equal to 70 pascal, and the membrane used was Acrylonitrile and 2- Hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted polyvinyl alcohol [11-16].
In the temperature graph, the input temperature equals with the atmosphere temperature, and it gradually increases across the membrane, as condensation takes place in the membrane output due to the vacum condition. Afterward, the temperature decreases termodinamycally in the membrane output, and becomes cold.
Figure 16: Temperature in water-acetone processing by Acrylonitrile and 2- Hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted polyvinyl alcohol
As can be seen in the mass fraction graph below, the amount of mass fraction is fixed across the module. The reason is that after balancing the membrane swelling and saturation concentration of water on the membrane surface, flux and water separation factor change slightly with the increase of the feed’s water amount.
Figure 17: Mass fraction in water- acetone processing by Acrylonitrile and 2- Hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted polyvinyl alcohol
As shown in the figure, flux is stable and low in the membrane entries and walls due to the low driving force. However, the flux increased within the membrane, as the pressure increased. The error oercentage in flux was 3.049.
Figure 18: Flux graph for water- acetone processing by Acrylonitrile and 2- Hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted polyvinyl alcohol
The current velocity in the entry is low, and it decreased across thewals too in the velocity graph; however, the velocity increased in the membrane. The reason of this phenomenon can be reduction of temperature across the membrane and increase of water concentration in membrane. Afterward, the separation factor for water increases due to increase of the driving force for the mass transfer.
Figure 19: Velocity graph for water- acetone processing by Acrylonitrile and 2- Hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted polyvinyl alcohol
As observed in the figure, the input is under the atmosphere pressure, and the pressure decreased across the membrane module. The reason can be said to be reduction of the driving force across the membrane.
Figure 20: Pressure graph for water- acetone processing by Acrylonitrile and 2- Hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted polyvinyl alcohol
COMPARISON OF ANN AND COMSOL IN DEHYDRATION OF ACETONE BY POLYACRYLONITRILE AND POLYETHYLENE GLYCOL
The error value in the ANN was 1.86, and the error value in COMSOL was 2.11. Regarding the error value, it can be concluded that both modeling methods were appropriate, and the error percentage in ANN is lower than the COMSOL. As a result, ANN is more accurate, and the reason is that ANN considers the problems in detail, while COMSOL consideres the problems in general.
In this study, dehydration of water-ethanol and water- aceton by use of pervaporation process was modeled in ANN. The polymer membranes Polydimethylsiloxane, Polyvinylidene fluoride, Polyacrylonitrile, and Polyethylene glycol are hydrophilic membranes, and are appropriate for separation of low amounts of water in alcohols. Moreover, the ANN in this study reflected the error suitably.
The dehydration of water- acetonel by pervaporation process were also modeled in the COMSOL. The hydrophilic membranes were used that are good for separation of low amounts of water in alcohols. Moreover, the COMSOL in this study reflected the error suitably.
Seader and Henely, Separation process principles, John Wiley and Sons, (1998).
Srikanth, G., Membrane separation processes technology and business, Opportunities. Water conditioning & purification, (2008).
Baker, R.w., Membrane technology and application, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, (2004).
Kujawski. W, Application of pervaporation and vapor permeation in environmental protection, Polish journal of environmental studies, 9 (1), 13-26, (2000).
Huang, R. Pervaporation membrane separation process, ELSEVIER, 11(120), 181-191, (1991).
Feng, X. and R.Y.M. Huang, Liquid separation by membrane pervaporation A review, Industrial Baker, R.w., Membrane technology and application, (2004).
Mulder, M., Basic principles of membrane technology, ed. S. Edition, Kluwer, (1996).
Rautenbach R. and Albrecht, R., The separation potential of pervaporation: part 1. Discussion of transport equations and comparison with reserve osmosis, Journal of membrane science, 1 (23), (1985).
Xia Zhan, Ji-ding Li, Jian Chen and Jun-qi Huang, Pervaporation of ethanol/water mixtures with high flux by zeolite-filled PDMS/PVDF composite membranes, Chinese Journal of polymer science, 771-780 (2009).
Qiang Zhao, Jinwen Qian, Quanfu An, Zhihui Zhu, Peng Zhang, Yunxiang Bai, Studies on pervaporation characteristics of polyacrylonitrile-b-poly (ethylene glycol)-b polyacrylonitrile block copolymer membrane for dehydration of aqueous acetone solutions, Journal of membrane science 311, 284-293, (2008).
Elsayed A. Fouad, Xianshe Feng, Pervaporation separation of n-butanol from dilute a queous solutions using silicalite-filled poly (dimethyl siloxane) membranes, Journal of Membrane Science 339, 120-125, (2009).
Merve Olukman Oya Sanli, A novel in situ synthesized magnetite containing acrylonitrile and 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate grafted poly (vinyl alcohol) nanocomposite membranes for pervaporation separation of acetone/water mixtures, Journal of Membrane Science, 1-10, (2015).
Sridhar, S., Smitha, B., Amarnath Reddy, A., Separation of 2-butanol-water mixtures by pervaporation through PVA-NYL 66 blend membranes, Membrane Separations Group, Chemical Engineering Division, Indian Institude of chemical technology, (2006).
Takegami, Shinsuke., Yamada, Hideki., Tsujii, Shoji., Dehydration of water/ethanol mixtures by pervaporation using modified poly(vinyl alcohol) membrane, Toyobo Research Institute, (1992).
Zhao, Qiang., Qian, Jinwen., An, Quanfu., Meihua, zhu., Poly(vinyl alcohol)/ polyelectrolyte complex blend membrane for pervaporation dehydration of isopropanol, Department of polymer science and engineering, (2009).
Mercedes Villegas Elza F. Castro Vidaurre Juan C. Gottifredi, Sorption and pervaporation of methanol/water mixtures with poly (3-hydroxybutyrate) membranes, (2014).
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Creating an effective messaging framework for your brand
Building a Design System that drives efficiency while saving time and money
How good Design Systems can help rapid prototyping in your Organization
Jozi Firecracker Factory Recognized as a Top Creative Agency on DesignRush
Figma Organization — A Love Story
Why we’re in love with Figma
Jozi Firecracker
Figma sparks joy
It’s simple really. Figma sparks joy. It’s snappy, intuitive and fun as hell to work in, and it makes me excited to sit down and start cranking out some UX. I can work as quickly as ideas come to me, and the thrill of not having to save and wait an eternity for files that most certainly will crash my machine makes me love it even more. Yes, Figma sparks joy. As far as functionality goes, I just love how they’ve stripped everything down to basics and at the same time left nothing behind. It's a delicate balancing act and it's paid off handsomely. At the end of the day, that’s the trick isn’t it? Making something really complex feel really simple.
It’s fast
If you've been working in one of those old grandaddy design software applications that shall not be named, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Shit is slow as molasses and the user interface is so thoroughly over-designed that designing has become a tiresome chore. Every time you use it, you feel like the developers have entirely forgotten their audience and purpose. If this sounds like you, one of the first things you're going to notice about working in Figma is the speed. The snappy responsiveness, the long-forgotten delightfulness of a design tool behaving just the way you would expect.
It fosters collaboration
After becoming used to Figma's shared components and libraries, there is simply no going back to the way things used to be. Designers spending countless hours trying to develop, maintain and distribute style guides and redlines to engineering teams that didn't have outdated rules in them was a constant struggle. With Figma, the efficiency of being able to instantly share design assets and styles across your projects and files — all in real-time — is nothing short of amazing, and it puts an end to the problem of designers and engineers deploying old design rules in current and upcoming projects.
Prototyping used to take levels of effort that weren't always feasible. With Figma, you're able to prototype virtually anything with relative ease, and Figma Mirror allows you to view your designs from the Figma desktop app live across all of your iOS devices. This incredibly helpful in building live demos for clients who may not be able to visualize the end product in action, and it really helps to move revision cycles out of the development process altogether. To say that engineers are happy about this would be an understatement.
It streamlines feedback
All feedback is captured, conversational, trackable and visible to all — right in the frames and components you're working on. No more running around trying to find those emails, tickets, hand-scribbled notes or dealing with the drama of trying to keep everyone in the loop about the latest changes you got from the CEO and why. It's all there. Anyone you decide to give access to can follow along with feedback, updates and rationales to understand why the design is moving in a certain direction. And the Slack integration allows all feedback to be posted in custom Slack channels, so nothing is happening in the dark. If the design process is happening in the open, everyone owns the direction — not just the design team. This means that you don't end up being forced to be yes men for that new bitchy intern on the social media team and then standing alone on design island when everything goes to shit.
What about PDFs?
Since working in Figma I’ve only had a single gripe — why can’t I export a printable file? This meant I couldn’t exclusively use Figma for my advertising projects as there was no practical way to hand off files to print production (no CMYK color profile) and no way to export PDFs. I had been using this handy little workaround for months (which I will admit was pretty great) except for the fact that the final PDFs were massive and were virtually impossible to compress. To my absolute delight, Figma announced late last year that they’d included PDF export in their upcoming release:
“In the ephemeral and changing world of digital design, PDF – a format born when software came in a box and phones had cords – remains essential. From iOS developers who import vector representations of designs to individuals who leverage its precise color handling for printing digital assets, PDF’s applications are vast. Unsurprisingly, the ability to export designs to PDF is perhaps the most requested feature here at Figma. Today, we are excited to deliver on this request by introducing a PDF export option in Figma. We paid special attention to quality so you can rely on it to represent your work accurately to clients and stakeholders.”
The PDF export feature works beautifully and file sizes and reasonably compressed and now practical to email and share in every other way. This is a huge win for the team at Figma and shows us yet again that they’re not only listening to us but actively engaging us in making our design needs their top priority.
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Williams’ use of imaginary translation, both into visual imagery and from Spanish, appears to account for his creation of “The Red Wheelbarrow” (CPI 224). Originally published in Spring and All (1925), this poem shares images with “Brilliant Sad Sun,” a poem that Williams placed among “Collected Poems 1954” in The Collected Earlier Poems, but that had actually appeared in The Dial in 1927 (CPI 515) and that whose writing, from the reasoning to follow, actually predates “The Red Wheelbarrow.” As with Williams’ other early poems, “Brilliant Sad Sun” also contains
some painterly techniques, but nothing quite like those in “The Red Wheelbarrow” (the title that by convention has been given to this originally untitled poem). In fact, although published first, “The Red Wheelbarrow” appears to be the result of an experiment in imaginary translation that Williams performed on “Brilliant Sad Sun,” translating it from a narrating representational painting to an abstract minimalist one.
“Brilliant Sad Sun” opens with a visual representation of the signs around an outdoor eatery:
Spaghetti Oysters
a Specialty Clams
(CPI 269)
These contrast with Elena’s nostalgic chatter that prompts her brilliant sad son to ask “what good” is her escaping from sharply defined reality by speaking “thoughts / romantic but true. . . . ” For her benefit, he projects a visual image of her in the third person so she may appreciate its concreteness: “Look! / from a glass pitcher she serves / clear water to the white chickens,” adding “What are your memories / beside that purity?” But his mother, the empty pitcher “dangling / from her grip,” simply continues talking about old memories she has kept alive for years, set in France and Puerto Rico:
her coarse voice croaks
Bonjor’
And Patti, on her first concert tour
sang at your house in Mayaguez
and your brother was there
So much of what was important to Williams depended on Elena, and she poured out her vitality in nostalgia to escape his reality as an American and an artist. But Bill accepts her doing this as part of a tragic natural order, she being Latin and thus romantic by nature. Her pouring water to the chickens imparts a measure of life to him by producing sadness, which yields the fruit of another regeneration, the poem itself. Thus the poem celebrates the pathetic fallacy: around them is “Spring!” and from his sadness emerges the brilliant sun/son in the form of Kore.
To arrive at “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Williams translated the relationship between Elena, the poet, and her physical surroundings into visual images. The soul-dead Elena, who held in her hand the empty pitcher from which she had poured out the regenerative vitality of water, is compressed into the idea of something on which so much pende (“hangs”). The original “dangling,” a (suspected) Nordic word that means “hang from,” was thus translated into the parallel Latinate “depends.” The “Spring!” around them and the sustaining image “she serves / clear water” in “Brilliant Sad Sun” are condensed into “rainwater,” and this image is also reinforced by the atmosphere suggested by white chickens walking out in the rain. A melting of the “glass pitcher” into “glazed with rain / water” conserves the shining quality of the original “pitcher.” Eliminated is the circular interaction of metaphors in the first poem: spring, restaurant, winter done to a turn, water, chickens, sadness, regeneration, spring. The new images, no longer metaphors, are the objects that the words paint in the imagination as well as the words themselves: cubist-style, the words “wheel/barrow” and “rain/water” are artificially broken, emphasizing the plasticity of the words, making us conscious of them as visual objects.
But from what element in “Brilliant Sad Sun” did Williams get the “red wheelbarrow”? From an imaginary translation from the Spanish. In Spanish, to know things by heart or to do something by rote can be described by the phrase de carretilla: hacer de carretilla or saber de carretilla. The image evokes carrying around the knowledge using a small cart. Colloquially, one can refer to someone’s habitually prattling on about some- thing as bringing back one’s carretilla. And carretilla also literally denotes “wheelbarrow.” On that afternoon, Rose was prattling nostalgically de carretilla, so the carretilla was Rose’s, la carretilla de Rosa, which homonymously translated also says “the red wheelbarrow.”
In “The Red Wheelbarrow,” therefore, the central image is still a vessel bearing water, spring rainwater that falls on an outdoor setting similar to the suggested one in “Brilliant Sad Sun,” with white chickens. But whereas in the first poem the narrative explains the network of relationships between metaphors, in the second poem the centrality of that semantic chain gives way to a purity of forms and colors. In sharp contrast to the cool, white, softly round chickens, the red wheelbarrow is flaming and angular. By virtue of being cooled and glazed by rainwater, however, it simultaneously belongs beside them. The romanticizing Elena in “Brilliant Sad Sun” was the opposite of the concreteness of the chickens, and yet each was doing what came naturally: “Look! / from a glass pitcher she serves / clear water to the white chickens.” But once the imaginary translation is performed, the language of the new poem produces a distinct poem that is a new “conversation by design,” one whose painted images and arrangement of words broaden the implications of that on which “So much depends.”
Williams, who habitually covers his sources (“But they have no access to my sources” [CPI 67]), of course, nowhere explicitly attests to his performing this translation. And one can argue that “The Red Wheelbarrow” came to Williams not derived directly from “Brilliant Sad Sun” but by the original experience that remained with him so vividly that over time it inspired separate poems with the same imagery. But that argument would leave the poem hollow of important semantic possibilities, flattening the dimensions of the “red wheelbarrow” while disregarding parallel instances of the kind of imaginary translation that produced that image. Such a parallel is found in Williams’ preface to the works of Fernando Puma:
But a vessel to hold water is an objet d’art no matter how crazily you treat it. Whatever you do to it [sic] still remains an “object.”
Merely invoking the great Picasso sufficed to make a case for this kind of translation. But, as observed earlier, in defending Picasso’s quitting painting to capture the same objet d’art in ceramics, Williams was actually defending the acts of imaginary translation that he himself had performed. A closer look at his language in his essay reinforces this contention. His original subject had been Picasso’s transition from painting to ceramics. The “vessel to hold water” was Williams’ imaginary translation of an as yet unstated antecedent, the synecdochic olla (“pot”) image that represents Picasso’s exploration of “ceramics.” But it is Williams who had introduced the pot image and limited its function to that of a vessel intended to hold water. His declaration on how crazily one can treat an object of art is really a non sequitur. One infers from this illogic that Picasso was merely a vehicle that Williams was using to point to his own techniques, that the example foremost in Williams’ mind was a vessel that holds water and which, like the glass pitcher and the rain-glazed wheelbarrow, he did treat crazily.
That the imagination can perform the kind of translation that produced the “red wheelbarrow” from carretilla de Rosa is what makes poetry or art possible. In the picture painted by the poem we witness the power of the imagination at work, understanding by seeing, rather than being told—an example of the purity that the brilliant sad son had attempted to tell Elena to see. This interpretation of Williams’ poem as a paradigm, of course, precedes and is independent of our knowing how the poem came to be. But the evolution of its invention does reaffirm the poem’s being a paradigm of the writing of poems, and gives another reason why “so much depends” on a red wheelbarrow.
Eliminate the previously discussed leap of the imagination that produced the “red wheel / barrow” image and the poem suddenly loses a power it had gained as paradigm, as well as its signature of Williams’ style, the balance of the autobiographical and the aesthetically universal: the “red wheel / barrow” was a tribute to his bloodline twice, first in cryptically evoking Elena on whom so much of his life depended, and ultimately in celebrating his artistic lineage. For the performance of imaginary translation that produced the image was also an application of conceptismo, specifically of the lessons that came to him through a major tributary, from whom he discovered early on how wild comparisons in the imagination can bring tremendous inventiveness to the poem on the page. That mentor was Luis de Gongora, cubism’s prime literary predecessor and one of several Spanish writers through whom Williams claimed Elena’s literary bloodline.
from The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos Williams. Copyright © 1994 by The University of Texas Press.
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The Mermentau Basin
The basin contains about 450,000 acres of wetlands, consisting of 190,000 acres of fresh marsh, 135,000 acres of intermediate marsh, and 101,000 acres of brackish marsh. A total of 104,380 acres of marsh has converted to open water since 1932, a loss of 19 percent of the historical wetlands in the basin.
Prior to human alterations, delta-building processes associated with the Mississippi River resulted in periodic building of marsh along the gulf coast of the Mermentau Basin. Construction of flood control and navigation projects on the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers restricted those natural processes to relatively small portions of the coast. Consequently, marsh-building now occurs on only the eastern-most portion of the Mermentau Basins coastline. This condition is further aggravated by continuing subsidence and sea level rise. In the Mermentau Basin, relative sea level rise results in an average water level rise of 0.25 inches per year. Although natural wetland building processes only occur along the eastern shore, natural marsh maintenance processes (e.g., plant deterioration and regeneration) can be fairly effective at keeping wetland loss rates low. However, these processes have been altered or interrupted and the ability of the system to maintain the marsh is jeopardized.
The two subbasins suffer from distinctly different hydrologic problems. The most critical wetland problem in the Lakes Subbasin is excessive flooding. A 5-mile-long segment of Louisiana Highway 27 almost totally blocks drainage from the western portion of the Lakes Subbasin into adjacent wetlands of the Calcasieu/Sabine Basin. Similarly, along the southern boundary of the Lakes Subbasin, Louisiana Highway 82 blocks drainage across 17 miles of marsh. The Freshwater Bayou navigation channel has altered the historic drainage pattern in the eastern portion of the Lakes Subbasin. These numerous blockages of drainage outlets significantly increase ponding in the subbasin.
The Catfish Point Control Structure, built to reduce saltwater intrusion into Grand Lake via the Mermentau River, controls the major drainage outlet from the Lakes Subbasin. High water levels in the gulf frequently prevent the drainage of the subbasin through the structure. Farther upstream, development and channelization of the Mermentau River watershed have increased the rate of run-off into the Lakes Subbasin. These factors, in combination with the loss of historic drainage outlets, result in periods of prolonged high water levels following heavy basin-wide precipitation. Because upland drainage improvements are continuing
Natural freshwater inputs from the Lakes Subbasin into the marshes of the Chenier Subbasin are reduced by the same highway embankments that impound water in the northern subbasin. The loss of those freshwater inputs is compounded by waterways and canals that create additional connections between the gulf and area marshes, facilitating saltwater intrusion.
Projects in the Mermentau Basin
Land Loss Map
Habitat Map
Wetland Change Animated Map
Summary of the Basin Plan
The Mermentau Basin lies in the eastern portion of the Chenier Plain in Cameron and Vermilion Parishes. The 734,000-acre basin is bounded on the east by Freshwater Bayou Canal, on the South by the Gulf of Mexico, on the west by Louisiana State Highway 27, and on the north by the coastal prairie. The Grand Chenier and Pecan Island ridge systems are linked by Louisiana Highway 82 and divide the basin into two distinct subbasins: the Lakes Subbasin north of the highway and the Chenier Subbasin south of the highway (Figure ME-1). About 18 percent (128,200 acres) of the basin lands are publicly owned as Federal refuges and State wildlife management areas.
EXISTING CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS
FUTURE WITHOUT-PROJECT CONDITIONS
If nothing is done to solve the problem of wetland loss in this basin, current estimates project a continuing loss rate of 1,980 ares per year. Table ME-1 shows projected losses for 20- and 50-year periods for each subbasin.
In absence of remedial action, about 18 percent, or 62,900 acres, of the land in the Lakes Subbasin would be lost over 50 years. This loss would occur in wetlands adjacent to the shorelines of White and Grand Lakes and the banks of the GIWW and Freshwater Bayou Canal. Interior losses would continue in the Deep Lake area, the Freshwater Bayou wetlands, and the vicinity of Little Pecan Bayou.
Chenier Subbasin wetland losses are projected to be 32 percent, or 36,100 acres, over the next 50 years. Interior wetland losses would continue to occur south of Pecan Island and Grand Chenier. Erosion along the gulf shoreline would continue at the present rate of 20 to 40 feet per year.
Table ME-1
Projected Marsh Loss
Projected Loss at 20 yrs. Projected Loss at 50 yrs.
Subbasin (Acres) (Percent) (Acres) (Percent)
Lakes 25,160 7.3 62,900 18.3
Chenier 14,440 12.6 36,100 31.5
Totals 39,600 8.6 99,000 21.4
BASIN PLAN
The short-term portion of the Mermentau Basin plan depends on modifying existing structures and creating additional outlets to reduce ponding in the Lakes Subbasin and reducing salinity intrusion in the Chenier Subbasin. In addition, the plan utilizes shoreline protection, hydrologic restoration, marsh creation with dredged material, marsh management, terracing, and vegetative plantings. The long-term portion of the plan relies on hydrologic restoration and vegetative plantings. Figure ME-2 indicates the strategy for the basin. A detailed discussion of the plan formulation and evaluation process is in the Mermentau Basin Plan, Appendix H.
In the Lakes Subbasin, the short-term critical projects use two methods to move water out of the subbasin for the purpose of reducing flooding stress on vegetated wetlands: modifying the Vermilion Lock (which is no longer operational) and the
The short-term supporting projects within the Lakes Subbasin protect interior wetlands by hydrologic restoration (Sawmill and Humble Canals), rebuild open water areas (Big Burn and Deep Lake), and protect shorelines and banks (White Lake, Freshwater Bayou, and the GIWW).
The long-term supporting projects within the Lakes Subbasin treat critical loss areas by hydrologic restoration ( Miami South Levee and Coteau Plateau Marsh) and vegetative plantings (Little Pecan Island and along the GIWW).
For the Chenier Subbasin, the short-term critical projects use water evacuated from the Lakes Subbasin to treat the saltwater intrusion problem (White Lake Diversion, Grand/White Lake Diversion, and Hog Bayou Freshwater Introduction).
The short-term supporting projects within the Chenier Subbasin protect the gulf shoreline from the Mermentau River to the eastern boundary of the Rockefeller Refuge, restore hydrology (Rollover Bayou Structure), create wetlands (Pecan Island Terracing), and plant vegetation along the gulf shoreline.
Table ME-2 lists all the projects in the selected plan. A detailed description of all projects in the selected plan is contained in Appendix H.
COSTS AND BENEFITS
Lakes Subbasin.
Implementation of the 30 evaluated projects in the selected plan (critical and supporting short-term projects) will protect, create, or restore 6,710 acres of wetlands and decrease marsh losses over a period of twenty years by an estimated 27 percent at a cost of approximately $53,358,000. Three critical hydrologic restoration projects in the subbasin were not evaluated for cost or habitat benefits and will require further study and evaluation. The benefits for these projects will depend on their ability to reduce the water levels in the subbasin. Additional projects will need to be evaluated for the subbasin for protection of acreage not covered under the present plan.
Chenier Subbasin.
The selected plan is expected to create, protect, or restore 3,150 acres of wetlands and reduce marsh loss over a period of twenty years by 22 percent at a cost of approximately $19,571,000. One project was not evaluated for cost or habitat benefits and will require further study and evaluation. There is a need to develop and evaluate other projects to achieve no net loss of wetlands. If dredging technology becomes more cost-effective, the option of pumping sediments from the gulf into shallow open water or deteriorating marshes will need to be investigated. This can only be used in the more saline subbasin marshes. It should only be done during the spring floods when the gulf salinities are the lowest in order to avoid placing sediments with higher salinities into marsh environments.
Dynamics of the Basin
The Mermentau Basin lies in the eastern portion of the chenier plain in Cameron and Vermilion parishes. This 734,000-acre basin is bounded on the east by Freshwater Bayou Channel, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the west by Louisiana Highway 27, and on the north by the GIWW (figure 27). The basin contains about 450,000 acres of wetlands, consisting predominantly of fresh (approximately 190,000 acres), intermediate (approximately 135,000 acres), and brackish marsh (approximately 101,000 acres). The basin is divided into two distinct subbasins by the Grand Chenier and Pecan Island ridge systems, which are linked by Louisiana Highway 82. The Lakes subbasin lies to the north, and includes Grand and White lakes and the GIWW. The Chenier subbasin lies to the south of Louisiana Highway 82 and includes Hog Bayou, Rockefeller Refuge, and other marsh areas south of Pecan Island. Wetlands within the Lakes Subbasin consist primarily of fresh marsh and submergent and floating aquatic vegetation. Vegetation types within the Chenier Subbasin range from fresh to saline, with fresh and intermediate marshes existing only in managed areas.
The dominant hydrologic features of the Lakes Subbasin are Grand and White lakes, with fresh water entering the subbasin through the Mermentau River, Lacassine Bayou, the Bell City Drainage Canal, the Gueydan Canal, the Warren Canal, and a number of other smaller drainage canals. Major outlets for discharge of water from the subbasin include the Catfish Point Control Structure, the Schooner Bayou Control Structure, the East End Control Structure, the Leland Bowman Lock, and the Freshwater Bayou Lock. A large number of water control structures have been constructed at sites where salt water could encroach into subbasin wetlands, such as in the Little Pecan Bayou area, east of the Mermentau River.
The hydrology of the Chenier Subbasin is dominated by the Lower Mermentau River and has been significantly altered through hydrologic management activities (e.g., for cattle pasture and waterfowl protection). The Mermentau River-Gulf of Mexico Navigation Channel has altered the hydrology of the river by connecting the river with the gulf near Grand Chenier. This connection allows high salinity water from the Gulf of Mexico to enter the Lower Mermentau River. Drainage for marshes located in the western portion of the subbasin occurs primarily via access canals and small bayous to the Gulf. The majority of marshes between Rollover Bayou and Freshwater Bayou Channel drain eastward via access canals into the Freshwater Bayou Channel.
The Gulf of Mexico beach is retreating across most of the Chenier Subbasin. However, mud deposits have resulted in a progradation of the eastern shoreline. The sediment source responsible for this progradation is likely a combination of reworked Atchafalaya River sediments and reworked spoil from maintenance dredging of the southern end of Freshwater Bayou Channel. In this prograding area, the shore consists of a very broad mud flat, colonized by smooth cordgrass on slightly elevated ridges.
A total of 117,825 acres of marsh have converted to open water since 1932, which accounts for 18% of the historical wetlands in the Mermentau Basin (Dunbar et al. 1992) and represents 9% of wetland loss in Louisiana. Current land loss rates are approximately 2,600 acres/year (Dunbar et al. 1992, Barras et al. 1994). At this rate, approximately 52,000 acres of wetland will be lost during the next 20 years (an additional 8.6% of the basin's wetlands) without restorative action (LCWCRTF 1993). This loss is expected to continue along the shorelines of the lakes and banks of the navigation channels in the Lakes Subbasin, and in the interior marshes of the Chenier Subbasin (figure 27). Erosion along the gulf shoreline is expected to continue at its present rate of 20-40 feet per year. Much of the Mermentau Basin's wetland loss is attributed to saltwater intrusion, ponding, and reductions in freshwater and nutrient inputs. Louisiana Highway 82 forms a north-south hydrologic barrier between the Lakes and Chenier subbasins from Oak Grove to Pecan Island, and an east-west hydrologic barrier between White Lake and Freshwater Bayou. The highway reduces sheet flow, starves the downstream chenier marshes of fresh water and sediment, and increases flooding in the Lakes Subbasin.
The most critical wetland problem in the Lakes Subbasin is excessive flooding. Prolonged high water leads to direct wetland loss and shifts in plant species composition. High water levels increase erosion rates along natural lake rims that protect more fragile interior marshes that are lower in elevation. Once the protective lake rims are lost, erosion rates accelerate. Erosion from vessel wakes is also a problem along the GIWW and the Freshwater Bayou Channel. Many areas within the subbasin have experienced marsh loss due to saltwater intrusion, which mainly impacts areas adjacent to human-made channels and dredged waterways. In these areas, salt-intolerant plants are destroyed, leaving marsh soils unprotected. Under these conditions, the subbasin's characteristic organic soils are easily eroded by tidal movement, resulting in the conversion of marsh to open water.
In the Chenier Subbasin, the combination of regional and localized hydrologic alterations associated with numerous access canals and board roads, plus the failure and abandonment of former forced drainage areas, resulted in extensive marsh loss. Although input of suspended sediment is currently rebuilding deteriorated marshes in the westernmost portion of the basin, marshes within the highly altered middle and upper portions of the basin are continuing to experience losses. Natural freshwater inputs from the Lakes Subbasin into marshes of the Chenier Subbasin were virtually eliminated with the construction of Louisiana highways 27 and 82. The problem is compounded by dredging projects that create additional connections between the Gulf and subbasin marshes, facilitating saltwater intrusion. The natural salinity and tidal regime of the subbasin was altered by the construction of the Freshwater Bayou Channel, Mermentau River-Gulf of Mexico Navigation Channel, and numerous access canals. Prior to these alterations, fresh and intermediate marshes were isolated from tidal exchange and associated high salinities. The introduction of high-salinity water destroyed much of the vegetation, exposing the underlying organic soils to tidal exchange, which resulted in extensive marsh loss.
In order to successfully protect, restore, and enhance the Mermentau Basin's wetlands, it is critical that projects be implemented in the Lakes Subbasin to lower water levels and reduce stress on interior wetlands, and in the Chenier Subbasin to restore freshwater input, provide additional nutrients and sediment to receiving wetlands, and divert fresh water from the Lakes Subbasin. Implementation of projects that reduce interior wetland loss, rebuild wetlands in open water areas, and maintain the geologic framework of the basin by addressing shoreline erosion along the lakes, navigation channels, and gulf, is also critical. Although it is too early to determine the success of the all CWPPRA projects, preliminary indications for completed projects' goals are being met. Although the vegetative plantings failed for the Dewitt-Rollover project, deauthorization of this project has released funds which had been reserved for maintenance and monitoring of the project so that these funds can be spent on more appropriate efforts. The anticipated benefits of current and future CWPPRA projects, along with complementary state sponsored projects, should help to maintain the integrity of Mermentau Basin wetlands.
Additional Coastal Restoration Resources
The Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Planning Protection and Restoration Act Program web site contains information and links relating to coastal restoration projects in coastal Louisiana. This site is funded by CWPPRA and is maintained by the USGS National Wetlands Research Center.
Legislative Delegates
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Lane Luckie
Category: Aviation & Spaceflight
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McAllen, TX Business
McAllen, TX Residents Benefit from Strong Public Transit
More than 700,000 take advantage of bus transit
By Kevin Litwin on August 16, 2018 19:33 PM
Courtesy of McAllen Metro
More than 700,000 McAllen residents and visitors know a place to get around town (and the region) with relative ease, and that's at any of the Metro McAllen bus stops.
The city of McAllen’s transit system was established in 2001 to manage and maintain McAllen Central Station bus terminal in the heart of the downtown district, and today about 700,000 passengers ride the Metro lines each year.
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Metro McAllen currently operates seven intracity bus routes and a paratransit bus service for eligible disabled patrons.
“We understand that public transportation, for many, serves as a lifeline and meets the needs of citizens who are unable to drive or who simply want other mobility options,” says Mario Delgado, City of McAllen transit director. “Metro McAllen is important for a growing number of people and for various reasons.”
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Bus service hours of operation are Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m.-9 p.m., and Sunday from 8 a.m.-6 p.m.
“Public transportation relieves road congestion, reduces pollution, helps people of all ages and abilities get to school, work, the grocery store, doctors’ appointments and much more,” Delgado says. “Our downtown terminal facility also allows passengers to connect to an array of regional, national and international destinations.”
Electricity and an App
The transit system has also embraced technology advancements over the years, including the addition of two all-electric buses that are each capable of traveling 150 miles on a single charge. Those vehicles produce zero emissions and are plugged into battery chargers at the downtown terminal each night.
The city has also produced a Ride Systems mobile app that uses GPS tracking to show passengers the estimated arrival time of buses and their real-time locations, and there is also a trip planner feature. McAllen has a fleet of 15 buses.
“The Ride Systems app is free and can be downloaded through the App Store or Google Play,” Delgado says. “Users can also receive all alerts and notifications.”
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The Ride Systems app cost McAllen about $50,000, with 80 percent subsidized by federal grants. Delgado says the app is another reason why Metro McAllen is one of the most successful and efficient public transportation systems in all of Texas.
“High-occupancy vehicles like buses is one of the best ways to get people from place to place these days, especially with traffic getting heavier and heavier,” he says. “All our buses are equipped with free Wi-Fi, too. We hope many more first-time riders will turn to public transportation to get around the city.”
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Metro McAllen will also be adding a new route (Route 8) in 2019 that will provide service to northwest McAllen for the new Texas A&M University and Tres Lagos community.
Along with buses, the transit system oversees a McAllen BCycle program that gives residents the option of renting city-owned bikes for leisure activities or getting to work.
“In early 2015, McAllen BCycle bike share was introduced to the city and our region with eight stations and 90 bikes,” Delgado says. “McAllen BCycle averages 6,200 bike trips per year, and cyclists had traveled a total of 123,000 miles through August 2018. BCycle has really expanded our transportation network.”
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McAllen BCycle is the first bike share program launched in the Rio Grande Valley, and any of the bikes can be used by people who pay for the service with a debit or credit card. Riders can purchase a 24-hour pass for $6, a week-long pass for $15, a month-long pass for $30 or a year-long pass for $65.
Four of the bike stations are located in downtown McAllen, and the other four are at Fireman’s Park, Palms Crossing, the McAllen Convention Center and the Second Street hike and bike trails.
“Getting around McAllen is getting more diverse, and bike share enhances the multimodal options in the city,” Delgado says. “Plus bike riding is healthy. We estimate that riders have burned more than 5 million calories since the program started in October 2015.”
Kevin Litwin is the author of Crazy Lucky Dead and a freelance feature writer with a career spanning more than 20 years. He was previously an editor for a small-town newspaper for ... more
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Hsa-miR-335 regulates cardiac mesoderm and progenitor cell differentiation
Maryam Kay1,
Bahram Mohammad Soltani1,4,
Fahimeh Hosseini Aghdaei1,
Hassan Ansari2 &
Hossein Baharvand2,3,5
Stem Cell Research & Therapy volume 10, Article number: 191 (2019) Cite this article
WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways play critical regulatory roles in cardiomyocyte fate determination and differentiation. MiRNAs are also known to regulate different biological processes and signaling pathways. Here, we intended to find candidate miRNAs that are involved in cardiac differentiation through regulation of WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways.
Bioinformatics analysis suggested hsa-miR-335-3p and hsa-miR-335-5p as regulators of cardiac differentiation. Then, RT-qPCR, dual luciferase, TOP/FOP flash, and western blot analyses were done to confirm the hypothesis.
Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) were differentiated into beating cardiomyocytes, and these miRNAs showed significant expression during the differentiation process. Gain and loss of function of miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p resulted in BRACHYURY, GATA4, and NKX2-5 (cardiac differentiation markers) expression alteration during the course of hESC cardiac differentiation. The overexpression of miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p also led to upregulation of CNX43 and TNNT2 expression, respectively. Our results suggest that this might be mediated through enhancement of WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways.
Overall, we show that miR-335-3p/5p upregulates cardiac mesoderm (BRACHYURY) and cardiac progenitor cell (GATA4 and NKX2-5) markers, which are potentially mediated through activation of WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways. Our findings suggest miR-335-3p/5p to be considered as a regulator of the cardiac differentiation process.
Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are pluripotent cells derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts. These cells have self-renewal capacity and are able to differentiate into all derivatives of three germ layers [1]. The first lineage decision is chosen following gastrulation in which cells differentiate into the mesoderm, endoderm, and ectoderm [2]. Differentiation of hESCs is an ideal model for cardiogenesis research as these cells mimic the behavior of cells at early stages of embryonic development [3, 4]. Proper differentiation occurs by precise regulation of different transcription networks, signaling pathways, and epigenetic modifications [5, 6]. WNT/β catenin and TGFβ signaling pathways are known as two main and critical signaling pathways that regulate different stages of cardiac differentiation including mesendoderm cell commitment, cardiac progenitor differentiation, and final maturation [7,8,9,10]. Numerous factors tightly orchestrate these signaling pathways during differentiation [11]. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small (22 to 25 nucleotide in length) non-coding RNAs [12] that regulate gene expression and play important roles in proliferation, differentiation, cell fate decision, and various physiological processes [13,14,15]. Accumulating evidence has shown that miRNAs regulate signaling pathways related to cardiac differentiation at posttranscriptional and posttranslational levels [16, 17]. For instance, miR-15, miR-16 [18], and miR-430 [19] are identified as regulators of cell fate acquisition through targeting the TGFβ signaling pathway. miR-1 and miR-133 promote mesoderm formation [20] and miR-499 promotes CPC differentiation into cardiomyocytes [21]. Here, we screen miRNAs that might be involved in cardiac differentiation through regulation of WNT/β catenin and TGFβ signaling pathways. Bioinformatics analyses indicate that miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p might regulate these two signaling pathways through targeting core members of the pathways. Gain- and loss-of-function studies were performed to verify the exact role of these two miRNAs in cardiac differentiation. Our findings demonstrate that these two miRNAs might regulate cardiac differentiation by activating WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways. This activation led to enhanced mesoderm cell commitment and promoted cardiac progenitor cell differentiation.
Cell culture and differentiation
HEK293 and SW480 cells were maintained in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) (Gibco), supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum and 1% antibiotics (100 U/mL penicillin and 100 μg/mL streptomycin) (Gibco). Cells were grown at 37 °C in a humidified atmosphere with 5% CO2. The hESC line RH5 [22] was expanded under feeder-free conditions on Matrigel-coated plates. Cardiomyocyte differentiation occurred in a chemically defined medium, as previously described [23, 24] with minor modifications. Cells were stimulated with 20 ng/mL fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), 20 ng/mL activin A, and 10 ng/mL BMP4 in the first 36 h for mesoderm induction; then, cells were treated with 20 ng/mL FGF2, 50 ng/mL BMP4, 0.5 mM retinoic acid, and 5 mM WNT inhibitor (IWP2) from day 1.5 to day 5. Finally, cells were treated with 5 ng/mL FGF2 and 10 ng/mL BMP4 which resulted in cardiomyocyte differentiation. Samples were collected at different time points (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 5, and 12 days) of differentiation for expression analysis.
Transfection of hESCs
Gain- and loss-of-function studies were done in (day 0) D0 of differentiation. The miRCURY LNA™ microRNA mimic (Exiqon, Denmark) for miR-335-3p (MIMAT0004703), miR-335-5p (MIMAT0000765), and mimic control as well as miRIDIAN microRNA miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p hairpin inhibitors and miRIDIAN microRNA hairpin inhibitor control (Dharmacon) were used for gain- and loss-of-function studies in which 8 × 105 cells were plated in each 3.5-cm tissue culture dish, 24 h before transfection. When cells reached 80% confluence, they were transfected by 50 nM siRNA or 5 nM mimic structures using Lipofectamine® 3000 reagent, based on the manufacturer’s instructions. The efficiency of siRNAs and microRNA mimics transfection was evaluated using BLOCK-iT Alexa Fluor Red fluorescent oligo (Invitrogen).
RNA extraction and quantitative RT-PCR
Total RNA of harvested cells was extracted using TRIzol™ reagent (Invitrogen, USA) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. The total RNA was used for cDNA synthesis after being treated with RNase-free DNase (Takara, Japan) in order to remove any DNA contamination. cDNAs were synthesized using RevertAid™ Reverse Transcriptase (Fermentase, Lithuania) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. For miRNA detection, polyA tail was added to 3′ end of RNAs before cDNA synthesis. RT-qPCR was performed using specific primers (Table S1) by StepOne Real-Time PCR system (Applied Biosystems). GAPDH and small nucleolar RNA, C/D box 48 (SNORD48) were used as internal controls for normalization of mRNAs and miRNA expression.
Immunocytochemistry (ICC)
The seeded cells were washed once with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and fixed with 4% (w/v) paraformaldehyde (PFA) for 15 min at room temperature. The cells were permeabilized using PBS containing 0.2% Triton X-100 for 10 min followed by blocking in a solution containing PBS and 10% Donkey serum for 1 h at room temperature. Next, cells were treated with primary antibody overnight at 4 °C. After three washes in PBS, cells were incubated with secondary antibody for 1 h at room temperature in the dark. Finally, cells were incubated with DAPI for nucleic acid staining and imaged with a fluorescent microscope (IX71, Olympus, Japan). Image overlays and contrast enhancement were performed using ImageJ software.
Dual luciferase assay
Dual luciferase assay was utilized to validate the direct interaction between miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p and their target genes 3′-UTRs. To this aim, HEK293 cells were co-transfected with a psiCHECK-2 vectors including 3′-UTR of APC, AXIN-I, and SMAD7 and miR-335-3p, miR-335-5p mimics, and siRNA structures in 48-well plates. As negative controls, mimic and siRNA scramble were used in co-transfection. Luciferase activity was measured 48 h after transfection using the Dual Luciferase Reporter Assay System (Promega, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
TOP/FOP reporter assays
TOP/FOP reporter assays were carried out using the Dual-Glo luciferase assay kit (Promega), based on the manufacturer’s instructions. SW480 cells were transfected with 1μg of constitutively active vector encoding Renilla luciferase, responsive firefly luciferase reporter plasmid Top Flash, each mimic and siRNA corresponding to the miR-335-3p, miR-335-5p and their related scrambled. Cells were harvested after 48 h, and both firefly and Renilla luciferase activity were measured in three biological replicates according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The firefly luciferase activity was normalized against Renilla luciferase activity.
The protein was extracted from the samples. Samples containing 40 μg purified protein were separated by 12% SDS/PAGE, transferred to PVDF membranes (Santa Cruz), and run at 100 V for 1.5 h at room temperature. The PVDF membrane was subsequently blocked by 5% BSA in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) containing 0.1% Tween for 1 h at room temperature, followed by overnight incubation at 4 °C with phospho BRACHYURY primary antibodies (1:500, Cell Signaling). The blot membrane was washed and incubated with anti-rabbit secondary antibody (1:1000, Santa Cruz) for 1 h at room temperature. The protein bands were visualized by an enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL) detection system (Amersham, Piscataway, NJ). The membranes were stripped and re-probed with β-actin for verification of protein loading. The bands were quantified using an image analyzer program (ImageJ).
Bioinformatics analyses introduced miR-335 as a potential regulator of cardiac differentiation
WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways are known as main players in cardiac differentiation. In this study, we aimed to find out miRNAs that are crucially important for driving cardiac differentiation through regulation of WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways. To this aim, a four-step filtering approach was performed to nominate some miRNAs (Fig. 2a). At the first step, 973 miRNAs were predicted to target WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways using miRWalk, a target prediction resource that uses several miRNA target prediction tools. Then, considering the number of genes which are targeted by a miRNA in each pathway, the numbers of MREs (miRNA recognition elements) in 3′UTR sequences of each target gene, and the annealing and conservation status of each MRE, seven candidate miRNAs were chosen for further analyses (Additional file 1: Table S2). Among candidate miRNAs, miR-335-3p/5p hosted by mesoderm-specific transcript (MEST) gene were chosen for further investigations concerning its role in cardiogenesis.
Differentiation of hESCs into cardiomyocytes
In vitro differentiation of hESC, RH5, to cardiomyocyte-like cells was successfully performed (Fig. 1a). Different time points representing different cell fates during cardiac differentiation were considered (i.e., pluripotent stem cells (day 0), mesendoderm (day 1.5), cardiac progenitor (day 5), and cardiomyocyte cells (day 12)). NANOG stem cell marker expression was substantially decreased while the BRACHYURY (mesendodermal marker) expression level reached its highest level in mesendoderm stage (day 1.5) (Fig. 1b). In addition, NKX2-5 and ISL1 (early cardiac differentiation markers) expression levels elevated from day 2 and substantially increased during the process. As expected, cardiac-specific markers (TNNT and MYH6) were significantly increased at the final stage (day 12) (Fig. 1b), followed by spontaneous beating of the cardiac cells (Additional file 2: Movie S1). The flow cytometry analysis indicated that ~ 51% of the cells were BRACHYURY positive on day 1.5, ~ 87% of the cells were NKX2-5 positive on day 5 (cardiac progenitor cells) and ~ 96% of the cells were MYH6 positive on day 12 (the final step of cardiomyocyte differentiation) (Fig. 1c). Furthermore, immunostaining indicated that hESCs were positive for OCT4, whereas hESC-CMs stained positive for cardiac-specific markers MYH6 (Fig. 1d), approving that these cells were successfully differentiated into cardiomyocytes.
Characterization of hESC-derived cardiomyocyte. a Schematic description of cardiomyocyte differentiation protocol. Activin A and BMP4 compounds were used to induce differentiation of hESCs into mesoderm. Then, WNT inhibitor reagent (IWP2) was used to induce cardiac progenitor cell development followed by cardiomyocyte formation. b Time-dependent expression of NANOG (pluripotency marker), BRACHYURY (mesoderm marker), NKX2-5, ISL1 (cardiac progenitor cell markers), TNNT2, and MYH6 (cardiomyocyte markers) during the cardiac differentiation process. RT-qPCR data are presented as mean ± SEM normalized against day 0 data, for n = 3 independent experiments. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping gene. c Flow cytometry results confirmed the expression of BRACHYURY (day 1.5), NKX2-5 (day 5), and MYH6 (day 12) during the differentiation process. d Immunocytochemistry analysis of OCT4 (pluripotent hESCs) and MYH6 (cardiomyocytes) revealed the stemness potency of hESCs and successful differentiation of cardiomyocyte. Differentiated cardiomyocytes are shown in two magnitudes
MiR-335 expression pattern during the human cardiac differentiation process
MiR-335-3p and miR-335-5p expression status was measured at seven time points of human cardiac differentiation process, using RT-qPCR. Both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p had relatively high levels of expression during this process (data not shown); however, their expression pattern was different. While miR-335-3p was transiently upregulated at day 1 and substantially downregulated to the end of differentiation process, miR-335-5p showed no significant alteration during the differentiation (Fig. 2b).
MiR-335 expression alteration during cardiac differentiation. a Schematic presentation of different stages of miRNA screening. b miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) expression pattern during hESC cardiac differentiation. c Gain- and loss-of-function strategy in which miR-335-specific mimics and siRNAs were transfected on day 0 of differentiation process. d Flow cytometry results showed that hESCs were efficiently transfected by miR-335 specific mimics or siRNAs along with 50 nM BLOCK-iT Alexa Fluor Red Fluorescent oligonucleotide. e The RT-qPCR confirmed significant (P value < 0.05) overexpression of miR-335-3p (top-left) and miR-335-5p (bottom-left) but significant downregulation of miR-335-3p (top- right) and miR-335-5p (bottom-right), 24 and 48 h after transfection. RT-qPCR data are presented as mean ± SEM normalized against day 0 data. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping gene
The effect of MiR-335 expression alteration on cardiac differentiation
In order to examine the effect of miR-335-3p/5p expression alteration on cardiac differentiation, gain- and loss-of-function study was performed according to miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p expression profiles (Fig. 2c). In this part, miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p mimics or their corresponding siRNAs were transfected into differentiating hESCs on D0 to induce specific overexpression and downregulation, respectively. Red fluorescent oligo transfection indicated ~ 45% transfection efficiency (Fig. 2d), and specific up- and downregulation of each miRNA was further confirmed using RT-qPCR, 24 and 48 h post transfection (Fig. 2e). Immunostaining of the cells transfected by mimic-scr, mimic-3p, or mimic-5p indicated successful cardiac differentiation (Fig. 3a). To determine the differentiation stage which has been most affected by miR-335 expression alteration, the expression level of stage-specific markers was measured by RT-qPCR. Here, the expressions of BRACHUYRY and MESP1 as mesodermal markers, NKX2-5 and GATA4 as cardiac progenitor markers, HCN4 and ISL1 as progenitor markers of the first and second heart field, and TNNT2 and CNX43 as cardiomyocyte markers were analyzed. RT-qPCR data indicated that 48 h post-transfection of mimic-3p or mimic-5p, the expression level of BRACHYURY was significantly increased (Fig. 3b). Consistently, downregulation of miR-335-3p was followed by significant reduction of BRACHUYRY expression (Fig. 3b). The results of western blotting also confirmed the increased protein level of BRACHYURY following mimic-3p and mimic-5p treatments compared to the mimic-scr control (Fig. 3b, right). Increased or decreased level of miR-335 did not show a significant effect on MESP1 expression level (Fig. 3c). Interestingly, GATA4 and NKX2-5 expression levels were significantly increased following miR-335-3p overexpression while they decreased after using their related siRNA (Fig. 3d, e). Similar significant results were obtained for miR-335-5p against GATA4, but results were non-significant against NKX2-5 expression (Fig. 3d, e).
MiR-335 regulates earlier stages of hESC cardiac differentiation. a Immunocytochemistry analysis showed that overexpression of hsa-miR335-3p or hsa-miR335-5p on day 0 did not affect the final outcome of cardiac differentiation on day 12 (cardiomyocytes), as detected by MYH6 expression in all groups. b Overexpression of both hsa-miR335-3p (top) and hsa-miR335-5p (bottom) resulted in significant elevation of BRACHYURY (mesoderm marker) expression. Consistently, hsa-miR335-3p downregulation resulted in reduced expression of BRACHYURY. Western blot results indicate an increased level of BRACHYURY following the mimic-3p and mimic-5p treatment, compared to mimic-scr control (right). c No significant expression alteration was detected for MESP1 following alterations in hsa-miR335 expression. d, e Expressions of GATA4 and NKX2-5 (main cardiac progenitor markers) were both increased following miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) overexpression. Downregulation of miR-335 had reverse effect on both of these cardiac progenitor markers. f Expression of HCN4 (the first heart field marker) was significantly increased following miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) overexpression. g Alterations in the expression of miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) had a significant reverse effect on ISL1 (the second heart field marker) expression. h, i Has-miR-335-3p (top) overexpression increased CNX43 expression but decreased TNNT2 expression. However, has-miR-335-5p decreased CNX43 but enhanced TNNT2 expressions. RT-qPCR data are presented as mean ± SEM normalized against mimic-scr and siRNA-scr. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping gene
Following transfection of mimic-3p and mimic-5p, HCN4 (the first heart field marker) was significantly upregulated as well; however, miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p downregulation results were not consistent with it (Fig. 3f). MiR-335 expression alteration also has effect on ISL1 (the second heart field marker) expression. Transfection of both mimic-3p and mimic-5p resulted in downregulation of ISL1 expression while, miR-335 downregulation resulted in increased ISL1 expression (Fig. 3g). Overexpression of miR-335-3p significantly upregulated CNX43 expression but suppressed the expression of TNNT2 at the final stage of the differentiation process (Fig. 3h, i). Interestingly, miR-335-5p overexpression could significantly upregulate TNNT2 with no significant effects on CNX43 expression.
MiR-335 as an activator of WNT signaling pathway
Target prediction tools predicted 5 and 1 potential target sites for miR-335-3p within the 3′UTR sequences of APC and AXIN-I genes, respectively. For miR-335-5p, a single recognition site was predicted within 3′UTR sequences of both APC and AXIN-I genes (Fig. 4a). Alterations in the expression of APC and AXIN-I target genes were investigated 48-h post-transfection of miR-335 mimics or siRNAs on D0 of hESC differentiation. Also, direct interaction of each miRNA mimic and 3′UTR sequences of APC and AXIN-I predicted target genes was investigated in HEK293 cells, using dual luciferase reporter assay.
MiR-335 activates WNT signaling through targeting APC and AXIN-I. a Pairing status of miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p with MREs within 3′UTR sequences of APC and AXIN-I. b Alterations in the expression of miR-335-3p did not significantly change the transcription level of APC gene (top); however, dual luciferase assay supported a direct interaction between them (bottom). c Neither RT-qPCR nor dual luciferase assay showed an interaction between miR-335-5p and APC. d Alterations in the expression of miR-335-3p significantly changed the AXIN-I transcript level (top), and dual luciferase assay indicated a direct interaction between them (bottom). e Although RT-qPCR suggested downregulation of AXIN-I following miR-335-5p overexpression (top), dual luciferase assay did not show an interaction between them (bottom). f Overall inductive effect of both miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) on WNT signaling as detected by TOP/FOP flash assay. All experiments were done in three biological replicates and results are presented as mean ± SEM
RT-qPCR indicated that up- or downregulation of both miR-335-3p (Fig. 4b, top) and miR-335-5p (Fig. 4c, top) did not significantly affect APC gene expression in differentiating cells. Co-transfection of reporter construct containing APC-3′UTR and miR-335-3p mimic in HEK293 cells resulted in a significant reduction of luciferase activity, and consistently, luciferase activity was increased after the application of siRNA against miR-335-3p, compared to scrambled controls (Fig. 4b, bottom). This effect was abrogated using off target UTR (the same length of UTR with no available target site for miRNA), thereby approving the direct interaction between miR-335-3p and APC 3′UTR. Similar dual luciferase assay results indicated that miR-335-5p was not interacting with APC 3′UTR sequence (Fig. 4c, bottom).
Transfection of differentiating hESCs with miR-335-3p mimic resulted in significant downregulation of AXIN-I expression, compared to scrambled control transfection (Fig. 4d, top). Furthermore, dual luciferase assay confirmed the direct interaction between miR-335-3p mimic and 3′UTR sequence of AXIN-I (Fig. 4d, bottom). Transfection with miR-335-5p mimic also caused a significant reduction in AXIN-I transcripts as examined by RT-qPCR (Fig. 4e, top). However, dual luciferase assay did not show a direct interaction between miR-335-3p and 3′UTR sequence of AXIN-I gene (Fig. 4e, bottom).
TOP/FOP flash assay indicated that overexpression of miR-335-3p or miR-335-5p led to significant upregulation of WNT signaling pathway in SW480 cells, compared to mimic-scr controls (Fig. 4f). Similar results to those of Top/Fop flash assay were observed when miR-335 was downregulated by specific siRNA (Fig. 4f). The RT-qPCR analysis against CYCLIND1 and c-MYC (downstream targets of WNT signaling pathway) also confirmed the upregulation of WNT signaling, following miR-335-5p overexpression (Additional file 1: Figure S1). Alterations in miR-335-3p expression did not significantly affect CYCLIND1 and c-MYC expression (Additional file 1: Figure S1). Altogether, these data suggested that miR-335-3p might enhance the WNT signaling through targeting the inhibitory components of WNT signaling pathway (i.e., APC and AXIN-I) while miR-335-5p could activate this pathway indirectly without any direct effect on these two target genes.
MiR-335 as an inducer of TGFβ signaling pathway
The in silico analyses suggested that miR-335 could regulate TGFβ signaling through targeting SMAD7 transcripts. It was predicted that both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p target inhibitory SMAD7 gene (Additional file 1: Figure S2A). RT-qPCR indicated that SMAD7 expression was significantly reduced following miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p overexpression, 48 h after transfection in differentiating hESCs. Consistently, downregulation of these miRNAs had reverse effects (though non-significant) on SMAD7 expression (Fig. 5a, top).
MiR-335 activates TGFβ signaling pathway through targeting SMAD7. a Alterations in the expression of SMAD7 followed by overexpression and downregulation of miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom). b Dual luciferase assay study confirmed a direct interaction between miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom), and SMAD7 3′UTR. Alteration in the expression of TGFβR-I was assessed by RT-qPCR followed by miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p overexpression (c) and downregulation (d) in hESC. RT-qPCR data are presented as mean ± SEM normalized against mimic-scr and siRNA-scr. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping gene
Luciferase activity was decreased following miR-335-3p overexpression, and this suppression was relieved by downregulation of miR-335-3p as detected by dual luciferase assay (Fig. 5b, top). Significant reductions in luciferase activity were also detected after miR-335-5p overexpression (Fig. 5a, bottom), while miR-335-5p downregulation could not rescue luciferase activity, significantly (Fig. 5b, bottom). Overall, these data suggested that both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p were capable of targeting SMAD7 transcript. The effect of MiR-335 overexpression on other TGFβ signaling pathway components was also investigated using RT-qPCR. Results indicated that both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p overexpression led to TGFβR-I upregulation (Fig. 5c, d). Alterations in the expression of miR-335 had no significant effect on SMAD2 and SMAD3 expression (Additional file 1: Figure S2B-C). Altogether, these data suggest that both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p might activate TGFβ signaling pathway through targeting SMAD7 transcript.
TGFβ and WNT signaling pathways have some pleiotropic and multifunctional effects and regulate several biological processes including embryonic development, as well as cell differentiation, proliferation, and survival [25,26,27]. These two pathways play critical roles in orchestration of cardiac development and differentiation [28,29,30]. It is known that regulation of TGFβ and WNT signaling pathway is essential for mesoderm cell fate commitment, as well as cardiomyocyte progenitor cell formation and cardiomyocyte maturation [31]. These cardiogenesis steps are closely regulated by different mechanisms at posttranscriptional and posttranslational levels. MiRNAs are known to regulate different bioprocesses through targeting related signaling pathways [32,33,34]. For example, hsa-miR-590-5p was shown to be involved in cardiogenesis through regulating TGFβ signaling [35]. Also, hsa-miR-23b cluster was shown to induce proliferation in hepatocytes through TGFβ pathway inhibition [36] and hsa-miR-126 is known to induce VEGF signaling and promote angiogenesis [37]. Here, we intended to introduce miRNAs which fine-tune TGFβ and WNT signaling pathways, during the cardiogenesis process. Bioinformatics analyses introduced 7 miRNAs which had multiple targets in both WNT and TGFB signaling pathways (Additional file 1: Table S2). Finally, has-miR-335 that is well conserved in mammals and is under the control of mesoderm-specific enhancers in the second intron of MEST [38] (Additional file 1: Figure S3), was chosen for further investigation. Also, miR-335 was reported to be involved in the fate commitment of mesoderm during the mouse embryonic differentiation [38]. MiR-335-3p (miRBase ID: MIMAT0004703) and miR-335-5p (miRBase ID: MIMAT0000765) were both highly expressed in mature heart [38]. It is predicted that these two miRNAs target different genes in WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways (Additional file 1: Tables S3–S4, Figure S4).
H5 human ESCs were successfully differentiated into beating cardiomyocytes after 12 days (Fig. 1a). Then, the expression pattern of mesoderm, cardiac progenitor, and mature cardiomyocyte molecular markers defined the span of each stage (Fig. 1b) which was further confirmed by flow cytometry (Fig. 1c) and ICC results (Fig. 1d). RT-qPCR results indicated a distinct expression pattern for miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p during the cardiac differentiation process. While miR-335-3p expression was significantly altered (up to six folds) during the mesoderm stage (before day 1.5), miR-335-5p was changed much less (1.5-fold) at this stage. miR-335-5p expression was strongly altered at the progenitor stage (after day 1.5) (Fig. 2b). Up- and downregulation of miR-335 since D0 of the differentiation process lasted until the progenitor stage of the process, 2 days post-transfection (Fig. 2e). ICC results indicated that miR-335 expression alterations did not change the fate of differentiating cells towards cardiomyocytes (Fig. 3a). RT-qPCR as well as western blot results indicated that both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p gain of functions enhanced mesodermal cell commitment, as mirrored by the increased BRACHYURY expression level. Results of loss-of-function study also supported gain-of-function results for miR-335-3p (Fig. 3b). It was consistent with a previous report showing that miR-335 stabilizes the lineage decision in mouse ESCs for mesendoderm formation [38]. Also, Schoeftner et al. consistently reported that miR-335 targets OCT4 and Rb to control mESC proliferation and induced differentiation [39].
Following miR-335-3p or miR-335-5p gain- and loss-of-functions, cardiac progenitor markers (GATA4 and NKX2-5) were also up- and down-regulated, respectively (Fig. 3d, e). Upregulation of GATA4 and NKX2-5 progenitor markers could enhance the first heart field progenitor cell commitment through upregulating HCN4 (Fig. 3f) and downregulating ISL1 expression (Fig. 3g). RT-qPCR results against late cardiac differentiation markers (TNNT2 and CNX43) suggest that miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p might have complementary effects on the process.
While miR-335-3p downregulated TNNT2 expression, miR-335-5p significantly upregulated it within the cells (Fig. 3i). Similar results were also obtained for CNX43 expression after alterations in miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p expression (Fig. 3h). Altogether, these data suggest that miR-335 enhances cardiac differentiation through upregulation of the expression of mesoderm (BRACHYURY) and cardiac progenitor marker (GATA4 and NKX2-5) genes. Nevertheless, molecular mechanism(s) via which these miRNAs regulate the expression of these markers remained undiscovered.
Bioinformatics analyses indicated that miR-335 regulates WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways. Moreover, RT-qPCR (Fig. 4b–e, top) and dual luciferase assay (Fig. 4b–e, bottom) showed that miR-335-3p specifically target 3′UTR sequences of APC and AXIN-I, which are two main members of WNT inhibitor complex. These data suggested that miR-335-3p but not miR-335-5p could regulate APC expression at the post-transcriptional level.
Although miR-335-5p had no direct interaction with 3′UTR of these two target genes, but RT-qPCR results indicated a significant downregulation of AXIN-I transcript (Fig. 4e, top). Thus, it could be concluded that miR-335-5p indirectly downregulated AXIN-I expression without interacting with its transcripts. Consistently, both of these miRNAs were capable of activating WNT signaling pathway as detected by Top/Fop flash assay (Fig. 4f). This is also consistent with a previous report which showed that miR-335-5p activates WNT signaling pathway through DKK1 downregulation [40].
Interaction between both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p and SMAD7 3′UTR was also confirmed by RT-qPCR (Fig. 5a) as well as dual luciferase assay (Fig. 5b). Results indicated that these two miRNAs could enhance TGFβR-I expression (Fig. 5c, d). There are two SMAD-binding elements within TGFβR-I promoter recognized by SMAD7, which inhibit TGFβR-I expression [41]. Downregulation of SMAD7 by these two miRNAs could lessen the inhibitory effect of SMAD7 and enhance TGFβR-I expression. Altogether, the results proposed that miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p could activate WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways.
LEF-1/β-catenin complex is reported to bind to the TCF binding site at the BRACHYURY promoter sequence and enhance its expression [42]. TGFβ1 also induces the expression of BRACHYURY in human carcinoma cells [43]. In other words, activation of WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways could enhance BRACHYURY expression, as also observed in the current experiment. Furthermore, WNT signaling pathway activation was shown to enhance GATA4 [44] as well as NKX2-5 expression through hindering HDAC1 inhibitory effect [45]. There is also evidence showing that TGFβ activation enhances GATA4 and NKX2-5 expression [46,47,48].
Based on the bioinformatics and experimental validations, we propose a regulatory network for miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p during cardiomyocyte differentiation (Fig. 6). Accordingly, both miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p might activate WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways that, in turn, induce mesoderm (BRACHYURY) and progenitor (GATA4 and NKX2-5) marker expression and cardiac differentiation.
Schematic presentation of miR-335 involvement in cardiomyocyte differentiation procedure (details are discussed in the text)
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Authors would like to thank all members of both departments for their kind comments.
This work was supported by a grant from Royan Institute and the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF, grant no. 96001316) to H.B., and NIMAD and TMU to B.M.S.
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
Department of Genetics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
Maryam Kay
, Bahram Mohammad Soltani
& Fahimeh Hosseini Aghdaei
Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology, Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran
Hassan Ansari
& Hossein Baharvand
Department of Developmental Biology, University of Science and Culture, Tehran, Iran
Hossein Baharvand
Department of Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, 14115-111, Tehran, Iran
Bahram Mohammad Soltani
Royan Institute, P.O. Box: 16635-148, Banihashem Sq., Banihashem St., Ressalat Highway, Tehran, 1665659911, Iran
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MK contributed to do experiment design and carried out the experiment, and also contributed in the manuscript preparation. HA and FHA did the experiment. BMS and HB did the experiment design, result interpretation, and manuscript preparation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Correspondence to Bahram Mohammad Soltani or Hossein Baharvand.
This study was approved by the Ethical/Scientific Committee of Royan Institute.
Table S1. Primer sequences used in this research. Table S2. Final list of candidate miRNAs. Table S3. List of potential miR-335-3p target genes related to WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways. Table S4. List of potential miR-335-5p target genes related to WNT and TGFβ signaling pathways. Figure S1. RT-qPCR results of C-MYC and CCND1 after mimics and siRNA treatment for miR-335-3p (A) and miR-335-5p (B). All experiments were done in three biological replicates and presented as mean ± SEM. Figure S2. RT-qPCR results of SMAD2 and SMAD3 expression. A) Pairing status of miR-335-3p (left) and miR-335-5p (right), with 3′UTR of SMAD7 gene. B) SMAD2 expression was not significantly changed followed by miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) overexpression. C) RT-qPCR data also showed no significant alterations in SMAD3 expression following miR-335-3p (top) and miR-335-5p (bottom) overexpression. All data are presented as mean ± SEM normalized against mimic-scr and siRNA-scr. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping gene. Figure S3. Genomic location of mir-335 presented in UCSC genome browser. miR-335 is located within the second intron of MEST gene, containing two conserved mature miRNAs (highlighted in red) including miR-335-3p and miR-335-5p. Figure S4. The potential targets of miR-335 in TGFβ (A) and WNT (B) signaling pathways according to the KEGG pathway. The target genes are marked with red stars. (DOCX 474 kb)
Movie S1. (AVI 2586 kb)
Kay, M., Soltani, B.M., Aghdaei, F.H. et al. Hsa-miR-335 regulates cardiac mesoderm and progenitor cell differentiation. Stem Cell Res Ther 10, 191 (2019) doi:10.1186/s13287-019-1249-2
Revised: 06 April 2019
Cardiomyocyte differentiation
hESC
TGFβ
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London Slant: Rush to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum
While Britain dithers over whether to build Boris Island or expand Heathrow I hear that Holland’s Schipol is positioning itself as London’s major airport. If so, maybe the reopening of the Rijksmuseum can be considered London’s hottest new cultural event.
Henry Moore exhibition in the gardens of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
So hop on a plane and head to Amsterdam fast. Because the museum has reopened after a 12-year closure with a stunning temporary Henry Moore show. It’s the icing on the rich and delicious cake that’s the makeover of the museum itself.
I arrived at the Rijksmuseum entrance as a rush hour stream of cyclists pedalled past. Their campaign to stop the proposed blocking of this route through the heart of the building was partly why the museum remained closed so long. I’d been warned there were huge queues to enter, but when I arrived at 9.05 I walked straight in.
The Gallery of Honour, with Rembrandt’s Night Watch at the far end.
I hot-footed it to the Gallery of Honour where Dutch old masters are arrayed. It’s a magnificent sight, with alcoves of Golden Age works leading up to Rembrandt’s Night Watch, dramatically displayed at the far end.
When the museum was built in 1885 the names of featured artists were inscribed high on this gallery’s walls. The rehang of this revered space reveals a fascinating change of tastes. Frans Hals and Jan Steen are still here, Hobbema has gone and Vermeer (who, unbelievably, was unrated) has now been brought in. It’s wonderful to see his milkmaid calmly pouring from her jug centre stage—especially since I’d pipped the heaving scrum and had her all to myself.
The entire museum gets my resounding thumbs up for its brilliant integration of fine and decorative arts. The story of the Netherlands, against the backdrop of the sea, is vividly conveyed through skilful juxtapositions of paintings and objets d’art. Showcases of vases, clocks and pieces of furniture are set among pictures of similar age and style. I thrilled to items that would never normally grip me, such as silverware and porcelain.
The building itself is a treat. I followed an architecture trail that led from the decorative neo-Gothic Great Hall, with its stained glass windows, to the new Asian Pavilion, where works are displayed in zen-like calm.
Holland’s ties to the sea are visible throughout the Rijksmuseum. Objects mirror paintings throughout.
Paintings are matched with fabulous drinking cups covered in swirling sea creatures emerging from the waves.
Shiva Nataraja (King of the Dance), part of the excellent Asian collection, now has a stylish, light-flooded home.
A row of dazzling kimonos, ancient and modern.
The greenhouse supplies salads for the museum cafe.
When the Rijksmuseum closed for the evening I headed into its gardens, where the Moores were bathed in sun. I peeped into the greenhouse where vegetables for the lunches served in the museum cafe are grown. Then it was on to Sama Sebo, the Indonesian restaurant next door, for a first rate rijstafel. Fortunately I’d booked a table: it was shoulder-to-shoulder—just as the space in front of the Night Watch had become.
*Check out City Airport for an Amsterdam flight: save time and outrageous train fares to larger airports. Henry Moore is on until 29 September.
This entry was posted in ART + MUSEUMS, EUROPEAN TRAVEL, LONDON, Uncategorized and tagged Amsterdam, Frans Hals, Henry Moore, Jan Steen, LONDON, Netherlands, Rembrandt, Rijksmuseum on August 4, 2013 by londonslant.
← London Slant: Walk with Vincent van Gogh through Brixton London Slant: Inside the house of Britain’s richest man →
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After 20 years of research and exploration, a retired US Navy Intelligence officer leads an expedition to a remote Pacific island to exhume long hidden bodies that expose a fateful secret mission to rescue Amelia Earhart from her Japanese captors
THE HAWAII CLIPPER, CARRYING $3 MILLION AS RANSOM FOR AMELIA EARHART, IS THE FIRST SKYJACKING IN HISTORY AND CONSIDERED AN ACT OF WAR
Expedition 5: Exposing the secret mission to rescue Amelia Earhart
What if you were given the opportunity to not only be a part of history, but to actually CHANGE history on a worldwide scale? And what if that rare offer made you a part of an international family of esteemed researchers to witness and participate, in real-time, the historical unveiling of one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries? Not only would you actually see exclusive images during the expedition but also virtually participate and interact with the team in which your messages would be received and responded to from the other side of the world during the search.
This opportunity is not a dream but a reality.
Join Expedition 5 and become an exclusive member of an international family of researchers to discover, secure and bring home the very first true missing American casualties of World War II, while also uncovering new evidence about the coverup of what really happened to Amelia Earhart.
Fifteen heroes on a covert mission to deliver a ransom to exchange for Amelia Earhart were the victims of the world’s very first mid-air hijacking by a government that had not yet declared war on the United States and it is our mission to bring their remains back to their families with the honor they rightfully deserve. Successfully achieving this goal will solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries of a vanished Pan Am China Clipper aircraft on an alleged secret mission to rescue aviatrix Amelia Earhart and bring her home to safety.
What is your fee to help change history and to participate in this once-in-a-life-time event?
That’s it! For the same cost of a dinner for three in an average restaurant you could have your name etched in history as a member of a team who solved an eighty year old mystery of global proportions.
What you get for your ticket:
You will be able to connect with the Expedition 5: Lost Clipper private Instagram account and start receiving updates on mission preparations immediately (a free Instagram account is required)
You will have continual access to the private Instagram account throughout the search days. You will see real-time pictures, video, and updates from the team while sending your comments and ideas for them to apply to the search
You will receive an official expedition patch identical to the patch that only expedition team members receive
You will see and know what is discovered before anyone else in the world
You will be a member of the expedition
If you have the means, a very special opportunity to participate awaits you…
For a very exclusive and limited few, an opportunity awaits to experience Expedition 5 in person via first class international travel, private VIP accommodations, world famous private diving experience (with free training, if needed), airport valet, all meals, drinks and boat charter with full participation access to the Expedition 5 team in Truk Lagoon and be present to personally see history literally change before your eyes. Cost?
$150,000 (all inclusive)
Please contact us privately at info@lostclipper.com for details.
This international research team will be entirely funded from supportive people such as you and lead by recognized leaders in their particular fields – some of whom you may already know…
Steve Murphy & Javier Pena – Retired DEA Agents recognized for bringing down international Narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar. You may have seen actors portray their story on the hugely successful Netflix television show NARCOS in which they investigate terrorism and murder on a grand scale. These two criminal mind experts are leading the charge to investigate the act of air piracy and terrorism against the Pan Am Clipper and solve this eighty year cold case.
Steve Murphy & Javier Pena of Netflix’s, NARCOS
Guy Noffsinger – Two-Time Emmy Award Winner and Retired US Navy Intelligence Officer who has researched both the Lost Clipper and its relation to the suspicious disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart in the vast Pacific Ocean. After twenty years of persistent research and four previous explorations to very remote jungle islands, Guy has applied expert skills of analysis to narrow the specific area believed to be the final resting place of the alleged rescuers.
Guy Noffsinger, Retired US Navy Intelligence Officer
James Janicki – Experienced at Search & Rescue and bringing additional skills as a Pilot, Celestial Navigator, Sailboat Skipper, Mountaineer, Professional Chemical Engineer, Amateur Radio Operator and Search Dog Handler have resulted in the recent uncovering of strong evidence that we believe will make Expedition 5 successful at finding the bodies. As a key member to solve this vexing mystery, Jim’s uncanny ability to analyze diverse types of information to recreate historical scenarios and to analyze technical information in the context of critical thinking have been paramount for securing criminal evidence. His expertise in search techniques, logistics, and expedition planning will be key to success and historical impact.
James Janicki with his search dog, Sadie
Dog Handlers – Internationally recognized for their expertise in finding human remains, Two expert search dog teams will bring their dogs to a very remote jungle island to search a focused area where new evidence indicates the bodies are buried. Depending on conditions, these amazing animals have been known to find human scents from 100 feet under water while sitting in a boat or even up to a half mile away from their target because of their powerful and sensitive noses that are 44 times stronger than a human nose. Specially outfitted – you will see in real-time these historic human remains search dogs in action as they locate and identify our missing heroes.
Jim’s trained search dog, Sadie
Your Front Row Ticket to History Awaits!
To commemorate your participation in changing history and supporting Expedition 5 you will also receive a limited edition custom designed collectable Mission Patch similar to those created for NASA Expeditions and a Certificate of Authenticity. Entitled Expedition 5 – Capturing Hard Evidence; you will be able to proudly frame and display your exclusive membership to this once-in-a-life-time historical event for years to come.
The Expedition 5 Lost Clipper team is proud to be teamed with The Truk Stop Resort and Dive Shop
The Truk Stop Hotel & Dive Resort
Be sure to support this history changing effort and buy your ticket today!
Expedition 5 begins live broadcasts from the dig site on February 20, 2020. You can join us virtually and experience the moment of this history changing discovery in real time!
*Please note the time difference from your worldwide location to Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia when viewing live broadcast events. The current time in Chuuk can be found here.
QUESTIONS? Please contact us at info@lostclipper.com for answers.
anne o'sullivan says:
good luck just came across site today.will touch base with you later
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Louis Rudd MBE
Always A Little Further
Traverse of Greenland
SPEAR17
The Scott-Amundsen Centenary Race
I’ve been really lucky to have spent 3 very white Christmas’s in Antarctica over the years, here’s a pic from each one. But this year, I’m particularly looking forward to spending...
Future Adventurers
A true honour to have been asked to present the Bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh Awards in Bromsgrove this evening. A brilliant scheme that challenges young people to push themselves beyond...
Good Luck Wendy
Best of luck to Wendy Searle who leaves the UK today to begin her journey to Antarctica to attempt to break the solo female speed record to the South Pole. A...
Schools & Cadets Program
It’s been an awesome 5 months touring the UK visiting over a 100 schools and cadet centres, completely gratis, talking about Army Adventure Training and my expeditions to Antarctica. A lot...
SES Explorer Awards Evening
2019 HONORARY EXPLORER AWARD ANNOUNCEMENT We are excited to introduce you to Louis Rudd MBE, winner of our SES EXPLORER OF THE YEAR AWARD! In 2018/19 Louis undertook the ‘Spirit of Endurance’ Expedition,...
HBO: Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel
Message From The Expedition Patron
When I was 14 years old, during the school summer holidays, I read a book by Sir Ranulph Fiennes that inspired me to hop on my push bike and cycle 500...
Post Expedition Reflection
Now that I’m finally home and the dust is beginning to settle I thought I’d write a few lines to summarise the key points of the expedition. It’s been an incredible...
How to follow the expedition
It’s getting close now, less than a week to go before I depart the UK. I’m feeling as well prepared both physically and mentally as I’ve ever been for any expedition....
Spirit of Endurance – Teaser…
Lou Rudd
Follow Louis Rudd MBE on WordPress.com
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All posts tagged: Kohler
Kohler Brockway Sink in the Cottage Bathroom!
Once in a while, one of the really awesome benefits of having this blog is that it’s kind of like I have more eyes thrifting for me. This kind of thing is a relatively rare occurrence—I’m not that fancy—but I do feel extra super lucky when I get an email or a tweet or a comment from a reader letting me know that they spotted this or that in a thrift store or on eBay or Craigslist and thought I might be interested.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote about that nice rosewood credenza that a very kind and neighborly reader named Priscilla found and put on hold for me at a thrift store. That was really awesome when that happened. Priscilla has been kind enough to text me every now and then if she see’s something while she’s out and about…and girlfriend just went and did it AGAIN.
So one day while I was busy working on the living room at my house, Priscilla texted me a picture of this 3-foot wide enameled cast iron double sink over at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, asking if I wanted it since she couldn’t think of a reason to buy it herself. I don’t need it for my house, and it didn’t really fit into the cottage plan either, but come on…that’s a good-looking sink! Originally I was planning on doing some kind of double vanity/double sink situation in the full bath at the cottage, but after thinking it over for a few minutes and looking at a few pictures of this model in use, I started to get really excited about using this instead. The holes accommodate 2 separate faucets, so it has the functionality of double sinks but the simplicity and glamor of a single basin. What’s not to love?
I don’t know how old this particular sink is, but it’s actually still in production! It’s made by Kohler and is called the Brockway—looks like it retails for between about $1,200-$1,600, depending on the source. Mine was only $175! Such a score. It didn’t come with faucets, mounting hardware, or the soap dish that goes in the middle, so that’ll add a few hundred dollars, but that’s OK—it can all be ordered separately from Kohler, which is really nice. I don’t have the budget that would allow for buying this kind of thing new, so it’s exciting to be able to put something so high-quality in this house that will hopefully stay with it for a long, long time.
This sink feels especially meaningful because back in October, Kohler held a small conference for bloggers at their headquarters in Kohler, Wisconsin, which I had the pleasure of attending! Admittedly, I went into the trip knowing next to nothing about Kohler as a company (other than that they made my toilet, which I like…), but I had such an appreciation for them by the time I left. What really struck me was how Kohler has balanced almost 150 years of design innovation (they started by making enameled cast iron bathtubs in 1873!) with a real respect for historic styles and production methods—something that seems really out of the ordinary for such a large, international company.
We got to spend some time in a museum area of one of the Kohler buildings, and while it was interesting to see how much things have changed over almost 150 years in business, it was even more amazing to see how much has stayed the same. They still produce almost everything out of their Wisconsin factories, including so many classic styles that are really nicely suited to historic renovations. It made me so happy to see all that stuff right alongside their sleeker, more modern designs. On the last day, we even got to tour the factories, and I think the highlight for a lot of us was seeing the cast iron goods being made. In my admittedly nerdy sort of way, I like having this sink because I’ve seen firsthand exactly how it was made…coming out of the oven glowing red-hot, hot enough to melt the powdered glass particles that get sprayed on it to form the enameled surface…SO COOL. I wish I could go back, like, once a month.
ANYWAY. Want to take a look at how great this sink looks in a bathroom? Yeah, I do too.
From Country Living / Photos by Max Kim-Bee (click photo for link)
I really like this picture because it’s so much of what I can envision for the cottage bathroom! I’ve been thinking a lot about plank walls for the entire upstairs space, including parts of the bathroom that wouldn’t be tiled. The reclaimed wood shelf, the mirror, the sconce situation…it’s all just so nice!
From House Beautiful / Photo by Alec Hemer (click photo for link)
What’s better than one double sink? TWO DOUBLE SINKS. So much sink action. And oh hey look, more plank walls! And a plank ceiling! And…BRASS. I’m admittedly not a huge fan of the Cannock faucet that’s recommended to go with the sink (maybe I’d like it more in real life?), but I do really like these, and the brass factor just puts it over the top. I’ve never actually seen all-brass traps and supply lines in the real world, but damn. That looks great. Plumbing fantasies.
From Remodelista / Photo by Sean Slattery (click photo for link)
Hot DAMN, this bathroom. Sooooooo gooooooood. I sort of laughed when I saw this photo because the subway tiles and black hex floor tiles are also things I’ve been mentally tossing around for the cottage bathroom. Although my tiles would be ceramic and these look to be marble, but whatever. Oh, and I see you, skinny beautiful black radiator. And those cabinets. And that gorgeous tub. GUH. But the sink looks amazing, right? Right. It’s such a versatile piece.
Looking at these fancy bathrooms makes going to my bathroom feel kind of like taking a dump in a porta potty on a hot summer day, but I don’t even care.
So there. Obviously this bathroom has a ways to go before this sink can have its moment to shine, but it feels motivating to have it now, while I still have some time to plan. It makes me so excited to see it come together! Now to just find myself a tub…
Tagged: Kohler, plumbing, Thrifted & Scavenged
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arkarian
red chamber dream
Poision Envy
Club 27 Goals
I mean come on guys lets be honestly. When we first heart of Prime Hunters we were skeptical and it didn't seem like it would be that great of a game, but it had POTENTIAL. Maybe Nintendo didn't capitalize on that potential, but they experiemented with what they had and they learned. I think Federation Force shows the same potential, but with YEARS of experience under their belt this time around.
Aw fuck who am I kidding, that ball-shooting vidoe looks like baby ass fucks shitting on a rusted plate. Who the fuck would ever WANT that game? God it looks like shit.
I mean come on guys lets be honestly. When we first heart of Prime Hunters we were skeptical and it didn't seem like it would be that great of a game, but it had POTENTIAL. Maybe Nintendo didn't capitalize on that potential, but they experiemented with what they had and they learned. I think Federation Force shows the same potential, but with YEARS of experience under their belt this time around. Aw fuck who am I kidding, that ball-shooting vidoe looks like baby ass fucks shitting on a rusted plate. Who the fuck would ever WANT that game? God it looks like shit.
Edit history:
arkarian: 2016-03-12 11:34:10 am
haha i know you were kidding but hunters multiplayer never appealed to me either. that game was shit too. but at least it looked kind of like metroid lol
Toozin
Not impossible
just highly unlikely
The worst part about it being a Metroid game is that people are going to say "oh you just don't like it because it's something different, if it wasn't called Metroid you'd like it" when it is very clearly a shit game no matter what the label is.
i mean, it could be a fun multiplayer game. but i don't like multiplayer games so i'm going to say it looks like shit no matter what haha
I like turtles.
Quote from Toozin:
Even if that were true, I don't see the problem with disliking it solely because it's under the Metroid name. I view it as perfectly legitimate to dislike an entry in a series on the grounds of its being a very poor entry by the standards of that series.
"If it weren't called 'Metroid' you'd like it!"
"If the entire reason you dislike it weren't there, you wouldn't dislike it!"
Is that supposed to be a big "gotcha"?
[quote="Toozin"]The worst part about it being a Metroid game is that people are going to say "oh you just don't like it because it's something different, if it wasn't called Metroid you'd like it" when it is very clearly a shit game no matter what the label is. [/quote] Even if that were true, I don't see the problem with disliking it solely because it's under the [i]Metroid[/i] name. I view it as perfectly legitimate to dislike an entry in a series on the grounds of its being a very poor entry by the standards of that series. "If it weren't called 'Metroid' you'd like it!" "If the entire reason you dislike it weren't there, you wouldn't dislike it!" Is that supposed to be a big "gotcha"?
tomatobob
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Look man the internet isn't really known for the stunning debates.
It's true though that a lot of the problem with this game is that it is nominally a Metroid game. It looks like they had an idea for a game but didn't think they could really sell it so they made it a Metroid title in hopes that that would generate some sort of response from people, ideally, "I love Metroid and want to play more of it!"
Unfortunately they made something so thoroughly bland that the only appropriate response is a shrug.
It's true though that a lot of the problem with this game is that it is nominally a Metroid game. It looks like they had an idea for a game but didn't think they could really sell it so they made it a Metroid title in hopes that that would generate some sort of response from people, ideally, "I love Metroid and want to play more of it!" Unfortunately they made something so thoroughly bland that the only appropriate response is a shrug.
Usually when Nintendo gets an idea for a game they wanna do, but they know it won't sell unless they attach it to a pre-existing IP, they do it to Kirby. And usually it looks more fun from the get-go than this does. :(
That's because those game have neat qualities somewhere in them an Kirby is well suited to any silly fun/cute thing you feel like running with.
There's nothing notable about Fed Force except the title. It's 100% dependent on the Metroid name recognition.
That's because those game have neat qualities somewhere in them an Kirby is well suited to any silly fun/cute thing you feel like running with. There's nothing notable about Fed Force except the title. It's 100% dependent on the Metroid name recognition.
I just realized I want a 4 player cooperative first person shooter Kirby game. Why do I want this?
Because who wouldn't want to watch people disappear into your face from a first person perspective?
So I haven't played it and don't plan to and know almost nothing about the game or the story but apparently there's a secret ending teaser thing in this.
It's Sylux stealing a Metroid from the Fed. Sylux was also in the MP3 secret ending in case you forgot. I don't blame you.
It almost gives you the impression that they've been having an idea for a game for almost a decade. Almost. Now I'm almost curious about Metroid NX!
So I haven't played it and don't plan to and know almost nothing about the game or the story but apparently there's a secret ending teaser thing in this. [spoiler]It's Sylux stealing a Metroid from the Fed. Sylux was also in the MP3 secret ending in case you forgot. I don't blame you.[/spoiler] It almost gives you the impression that they've been having an idea for a game for almost a decade. Almost. Now I'm almost curious about Metroid NX!
Sylux is one of those idiots from Hunters, right? Nintendo banking real hard on peeps giving a shit about that game.
Yeah his character so far is that he hates the Fed and Samus by association. Apparently what I touched on has already been directly stated: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/17/e3-2015-what-metroid-primes-producer-wants-in-the-next-sequel
Oh what a compelling character.
Oh what a compelling character. :roll:
I mean he's already the 2nd most fleshed out Metroid character. The first being of course The Baby.
Excuse me I think you forgot one Adam "Perfect Military Mind" Malkovich.
Of course I did, I was being facetious. Adam is my favorite character.
I also forgot about the guy who asks "remember me?". How sad.
Of course I did, I was being facetious. Adam is my favorite character. I also forgot about the guy who asks "remember me?". How sad.
god dammit i do not give a shit about sylux or any other of hunters's "characters"
doesn't really matter as long as gameplay is good, but jesus what does nintendo think metroid even is
god dammit i do not give a shit about sylux or any other of hunters's "characters" doesn't really matter as long as gameplay is good, but jesus what does nintendo think metroid even [i]is[/i]
I mean it's an opportunity to make people give a shit, considering he's just a mysterious blank slate at this point. I just wonder if the intent was to flesh out other hunter characters all along and they haven't got around to it, which is why they introduced so many other hunters in MPH and MP3, or if they had an idea for an antagonist and the little "backstory" they created for Sylux happened to kinda fit that so they went with him. They obviously feel the need to have some supporting characters so if we can't have our isolated exploration at least do something with them.
Quote from arkarian:
Plus, trying to win the fans back with a character who only appeared in the least-played installment after Prime Pinball seems kind of misguided.
[quote="arkarian"]god dammit i do not give a shit about sylux or any other of hunters's "characters" doesn't really matter as long as gameplay is good, but jesus what does nintendo think metroid even [i]is[/i][/quote] Plus, trying to win the fans back with a character who only appeared in the least-played installment after [i]Prime Pinball[/i] seems kind of misguided.
I don't think they have any intention of winning old-school fans back.
Plus he's such a nothing-character that he might as well be considered new if he plays a major role in NX.
I don't think they have any intention of winning old-school fans back. Plus he's such a nothing-character that he might as well be considered new if he plays a major role in NX.
it's true, i mean, i'm willing to give anything a shot (i played all the way through other m, after all)
i just don't get it ... maybe sales numbers will prove me wrong
it's true, i mean, i'm willing to give anything a shot (i played all the way through other m, after all) i just don't get it ... maybe sales numbers will prove me wrong
UchihaSasuke
UchihaSasuke: 2016-08-25 04:34:14 pm
my umbrella goes directly to Bankai
has Sylux even had a single line in all his appearances? even Samus' ship has spoken more in previous games.
it's true that Samus didn't have any lines originally but the games provided all that was needed. for Sylux, the games he's been in haven't provided anything to make him remotely interesting.
all he has going for hin is that he uses Federation tech (i read his Hunters scan because i beat that game 2 weeks ago) but the Federation itself is pretty bland.
hell, some of the other hunters are more interesting than him based on abilities alone. the Space Pirate one seems way more interesting.
has Sylux even had a single line in all his appearances? even Samus' ship has spoken more in previous games. it's true that Samus didn't have any lines originally but the games provided all that was needed. for Sylux, the games he's been in haven't provided anything to make him remotely interesting. all he has going for hin is that he uses Federation tech (i read his Hunters scan because i beat that game 2 weeks ago) but the Federation itself is pretty bland. hell, some of the other hunters are more interesting than him based on abilities alone. the Space Pirate one seems way more interesting.
Archived M2K2 Forum Index -> Metroid Gaming -> Metroid Prime: Federation Force -> Metroid Prime: Federation Force
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Why MapR?
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MapR Named 'Best in Show' in Software Development by SD Times
SD Times 100 honors MapR for innovation and advancing the state-of-the-art of software development in the Big Data and Business Intelligence category
MapR Technologies, Inc., provider of the industry’s only Converged Data Platform, today announced it was named among the “Best in Show” in Software Development in the Big Data and Business Intelligence category by SD Times. The SD Times 100 honors those companies, consortia and industry projects that have forged a path for others to follow, or have reached the pinnacle within their category.
“Companies on the 2016 list have demonstrated innovation and advancing the state-of-the-art of software development in the market,” said David Rubinstein, vice president of editorial and operations at BZ Media and editor-in-chief of SD Times “They’ve often captured the lion’s share of their market, or led the direction of and commits to an important open-source project. And, they’re what the people in our industry are talking about. The editors carefully considered each nominee's products and services, thought leadership, and reputation. Thanks to companies like MapR, the future for software development is very bright!”
MapR won for the MapR Converged Data Platform which ensures production success with a unique architecture designed specifically for business-critical applications, seamless big data access and integration, and the ability to run in real-time both operational and analytical processing and applications reliably on one platform.
"We are honored to be singled out as a ‘Best in Show’ by the SD Times editors and judges. It acknowledges the tremendous value our customers receive from MapR through our patented, innovative software which leverages on-going open source development,” said David Cross, chief marketing officer, MapR Technologies. “The MapR Converged Data Platform is built to power the next generation of data-driven applications, enabling our customers to easily address their evolving business requirements and not be constrained by traditional technology limitations, for example, compromising reliability to be more innovative. In fact, our customers continue to expand their big data initiatives with the MapR Platform, helping them to continuously innovate, unlock new revenue streams, and transform their business.”
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About Marginal Revolution
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Non-cognitive skills and earnings in Canada
by Tyler Cowen December 11, 2019 at 3:05 am
This newly published paper (click on the first link here) by McLean, Bouaissa, Rainville, and Auger confirms some more general results, usually taken from American data:
Our results indicate that conscientiousness is positively associated with wages, while agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism are associated with negative returns, with higher magnitudes on agreeableness and conscientiousness for females. Cognitive ability has the highest estimated wage return so, while significant, non-cognitive skills do not seem to be the most important wage determinant.
The main difference seems to be that in Canada extraversion is correlated with lower earnings, but in the United States in general it is not. And note that a one standard deviation increase in agreeableness for women is associated with a 7.4-8.7% income penalty, but no corresponding income penalty for men. Finally, (p.112) that the rate of return on education is over seven percent, and after adjusting for cognitive level this falls by only 30 percent, relevant for the signaling model of education of course.
December 11, 2019 at 3:20 am Hide Replies 1
IQ is measurable and useful. Glad someone's here to tell us these things. Next maybe someone can tell us that bigger muscles make lifting things easier.
Metafilter and a plate of beans
December 11, 2019 at 10:02 am Hide Replies 2
So difficult to figure what is allowed and not allowed here. Questioning the Big 5 personality traits model is apparently fine, but pointing out that IQ is simply measures the test itself is apparently beyond the pale. Maybe some of the less generous (which is a giant understatement) Mefites are right, to be honest.
Can we please get away from the Big 5 personality traits model? It is overused, underwhelming, and inaccurate. No two people can agree on the basic definition of things like introversion/extraversion let alone even more nebulous concepts like conscientiousness. At this point it is no better than palm reading.
Todd K
Spoken like a true ENTP.
Or INTP, or ENTJ, or INTJ ....
We'll narrow it down as Edgar elaborates more.
We won't be. I agree with Edward, and find any of these systems to be about as scientifically useful as horoscopes, when they are not utterly tautological.
I guess referencing the obvious fact that Meyers-Briggs has problems with its classification system was just a bit too subtle.
Myers Briggs is mostly ....muh....but the Big 5 has a lot more validity as a metric system. It is not perfect and can be criticised, but it's silly to pretend that it isn't supported by at least some proper factor analysis.
December 11, 2019 at 12:52 pm Hide Replies 9
The big 5 (and IQ) pass the common sense filter as well. We can easily tell intelligent people from not so intelligent, extroverts from introverts and so on. It is pretty silly to deny them being valid characterisations of people.
Conscientiousness as assessed by the big 5 model correlates reliably with income/wealth (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498890/). Other big 5 factors have measurable correlations as well.
These correlations are large enough to matter. Dismissing the big 5 is silly.
Edward Burke
Along the way I observed a distinction between "conscientiousness" and "scrupulosity" other than the spelling: the former I took to mean "requisite attention to axiological concerns", the latter "an excessive concern with the appearance of holding axiological concerns". (The distinction I learned from observing the two terms' respective usages over the years in contemporary discourse.)
While "conscientiousness" remains for me a cue for "due axiological consideration", "scrupulosity" has become a cue for "unstinting axiological considerations intended to be perceived by others".
If this nuance is perceived or shared by others, does it have a place in contemporary models of personality traits?
What do such contemporary models say concerning "personality traits" such as mere volition or the ruthless exercise thereof? What hallmarks of affectivity are taken into due account?
How reliably can such thumbnail models of personality traits actually model human complexity?
rayward
December 11, 2019 at 6:44 am Hide Replies 12
I recall many years ago when tech-skilled employees at IBM were transferring to sales because that's where the money (and potential for advancement) was. Some made the transition but many did not, the skills required in sales being different from the skills required in tech. Reading about Buttigieg's gig at McKinsey is a reminder that much of business success (and McKinsey is enormously successful) is, well, based on bullshit. What are the skills that make the boy wonders at McKinsey successful?
McKinsey has a mix of both subject matter experts and the usual "Powerpoint with buzzwords delivered confidently" types. There's no mystery to what they do (i.e. give cover to highly political decisions management was going to do anyway but needed some indirection to spare organizational feelings) but they aren't necessarily better than other big consulting firms. They are definitely overpriced.
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-taxpayers-pay-mckinsey-3m-a-year
The main bang for the buck comes from scaring your employees that you're bringing in McKinsey to look you over.
I've spent a lot of hours teaching the McKinsey associates about my industry, company, and job so they could write a report with my recommendations, give it to my senior executives, and earn a lot of money.
RatInACar
December 11, 2019 at 11:20 am Hide Replies 15
Assuming that's true, and assuming McKinsey correctly recognizes that you are both knowledgeable and correct, then they did a great job. It's not McKinsey's fault that your management doesn't completely trust their own peoples recommendations. Indeed, management should look for third party analysis. And when the third party tells them their own staff is correct, then they should follow the recommendations.
Slocum
"Finally, (p.112) that the rate of return on education is over seven percent, and after adjusting for cognitive level this falls by only 30 percent, relevant for the signaling model of education of course."
Is it? That fact seems quite consistent with both the signaling model and the human capital model. So university grads earn more because of the sheepskin effect (signaling) or because they have gained new skills and knowledge (human capital). And the fact that smarter people get greater returns also does not tell us whether we should favor signaling or human capital theories.
+1. It may, however, help to discern returns to intelligence vs conscientiousness (which is what the Education signal is for...)
"That fact seems quite consistent with both the signaling model and the human capital model. "
Well that would indeed seem relevant to the signaling model of education. It seems to point to a 70/30 level for educational knowledge versus raw intelligence. Which is a far higher ratio than Bryan Caplan seems to indicate.
It doesn't seem that it would be that hard to create a reasonably large pool of candidates that took IQ tests between ages 14-23 and compare them on a given profession / years in the profession / total compensation and largely settle this question.
December 11, 2019 at 5:06 pm Hide Replies 20
No, I don't think so -- the fact that a degree makes a bigger difference for higher-IQ students doesn't mean education is mostly about human capital. One interpretation -- the current job marketplace doesn't open up advanced opportunities for even genius-level students without degrees. Without the degree, geniuses can't get their feet in the door. With degrees, geniuses get in and make the most of it. Without degrees, dullards don't get in the door either. With degrees, dullards get in but don't advance that far. You don't need human capital theory to account for the sheepskin having a bigger effect on high-IQ individuals. Of course, you *could* retell this story where the high-IQ students are more able to develop human capital at university when given the chance. It seems to me that either story works for these findings.
+1, thoughtful response
David Gretzschel
Going out on a limb here, but I'd assume that high agreeableness in women is associated with less engagement in the labor force, trading against more time spent raising children/domestic stuff. Granting that assumption, this implies part-time for women and part-timers tend to earn less per hour anyway. (and I don't think this is due to gender)
So color me smugly unsurprised? Though I'm admittedly too prone to hindsight bias. I often wish there were spoiler tags for such reports so I can test my predictive ability and really think about this.
As for conscientiousness and cognitive ability, I'd say that they bottleneck as well as multiply each other in earning potential.
"The main difference seems to be that in Canada extraversion is correlated with lower earnings, but in the United States in general it is not. "
Fascinating but not surprising result. Great to see empirical evidence that finds a basis for national stereotypes.
Tom T.
I suspect that there's a reversal of causation. Canadian culture disfavors being loud and boisterous, so Canadians project those traits onto the poor, because they're society's less desirable people.
"I suspect that there's a reversal of causation. "
Yes, but probably also a selection bias. There's plenty of cases of high performing, extroverted Canadians migrating to American for the much higher pay. The entire Canadian entertainment industry is one of the minor league feeder systems to the American entertainment industry.
True, but
December 11, 2019 at 12:08 pm Hide Replies 26
Rush, Jim Carrey, Alanis Morissette, SCTV, and the Kids in The Hall more than make up for Bieber and Bryan Adams.
William Shatner! Born a Quebecois.
He was in the news yesterday. 88 years old and he files for divorce after 18 years of marriage. Maybe his wife is too loud and boisterous.
The Civil Service doesn't have room for folks who run hot. Most "good" jobs in this country are Civil Service or related. So one learns how to hide or one leaves and suffers the hit when it becomes clear business won't pay for the work evasion skills time in the public sector provided.
Jack QR
It doesn't seem like they deal with endogeneity. Bad paper.
Dan Hanson
"The rate of return on education is over 7%"
WHICH education? Whenever I hear 'education' used this way, I have to wonder how much cover this gives useless humanity degrees that do not provide anything like a decent return on investment.
How much of that 7% is the result of Medicine, Engineering, hard sciences, Ivy League law degrees, etc?
Isn't it time we started breaking this statistic down by major and school? Of course, universities don't want to do that, because it would expose how many programs are just filler meant to separate average or below average students from student loan money.
Isn't it important for young people to know that, for example, a degree in Social Work or Education Studies will earn you a below-average salary? Or that people with a degree in History have a higher unemployment rate than the general population?
We keep burying the information that actually matters in silly aggregates that really don't tell you much and hide important things you should know.
"Isn't it time we started breaking this statistic down by major and school?"
+1, averaging the data isn't helpful in such a broad and distinct topic
That being said, it's much easier to compare like IQ's across college graduates vs non-college graduates. It's much harder when you start selecting for the majors that are on the high IQ end. At that point, your pool of comparative IQ's that didn't get any degree are relatively sparse.
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Mark Follman
bits of politics, media, culture and California
MediaBugs
AP’s complicated Seinfeld episode
Filed under: California, culture, media | Tags: California, comedy, media, technology, television |
Recently a MediaBugs user reported that an Associated Press story had misidentified the “Seinfeld” character George Costanza as Jerry’s “neighbor” on the show. Eventually the AP’s west coast entertainment editor, Steve Loeper, responded to an inquiry about the matter, and the AP subsequently decided to publish a correction.
It was a positive outcome, but here’s the rub: Getting to it involved no less than contacting five different people, sending eight emails and making three phone calls — and it took more than three weeks to get a result.
Indeed, one of our early observations with MediaBugs has been that reporting an error to news organizations — even (or is it especially?) large, reputable ones — can be difficult and time-consuming.
When the “Seinfeld” bug appeared on our site on April 28th, I searched online for a specific channel through which to contact the AP regarding errors. I couldn’t find one. (Apparently one does not exist; more on that in a minute.) The AP story had no byline but was datelined Los Angeles, so I looked up the LA bureau and sent an email to the news editor there, Brian Melley. Having been a news editor myself at a busy national media outlet, I knew his inbox was likely to be inundated. I followed up with another email two days later. A couple days after that I tried calling, and emailed again on the heels of that. Then I also tried emailing the LA bureau chief, Anthony Marquez.
Next, I thought to contact an acquaintance who works as a reporter for the AP in Washington, to see if I was even poking in the right place. I learned from her that the news service has a decentralized system for corrections; the AP reporter and/or editor on a specific story apparently is responsible for handling any potential correction. I had been poking in the right place, if to no avail.
Next I tried emailing another person I knew of who used to work in the AP’s LA bureau, to ask if there was anyone else there I might try. He suggested contacting Loeper. After a couple of emails and a voicemail, Loeper responded in timely and good-humored fashion, and we were on our way to a correction. (While the bug ostensibly had been posted by a “Seinfeld” devotee, Loeper subsequently told me via email that the AP “got the definitive word from Rick Ludwin, the NBC executive in charge of the ‘Seinfeld’ series back in the ‘90s, who noted that Kramer and Newman lived in Jerry’s building, but George had his own apartment in another building and also lived with his parents for a time.”)
In the end, AP did right by the error. It wasn’t an earth-shattering one. But rather than getting into whether it’s important for such errors to be corrected (see here and here for why we believe it is), a simple question instead: why does it have to be so hard to get an error fixed?
You can almost hear Jerry working it into one of those nightclub monologues he used to close the show with: “What’s the deal anyway with these newsroom people? You see a simple mistake, so you try to let them know — you email and you call, and you call and you email, and… nothing. Really? What’s the deal with that?” (Cue laugh track.)
[Cross-posted to the MediaBugs blog.]
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Fecal Face is an art and culture site that has been showcasing street art, painting, design, video, and more.
Fecal Face
website: fecalface.com
(mt) customer since: 2005
(mt) plan: DV
You kind of forget, at times, that there are thousands of people checking it out everyday. I never really think about it until someone randomly comes into the gallery and is really excited about what we’ve been doing over the years. It’s nice to know that people are checking it out and enjoy what they see on the site.
– John Trippe, Founder
John Trippe was working at Thrasher Magazine when he decided he wanted to start his own DIY zine. He named the zine Fecal Face because he thought it was funny. Then he wrote “goofy” stuff for each issue and got his friends to contribute additional photos and artwork. In 2000, Trippe also started the Fecal Face website, teaching himself HTML along the way. The site now features contributors from around the world and is visited by thousands of people per day.
His success inspired Trippe to open a gallery in San Francisco’s Mission District that brings a similar art sensibility to that found in the zine and on the website. It’s also a creative nerve center, hosting several events that bring together artists and admirers of the Fecal Face aesthetic.
Watch the video and meet the creative enthusiast who managed to turn something named Fecal Face into a phenomenon. Made on (mt).
Made on (mt): The Uprising
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Made on (mt): Colossal
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There’s now an Arctic data vault so our cat videos will be safe after the apocalypse
It may look like Hoth but it's really Norway and it's helping us plan for the end of the world
Image: Heiko Junge/Epa/REX/Shutterstock
By Marcus Gilmer 2017-04-04 21:01:11 UTC
Look, I don't know what else to tell you: We're getting closer and closer to doomsday and people much smarter than I agree.
In January, the Science and Security Board at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially moved the clock to two-and-a-half-minutes to midnight aka two-and-a-half-minutes until, well, doomsday.
But don't worry: way up yonder in the northern reaches of Norway, in the Arctic Circle, there's a new storage unit opening to preserve the world's data in case of some sort of cataclysmic event.
SEE ALSO: This vault filled with seeds in Norway could help bring Earth back from an apocalypse
If this sounds a little bit familiar, that's because this new storage unit is related to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway where seeds for tens of thousands of crops are being kept for future need.
That vault, which opened in 2008, is designed to last 1,000 years and withstand a wide range of potential scenarios, including climate change, nuclear war, and even an asteroid strike. It also just got a brand new deposit of seeds in February.
This new unit, the World Arctic Archive, will do the same for data, storing it on a specialized film for safekeeping. This archive has been built in an abandoned coal mine not far from the Seed Vault because preparing for the apocalypse loves company.
According to a brochure from the archive, over 40 nations recognized the area as demilitarized (a result of the Svalbard Treaty) and there's plenty of reason to believe in the assertion everything is pretty safe.
The process of protecting the data is handled by a firm named Piql, which takes your data (let's say, for the sake of argument, the complete run of the Degrassi television franchise on digital video) and is saved both online and physically to piqiFilm, a proprietary film, and stored in a piqiBox for protection for centuries.
Image: Piqi
Piql founder Rune Bjerkestrand told Live Science that the process of writing the data in multiple layers to the film is "basically big QR codes on films."
Besides that, though, other precautions are taken, including:
"A neutral, offsite, secure data vault situated on the Svalbard islands in the Arctic sea between Norway and the North Pole"
"Data securely preserved for 1000+ years on piqlFilm with guaranteed access in the future"
"Data protected by permafrost in a nuclear- and EMP-safe vault deep inside a closed mine"
"Redundant high speed data connection to mainland Norway and further to clients in the world for authorised access."
That's ... pretty damn thorough.
Check out the entire brochure below.
Thus far, according to Live Science, Brazil and Mexico have both sent data to be stored there (leaving that hypothetical Degrassi collection unprotected).
There were reports of a Russian military exercise at Svalbard that some suggested could risk the treaty, a good reminder that the area is safe from some sort of invasion only as long as everyone plays it cool.
But if the cataclysmic event turns out to be, say, a zombie apocalypse, we already know that zombies, according to Max Brooks' World War Z, don't do well in frozen conditions, so you can at least feel safe about that.
WATCH: This inflatable wristband could save your life in deep waters
Topics: global-seed-vault, History, svalbard norway, Tech, world-arctic-archive
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The Pokemon Go trespassing lawsuit’s proposed settlement terms are absurdly reasonable
Remember back in 2016 when Pokemon Go news was bonkers? We covered multiple lawsuits revolving around the game, including one lodged against Nintendo and Niantic by one Jeffrey Marder of New Jersey, who accused the companies of enticing people to trespass on his property and profiting from that act. That suit was consolidated into a single class-action with several other suits, including those from Michigan and Florida. At the time, Niantic maintained that trespass laws do not cover virtual intrusions, that it is the trespassers who have broken laws, and that a decision against the company could also impact non-games like real estate apps. Legal experts, however, suggested that trespass laws vary from state to state and that neither side had a slam-dunk case.
At the tail end of 2018, it appeared that the case would be settled, and as of this month, we finally understand the terms of that settlement. The proposed settlement requires Niantic to make an effort to avoid placing pokestops and targets on private property (especially homes) going forward; allow property owners to submit a form to request the removal of virtual bits placed within 40m of homes; resolve most petitions within two weeks; warn raid groups over 10 people to behave; and work with public parks’ rules and operational hours. The class action plaintiffs also sought $1000 each and attorneys’ fees.
(All of which probably should have been things Niantic thought about before launching a game like this, especially given that it had already launched a game like this. Why did anybody need to go to court for this?)
This lawsuit was far from the only one that plagued Pokemon Go and the MMOARG genre over the last few years; Niantic settled a lawsuit over its botched Chicago event for $1.5M last year, and in 2017 Milwaukee County in Wisconsin settled a lawsuit over its parks ordinance, which required video game developers like Niantic to obtain park permits before using those parks as MMOARG destinations.
Source: Scribd via Variety via GIbiz. Thanks, Schmidt!
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Mewmew
They did already have forms to allow people to remove their personal property from the game. I guess it’s the 40 meters from their property thing that’s new, plus the time limit on how quickly Niantic needs to take care of it. For all I know they took care of it at least that quickly in the past when people actually did file to be removed, but there was no actual law or agreement about them having to.
Considering that Pokemon Go isn’t quite the phenomenon that it used to be, I’m guessing this is going to be something that people look to for guidelines for future games of this type.
Schmidt.Capela
It also includes a stipulation that Niantic will pre-screen a large part of the POI (Pokéstop/Gym) submissions and refuse those that are in private homes, even if there is no complaint. I take it to mean residential neighborhoods will now rarely, if ever, see any such POI added.
It would be interesting if someone started maintaining an industry-wide database of where online AR games similar to Pokémon Go are allowed to place elements and objectives and where they aren’t, which would then be referenced by companies such as Niantic, so people would have a single place to go when they want to either restrict when those games can be played in their property or else remove their property entirely from such games.
Google seems to be the natural company for that, since it already provides the map used by most such games, though some people wouldn’t want to give it even more power over AR games than it already has.
Armsbend
Time heals wounds and I’m sure now that the owners likely have zero people invading their property now and they just want the matter settled and their reasonable expenses paid for. They of course didn’t know there would be a steep drop off of property invaders so the lawsuit was completely justified.
It wasn’t just about Pokemon Go though, it’s also about future games of the same type. Now there will be guidelines to follow when these new games come along.
The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs you can’t admit you’re not playing any more?
Perfect Ten: The best MMO updates and expansions of 2018
Perfect Ten: Ten MMO systems that encourage alts
Perfect Ten: MMOs that changed their names
Vague Patch Notes: How to make your points and exit gracefully from online debates
Perfect Ten: The best expansions for specific MMOs
The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs you can’t admit you’re not...
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Tag: Chase Masterson
Deep Space Nine: s07 e24 – The Dogs of War
Why couldn’t they have swapped costumes?
After the tight focus of last week, the penultimate episode of Deep Space Nine was instead a ragbag of set-up across multiple plot strands, involving practically every single recurring character you could name, but not Cirroc Lofton. Only Kai Wynn and Gul Dukat failed to show their faces.
This meant a strong Ferenghi presence, and I’m hoping that the substantial amount of time dedicated to wrapping up their story will mean only a token participation in the series finale, a week from now. It was down to the usual standards. Leeta and a barely clad dabo girl demand a reduction in how much of their tips they have to give to Quark, and he’s thinking abut it when Grand Negus Zek comes on the blower to announce, through appalling static, that he’s going to retire and is appointing Quark as his successor.
Immediately, Brunt turns up to fawn all over the new Negus, and to tell him of the massive changes Zek, under Ishka’s influence, has been pushing through to turn Ferenganar from the unrestricted pursuit of capitalism. Ferenganar’s been so humonised, Quark’s disgusted enough to turn down the post, except that he’s got it all wrong: Zek’s appointing Rom instead. Quark however intends to run his bar in the old fashion unrepentantly.
There, wasn’t that worthless watching? Except for what’s probably a final appearance from Chase Masterson.
What was nearly as awful was the clowning around between Julian Bashir and Ezri Dax, one minute solemnly assuring themselves that it’s better to retain their friendship than lose it over trying to pursue a silly romantic fantasy, the next snogging each other’s faces off in a turbolift. This strand kept Worf and O’Brien in it for a couple of cameos as a Greek Chorus, looking on.
Odo is fully recovered and Bashir drops a brick in telling him how Section 31 infected him. There is a piece of what I take to be foreshadowing, as Odo reacts in disgust to the Federation’s decision not to give the cure to the Dominion in the middle of all-out War against an enemy bent on ruthless conquest (sorry, Odo, you’re being bloody naive). Given that I was not able to escape learning in advance about Odo’s final part in this series, I take it that this is a major factor in his decision.
By far and away the most important strands related directly to the War. Demar’s rebellion is betrayed and destroyed, it’s only survivors being the Big Three of Demar, Kira and Garak. They go underground on Cardassia Prime, in a cellar, to avoid capture and execution whilst Weyoun announces Demar’s death. But the populace don’t believe it, and our trio play on this to turn Demar into Legend, to raise the people.
And a new, pliant Legate takes Service under the Dominion, for whom the Female Changeling is dictating retrenchment: fall back upon a shortened, stronger defensive line, based upon the Cardassian Empire, rebuild, emerge stronger. The Federation, being naturally timid, will settle for containment.
But Sisko argues otherwise. He has a new Defiant class ship that he’s authorised to rename Defiant, and he foresees what the Dominion expect, and urges attack: break through the Dominion lines before they can settle. Cry Havoc! and let slip the Dogs of War.
Ad a final coda, in which a hostage to fortune, and to the Prophets’ warning: Kasidy Yates Sisko is pregnant. The Emissary is going to have a baby…
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box November 27, 2018 November 12, 2018 588 Words2 Comments
Deep Space Nine: s07 e12 – The Emperor’s New Cloak
Ezri Tigan. more! more!
Even though my initial reaction to this episode was the usual, “not another bloody Ferengi episode”, I decided I’d try to be as objective (read: fair) as possible about it. Then it turned out to be another Mirror universe story which was one too many trips to the well for me on top: the Mirror Universe is a neat idea but when it’s only being exploited to allow the actors to play against character and for no deeper reason, it’s a shallow concept.
Throw in my new bete noire, Vic Fontaine (albeit for one brief scene and in which he gets killed, not that that lifted my spirits too much), and the recipe was for a wasted forty-five minutes, the only benefit of which being that, with the end sequence getting ever nearer, this would have to be the last of them, yay!
But I’m going to be as fair as I can be, as there were a couple of things of interest to keep me going.
By now, the only cast/recurring characters left who haven’t been through the looking glass are new girl Ezri, and Brunt, FCA. Both were a simple opposite, Ezri a leather clad, spike-haired mercenary (rrrrrrrr!!!) and Brunt a genial nice guy. Brunt got killed off but Ezri bestrode the episode in a manner that had my shallow side gladly singing. Nicole deBoer apparently had a whale of a time and wanted to play this Ezri every week.
On the other hand, my usual appreciation of Nana Visitor in her shiny skintight costume as Intendant Kira was lacking, I think because I was enjoying Ezri so much. Or perhaps that was another case of too many trips to the same well. With one notable exception, when Intendant Kira kissed Ezri Tigan, there was nothing new to bring to the party, and the Intendent felt almost like a parody of herself.
The heavily implied lesbian subtext between this pair (reinforced in the close by a brief appearance from Chase Masterson, cleavage well to the for, spiriting Ezri off into half the audience’s fantasies) was a surprise, but immediately felt completely natural for the Intendent. Nana Visitor didn’t agree and disliked the idea.
The MacGuffin was Grand Negus Zek, seeking to open up new financial frontiers for the Ferengi and being held hostage by Regent Worf in return for a cloaking device, to be stolen by Quark and Rom. This was duly delivered but Rom, whilst installing it in the Regent’s ship, sabotages the whole kit’n’kaboodle so that as soon as it’s used it drains all power from the ship, forcing the Regent to surrender to the Rebels under Smiley O’Brien, implying a tying off of that story.
One quickly irritating aspect of the episode was Rom’s constant attempts to work out some kind of logic and rules behind the Alternate Universe being Alternate. That was apparently intentional, a sort of half-nod, half-raspberry to the fans who wanted the Mirror Universe to make Science Fictional sense as opposed to the big joke it was only ever meant to be.
But it was over and done. No more trips to either of those wells, even if the Intendent was allowed to get away to camp another day. I guess no-one had the heart to shoot her down.
Depending on whether the end sequence has nine or ten episodes (I have seen both quoted), that means there can only be four or five left that tell individual stories unrelated to the all-out Dominion War. I’m expecting at least one more Vic Fontaine because I’m ultimately a pessimist, but at least there’s no more Quark-centrics. I have outlasted them. Thank Heaven for small mercies.
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box September 4, 2018 August 28, 2018 625 Words4 Comments
Deep Space Nine: s07 e04 – Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Who da man?
After the heavily intense episodes of the past few weeks, it was obvious that we’d get a lightweight story for a change of pace. There’s usually one quite early in every season of DS9. And ‘Take me out to the Holosuite’, which was all about having a game of baseball, was as lightweight as they come, despite the attempt to back it up with a psychological angle. In fact, it was so lightweight, you practically had to tie an iron onto it to keep it from floating away. I was prepared to be rather bored, but in fact I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The set-up is that the Vulcan-manned Federation ship T’Kundra has docked at DS9 for two weeks of overhaul and upgrade. It’s commanded by Captain Solok who is a hate figure for Benjamin Sisko, and indeed he’s a right snotty superior pain-in-the-arse from the get-go, niggling all the time about not so much Vulcaan superiority as human inadequacy.
Solok’s done this since the pair were cadets and a drunk Sisko challenged him to a wrestling match and got whupped. For a supposedly emotionless Vulcan, Solok is a seriously vindictive shit, endlessly rubbing it in on Sisko, and now he’s brought a baseball holosuite game to challenge the Captain at his own personal sport. Sisko immediately orders the senior staff – which now appears to include Nog (?!) – to form a team and win.
That’s basically it, really. The team is swelled out by Rom, Leeta, Quark and Kasidy Yates. Rom is completely inept, which is a laugh because Max Grodenchik was a semi-professional baseball player and had to play left-handed to look authentically crap. Sisko throws him off the team, which causes the others to threaten a strike unless he’s reinstated. But there’s one of those little scenes that remind us, fourteen carat klutz that he may be, Rom is a truly good bloke: he only wants to be in the team on merit and he recognises he clearly hasn’t got any, so he won’t accept a false position.
Now, you’re all expecting that, on the day, the ‘Niners’ will pull off a victory all the more stunning for being so completely unexpected, and so did I. But this episode is more subtle than that. Basically, the DS9 team get thoroughly and deservedly whupped, 10-1, and Sisko gets thrown out for touching the umpire (Odo). But the episode shapes itself around that one, consolation run, which comes about through Sisko chucking Rom in as a pinch-hitter, his accidentally ‘hitting’ the perfect bunt and Nog stealing home, producing an ecstatic response from his team that carries over into Quark’s.
Solok doesn’t get it. He blames human emotionality (Ezri pipes up with ‘Did I forget to wear my spots today? He doesn’t even know what humans look like!’), suspects an artificial attempt to turn abject defeat into moral victory, but has to exit as everyone taunts him over his emotional investment in getting one over Sisko, but really they’re just celebrating having had fun, lots of fun, and that’s what makes this episode delightful, the copious amount of fun everyone’s clearly and genuinely having.
It still doesn’t turn me into a baseball enthusiast, cricket will always be a far more subtle, complex and involving game for me (and you couldn’t fake that onscreen as easily as DS9 does), but this was fun with its boots off, and I loved it.
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box July 10, 2018 July 3, 2018 580 Words2 Comments
Deep Space Nine: s06 e23 – Profit and Lace
This was a Ferengi story, and you know how I feel about Ferengi stories. In this one, Grand Negus Zek and Ishka, aka Moogie, turn up at DS9 because Zek has been deposed for pushing to allow Ferengi females to wear clothes and make profit. The new, Acting Grand Negus, to be confirmed in three days time, is Brunt. Zek plans to fight back. This involves producing Ishka to a leading and influential FCA member to show that letting females become human beings will be profitable. Unfortunately, Quark causes Ishka to have a heart attack, so another financially brilliant female has to be found at short notice. Since there isn’t one available, Quark undergoes a sex-change operation and drags up.
If you thought this was bad up to that point, and it was, from that moment on it was a hideous embarrassment, offensive and cliched at every point, all the way into the ridiculous close. From abut halfway through, I just wanted to switch this episode off and not have to see the rest of it. I wish I had. The absolute nadir. Everyone involved in it should have been put against a wall and shot.
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box May 29, 2018 May 22, 2018 196 Words2 Comments
Deep Space Nine: s06 e05/6 – Favors the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels
So the six-part (seven, if you count the final episode of season 5) Dominion War arc concluded with a two-parter of its own, and with the expected victory for the Federation in the re-taking of Deep Space Nine. This was originally intended to take a single episode, but the sheer profusion of events requiring to be covered forced its expansion, and the sheer volume of guest stars to accommodate.
Both parts were excellent, but I’m not sure if the first part, ‘Favors the Bold’, wasn’t the better of the two. Though the double-episode structure meant that it was all build-up and no resolution, after the relatively innocuous open (the Defiant acting as a decoy to attract Jem’Hadar ships to be destroyed by it and the Rotaran), the episode started on the edge, and remained on the edge throughout.
The Federation are losing the War, and morale is falling at the constantly defensive stance. The Federation needs to go on the attack and Sisko has drawn up a plan: the retaking of DS9, and regaining control of the Wormhole.
Meanwhile, on DS9, Rom is still in the cells. He’s been declared a terrorist against the Dominion and there is only one sentence: execution. Kira can’t get Weyoun to change his mind, Ziya can’t get her father, Gul Dukat, to change his mind either. Leeta and Quark are trying to encourage Rom: Quark promises he will get him out, and that’s before Leeta agrees to run the dabo wheel for two years for free.
But Rom is adamant that he is unimportant. He should not be rescued. The anti-graviton beam must be sabotaged before it can neutralise the minefield on the Wormhole. Billions of lives depend on the War. Quark must take over from him. Though Quark refuses, it’s only because he’s afraid. He’s not being Quark, not being Ferengi, he’s taking everything seriously and it’s strange but I like him better here than I ever have before.
Meanwhile, Odo has been closeted with the Female Changeling for three days, not that he’s been aware of time. They’ve been communing, both via the Great Link – which is slowly beginning to addict Odo – and the way solids do (wipes mind of image thus produced). In every way except actively, he’s gone over to the other side. Kira can’t even get in to see him.
Next, Demar, still knocking back the booze like it’s going out of fashion, lets on to Quark that the mines will be swept within the week, Quark gets this out to Sisko via Morn, and the Federation attack has to go ahead without delay: without half the planned fleets, and without the Klingons. Oh, and with Ensign Nog, who gets a promotion from Cadet!
I hadn’t immediately realised this was going to be a two-parter, though as we got into the last five minutes or so, this became obvious. The Fleet is on its way. Sisko’s back in the Captain’s chair on the Defiant. O’Brien and Bashir are trading lines from The Charge of the Light Brigade, much to Nog’s consternation, and the Dominion fleet comes up ahead: 1254 ships, outnumbering the Federation more than two to one. Let battle commence.
The title of the second episode filled me with foreboding from the outset, a foreboding that was realised, though strictly speaking it related to a different kind of sacrifice.
With the Fleet now engaged in battle, the Cardassian/Dominion War counsel, Dukat, Demar, Weyoun and the Female Changeling, takes the entirely sensible decision to arrest the Resistance: Kira, Jake and Leeta are hauled in for questioning, but once Dukat has achieved the victory he’s so delightedly anticipating, everyone’s going to be for the chop.
Sisko’s battle plan is to concentrate fire on the Cardassian ships, hoping to provoke them into the kid of direct response that will break the formation, leaving a hole the Defiant et al can punch through. Dukat recognises this and orders the necessary ships to break, intending to create a trap: Bashir recognises the tactic. But it’s all they’ve got, they’ve got to go for it.
With the aid of a timely arrival of a Klingon fleet under Martok and Worf, the Defiant breaks through, alone, and barrels towards DS9. But the time until when the mines will be eradicated is getting tight. Quark and Zyal break the Resistance out of the cells. Odo puts the agonising appeal of the Link aside to ensure Kira is not killed. She and Rom feverishly work at dsabling the station’s weapons array and succeed. There’s only a second in it. But it’s not the cliche second that saves the day. It’s a second late. The mines are cleared, a Dominion fleet of 2800 ships starts through the Wormhole and Sisko, knowing it’s suicide for everyone but having no other alternatives, takes the Defiant into the Wormhole to face them. Alone.
And here is the ending that, for many people, was a letdown, and in a way it was, because all deus ex machina endings are, by definition, a cheat upon drama, but this ending was integral to the entire Deep Space Nine arc. Because Sisko is the Emissary. And the Emissary was taken to the place of the Prophets, against his will, and there told that he is not allowed to die, not allowed to end the game. He rants and raves, demands to be returned, challenges the Prophets that, if they are Gods, they owe a duty to their children. We’re a long way from the Emissary’s complete scepticism and discomfort at his role.
And the Prophets return him, and they use their powers to sweep away, without trace, the entire Dominion Fleet. Deus ex machina, and with real deus’s who exist within the overarching storyline. You can see why people thought it weak, thought it a cheat. Is it a cheat to build just the very thing into your five-years-long-so-far story? I don’t have an answer to that. But I didn’t feel cheated on an emotional level.
But there will be a price for intervention. Sisko, who has declared his intention of building a home on Bajor, will not know peace. And before then, there will be another sacrifice.
When the Defiant emerges from the Wormhole alone there is a general consternation on DS9 and an immediate decision to head for the lifeboats, Female Changelings first. Dukat can’t believe it. They’d won. They’d won. How could this have happened?
It’s everybody out, but Dukat won’t leave without Ziyal. He’s already half-crazed, which is worsened when she refuses to leave with him. Here is her home. she is not a true Cardassian. Though she loved him, she has acted against him, freeing Kira and the rest. And Demar, who has heard all this, draws his gun and cuts her down. Dukat goes over the edge.
So Sisko and co return to DS9, to a hero’s welcome. Everyone’s there to meet them, except Kira, who’s in the infirmary with Ziya. When he hears this, Garak heads straight there. Kira informs him that Ziya loved him. Garak’s response is deeply sad: he says that he knew, but he could never understand why. Now, he never will.
Dukat is still in DS9, collapsed into madness. He is sobbing his forgiveness of Ziya, of others. He returns Sisko’s baseball, tells him he forgives him too. It is a sober moment in the middle of victory.
To be honest, I am already wondering about what happens next. I know the subject of the next episode, but it is what the series does from episode eight onwards that concerns me. The Dominion have not been defeated. They have not given up their war or their plan. The Wormhole is still there: are the Prophets going to wipe out every Dominion ship that tries to go through it?
I really hope we don’t go back to the kind of individual stories that have dominated earlier series. Things have changed irreversibly and that would be a total letdown.
However, it’s a case of waiting for future episodes to come round on schedule. I will wait and see.
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box January 30, 2018 January 23, 2018 1,359 Words2 Comments
Deep Space Nine: s05 e26 – Call to Arms
Don’t make yourself too comfortable…
This is the point that’s taken me over two years to reach, the outermost point of those evenings twenty years ago, of sprawling in front of the BBC2 showings of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The end of season 5, the start of the Dominion War. By the time DS9 came back, I had a house full of people, and coming in, throwing off my jacket and tie and sprawling on the couch was no longer an viable option.
I started watching DS9 from the beginning to fill in the beginning and end of a middle that, falsely, I remembered as stretching maybe as much as three seasons. When I finally caught up with my recollections, it turned out to be not even one full season. But the end of season 5 concludes that phase of the rewatch. Ahead of me lies terra incognita, just as much as if things had never gone the way they did and I had remained free to watch TV whenever I felt like it.
‘Call to Arms’ might have begun with the comic note of Rom and Leeta trying to agree a wedding dress for a ceremony in which, under Ferengi culture, she should have been naked (insert your own shallow comment here), but swiftly modulated to the tension that underlies the approach of war. The Dominion are bringing in warfleets every week, via the Wormhole, en route to Cardassia, regular as clockwork. Sisko has to take a decision: do nothing, and allow an irresistible fleet to be assembled, capable of ultimate victory when it chooses to act, or halt the incoming reinforcements, and preciptate war now.
The only choice, if victory is to be possible, is the latter: Sisko orders the entrance to the Wormhole to be mined.
Weyoun appears, to protest, to suggest a deal by which the mines are removed and the Dominion limits itself to civilian ships, medical and economic assistance for the poor, stricken Cardassian Empire. Sisko will consult the Federation, which isn’t sending its own reinforcements, for reasons we won’t learn until the end (a Federation/Klingon attack that destroys the Dominion shipyards in Cardassian territory). No-one believes anything for a moment.
War is coming. Everyone’s preparing for it. Keiko O’Brien and the children have been evacuated back to Earth, Jake Sisko won’t go because a reporter’s duty is to be where the action is. The Romulan Empire has signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion, Sisko advises Bajor to do the same, over Major Kira’s protests: five years ago, he was assigned to DS9 to protect Bajor after it gained its independence and that duty still remains, so he will use his position as Emissary to take them out of the firing line.
All Bajorans evacuate. Rom and Leeta get Sisko to marry them, before she is ordered to go: Rom has a duty to stay as a Starfleet member, and a duty to protect his brother, who seems for once to appreciate this. Gul Dukat’s half-Bajoran daughter, Tora Ziyal parts reluctantly from Garak. Quark starts smuggling in yamok sauce. Odo and Kira are still acting awkwardly around each other until Odo officially tells her that he’s locking away his feelings for the duration (some of these scenes are more effective emotionally than others: you can actually hear the writing staff’s cheers of relief underlying this one).
Seeding the wormhole with self-replicating mines (Rom’s suggestion) takes time, and the Defiant will be a sitting duck until it has finished. And it is not finished when the War steps across the line between coming and arriving. A Dominion/Cardassian fleet under Gul Dukat comes to attack DS9. General Martok’s Klingon Warbird protects the Defiant. The station defends itself steadfastly, destroying 50 ships. But once the seeding is done, it is time to take the inevitable decision. Deep Space Nine is lost: the Federation will evacuate.
Not permanently. Sisko, his staff and Garak depart to join a major fleet approaching DS9. McArthur-like, he promises he will return. Quark’s bar stays open. Rom rejoins him as Assistant Manager and (self-proclaimed?) Federation spy. Jake remains as a journalist, trusting in his ‘status’ as the emissary’s son to protect him.
Major Kira, Odo and Quark officially greet Dukat’s return to Terak Nor. The Major has already initiated a Sisko-developed programme that thoroughly wipes the control room computers of any ability to function.
But although it’s not the final shot, that being the cliched one of Sisko looking defiant, the episode and the series ends with a very effective moment. Gul Dukat commandeers the station commander’s office: his again, after five long years of waiting for revenge. It has been stripped of everything, but one item, Sisko’s baseball. Dukat recognises it as a message. Sisko is coming back.
We move onwards, I move onwards towards the only real step into the future since I began this series back in October 2015. Everything until now has been backing and filling, getting up to speed with the background to that brief period of which I was already aware. Forward I go.
Next week being Christmas week, I haven’t decided yet whether or not to take a week’s break. It is a perfect point to do so, but on the other hand, habit is habit. If you don’t get a DS9 post off me next Tuesday, that’ll be why, and we’ll pick things up again in the New Year.
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box December 19, 2017 December 12, 2017 910 Words2 Comments
Deep Space Nine: s05 e20: Ferengi Love Songs
Oh boy, another Quark-episode. That’s two in three weeks. My cup runneth over.
This is going to be short because I plain did not enjoy this week’s episode, in which even the B story – once again a momentary sideshow – was a Ferengi story, about Rom and Leeta. I cannot summon the remotest interest in Quark, the Ferengi way of life, nor the fact that Deep Space Nine‘s most uncomic relief is gradually being softened by being given elements of a conscience.
To summarise: the bar is shut down because of an infestation of voles. Quark is depressed, even more so after Rom and Leeta announce that they’re going to get married. Rom suggests he go visit their mother. When he does, Quark discovers Moogie is having an affair with Grand Negus Zek, which has to be kept secret. However, it’s known to Quark’s old enemy, Brunt, FCA, who bribes him to poison the relationship in exchange for getting back his Business Licence. Quark does so, though why anyone believes him is always a mystery because he’s the most unconvincing liar of all time, since Shimerman puts him into a most artificial and blatant change of voice and demeanour. Sigh.
So Moogie is heartbroken but Quark’s restored. Zek summons him to become his First Clerk, whereupon Quark immediately learns that the Grand Negus’s memory is going (had Altzheimers been named in 1996?). Between them the economy drops 199 points in a day, which was all part of Brunt’s plan: he wants Zek ousted as Grand Negus and to take over himself. Quark, having developed something of a conscience through too much exposure to Hu-mons, helps Zek fight everyone off (totally offscreen and thus totally a cop-out) before revealing that all his helpful suggestions came from Moogie. She’s reinstated, Brunt threatens that he’ll watch Quark, that story’s over after what felt like several hours.
Rom and Leeta? The wedding’s off after Rom, disturbed by gossip about him not being a traditional Ferengi male, tries to get Leeta to sign awaiver of all claims on his profits and she refuses. The two are miserable until Rom gives all his profits away to charity, whereupon they snog on the promenade and I would be envious of Max Grodenchik if he weren’t wearing so much Ferengi make-up that he probably couldn’t feel a thing.
Next week’s episode will be considerably better and more entertaining. By definition.
By mbc1955in The Goggle-Box November 7, 2017 November 2, 2017 401 Words2 Comments
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Andorians, Starfleet personnel, Starfleet personnel (25th century),
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) personnel
Va'Kel Shon
Revision as of 15:02, June 14, 2018 by Typhuss999 (Talk | contribs)
Captain Shon in 2410
Andorian
Male (thaan or chan)
Homeworld:
Vega colony, Vega IX
Spouse(s):
Tress Shon
Starfleet officer
Previous Assignment:
CO, USS Belfast
CO, USS Enterprise-F
For Shon's mirror universe counterpart, see Val Shon.
Va'Kel Shon was a male Andorian Starfleet officer who held the rank of Captain. He served as commanding officer of the USS Belfast and later the USS Enterprise-F. (ST video game: Star Trek Online)
By 2409 Shon had been serving in Starfleet for twenty-three years, primarily as a tactical officer. He had been on three deep space exploration missions and fourteen first contact missions, and had also served as a liaison to the Romulans after the Hobus supernova. (STO mission: "First Contact Day")
Shon's wife, Tress, and children were listed as missing, presumed dead after the 2409 Borg attack on the Vega colony, their home planet. (STO short story: "Mirror Image")
Not long after the formation of the Romulan Republic, Shon's USS Belfast was assigned to Battlegroup Phi and responded to an Elachi invasion of New Romulus along with several other Starfleet and Klingon Defense Force vessels. (STO missions: "Devil's Choice", "Shadow Play")
Soon afterward, Shon took custody of former Praetor Taris after she was apprehended by another Starfleet captain in the Iconia system. (STO - "Romulan Mystery" mission: "Taris")
Shon represented the Federation during the Borg Conference on Deep Space 9, and took part in the running firefight that ensued when time-shifted Dominion forces under First Kar'ukan attacked through the Bajoran wormhole. (STO - "The 2800" mission: "Second Wave")
Shon engaged the Jem'Hadar at Facility 4028. He managed to push them back but lost the Belfast and most of her crew. (STO - "The 2800" mission: "Facility 4028")
After the battle, he was offered command of the newly commissioned USS Enterprise-F. He intended to turn down the offer, as he felt that Data should take command of the new ship. After meeting with Data, he changed his mind and accepted when Data encouraged him to take the command. (STO short story: "Unexpected Honor")
Shon's command of the Enterprise led the Andorians to feel that they had returned to prominence in the Federation. (ST magazine: "Star Trek Magazine #40")
In one of his first missions on the Enterprise, he led the assault against the Dominion fleet at Deep Space 9. The fleet was able to retake the station. (STO - "The 2800" mission: "Boldly They Rode")
Sometime later, Captain Shon commanded the Enterprise in missions to the Tau Dewa sector block, assisting in efforts to secure it against threats to the recently established Romulan Republic. (STO mission: "Tau Dewa Sector Patrol (Daily)")
Shon and the Enterprise were later summoned to New Romulus to be on hand for the activation of an Iconian gateway. The gateway activated, but a malfunction or misalignment triggered a seismic event, and Shon, Worf, and a party of Romulan, Federation and Klingon personnel were forced to escape through the gateway. They found themselves inside Storage Facility Z98. While investigating, Shon was captured by the Solanae and experimented on. He was rescued by Worf and one of the captains from the New Romulus alliance delegation. Shon, Worf, and the other survivors then stole a ship, the Obelisk 1, and made their escape through a gateway to the Jouret system where, fighting alongside the flagships of the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Republic, they engaged and defeated a fleet of Elachi vessels. After the engagement, Captain Shon advocated destroying the gateway, but relented, and was ordered otherwise, because the gate was in Romulan jurisdiction and the presence of Omega particles was detected on the other side. (STO - "Solanae Dyson Sphere" mission: "Sphere of Influence")
Very late in 2409, Shon and the other two flagships fought as part of a large fleet to prevent the Voth from activating the Solanae Dyson sphere's jump capability, eventually pursuing the USS Dyson and a Voth Citadel-class dreadnought through another Iconian space gate into the Jenolan Dyson sphere, where the four ships were able to stymie an Undine fleet's attempt to capture the Dyson sphere.
After this, a Mexican standoff ensued between the three flagship captains: Captain Koren of the IKS Bortasqu' tried to claim the sphere as property of the Klingon Empire, while Shon disputed the claim on grounds of the Federation's prior possession. Commander Tiaru Jarok of the RRW Lleiset tried to claim the sphere as an ostensibly neutral party, but was shouted down. Rear Admiral Tuvok managed to defuse the standoff and invited all concerned parties to a summit in the sphere to settle the argument diplomatically. (STO - "Solanae Dyson Sphere" mission: "A Step Between Stars")
In 2410 Shon attended the conference. When the Empire's Ambassador S'taass accused the Federation of hypocrisy in dragging its feet in dealing with the Undine in the past, and then rushing to defend what it saw as its property when directly threatened, Ambassador Jiro Sugihara started to downplay the issue, but Shon interrupted Sugihara and admitted that the Federation had been in the wrong. When the Undine in turn interrupted the entire conference, Shon took the Enterprise to the Sol system to aid in the defense, and headed for Luna to clear away the attackers there. Shon subsequently led Starfleet reinforcements to Qo'noS to help repel an Undine assault on the Klingon capital.
When an Undine planet killer appeared through a giant fluidic space rift late in the battle, Shon launched from the Enterprise in the USS Aquarius and, with an allied starship escorting him, rammed it into a hull breach opened by a nanite torpedo from the USS Voyager. Voyager was able to beam him off just before impact, and he subsequently made an appearance at the victory celebration on Qo'noS. (STO - "Solanae Dyson Sphere" mission: "Surface Tension")
Alternate timelines
In an alternate timeline where the Klingon Empire conquered the Federation in the 2360s and was in turn conquered by the Dominion, Va'Kel Shon was the skipper of a freighter called the Belfast employed by the Tholian Assembly. He had a family in this timeline. During a stopover at a Tholian space station in the Azure Nebula in 2409, he encountered the alternate timeline counterpart of a captain from the prime universe, who may have convinced him to distract a Tholian guard so the captain could infiltrate the control center and free the USS Enterprise-C. This timeline was erased when the Enterprise escaped the station and returned to Narendra III in 2344. (STO mission: "Temporal Ambassador")
In another alternate timeline, when Shon was only 12 years old, the Dominion defeated the Federation Alliance and enslaved most of the galaxy. Shon was part of a resistance movement that took advantage of the Borg-Dominion War in an attempt to overthrow the Dominion. He was the commanding officer of a stolen Jem'Hadar Dreadnought named Belfast. He and a captain from the prime timeline destroyed the founders by engineering a virus that would destroy them, this left the Dominion without crucial leaders in the war with the Borg who eventually defeated them, however the Borg then assimilated the entire galaxy and used transwarp conduits to invade the Andromeda galaxy where the Borg-Iconian War began. (STO short story: "The Darkest Timeline")
This section is written
from the Real World
point of view.
Va'Kel Shon is voiced by Dave Rivas in Star Trek Online. Rivas also portrays Hakeev and Eric Cooper (as well as Cooper's Undine replacement).
USS Enterprise-F personnel
25th century (from 2409)
Jirelle Kav • Kyona • Phillipa Matthias • Kirayoshi O'Brien • Savel • Va'Kel Shon • Tem Inasi • Samuel Winters
alternate timeline 2382-2388
Krueger • Geordi La Forge • Tom Paris • Jean-Luc Picard • William T. Riker • Deanna Troi
alternate timeline 2408
Blair • Data • Hauman • Lamont • Margolin • Tucker
Commanding officers of the ships Enterprise
Enterprise (NX-01) (alternate timelines)
Archer • T'Pol • Tucker • Lorian
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
Rasmussen • April • Pike • Vlasidovich • Kirk • Zarlo • Decker • Spock
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701's predecessor) (Kelvin timeline)
April • Marcus
USS Enterprise (Kelvin timeline)
Pike • Spock • Kirk
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) (other alternate realities)
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Egypt: “Trade union rights are our way to social justice” – new leaflet
To download this article as a leaflet click here
Workers from Alexandria Containers Company and trade unionists protest over the jail sentences handed down to 5 of their colleagues for leading a strike, September 2012 – picture via revsoc.me
Since the revolution of 2011 nearly 1000 independent trade unions have been created in Egypt. Under the old regime, the sole legal trade union was the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which was controlled by the state. The independent unions have been at the heart of workers’ struggles to realise the revolution’s demands of ‘bread, freedom and social justice’. Now independent trade unionists are facing a new wave of attacks from the Muslim Brotherhood government. Hundreds of activists have been sacked and victimised, and dozens hauled through the courts. In this article Egyptian workers and activists explain why they are fighting for a law on trade union freedoms and what is wrong with the draft labour law proposed by the Egyptian government.
What’s wrong with the Brotherhood’s law?
“A law on trade union freedoms covers everyone’s rights to organise: workers, farmers, professionals, fishermen, service workers, homeworkers, temporary and seasonal workers. But the Brotherhood’s law bans our civilian colleagues in the police and army from their right to form unions to defend their rights, although they are among the people who need unions the most.
The Brotherhood’s draft law proposes trade union structures in the form of a pyramid (workplace union committees – general unions – general federation). All authority is concentrated in the general federation, which the government or security forces can put under pressure, while the workplace union committees have no powers.
We want unions, not the federation to have full rights to negotiate and take the decision to strike. Workers themselves are the decision-makers. They must be able to elect their leaders freely and exercise authority over them.
In the Brotherhood’s draft law workers who leave the ETUF affiliated general unions will lose their deposits in their retirement funds. In the draft law the employer can ban workers from trade union activities and from organising elections (clause 30) because trade union activities and elections are only permitted “if they do not affect the course of work in the institution”.
Clause 39 imposes a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds on trade unionists for ‘spreading false information’. By contrast employers who sack workers for trade union activity only have to pay a 1000 pound fine. The law allows the Ministry of Labour to intervene in trade union affairs. We want to reduce the Ministry’s role to the minimum, because we know that the Ministry always used to interfere in union elections by forging the results in favour of the people the government and the security forces wanted to get elected.”
The “Trade union rights are our way to social justice” Campaign
Find out more about the campaign here
Striking workers victimised
Five workers for the Alexandria Containers Company were sacked from their jobs and sentenced to 3 years in prison in September 2012 after leading a strike against corruption in the company. Over 400 workers in 24 different workplaces have been sacked for their trade union activities over the past year and a half. These include more than 50 workers in the General Tax Authority and the Sales Tax Authority who were sacked for blowing the whistle on corruption. In another example of mass sackings, 1560 workers from the state petroleum company Petrojet were sacked during the revolution and the company has refused to take them back.
Petrojet workers demonstrate 6 November
Picture Mahmoud Badawi via revsoc.me
‘The courts are trying to intimidate workers’
We have seen a large increase in police attacks on striking workers in recent months. I am often called to represent workers who are being interrogated by the prosecutors following their arrest during strikes and protests. The right to strike is recognised in Egyptian law, so the prosecutors will use charges of criminal damage, assault or ‘aggression against the right to work’ against striking workers.
We have seen cases recently where courts have handed down prison sentences against workers in absentia. The aim is clearly to intimidate and frighten workers into dropping their demands. We are trying to build a strong movement in solidarity with workers who are arrested and victimised.
Haitham Mohamedain – labour lawyer
“We are standing up for ordinary citizens”
Muhammad Hardan – Union of Water Company Workers
We set up our independent union after the revolution. We collected signatures from colleagues who wanted to join and began to get organised. But management fought back and threw a lot of false accusations against us. They accused us of causing riots and criminal damage. Then management tried to buy us off, they failed because we were united. After the revolution, a new minister of water was appointed and he was someone from the old regime. The first thing he thought of was raising the price of water for people. The independent union was against this completely. We are standing with ordinary citizens and fighting for their right to clean drinking water in their homes. Our campaign was successful and the minister withdrew the price rises.
“Workers in our industry have nothing”
Ibrahim – Building Workers Union
Workers in our sector have nothing – no social insurance, medical care or employment rights like government employees, for example. Many building workers used to travel abroad to work and there was a scam by companies which would take money equivalent to half a years’ salary from workers in order to help them travel, then they would be working essentially as slaves until they repaid the debt. Workers who had an accident at work would be left penniless and their children reduced to begging. Before the revolution a group of us asked the government for permission to set up a social fund for building workers but this was refused. Then came the revolution and a lot of us were involved. We organised an independent union, but the battle still goes, because we do not yet have a law on trade union freedoms.
Send a message of solidarity to the campaign via the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) efitu.union@hotmail.com
Send a letter of protest to the Egyptian authorities calling on them to respect workers’ rights to organise and strike
Invite a speaker from MENA Solidarity Network to your union branch meeting. MENA Solidarity has organised three delegations of UK and Irish trade unionists to Egypt since the revolution, most recently at the beginning of November 2012 (menasolidarity@gmail.com)
Go to https://menasolidaritynetwork.com/2012/09/18/toolkit/ for a strike solidarity toolkit
November 14, 2012 in Campaign, EFITU, Egypt.
Egypt: Independent Union Federation joins Tahrir sit-in
Egypt: “After tasting freedom, we will not be slaves again” – a trade unionist’s view on Morsi’s fall
← Event: Jalila al-Salman’s message to parliament meeting
Tunisia: Teachers’ union leader from Kasserine visits UK →
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Martijn Cremers
Martin J. Gillen Dean and the Bernard J. Hank Professor of Finance
mcremers@nd.edu
258 Mendoza College of Business
K.J. Martijn Cremers is the Martin J. Gillen Dean and the Bernard J. Hank Professor of Finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He served as interim dean at Mendoza from July 2018 to June 2019. Prior to joining Notre Dame in 2012, Cremers was a faculty member at the Yale School of Management from 2002 to 2012. His research and teaching areas are investment management, corporate finance, corporate governance, corporate law, business ethics and Catholic social thought.
His co-authored paper “How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure that Predicts Performance” (published in 2009 in the Review of Financial Studies) introduced Active Share, an innovative tool for determining the extent of active mutual fund management by measuring the percentage of stock holdings in a manager's portfolio that differs from the benchmark index. Active Share has become widely used in the financial industry and was incorporated in Morningstar Direct and FactSet.
His recent awards and distinctions include receiving an honorary degree and serving as the 2019 commencement speaker for Holy Cross College at Notre Dame in May 2019. Cremers’ research awards include the Best Paper Award in Corporate Finance/Financial Institutions at the 2019 FMA European Conference for “Stakeholder Orientation and Firm Value” and the Best Paper of the Conference Award at the 26th (2019) Finance Forum (Spanish Finance Association AEFIN) for “Shadow Pills, Actual Pill Policy, and Firm Value.”
Cremers has long-standing consulting relationships with various investment managers, including State Street Associates and Touchstone Investments. He serves as an independent director at Ariel Investments, an investment company located in Chicago.
A native of the Netherlands, Cremers earned his master’s degree from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and his Ph.D. from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Cremers and his wife Liesbeth reside in South Bend, Indiana, with their six children, ages 2 to 16.
Ph D, Stern School of Business, New York University
MS, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
European Financial Management
Review of Finance
January 1, 2010 - December 31, 2013
Review of Financial Studies
Corporate Governance & Catholic Social Teaching
Fixed Income Securities I
Fixed Income Securities II
"Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Active Management: A Review of the Past 20 Years of Academic Literature on Actively Managed Mutual Funds", (With John Fulkerson, Tim Riley), Financial Analysts Journal, 75, 2019
"Is the Staggered Board Debate Really Settled?", (With Simone Sepe, Saura Masconale), University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, 2019
"Short-Term Investors, Long-Term Investments, and Firm Value: Evidence from Russell 2000 Index Inclusions", (With Ankur Pareek, Zacharias Sautner), Management Science, 2019 - Accepted (awaiting publication)
"Institutional Investors, Corporate Governance and Firm Value", (With Simone Sepe), Seattle University Law Review, 41, 2018
"Active Share and the Three Pillars of Active Management: Skill, Conviction and Opportunity", Financial Analysts Journal, 73, 2017
"CEO Pay Redux", (With Saura Masconale, Simone Sepe), Texas Law Review, 96, 2017
"Pension Fund Asset Allocation and Liability Discount Rates", (With Aleksandar Andonov, Rob Bauer), Review of Financial Studies, 30, 2017
"Staggered Boards and Long-Term Firm Value, Revisited", (With Lubomir Litov, Simone Sepe), Journal of Financial Economics, 126, 2017
"Activist Hedge Funds and the Corporation", (With Simone Sepe, Saura Masconale), Washington University Law Review, 94, 2016
"Commitment and Entrenchment in Corporate Governance", (With Saura Masconale, Simone Sepe), Northwestern Law Review, 110, 2016
"Do Mutual Fund Investors Get What They Pay For? The Legal Consequences of Closet Index Funds", (With Quinn Curtis), Virginia Law & Business Review, 11, 2016
"Indexing and Active Fund Management: International Evidence", (With Miguel Ferreira, Pedro Matos, Laura Starks), Journal of Financial Economics, 120, 2016
"Patient Capital Outperformance: The Investment Skill of High Active Share Managers Who Trade Infrequently", (With Ankur Pareek), Journal of Financial Economics, 122, 2016
"The Shareholder Value of Empowered Boards", (With Simone Sepe), Stanford Law Review, 68, 2016
"Uncertainty and Valuations", (With Hongjun Yan), Critical Finance Review, 5, 2016
"Aggregate Jump and Volatility Risk in the Cross-Section of Stock Returns", (With Michael Halling, David Weinbaum), Journal of Finance, 70, 2015
"Short-Term Trading and Stock Return Anomalies: Momentum, Reversal and Share Issuance", (With Ankur Pareek), Review of Finance, 19, 2015
"Does the Market for CEO Talent Explain Controversial CEO Pay Practices?", (With Yaniv Grinstein), Review of Finance, 18, 2014
"Thirty Years of Shareholder Rights and Firm Valuation", (With Allen Ferrell), Journal of Finance, 69, 2014
"Should Benchmark Indices Have Alpha? Revisiting Performance Evaluation", (With Antti Petajisto, Eric Zitzewitz), Critical Finance Review, 2, 2013
"Tiebreaker: Certification and Multiple Ratings", (With Dion Bongaerts, William Goetzmann), Journal of Finance, 67, 2012
"CEO Pay Slice and Firm Performance", (With Lucian Bebchuk, Urs Peyer), Journal of Financial Economics, 102, 2011
"Institutional Investors and Proxy Voting: The Impact of the 2003 Mutual Fund Voting Disclosure Regulation", (With Roberta Romano), American Law and Economics Review, 13, 2011
"Internal Capital Markets and Corporate Politics in a Banking Group", (With Rocco Huang, Zacharias Sautner), Review of Financial Studies, 24, 2011
"Deviations from Put-Call Parity and Stock Return Predictability", (With David Weinbaum), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 45, 2010
"Does skin in the game matter? Director incentives and governance in the mutual fund industry", (With Joost Driessen, Pascal Maenhout, David Weinbaum), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 44, 2009
"How active is your fund manager? A new measure that predicts performance", (With Antti Petajisto), Review of Financial Studies , 22, 2009
"Takeovers and the cross-section of returns", (With Vinay Nair, Kose John), Review of Financial Studies , 22, 2009
"Explaining the level of credit spreads: option-implied jump risk premia in a firm value model", (With Joost Driessen, Pascal Maenhout), Review of Financial Studies, 21, 2008
"Individual stock-price implied volatility and credit spreads", (With Joost Driessen, Pascal Maenhout, David Weinbaum), Journal of Banking and Finance, 32, 2008
"Takeover Defenses and Competition: the Role of Stakeholders", (With Vinay Nair, Urs Peyer), Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 5, 2008
"Governance mechanisms and bond prices", (With Vinay Nair, Jason Wei), Review of Financial Studies, 20, 2007
"Turning over turnover", (With Jianping Mei), Review of Financial Studies, 20, 2007
"Multifactor efficiency, state variables and Bayesian inference", Journal of Business, 79, 2006
"Governance mechanisms and equity prices", (With Vinay Nair), Journal of Finance, 60, 2005
"Stock return predictability: A Bayesian model selection perspective", Review of Financial Studies, 15, 2002
"Second-place Winner, 2013 SPIVA (‘S&P Indices Versus Active’) Research Awards", SPIVA (‘S&P Indices Versus Active’) Research Awards, 2014
"Winner of the Best Academic Paper award at the 2014 annual corporate governance symposium", the University of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance , 2014
"Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute, Research Grant, 2013-2014", Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute, 2013
"Q Group (The Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance) Research Grant, 2013-2014 for “Patient Capital Outperformance”", Q Group, 2013
"Winner of the Journal of Investment Consulting’s 2013 academic paper competition for “Emerging Market Outperformance: Public‐Traded Affiliates of Multinational Corporations”", Journal of Investment Consulting, 2013
"Inquire Europe Research Grant for “Can Large Pension Funds Beat the Market? Asset Allocation, Market Timing, Security Selection and the Limits of Liquidity”", Inquire Europe, 2012
"Outstanding Investments Paper award for “Can Large Pension Funds Beat the Market?"", Eastern Finance Association , 2012
"Pension Fund Research Grant", Rotman International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM, University of Toronto) , 2012
"Academic Competition Award (2nd place) for “Short-Term Trading and Stock Return Anomalies: Momentum, Reversal and Share Issuance”", Chicago Quantitative Alliance (CQA) , 2010
"Distinguished Referee Award", Review of Financial Studies, 2010
"Inquire Europe Research Grant", Inquire Europe, 2010
"Pension Funds Research Grant", Rotman International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM, University of Toronto) , 2010
"Roger F. Murray Prize 2010 (3rd place) for the best paper presentation at the Q group conferences in 2009 for “Should Benchmark Indices Have Alpha? Revisiting Performance Evaluation”", Q group, 2010
"Finalist for Wheeler Award for Quantitative and Behavioral Research in Finance for “Should Benchmark Indices Have Alpha? Revisiting Performance Evaluation”", Numeric Investors, 2008
"Robert C. Clark Corporate Governance Fund Research Grant ($100,000, with Allen Ferrell) for coding data for “Thirty years of shareholder rights and firm valuation”", Harvard Law School, 2008
"Winner (first price) of the Wheeler Award for Quantitative and Behavioral Research in Finance, for “Deviations from Put-Call Parity and Stock Return Predictability”", Numeric Investors, 2008
"Crowell Memorial Prize Award (3rd place) for “Deviations from Put-Call Parity and Stock Return Predictability”", PanAgora Asset Management, 2007
"Best paper award at the 2006 Financial Research Association annual meeting in Las Vegas for “How active is your fund manager?”", Financial Research Association , 2006
"Finalist for the Smith Breeden Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Finance in 2005", Journal of Finance, 2006
"BSI/Gamma Foundation Research Grant", BSI/Gamma Foundation, 2002
"Crowell Memorial Prize Award (2nd place)", PanAgora Asset Management, 2001
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Home Miami Hurricane Page 1
Miami Hurricane, August 10, 1962
Student Union Construction Set For January
by SUSAN ENGLAND Harriet*« Maatfiat Mrtar
The Board of Trustees Tuesday cleared the way financially for a new Student Union complete with swimming pool.
Construction on the union will begin Jan. 1, 1963, and be open to students 12 months later, according to Dr. Henry King Stanford, University president.
The University will consider bids for construction after architect Robert M. Little completes the detailed drawings.
The current plans include a two story basic structure built around the main dining area. Floors can be added vertically in the future.
Aside from the main dining, everything will be tom down and remodeled. The space now occupied by the patio and the rocky area extending toward the lake will be replaced by an Olympic size swimming pool, cabanas and a snack bar.
The new building is to be entirely air-conditioned except for an “open-air” recreation room on the first floor with ping pong and billiards tables. In the adjacent room will be 12 regulation size, automatic bowling lanes, installed to help pay the debt for the new building.
A post office, barber shop and two-story bookstore are other features that will be housed in the union. Separate TV and study rooms are on the second floor adjoining the music library and listening room.
There are five portioned dining areas which can be made into a large banquet room. A snack bar in the pool area, a coffee shop and an "Eye of the Hurricane" soda shop are proposed. The latter, to be built where the present fountain is, will have tables, booths and possibly a jukebox. A place for fraternity tables has not yet been designated.
The new union will alto have several meeting rooms with folding partitions to regulate size. Offices for Union administrators, student publications, government and activities tre located throughout the $2,180,000 edifice.
As yet, no office space has been specificially assigned. Bowling and swimming rates have not been established yet either.
The Mia
Vol. XXXVII, No. 31
University or Hum
Gables, Fla.
Stanford Is Official Spokesman
Trustees Adopt New Policy; ‘Censorship’ Ruling Is Out
\ •
Plat) Sr UM Patti Ctatar
What’s up Doc? Here Dr. Stanford, University President and John O’Day, director of the physical plant, check over the University's master plan selecting a possible site for the next building to go up. Now that the Student Union has been confirmed, reconfirmed and finally given the "go-ahead" the next building under consideration is the much needed science building.
Faculty, Administrators Act
Officials OK New. Policies
The Board of Trustees this week approved revisions of the policy concerning faculty tenure.
The changes, which had been under study for almost a year by faculty and administrative committees, are in general accord with recommendations published by the American Association of University Professors and the American Association of Colleges, according to Dr. C. Doren Tharp, vice president and dean of faculties.
The new tenure policy is not retroactive and applies only to faculty members appointed after Aug. 7.
Some changes were made concerning the probationary period which each faculty member must serve before beginning tenure.
The period is now set at seven years of teaching in accredited colleges or universities, including a minimum number of years at this university. This minimum UM service varies according to the rank of the faculty member.
The revised policy states that tenure still be given only to those faculty members who are assistant, associate or hill professors.
Instructors, assistant instructors, lecturers, visiting professors, research assistants and
unpaid research associates remain ineligible for tenure
The text of the new policy statement is to be published in the new faculty manual, Dr. Tharp said.
“This new policy on tenure should satisfy almost everybody," he said. “It is consistent with standards at other universities. Of course, there are some adaptations and variations for every university."
Faculty members will elect their own government when the fall semester gets under way next month.
A faculty senate with autonomous powers will probably be ready to begin work by mid-October, according to Dr. Herman Meyer, chairman of the Faculty Council.
The plan for faculty government was adopted June 5 after a majority of professors, associate professors and assistant professors voted for it.
The next step is for the Faculty Council to go ahead with implementation of the plan by electing senators, explained Dr. C. Doren Tharp, vice president and dean pf faculties.
UM President Henry King Stanford made key administrative changes in a move to centralize authority.
To get the presidency involved in all University areas, two vice presidents and the dean of students must now report directly to Dr. Stanford.
Dr. C. Doren Tharp, vice president for academic affairs; Eugene Cohen, vice president and treasurer, and Noble Hendrix, dean of students, will be meeting with Dr. Stanford.
The Council of Academic Deans has been re-established and all undergraduate and graduate deans will meet under the chairmanship of Dr. Tharp, dean of faculties.
This group will probably act as the sounding board and source of recommendations on academic policy, ,
These organizational arrangements came out of the Administrative Council meeting.
During the meeting, Dr. Stanford defined the five major areas of a university. They are the academic area; the research area; student personnel and student activities outside classes: the financial area, and the public relations and development area.
Students, Faculty Can Speak As Individuals Without Fear
The Board of Trustees this week adopted a new policy regarding the release of news about the University. It allows students and faculty members to speak to the local newspapers, radio and television stations as individuals without first clearing through the public information office.
The new resolution names Dr. Henry King Stanford, UM president, as the official spokesman. It also allows for an individual or a group whom he may delegate to speak for UM on specific matters. ♦
This ruling nullifies the May 14 Board decree which said that UM students and employes could be expelled or fired for releasing news about the University directly to the local press.
The May 14 ruling was labeled by some as a move to censor students, faculty members and administrators.
The new policy makes a distinction between an official spokesman for the university and students and employes who speak as individuals.
“There is no intent expressed or implied to impose censorship or to curtail Individual liberty or to prevent freedom of expression on the part of any individual connected with the University when he speaks or writes as an individual,” reads the new public information policy.
President Will Name New Veep
by ELAYNE GILBERT Mamcaaa »mum Nawi Uttar
A vice president in charge of development and public relations will be appointed shortly, according to Dr. Henry King Stanford, University president.
“The new vice presidency will be established as soon as I can find the most competent person for the job,” said President Stanford.
During a brief trip to New York recently, Dr. Stanford interviewed two applicants for the soon-to-be created post and a third candidate was interviewed on campus.
"The man who takes over the new post will coordinate many things that involve the public, such as alumni activities, news bureau information and fund raising functions,” explained Dr. Stanford.
Drop Deadline
Today is the deadline for dropping courses.
Courses dropped after 5 p.m. today will be graded WP or WE — withdrawn passing, or withdrawn failing — and will effect quality point average.
But, the Board’s policy stresses, the individual should always make it "unmistakably clear” that he is not representing University policy or action.
The statement sets the president, Dr. Henry King Stanford, as the principal official spokesman.
However, the University requires that proceedings of certain meetings be cleared through the public information office.
It is established policy of the University of Miami that proceedings and findings of any administrative, faculty or student board, committee or council are to be considered private and confidential matters which shall be given out to media of communication only by the responsible head of such board, committee or council through the public information -channels established by the University, reads the policy.
The University believes that the student “occupies a unique position” and has a special obligation.
“When he speaks or writes as a citizen he should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but his special position in the community imposes special obligations," the Board policy states.
“He should remember that the public may judge his profession and his institution by his utterances.”
The policy stressed that each student be accurate and “exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for others and should make every effort to indicate that he is not an institutional spokesman.”
Dr. Stanford has been studying the May 14 ruling since its orgin. A group of students presented him with a formal protest of the ruling when the then president-elect visited the campus May 18.
The former ruling, said that employes, students and others directly associated with the University, will be considered in violation of proper procedure if they give out information without clearing with Public Information office. It added emphasis because of the heavy penalties.
Those considered by the University to be violators could draw permanent dismissal “or such action as the president and Board of Trustees may determine to be proper.”
The ruling passed this week does not mention penalties.
New Senior Award
The first outstanding male senior academic plaque will be presented this fstll by President Stanford.
The plaque, engraved with the names of its annual recipients, will hang permanently in the Ashe Administration Building.
Alpha Phi Omega, service fraternity, is sponsoring the award.
Pkata >) Tsai*
I/O I no man write my epitaph. Well the Student Union certainly didn't—it wrote its own Ostensibly it foresaw its culmination and left the sign for almost two months before University administrators and trustees came around to the Union's way of thinking. A new Union will soon replace the old one.
Title Miami Hurricane, August 10, 1962
Subject University of Miami -- Students -- Newspapers
College student newspapers and periodicals -- Florida
Genre Newspapers
Publisher University of Miami
Coverage Spatial Coral Gables (Fla.)
Physical Description 1 volume (4 pages)
Repository University of Miami. Library. University Archives
Collection Title The Miami Hurricane
Collection No. ASU0053
Rights This material is protected by copyright. Copyright is held by the University of Miami. For additional information, please visit: http://merrick.library.miami.edu/digitalprojects/copyright.html
Object ID MHC_19620810
Digital ID MHC_19620810_001
Full Text Student Union Construction Set For January by SUSAN ENGLAND Harriet*« Maatfiat Mrtar The Board of Trustees Tuesday cleared the way financially for a new Student Union complete with swimming pool. Construction on the union will begin Jan. 1, 1963, and be open to students 12 months later, according to Dr. Henry King Stanford, University president. The University will consider bids for construction after architect Robert M. Little completes the detailed drawings. The current plans include a two story basic structure built around the main dining area. Floors can be added vertically in the future. Aside from the main dining, everything will be tom down and remodeled. The space now occupied by the patio and the rocky area extending toward the lake will be replaced by an Olympic size swimming pool, cabanas and a snack bar. The new building is to be entirely air-conditioned except for an “open-air” recreation room on the first floor with ping pong and billiards tables. In the adjacent room will be 12 regulation size, automatic bowling lanes, installed to help pay the debt for the new building. A post office, barber shop and two-story bookstore are other features that will be housed in the union. Separate TV and study rooms are on the second floor adjoining the music library and listening room. There are five portioned dining areas which can be made into a large banquet room. A snack bar in the pool area, a coffee shop and an "Eye of the Hurricane" soda shop are proposed. The latter, to be built where the present fountain is, will have tables, booths and possibly a jukebox. A place for fraternity tables has not yet been designated. The new union will alto have several meeting rooms with folding partitions to regulate size. Offices for Union administrators, student publications, government and activities tre located throughout the $2,180,000 edifice. As yet, no office space has been specificially assigned. Bowling and swimming rates have not been established yet either. The Mia Vol. XXXVII, No. 31 University or Hum urne Gables, Fla. Stanford Is Official Spokesman Trustees Adopt New Policy; ‘Censorship’ Ruling Is Out \ • u Plat) Sr UM Patti Ctatar What’s up Doc? Here Dr. Stanford, University President and John O’Day, director of the physical plant, check over the University's master plan selecting a possible site for the next building to go up. Now that the Student Union has been confirmed, reconfirmed and finally given the "go-ahead" the next building under consideration is the much needed science building. Faculty, Administrators Act Officials OK New. Policies Tenure The Board of Trustees this week approved revisions of the policy concerning faculty tenure. The changes, which had been under study for almost a year by faculty and administrative committees, are in general accord with recommendations published by the American Association of University Professors and the American Association of Colleges, according to Dr. C. Doren Tharp, vice president and dean of faculties. The new tenure policy is not retroactive and applies only to faculty members appointed after Aug. 7. Some changes were made concerning the probationary period which each faculty member must serve before beginning tenure. The period is now set at seven years of teaching in accredited colleges or universities, including a minimum number of years at this university. This minimum UM service varies according to the rank of the faculty member. The revised policy states that tenure still be given only to those faculty members who are assistant, associate or hill professors. Instructors, assistant instructors, lecturers, visiting professors, research assistants and unpaid research associates remain ineligible for tenure privileges. The text of the new policy statement is to be published in the new faculty manual, Dr. Tharp said. “This new policy on tenure should satisfy almost everybody," he said. “It is consistent with standards at other universities. Of course, there are some adaptations and variations for every university." Faculty Government Faculty members will elect their own government when the fall semester gets under way next month. A faculty senate with autonomous powers will probably be ready to begin work by mid-October, according to Dr. Herman Meyer, chairman of the Faculty Council. The plan for faculty government was adopted June 5 after a majority of professors, associate professors and assistant professors voted for it. The next step is for the Faculty Council to go ahead with implementation of the plan by electing senators, explained Dr. C. Doren Tharp, vice president and dean pf faculties. Dean’s Council UM President Henry King Stanford made key administrative changes in a move to centralize authority. To get the presidency involved in all University areas, two vice presidents and the dean of students must now report directly to Dr. Stanford. Dr. C. Doren Tharp, vice president for academic affairs; Eugene Cohen, vice president and treasurer, and Noble Hendrix, dean of students, will be meeting with Dr. Stanford. The Council of Academic Deans has been re-established and all undergraduate and graduate deans will meet under the chairmanship of Dr. Tharp, dean of faculties. This group will probably act as the sounding board and source of recommendations on academic policy, , These organizational arrangements came out of the Administrative Council meeting. During the meeting, Dr. Stanford defined the five major areas of a university. They are the academic area; the research area; student personnel and student activities outside classes: the financial area, and the public relations and development area. Students, Faculty Can Speak As Individuals Without Fear The Board of Trustees this week adopted a new policy regarding the release of news about the University. It allows students and faculty members to speak to the local newspapers, radio and television stations as individuals without first clearing through the public information office. The new resolution names Dr. Henry King Stanford, UM president, as the official spokesman. It also allows for an individual or a group whom he may delegate to speak for UM on specific matters. ♦ This ruling nullifies the May 14 Board decree which said that UM students and employes could be expelled or fired for releasing news about the University directly to the local press. The May 14 ruling was labeled by some as a move to censor students, faculty members and administrators. The new policy makes a distinction between an official spokesman for the university and students and employes who speak as individuals. “There is no intent expressed or implied to impose censorship or to curtail Individual liberty or to prevent freedom of expression on the part of any individual connected with the University when he speaks or writes as an individual,” reads the new public information policy. President Will Name New Veep by ELAYNE GILBERT Mamcaaa »mum Nawi Uttar A vice president in charge of development and public relations will be appointed shortly, according to Dr. Henry King Stanford, University president. “The new vice presidency will be established as soon as I can find the most competent person for the job,” said President Stanford. During a brief trip to New York recently, Dr. Stanford interviewed two applicants for the soon-to-be created post and a third candidate was interviewed on campus. "The man who takes over the new post will coordinate many things that involve the public, such as alumni activities, news bureau information and fund raising functions,” explained Dr. Stanford. Drop Deadline Today is the deadline for dropping courses. Courses dropped after 5 p.m. today will be graded WP or WE — withdrawn passing, or withdrawn failing — and will effect quality point average. But, the Board’s policy stresses, the individual should always make it "unmistakably clear” that he is not representing University policy or action. The statement sets the president, Dr. Henry King Stanford, as the principal official spokesman. However, the University requires that proceedings of certain meetings be cleared through the public information office. It is established policy of the University of Miami that proceedings and findings of any administrative, faculty or student board, committee or council are to be considered private and confidential matters which shall be given out to media of communication only by the responsible head of such board, committee or council through the public information -channels established by the University, reads the policy. The University believes that the student “occupies a unique position” and has a special obligation. “When he speaks or writes as a citizen he should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but his special position in the community imposes special obligations," the Board policy states. “He should remember that the public may judge his profession and his institution by his utterances.” The policy stressed that each student be accurate and “exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for others and should make every effort to indicate that he is not an institutional spokesman.” Dr. Stanford has been studying the May 14 ruling since its orgin. A group of students presented him with a formal protest of the ruling when the then president-elect visited the campus May 18. The former ruling, said that employes, students and others directly associated with the University, will be considered in violation of proper procedure if they give out information without clearing with Public Information office. It added emphasis because of the heavy penalties. Those considered by the University to be violators could draw permanent dismissal “or such action as the president and Board of Trustees may determine to be proper.” The ruling passed this week does not mention penalties. New Senior Award The first outstanding male senior academic plaque will be presented this fstll by President Stanford. The plaque, engraved with the names of its annual recipients, will hang permanently in the Ashe Administration Building. Alpha Phi Omega, service fraternity, is sponsoring the award. Pkata >) Tsai* I/O I no man write my epitaph. Well the Student Union certainly didn't—it wrote its own Ostensibly it foresaw its culmination and left the sign for almost two months before University administrators and trustees came around to the Union's way of thinking. A new Union will soon replace the old one.
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Opinions Sat, 4 Aug 2018
Just Rambling: The sickening political hypocrisy and Mrs Amissah-Arthur’s antidote
We can all pretend that Ghanaians are one people under one God but it is no longer fashionable to say that the Ghanaian can be trusted to undertake an independent assessment of happenings in the country. Never!
Truth is, we can but we won’t because it’s not fashionable to be independently minded in Ghana where the best meal is 'pretense.'
I have told some colleague journalists and it bears repeating that our hypocrisy as a people and our failure to admit it will continue to rob us of the development and leaders our nation requires. We will always have what we deserve and ask for.
Last Friday, former Second Lady, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur roused our drunken nation in a most unusual but unique way when she expressed shock at the outpouring of tributes over the demise of her husband and former Vice-president Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.
She refused to trudge the path of silence travelled on by former First Lady, Mrs Naadu Mills after the earth shook, trembled and shuddered at the death of her husband and president Professor John Evans Atta Mills in 2012.
Prior to becoming president in 2009, Prof Mills was mischaracterized, maligned and described in unprintable words. Things were said against him in the name of politics and some members of his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) also attacked their opponents in a similar fashion.
As sanctions by our tradition, one is not allowed to say anything evil about the dead. So, the late Prof had many accolades heaped on him by both friends and foes alike. He was described as “peace-loving, God-fearing, truthful, and untarnished.”
And Mrs Mills and the late Prof’s only son enjoyed the praise yet we all know these words would not have been lavished on him by especially his political opponents if he had been alive. That’s the hypocrisy of the Ghanaian.
But Mrs Amissah-Arthur is no pretender. She would not feign love and friendship in the name of politics as is the business of the members of both NDC and ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
“…did people really know my husband? Did people take time to know him? The false accusations, the lies, the maligning. Did they know him?” she lashed out at the hypocrites in Ghana at the funeral of her husband.
Surprisingly, many took to both traditional and social media to register their discontent at her words when they could have praised her for the good show. What these people didn’t know is that their action rather exposed them as hypocrites.
The hypocrisy of some Ghanaians is epic that wherever they go it leads them.
Who doesn’t know late Amissah-Arthur was called so many names by both political opponents and some members of his party who were not enthused about his appointment as Vice-president by the then president, John Dramani Mahama.
So just because the very people who mischaracterized him when he was alive have changed their stance after his demise, Mrs Amissah-Arthur should open wide her arms to welcome them? This is the reason systems are not working in Ghana.
Pretense...pretense…and more of it.
A social media user wrote, “[the] woman is in pain. Her heart has been broken, a partner for so many years is no longer there…she is privy to his sentiments and reactions to the [naming calling]. So seeing the same people…sing his praises is too much to bear.”
Well, I think Mrs Amissah-Arthur’s initial shock of losing a partner of many years has worn out, so she didn’t speak out of pain. She knew the husband that well and she is convinced he is with his Maker.
But she spoke to a politically perverse nation that is padding its way to destruction. Her words were groans only uttered out of love for a lover. I realized she loves Ghana and would not have the sort of hypocrisy that’s being shared among the population.
If you have concerns about what she said, go and speak to hypocrites in our country to put an end to their machinations. It is a fact that there’s no longer honest debate in our society and everywhere one turns he is met by people with prejudiced minds. How can we expect the best from our leaders with this attitude?
A writer once said that if a man must strike, he must strike through the mask and I think Mrs Amissah-Arthur did just that. My only worry is that she did it so well to get the hypocrites talking.
Columnist: Abubakar Ibrahim
I wore black for only 3 months - Matilda Amissah-Arthur explains defying 'outmoded' custom
Our home was a hub for Rawlings, Tsikata and co - Matilda Amissah-Arthur reveals
My husband wasn’t put in a bucket of a pickup – Matilda Amissah-Arthur clarifies
Conflicting stories on Amissah-Arthur’s death: Wife brings clarity to bare a year on
Matilda Amissah-Arthur exposes Okyenhene on husband’s death
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Business News Wed, 7 Jun 2017
Patronage of $2.25 billion local bond showed high investor confidence - Ofori-Atta
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta says the high patronage of the controversial $2.25 billion local bond, issued in April showed a renewed investor confidence in the country.
He said unlike the past administration which had deficit of investor confidence, the new government is enjoying colossal support from the international financial market.
“Nothing has changed [with the issuance of bonds]. The only thing that has changed is the renewed confidence of investors in us,” he told Parliament Wednesday.
The Finance Minister made the remark when he addressed Parliament following a half-hour motion filed by the Minority over the contentious $2.25 billion local bond issued.
The Minority in Parliament has said the manner in which the bond was issued smacks of an attempt to allow only cronies of the government to patronize it.
The NDC MPs said they are convinced there is a 'relational interest' between the Finance Minister and one of the investment companies that patronized the bond – Franklyn Templeton Investment.
They said one Trevor G. Trefgarne who is on the Board of the US investment firm may have influenced the direction of the bond issuance because of his connection with Mr Ofori-Atta. Mr Trefgarne also doubles as the Board Chairman of the Enterprise Insurance Limited.
The Minority has petitioned the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate the issue.
Deputy Minority leader, James Avedzi has said their petition to the US body is in the interest of Ghana.
In a bid to press for more answers, Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu moved for a half-hour motion to allow the Finance Minister to present a statement on the bond. The motion was seconded by the Majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu.
Standing before the MPs clad in blue suit with a red tie Wednesday, the Finance Minister maintained nothing untoward was done in the issuance of the bond as has been speculated by the Minority.
"The bond in question complied in every material detail to the tenets of the rules and regulations governing securities," he said, adding the April domestic bond was issued in cedis as directed by the law.
Mr Ofori-Atta also said the joint book runners - Barclays, Stanbic and SAS - government chose to issue the bond were the same people used by the previous administration.
The book runners are financial institutions that announce and publish every impending bond issue to the market by providing details about the week of issue and price guidance.
The Finance Minister said the $2.25 billion domestic bond issued was no different and was done in conformity with the established process.
"Let me assure this House we did not deviate in the issuing of the 7 years and 15 years bonds," he said.
Mr Ofori-Atta said government will continue to work to improve the situation in the country to attract more investors. "We will fight poverty when we see it and we will fight to protect the public purse."
Watch full video below:
Source: Myjoyonline.com
Government borrowed GH¢4.2bn in December 2019
Ofori-Atta to raise over US$3 billion in diasporan bond
Gov't reveals number of job created from 58 one district, one factory projects
Supreme Court adjourns judgement on ‘controversial’ $2.25b Eurobond to June 4
Feature: Ghana’s Eurobond : An Incomplex Breakdown & Analysis.
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Home/Blog, Experience/MOVO’s Fast Payment Solution Meets Fast Cars at FuelFest Featuring Live Music and Celebrities
MOVO2019-03-07T20:23:27-08:00March 1st, 2019|Blog, Experience|
Mobile Payments App, MOVO, is the Official Stage Sponsor for the Festival, Benefiting Reach Out Worldwide (ROWW) in Honor of Late Actor Paul Walker
LOS ANGELES – Feb.27, 2019 – MOVO®, a mobile payments platform and app, today announced it will be the official stage sponsor at FuelFest, an automotive event and experience featuring world class cars and live music performances, including local Southern California talent, Tom Solis. The event will benefit Reach Out WorldWide (ROWW), a non-profit organization founded by the late Paul Walker that helps deploy first-responders and humanitarian assistance in the wake of natural disasters to accelerate relief efforts.
Hosted by Cody Walker, brother of “Fast and the Furious” actor Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, and Alex Hirschi AKA Supercar Blondie, Angels Stadium in Anaheim, Calif. will serve as the backdrop of the event, paying homage to the beloved movie franchise’s roots. FuelFest will be held on March 2, 2019 offering attendees unparalleled access to unique and exotic automobile collections, as well as the opportunity to meet their favorite stars, while benefiting a good cause.
Participating in FuelFest for the second consecutive year, Southern California-based company MovoCash, Inc. is the creator of the MOVO® app, which enables consumers to instantly send and spend funds. The app was founded as an alternative banking solution facilitating instant payments and peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions through blockchain technology. MOVO users can spend instantly from their smartphones with no fees.
“MovoCash was created to replace debit and prepaid cards with real digital money for fast and safe transactions, while offering a cashless solution to our users who are always on the go” said Eric Solis, founder and chief executive officer of MOVO. “We are thrilled to be involved with FuelFest and its community supporting local talent, while also offering an easy way for festival guests to enjoy the full experience without worrying about cash.”
For information about MOVO, please visit https://movo.cash. For more information on FuelFest or to purchase tickets, visit www.fuelfest.com.
About MovoCash, Inc.
Founded in 2014, MovoCash, Inc. is a California-based financial technology company that offers a robust e-wallet app, MOVO®. MOVO empowers customers to instantly send and spend money right from a mobile phone, even without a bank account. Unlike major competitors, MOVO accounts are FDIC insured through the issuing bank and offer unique fraud protection features like MovoCoin®, which provides an instant digital debit card that protects a user’s primary banking information. The MOVO® Digital Prepaid Visa® Card is issued by Metropolitan Commercial Bank (Member FDIC) pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. “Metropolitan Commercial Bank” and “Metropolitan” are registered trademarks of Metropolitan Commercial Bank ©2014.
Angela Petersen
angela@pmbcgroup.com
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Home » NEWS » Banking & Finance » Rayburn pushes to create jobs across the state
Rayburn pushes to create jobs across the state
Posted by: Nash Nunnery in Banking & Finance, MBJ FEATURE, NEWS 08/20/2018
By NASH NUNNERY
Bill Rayburn
Bill Rayburn is not known for mincing words.
The former University of Mississippi professor-turned-entrepreneur isn’t afraid to share his vision for the financial business or Oxford, his adopted hometown. Rayburn, who co-founded mortgage tech leader FNC and built the company into a banking industry standard before it was sold to CoreLogic for nearly $500 million, believes Oxford can be the next Austin.
For Rayburn, it’s not a pipe dream.
After all, FNC started when Rayburn, Dennis Tosh, Robert Dorsey and John Johnson – all fellow Ole Miss finance professors and consultants – identified a need to manage collateral assets in mortgage transactions. The rest is history – FNC became one of the nation’s premiere mortgage appraisal system companies before its 2016 acquisition by Corelogic.
“Making money is nice but my goal is to make Oxford, Mississippi the next Austin, Texas,” said Rayburn. “Within 20 years, we want to add 10,000 high-tech jobs. Oxford has a great cultural scene, Ole Miss, three tech companies and a large manufacturer in Winchester.
“If we are going to improve our state from being number 50 in everything, you must have a national perspective and aim high.”
Rayburn helped construct FNC on the company’s ability to create integrated mortgage processing for the nation’s largest banks. The challenges were numerous, including the fact that Oxford is off the radar when it comes to traditional technology centers. According to Rayburn, FNC’s advantage was that its investors were from the region, many of them former Ole Miss staff or graduates.
“Mississippi and Oxford were the perfect place for our company,” he said. “The naysayers figured we couldn’t survive in a small Mississippi town but our location was proven to be a blessing.”
Rayburn, a Petal native who ran track and played first-chair French horn in high school, grew up around real estate. His father was a real estate developer and builder in the Pine Belt. Rayburn chose to attend the University of Southern Mississippi, where he earned an undergraduate and a Master in Finance.
The reason wasn’t complicated for the younger Rayburn.
“I applied to several schools but my dad made the choice of USM simple,” said Rayburn, laughing. “He told me ‘I’ll give you a car if you go to Southern’. Made my decision really easy.”
Rayburn’s latest start-up evolved from the sale of FNC.
Mortgage Trade, or MTrade, was launched two years ago with the idea of streamlining the mortgage business into a better process with less manual data entry.
“CoreLogic didn’t want this part of the business, but I did and MTrade was born,” said Rayburn, who serves the burgeoning company as CEO. “Mortgage files are done differently by local banks and that’s a problem since the local banks more than likely are going to sell their mortgages into larger holdings.”
MTrade streamlines the information, saving time and virtually eliminating most manual intervention in the process. Based in Oxford, MTrade also has an office in New York City and boasts 135 employees, with 115 in Mississippi.
Still an avid runner, Rayburn says he’s driven to make a difference by creating jobs in Mississippi.
“We want to create new markets and new things,” he said. “I want to play on a national stage and that’s what I want for Mississippi.
“That’s how I give back.”
Bill Rayburn Lafayette County NEWS Oxford 2018-08-20
Nash Nunnery
Tagged with: Bill Rayburn Lafayette County NEWS Oxford
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BNT Chemicals GmbH
Manufactures alkyl chlorides and tin chlorides, as well as various organo-tin compounds and tin-based catalysts. Located in Germany.
E&C Chemicals Inc.
Manufacturer and distributor of industrial chemicals in Georgia, USA, many of which are aimed at the paper and food processing industries. Products include inorganic and organic acids, salts, and solvents. Also offers custom blending of dry materials.
Henan Hongye Chemical Company Ltd.
Large-scale producer of thiourea dioxide, sodium percarbonate, and other bleaching agents in China. Other products include furfuryl chemicals, titanias, and anthraquinone.
Producer and worldwide distributor of industrial chemicals, located in Europe. Main product groups include acids and lyes, solvents, solid chemicals, and specialties.
Shanghai Taiyang Chemical Co., Ltd.
Producer of potassium carbonate, bicarbonate, potassium nitrate, and sorbate, ammonium chloride, and nanoscale titanium dioxide, as well as a range of chlorinated and fluorinated aromatics.
Taicang Puyuan Adjuvant Factory
Produces biocide, bromodode cane, phosphorous tribromide, sodium bromide, 2,2-bibromo-2-Nitroethanol(DBNE), and 1-benzyl hydantin.
Vaibhav Industries
Chemical manufacturer in India specializing in sodium acetate, also producing a range of other sodium salts, calcium butyrate, and fragrance chemical precursors.
Wuxi Quanli Chemical Co.,Ltd.
Company in China producing organosilicon products: silicone oils, emulsions, and derivatives, and silicone rubber products.
European producer of bulk carbon dioxide, offering bulk liquid, cylinder, and dry ice forms. Includes technical information and specifications.
Accurate Gas Co.
Supplier of specialty gases for research, analytical, medical, and calibration as well as supplier of process chemicals used in manufacturing processes.
Hong Kong Specialty Gases
Distributor and manufacturer of specialty gases and gaseous chemicals and associated equipment, supplying Hong Kong and China.
SOL Group
An Italian based multinational company offering production, distribution and sales of industrial, medical and food gases and related products.
Provider of industrial, medical, and specialty gases, gas handling and cryogenic equipment, welding equipment and supplies in New York and Connecticut, USA.
Aldivia
Sourcing, design, manufacture and commercialization of vegetable oils for cosmetic and industrial use. Provides services such as physico chemical analysis, formulation, technological monitoring from Cedex, France.
Producer of stearic acid, glycerine, and hydrogenated tallow from animal fats and vegetable oils, located in Italy.
Chempri BV
Sales organisation with oleochemical production sites of its own. The product package includes a wide range of vegetable-, animal- and mineral oils, fatty acids, fatty alcohols, esters and tensio-actives.
Producer of fatty acids, esters, and amides, metal stearates, and monoglycerides, for use in specialty chemicals and additive applications. Located in Italy.
HBI Internationa
HB International (HBI) is a brokerage and agency specialized in oleochemicals and related products (glycerine, fatty acids, castor products), and food products (Basmati and thai rices, coffee).
Hudong Household Auxiliaries
Produces glycerides, gluconates, and derivatives for use in household chemicals and additives for the textile and plastic industries. Located in China.
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Debut test for Veloster N ETCR
Our new era of motorsport gets underway in Hungary
The new Veloster N ETCR, our first-ever electric race car, has made its track debut during a two-day test at the Hungaroring circuit.
In a trouble-free session, our engineers were able to learn more about the chassis balance of the car around a circuit that is an established part of the FIA WTCR and TCR Europe calendars. We were able to start harnessing the power from the vehicle’s mid-mounted electric motor to maximise performance and efficiency.
“The first test for any new project is always a very important milestone, but with the Hyundai Veloster N ETCR it takes on greater significance,” said our Team Director Andrea.
Using expertise in Touring Car racing shown in the championship-winning i30 N TCR and Veloster N TCR, the aim is to produce a similarly strong all-round package for ETCR.
“We have shown with the i30 N TCR and Veloster N TCR that we can produce a very strong Touring Car, and we are eager to learn about this new package before the racing starts in 2020,” added Andrea.
The days in Hungary were only the start of an extensive testing program for the new car. Every system will be scrutinised and honed over the course of the development schedule to bring the strongest possible entry to the first ETCR grid.
Andrea said: “The next few months will be very busy – we essentially have two challenges; we have to develop the chassis, but also work to use the power from the batteries and motors effectively. However, with the testing schedule ahead I am confident that our engineers will be able to produce another race winning car.”
The project is expected to lay the foundations for a new pillar within our company as we expand into new technology that is increasingly relevant to Hyundai’s road-going range. The Veloster N ETCR will also help drive the development of future high-performance electric car designs.
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Our Occupants
See the great collection of organisations who are current occupants at the NAFIC site
Abingdon Health
Abingdon Health is a UK based company focused on developing, manufacturing and commercialising lateral flow immunoassay tests and readers for multiple sectors.
Animal & Plant Health Agency
The Animal and Plant Health Agency works to safeguard animal and plant health for the benefit of people, the environment and the economy.
Birdstrike Management Limited
Birdstrike provide a range of services to help control the risk of bird and wildlife strike incidents
Covance
As the drug development business of Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) and the world’s most comprehensive drug development service company, Covance has helped pharmaceutical and biotech companies develop 100% of the top 50 prescription drugs in the marketplace today.
Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs
We are the UK government department responsible for policy and regulations on environmental, food and rural issues.
Fera Science Limited
Our overarching purpose is to support and develop a sustainable food chain, a healthy natural environment and to protect the global community from biological and chemical risks.
We protect and improve the nation's health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities.
Labskin UK
Labskin UK is the only company to offer, non-animal-testing on lab-grown human skin that hosts bacteria, for cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications.
Mologic
Mologic is a problem solving science company and develops rapid diagnostic products for human and non-human healthcare.
Crop Health and Protection Limited
Crop Health and Protection Limited brings together leading science and research organisations and industries to support sustainable farming.
ELRIG
ELRIG is a not-for-profit organisation and is a leader in providing scientific meetings and conferences.
FPCR
FPCR are one of the UK’s longest established and most successful Environmental and Design Practices. The integrated multi – disciplinary team combines core skills including Masterplanning, Environmental Assessment, Urban Design, Landscape, Ecology, Architecture, Arboriculture and Green Infrastructure.
Symbiosis IP
Symbiosis was created in 2010 to offer advice on intellectual property exclusively to the Life Science industry. Symbiosis IP acts for early stage start-ups, established SMEs and listed companies.
Trustmarque (part of Capita PLC), is a leading provider of end-to-end IT services to the UK public and private sectors; including cloud, professional and managed services, and software solutions. At Trustmarque we give honest, simple and independent advice that helps customers navigate an increasingly complex world of IT.
Address: The National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ
Telephone: Reception: 01904 46 2000 | Enquiries: 01904 40 6669
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How to Compress Female Vocals: a Step-by-Step Guide
The recording is done, it’s time for mixing, you’ve read about compression but where to start? If you really want to learn about the theory you can read this article, but you may just want to get on with it.
So, how to compress female vocals? When compressing female vocals, you’ll want to focus on the higher frequencies, add a low-cut filter, and utilize a multiband compressor for spot fixes.
Different genres of music, the tone that you want to achieve with your vocal track, and ranges/notes hit during the recording require different compressors. So, let’s go over the six most common compressions used in mixers to help narrow down the best choice for your compressing needs and how to compress female vocals.
The Quick Start Guide to Compressing Female Vocals
No matter what compression you choose or whether or not you layer multiple compressors on one track, each one should be approached with the same basic method
Load the female vocal recording into a new audio track.
It’s best to label this one as “Main Female Vocal Track.”
Lower the threshold and raise the ratio to an extreme setting
This will make the compression very obvious
Do not solo the track at any time. You want to hear the compressor in relation to the rest of the instruments and other backup vocals.
Start at a midrange Attack time.
When starting off, begin in the midrange of around 15ms. This will have to be adjusted depending on the genre of music you’re working within and desired vocal aggression.
Start at a midrange Release time.
Probably around 40ms. You will want to get the compressor in time with the music.
Lower the ratio and raise the threshold.
The ratio between the attack and release time will need to be lowered. Usually around a 1.5:1 will do the trick. The threshold is the level in which the compressor actually kicks in. If the audio is louder than the threshold, the compressor activates. The lower the threshold, the more compression you’ll get.
For the threshold, you’ll want to raise it back up to around -24dB.Adjust the Gain Reduction.
Address the Knee
If the vocal sounds unnatural, the knee is too harsh. Add in a softer knee in order to soften the transition between compression and raw file.
If the vocals are too sporadic, the knee is too soft. Dial up the knee to a higher level in order to compress the vocals more tightly.
Note: not all audio processing software have knees that can be adjusted. There is some software with knee presets.
Makeup lost Gain.
Throughout the process, a lot of gain could have been lost. Adjust for this by manually raising the overall gain of the vocal track. Do not solo the vocal track.
Only adjust by increments of +/-3dB.
6 Different Compressions To Use With Female Vocals
There are countless options when it comes to compressors. Most DAWs come jam-packed with in house options, and the internet is full of plug-ins and downloadable add-ons. No matter what software you may use to edit, there are six common types of compressions you should know about (and use).
1) Tonal Compression
Tonal compression does exactly what’s in the name: shape the tone of the vocals. It’s a good base compression to start with as it will tether the dynamics to a more neutral area. Another benefit of starting with tonal compression is the ability to ad`d or remove aggression from the vocals.
To utilize a tonal compression, it’s best to focus on the attack time. Start the track with a medium attack time of around 15ms, and adjust it to your taste/genre. The general rule of thumb is a faster attack time (usually around 5ms) will make the vocals sound thick and heavy; a slower attack time (usually around 30ms) will make your vocals sound punchy and aggressive.
So, if you’re going for a female vocal that will stand out more, you’ll want to use a faster attack time
An example of the perimeters for a lighter tonal compression of female vocals would be:
Ratio: 1.5:1
Attack Time: 15ms (but up to 30ms for more punch)
Release Time: 40ms
Threshold: -24dB
Gain Reduction: 2-3dB
Knee: Soft
Makeup Gain: 2dB
2) Dynamic Compression
A dynamic compressor is used to catch the loudest peaks and add more consistency between the different dynamics throughout the track. This will help stabilize the loudness of the track and prevent listening exhaustion from your audience. Although equalizing your peaks will help make your recording sound more professional and consistent, this compression isn’t recommended for lighter genres such as: jazz, pop, ballad, etc.
To best utilize this compressor, a faster attack time and higher ratio are needed. The ratio should be at about 10:1 and the knee set to “hard.” These settings are most likely going to change by the end of the track, but the values should start here in order to best hear the change happening to the vocals.
Next, adjust the threshold until the compressor is only engaging on the louder peaks, not every word. You want the compressor to focus on the higher peaks to stabilize them to the quieter/lower peaks.
Set the attack time to match the tone you’re going for. Remember, a faster attack time will add weight to the vocal, while a slower attack time will add more aggression. For the dynamic compressor, you want the attack time to be within the 3-10ms range. Anything below 2ms risks pushing the vocals further back into the mix.
For the release time, start at 20ms and adjust it until the compressor starts to breathe in time with the music. If you want more aggression for the vocals, go back and adjust the attack time to a faster speed, but leave the release time at the ideal speed.
Round everything off by lowering the ratio to about a 2:1, or until the compressor is applying 2 to 3dB of gain reduction. For heavier genres such as metal, hip-hop, etc, you’ll want the gain reduction to be anywhere between 6 and 10dB.
An example of the perimeters for a dynamic compression of female vocals would be:
Attack Time: 5ms (medium-fast)
Release Time: 20ms (medium)
Knee: Hard
3) Side Chain Compression
Side chain compression is the only compressor that will not directly impact vocals. Instead, you should take advantage of this compressor’s ability to make certain instruments dependent on others.
The way it works is by having the effect level on one instrument be controlled by the volume level of another instrument. So, it can be applied to any midrange instrument (piano, guitar, etc.) that will automatically lower/raise the level of that instrument based on the volume of the vocals
For most built-in systems, there are no specific ratios or methods to deciding which is the best setup for side chain compression. Mainly, choose the input you’d like to “chain” to the other.
It is recommended that you download a third party plug-in that has factory set perimeters already in place, but this isn’t necessary. Especially if this isn’t a compressor you’re going to use a lot.
4) Multiband Compression
Multiband compression splits the track into different frequency ranges and allows you to compress them independently. Each of these different frequencies is called a “band.”
Using this process opens the possibilities to apply compressors to only a certain part of a track’s frequency spectrum. For example, if a high-range band is repeatedly peaking throughout the entire vocal track, you can use a multiband compressor to cut the high-ends in one motion.
This saves you time from having to go section by section and editing the vocals in chunks. Plus, if there is a specific frequency that needs attention, it is automatically adjusted for by the mixer.
Let it be noted that using a multiband compression will require repeated listening throughout the entire track. What may work in one problem section may lead to another issue later in the same track.
5) Parallel Compression
Parallel compression is used to make sure the lead vocals sit at the very front of the mix at all times. This is incredibly important as you obviously want all the lyrics and notes to be heard, but also necessary with the addition of other vocals.
To start, create a new aux called ‘Vocal Compression’. Load up a parallel compressor and send your lead vocal to this new aux. Change it’s output to the ‘Lead Vocals’ aux.
Aiming for a minimum of 6dB of gain reduction, you want the parallel compression to be heavy. Emphasize this by having an attack time of 5ms and a release time of 30ms. Adjust these times depending on the main vocal track.
Although you want to draw attention to the lead vocal, you don’t want to increase its actual volume.
Depending on the style of music, the parallel compressor can be pushed further. It works by adding slight gain to all the quietest bits of the vocal track. Thus, your vocals can’t drop under a certain volume.
6) Serial Compression
Serial compression is simply the process of using multiple compressors throughout the mixing process. This is the best method of not only achieving subtle, natural sounding compression to your vocals, but it will also boost the quality of the recording to sound more like a professional studio.
Although it’s the best method for editing female vocals, it is unwise to apply multiple compressors to the entire track. Rather, you should go section by section in order to hear what each part of the vocal’s needs.
Throughout the entire mixing process, never apply more than 3dB of gain reduction. Regardless of genre, adding more than that can cause a decrease in the vocal quality, causing it to sound unnatural and robotic. Additionally, too much gain reduction could send the main vocals backwards in the mix.
The Difference Between Male and Female Vocals
There’s a reason most men are baritones and basses, and most women are altos and sopranos. Our vocal cords stretch, vibrate, and pass air at different speeds and in completely different shapes- causing separate mixing issues for female and male vocals.
For the most part, the pitch range for men’s voices is anywhere between 60–180 Hz, while the average pitch range of women’s voices is between 160–300 Hz.
This means female vocals will live in higher frequencies than their male counterparts.
Common Issues Compressing with Female Vocals
When it comes to mixing, this difference between vocal cords is huge. Depending on where the pitches land and overall timbre of the voice, problem areas can literally be on two separate sides of the frequency meter. For mixing with female vocals, it can generally lead to three main issues: low range mud, boxy sounds, and harsh high frequencies.
Low and Mid Range Mud
Because female vocals tend to hang out in higher frequencies, their lower and even mid-range levels can become muddy. This can lead to the female vocal track sounding weak or frail. To combat this, add a low-cut filter to the female vocals.
You’ll want to aim for around 250-300Hz range, never going below the 200Hz line. Adjust the low and mid range knob to boost these frequencies by around 4.5-6dB. This should add more body to your female vocals.
“Boxy” Sounds
First and foremost, this issue could come from the microphone itself. So, troubleshoot the recording equipment before attempting to add any filters or compressors to the female vocal track.
If the equipment isn’t the issue, fear not as this “boxy” sound is common amongst male and female vocals (though more common for female vocals). This issue tends to linger around the 1k-500Hz range. To combat this, add a limiter cut to the 600 Hz frequency line.
To go even further with this solution, cut any interferences with the female vocal track by 3dB increments. This may require a parallel compressor as well as serial compression, but it will allow the best frequencies to shine above the rest.
Afterwards, you should boost the high-ends because often the end of the phrases will have been cut off due to the limiter.
Harsh High Frequencies
If your female vocals sound “shreaky” or are peaking far too often, the vocals are too harsh. To combat this, add a multiband compressor with 4.5dB compression on 4000dB.
This should help alleviate a lot of the common spots with harshness. However, you will need to go back and listen to the entire track and adjust accordingly. This is due to the multiband compression only working on one specific frequency at a time.
Should You Be Using a Compressor for Female Vocals?
More than likely, yes, you should be using a compressor for female vocals. There are a lot of reasons why you would use a compressor in general, but it becomes especially important when mixing female vocals.
The female voice tends to sit in the higher range and tends to lack in body. This can make the vocals sound less rich and lower the overall tone.
That being said, there is a time in which you would not want to use compression. If you are looking for consistency in your female vocals rather than differentiating parts, you’ll want to use automation rather than compression.
The Compression Needs of Female Vocals in Different Genres
As mentioned before, each genre and tone will have its own needs from the female vocal track. Although these are guidelines for what is expected from each genre, they are simply that: guidelines. Every song and track will need its own adjustment depending on the desired effect.
Generally speaking, pop music is very vocal heavy. Throughout history, the genre has favored those with a female lead voice as its softer, high pitches don’t cause listening fatigue for the audience. For the most part, you’ll want to focus in on the following:
Heavy processing
Needs multiple compression
Faster attack time
Slower release time
Heavier dynamics
Softer knee
One main issue you may run into is getting the balance between the female lead vocals and every other track in the song. To help combat this, utilize a parallel compression.
Although this genre is very broad with subgenres ranging from soft rock to folk rock to even rocky rock, the general formula when it comes to female vocals is the same. Since the rock genre tends to have more acoustic guitars and less kick-bass drums, it can be compressed in the same fashion as the acoustic genre.
Only needs one compression
One issue you may run into when mixing for female vocals under the rock genre is the uniqueness needed per song. One compressor might work perfectly for one section of the song, but that same compressor might lower the gain on the vocal track too much at another part of the same song. To combat this, a combination of multiband compression and low-cut filters may be needed.
Due to its softer tones and emphasis on scat performance, jazz might be the most important genre to focus all attention on lead vocals, especially if the lead vocals are female. Though it will usually only need one compression, the key here is to match the timbre of the bass without sounding like a lot of electronic mixing was used. In fact, the fewer filters and compression you can do to the vocal track, the better.
Soft processing
Slower attack time
Softer dynamics
One issue you may run across in the jazz mixing process is having the softer dynamics be overpowered by the drums. A simple solution to this problem is to utilize the parallel compressor. Match the input of the drum to the lowest level of the vocal track to equalize it.
Hip-hop, and subsequently rap, focus entirely on the vocal track. The advantage of mixing female vocals in this genre is that the instrumental tracks are usually all electronic as well. This gives more control over the overall mix and can help bring the female vocals to the front. Generally speaking, you’ll want to follow these guidelines:
One issue you may encounter while adding compressions is the muddy sound mentioned before. This is due to female vocals usually having a natural tendency to reach higher frequencies; thus, it decreases the body of the spoken words. If this occurs, simply create a multiband compressor with a low-cut filter around 250Hz.
“Rhythm and Beat” mainly focuses on just that: rhythm and beat. Because of this, the female vocal track needs to mix more into the instruments rather than stand out ahead. To obtain that level of mixing, compress the female vocals accordingly:
A common mistake done when compressing the female vocals under this genre is forgetting to also adjust for any and all background vocals. Each track will need to be compressed and edited independently from one another, then mixed together simultaneously with the instrumental tracks. To keep the main female track from being lost in the mix, use the parallel compressor, and treat all instrumental tracks as one large track.
Oddly enough, the electronic genre is the most complex to mix female vocals into. Like the hip-hop genre, most of the instrumental tracks are created, unsurprisingly, electronically. However, this genre tends to focus mainly on bass and lower frequencies getting the spotlight. Because of this, the female vocals may need the following:
Faster release time
Harder knee
For electronic music, the focus should not be on the female vocals. Rather, they should be mixed like another instrumental track. To keep everything sounding equal, a multiband compressor and equalizer will do the trick perfectly as the goal is to keep the level equal across all the tracks.
Metal is a very large genre housing thousands of subgenres, each with their own unique sounds, tones, and needs from vocal tracks. Generally speaking, the female vocal track will need the following:
The main issue when compressing female vocals for the metal genre is the lack of naturally occurring lower frequencies in feminine sounds. For a genre that is infamous for aggressive vocals, this where an attack time of closer, if not over, 30ms would be appropriate. The threshold can, and should, be pushed the furthest here; a multiband compressor with a 4.5dB compression would be ideal.
To make up for the lack of bass in female vocals, a parallel compressor and serial compression should also be used in order to match the main vocal track with the instrumental track with the highest level. Typically, this will be the lead electric guitar.
Unlike its metal counterpart, the acoustic genre is very forgiving towards female vocals. With softer guitars and typically only having two tracks (vocals included), there is less compression needed for the singer(s).
Light processing
Only one compression needed
A key element to watch for when recording in this genre is the “boxy” sound mentioned before. There tends to be a desire to record both guitar, piano, and other instruments at the same time as the vocals with the same microphone. This should be avoided to create the cleanest vocal track possible. If the boxy sound issue continues, cut anything that is interfering with the female vocals, then boost the high-ends.
When it comes to compressing female vocals, for the most part, they can be compressed and mixed the same way as male vocals. The main difference between the two is the emphasis on cutting the higher frequencies while boosting the low to midrange in order to create more body to the female vocals.
Rob Wreglesworth
Although Rob has come to accept he will probably never be a world famous musician, he still loves making music at home. He started this blog to share the knowledge he has gained from doing this for over 10 years so that you can create music at home too.
Latest posts by Rob Wreglesworth (see all)
Can You Publish Songs Made in Garageband? - January 9, 2020
How to Compress Female Vocals: a Step-by-Step Guide - December 6, 2019
Should You Buy a Used Audio Interface? 6 Pros and Cons - November 27, 2019
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Interesting about
2020 Ford Kuga
Amsterdam showed the new 2018-2019 Ford Kuga model! The presentation took place on 04/02/19, and we are in a hurry to tell you the most interesting news about what changes will occur in the exterior and interior of the popular crossover, as well as what technical characteristics the novelty will appreciate.
Model history
1st generation crossover Ford Kuga off the assembly line in 2008. The car, designed specifically for the European market, was offered in variations with all-wheel or front-wheel drive, and the line of power units included diesel and gasoline engines.
In the US market, the model is known as the Ford Escape.
2nd generation began to release in 2012. It is this model that is currently presented on the Russian market in Ambiente, Trend, Trend Plus, Titanium, Ultra Comfort and Platinum trim levels. The starting price of the 2nd generation Kug crossover in the basic configuration is 1,386,000 rubles.
Another one 3rd generation - This is a new model of Ford Kuga, which is due out in early 2020. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the features of the new product in more detail by evaluating the first live photos and video of the crossover without camouflage.
In the 2020 modification, Ford Kuga received a completely new body and its own unique design, making it unlike its predecessors. The novelty will be based, like the new 4th-generation Focus, on a modular C2 platform, which made it possible to make the car even larger, more spacious and more reliable.
Exterior models form:
a large 6-sided radiator grill, which received a new relief and is made in a laconic black color;
new head optics;
other hood stamping lines;
radically changed front bumper with air intake and integrated fog optics modules;
refusal of manufacturers from a black plastic body kit;
large wheel arches;
exclusive disc design;
a sloping roof, giving the body a resemblance to a hatchback;
barely visible, tightly pressed to the roof of the car, roof rails;
new geometry for modular taillights;
large tailgate;
a stepped bumper in which two tips of the exhaust system are integrated.
Experts are unanimous in the opinion that after such a massive update, the 2020 Ford Kuga resembles Focus in some of its features, and due to the rejection of a number of elements inherent in SUVs and body geometry, which gives the novelty the outlines of a large hatchback, it has become visually closer to passenger models than crossovers.
Also watch the first Ford promotional video:
The crossover interior will become even more spacious, and will also appreciate ergonomics and adaptability. Otherwise, the differences are not as dramatic as in the exterior. Designers of the company, as always, selected high-quality and practical materials for interior design.
The modern interior is made comfortable and functional by such elements as:
12.3-inch digital dashboard with gesture control support
projection display;
multifunctional steering wheel;
8-inch monitor multimedia system;
comfortable chairs with a lot of different adjustments;
innovative selector of driving modes (for automatic transmission);
a large number of compartments for storing small items;
panoramic sunroof;
high-quality acoustics B&O (10 speakers);
many connectors for pairing with modern gadgets and charging them;
Wi-Fi module with the ability to connect 10 devices;
Naturally, the functionality and availability of options that promise for the new Kug 2020, will depend on the configuration, and along with the expansion of the list of equipment will increase the price of the crossover.
For those who opt for cars with a classic ICE, the manufacturer has prepared an additional option - the ability to move the second-row seat, which will allow for easy transformation to increase the luggage compartment.
Important! In hybrid models, this option is not available due to the location of the batteries.
With the transition to the C2 platform, Ford Kuga will become even larger - the 2020 car will receive the following dimensions:
+89 mm
-20 mm
transforms to 1,062 l
+ 67 l
Kuga will be available, as before, in all-wheel drive and front-wheel drive versions.
The engine range of the "classic" powertrain news includes:
engine's type
Ecoboost turbo engine (3 cylinders)
120 h.p.
EcoBlue Turbodiesel (4 cylinders)
But, the most important novelty of 2020 will be the appearance of three hybrid versions of the Ford Kuga model at once:
EcoBlue Hybrid, with a capacity of 150 hp, a 48-volt starter-generator and a flow rate of 5l / 100 km.
Hybrid (the so-called soft hybrid), with a capacity of 225 hp and combined consumption per “hundred” of 5.6 liters.
Plug-in hybrid225 horsepower and with a power reserve of up to 50 km purely on electrics, which the battery should provide at 14.4 kW / h. The combined consumption of such a model will be only 1.2 liters per 100 km.
The listed power units (classic and hybrid) can be aggregated with a 6-speed manual transmission or an 8-band automatic.
The novelty will compete in the SUV class with such cars as:
Suzuki Vitara;
Renault Duster;
Peugeot 2008;
Infiniti QX30;
Mazda CX-9;
Nissan Murano.
Price and start of sales
The first Ford Kuga cars with classic diesel and gasoline engines should appear on sale at the end of 2019, while the start of sales of hybrid versions is scheduled for 2020.
It is still unknown what the starting price of the model will be, but the manufacturer has already said that the new product will be presented in 4 variations: Trend, Titanium, ST-Line and Vignale.
Which of the proposed trim levels will be presented on the Russian market and how much the “charged" version of the 2018-2019 Ford Kuga will cost domestic buyers will be known closer to the start of sales.
See also the presentation of the Ford Kuga 2020:
Hatchback Volkswagen I.D. 2020 model year
2019-2020 world crisis: will there be
Movie Observer (2020)
Navruz in 2020
DPA in 2020 in grade 9
Moscow metro map in 2020: new stations
2020 European Women's Handball Championship
The 2020 European Women's Handball Championship is the 14th edition of the international handball championship, which will be held from December 3 to 20, 2020 in Denmark and Norway. The tournament will be attended by 16 teams, including Russia. Our girls are considered one of the strongest in the world and Europe. ...
Once Upon a Time in Russia: New Year's Edition 2020
What frames are in fashion in 2019-2020
Production calendar for 2020 in Tatarstan with holidays
Real Estate Recipes Holidays Interesting about Calendar Study Construction Auto Congratulations News
Salads for the New Year 2020
New Year , 2019
Fiction 2019-2020: a list of the best films
Movies, 2019
Wolf Messing Predictions for 2020 for Russia and the World
Predictions , 2019
New Year's menu for the New Year 2020 at home
State , 2019
Horoscope for Sagittarius men and women for 2020
Horoscopes , 2019
Retirement Points in 2020
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Tag Archives: Lepidocolaptes souleyetii
Creepers and peckers who attract our attention (but these are good guys!)
No, I’m not referring to plants, humans or an anatomical feature but rather avian woodcreepers, tree creepers and woodpeckers! During our nature outings in Costa Rica in August 2019, they were definitely crowd-pleasers and reminded me of how much these birds are appreciated elsewhere, too. So today I’ll share with you some of my photos of these species in Costa Rica, The Netherlands, South Africa and the USA.
The insectivorous woodcreepers are endemic to the neotropical regions where there are some 57 different species. They tend to be brown in color and look similar, making identification a challenge at times. They hold their bodies upright, using a stiff tail (a similarity to how woodpeckers maintain a vertical position). Although they mainly look for insects in tree bark, they also will eat army ants. They have strongly clawed toes to help them cling to tree trunks.
Research has shown that the woodcreepers may use one of two techniques to capture insects. The “probers” look behind bark, mosses, lichens, leaves, etc. to find their prey. Those who engage in “sallying” launch themselves into the air to catch insects in flight after their movement up a tree has flushed them.
The plain brown woodcreeper (Dendrocincla fuliginosa) is distinguished from other woodcreepers by its lack of streaking or stripes.
The cocoa woodcreeper (Xiphorhynchus susurrans) tends to be a more solitary feeder that looks for insects in bark.
The streak-headed woodcreeper (Lepidocolaptes souleyetii) was aptly named. It tends to be a solitary probing feeder.
The wedge-billed woodcreeper (Glyphorynchus spirurus) is the smallest species of woodcreepers; it also has a shorter bill, which helps in identification. Research has shown they tend to favor ants, beetles, spiders and pseudo-scorpions for their meals.
The brown-billed scythebill (Campylorhamphus pusillus) is obviously distinguished by its very long, curved bill. It was raining and the bird was not sitting still so my photo isn’t great; I really wish I’d gotten better photos of this species (a goal for the future).
In North Carolina, we have a similar type of bird – the brown creeper (Certhia americana). I cannot hear their high-pitched call and therefore must rely on noticing movement to catch sight of them.
Watching them demands some concentration as they are continually on the move as they probe the bark and lichen. They really blend in well with the bark of their trees of choice. It’s a challenge to keep them in view.
They tend to nest in hardwood trees but prefer conifers for foraging. Like the neotropical woodcreepers, they have impressive claws to help them cling to the vertical tree trunks. An interesting fact: “By eating a single spider, a creeper gains enough energy to climb nearly 200 feet vertically.”
The short-toed treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla) that I saw in the Hemmeland nature reserve in The Netherlands in 2018 is a similar bird. Like the brown creeper, it flies to the base of a tree and then works its way up the trunk as it searches for insects to eat. (It looks almost identical to the Eurasian treecreeper, so I hope it is identified correctly!)
The woodpeckers I’ve been able to see in Central America include several species that have similar-looking cousins further north. The golden-fronted woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifrons) has a yellow nape and patch at the base of the bill in much of its range. However, there is a Velasquez’s variant of this species that has a red cap and nape. I saw this one in a botanical garden in Quintana Roo, Mexico, in 2012.
If you look at the red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus), which we see a lot in North Carolina, they look quite similar.
The Hoffmann’s woodpecker (Melanerpes hoffmannii) reminds me of the red-bellied species. The males have a red crown; the females do not. With their pale yellow napes, these birds look like a “pastel” version of the red-bellied species to me.
Red heads seem to be a popular “accoutrement” for the woodpeckers. The black-cheeked species (Melanerpes pucherani), seen in Arenal, Costa Rica, this past August has a red nape but a yellow forehead.
The acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) has a white forehead but also sports a red patch on the back of its head. Fewer than 9% of birds engage in cooperative breeding (where several related or unrelated adults cooperate in raising broods) – the acorn woodpeckers do this through coalitions of adults who nest together.
Another woodpecker with yellow hues that I’ve had the privilege to see is the golden-tailed woodpecker (Campethera abingoni), which I saw in Kruger National Park in South Africa in 2009. Like the above-mentioned woodpeckers, in this species the male also has red hues on its head.
In North Carolina, two very similar smaller woodpeckers are characterized by males who sport a small red patch on the back of the head and females who lack the red coloring. The hairy woodpecker (Leuconotopicus villosus, below left) is the larger of the two species; the downy (Picoides pubescens) looks almost identical except that it is slightly smaller, has a shorter bill and no white spots on the outside tail feathers.
The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (Dryobates borealis) looks like a larger version of the hairy and downy birds but it lacks any red patches anywhere on the head. Their common name refers to an almost invisible red streak (“cockade”) at the top of white cheek where it meets the black feathers atop the head. Unfortunately, this species (the only woodpeckers to make their nest holes in living trees) is under increased threat as the US Fish and Wildlife Service may remove some of the protective measures that have helped increase the population.
The great spotted woodpecker male (Dendrocopos major) that I saw in The Netherlands in 2018 does have a red patch on the back of its head; as in other woodpecker species, the females lack the red spot. This species also sports an obvious red belly (much more so than the red-bellied woodpecker!). An interesting feature of this woodpecker is that they undergo a complete moult after breeding that lasts up to 120 days.
The rufous-winged woodpecker (Piculus simplex, right) only put in a very brief appearance this past August, but made it obvious that they, too, have a red crown. The golden-olive woodpecker (Colaptes rubiginosus) continued the red accented plumage – the males complement their crimson crown with a red “moustachial” stripe. There are 19 sub-species with slightly different coloration.
The large lineated woodpecker (Dryocopus lineatus, left) in Costa Rica closely resembles the pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus, right) that we have in North Carolina. The males of both species can be distinguished by the red stripe going down their faces and both types of woodpeckers are known for their drumming.
The pale-billed woodpeckers (Campephilus guatemalensis) looks a bit like the lineated and pileated species but they are even larger birds that feature an entirely red head. The adults have a light-colored beak that gives them their common name; immature birds have darker bills that lighten with age. The females can be distinguished by their black instead of red throats.
We were lucky to see a pair of these birds foraging along a large stream, accompanied by a third bird – perhaps one of their young from the previous breeding season? This species has not been studied thoroughly – for example, the incubation period and time from hatching to fledging are still both unknown.
Finally, I’ll end this long blog with two more woodpeckers that we saw in Costa Rica. There were smoky brown woodpeckers (Dryobates fumigatus) in a couple places we visited but it was difficult for me to get a good photo in the overcast rainy conditions. They are rather plain birds but again the males are distinguished by a red cap. These were in a tree with black-cheeked woodpeckers.
I had a bit more luck photographing the chestnut-colored woodpecker (Celeus castaneus). This attractive bird has reddish brown plumage and a shaggy crest. Its head feathers may be lighter in color and the males have bright red cheeks.
As there are a couple more woodpecker species where I live that I also enjoy seeing, I’ll feature them in the next blog (a shorter one!) Have a nice day!
Posted in Animal behavior, Biological diversity, Birds, nature, wildlife | Tagged acorn woodpecker, adult coalitions, avian, behavior, bird, black-cheeked woodpecker, brown creeper, brown-billed scythebill, Campephilus guatemalensis, Campethera abingoni, Campylorhamphus pusillus, Celeus castaneus, Certhia americana, Certhia brachydactyla, chestnut-colored woodpecker, cocoa woodcreeper, Colaptes rubiginosus, cooperative breeding, Costa Rica, Dendrocincla fuliginosa, Dendrocopos major, downy woodpecker, Dryobates borealis, Dryobates fumigatus, Dryocopus lineatus, Dryocopus pileatus, feeding, female, foraging technique, Glyphorynchus spirurus, golden-fronted woodpecker, golden-olive woodpecker, golden-tailed woodpecker, great spotted woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, Hoffmann’s woodpecker, Lepidocolaptes souleyetii, Leuconotopicus villosus, lineated woodpecker, male, Melanerpes aurifrons, Melanerpes carolinus, Melanerpes formicivorus, Melanerpes hoffmannii, Melanerpes pucherani, moustachial stripe, North Carolina, pale-billed woodpeckers, Picoides pubescens, Piculus simplex, pileated woodpecker, plain brown woodcreeper, probing, red-bellied woodpecker, red-cockaded woodpecker, rufous-winged woodpecker, sallying, scientific identification, scientific name, short-toed treecreeper, smoky brown woodpecker, South Africa, streak-headed woodcreeper, The Netherlands, treecreeper, wedge-billed woodcreeper, woodcreeper, woodpecker, Xiphorhynchus susurrans | 8 Replies
Costa Rican rambles 4: Bosque del Tolomuco
Posted on March 29, 2018 by Maria dB
After lunch on our first day birding, we set off to visit a lodge called Bosque del Tolomuco, named after a weasel-like mammal called a tayra (tolomuco in Spanish). Located in the Talamanca mountains, the gardens featured three fruit feeders and numerous flowering plants, shrubs and trees that attract varied birds.
About 600 of the 870 species of birds recorded in Costa Rica are year-round residents and a considerable number are endemic to this West Virginia-sized country (and Panama). In addition, about 200 species of birds migrate there during the North American winter. At this stop, I saw a couple migrants as well, notably a Baltimore oriole and a rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus).
A large bird was at one of the fruit feeders when we arrived; it was a gray-headed chachalaca (Ortalis cinereiceps). This particular feeder seemed to attract larger creatures – a little while later, a red-tailed squirrel (Sciurus granatensis) showed up.
Some smaller birds were feeding on fruit and nectar shrubs. One was the bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) with a striped head; the other was a somewhat drab bird with a fancy name, the paltry tyrannulet (Zimmerius vilissimus).
The male and female red-headed barbets (Eubucco bourcierii) were anything but drab; in fact, they were quite eye-catching. Their striped abdomens made me think of a man’s striped trousers.
High overhead, making a good shot a bit difficult, were some blue-headed elegant euphonias (Euphonia elegantissima). At least I got a recognizable photo of them, unlike my attempts to photograph some sparrow species who appeared in darker shadowy areas.
Several of my birding friends are raptor fans; a couple others are very partial to warblers. On this trip, I realized that I am quite fond of tanagers. I saw a few summer tanagers in Costa Rica but was really delighted by the species native to this country. Several were enjoying fruit at feeders, including a beautiful blue-gray tanager (Thraupis episcopus). Some birds are not so brightly colored but have a muted beauty, which was how I saw this species.
The male Cherrie’s tanager (Ramphocelus costaricensis) with his black plumage highlighted by a red rump is eye-catching; his female companion was also a real looker with her soft orange, olive and yellow colors.
The silver-throated tanagers (Tangara icterocephala) immediately became one of my favorites; their beautiful shades of yellow were stunning as far as I was concerned.
They were accompanied by a larger bird, a buff-throated saltator (Saltator maximus), which is related to the tanagers.
Another very attractive bird was the speckled tanager (Tangara guttata).
The flame-colored tanager (Piranga bidentata), which I had seen before, continued to delight with its bright colors. There were also several hummingbird species, which I think I have identified properly. Their rapid flights on an overcast day that was darkening as the afternoon progressed made for some challenging photography, but it was fun trying to capture them. The snowy-bellied hummingbirds (Amazilia edward) were the first ones I saw.
The bottlebrush flowers (Callistemon) appeared to be a very attractive food source for them.
A green hermit (Phaethornis guy) was dashing in and out among the hanging flowers to get some nectar.
The very cute white-crested coquette (Lophornis adorabilis), on the other hand, was flitting from bush to bush for quick meals and then finally decided to pose for a while. I couldn’t resist taking multiple photos of this little beauty.
The green-crowned brilliant (Heliodoxa jacula) was a much larger hummingbird. Both females (with white and green spotted breast) and males were taking nectar from feeders and then taking little rests on nearby shrubs.
The stripe-tailed hummingbird (Eupherusa eximia) was enjoying the bottlebrush blooms, too.
The gray-tailed mountain gems (Lampornis cinereicauda), which I’d seen earlier in the day at Miriam’s restaurant, were here as well and much more difficult to photograph in between flowers rather than feeders. However, I was able to get better glimpses of their colorful feathers as they turned their heads in the light.
Finally, the white-tailed emeralds (Elvira chionura) rounded out the group of hummers to admire at the Bosque del Tolomuco.
We finally left the lodge after admiring a blue and white swallow on our way to the Talari Mountain Lodge. Along the way, I saw a horse (Equus caballus) – which finally satisfied my desire to see an animal other than a bird! We then stopped along a street and later at a soccer field in San Isidro El General, where local boys were having a game – half of them wore shoes and half were barefoot (perhaps their way of identifying team membership). A tropical mockingbird (Mimus gilvus) was moving along treetops, while a great kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus) perched in another tree.
The bromeliads were again beautiful. Our guide directed our attention to the underbrush, however, as he had spotted an Isthmian wren (Cantorchilus elutus). We stared at the dark leaves, waiting for some movement that would indicate where the little bird was; finally, it emerged from behind some leaves for several seconds so we could get a better look.
As cattle egrets flew by overhead, we saw a lesser elaenia (Elaenia chiriquensis) and then a yellow-bellied elaenia (Elaenia flavogaster), which reminded me of the great-crested flycatcher I have seen in my own yard.
A cool seed pod and rose-breasted grosbeak caught my attention.
And then the highlight of that stop for me came by – a streak-headed woodcreeper (Lepidocolaptes souleyetii).
We arrived at the Talari Lodge for a quick stroll in the garden before our meal and then prepared for an early morning walk to the nearby river. More to come!
Posted in Biological diversity, Birds, nature, Squirrels, wildlife | Tagged Amazilia edward, avian, bananaquit, bird, birding, blue-gray tanager, Bosque del Tolomuco, bottlebrush flower, buff-throated saltatory, Callistemon, Cantorchilus elutus, Cherrie’s tanager, Coereba flaveola, Costa Rica, Elaenia chiriquensis, Elaenia flavogaster, elegant euphonia, Elvira chionura, equus caballus, Eubucco bourcierii, Eupherusa eximia, Euphonia elegantissima, feeders, feeding, flame-colored tanager, great kiskadee, green hermit hummingbird, green-crowned brilliant hummingbird, grey-headed chachalaca, Heliodoxa jacula, horse, hummingbird, Isthmian wren, Lepidocolaptes souleyetii, lesser elaenia, Lophornis adorabilis, nature, Ortalis cinereiceps, paltry tyrannulet, Phaethornis guy, Pheucticus ludovicianus, Piranga bidentata, Pitangus sulphuratus, Ramphocelus costaricensis, red-headed barbet, red-tailed squirrel, rose-breasted grosbeak, Saltator maximus, scientific identification, scientific name, Sciurus granatensis, silver-throated tanager, snowy-bellied hummingbird, speckled tanager, streak-headed woodcreeper, stripe-tailed hummingbird, tanager, Tangara guttata, Tangara icterocephala, Thraupis episcopus, white-crested coquette, white-tailed emerald hummingbird, wildlife, yellow-bellied elaenia, Zimmerius vilissimus | 2 Replies
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EYN disaster ministry conducts Hepatitis B screening, aids Bdagu refugees
Church of the Brethren Newsline
By Zakariya Musa
Following the EYN president’s statement declaring a state of emergency on health, the Disaster Relief Ministry of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) moved to conduct Hepatitis B screening starting with staff and students of Kulp Bible College in Kwarhi.
In more news from the work of the Disaster Relief Ministry, the EYN program has been sharing relief aid with refugees from Bdagu who were camped at Lassa following a recent attack on their village.
Hepatitis B screening
Medical personnel Charles Ezra reported that out of 178 people between the ages of 25 to 60 who have been screened so far, 30 were identified positive. A confirmation test is being carried out on those with positive results. After reconfirmation, the group will be undergoing further profiling for medication.
The exercise will continue at the EYN Headquarters, the EYN Ministers Annual Conference, and with staff and students at the EYN secondary school. The demand is high, as people are eager to get screened knowing that the disease has killed some relatives in their communities.
EYN president Joel S. Billi, while narrating concern about the deadly disease, said that EYN has experienced the deaths of young pastors to the killer disease over the years.
Emergency response to Bdagu refugees
EYN’s Disaster Relief Ministry conveyed emergency relief material to Bdagu refugees who were camped at Lassa following the recent attack on their village. The relief materials delivered to 124 households included rice, cooking oil, mats, Maggi Cubes, and blankets.
On the EYN team were the director of the Disaster Relief Ministry, Yuguda Z. Mdurvwa; coordinator Amos S. Duwala; project officer Zakariya Musa; accountant Aniya Simon; medical coordinator Charles E. Gaya; driver John Haha; and two other commercial drivers and their conductor. Part of the material budgeted for 300 households was returned.
Each household received one mat, one blanket, one packet of Maggi Cubes, one bag of 25 kilograms of rice, and one liter of cooking oil. Some families are many in number, and only a few have two or three family members. The majority are between 6 and 10 people in each household.
The displaced are sleeping under the burnt buildings of the Vocational Training Center in Lassa. Tanko Waba, one of the displaced, thanked the church for coming to their aid. He called on the government to reconsider the area, which he said faced several attacks.
In the camp was the man whose family was taken away by the Boko Haram at Bdagu. Mallum Abau, about 70, could not control his tears on mentioning the names of his family members abducted during the attack. Mr. Abau listed their names as: Ndalna Mallum, a wife carrying a baby; Pana Mallum, a daughter with baby; Joro Mallum, a son; Adum Mallum, a son; Hauwa Mallum, a daughter; Hauwa Aduwamanji, a brother’s daughter whose husband was killed by Boko Haram in recent years.
Some of the displaced sustained levels of injuries. One of them was Mr. Ayagaja, who sustained wounds. According to Ayagaja, on hearing of gunshots he was confused and ran into a village called Yimirmugza where he fell into a band of vigilante groups who assumed he was Boko Haram. “They tied and seriously beated me until someone who knows me came around to tell them, ‘Isn’t this a man you know?’ Then they untied me,” he said. His left hand was seriously injured. Ayagaja is being cared for by the Disaster Relief Ministry who committed to follow up on his situation.
Bdagu village head Lawan Satumary Chinda was there during the relief distribution. He thanked the church for the gesture. “No human being left in Bdagu,” he said.
The following were killed in the attack which sacked the area: Shakatri Tsukwam, Aliyu Jaduwa, Ushadari Waindu, Ijanada Ngarba–a woman about 95 years old burnt alive in her room, and Yaga Lamido who was slaughtered.
In a similar response, 153 households were relieved when maize, rice, Maggi Cubes, cooking oil, and salt were distributed at Munni in EYN DCC Michika, in the Michika Local Government area of Adamawa State. Munni village was damaged in 2014 attacks.
Many villages around Chibok, Lassa, Dille, Madagali, Mildu, etc., are under-reported or unreported in terms of Boko Haram attacks, because most of the areas have no access to communication networks.
— Zakariya Musa serves on the communications staff of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria).
Go to www.brethren.org/Newsline to subscribe to the Church of the Brethren Newsline free e-mail news service and receive church news every week.
Tagged BDM, Global Missions, Nigeria
General secretary continues to hold listening sessionsNewsline for Feb. 18, 2017
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crimsonshaid619
member since June 06, 2007
What to say…hmmmm. Well, I'm a laid back dude. My favorite things to do are read (novels, comics, pretty much anything) chill, play video games (Big WoW player, if interested, ask and I'll give you my ingame info) and dick around on the internet. Bit of a loner, me. I really enjoy living in the city, but I'm stuck in the boondocks.
Comics By crimsonshaid619
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Been Better
This is the autobiographical tale of a boy without pupils as he compiles his realities and fantasies in a few panels per page.
Mostly my own slightly warped view on Life, Death, and the world in general.. Not really, this follows the lives of Death (Steve) and Life (Bobby) Along with the other mythical/magical beings that clutter up the place
Persona 3 FTW
Warning: Comic Contains Spoilers. This comic is an overall parody of the entire storyline of the video game, Persona 3. Follow the MC's life both personally and professionally. Hope you enjoy it.
Raidou Kuzunoha the 19th
The Kuzunoha name has been passed down for generations. But when a sudden tragedy befalls the 18th Raidou everything falls onto the shoulders of a high school screw-up named Johei. Is he really worthy of being Raidou Kuzunoha the 19th?
The Pirate Balthasar
Castalia has been kidnapped by Circe. Her fate is unknown to Kane and the others. Her absence makes everybody feel uncertain and lost. Until a Messenger from the witches shows up on a golden ship to communicate what Circe's intention are and now it's up to Kane to do anything he can to get Castalia back.
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SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support.
FOR THE WEEK OF JAN. 13, 2020
Catch up on this topic and summarize what's new or developing.
Share a sentence or two from an editorial, opinion column or reader letter about how the president is handling relations with Iran.
Look for the voices of Iranian-Americans, or people in Iran, and pick a vivid quote.
After tense days when a new Middle East war seemed possible, a significant confrontation between the United States and Iran has been averted – for now, at least. Tensions between the longtime enemies escalated Jan. 3 when an American drone ambush authorized by President Trump killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani and a top aide as they arrived in Baghdad, the capital of neighboring Iraq. Soleimani (pronounced SOLE-eye-mah-KNEE) was an architect of many deadly attacks against Americans, Iranian protesters and Arab neighbors.
Iran retaliated four days later by lobbing a dozen missiles at two bases hosting U.S. troops in Iraq -- the first time it directly targeted American military positions during four decades of confrontation. The armaments missed areas where troops were located. "We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases," Trump said in a televised address. He didn't make further military threats and added: "Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world." Iran's foreign minister confirmed that it doesn’t intend additional attacks. "Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense," he tweeted. "We do not seek escalation or war."
In Washington, the House last Thursday voted 224-194 in favor of a resolution to limit Trump's ability to take further military action against Iran – a symbolic move because the Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to go along. "It's frankly just restating what the Constitution says about who declares war," says Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the measure's sponsor. The Michigan Democrat, a Mideast policy specialist who worked in the CIA and Pentagon, adds: "This is the responsibility of this body, to provide oversight into how we put our young people into conflict." Backers also included Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a Trump ally who says: "Engaging in another forever war in the Middle East would be the wrong decision."
President says: "American strength, both military and economic, is the best deterrent." – Televised speech Jan. 8 from White House
House speaker says: "America and the world cannot afford war." – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Washington journalist says: "President Trump became a wartime leader at the dawn of an election year, and the contours of his ever-changing presidency have again shifted." – Jake Sherman, Politico.com
Front Page Talking Points is written by Alan Stamm for NIEonline.com, Copyright 2020
We welcome comments or suggestions for future topics: Click here to Comment
Front Page Talking Points Archive
►The year ahead: Census, Olympics and elections are among topics that will make front page news in 2020
►Trump action to combat anti-Jewish bias at colleges stirs praise and concern
►Holiday tech gifts: See what's new, imaginative and affordable
►Two new reports describe decline of local news coverage across U.S as a ‘crisis’
►NFL helmet-swinging penalty sparks wider discussions about football violence
►History in action: U.S. House impeachment hearings explore whether Donald Trump abused presidential power
►Users beware: Alexa, Siri and Echo respond to laser pointers aimed from outside a home
►Facebook lets political ads say anything, while Twitter stops allowing them this month
►As flu season arrives, health experts stress the value and safety of vaccinations
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NORTHEAST ROCK REVIEW
CELEBRATING THE PAST FIVE DECADES OF MUSIC THROUGH TODAY | CONCERT REVIEWS & MUSIC NEWS
CONCERT PHOTOS & REVIEW
MEGADETH BASSIST DAVID ELLEFSON ANNOUNCES EAST COAST BASSTORY DATES WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BUMBLEFOOT AND DEAD BY WEDNESDAY
In: MUSIC NEWS, TOUR NEWS
Tagged: Basstory, Bumblefoot, DAVID ELLEFSON, ron bumblefoot thal
Grammy Award Winning Megadeth bassist, author, entrepreneur, and Metal Icon David Ellefson has announced a string of East Coast dates for his BASSTORY tour, with special guest BUMBLEFOOT (ex-Guns N’ Roses, Sons of Apollo) and opener Dead By Wednesday. These are in addition to already announced dates in Europe, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and a special run of Midwest dates with support from COMBAT RECORDS artists Green Death and WRATH. Dubbed “Basstory: An Intimate Evening of Riffs and Repartee with David Ellefson”, the show combines solo bass performance with David’s celebrated brand of storytelling, as he recounts intimate details of his struggles and triumphs inRead More →
SONS OF APOLLO | WORCESTER, MA | 5.19.18
In: CONCERT PHOTOS & REVIEW, LIVE MUSIC
Tagged: billy sheehan, Bumblefoot, Derek Sherinian, jeff Scott Soto, mike portnoy, ron bumblefoot thal, Ron Thal, sons of Apollo, the palladium
SONS OF APOLLO The Palladium Worcester, Massachusetts May 19, 2018 It was the perfect storm in terms of musicianship. When certain ingredients are mixed together it can make for a wonderful thing. In 2017, the super group, Sons of Apollo was formed out of some of the best of the best musicians of this time. Sons of Apollo is comprised of Jeff Scott Soto (vocals), Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (guitar), Billy Sheehan (bass), Derek Sherinian (keyboards) and Mike Portnoy on drums. Depending up on which one of these guys might be your favorite, there is no disputing that with any one of these players in aRead More →
Wishbone Ash Release Video for “We Stand As One” | Plus 2020 World Wide Tour Dates
The Underground Thieves Release Instrumental Epic, ‘5.0.1’, Live at The Filmore
The Three Tremors Announce 3-Disc Set – ‘The Solo Versions’ | Plus 2020 U.S. Tour Dates
FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH COME “FULL CIRCLE” THE ELECTRIFYING SECOND TRACK FROM THEIR GROUNDBREAKING 8th STUDIO ALBUM F8
SOUL ASYLUM | Mohegan Sun Wolf Den | Uncasville, CT | 12.21.19
DAUGHTERS with HEALTH and Show Me The Body | Paradise Rock Club | Boston, MA | 12.21.19
BULLETBOYS REUNITE IN 2020
METAL VETS FROM WILDESTARR, STEELWITCH, VICIOUS RUMORS, AND CHASTAIN UNITE AS WOLF CHAMBER, UNVEIL NEW SONG, “FOREST OF DARKNESS”
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HomePosts tagged 'Transcript Performance Reading'
Transcript Performance Reading
Novel Transcript Reading of I’m Just That Into Me by Dayna Mason
August 7, 2018 August 7, 2018 writingfest novel festival, performance reading, Uncategorized, watch novel readings I'm Just That Into Me by Dayna Mason, Novel Reading, Transcript Performance Reading, Transcript reading of the Novel, Val Cole
Performed by Val Cole
Producer: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com
Director: Kierston Drier
Novel Transcript Reading of The Sanguinarian by L. M. Labat
August 7, 2018 writingfest novel festival, watch novel readings Novel Reading, The Sanguinarian by L. M. Labat, Transcript Performance Reading
Novel Transcript: GETAWAY DAY by Ken White
December 18, 2017 writingfest 1st chapter, books, novel festival, novel prologue, Uncategorized, watch novel readings GETAWAY DAY by Ken White, Novel Reading, scott beaudin, Transcript Performance Reading
Performed by Scott Beaudin
A 14-year-old boy wants to help his dying father play catch with his idol,
Mickey Mantle.
Young adult fiction.
Family, baseball.
It’s a Wonderful Life followed closely by American Graffiti.
Bluebird by Buffalo Springfield.
Dandelion Wine
8. If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would
that be?
Ray Bradbury followed closely by George Lucas.
Sports, music.
To reach a wider audience.
Butt in the seat, words on the page. Write what you’re passionate about, not
what you think the market seems to want.
Camera Operator: Mary Cox
Fortunate Son – Chapter 1 Novel Reading by Daniel T Pawlowski
February 2, 2017 February 2, 2017 writingfest 1st chapter, Uncategorized Chapter 1 Novel Reading by Daniel T Pawlowski, Fortunate Son novel, George W. Bush, Novel Reading, novellist, Transcript Performance Reading, Val Cole
Performed by Val Cole.
Fortunate Son is the story of a future president lost in time. It is 1969. The Vietnam war is raging and a young G.W Bush decides the best place to be is in the National Guard.
Later, some would wonder as to his where-a-bouts during this period. This book answers the question . He was lost in time. A little “R and “R” , a party at Yale, a shortcut through the Physics lab and George gets sent back in time to 1787.
What is a future president to do? Seek help from the only expert in electricity at the time, Benjamin Franklin. The journey to visit Franklin is fraught with danger for anyone let alone the future president from the future. With Ben Franklins help George
attempts to return to his own time before he becomes AWOL from the National Guard, without derailing the writing of the U.S. Constitution and hopefully without getting George killed.
Full Synopsis: Synopsis: “Fortunate Son”
It was 1969. The summer of love had shot its wad and the Vietnam War was in full swing. It was not a good time to be in the military but George W Bush had put himself in a pretty good position to avoid any of that messy war stuff. With a little help from a powerful friend in politics, his Dad, he wangled a position in the National Guard.
Though the guard was treating him nicely, he still needed a little “R and R”, which is precisely why he headed to the campus of Yale University to party with his frat brothers from Delta Kappa Epsilon. As a brother and former fraternity president, he knew they would welcome him with open arms and more importantly open containers.
The party was a blast. Too bad he tried to take a shortcut through the Physics lab. That darned science complicates everything. An experiment in electromagnetism, a case of room zooms and a few hours later he finds himself lost in the year 1787. What is a future president to do? Seek help from the only expert in electricity at the time, Benjamin Franklin.
The journey to meet Franklin is fraught with danger. George has to rely on cunning and good luck, mostly good luck, to survive his encounters with highwaymen, local militia and a lesbian pirate. Fortunately for George he gets help from some folks he meets along the way and the physics students responsible for kicking off his little adventure. Discovering that their experiment had misplaced someone in time has the students concerned. When they find out whom the lost soul is they get serious and start pulling all-nighters to save George from time and visa versa. After many cheeseburgers, several cases of Yoo-Hoo and some choice pot, they manage to accidentally recruit help from 1787 when an unassuming farmer from the past is brought to the Yale campus of 1969.
George’s luck holds out and he manages to make it to Philadelphia to meet up with Ben Franklin. But it takes more than luck to convince Franklin that his story is not the fantastic imaginings of a mad man. It takes all of George’s charm plus the magic twinkle in his eye to convince Franklin that his predicament is real and his help is required. It doesn’t hurt that the constitutional convention of 1787 is just around the corner and the more Franklin leans about George, the more he is convinced that getting George the hell out of town would be a good idea.
Franklin agrees to help George get back to 1969 America. Unfortunately, George has created enemies along the way and they become intent on ending George’s time anywhere. The chase back to 1969 is on with George’s future and that of the country in the balance. When all seems lost and George’s timeline appears to be at an end, the Physics students manage to stay straight enough to solve their technical problems and bring George back to 1969.
Safely back from the past he escapes military justice and a charge of AWOL through cunning and, um, who am I kidding he concocts a story that he was working a political campaign for one of his dads buddies and surprisingly the Guard buys it.
The experience leaves George Bush a changed man. His black and white view of the world has changed into a nice shade of grey, his heart has grown softer and he ponders what he will be when he grows up.
Fiction/Satire/Fantasy
Temporal Escapade.
Tough to answer accurately…….Blazing Saddles ?
How long have you been working on this story?
Eleven years.
Candide by Voltair.
The need to laugh at the political landscape
Ben Franklin.
Tilting at social windmills.
What influenced you to enter your novel to get performed?
The need to bring laughter to a wider audience.
Believe in your journey, look at detours as educational, keep your eye on your destination.
Novel Transcript of Mei Meng: The Lost Panda by Andrew Fisk
January 30, 2017 writingfest novel festival, novel movies, novel prologue, performance reading, transcript reading, Uncategorized, Val Cole, watch novel readings, wildsound festival review, winning stories, writing, writing festival books, Novel Reading, Transcript Performance Reading, Transcript reading of the Novel, Val Cole
This novel is about an adventurous young Panda named Mei Meng. She travels with her parents deep into the mountains of China to escape the destruction of her habitat by human beings. When she is swept away by a raging river, she meets all sorts of fantastic animals on the journey home. Some of them want to help her. Some do not. Surprisingly, her best allies are the human children she meets along the way.
It is definitely a fantasy. It is a children’s book, aimed at the middle-grade audience. It is one hundred twenty two pages without any illustrations. It defies classification as most children’s books are not that long.
Child explorer. If this story was on Disney Family Channel it would be something like “Panda Meets World.” Mei Meng leaves her little corner of the mountain where she lives, and becomes a world explorer. At the end of the book she even has a telescope so she can keep track of her human friends.
It is a tie between “Forrest Gump” and “American Graffiti.” The Forrest Gump character exemplifies the triumph of the simple man, the pure at heart.
American Graffiti has a great story line and a cast of a dozen or more actors who went on to have outstanding careers.
An example of why I like this movie: when Harrison Ford (aka Bob Falfa) drives into town in his jalopy to challenge Paul Le Mat to a race, his license plate is THX 1138. Why is that important? This is the title of the first George Lucas feature film, a science fiction classic. I probably saw “American Graffiti” ten times before I picked up on this.
It took me a few months to write. I did a lot of research on interesting Mandarin names for the characters. For example, Mei Meng’s good friend is a funny snow leopard named Chun Bao, which means Silly Leopard. A scary Siberian tiger is named Di Zheng, which means earthquake. He is so huge that every step he takes shakes the earth.
I’ll nominate two books. One is “The Magic Barrel” by Bernard Malamud (although it is a collection of short stories that won the National Book Award in the nineteen fifties) and “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway.
I felt like writing something lyrical, fantasy-world that would go deep into mythology and have a totally sympathetic main character. It was also meant as a “welcome to the world” present for my daughter. This is not “Kung Fu Panda” by any means. It moves at a slower pace and is more emotional and mystical than slapstick. It also emphasizes the importance of the family, both panda and human.
Leonardo Da Vinci. I would ask him, “How did you accomplish all the things you did in so many different areas?” Unlike Da Vinci, I write my ideas down in spiral notebooks, instead of an ornate leather bound Codex (which Bill Gates paid millions of dollars for). Maybe that’s the secret.
Being outdoors. Hiking in the hills, kayaking, white water rafting, paddle boarding. I am a fan of American college football and find the games more exciting than the usual NFL product.
I wanted to hear different voices speak the lines of dialogue and the narration. I also hope to attract some interest for the book. At the very least I would like to find an illustrator. I would like to have the illustrations done in the style of traditional Chinese paintings. All the different animals and natural environments would allow an artist to create many interesting canvasses. If I were to engage in a little “exponential thinking” I would like to:
Have the book translated and published in China.
Have the book made into a movie for the Chinese market.
Inspiration can come from anywhere at anytime. Sometimes your subconscious pulls together elements from events in your own life and combines them with elements from literature and mythology. There is a flash of lightning in your head and suddenly you know what your project is about. This has been my experience.
SIMULATION (Ch. ILIAD) – Novel Transcript by Ami Blackwelder
January 29, 2017 January 29, 2017 writingfest matthew toffolo, novel festival, novel movies, performance reading, transcript reading, Uncategorized, watch novel readings, wildsound festival review, winning stories, writing, writing festival iliad novel, novel festival, Novel Transcript by Ami Blackwelder, Transcript Performance Reading, Val Cole, Watch Performance Reading
IMPerformed by Val Cole
Ami Blackwelder Website
Historical Romances
YA Dystopias
It is about a future where a quantum computer controls the cities. One girl, Masha, decides to resist the computer’s control.
YA SyFy Dystopian
Gosh, Pride and Prejudice
For a few months
I love a few. Divergent, Hunger Games, Star Wars
Science, Nature, Animals, Reading, Teaching, Traveling
I would love a professional reading of the first pages to get readers interested
Despite Dementia Short Story Reading by Janet Bennett Cox
July 5, 2016 writingfest performance reading, short story, transcript reading, Uncategorized, Val Cole, watch novel readings, wildsound festival review, winning stories, writing, writing festival Despite Dementia, Janet Bennett Cox, novel festival, short story reading, Transcript Performance Reading, Val Cole, Watch Performance Reading, writing festival
Watch the July 2016 Winning Short Screenplay Reading.
Story performed by actor Val Cole
Despite Dementia by Janet Bennett Cox
It is about a demented mother and her daughter’s conflict at her demise.
Compelling, interesting
Sound of Music/Ben Hur. (Hard choice)
Wrote it in less than 2 hours after I saw the posting.
My Mom has dementia and its a pain being the caregiver but I know it will be sad when she is no longer here.
Getting my 4 month old grandson to lol.
Thought it a challenge to see if I could write to the specific guideline.
Like Nike, Just do it.
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Colbert segment sparks tourism boost for New Zealand, leader claims
December 5, 2019 | 5:53am
Stephen Colbert and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern AP
New Zealand welcomes 2020 with spectacular fireworks display
Atlanta woman dies after New Zealand volcano eruption
New Zealand collects over 50,000 guns in buyback program
Multimillionaire seeks 10 people to live with him in $5.6M 'paradise'
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand has relied on hobbits, bungy jumping and rugby to entice tourists in the past.
Now Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern may have found the perfect spokesman to embrace all of the above and more: American comedian Stephen Colbert.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Ardern talked about the boost to the country’s vital tourism industry that Colbert appears to have singlehandedly orchestrated.
Last month, Colbert recounted his adventures in New Zealand during a weeklong humorous segment on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
The first segment shows Ardern picking up Colbert from the airport in her car and hosting him for a backyard barbecue, with singer Lorde in attendance.
“It was an amazing opportunity to do something for New Zealand,” Ardern said. “He had a genuine love of New Zealand though. Like, very genuine. So, it actually made it really easy.”
In other segments, Colbert attempts to play rugby and bungy jump, and makes a movie with Peter Jackson, who directed “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies.
Tourism generates more foreign income for New Zealand than any other industry.
Ardern said tourism officials have reported a spike in Americans investigating holidays in New Zealand since the segments ran.
“I think it probably exceeded everyone’s expectations, the amount of coverage the country got from it,” she said. “So I think that’s no bad thing.”
Ardern said Colbert’s segments went beyond the typical depictions of New Zealand’s beautiful scenery and adventure sports.
“It showcased our people really well, and just who we are,” she said.
Filed under late show stephen colbert , new zealand , stephen colbert , tourism , vacation
Police believe missing El Paso woman is dead
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The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales
Erik D. Demaine, Francisco Gomez-Martin, Henk Meijer, David Rappaport, Perouz Taslakian, Godfried Toussaint, Terry Winograd, David R. Wood
We characterize which sets of k points chosen from n points spaced evenly around a circle have the property that, for each i = 1, 2, k-1, there is a nonzero distance along the circle that occurs as the distance between exactly i pairs from the set of k points. Such a set can be interpreted as the set of onsets in a rhythm of period n, or as the set of pitches in a scale of n tones, in which case the property states that, for each i = 1, 2, k -1, there is a nonzero time [tone] interval that appears as the temporal [pitch] distance between exactly i pairs of onsets [pitches]. Rhythms with this property are called Erdos-deep. The problem is a discrete, one-dimensional (circular) analog to an unsolved problem posed by Erdos in the plane.
17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005 - Windsor, Canada
17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005
Distance Geometry
Demaine, E. D., Gomez-Martin, F., Meijer, H., Rappaport, D., Taslakian, P., Toussaint, G., ... Wood, D. R. (2005). The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales. 163-166. Paper presented at 17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005, Windsor, Canada.
The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales. / Demaine, Erik D.; Gomez-Martin, Francisco; Meijer, Henk; Rappaport, David; Taslakian, Perouz; Toussaint, Godfried; Winograd, Terry; Wood, David R.
2005. 163-166 Paper presented at 17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005, Windsor, Canada.
Demaine, ED, Gomez-Martin, F, Meijer, H, Rappaport, D, Taslakian, P, Toussaint, G, Winograd, T & Wood, DR 2005, 'The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales', Paper presented at 17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005, Windsor, Canada, 8/10/05 - 8/12/05 pp. 163-166.
Demaine ED, Gomez-Martin F, Meijer H, Rappaport D, Taslakian P, Toussaint G et al. The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales. 2005. Paper presented at 17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005, Windsor, Canada.
Demaine, Erik D. ; Gomez-Martin, Francisco ; Meijer, Henk ; Rappaport, David ; Taslakian, Perouz ; Toussaint, Godfried ; Winograd, Terry ; Wood, David R. / The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales. Paper presented at 17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005, Windsor, Canada.4 p.
@conference{d3d21d8a30724cf1a99de3a439b97fa4,
title = "The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales",
abstract = "We characterize which sets of k points chosen from n points spaced evenly around a circle have the property that, for each i = 1, 2, k-1, there is a nonzero distance along the circle that occurs as the distance between exactly i pairs from the set of k points. Such a set can be interpreted as the set of onsets in a rhythm of period n, or as the set of pitches in a scale of n tones, in which case the property states that, for each i = 1, 2, k -1, there is a nonzero time [tone] interval that appears as the temporal [pitch] distance between exactly i pairs of onsets [pitches]. Rhythms with this property are called Erdos-deep. The problem is a discrete, one-dimensional (circular) analog to an unsolved problem posed by Erdos in the plane.",
author = "Demaine, {Erik D.} and Francisco Gomez-Martin and Henk Meijer and David Rappaport and Perouz Taslakian and Godfried Toussaint and Terry Winograd and Wood, {David R.}",
note = "17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, CCCG 2005 ; Conference date: 10-08-2005 Through 12-08-2005",
T1 - The distance geometry of deep rhythms and scales
AU - Demaine, Erik D.
AU - Gomez-Martin, Francisco
AU - Meijer, Henk
AU - Rappaport, David
AU - Taslakian, Perouz
AU - Toussaint, Godfried
AU - Winograd, Terry
AU - Wood, David R.
N2 - We characterize which sets of k points chosen from n points spaced evenly around a circle have the property that, for each i = 1, 2, k-1, there is a nonzero distance along the circle that occurs as the distance between exactly i pairs from the set of k points. Such a set can be interpreted as the set of onsets in a rhythm of period n, or as the set of pitches in a scale of n tones, in which case the property states that, for each i = 1, 2, k -1, there is a nonzero time [tone] interval that appears as the temporal [pitch] distance between exactly i pairs of onsets [pitches]. Rhythms with this property are called Erdos-deep. The problem is a discrete, one-dimensional (circular) analog to an unsolved problem posed by Erdos in the plane.
AB - We characterize which sets of k points chosen from n points spaced evenly around a circle have the property that, for each i = 1, 2, k-1, there is a nonzero distance along the circle that occurs as the distance between exactly i pairs from the set of k points. Such a set can be interpreted as the set of onsets in a rhythm of period n, or as the set of pitches in a scale of n tones, in which case the property states that, for each i = 1, 2, k -1, there is a nonzero time [tone] interval that appears as the temporal [pitch] distance between exactly i pairs of onsets [pitches]. Rhythms with this property are called Erdos-deep. The problem is a discrete, one-dimensional (circular) analog to an unsolved problem posed by Erdos in the plane.
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Meet Our Team HGTV Sell a Home BUY A HOME Videos
The O'Byrne Team
2900 Nichols Street, San Diego, CA, United States , 92106
2900 Nichols St
0.36 Sq.Ft.
Property Images
"The home is elegantly positioned on over one-third of an acre with incredible views overlooking the yacht basin to Downtown."
The O' Byrne Team
0.36 Sq.Ft. LOT
One of San Diego's most iconic waterfront homes, the Bowman-Cotton house at 2900 Nichols epitomizes Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in San Diego, with a subtle, contemporary touch inside. From the expansive front lawn to the interior courtyard, the home is elegantly positioned on over one-third of an acre with incredible views overlooking the yacht basin to Downtown, the San Diego Bay and beyond. The home offers two floors of gracious living, a separate guest house, private office, lap pool, spa, game room, garage and beach house. The functionality of a large estate combines effortlessly with the lifestyle convenience of private, direct access to the white sand beaches of coveted La Playa. Originally designed in 1929 by Master Architect Richard S. Requa, this exclusive estate has a lineage of famous owners and enjoys dramatically reduced property taxes as Mills Act Historic Site #466. The historically sensitive remodel was completed by Ione Stiegler, FAIA, of IS Architecture. Enter through the gates of this historic property into the lush courtyard and be transported to another time. The mahogany front door is highlighted by perfect landscaping. Open the front door and reveal stunning views to the waterfront just past the original, delicate wrought iron balustrade on the main staircase. The entry is flanked by arched doorways into the spacious living room on one side and the formal dining room on the other, each with spectacular views. Not to be missed is the gourmet eat-in kitchen featuring marble counters, Viking appliances, beautiful stone flooring, a walk-in pantry, hand-carved arched mahogany pocket doors to the dining room and direct access to the family room. The grand master suite features picture perfect views, two balconies and a spacious den with floor to ceiling view window, built-ins, as well as two custom walk-in closets. The impeccable master bath enjoys a steam shower and separate water closet. Each of the other second floor bedrooms are en suite, one with an over-sized balcony overlooking the courtyard, the other with gorgeous water and city views. Other features include the peaceful guest cottage, spacious game room and private entry office with fireplace and French doors to the expansive view patio as well as a sizable finished basement. This home's carefully balanced historic façade makes it a prized, historical trophy house with all the modern comforts every buyer will appreciate. An ideal primary or secondary residence and a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to own a significant part of San Diego's history. Welcome to the Bowman-Cotton House.
The O’Byrne Team works to make this a reality through emotionally-charged video, dramatic photography and a public relations campaign that reaches out to some of the most respected publications in the world. Along the way, the Team’s 60 years of combined real estate experience provides a level of representation and expert negotiation that matches the marketing they have become so known for.
The O'Byrne Team Pacific Sotheby's Int'l Realty
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Ottawa Japanese Language School
The Ottawa Japanese Language School caters to students, who wish to learn or improve their Japanese, of all skill levels from beginners through to advanced, and all ages from kindergarten students through to adults.
2019-2020 School Year Registration
Registration for the 2019-2020 school year will take place between 9:30 and 11:30 AM on Saturday, September 7 at the École élémentaire publique Mauril Bélanger. (307 Montgomery St, Ottawa, ON K1N 7W8) After the student has registered for the fall semester, there will be a short interview between the teacher and the student to determine the student's Japanese language skill level and class placement.
Classes for the fall semester begin September 14, 2019. Child to Adult courses are available for all skill levels. For more information and to print a registration form, please see the Registration page.
Cash or cheque will be accepted. Most credit cards will be accepted with a small service fee. Please see the Square accepted cards for more details.
Our curriculum is structured to take place over the course of the school year. It is difficult to start from the 2nd semester.
For security reasons, only one entrance is opened. This is normally the door behind the fence to the right side of the entrance next to the gymnasium.
OJLS Speech Contest Winners
The OJLS would like to congratulate all the winners of the first Speech Contest. They are as follows
For the Heritage Language Category:
In first place, Tomoharu Renaud Usami (Grade 5)
In second place, Miyuri Vennos(Grade 5)
In third place, Tabisa Watanabe (Grade 6)
For the judge’s award, Sheena Kishida (Grade 3)
For the Non-Heritage,
Youth and Adult Beginner Category
In first place, Rachel Bainbridge-Sedivy (Youth2)
In second place, Kyana Kama(Youth1)
In third place, Corey Burke(Beginner 1)
For the judge’s awards, Arine Karapetyan (Youth1)
and, Adnan Abidi (Beginner 1)
Non-Heritage Language/ Intermediate and Advanced category:
In first place, Leyla Rivet (Youth3)
In second place, Lea Hamilton ( Intermediate2)
In third place, Madiline Blondin ( Youth3)
The overall winner of the contest,
Grand Prize - Adam Mahon (Advanced2)
OJLS would also like to thank our judges, sponsors and staff members who have made all of this possible.
2018 - 2019 Scholarship
OJLS is very pleased to announce that the Otto's Subaru Scholarship 2018 - 2019 was awarded to Laurel Natsumi Gregan at the Year End Ceremony on May 25, 2019. We kindly thank Otto's Subaru of Ottawa for their continued support of Japanese culture and language learning.
OJLS Speech Contest
The first Ottawa Japanese Language School Speech contest will be held on Saturday March 23rd at 13:30 at Kiwanis hall in Vanier community Centre.
The categories of the speech are as follows:
Children's Japanese as a heritage language
Youth and adult student's Japanese as a foreign language.
Congratulations to Katherine Lu, Wei Yue, Tianwei Ding and Victoria Esnard!
Katherine Lu is the 1st prize winner of Beginner’s Level at the 29th Japanese Language Speech Contest in Ottawa, that took place last March 3rd, 2018 at the Embassy of Japan. She will participate in the national level competition in Edmonton on the 24th of March. Wei Yue also took the second place in the Beginner’s level. Tianwei Ding and Victoria Esnard also received special awards from the judges. Find contest details here
OJLS Celebrates its 40th Anniversary!
We are delighted to announce that, throughout 2016, the Ottawa Japanese Language School (OJLS) will be celebrating its 40th Anniversary. As part of the activities and festivities, we greatly thank all students who submitted designs for the 40th Anniversary Logo Contest last winter. The organizing Committee has selected the below proposal by Christopher Cooper, student at Adult Beginner 1 level, to represent all activities marking this year’s celebrations. He will be receiving a one-semester scholarship for the OJLS’ fall semester. Congratulations Christopher!
OJLS donates $10,000 to the Earthquake Relief Fund
On April 20th 2011 at the Japanese Embassy in Ottawa, Ambassador Ichikawa received from OJLS a cheque for $10,000 for the Earthquake Relief Fund, presented by Tim Folkins (Chairperson), Kazuko Kobayashi (Principal), Yoko Mongeon (Vice-Principal) and Mike Haag (Treasurer). Many thanks to all those members and friends of the school that donated!
Aside from collecting donations,“Senbazuru” (one thousand origami cranes) with messages written on the wings were prepared for one of the elementary schools in the severely affected areas.
Originally the OJLS board had decided to donate $1000 directly and to match a further $2000 dollar-for-dollar for donations from students. In light of the generous total of $5,885.79 collected, the board voted to round-up the school's matching contribution to $3,114,21 in order to make the total donation to the Tohoku-Pacific earthquake relief efforts $10,000.
Tohoku-Pacific Earthquake Relief Donations
On March 11, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred in the Tohoku region of Japan. Minutes later, the coastline of the same area was struck by a massive tsunami. The damage seen on newscasts and websites is shocking and sobering for all of us. Every student and staff member at the OJLS has a connection to Japan in some way, whether it's family, hobbies, cultural interest or simply a love of the language. Japan and her people have given us many beautiful and interesting experiences, but now the Japanese people need our help.
OJLS will be collecting donations for earthquake relief on Saturday March 19 and 26. The fastest and most effective way to get aid to where it's needed is for us to donate money to an existing aid organization so that materials can be purchased in large, economical quantities as near to the affected areas as possible. For this reason, OJLS will only be accepting cash donations and we will immediately forward all donations to the Japan Red Cross. The OJLS Board of Directors is also organizing a donation-matching program, details will be available on Saturday at the school. A staff member will be located in the hallway near the school office to accept your donation.
If you would prefer to receive a tax receipt, you may donate on-line at: www.redcross.ca. Please be sure to select the "Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami" campaign. Online donations will still be eligible for donation-matching as long as a copy of the receipt is provided to the school. Thank you for your support.
Receive updates by e-mail
Can I register after the registration day?
This depends on the level. Please call the principal to find out or come to the office between 9 and 9:30 a.m. to register.
When are classes held?
Every Saturday morning. See the Calendar for more details.
Where is the school located?
See Location for the address of the school and a map of its surroundings.
When is registration day?
Usually on the second Saturday of September. See Calendar for details.
I've never studied Japanese before. Which class should I start with?
You can begin with the "Beginner 1" class. See Courses for more details.
Do you have classes held at times other than Saturday mornings?
Unfortunately, we only have classes on Saturday mornings.
Is there still room?
This depends on the level. Please call the principal to find out.
Ambassabor Receives Cheque from OJLS Group Shot
© 2009 Ottawa Japanese Language School. All rights reserved. About the Web site.
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Juhuri (çuhuri / жугьури / ז'אוּהאוּראִ)
Juhuri is a Southwest Iranian language originally spoken by Jews in the eastern Caucasus Mountains. It now mainly spoken in Israel, and in Azerbaijan, Dagestan in Russian, and the USA. It is also known as Juwuri or Judeo-Tat, and has about 100,000 speakers.
Juhuri is closely related to Tat, a language spoken by the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan, and quite closely related to Persian. Juhuri contains numerous loanwords from Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.
The first books in Juhuri were printed in a version of the Hebrew script similar to Rashi and were published in 1908 and 1909. From 1929 to 1939 a version of the Latin alphabet was used to write Juhuri, and since then the Cyrillic alphabet has been used. In recent years the Hebrew script was started to become popular once again for writing Juhuri.
Juhuri alphabets and pronunciation
Hebrew alphabet for Juhuri
Latin alphabet for Juhuri
Cyrillic alphabet for Juhuri
Download an alphabet chart for Juhuri (Excel)
Sample video in Juhuri
Information about Juhuri | Numbers | Proverbs
Information about Juhuri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juhuri_language
http://www.trilinguist.ru/linguistic/juhur/index-12-23-04-42-05.html
http://www.trilinguist.ru/linguistic/juhur/phonetic.html
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/saving-another-dying-jewish-language-before-it-s-too-late-1.284542
Languages written with the Hebrew script
Aramaic, Bukhori, Domari, Hebrew, Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Juhuri, Knaanic, Ladino, Mozarabic, Yiddish, Yevanic
Other languages written with the: Cyrillic and Latin alphabet
Avestan, Baluchi, Bartangi, Dari, Gilaki, Hazaragi, Ishkashimi, Juhuri, Khufi, Kurdish, Luri, Mazandarani, Ossetian, Oroshor, Persian, Parthian, Pashto, Rushani, Sanglechi, Sarikoli, Shabaki, Shughni, Tajik, Talysh, Tat, Wakhi, Yaghnobi, Yazghulami, Zazaki
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Society & Governing Body
Training & Workshop
Lectures & Demonstrations
Patent & Copyrights
Media Kit & Media Partner
NCSM in Media
Reply to RTI Queries
Registration Wing
Monthly Reports and E-Samiksha
हिन्दी वेबसाइट
Science City, Kolkata organised a Popular Science Lecture on “Recent Applications of Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering in improving the Air Quality and Medicine”
ncsmgov Lectures & Demonstrations, Past Events, Press Release
Today, Science City, Kolkata organised a Popular Science Lecture on “Recent Applications of Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering in improving the Air Quality and Medicine”. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Nabarun Ghosh, Professor of Biology and Advisor for Biology Education, Department of Life Earth and Environmental Sciences, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, Texas. While welcoming […]
Central Research and Training Laboratory organised a lecture on ‘Edible Cutlery’
Today, Central Research and Training Laboratory (CRTL), the research wing of National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) organised a lecture on ‘Edible Cutlery’. The lecture was delivered by Shri Narayana Peesapati, the innovator of edible cutlery. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Shrikant Pathak, Director, CRTL said- ‘We have organised this lecture as a part of […]
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Lecture on “How new genes are born” by Dr. Eve Syrkin Wurtele at KPSC, Kurushetra
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Interactive Session with Prof. Xiangyi Li at National Science Centre, Delhi
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Science Demonstration Lecture by Prof. H. C. Verma at BITM, Kolkata
Birla Industrial & Technological Museum (BITM), Kolkata organised a Science demonstration lecture of renowned Professor H. C. Verma of IIT Kanpur on 9th June 2014 in its premises. Prof. Verma is the author of highly acclaimed text books on conceptual physics and a prolific science Teacher/ Demonstrator held an interactive session and gave science demonstration […]
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Manish Joshi on Why antibiotics are important
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Simhadri on 28th February: National Science Day in India
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Anindita on Activating the Vision for Innovation Hubs in India
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NDC 0002-3229 Strattera
Atomoxetine Hydrochloride
NDC: 0002-3229 Strattera
Proprietary Name: Strattera What is the Proprietary Name?
Non-Proprietary Name: Atomoxetine Hydrochloride What is the Non-Proprietary Name?
WHITE (C48325 - OPAQUE WHITE)
YELLOW (C48330 - GOLD)
BLUE (C48333 - OPAQUE BLUE)
Shape: CAPSULE (C48336)
LILLY;3227;10;MG
0002 - Eli Lilly And Company
0002-3229 - Strattera
Package Description: 30 CAPSULE in 1 BOTTLE
Strattera with NDC 0002-3229 is a a human prescription drug product labeled by Eli Lilly And Company. The generic name of Strattera is atomoxetine hydrochloride. The product's dosage form is capsule and is administered via oral form.
Labeler Name: Eli Lilly And Company
Dosage Form: Capsule - A solid oral dosage form consisting of a shell and a filling. The shell is composed of a single sealed enclosure, or two halves that fit together and which are sometimes sealed with a band. Capsule shells may be made from gelatin, starch, or cellulose, or other suitable materials, may be soft or hard, and are filled with solid or liquid ingredients that can be poured or squeezed.
Strattera Active Ingredient(s)
ATOMOXETINE HYDROCHLORIDE 40 mg/1
STARCH, CORN (UNII: O8232NY3SJ)
DIMETHICONE (UNII: 92RU3N3Y1O)
GELATIN (UNII: 2G86QN327L)
SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE (UNII: 368GB5141J)
FERRIC OXIDE YELLOW (UNII: EX438O2MRT)
FD&C BLUE NO. 2 (UNII: L06K8R7DQK)
FERROSOFERRIC OXIDE (UNII: XM0M87F357)
Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor - [EPC] (Established Pharmacologic Class)
Norepinephrine Uptake Inhibitors - [MoA] (Mechanism of Action)
Atomoxetine is pronounced as (at' oh mox e teen)
Why is atomoxetine medication prescribed?
Atomoxetine is used as part of a total treatment program to increase the ability to pay attention and decrease impulsiveness and hyperactivity in children and adults with...
Strattera Product Label Images
PACKAGE LABEL - STRATTERA 100 mg bottle of 30 - strattera 100mg contain 30 006 01
PACKAGE LABEL - STRATTERA 10 mg bottle of 30 - strattera 10mg contain 30 000 01
PACKAGE LABEL - STRATTERA 10mg 18mg 25mg 40mg - 45ct Titration Pack - strattera carton 10 18 25 40mg 000 03
Chemical Structure - strattera1
Figure 1 - strattera2
Strattera Product Labeling Information
Warning: Suicidal Ideation In Children And Adolescents
1.1 Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd)
1.2 Diagnostic Considerations
1.3 Need For Comprehensive Treatment Program
2.2 Maintenance/Extended Treatment
2.3 General Dosing Information
4.1 Hypersensitivity
4.2 Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (Maoi)
4.3 Narrow Angle Glaucoma
4.4 Pheochromocytoma
4.5 Severe Cardiovascular Disorders
5.1 Suicidal Ideation
5.2 Severe Liver Injury
5.4 Effects On Blood Pressure And Heart Rate
5.5 Emergence Of New Psychotic Or Manic Symptoms
5.6 Screening Patients For Bipolar Disorder
5.7 Aggressive Behavior Or Hostility
5.8 Allergic Events
5.9 Effects On Urine Outflow From The Bladder
5.10 Priapism
5.11 Effects On Growth
5.12 Laboratory Tests
5.13 Concomitant Use Of Potent Cyp2d6 Inhibitors Or Use In Patients Who Are Known To Be Cyp2d6 Pms
6.1 Clinical Trials Experience
6.2 Postmarketing Spontaneous Reports
7.1 Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors
7.2 Effect Of Cyp2d6 Inhibitors On Atomoxetine
7.3 Antihypertensive Drugs And Pressor Agents
7.4 Albuterol
7.5 Effect Of Atomoxetine On P450 Enzymes
7.7 Methylphenidate
7.8 Drugs Highly Bound To Plasma Protein
7.9 Drugs That Affect Gastric Ph
8.2 Labor And Delivery
8.3 Nursing Mothers
8.6 Hepatic Insufficiency
8.7 Renal Insufficiency
8.8 Gender
8.9 Ethnic Origin
9.1 Controlled Substance
9.2 Abuse
9.3 Dependence
10.1 Human Experience
10.2 Management Of Overdose
12.2 Pharmacodynamics
14.2 Adhd Studies In Adults
16.1 How Supplied
16.2 Storage And Handling
17.1 General Information
17.2 Suicide Risk
17.3 Severe Liver Injury
17.4 Aggression Or Hostility
17.5 Priapism
17.6 Ocular Irritant
17.7 Drug-Drug Interaction
17.8 Pregnancy
17.9 Food
17.10 Missed Dose
17.11 Interference With Psychomotor Performance
Spl Medguide
STRATTERA (atomoxetine) increased the risk of suicidal ideation in short-term studies in children or adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Anyone considering the use of STRATTERA in a child or adolescent must balance this risk with the clinical need. Co-morbidities occurring with ADHD may be associated with an increase in the risk of suicidal ideation and/or behavior. Patients who are started on therapy should be monitored closely for suicidality (suicidal thinking and behavior), clinical worsening, or unusual changes in behavior. Families and caregivers should be advised of the need for close observation and communication with the prescriber. STRATTERA is approved for ADHD in pediatric and adult patients. STRATTERA is not approved for major depressive disorder.Pooled analyses of short-term (6 to 18 weeks) placebo-controlled trials of STRATTERA in children and adolescents (a total of 12 trials involving over 2200 patients, including 11 trials in ADHD and 1 trial in enuresis) have revealed a greater risk of suicidal ideation early during treatment in those receiving STRATTERA compared to placebo. The average risk of suicidal ideation in patients receiving STRATTERA was 0.4% (5/1357 patients), compared to none in placebo-treated patients (851 patients). No suicides occurred in these trials [see Warnings and Precautions (5.1)].
STRATTERA is indicated for the treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The efficacy of STRATTERA Capsules was established in seven clinical trials in outpatients with ADHD: four 6 to 9-week trials in pediatric patients (ages 6 to 18), two 10-week trial in adults, and one maintenance trial in pediatrics (ages 6 to 15) [see Clinical Studies (14)].
A diagnosis of ADHD (DSM-IV) implies the presence of hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms that cause impairment and that were present before age 7 years. The symptoms must be persistent, must be more severe than is typically observed in individuals at a comparable level of development, must cause clinically significant impairment, e.g., in social, academic, or occupational functioning, and must be present in 2 or more settings, e.g., school (or work) and at home. The symptoms must not be better accounted for by another mental disorder.
The specific etiology of ADHD is unknown, and there is no single diagnostic test. Adequate diagnosis requires the use not only of medical but also of special psychological, educational, and social resources. Learning may or may not be impaired. The diagnosis must be based upon a complete history and evaluation of the patient and not solely on the presence of the required number of DSM-IV characteristics.
For the Inattentive Type, at least 6 of the following symptoms must have persisted for at least 6 months: lack of attention to details/careless mistakes, lack of sustained attention, poor listener, failure to follow through on tasks, poor organization, avoids tasks requiring sustained mental effort, loses things, easily distracted, forgetful. For the Hyperactive-Impulsive Type, at least 6 of the following symptoms must have persisted for at least 6 months: fidgeting/squirming, leaving seat, inappropriate running/climbing, difficulty with quiet activities, “on the go,” excessive talking, blurting answers, can't wait turn, intrusive. For a Combined Type diagnosis, both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive criteria must be met.
STRATTERA is indicated as an integral part of a total treatment program for ADHD that may include other measures (psychological, educational, social) for patients with this syndrome. Drug treatment may not be indicated for all patients with this syndrome. Drug treatment is not intended for use in the patient who exhibits symptoms secondary to environmental factors and/or other primary psychiatric disorders, including psychosis. Appropriate educational placement is essential in children and adolescents with this diagnosis and psychosocial intervention is often helpful. When remedial measures alone are insufficient, the decision to prescribe drug treatment medication will depend upon the physician's assessment of the chronicity and severity of the patient's symptoms.
Dosing of children and adolescents up to 70 kg body weight — STRATTERA should be initiated at a total daily dose of approximately 0.5 mg/kg and increased after a minimum of 3 days to a target total daily dose of approximately 1.2 mg/kg administered either as a single daily dose in the morning or as evenly divided doses in the morning and late afternoon/early evening. No additional benefit has been demonstrated for doses higher than 1.2 mg/kg/day [see Clinical Studies (14)].
The total daily dose in children and adolescents should not exceed 1.4 mg/kg or 100 mg, whichever is less.
Dosing of children and adolescents over 70 kg body weight and adults — STRATTERA should be initiated at a total daily dose of 40 mg and increased after a minimum of 3 days to a target total daily dose of approximately 80 mg administered either as a single daily dose in the morning or as evenly divided doses in the morning and late afternoon/early evening. After 2 to 4 additional weeks, the dose may be increased to a maximum of 100 mg in patients who have not achieved an optimal response. There are no data that support increased effectiveness at higher doses [see Clinical Studies (14)].
The maximum recommended total daily dose in children and adolescents over 70 kg and adults is 100 mg.
Dosing adjustment for hepatically impaired patients — For those ADHD patients who have hepatic insufficiency (HI), dosage adjustment is recommended as follows: For patients with moderate HI (Child-Pugh Class B), initial and target doses should be reduced to 50% of the normal dose (for patients without HI). For patients with severe HI (Child-Pugh Class C), initial dose and target doses should be reduced to 25% of normal [see Use In Specific Populations (8.6)].
Dosing adjustment for use with a strong CYP2D6 inhibitor or in patients who are known to be CYP2D6 PMs — In children and adolescents up to 70 kg body weight administered strong CYP2D6 inhibitors, e.g., paroxetine, fluoxetine, and quinidine, or in patients who are known to be CYP2D6 PMs, STRATTERA should be initiated at 0.5 mg/kg/day and only increased to the usual target dose of 1.2 mg/kg/day if symptoms fail to improve after 4 weeks and the initial dose is well tolerated.
In children and adolescents over 70 kg body weight and adults administered strong CYP2D6 inhibitors, e.g., paroxetine, fluoxetine, and quinidine, STRATTERA should be initiated at 40 mg/day and only increased to the usual target dose of 80 mg/day if symptoms fail to improve after 4 weeks and the initial dose is well tolerated.
Sudden Death and Pre-existing Structural Cardiac Abnormalities or Other Serious Heart Problems
Children and Adolescents — Sudden death has been reported in association with atomoxetine treatment at usual doses in children and adolescents with structural cardiac abnormalities or other serious heart problems. Although some serious heart problems alone carry an increased risk of sudden death, atomoxetine generally should not be used in children or adolescents with known serious structural cardiac abnormalities, cardiomyopathy, serious heart rhythm abnormalities, or other serious cardiac problems that may place them at increased vulnerability to the noradrenergic effects of atomoxetine.
Adults — Sudden deaths, stroke, and myocardial infarction have been reported in adults taking atomoxetine at usual doses for ADHD. Although the role of atomoxetine in these adult cases is also unknown, adults have a greater likelihood than children of having serious structural cardiac abnormalities, cardiomyopathy, serious heart rhythm abnormalities, coronary artery disease, or other serious cardiac problems. Consideration should be given to not treating adults with clinically significant cardiac abnormalities.
Assessing Cardiovascular Status in Patients being Treated with AtomoxetineChildren, adolescents, or adults who are being considered for treatment with atomoxetine should have a careful history (including assessment for a family history of sudden death or ventricular arrhythmia) and physical exam to assess for the presence of cardiac disease, and should receive further cardiac evaluation if findings suggest such disease (e.g., electrocardiogram and echocardiogram). Patients who develop symptoms such as exertional chest pain, unexplained syncope, or other symptoms suggestive of cardiac disease during atomoxetine treatment should undergo a prompt cardiac evaluation.
CYP2D6 metabolism — Poor metabolizers (PMs) of CYP2D6 have a 10-fold higher AUC and a 5-fold higher peak concentration to a given dose of STRATTERA compared with extensive metabolizers (EMs). Approximately 7% of a Caucasian population are PMs. Laboratory tests are available to identify CYP2D6 PMs. The blood levels in PMs are similar to those attained by taking strong inhibitors of CYP2D6. The higher blood levels in PMs lead to a higher rate of some adverse effects of STRATTERA [see Adverse Reactions (6.1)].
Child and Adolescent Clinical Trials
Reasons for discontinuation of treatment due to adverse reactions in child and adolescent clinical trials — In acute child and adolescent placebo-controlled trials, 3.0% (48/1613) of atomoxetine subjects and 1.4% (13/945) placebo subjects discontinued for adverse reactions. For all studies, (including open-label and long-term studies), 6.3% of extensive metabolizer (EM) patients and 11.2% of poor metabolizer (PM) patients discontinued because of an adverse reaction. Among STRATTERA-treated patients, irritability (0.3%, N=5); somnolence (0.3%, N=5); aggression (0.2%, N=4); nausea (0.2%, N=4); vomiting (0.2%, N=4); abdominal pain (0.2%, N=4); constipation (0.1%, N=2); fatigue (0.1%, N=2); feeling abnormal (0.1%, N=2); and headache (0.1%, N=2) were the reasons for discontinuation reported by more than 1 patient.
Seizures — STRATTERA has not been systematically evaluated in pediatric patients with seizure disorder as these patients were excluded from clinical studies during the product's premarket testing. In the clinical development program, seizures were reported in 0.2% (12/5073) of children whose average age was 10 years (range 6 to 16 years). In these clinical trials, the seizure risk among poor metabolizers was 0.3% (1/293) compared to 0.2% (11/4741) for extensive metabolizers.
Commonly observed adverse reactions in acute child and adolescent, placebo-controlled trials — Commonly observed adverse reactions associated with the use of STRATTERA (incidence of 2% or greater) and not observed at an equivalent incidence among placebo-treated patients (STRATTERA incidence greater than placebo) are listed in Table 2. Results were similar in the BID and the QD trial except as shown in Table 3, which shows both BID and QD results for selected adverse reactions based on statistically significant Breslow-Day tests. The most commonly observed adverse reactions in patients treated with STRATTERA (incidence of 5% or greater and at least twice the incidence in placebo patients, for either BID or QD dosing) were: nausea, vomiting, fatigue, decreased appetite, abdominal pain, and somnolence (see Tables 2 and 3).
Additional data from ADHD clinical trials (controlled and uncontrolled) has shown that approximately 5 to 10% of pediatric patients experienced potentially clinically important changes in heart rate (≥20 beats per min) or blood pressure (≥15 to 20 mm Hg) [see Contraindications (4) and Warnings and Precautions (5)].
Table 2: Common Treatment–Emergent Adverse Reactions Associated with the Use of STRATTERA in Acute (up to 18 weeks) Child and Adolescent Trials
a Reactions reported by at least 2% of patients treated with atomoxetine, and greater than placebo. The following reactions did not meet this criterion but were reported by more atomoxetine-treated patients than placebo-treated patients and are possibly related to atomoxetine treatment: blood pressure increased, early morning awakening (terminal insomnia), flushing, mydriasis, sinus tachycardia, asthenia, palpitations, mood swings, constipation, and dyspepsia. The following reactions were reported by at least 2% of patients treated with atomoxetine, and equal to or less than placebo: pharyngolaryngeal pain, insomnia (insomnia includes the terms, insomnia, initial insomnia, middle insomnia). The following reaction did not meet this criterion but shows a statistically significant dose relationship: pruritus.
b Abdominal pain includes the terms: abdominal pain upper, abdominal pain, stomach discomfort, abdominal discomfort, epigastric discomfort.
c Somnolence includes the terms: sedation, somnolence.
Adverse ReactionaPercentage of Patients Reporting ReactionSTRATTERA (N=1597)Placebo (N=934)Gastrointestinal Disorders Abdominal painb18
General Disorders and Administration Site Conditions Fatigue
Therapeutic response unexpected
Investigations Weight decreased
Metabolism and Nutritional Disorders Decreased appetite
Nervous System Disorders Headache
Somnolencec11
Skin and Subcutaneous Tissue Disorders Rash
Table 3: Common Treatment-Emergent Adverse Reactions Associated with the Use of STRATTERA in Acute (up to 18 weeks) Child and Adolescent Trials
a Abdominal pain includes the terms: abdominal pain upper, abdominal pain, stomach discomfort, abdominal discomfort, epigastric discomfort.
b Constipation didn't meet the statistical significance on Breslow-Day test but is included in the table because of pharmacologic plausibility.
c Mood swings didn't meet the statistical significance on Breslow-Day test at 0.05 level but p-value was <0.1 (trend).
Adverse ReactionPercentage of Patients Reporting Reaction from BID TrialsPercentage of Patients Reporting Reaction from QD TrialsSTRATTERA (N=715)Placebo (N=434)STRATTERA (N=882)Placebo (N=500)Gastrointestinal Disorders Abdominal paina17
Constipationb2
General Disorders Fatigue
Psychiatric Disorders Mood swingsc2
The following adverse reactions occurred in at least 2% of child and adolescent CYP2D6 PM patients and were statistically significantly more frequent in PM patients compared with CYP2D6 EM patients: insomnia (11% of PMs, 6% of EMs); weight decreased (7% of PMs, 4% of EMs); constipation (7% of PMs, 4% of EMs); depression1 (7% of PMs, 4% of EMs); tremor (5% of PMs, 1% of EMs); excoriation (4% of PMs, 2% of EMs); middle insomnia (3% of PMs, 1% of EMs); conjunctivitis (3% of PMs, 1% of EMs); syncope (3% of PMs, 1% of EMs); early morning awakening (2% of PMs, 1% of EMs); mydriasis (2% of PMs, 1% of EMs); sedation (4% of PMs, 2% of EMs).
1Depression includes the following terms: depression, major depression, depressive symptoms, depressed mood, dysphoria.
Adult Clinical Trials
Reasons for discontinuation of treatment due to adverse reactions in acute adult placebo-controlled trials — In the acute adult placebo-controlled trials, 11.3% (61/541) atomoxetine subjects and 3.0% (12/405) placebo subjects discontinued for adverse reactions. Among STRATTERA-treated patients, insomnia (0.9%, N=5); nausea (0.9%, N=5); chest pain (0.6%, N=3); fatigue (0.6%, N=3); anxiety (0.4%, N=2); erectile dysfunction (0.4%, N=2); mood swings (0.4%, N=2); nervousness (0.4%, N=2); palpitations (0.4%, N=2); and urinary retention (0.4%, N=2) were the reasons for discontinuation reported by more than 1 patient.
Seizures — STRATTERA has not been systematically evaluated in adult patients with a seizure disorder as these patients were excluded from clinical studies during the product's premarket testing. In the clinical development program, seizures were reported on 0.1% (1/748) of adult patients. In these clinical trials, no poor metabolizers (0/43) reported seizures compared to 0.1% (1/705) for extensive metabolizers.
Commonly observed adverse reactions in acute adult placebo-controlled trials — Commonly observed adverse reactions associated with the use of STRATTERA (incidence of 2% or greater) and not observed at an equivalent incidence among placebo-treated patients (STRATTERA incidence greater than placebo) are listed in Table 4. The most commonly observed adverse reactions in patients treated with STRATTERA (incidence of 5% or greater and at least twice the incidence in placebo patients) were: constipation, dry mouth, nausea, decreased appetite, dizziness, erectile dysfunction, and urinary hesitation (see Table 4).
Additional data from ADHD clinical trials (controlled and uncontrolled) has shown that approximately 5 to 10% of adult patients experienced potentially clinically important changes in heart rate (≥20 beats per min) or blood pressure (≥15 to 20 mm Hg) [see Contraindications (4) and Warnings and Precautions (5)].Table 4: Common Treatment-Emergent Adverse Reactions Associated with the Use of STRATTERA in Acute (up to 25 weeks) Adult Trials
a Reactions reported by at least 2% of patients treated with atomoxetine, and greater than placebo. The following reactions did not meet this criterion but were reported by more atomoxetine-treated patients than placebo-treated patients and are possibly related to atomoxetine treatment: peripheral coldness, tachycardia, prostatitis, testicular pain, orgasm abnormal, flatulence, asthenia, feeling cold, muscle spasm, dysgeusia, agitation, restlessness, micturition urgency, pollakiuria, pruritus, urticaria, flushing, tremor, menstruation irregular, rash, and urinary retention. The following reactions were reported by at least 2% of patients treated with atomoxetine, and equal to or less than placebo: anxiety, diarrhea, back pain, headache, and oropharyngeal pain.
d Insomnia includes the terms: insomnia, initial insomnia, middle insomnia, and terminal insomnia.
e Urinary hesitation includes the terms: urinary hesitation, urine flow decreased.
f Based on total number of males (STRATTERA, N=943; placebo, N=869).
g Based on total number of females (STRATTERA, N=754; placebo, N=691).
Adverse ReactionaPercentage of Patients Reporting ReactionSystem Organ Class/Adverse ReactionSTRATTERA(N=1697)Placebo(N=1560)Cardiac Disorders Palpitations
Gastrointestinal Disorders Dry mouth
Abdominal painb7
Feeling jittery
Nervous System Disorders Dizziness
Somnolencec8
Psychiatric Disorders Abnormal dreams
Insomniad15
Libido decreased
Renal and Urinary Disorders Urinary hesitatione6
Reproductive System and Breast Disorders Erectile dysfunctionf8
Dysmenorrheag3
Ejaculation delayedf and/or ejaculation disorderf4
Skin and Subcutaneous Tissue Disorders Hyperhidrosis
Vascular Disorders Hot flush
The following adverse events occurred in at least 2% of adult CYP2D6 poor metaboliser (PM) patients and were statistically significantly more frequent in PM patients compared to CYP2D6 extensive metaboliser (EM) patients: vision blurred (4% of PMs, 1% of EMs); dry mouth (35% of PMs, 17% of EMs); constipation (11% of PMs, 7% of EMs); feeling jittery (5% of PMs, 2% of EMs); decreased appetite (23% of PMs, 15% of EMs); tremor (5% of PMs, 1% of EMs); insomnia (19% of PMs, 11% of EMs); sleep disorder (7% of PMs, 3% of EMs); middle insomnia (5% of PMs, 3% of EMs); terminal insomnia (3% of PMs, 1% of EMs); urinary retention (6% of PMs, 1% of EMs); erectile dysfunction (21% of PMs, 9% of EMs); ejaculation disorder (6% of PMs, 2% of EMs); hyperhidrosis (15% of PMs, 7% of EMs); peripheral coldness (3% of PMs, 1% of EMs).
Male and female sexual dysfunction — Atomoxetine appears to impair sexual function in some patients. Changes in sexual desire, sexual performance, and sexual satisfaction are not well assessed in most clinical trials because they need special attention and because patients and physicians may be reluctant to discuss them. Accordingly, estimates of the incidence of untoward sexual experience and performance cited in product labeling are likely to underestimate the actual incidence. Table 4 above displays the incidence of sexual side effects reported by at least 2% of adult patients taking STRATTERA in placebo-controlled trials.
There are no adequate and well-controlled studies examining sexual dysfunction with STRATTERA treatment. While it is difficult to know the precise risk of sexual dysfunction associated with the use of STRATTERA, physicians should routinely inquire about such possible side effects.
CYP3A Substrate (e.g., Midazolam) — Coadministration of STRATTERA (60 mg BID for 12 days) with midazolam, a model compound for CYP3A4 metabolized drugs (single dose of 5 mg), resulted in 15% increase in AUC of midazolam. No dose adjustment is recommended for drugs metabolized by CYP3A.
CYP2D6 Substrate (e.g., Desipramine) — Coadministration of STRATTERA (40 or 60 mg BID for 13 days) with desipramine, a model compound for CYP2D6 metabolized drugs (single dose of 50 mg), did not alter the pharmacokinetics of desipramine. No dose adjustment is recommended for drugs metabolized by CYP2D6.
Pregnancy Category C — Pregnant rabbits were treated with up to 100 mg/kg/day of atomoxetine by gavage throughout the period of organogenesis. At this dose, in 1 of 3 studies, a decrease in live fetuses and an increase in early resorptions was observed. Slight increases in the incidences of atypical origin of carotid artery and absent subclavian artery were observed. These findings were observed at doses that caused slight maternal toxicity. The no-effect dose for these findings was 30 mg/kg/day. The 100 mg/kg dose is approximately 23 times the maximum human dose on a mg/m2 basis; plasma levels (AUC) of atomoxetine at this dose in rabbits are estimated to be 3.3 times (extensive metabolizers) or 0.4 times (poor metabolizers) those in humans receiving the maximum human dose.
Rats were treated with up to approximately 50 mg/kg/day of atomoxetine (approximately 6 times the maximum human dose on a mg/m2 basis) in the diet from 2 weeks (females) or 10 weeks (males) prior to mating through the periods of organogenesis and lactation. In 1 of 2 studies, decreases in pup weight and pup survival were observed. The decreased pup survival was also seen at 25 mg/kg (but not at 13 mg/kg). In a study in which rats were treated with atomoxetine in the diet from 2 weeks (females) or 10 weeks (males) prior to mating throughout the period of organogenesis, a decrease in fetal weight (female only) and an increase in the incidence of incomplete ossification of the vertebral arch in fetuses were observed at 40 mg/kg/day (approximately 5 times the maximum human dose on a mg/m2 basis) but not at 20 mg/kg/day.
No adverse fetal effects were seen when pregnant rats were treated with up to 150 mg/kg/day (approximately 17 times the maximum human dose on a mg/m2 basis) by gavage throughout the period of organogenesis.
No adequate and well-controlled studies have been conducted in pregnant women. STRATTERA should not be used during pregnancy unless the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the fetus.
Tics in patients with ADHD and comorbid Tourette's Disorder — Atomoxetine administered in a flexible dose range of 0.5 to 1.5 mg/kg/day (mean dose of 1.3 mg/kg/day) and placebo were compared in 148 randomized pediatric (age 7-17 years) subjects with a DSM-IV diagnosis of ADHD and comorbid tic disorder in an 18 week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in which the majority (80%) enrolled in this trial with Tourette's Disorder (Tourette's Disorder: 116 subjects; chronic motor tic disorder: 29 subjects). A non-inferiority analysis revealed that STRATTERA did not worsen tics in these patients as determined by the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale Total Score (YGTSS). Out of 148 patients who entered the acute treatment phase, 103 (69.6%) patients discontinued the study. The primary reason for discontinuation in both the atomoxetine (38 of 76 patients, 50.0%) and placebo (45 of 72 patients, 62.5%) treatment groups was identified as lack of efficacy with most of the patients discontinuing at Week 12. This was the first visit where patients with a CGI-S≥4 could also meet the criteria for “clinical non-responder” (CGI-S remained the same or increased from study baseline) and be eligible to enter an open-label extension study with atomoxetine. There have been postmarketing reports of tics [see Adverse Reactions (6.2)].
Anxiety in patients with ADHD and comorbid Anxiety Disorders – In two post-marketing, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, it has been demonstrated that treating patients with ADHD and comorbid anxiety disorders with STRATTERA does not worsen their anxiety.
In a 12-week double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 176 patients, aged 8-17, who met DSM-IV criteria for ADHD and at least one of the anxiety disorders of separation anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or social phobia were randomized. Following a 2-week double-blind placebo lead-in, STRATTERA was initiated at 0.8 mg/kg/day with increase to a target dose of 1.2 mg/kg/day (median dose 1.30 mg/kg/day +/- 0.29 mg/kg/day). STRATTERA did not worsen anxiety in these patients as determined by the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS). Of the 158 patients who completed the double-blind placebo lead-in, 26 (16%) patients discontinued the study.
In a separate 16-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 442 patients aged 18-65, who met DSM-IV criteria for adult ADHD and social anxiety disorder (23% of whom also had Generalized Anxiety Disorder) were randomized. Following a 2-week double-blind placebo lead-in, STRATTERA was initiated at 40 mg/day to a maximum dose of 100 mg/day (mean daily dose 83 mg/day +/- 19.5 mg/day). STRATTERA did not worsen anxiety in these patients as determined by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Of the 413 patients who completed the double-blind placebo lead-in, 149 (36.1%) patients discontinued the study. There have been postmarketing reports of anxiety [see Adverse Reactions (6.2)].
Animal Experience — Drug discrimination studies in rats and monkeys showed inconsistent stimulus generalization between atomoxetine and cocaine.
Cardiac Electrophysiology — The effect of STRATTERA on QTc prolongation was evaluated in a randomized, double-blinded, positive-(moxifloxacin 400 mg) and placebo-controlled, cross-over study in healthy male CYP2D6 poor metabolizers. A total of 120 healthy subjects were administered STRATTERA (20 mg and 60 mg) twice daily for 7 days. No large changes in QTc interval (i.e., increases >60 msec from baseline, absolute QTc >480 msec) were observed in the study. However, small changes in QTc interval cannot be excluded from the current study, because the study failed to demonstrate assay sensitivity. There was a slight increase in QTc interval with increased atomoxetine concentration.
Absorption and distribution — Atomoxetine is rapidly absorbed after oral administration, with absolute bioavailability of about 63% in EMs and 94% in PMs. Maximal plasma concentrations (Cmax) are reached approximately 1 to 2 hours after dosing.
STRATTERA can be administered with or without food. Administration of STRATTERA with a standard high-fat meal in adults did not affect the extent of oral absorption of atomoxetine (AUC), but did decrease the rate of absorption, resulting in a 37% lower Cmax, and delayed Tmax by 3 hours. In clinical trials with children and adolescents, administration of STRATTERA with food resulted in a 9% lower Cmax.
The steady-state volume of distribution after intravenous administration is 0.85 L/kg indicating that atomoxetine distributes primarily into total body water. Volume of distribution is similar across the patient weight range after normalizing for body weight.
At therapeutic concentrations, 98% of atomoxetine in plasma is bound to protein, primarily albumin.
Metabolism and elimination — Atomoxetine is metabolized primarily through the CYP2D6 enzymatic pathway. People with reduced activity in this pathway (PMs) have higher plasma concentrations of atomoxetine compared with people with normal activity (EMs). For PMs, AUC of atomoxetine is approximately 10-fold and Css, max is about 5-fold greater than EMs. Laboratory tests are available to identify CYP2D6 PMs. Coadministration of STRATTERA with potent inhibitors of CYP2D6, such as fluoxetine, paroxetine, or quinidine, results in a substantial increase in atomoxetine plasma exposure, and dosing adjustment may be necessary [see Warnings and Precautions (5.13)]. Atomoxetine did not inhibit or induce the CYP2D6 pathway.
The major oxidative metabolite formed, regardless of CYP2D6 status, is 4-hydroxyatomoxetine, which is glucuronidated. 4-Hydroxyatomoxetine is equipotent to atomoxetine as an inhibitor of the norepinephrine transporter but circulates in plasma at much lower concentrations (1% of atomoxetine concentration in EMs and 0.1% of atomoxetine concentration in PMs). 4-Hydroxyatomoxetine is primarily formed by CYP2D6, but in PMs, 4-hydroxyatomoxetine is formed at a slower rate by several other cytochrome P450 enzymes. N-Desmethylatomoxetine is formed by CYP2C19 and other cytochrome P450 enzymes, but has substantially less pharmacological activity compared with atomoxetine and circulates in plasma at lower concentrations (5% of atomoxetine concentration in EMs and 45% of atomoxetine concentration in PMs).
Mean apparent plasma clearance of atomoxetine after oral administration in adult EMs is 0.35 L/hr/kg and the mean half-life is 5.2 hours. Following oral administration of atomoxetine to PMs, mean apparent plasma clearance is 0.03 L/hr/kg and mean half-life is 21.6 hours. For PMs, AUC of atomoxetine is approximately 10-fold and Css, max is about 5-fold greater than EMs. The elimination half-life of 4-hydroxyatomoxetine is similar to that of N-desmethylatomoxetine (6 to 8 hours) in EM subjects, while the half-life of N-desmethylatomoxetine is much longer in PM subjects (34 to 40 hours).
Atomoxetine is excreted primarily as 4-hydroxyatomoxetine-O-glucuronide, mainly in the urine (greater than 80% of the dose) and to a lesser extent in the feces (less than 17% of the dose). Only a small fraction of the STRATTERA dose is excreted as unchanged atomoxetine (less than 3% of the dose), indicating extensive biotransformation.
[See Use In Specific Populations (8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9)].
Carcinogenesis — Atomoxetine HCl was not carcinogenic in rats and mice when given in the diet for 2 years at time-weighted average doses up to 47 and 458 mg/kg/day, respectively. The highest dose used in rats is approximately 8 and 5 times the maximum human dose in children and adults, respectively, on a mg/m2 basis. Plasma levels (AUC) of atomoxetine at this dose in rats are estimated to be 1.8 times (extensive metabolizers) or 0.2 times (poor metabolizers) those in humans receiving the maximum human dose. The highest dose used in mice is approximately 39 and 26 times the maximum human dose in children and adults, respectively, on a mg/m2 basis.
Mutagenesis — Atomoxetine HCl was negative in a battery of genotoxicity studies that included a reverse point mutation assay (Ames Test), an in vitro mouse lymphoma assay, a chromosomal aberration test in Chinese hamster ovary cells, an unscheduled DNA synthesis test in rat hepatocytes, and an in vivo micronucleus test in mice. However, there was a slight increase in the percentage of Chinese hamster ovary cells with diplochromosomes, suggesting endoreduplication (numerical aberration).
The metabolite N-desmethylatomoxetine HCl was negative in the Ames Test, mouse lymphoma assay, and unscheduled DNA synthesis test.
Impairment of fertility — Atomoxetine HCl did not impair fertility in rats when given in the diet at doses of up to 57 mg/kg/day, which is approximately 6 times the maximum human dose on a mg/m2 basis.
Acute Studies — The effectiveness of STRATTERA in the treatment of ADHD was established in 4 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of pediatric patients (ages 6 to 18). Approximately one-third of the patients met DSM-IV criteria for inattentive subtype and two-thirds met criteria for both inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive subtypes.
Signs and symptoms of ADHD were evaluated by a comparison of mean change from baseline to endpoint for STRATTERA- and placebo-treated patients using an intent-to-treat analysis of the primary outcome measure, the investigator administered and scored ADHD Rating Scale-IV-Parent Version (ADHDRS) total score including hyperactive/impulsive and inattentive subscales. Each item on the ADHDRS maps directly to one symptom criterion for ADHD in the DSM-IV.
In Study 1, an 8-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-response, acute treatment study of children and adolescents aged 8 to 18 (N=297), patients received either a fixed dose of STRATTERA (0.5, 1.2, or 1.8 mg/kg/day) or placebo. STRATTERA was administered as a divided dose in the early morning and late afternoon/early evening. At the 2 higher doses, improvements in ADHD symptoms were statistically significantly superior in STRATTERA-treated patients compared with placebo-treated patients as measured on the ADHDRS scale. The 1.8 mg/kg/day STRATTERA dose did not provide any additional benefit over that observed with the 1.2 mg/kg/day dose. The 0.5 mg/kg/day STRATTERA dose was not superior to placebo.
In Study 2, a 6-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, acute treatment study of children and adolescents aged 6 to 16 (N=171), patients received either STRATTERA or placebo. STRATTERA was administered as a single dose in the early morning and titrated on a weight-adjusted basis according to clinical response, up to a maximum dose of 1.5 mg/kg/day. The mean final dose of STRATTERA was approximately 1.3 mg/kg/day. ADHD symptoms were statistically significantly improved on STRATTERA compared with placebo, as measured on the ADHDRS scale. This study shows that STRATTERA is effective when administered once daily in the morning.
In 2 identical, 9-week, acute, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of children aged 7 to 13 (Study 3, N=147; Study 4, N=144), STRATTERA and methylphenidate were compared with placebo. STRATTERA was administered as a divided dose in the early morning and late afternoon (after school) and titrated on a weight-adjusted basis according to clinical response. The maximum recommended STRATTERA dose was 2.0 mg/kg/day. The mean final dose of STRATTERA for both studies was approximately 1.6 mg/kg/day. In both studies, ADHD symptoms statistically significantly improved more on STRATTERA than on placebo, as measured on the ADHDRS scale.
Examination of population subsets based on gender and age (<12 and 12 to 17) did not reveal any differential responsiveness on the basis of these subgroupings. There was not sufficient exposure of ethnic groups other than Caucasian to allow exploration of differences in these subgroups.
Maintenance Study — The effectiveness of STRATTERA in the maintenance treatment of ADHD was established in an outpatient study of children and adolescents (ages 6-15 years). Patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for ADHD who showed continuous response for about 4 weeks during an initial 10 week open-label treatment phase with STRATTERA (1.2 to 1.8 mg/kg/day) were randomized to continuation of their current dose of STRATTERA (N=292) or to placebo (N=124) under double-blind treatment for observation of relapse. Response during the open-label phase was defined as CGI-ADHD-S score ≤2 and a reduction of at least 25% from baseline in ADHDRS-IV-Parent:Inv total score. Patients who were assigned to STRATTERA and showed continuous response for approximately 8 months during the first double-blind treatment phase were again randomized to continuation of their current dose of STRATTERA (N=81) or to placebo (N=82) under double-blind treatment for observation of relapse. Relapse during the double-blind phase was defined as CGI-ADHD-S score increases of at least 2 from the end of open-label phase and ADHDRS-IV-Parent:Inv total score returns to ≥90% of study entry score for 2 consecutive visits. In both double-blind phases, patients receiving continued STRATTERA treatment experienced significantly longer times to relapse than those receiving placebo.
Literature revised May 12, 2017
Marketed by: Lilly USA, LLCIndianapolis, IN 46285, USAwww.strattera.comCopyright © 2002, 2017, Eli Lilly and Company. All rights reserved.
STR-0003-USPI-20170512
It is generally agreed that pharmacological treatment of ADHD may be needed for extended periods. The benefit of maintaining pediatric patients (ages 6-15 years) with ADHD on STRATTERA after achieving a response in a dose range of 1.2 to 1.8 mg/kg/day was demonstrated in a controlled trial. Patients assigned to STRATTERA in the maintenance phase were generally continued on the same dose used to achieve a response in the open label phase. The physician who elects to use STRATTERA for extended periods should periodically reevaluate the long-term usefulness of the drug for the individual patient [see Clinical Studies (14.1)].
STRATTERA may be taken with or without food.
STRATTERA can be discontinued without being tapered.
STRATTERA capsules are not intended to be opened, they should be taken whole [see Patient Counseling Information (17.6)].
The safety of single doses over 120 mg and total daily doses above 150 mg have not been systematically evaluated.
Each capsule contains atomoxetine HCl equivalent to 10 mg (Opaque White, Opaque White), 18 mg (Gold, Opaque White), 25 mg (Opaque Blue, Opaque White), 40 mg (Opaque Blue, Opaque Blue), 60 mg (Opaque Blue, Gold), 80 mg (Opaque Brown, Opaque White), or 100 mg (Opaque Brown, Opaque Brown) of atomoxetine.
STRATTERA is contraindicated in patients known to be hypersensitive to atomoxetine or other constituents of the product [see Warnings and Precautions (5.8)].
STRATTERA should not be taken with an MAOI, or within 2 weeks after discontinuing an MAOI. Treatment with an MAOI should not be initiated within 2 weeks after discontinuing STRATTERA. With other drugs that affect brain monoamine concentrations, there have been reports of serious, sometimes fatal reactions (including hyperthermia, rigidity, myoclonus, autonomic instability with possible rapid fluctuations of vital signs, and mental status changes that include extreme agitation progressing to delirium and coma) when taken in combination with an MAOI. Some cases presented with features resembling neuroleptic malignant syndrome. Such reactions may occur when these drugs are given concurrently or in close proximity [see Drug Interactions (7.1)].
In clinical trials, STRATTERA use was associated with an increased risk of mydriasis and therefore its use is not recommended in patients with narrow angle glaucoma.
Serious reactions, including elevated blood pressure and tachyarrhythmia, have been reported in patients with pheochromocytoma or a history of pheochromocytoma who received STRATTERA. Therefore, STRATTERA should not be taken by patients with pheochromocytoma or a history of pheochromocytoma.
STRATTERA should not be used in patients with severe cardiac or vascular disorders whose condition would be expected to deteriorate if they experience increases in blood pressure or heart rate that could be clinically important (for example, 15 to 20 mm Hg in blood pressure or 20 beats per minute in heart rate). [See Warnings and Precautions (5.4)].
STRATTERA increased the risk of suicidal ideation in short-term studies in children and adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Pooled analyses of short-term (6 to 18 weeks) placebo-controlled trials of STRATTERA in children and adolescents have revealed a greater risk of suicidal ideation early during treatment in those receiving STRATTERA. There were a total of 12 trials (11 in ADHD and 1 in enuresis) involving over 2200 patients (including 1357 patients receiving STRATTERA and 851 receiving placebo). The average risk of suicidal ideation in patients receiving STRATTERA was 0.4% (5/1357 patients), compared to none in placebo-treated patients. There was 1 suicide attempt among these approximately 2200 patients, occurring in a patient treated with STRATTERA. No suicides occurred in these trials. All reactions occurred in children 12 years of age or younger. All reactions occurred during the first month of treatment. It is unknown whether the risk of suicidal ideation in pediatric patients extends to longer-term use. A similar analysis in adult patients treated with STRATTERA for either ADHD or major depressive disorder (MDD) did not reveal an increased risk of suicidal ideation or behavior in association with the use of STRATTERA.
All pediatric patients being treated with STRATTERA should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.The following symptoms have been reported with STRATTERA: anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania and mania. Although a causal link between the emergence of such symptoms and the emergence of suicidal impulses has not been established, there is a concern that such symptoms may represent precursors to emerging suicidality. Thus, patients being treated with STRATTERA should be observed for the emergence of such symptoms.
Consideration should be given to changing the therapeutic regimen, including possibly discontinuing the medication, in patients who are experiencing emergent suicidality or symptoms that might be precursors to emerging suicidality, especially if these symptoms are severe or abrupt in onset, or were not part of the patient's presenting symptoms.
Families and caregivers of pediatric patients being treated with STRATTERA should be alerted about the need to monitor patients for the emergence of agitation, irritability, unusual changes in behavior, and the other symptoms described above, as well as the emergence of suicidality, and to report such symptoms immediately to healthcare providers. Such monitoring should include daily observation by families and caregivers.
Postmarketing reports indicate that STRATTERA can cause severe liver injury. Although no evidence of liver injury was detected in clinical trials of about 6000 patients, there have been rare cases of clinically significant liver injury that were considered probably or possibly related to STRATTERA use in postmarketing experience. Rare cases of liver failure have also been reported, including a case that resulted in a liver transplant. Because of probable underreporting, it is impossible to provide an accurate estimate of the true incidence of these reactions. Reported cases of liver injury occurred within 120 days of initiation of atomoxetine in the majority of cases and some patients presented with markedly elevated liver enzymes [>20 X upper limit of normal (ULN)], and jaundice with significantly elevated bilirubin levels (>2 X ULN), followed by recovery upon atomoxetine discontinuation. In one patient, liver injury, manifested by elevated hepatic enzymes up to 40 X ULN and jaundice with bilirubin up to 12 X ULN, recurred upon rechallenge, and was followed by recovery upon drug discontinuation, providing evidence that STRATTERA likely caused the liver injury. Such reactions may occur several months after therapy is started, but laboratory abnormalities may continue to worsen for several weeks after drug is stopped. The patient described above recovered from his liver injury, and did not require a liver transplant.
STRATTERA should be discontinued in patients with jaundice or laboratory evidence of liver injury, and should not be restarted. Laboratory testing to determine liver enzyme levels should be done upon the first symptom or sign of liver dysfunction (e.g., pruritus, dark urine, jaundice, right upper quadrant tenderness, or unexplained “flu like” symptoms) [see Warnings and Precautions (5.12); Patient Counseling Information (17.3)].
STRATTERA should be used with caution in patients whose underlying medical conditions could be worsened by increases in blood pressure or heart rate such as certain patients with hypertension, tachycardia, or cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease. It should not be used in patients with severe cardiac or vascular disorders whose condition would be expected to deteriorate if they experienced clinically important increases in blood pressure or heart rate [see Contraindications (4.5)]. Pulse and blood pressure should be measured at baseline, following STRATTERA dose increases, and periodically while on therapy to detect possible clinically important increases.
The following table provides short-term, placebo-controlled clinical trial data for the proportions of patients having an increase in: diastolic blood pressure ≥15 mm Hg; systolic blood pressure ≥20 mm Hg; heart rate greater than or equal to 20 bpm, in both the pediatric and adult populations (see Table 1).Table 1aa Abbreviations: bpm=beats per minute; DBP=diastolic blood pressure; HR=heart rate; mm Hg=millimeters mercury; SBP=systolic blood pressure.b Proportion of patients meeting threshold at any one time during clinical trial.Pediatric Acute Placebo-ControlledAdult Acute Placebo-ControlledMaximumbEndpointMaximumbEndpointAtomoxetinePlaceboAtomoxetinePlaceboAtomoxetinePlaceboAtomoxetinePlacebo%%%%%%%%
DBP (≥15 mm Hg)
SBP (≥20 mm Hg)
HR (≥20 bpm)
In placebo-controlled registration studies involving pediatric patients, tachycardia was identified as an adverse event for 0.3% (5/1597) of these STRATTERA patients compared with 0% (0/934) of placebo patients. The mean heart rate increase in extensive metabolizer (EM) patients was 5.0 beats/minute, and in poor metabolizer (PM) patients 9.4 beats/minute.
In adult clinical trials where EM/PM status was available, the mean heart rate increase in PM patients was significantly higher than in EM patients (11 beats/minute versus 7.5 beats/minute). The heart rate effects could be clinically important in some PM patients.In placebo-controlled registration studies involving adult patients, tachycardia was identified as an adverse event for 1.5% (8/540) of STRATTERA patients compared with 0.5% (2/402) of placebo patients.
In adult clinical trials where EM/PM status was available, the mean change from baseline in diastolic blood pressure in PM patients was higher than in EM patients (4.21 versus 2.13 mm Hg) as was the mean change from baseline in systolic blood pressure (PM: 2.75 versus EM: 2.40 mm Hg). The blood pressure effects could be clinically important in some PM patients.Orthostatic hypotension and syncope have been reported in patients taking STRATTERA. In child and adolescent registration studies, 0.2% (12/5596) of STRATTERA-treated patients experienced orthostatic hypotension and 0.8% (46/5596) experienced syncope. In short-term child and adolescent registration studies, 1.8% (6/340) of STRATTERA-treated patients experienced orthostatic hypotension compared with 0.5% (1/207) of placebo-treated patients. Syncope was not reported during short-term child and adolescent placebo-controlled ADHD registration studies. STRATTERA should be used with caution in any condition that may predispose patients to hypotension, or conditions associated with abrupt heart rate or blood pressure changes.
Treatment emergent psychotic or manic symptoms, e.g., hallucinations, delusional thinking, or mania in children and adolescents without a prior history of psychotic illness or mania can be caused by atomoxetine at usual doses. If such symptoms occur, consideration should be given to a possible causal role of atomoxetine, and discontinuation of treatment should be considered. In a pooled analysis of multiple short-term, placebo-controlled studies, such symptoms occurred in about 0.2% (4 patients with reactions out of 1939 exposed to atomoxetine for several weeks at usual doses) of atomoxetine-treated patients compared to 0 out of 1056 placebo-treated patients.
In general, particular care should be taken in treating ADHD in patients with comorbid bipolar disorder because of concern for possible induction of a mixed/manic episode in patients at risk for bipolar disorder. Whether any of the symptoms described above represent such a conversion is unknown. However, prior to initiating treatment with STRATTERA, patients with comorbid depressive symptoms should be adequately screened to determine if they are at risk for bipolar disorder; such screening should include a detailed psychiatric history, including a family history of suicide, bipolar disorder, and depression.
Patients beginning treatment for ADHD should be monitored for the appearance or worsening of aggressive behavior or hostility. Aggressive behavior or hostility is often observed in children and adolescents with ADHD. In pediatric short-term controlled clinical trials, 21/1308 (1.6%) of atomoxetine patients versus 9/806 (1.1%) of placebo-treated patients spontaneously reported treatment emergent hostility-related adverse events (overall risk ratio of 1.33 [95% C.I. 0.67-2.64 – not statistically significant]). In adult placebo-controlled clinical trials, 6/1697 (0.35%) of atomoxetine patients versus 4/1560 (0.26%) of placebo-treated patients spontaneously reported treatment emergent hostility-related adverse events (overall risk ratio of 1.38 [95% C.I. 0.39-4.88 – not statistically significant]). Although this is not conclusive evidence that STRATTERA causes aggressive behavior or hostility, these behaviors were more frequently observed in clinical trials among children, adolescents, and adults treated with STRATTERA compared to placebo.
Although uncommon, allergic reactions, including anaphylactic reactions, angioneurotic edema, urticaria, and rash, have been reported in patients taking STRATTERA.
In adult ADHD controlled trials, the rates of urinary retention (1.7%, 9/540) and urinary hesitation (5.6%, 30/540) were increased among atomoxetine subjects compared with placebo subjects (0%, 0/402 ; 0.5%, 2/402, respectively). Two adult atomoxetine subjects and no placebo subjects discontinued from controlled clinical trials because of urinary retention. A complaint of urinary retention or urinary hesitancy should be considered potentially related to atomoxetine.
Rare postmarketing cases of priapism, defined as painful and nonpainful penile erection lasting more than 4 hours, have been reported for pediatric and adult patients treated with STRATTERA. The erections resolved in cases in which follow-up information was available, some following discontinuation of STRATTERA. Prompt medical attention is required in the event of suspected priapism.
Data on the long-term effects of STRATTERA on growth come from open-label studies, and weight and height changes are compared to normative population data. In general, the weight and height gain of pediatric patients treated with STRATTERA lags behind that predicted by normative population data for about the first 9-12 months of treatment. Subsequently, weight gain rebounds and at about 3 years of treatment, patients treated with STRATTERA have gained 17.9 kg on average, 0.5 kg more than predicted by their baseline data. After about 12 months, gain in height stabilizes, and at 3 years, patients treated with STRATTERA have gained 19.4 cm on average, 0.4 cm less than predicted by their baseline data (see
Figure 1 below).
Figure 1: Mean Weight and Height Percentiles Over Time for Patients With Three Years of STRATTERA Treatment
This growth pattern was generally similar regardless of pubertal status at the time of treatment initiation. Patients who were pre-pubertal at the start of treatment (girls ≤8 years old, boys ≤9 years old) gained an average of 2.1 kg and 1.2 cm less than predicted after three years. Patients who were pubertal (girls >8 to ≤13 years old, boys >9 to ≤14 years old) or late pubertal (girls >13 years old, boys >14 years old) had average weight and height gains that were close to or exceeded those predicted after three years of treatment.
Growth followed a similar pattern in both extensive and poor metabolizers (EMs, PMs). PMs treated for at least two years gained an average of 2.4 kg and 1.1 cm less than predicted, while EMs gained an average of 0.2 kg and 0.4 cm less than predicted.
In short-term controlled studies (up to 9 weeks), STRATTERA-treated patients lost an average of 0.4 kg and gained an average of 0.9 cm, compared to a gain of 1.5 kg and 1.1 cm in the placebo-treated patients. In a fixed-dose controlled trial, 1.3%, 7.1%, 19.3%, and 29.1% of patients lost at least 3.5% of their body weight in the placebo, 0.5, 1.2, and 1.8 mg/kg/day dose groups.
Growth should be monitored during treatment with STRATTERA.
Routine laboratory tests are not required.
Atomoxetine is primarily metabolized by the CYP2D6 pathway to 4-hydroxyatomoxetine. Dosage adjustment of STRATTERA may be necessary when coadministered with potent CYP2D6 inhibitors (e.g., paroxetine, fluoxetine, and quinidine) or when administered to CYP2D6 PMs. [See Dosage and Administration (2.4) and Drug Interactions (7.2)].
STRATTERA was administered to 5382 children or adolescent patients with ADHD and 1007 adults with ADHD in clinical studies. During the ADHD clinical trials, 1625 children and adolescent patients were treated for longer than 1 year and 2529 children and adolescent patients were treated for over 6 months.
Because clinical trials are conducted under widely varying conditions, adverse reaction rates observed in the clinical trials of a drug cannot be directly compared to rates in the clinical trials of another drug and may not reflect the rates observed in practice.
The following adverse reactions have been identified during post approval use of STRATTERA. Unless otherwise specified, these adverse reactions have occurred in adults and children and adolescents. Because these reactions are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to drug exposure.
Cardiovascular system — QT prolongation, syncope.
Peripheral vascular effects — Raynaud's phenomenon.
General disorders and administration site conditions — Lethargy.
Musculoskeletal System — Rhabdomyolysis.Nervous system disorders — Hypoaesthesia; paraesthesia in children and adolescents; sensory disturbances; tics.
Psychiatric disorders — Depression and depressed mood; anxiety, libido changes.Seizures — Seizures have been reported in the postmarketing period. The postmarketing seizure cases include patients with pre-existing seizure disorders and those with identified risk factors for seizures, as well as patients with neither a history of nor identified risk factors for seizures. The exact relationship between STRATTERA and seizures is difficult to evaluate due to uncertainty about the background risk of seizures in ADHD patients.
Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders — Alopecia, hyperhidrosis.Urogenital system — Male pelvic pain; urinary hesitation in children and adolescents; urinary retention in children and adolescents.
With other drugs that affect brain monoamine concentrations, there have been reports of serious, sometimes fatal reactions (including hyperthermia, rigidity, myoclonus, autonomic instability with possible rapid fluctuations of vital signs, and mental status changes that include extreme agitation progressing to delirium and coma) when taken in combination with an MAOI. Some cases presented with features resembling neuroleptic malignant syndrome. Such reactions may occur when these drugs are given concurrently or in close proximity [see Contraindications (4.2)].
In extensive metabolizers (EMs), inhibitors of CYP2D6 (e.g., paroxetine, fluoxetine, and quinidine) increase atomoxetine steady-state plasma concentrations to exposures similar to those observed in poor metabolizers (PMs). In EM individuals treated with paroxetine or fluoxetine, the AUC of atomoxetine is approximately 6- to 8-fold and Css, max is about 3- to 4-fold greater than atomoxetine alone.
In vitro studies suggest that coadministration of cytochrome P450 inhibitors to PMs will not increase the plasma concentrations of atomoxetine.
Because of possible effects on blood pressure, STRATTERA should be used cautiously with antihypertensive drugs and pressor agents (e.g., dopamine, dobutamine) or other drugs that increase blood pressure.
STRATTERA should be administered with caution to patients being treated with systemically-administered (oral or intravenous) albuterol (or other beta2 agonists) because the action of albuterol on the cardiovascular system can be potentiated resulting in increases in heart rate and blood pressure. Albuterol (600 mcg iv over 2 hours) induced increases in heart rate and blood pressure. These effects were potentiated by atomoxetine (60 mg BID for 5 days) and were most marked after the initial coadministration of albuterol and atomoxetine. However, these effects on heart rate and blood pressure were not seen in another study after the coadministration with inhaled dose of albuterol (200-800 mcg) and atomoxetine (80 mg QD for 5 days) in 21 healthy Asian subjects who were excluded for poor metabolizer status.
Atomoxetine did not cause clinically important inhibition or induction of cytochrome P450 enzymes, including CYP1A2, CYP3A, CYP2D6, and CYP2C9.
Consumption of ethanol with STRATTERA did not change the intoxicating effects of ethanol.
Coadministration of methylphenidate with STRATTERA did not increase cardiovascular effects beyond those seen with methylphenidate alone.
In vitro drug-displacement studies were conducted with atomoxetine and other highly-bound drugs at therapeutic concentrations. Atomoxetine did not affect the binding of warfarin, acetylsalicylic acid, phenytoin, or diazepam to human albumin. Similarly, these compounds did not affect the binding of atomoxetine to human albumin.
Drugs that elevate gastric pH (magnesium hydroxide/aluminum hydroxide, omeprazole) had no effect on STRATTERA bioavailability.
Parturition in rats was not affected by atomoxetine. The effect of STRATTERA on labor and delivery in humans is unknown.
Atomoxetine and/or its metabolites were excreted in the milk of rats. It is not known if atomoxetine is excreted in human milk. Caution should be exercised if STRATTERA is administered to a nursing woman.
Anyone considering the use of STRATTERA in a child or adolescent must balance the potential risks with the clinical need [see Boxed Warning and Warnings and Precautions (5.1)].
The pharmacokinetics of atomoxetine in children and adolescents are similar to those in adults. The safety, efficacy, and pharmacokinetics of STRATTERA in pediatric patients less than 6 years of age have not been evaluated.
A study was conducted in young rats to evaluate the effects of atomoxetine on growth and neurobehavioral and sexual development. Rats were treated with 1, 10, or 50 mg/kg/day (approximately 0.2, 2, and 8 times, respectively, the maximum human dose on a mg/m2 basis) of atomoxetine given by gavage from the early postnatal period (Day 10 of age) through adulthood. Slight delays in onset of vaginal patency (all doses) and preputial separation (10 and 50 mg/kg), slight decreases in epididymal weight and sperm number (10 and 50 mg/kg), and a slight decrease in corpora lutea (50 mg/kg) were seen, but there were no effects on fertility or reproductive performance. A slight delay in onset of incisor eruption was seen at 50 mg/kg. A slight increase in motor activity was seen on Day 15 (males at 10 and 50 mg/kg and females at 50 mg/kg) and on Day 30 (females at 50 mg/kg) but not on Day 60 of age. There were no effects on learning and memory tests. The significance of these findings to humans is unknown.
The safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetics of STRATTERA in geriatric patients have not been evaluated.
Atomoxetine exposure (AUC) is increased, compared with normal subjects, in EM subjects with moderate (Child-Pugh Class B) (2-fold increase) and severe (Child-Pugh Class C) (4-fold increase) hepatic insufficiency. Dosage adjustment is recommended for patients with moderate or severe hepatic insufficiency [see Dosage and Administration (2.3)].
EM subjects with end stage renal disease had higher systemic exposure to atomoxetine than healthy subjects (about a 65% increase), but there was no difference when exposure was corrected for mg/kg dose. STRATTERA can therefore be administered to ADHD patients with end stage renal disease or lesser degrees of renal insufficiency using the normal dosing regimen.
Gender did not influence atomoxetine disposition.
Ethnic origin did not influence atomoxetine disposition (except that PMs are more common in Caucasians).
STRATTERA is not a controlled substance.
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, abuse-potential study in adults comparing effects of STRATTERA and placebo, STRATTERA was not associated with a pattern of response that suggested stimulant or euphoriant properties.
Clinical study data in over 2000 children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD and over 1200 adults with depression showed only isolated incidents of drug diversion or inappropriate self-administration associated with STRATTERA. There was no evidence of symptom rebound or adverse reactions suggesting a drug-discontinuation or withdrawal syndrome.
There is limited clinical trial experience with STRATTERA overdose. During postmarketing, there have been fatalities reported involving a mixed ingestion overdose of STRATTERA and at least one other drug. There have been no reports of death involving overdose of STRATTERA alone, including intentional overdoses at amounts up to 1400 mg. In some cases of overdose involving STRATTERA, seizures have been reported. The most commonly reported symptoms accompanying acute and chronic overdoses of STRATTERA were gastrointestinal symptoms, somnolence, dizziness, tremor, and abnormal behavior. Hyperactivity and agitation have also been reported. Signs and symptoms consistent with mild to moderate sympathetic nervous system activation (e.g., tachycardia, blood pressure increased, mydriasis, dry mouth) have also been observed. Most events were mild to moderate. Less commonly, there have been reports of QT prolongation and mental changes, including disorientation and hallucinations [see Clinical Pharmacology (12.2)].
Consult with a Certified Poison Control Center for up to date guidance and advice. Because atomoxetine is highly protein-bound, dialysis is not likely to be useful in the treatment of overdose.
STRATTERA® (atomoxetine) is a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Atomoxetine HCl is the R(-) isomer as determined by x-ray diffraction. The chemical designation is (-)-N-Methyl-3-phenyl-3-(o-tolyloxy)-propylamine hydrochloride. The molecular formula is C17H21NO•HCl, which corresponds to a molecular weight of 291.82. The chemical structure is:
Atomoxetine HCl is a white to practically white solid, which has a solubility of 27.8 mg/mL in water.
STRATTERA capsules are intended for oral administration only.
Each capsule contains atomoxetine HCl equivalent to 10, 18, 25, 40, 60, 80, or 100 mg of atomoxetine. The capsules also contain pregelatinized starch and dimethicone. The capsule shells contain gelatin, sodium lauryl sulfate, and other inactive ingredients. The capsule shells also contain one or more of the following:
FD&C Blue No. 2, synthetic yellow iron oxide, titanium dioxide, red iron oxide. The capsules are imprinted with edible black ink.
The precise mechanism by which atomoxetine produces its therapeutic effects in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is unknown, but is thought to be related to selective inhibition of the pre-synaptic norepinephrine transporter, as determined in ex vivo uptake and neurotransmitter depletion studies.
An exposure-response analysis encompassing doses of atomoxetine (0.5, 1.2 or 1.8 mg/kg/day) or placebo demonstrated atomoxetine exposure correlates with efficacy as measured by the Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Rating Scale-IV-Parent Version: Investigator administered and scored. The exposure-efficacy relationship was similar to that observed between dose and efficacy with median exposures at the two highest doses resulting in near maximal changes from baseline [see Clinical Studies (14.2)].
Atomoxetine is well-absorbed after oral administration and is minimally affected by food. It is eliminated primarily by oxidative metabolism through the cytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6) enzymatic pathway and subsequent glucuronidation. Atomoxetine has a half-life of about 5 hours. A fraction of the population (about 7% of Caucasians and 2% of African Americans) are poor metabolizers (PMs) of CYP2D6 metabolized drugs. These individuals have reduced activity in this pathway resulting in 10-fold higher AUCs, 5-fold higher peak plasma concentrations, and slower elimination (plasma half-life of about 24 hours) of atomoxetine compared with people with normal activity [extensive metabolizers (EMs)]. Drugs that inhibit CYP2D6, such as fluoxetine, paroxetine, and quinidine, cause similar increases in exposure.
The pharmacokinetics of atomoxetine have been evaluated in more than 400 children and adolescents in selected clinical trials, primarily using population pharmacokinetic studies. Single-dose and steady-state individual pharmacokinetic data were also obtained in children, adolescents, and adults. When doses were normalized to a mg/kg basis, similar half-life, Cmax, and AUC values were observed in children, adolescents, and adults. Clearance and volume of distribution after adjustment for body weight were also similar.
The effectiveness of STRATTERA in the treatment of ADHD was established in 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical studies of adult patients, age 18 and older, who met DSM-IV criteria for ADHD.
Signs and symptoms of ADHD were evaluated using the investigator-administered Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scale Screening Version (CAARS), a 30-item scale. The primary effectiveness measure was the 18-item Total ADHD Symptom score (the sum of the inattentive and hyperactivity/impulsivity subscales from the CAARS) evaluated by a comparison of mean change from baseline to endpoint using an intent-to-treat analysis.
In 2 identical, 10-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled acute treatment studies (Study 5, N=280; Study 6, N=256), patients received either STRATTERA or placebo. STRATTERA was administered as a divided dose in the early morning and late afternoon/early evening and titrated according to clinical response in a range of 60 to 120 mg/day. The mean final dose of STRATTERA for both studies was approximately 95 mg/day. In both studies, ADHD symptoms were statistically significantly improved on STRATTERA, as measured on the ADHD Symptom score from the CAARS scale.
Examination of population subsets based on gender and age (<42 and ≥42) did not reveal any differential responsiveness on the basis of these subgroupings. There was not sufficient exposure of ethnic groups other than Caucasian to allow exploration of differences in these subgroups.
A Atomoxetine base equivalent.
STRATTERA® Capsules10 mga18 mga25 mga40 mga60 mga80 mga100 mgaColorOpaque White, Opaque White
Gold, Opaque White
Opaque Blue, Opaque White
Opaque Blue, Opaque Blue
Opaque Blue, Gold
Opaque Brown, Opaque White
Opaque Brown, Opaque Brown
IdentificationLILLY 3227
LILLY 3238
NDC Codes:Bottles of 300002-3227-30
Store at 25°C (77°F); excursions permitted to 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F) [see USP Controlled Room Temperature].
See FDA-approved Medication Guide.
Physicians should instruct their patients to read the Medication Guide before starting therapy with STRATTERA and to reread it each time the prescription is renewed.
Prescribers or other health professionals should inform patients, their families, and their caregivers about the benefits and risks associated with treatment with STRATTERA and should counsel them in its appropriate use. The prescriber or health professional should instruct patients, their families, and their caregivers to read the Medication Guide and should assist them in understanding its contents. Patients should be given the opportunity to discuss the contents of the Medication Guide and to obtain answers to any questions they may have.
Patients should be advised of the following issues and asked to alert their prescriber if these occur while taking STRATTERA.
Patients, their families, and their caregivers should be encouraged to be alert to the emergence of anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, mania, other unusual changes in behavior, depression, and suicidal ideation, especially early during STRATTERA treatment and when the dose is adjusted. Families and caregivers of patients should be advised to observe for the emergence of such symptoms on a day-to-day basis, since changes may be abrupt. Such symptoms should be reported to the patient's prescriber or health professional, especially if they are severe, abrupt in onset, or were not part of the patient's presenting symptoms. Symptoms such as these may be associated with an increased risk for suicidal thinking and behavior and indicate a need for very close monitoring and possibly changes in the medication.
Patients initiating STRATTERA should be cautioned that severe liver injury may develop. Patients should be instructed to contact their physician immediately should they develop pruritus, dark urine, jaundice, right upper quadrant tenderness, or unexplained “flu-like” symptoms [see Warnings and Precautions (5.2)].
Patients should be instructed to call their doctor as soon as possible should they notice an increase in aggression or hostility.
Rare postmarketing cases of priapism, defined as painful and nonpainful penile erection lasting more than 4 hours, have been reported for pediatric and adult patients treated with STRATTERA. The parents or guardians of pediatric patients taking STRATTERA and adult patients taking STRATTERA should be instructed that priapism requires prompt medical attention.
STRATTERA is an ocular irritant. STRATTERA capsules are not intended to be opened. In the event of capsule content coming in contact with the eye, the affected eye should be flushed immediately with water, and medical advice obtained. Hands and any potentially contaminated surfaces should be washed as soon as possible.
Patients should be instructed to consult a physician if they are taking or plan to take any prescription or over-the-counter medicines, dietary supplements, or herbal remedies.
Patients should be instructed to consult a physician if they are nursing, pregnant, or thinking of becoming pregnant while taking STRATTERA.
Patients may take STRATTERA with or without food.
If patients miss a dose, they should be instructed to take it as soon as possible, but should not take more than the prescribed total daily amount of STRATTERA in any 24-hour period.
Patients should be instructed to use caution when driving a car or operating hazardous machinery until they are reasonably certain that their performance is not affected by atomoxetine.
MEDICATION GUIDE STRATTERA® (Stra-TAIR-a) (atomoxetine) CapsulesRead the Medication Guide that comes with STRATTERA® before you or your child starts taking it and each time you get a refill. There may be new information. This Medication Guide does not take the place of talking to your doctor about your treatment or your child's treatment with STRATTERA.
What is the most important information I should know about STRATTERA?The following have been reported with use of STRATTERA:1. Suicidal thoughts and actions in children and teenagers:Children and teenagers sometimes think about suicide, and many report trying to kill themselves. Results from STRATTERA clinical studies with over 2200 child or teenage ADHD patients suggest that some children and teenagers may have a higher chance of having suicidal thoughts or actions. Although no suicides occurred in these studies, 4 out of every 1000 patients developed suicidal thoughts. Tell your child or teenager's doctor if your child or teenager (or there is a family history of):
Has bipolar illness (manic-depressive illness)
Had suicide thoughts or actions before starting STRATTERA
The chance for suicidal thoughts and actions may be higher:early during STRATTERA treatment
During dose adjustments
Prevent suicidal thoughts and action in your child or teenager by:paying close attention to your child or teenager's moods, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings during STRATTERA treatment
Keeping all follow-up visits with your child or teenager's doctor as scheduled
Watch for the following signs in your child or teenager during STRATTERA treatment:anxiety
Suicide thoughts
Call your child or teenager's doctor right away if they have any of the above signs, especially if they are new, sudden, or severe. Your child or teenager may need to be closely watched for suicidal thoughts and actions or need a change in medicine.
2. Severe liver damage:STRATTERA can cause liver injury in some patients. Call your doctor right away if you or your child has the following signs of liver problems:itching
Right upper belly pain
Yellow skin or eyes
Unexplained flu-like symptoms
3. Heart-related problems:sudden death in patients who have heart problems or heart defectsstroke and heart attack in adultsincreased blood pressure and heart rateTell your doctor if you or your child has any heart problems, heart defects, high blood pressure, or a family history of these problems. Your doctor should check you or your child carefully for heart problems before starting STRATTERA.
Your doctor should check your blood pressure or your child's blood pressure and heart rate regularly during treatment with STRATTERA.
Call your doctor right away if you or your child has any signs of heart problems such as chest pain, shortness of breath, or fainting while taking STRATTERA.4. New mental (psychiatric) problems in children and teenagers:new psychotic symptoms (such as hearing voices, believing things that are not true, being suspicious) or new manic symptoms
Call your child or teenager's doctor right away about any new mental symptoms because adjusting or stopping STRATTERA treatment may need to be considered.
What Is STRATTERA?STRATTERA is a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor medicine. It is used for the treatment of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). STRATTERA may help increase attention and decrease impulsiveness and hyperactivity in patients with ADHD.
STRATTERA should be used as a part of a total treatment program for ADHD that may include counseling or other therapies.
STRATTERA has not been studied in children less than 6 years old.
Who should not take STRATTERA?STRATTERA should not be taken if you or your child:are taking or have taken within the past 14 days an anti-depression medicine called a monoamine oxidase inhibitor or MAOI. Some names of MAOI medicines are Nardil® (phenelzine sulfate), Parnate® (tranylcypromine sulfate) and Emsam® (selegiline transdermal system).
Have an eye problem called narrow angle glaucoma
Are allergic to anything in STRATTERA. See the end of this Medication Guide for a complete list of ingredients.
Have or have had a rare tumor called pheochromocytoma.
STRATTERA may not be right for you or your child. Before starting STRATTERA tell your doctor or your child's doctor about all health conditions (or a family history of) including:have or had suicide thoughts or actions
Heart problems, heart defects, irregular heart beat, high blood pressure, or low blood pressure
Mental problems, psychosis, mania, bipolar illness, or depression
Tell your doctor if you or your child is pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or breastfeeding.
Can STRATTERA be taken with other medicines?Tell your doctor about all the medicines that you or your child takes including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. STRATTERA and some medicines may interact with each other and cause serious side effects. Your doctor will decide whether STRATTERA can be taken with other medicines.
Especially tell your doctor if you or your child takes:asthma medicines
Anti-depression medicines including MAOIs
Blood pressure medicines
Cold or allergy medicines that contain decongestants
Know the medicines that you or your child takes. Keep a list of your medicines with you to show your doctor and pharmacist.
Do not start any new medicine while taking STRATTERA without talking to your doctor first.How should STRATTERA be taken?Take STRATTERA exactly as prescribed. STRATTERA comes in different dose strength capsules. Your doctor may adjust the dose until it is right for you or your child.
Do not chew, crush, or open the capsules. Swallow STRATTERA capsules whole with water or other liquids. Tell your doctor if you or your child cannot swallow STRATTERA whole. A different medicine may need to be prescribed.
Avoid touching a broken STRATTERA capsule. Wash hands and surfaces that touched an open STRATTERA capsule. If any of the powder gets in your eyes or your child's eyes, rinse them with water right away and call your doctor.
STRATTERA can be taken with or without food.
STRATTERA is usually taken once or twice a day. Take STRATTERA at the same time each day to help you remember. If you miss a dose of STRATTERA, take it as soon as you remember that day. If you miss a day of STRATTERA, do not double your dose the next day. Just skip the day you missed.
From time to time, your doctor may stop STRATTERA treatment for a while to check ADHD symptoms.
Your doctor may do regular checks of the blood, heart, and blood pressure while taking STRATTERA. Children should have their height and weight checked often while taking STRATTERA. STRATTERA treatment may be stopped if a problem is found during these check-ups.
If you or your child takes too much STRATTERA or overdoses, call your doctor or poison control center right away, or get emergency treatment.What are possible side effects of STRATTERA?See “What is the most important information I should know about STRATTERA?” for information on reported suicidal thoughts and actions, other mental problems, severe liver damage, and heart problems.
Other serious side effects include:serious allergic reactions (call your doctor if you have trouble breathing, see swelling or hives, or experience other allergic reactions)
Slowing of growth (height and weight) in children
Problems passing urine includingtrouble starting or keeping a urine stream
Cannot fully empty the bladder
Common side effects in children and teenagers include:upset stomach
Decreased appetite
Common side effects in adults include:constipation
Sexual side effects
Problems passing urine
Other information for children, teenagers, and adults:Erections that won't go away (priapism) have occurred rarely during treatment with STRATTERA. If you have an erection that lasts more than 4 hours, seek medical help right away. Because of the potential for lasting damage, including the potential inability to have erections, priapism should be evaluated by a doctor immediately.
STRATTERA may affect your ability or your child's ability to drive or operate heavy machinery. Be careful until you know how STRATTERA affects you or your child.
Talk to your doctor if you or your child has side effects that are bothersome or do not go away.
This is not a complete list of possible side effects. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
How should I store STRATTERA?Store STRATTERA in a safe place at room temperature, 59 to 86°F (15 to 30°C).
Keep STRATTERA and all medicines out of the reach of children.General information about STRATTERAMedicines are sometimes prescribed for purposes other than those listed in a Medication Guide. Do not use STRATTERA for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give STRATTERA to other people, even if they have the same condition. It may harm them.
This Medication Guide summarizes the most important information about STRATTERA. If you would like more information, talk with your doctor. You can ask your doctor or pharmacist for information about STRATTERA that was written for healthcare professionals. For more information about STRATTERA call 1-800-Lilly-Rx (1-800-545-5979) or visit www.strattera.com.
What are the ingredients in STRATTERA?Active ingredient: atomoxetine hydrochloride.
Inactive ingredients: pregelatinized starch, dimethicone, gelatin, sodium lauryl sulfate, FD&C Blue No. 2, synthetic yellow iron oxide, titanium dioxide, red iron oxide, and edible black ink.
Nardil® is a registered trademark of Pfizer Inc.
Parnate® is a registered trademark of GlaxoSmithKline.
Emsam® is a registered trademark of Somerset Pharmaceuticals Inc.
This Medication Guide has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.Patient Information revised February 20, 2014
PV 5859 AMP
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NDC 0007-4142 Coreg
Glaxosmithkline Llc
NDC: 0007-4142 Coreg
Proprietary Name: Coreg What is the Proprietary Name?
Non-Proprietary Name: Carvedilol What is the Non-Proprietary Name?
WHITE (C48325)
Shape: OVAL (C48345)
39;SB
4140;SB
0007 - Glaxosmithkline Llc
0007-4142 - Coreg
Package Description: 100 TABLET, FILM COATED in 1 BOTTLE
Coreg with NDC 0007-4142 is a a human prescription drug product labeled by Glaxosmithkline Llc. The generic name of Coreg is carvedilol. The product's dosage form is tablet, film coated and is administered via oral form.
Labeler Name: Glaxosmithkline Llc
Dosage Form: Tablet, Film Coated - A solid dosage form that contains medicinal substances with or without suitable diluents and is coated with a thin layer of a water-insoluble or water-soluble polymer.
Coreg Active Ingredient(s)
CARVEDILOL 25 mg/1
SILICON DIOXIDE (UNII: ETJ7Z6XBU4)
CROSPOVIDONE (15 MPA.S AT 5%) (UNII: 68401960MK)
HYPROMELLOSES (UNII: 3NXW29V3WO)
LACTOSE, UNSPECIFIED FORM (UNII: J2B2A4N98G)
MAGNESIUM STEARATE (UNII: 70097M6I30)
POLYETHYLENE GLYCOLS (UNII: 3WJQ0SDW1A)
POLYSORBATE 80 (UNII: 6OZP39ZG8H)
POVIDONES (UNII: FZ989GH94E)
SUCROSE (UNII: C151H8M554)
Adrenergic alpha-Antagonists - [MoA] (Mechanism of Action)
Adrenergic beta1-Antagonists - [MoA] (Mechanism of Action)
alpha-Adrenergic Blocker - [EPC] (Established Pharmacologic Class)
beta-Adrenergic Blocker - [EPC] (Established Pharmacologic Class)
Carvedilol is pronounced as (kar' ve dil ol)
Why is carvedilol medication prescribed?
Carvedilol is used to treat heart failure (condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to all parts of the body) and high blood pressure. It also is used to tre...
Coreg Product Label Images
carvedilol chemical structure - coreg spl graphic 01
Figure 1. Survival Analysis for COPERNICUS (intent-to-treat) - coreg spl graphic 02
Figure 2. Effects on Mortality for Subgroups in COPERNICUS - coreg spl graphic 03
Figure 3. Survival Analysis for CAPRICORN (intent-to-treat) - coreg spl graphic 04
Figure 4. Effects on Mortality for Subgroups in CAPRICORN - coreg spl graphic 05
Coreg 3.125 mg 100 count label - coreg spl graphic 06
Coreg 6.25 mg 100 count label - coreg spl graphic 07
Coreg 12.5 mg 100 count label - coreg spl graphic 08
Coreg 25 mg 100 count label - coreg spl graphic 09
Coreg Product Labeling Information
1.1 Heart Failure
1.2 Left Ventricular Dysfunction Following Myocardial Infarction
1.3 Hypertension
2 Dosage And Administration
2.4 Hepatic Impairment
5.1 Cessation Of Therapy
5.2 Bradycardia
5.3 Hypotension
5.4 Heart Failure/Fluid Retention
5.5 Non-Allergic Bronchospasm
5.6 Glycemic Control In Type 2 Diabetes
5.7 Peripheral Vascular Disease
5.8 Deterioration Of Renal Function
5.9 Major Surgery
5.10 Thyrotoxicosis
5.11 Pheochromocytoma
5.12 Prinzmetal’S Variant Angina
5.13 Risk Of Anaphylactic Reaction
5.14 Intraoperative Floppy Iris Syndrome
6.1 Clinical Studies Experience
Left Ventricular Dysfunction Following Myocardial Infarction
6.2 Postmarketing Experience
7.1 Cyp2d6 Inhibitors And Poor Metabolizers
7.2 Hypotensive Agents
7.3 Cyclosporine
7.4 Digitalis Glycosides
7.5 Inducers/Inhibitors Of Hepatic Metabolism
7.6 Amiodarone
7.7 Calcium Channel Blockers
7.8 Insulin Or Oral Hypoglycemics
7.9 Anesthesia
8.1 Pregnancy
8.2 Lactation
10 Overdosage
12.5 Drug-Drug Interactions
13.1 Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis, Impairment Of Fertility
14.1 Heart Failure
Mild-To-Moderate Heart Failure
The Comet Trial
Severe Heart Failure (Copernicus)
14.2 Left Ventricular Dysfunction Following Myocardial Infarction
14.3 Hypertension
14.4 Hypertension With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
16 How Supplied/Storage And Handling
Spl Patient Package Insert
COREG is indicated for the treatment of mild-to-severe chronic heart failure of ischemic or cardiomyopathic origin, usually in addition to diuretics, ACE inhibitors, and digitalis, to increase survival and, also, to reduce the risk of hospitalization [see Drug Interactions (7.4), Clinical Studies (14.1)].
COREG is indicated to reduce cardiovascular mortality in clinically stable patients who have survived the acute phase of a myocardial infarction and have a left ventricular ejection fraction of less than or equal to 40% (with or without symptomatic heart failure) [see Clinical Studies (14.2)].
COREG is indicated for the management of essential hypertension [see Clinical Studies (14.3, 14.4)]. It can be used alone or in combination with other antihypertensive agents, especially thiazide-type diuretics [see Drug Interactions (7.2)].
COREG should be taken with food to slow the rate of absorption and reduce the incidence of orthostatic effects.
DOSAGE MUST BE INDIVIDUALIZED AND CLOSELY MONITORED BY A PHYSICIAN DURING UP-TITRATION. Prior to initiation of COREG, it is recommended that fluid retention be minimized. The recommended starting dose of COREG is 3.125 mg twice daily for 2 weeks. If tolerated, patients may have their dose increased to 6.25, 12.5, and 25 mg twice daily over successive intervals of at least 2 weeks. Patients should be maintained on lower doses if higher doses are not tolerated. A maximum dose of 50 mg twice daily has been administered to patients with mild-to-moderate heart failure weighing over 85 kg (187 lbs).Patients should be advised that initiation of treatment and (to a lesser extent) dosage increases may be associated with transient symptoms of dizziness or lightheadedness (and rarely syncope) within the first hour after dosing. During these periods, patients should avoid situations such as driving or hazardous tasks, where symptoms could result in injury. Vasodilatory symptoms often do not require treatment, but it may be useful to separate the time of dosing of COREG from that of the ACE inhibitor or to reduce temporarily the dose of the ACE inhibitor. The dose of COREG should not be increased until symptoms of worsening heart failure or vasodilation have been stabilized.Fluid retention (with or without transient worsening heart failure symptoms) should be treated by an increase in the dose of diuretics.The dose of COREG should be reduced if patients experience bradycardia (heart rate less than 55 beats per minute).Episodes of dizziness or fluid retention during initiation of COREG can generally be managed without discontinuation of treatment and do not preclude subsequent successful titration of, or a favorable response to, carvedilol.
DOSAGE MUST BE INDIVIDUALIZED AND MONITORED DURING UP-TITRATION. Treatment with COREG may be started as an inpatient or outpatient and should be started after the patient is hemodynamically stable and fluid retention has been minimized. It is recommended that COREG be started at 6.25 mg twice daily and increased after 3 to 10 days, based on tolerability, to 12.5 mg twice daily, then again to the target dose of 25 mg twice daily. A lower starting dose may be used (3.125 mg twice daily) and/or the rate of up-titration may be slowed if clinically indicated (e.g., due to low blood pressure or heart rate, or fluid retention). Patients should be maintained on lower doses if higher doses are not tolerated. The recommended dosing regimen need not be altered in patients who received treatment with an IV or oral β-blocker during the acute phase of the myocardial infarction.
DOSAGE MUST BE INDIVIDUALIZED. The recommended starting dose of COREG is 6.25 mg twice daily. If this dose is tolerated, using standing systolic pressure measured about 1 hour after dosing as a guide, the dose should be maintained for 7 to 14 days, and then increased to 12.5 mg twice daily if needed, based on trough blood pressure, again using standing systolic pressure 1 hour after dosing as a guide for tolerance. This dose should also be maintained for 7 to 14 days and can then be adjusted upward to 25 mg twice daily if tolerated and needed. The full antihypertensive effect of COREG is seen within 7 to 14 days. Total daily dose should not exceed 50 mg.Concomitant administration with a diuretic can be expected to produce additive effects and exaggerate the orthostatic component of carvedilol action.
COREG should not be given to patients with severe hepatic impairment [see Contraindications (4)].
The white, oval, film‑coated tablets are available in the following strengths: •3.125 mg – engraved with “39” and “SB” •6.25 mg – engraved with “4140” and “SB” •12.5 mg – engraved with “4141” and “SB” •25 mg – engraved with “4142” and “SB”
COREG is contraindicated in the following conditions: •Bronchial asthma or related bronchospastic conditions. Deaths from status asthmaticus have been reported following single doses of COREG. •Second- or third-degree AV block. •Sick sinus syndrome. •Severe bradycardia (unless a permanent pacemaker is in place). •Patients with cardiogenic shock or who have decompensated heart failure requiring the use of intravenous inotropic therapy. Such patients should first be weaned from intravenous therapy before initiating COREG. •Patients with severe hepatic impairment. •Patients with a history of a serious hypersensitivity reaction (e.g., Stevens-Johnson syndrome, anaphylactic reaction, angioedema) to any component of this medication or other medications containing carvedilol.
Patients with coronary artery disease, who are being treated with COREG, should be advised against abrupt discontinuation of therapy. Severe exacerbation of angina and the occurrence of myocardial infarction and ventricular arrhythmias have been reported in patients with angina following the abrupt discontinuation of therapy with β-blockers. The last 2 complications may occur with or without preceding exacerbation of the angina pectoris. As with other β-blockers, when discontinuation of COREG is planned, the patients should be carefully observed and advised to limit physical activity to a minimum. COREG should be discontinued over 1 to 2 weeks whenever possible. If the angina worsens or acute coronary insufficiency develops, it is recommended that COREG be promptly reinstituted, at least temporarily. Because coronary artery disease is common and may be unrecognized, it may be prudent not to discontinue therapy with COREG abruptly even in patients treated only for hypertension or heart failure.
In clinical trials, COREG caused bradycardia in about 2% of hypertensive subjects, 9% of subjects with heart failure, and 6.5% of subjects with myocardial infarction and left ventricular dysfunction. If pulse rate drops below 55 beats per minute, the dosage should be reduced.
In clinical trials of primarily mild‑to‑moderate heart failure, hypotension and postural hypotension occurred in 9.7% and syncope in 3.4% of subjects receiving COREG compared with 3.6% and 2.5% of placebo subjects, respectively. The risk for these events was highest during the first 30 days of dosing, corresponding to the up‑titration period and was a cause for discontinuation of therapy in 0.7% of subjects receiving COREG, compared with 0.4% of placebo subjects. In a long‑term, placebo‑controlled trial in severe heart failure (COPERNICUS), hypotension and postural hypotension occurred in 15.1% and syncope in 2.9% of heart failure subjects receiving COREG compared with 8.7% and 2.3% of placebo subjects, respectively. These events were a cause for discontinuation of therapy in 1.1% of subjects receiving COREG, compared with 0.8% of placebo subjects.Postural hypotension occurred in 1.8% and syncope in 0.1% of hypertensive subjects, primarily following the initial dose or at the time of dose increase and was a cause for discontinuation of therapy in 1% of subjects.In the CAPRICORN trial of survivors of an acute myocardial infarction, hypotension or postural hypotension occurred in 20.2% of subjects receiving COREG compared with 12.6% of placebo subjects. Syncope was reported in 3.9% and 1.9% of subjects, respectively. These events were a cause for discontinuation of therapy in 2.5% of subjects receiving COREG, compared with 0.2% of placebo subjects.Starting with a low dose, administration with food, and gradual up-titration should decrease the likelihood of syncope or excessive hypotension [see Dosage and Administration (2.1, 2.2, 2.3)]. During initiation of therapy, the patient should be cautioned to avoid situations such as driving or hazardous tasks, where injury could result should syncope occur.
Worsening heart failure or fluid retention may occur during up-titration of carvedilol. If such symptoms occur, diuretics should be increased and the carvedilol dose should not be advanced until clinical stability resumes [see Dosage and Administration (2)]. Occasionally it is necessary to lower the carvedilol dose or temporarily discontinue it. Such episodes do not preclude subsequent successful titration of, or a favorable response to, carvedilol. In a placebo-controlled trial of subjects with severe heart failure, worsening heart failure during the first 3 months was reported to a similar degree with carvedilol and with placebo. When treatment was maintained beyond 3 months, worsening heart failure was reported less frequently in subjects treated with carvedilol than with placebo. Worsening heart failure observed during long-term therapy is more likely to be related to the patients’ underlying disease than to treatment with carvedilol.
Patients with bronchospastic disease (e.g., chronic bronchitis, emphysema) should, in general, not receive β-blockers. COREG may be used with caution, however, in patients who do not respond to, or cannot tolerate, other antihypertensive agents. It is prudent, if COREG is used, to use the smallest effective dose, so that inhibition of endogenous or exogenous β-agonists is minimized.In clinical trials of subjects with heart failure, subjects with bronchospastic disease were enrolled if they did not require oral or inhaled medication to treat their bronchospastic disease. In such patients, it is recommended that carvedilol be used with caution. The dosing recommendations should be followed closely and the dose should be lowered if any evidence of bronchospasm is observed during up-titration.
In general, β-blockers may mask some of the manifestations of hypoglycemia, particularly tachycardia. Nonselective β-blockers may potentiate insulin-induced hypoglycemia and delay recovery of serum glucose levels. Patients subject to spontaneous hypoglycemia or diabetic patients receiving insulin or oral hypoglycemic agents should be cautioned about these possibilities.In patients with heart failure and diabetes, carvedilol therapy may lead to worsening hyperglycemia, which responds to intensification of hypoglycemic therapy. It is recommended that blood glucose be monitored when carvedilol dosing is initiated, adjusted, or discontinued. Trials designed to examine the effects of carvedilol on glycemic control in patients with diabetes and heart failure have not been conducted.In a trial designed to examine the effects of carvedilol on glycemic control in a population with mild-to-moderate hypertension and well-controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus, carvedilol had no adverse effect on glycemic control, based on HbA1c measurements [see Clinical Studies (14.4)].
Β-blockers can precipitate or aggravate symptoms of arterial insufficiency in patients with peripheral vascular disease. Caution should be exercised in such individuals.
Rarely, use of carvedilol in patients with heart failure has resulted in deterioration of renal function. Patients at risk appear to be those with low blood pressure (systolic blood pressure less than 100 mm Hg), ischemic heart disease and diffuse vascular disease, and/or underlying renal insufficiency. Renal function has returned to baseline when carvedilol was stopped. In patients with these risk factors it is recommended that renal function be monitored during up-titration of carvedilol and the drug discontinued or dosage reduced if worsening of renal function occurs.
Chronically administered β-blocking therapy should not be routinely withdrawn prior to major surgery; however, the impaired ability of the heart to respond to reflex adrenergic stimuli may augment the risks of general anesthesia and surgical procedures.
Β-adrenergic blockade may mask clinical signs of hyperthyroidism, such as tachycardia. Abrupt withdrawal of β-blockade may be followed by an exacerbation of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism or may precipitate thyroid storm.
In patients with pheochromocytoma, an α-blocking agent should be initiated prior to the use of any β-blocking agent. Although carvedilol has both α- and β-blocking pharmacologic activities, there has been no experience with its use in this condition. Therefore, caution should be taken in the administration of carvedilol to patients suspected of having pheochromocytoma.
Agents with non-selective β-blocking activity may provoke chest pain in patients with Prinzmetal’s variant angina. There has been no clinical experience with carvedilol in these patients although the α-blocking activity may prevent such symptoms. However, caution should be taken in the administration of carvedilol to patients suspected of having Prinzmetal’s variant angina.
While taking β-blockers, patients with a history of severe anaphylactic reaction to a variety of allergens may be more reactive to repeated challenge, either accidental, diagnostic, or therapeutic. Such patients may be unresponsive to the usual doses of epinephrine used to treat allergic reaction.
Intraoperative Floppy Iris Syndrome (IFIS) has been observed during cataract surgery in some patients treated with alpha-1 blockers (COREG is an alpha/beta blocker). This variant of small pupil syndrome is characterized by the combination of a flaccid iris that billows in response to intraoperative irrigation currents, progressive intraoperative miosis despite preoperative dilation with standard mydriatic drugs, and potential prolapse of the iris toward the phacoemulsification incisions. The patient’s ophthalmologist should be prepared for possible modifications to the surgical technique, such as utilization of iris hooks, iris dilator rings, or viscoelastic substances. There does not appear to be a benefit of stopping alpha-1 blocker therapy prior to cataract surgery.
Because clinical trials are conducted under widely varying conditions, adverse reaction rates observed in the clinical trials of a drug cannot be directly compared with rates in the clinical trials of another drug and may not reflect the rates observed in practice.COREG has been evaluated for safety in subjects with heart failure (mild, moderate, and severe), in subjects with left ventricular dysfunction following myocardial infarction and in hypertensive subjects The observed adverse event profile was consistent with the pharmacology of the drug and the health status of the subjects in the clinical trials. Adverse events reported for each of these patient populations are provided below. Excluded are adverse events considered too general to be informative, and those not reasonably associated with the use of the drug because they were associated with the condition being treated or are very common in the treated population. Rates of adverse events were generally similar across demographic subsets (men and women, elderly and non-elderly, blacks and non-blacks).
COREG has been evaluated for safety in heart failure in more than 4,500 subjects worldwide of whom more than 2,100 participated in placebo-controlled clinical trials. Approximately 60% of the total treated population in placebo-controlled clinical trials received COREG for at least 6 months and 30% received COREG for at least 12 months. In the COMET trial, 1,511 subjects with mild-to-moderate heart failure were treated with COREG for up to 5.9 years (mean: 4.8 years). Both in U.S. clinical trials in mild-to-moderate heart failure that compared COREG in daily doses up to 100 mg (n = 765) with placebo (n = 437), and in a multinational clinical trial in severe heart failure (COPERNICUS) that compared COREG in daily doses up to 50 mg (n = 1,156) with placebo (n = 1,133), discontinuation rates for adverse experiences were similar in carvedilol and placebo subjects. In placebo-controlled clinical trials, the only cause of discontinuation greater than 1% and occurring more often on carvedilol was dizziness (1.3% on carvedilol, 0.6% on placebo in the COPERNICUS trial).Table 1 shows adverse events reported in subjects with mild‑to‑moderate heart failure enrolled in U.S. placebo‑controlled clinical trials, and with severe heart failure enrolled in the COPERNICUS trial. Shown are adverse events that occurred more frequently in drug‑treated subjects than placebo‑treated subjects with an incidence of greater than 3% in subjects treated with carvedilol regardless of causality. Median trial medication exposure was 6.3 months for both carvedilol and placebo subjects in the trials of mild‑to‑moderate heart failure and 10.4 months in the trial of subjects with severe heart failure. The adverse event profile of COREG observed in the long-term COMET trial was generally similar to that observed in the U.S. Heart Failure Trials.Table 1. Adverse Events (%) Occurring More Frequently with COREG than with Placebo in Subjects with Mild-to-Moderate Heart Failure (HF) Enrolled in U.S. Heart Failure Trials or in Subjects with Severe Heart Failure in the COPERNICUS Trial (Incidence >3% in Subjects Treated with Carvedilol, Regardless of Causality)Body System/Adverse EventMild-to-Moderate HFSevere HFCOREGPlaceboCOREGPlacebo(n = 765)(n = 437)(n = 1,156)(n = 1,133)Body as a Whole Asthenia77119 Fatigue2422—— Digoxin level increased5421 Edema generalized5365 Edema dependent42——Cardiovascular Bradycardia91103 Hypotension93148 Syncope3385 Angina pectoris2364Central Nervous System Dizziness32192417 Headache8753Gastrointestinal Diarrhea12653 Nausea9543 Vomiting6412Metabolic Hyperglycemia12853 Weight increase1071211 BUN increased65—— NPN increased65—— Hypercholesterolemia4311 Edema peripheral2176Musculoskeletal Arthralgia6511Respiratory Cough increased8954 Rales4442Vision Vision abnormal52——Cardiac failure and dyspnea were also reported in these trials, but the rates were equal or greater in subjects who received placebo.The following adverse events were reported with a frequency of greater than 1% but less than or equal to 3% and more frequently with COREG in either the U.S. placebo‑controlled trials in subjects with mild‑to‑moderate heart failure or in subjects with severe heart failure in the COPERNICUS trial.Incidence greater than 1% to less than or equal to 3%Body as a Whole: Allergy, malaise, hypovolemia, fever, leg edema.Cardiovascular: Fluid overload, postural hypotension, aggravated angina pectoris, AV block, palpitation, hypertension.Central and Peripheral Nervous System: Hypesthesia, vertigo, paresthesia.Gastrointestinal: Melena, periodontitis.Liver and Biliary System: SGPT increased, SGOT increased.Metabolic and Nutritional: Hyperuricemia, hypoglycemia, hyponatremia, increased alkaline phosphatase, glycosuria, hypervolemia, diabetes mellitus, GGT increased, weight loss, hyperkalemia, creatinine increased.Musculoskeletal: Muscle cramps.Platelet, Bleeding, and Clotting: Prothrombin decreased, purpura, thrombocytopenia.Psychiatric: Somnolence.Reproductive, male: Impotence.Special Senses: Blurred vision.Urinary System: Renal insufficiency, albuminuria, hematuria.
The basis for the beneficial effects of COREG in heart failure is not established.Two placebo‑controlled trials compared the acute hemodynamic effects of COREG with baseline measurements in 59 and 49 subjects with NYHA class II‑IV heart failure receiving diuretics, ACE inhibitors, and digitalis. There were significant reductions in systemic blood pressure, pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary capillary wedge pressure, and heart rate. Initial effects on cardiac output, stroke volume index, and systemic vascular resistance were small and variable.These trials measured hemodynamic effects again at 12 to 14 weeks. COREG significantly reduced systemic blood pressure, pulmonary artery pressure, right atrial pressure, systemic vascular resistance, and heart rate, while stroke volume index was increased.Among 839 subjects with NYHA class II‑III heart failure treated for 26 to 52 weeks in 4 U.S. placebo‑controlled trials, average left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) measured by radionuclide ventriculography increased by 9 EF units (%) in subjects receiving COREG and by 2 EF units in placebo subjects at a target dose of 25 to 50 mg twice daily. The effects of carvedilol on ejection fraction were related to dose. Doses of 6.25 mg twice daily, 12.5 mg twice daily, and 25 mg twice daily were associated with placebo‑corrected increases in EF of 5 EF units, 6 EF units, and 8 EF units, respectively; each of these effects were nominally statistically significant.
Steady‑state plasma concentrations of carvedilol and its enantiomers increased proportionally over the 6.25- to 50- mg dose range in subjects with heart failure. Compared with healthy subjects, subjects with heart failure had increased mean AUC and Cmax values for carvedilol and its enantiomers, with up to 50% to 100% higher values observed in 6 subjects with NYHA class IV heart failure. The mean apparent terminal elimination half‑life for carvedilol was similar to that observed in healthy subjects.
COREG has been evaluated for safety in survivors of an acute myocardial infarction with left ventricular dysfunction in the CAPRICORN trial which involved 969 subjects who received COREG and 980 who received placebo. Approximately 75% of the subjects received COREG for at least 6 months and 53% received COREG for at least 12 months. Subjects were treated for an average of 12.9 months and 12.8 months with COREG and placebo, respectively.The most common adverse events reported with COREG in the CAPRICORN trial were consistent with the profile of the drug in the U.S. heart failure trials and the COPERNICUS trial. The only additional adverse events reported in CAPRICORN in greater than 3% of the subjects and more commonly on carvedilol were dyspnea, anemia, and lung edema. The following adverse events were reported with a frequency of greater than 1% but less than or equal to 3% and more frequently with COREG: flu syndrome, cerebrovascular accident, peripheral vascular disorder, hypotonia, depression, gastrointestinal pain, arthritis, and gout. The overall rates of discontinuations due to adverse events were similar in both groups of subjects. In this database, the only cause of discontinuation greater than 1% and occurring more often on carvedilol was hypotension (1.5% on carvedilol, 0.2% on placebo).
The basis for the beneficial effects of COREG in patients with left ventricular dysfunction following an acute myocardial infarction is not established.
COREG has been evaluated for safety in hypertension in more than 2,193 subjects in U.S. clinical trials and in 2,976 subjects in international clinical trials. Approximately 36% of the total treated population received COREG for at least 6 months. Most adverse events reported during therapy with COREG were of mild to moderate severity. In U.S. controlled clinical trials directly comparing COREG in doses up to 50 mg (n = 1,142) with placebo (n = 462), 4.9% of subjects receiving COREG discontinued for adverse events versus 5.2% of placebo subjects. Although there was no overall difference in discontinuation rates, discontinuations were more common in the carvedilol group for postural hypotension (1% versus 0). The overall incidence of adverse events in U.S. placebo‑controlled trials increased with increasing dose of COREG. For individual adverse events this could only be distinguished for dizziness, which increased in frequency from 2% to 5% as total daily dose increased from 6.25 mg to 50 mg.Table 2 shows adverse events in U.S. placebo‑controlled clinical trials for hypertension that occurred with an incidence of greater than or equal to 1% regardless of causality and that were more frequent in drug‑treated subjects than placebo‑treated subjects.Table 2. Adverse Events (%) Occurring in U.S. Placebo-Controlled Hypertension Trials (Incidence ≥1%, Regardless of Causality)aBody System/ Adverse EventCOREGPlacebo(n = 1,142)(n = 462)Cardiovascular Bradycardia2— Postural hypotension2— Peripheral edema1—Central Nervous System Dizziness65 Insomnia21Gastrointestinal Diarrhea21Hematologic Thrombocytopenia1—Metabolic Hypertriglyceridemia1—a Shown are events with rate >1% rounded to nearest integer.Dyspnea and fatigue were also reported in these trials, but the rates were equal or greater in subjects who received placebo.The following adverse events not described above were reported as possibly or probably related to COREG in worldwide open or controlled trials with COREG in subjects with hypertension or heart failure.Incidence greater than 0.1% to less than or equal to 1%Cardiovascular: Peripheral ischemia, tachycardia.Central and Peripheral Nervous System: Hypokinesia.Gastrointestinal: Bilirubinemia, increased hepatic enzymes (0.2% of hypertension patients and 0.4% of heart failure patients were discontinued from therapy because of increases in hepatic enzymes) [see Adverse Reactions (6.2)].Psychiatric: Nervousness, sleep disorder, aggravated depression, impaired concentration, abnormal thinking, paroniria, emotional lability.Respiratory System: Asthma [see Contraindications (4)].Reproductive, male: Decreased libido.Skin and Appendages: Pruritus, rash erythematous, rash maculopapular, rash psoriaform, photosensitivity reaction.Special Senses: Tinnitus.Urinary System: Micturition frequency increased.Autonomic Nervous System: Dry mouth, sweating increased.Metabolic and Nutritional: Hypokalemia, hypertriglyceridemia.Hematologic: Anemia, leukopenia.The following events were reported in less than or equal to 0.1% of subjects and are potentially important: complete AV block, bundle branch block, myocardial ischemia, cerebrovascular disorder, convulsions, migraine, neuralgia, paresis, anaphylactoid reaction, alopecia, exfoliative dermatitis, amnesia, GI hemorrhage, bronchospasm, pulmonary edema, decreased hearing, respiratory alkalosis, increased BUN, decreased HDL, pancytopenia, and atypical lymphocytes.
The mechanism by which β-blockade produces an antihypertensive effect has not been established.β-adrenoreceptor blocking activity has been demonstrated in animal and human studies showing that carvedilol (1) reduces cardiac output in normal subjects, (2) reduces exercise- and/or isoproterenol-induced tachycardia, and (3) reduces reflex orthostatic tachycardia. Significant β-adrenoreceptor blocking effect is usually seen within 1 hour of drug administration.α1-adrenoreceptor blocking activity has been demonstrated in human and animal studies, showing that carvedilol (1) attenuates the pressor effects of phenylephrine, (2) causes vasodilation, and (3) reduces peripheral vascular resistance. These effects contribute to the reduction of blood pressure and usually are seen within 30 minutes of drug administration.Due to the α1-receptor blocking activity of carvedilol, blood pressure is lowered more in the standing than in the supine position, and symptoms of postural hypotension (1.8%), including rare instances of syncope, can occur. Following oral administration, when postural hypotension has occurred, it has been transient and is uncommon when COREG is administered with food at the recommended starting dose and titration increments are closely followed [see Dosage and Administration (2)].In hypertensive patients with normal renal function, therapeutic doses of COREG decreased renal vascular resistance with no change in glomerular filtration rate or renal plasma flow. Changes in excretion of sodium, potassium, uric acid, and phosphorus in hypertensive patients with normal renal function were similar after COREG and placebo.COREG has little effect on plasma catecholamines, plasma aldosterone, or electrolyte levels, but it does significantly reduce plasma renin activity when given for at least 4 weeks. It also increases levels of atrial natriuretic peptide.
Reversible elevations in serum transaminases (ALT or AST) have been observed during treatment with COREG. Rates of transaminase elevations (2 to 3 times the upper limit of normal) observed during controlled clinical trials have generally been similar between subjects treated with COREG and those treated with placebo. However, transaminase elevations, confirmed by rechallenge, have been observed with COREG. In a long-term, placebo-controlled trial in severe heart failure, subjects treated with COREG had lower values for hepatic transaminases than subjects treated with placebo, possibly because improvements in cardiac function induced by COREG led to less hepatic congestion and/or improved hepatic blood flow.COREG has not been associated with clinically significant changes in serum potassium, total triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, uric acid, blood urea nitrogen, or creatinine. No clinically relevant changes were noted in fasting serum glucose in hypertensive patients; fasting serum glucose was not evaluated in the heart failure clinical trials.
The following adverse reactions have been identified during post-approval use of COREG. Because these reactions are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to drug exposure.Blood and Lymphatic System DisordersAplastic anemia.Immune System DisordersHypersensitivity (e.g., anaphylactic reactions, angioedema, urticaria).Renal and Urinary DisordersUrinary incontinence.Respiratory, Thoracic, and Mediastinal DisordersInterstitial pneumonitis.Skin and Subcutaneous Tissue Disorders Stevens-Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, erythema multiforme.
Interactions of carvedilol with potent inhibitors of CYP2D6 isoenzyme (such as quinidine, fluoxetine, paroxetine, and propafenone) have not been studied, but these drugs would be expected to increase blood levels of the R(+) enantiomer of carvedilol [see Clinical Pharmacology (12.3)]. Retrospective analysis of side effects in clinical trials showed that poor 2D6 metabolizers had a higher rate of dizziness during up-titration, presumably resulting from vasodilating effects of the higher concentrations of the α-blocking R(+) enantiomer.
Patients taking a β-blocker and a drug that can deplete catecholamines (e.g., reserpine and monoamine oxidase inhibitors) should be observed closely for signs of hypotension and/or severe bradycardia.Concomitant administration of clonidine with a β-blocker may cause hypotension and bradycardia. When concomitant treatment with a β-blocker and clonidine is to be terminated, the β-blocker should be discontinued first. Clonidine therapy can then be discontinued several days later by gradually decreasing the dosage.
Modest increases in mean trough cyclosporine concentrations were observed following initiation of carvedilol treatment in 21 renal transplant subjects suffering from chronic vascular rejection. In about 30% of subjects, the dose of cyclosporine had to be reduced in order to maintain cyclosporine concentrations within the therapeutic range, while in the remainder no adjustment was needed. On the average for the group, the dose of cyclosporine was reduced about 20% in these subjects. Due to wide interindividual variability in the dose adjustment required, it is recommended that cyclosporine concentrations be monitored closely after initiation of carvedilol therapy and that the dose of cyclosporine be adjusted as appropriate.
Both digitalis glycosides and β-blockers slow atrioventricular conduction and decrease heart rate. Concomitant use can increase the risk of bradycardia. Digoxin concentrations are increased by about 15% when digoxin and carvedilol are administered concomitantly. Therefore, increased monitoring of digoxin is recommended when initiating, adjusting, or discontinuing COREG [see Clinical Pharmacology (12.5)].
Rifampin reduced plasma concentrations of carvedilol by about 70% [see Clinical Pharmacology (12.5)]. Cimetidine increased AUC by about 30% but caused no change in Cmax [see Clinical Pharmacology (12.5)].
Amiodarone and its metabolite desethyl amiodarone, inhibitors of CYP2C9, and P-glycoprotein increased concentrations of the S(-)-enantiomer of carvedilol by at least 2 fold [see Clinical Pharmacology (12.5)]. The concomitant administration of amiodarone or other CYP2C9 inhibitors such as fluconazole with COREG may enhance the β-blocking activity resulting in further slowing of the heart rate or cardiac conduction. Patients should be observed for signs of bradycardia or heart block, particularly when one agent is added to pre-existing treatment with the other.
Conduction disturbance (rarely with hemodynamic compromise) has been observed when COREG is coadministered with diltiazem. As with other β-blockers, if COREG is administered with calcium channel blockers of the verapamil or diltiazem type, it is recommended that ECG and blood pressure be monitored.
Β-blockers may enhance the blood-sugar-reducing effect of insulin and oral hypoglycemics. Therefore, in patients taking insulin or oral hypoglycemics, regular monitoring of blood glucose is recommended [see Warnings and Precautions (5.6)].
If treatment with COREG is to be continued perioperatively, particular care should be taken when anesthetic agents that depress myocardial function, such as ether, cyclopropane, and trichloroethylene, are used [see Overdosage (10)].
Risk SummaryAvailable data regarding use of COREG in pregnant women are insufficient to determine whether there are drug-associated risks of adverse developmental outcomes. There are risks to the mother and fetus associated with poorly controlled hypertension in pregnancy. The use of beta blockers during the third trimester of pregnancy may increase the risk of hypotension, bradycardia, hypoglycemia, and respiratory depression in the neonate [see Clinical Considerations]. In animal reproduction studies, there was no evidence of adverse developmental outcomes at clinically relevant doses [see Data]. Oral administration of carvedilol to pregnant rats during organogenesis resulted in post-implantation loss, decreased fetal body weight, and an increased frequency of delayed fetal skeletal development at maternally toxic doses that were 50 times the maximum recommended human dose (MRHD). In addition, oral administration of carvedilol to pregnant rabbits during organogenesis resulted in increased post-implantation loss at doses 25 times the MRHD [see Data].The estimated background risk of major birth defects and miscarriage for the indicated populations are unknown. All pregnancies have a background risk of birth defect, loss, or other adverse outcomes. In the U.S. general population, the estimated background risk of major birth defects and miscarriage in clinically recognized pregnancies is 2% to 4% and 15% to 20%, respectively.Clinical ConsiderationsDisease-Associated Maternal and/or Embryo-Fetal Risk: Hypertension in pregnancy increases the maternal risk for pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, premature delivery, and delivery complications (e.g., need for cesarean section and post-partum hemorrhage). Hypertension increases the fetal risk for intrauterine growth restriction and intrauterine death. Pregnant women with hypertension should be carefully monitored and managed accordingly. Fetal/Neonatal Adverse Reactions: Neonates of women with hypertension who are treated with beta-blockers during the third trimester of pregnancy may be at increased risk for hypotension, bradycardia, hypoglycemia, and respiratory depression. Observe newborns for symptoms of hypotension, bradycardia, hypoglycemia, and respiratory depression and manage accordingly.DataAnimal Data: Studies performed in rats and rabbits given carvedilol during fetal organogenesis revealed increased post‑implantation loss in rats at a maternally toxic dose of 300 mg per kg per day (50 times the MRHD as mg per m2) and in rabbits (in the absence of maternal toxicity) at doses of 75 mg per kg per day (25 times the MRHD as mg per m2). In the rats, there was also a decrease in fetal body weight at 300 mg per kg per day (50 times the MRHD as mg per m2) accompanied by an increased incidence of fetuses with delayed skeletal development. In rats, the no-effect level for embryo-fetal toxicity was 60 mg per kg per day (10 times the MRHD as mg per m2); in rabbits, it was 15 mg per kg per day (5 times the MRHD as mg per m2). In a pre- and post-natal development study in rats administered carvedilol from late gestation through lactation, increased embryo-lethality was observed at a maternally toxic dose of 200 mg per kg per day (approximately 32 times the MRHD as mg per m2), and pup mortality and delays in physical growth/development were observed at 60 mg per kg per day (10 times the MRHD as mg per m2) in the absence of maternal toxicity. The no-effect level was 12 mg per kg per day (2 times the MRHD as mg per m2). Carvedilol was present in fetal rat tissue.
Risk SummaryThere are no data on the presence of carvedilol in human milk, the effects on the breastfed infant, or the effects on milk production. Carvedilol is present in the milk of lactating rats. The developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding should be considered along with the mother’s clinical need for COREG and any potential adverse effects on the breastfed infant from COREG or from the underlying maternal condition.
Effectiveness of COREG in patients younger than 18 years has not been established.In a double-blind trial, 161 children (mean age: 6 years; range: 2 months to 17 years; 45% younger than 2 years) with chronic heart failure [NYHA class II-IV, left ventricular ejection fraction less than 40% for children with a systemic left ventricle (LV), and moderate-severe ventricular dysfunction qualitatively by echo for those with a systemic ventricle that was not an LV] who were receiving standard background treatment were randomized to placebo or to 2 dose levels of carvedilol. These dose levels produced placebo-corrected heart rate reduction of 4 to 6 heart beats per minute, indicative of β-blockade activity. Exposure appeared to be lower in pediatric subjects than adults. After 8 months of follow-up, there was no significant effect of treatment on clinical outcomes. Adverse reactions in this trial that occurred in greater than 10% of subjects treated with COREG and at twice the rate of placebo-treated subjects included chest pain (17% versus 6%), dizziness (13% versus 2%), and dyspnea (11% versus 0%).
Of the 765 subjects with heart failure randomized to COREG in U.S. clinical trials, 31% (235) were aged 65 years or older, and 7.3% (56) were aged 75 years or older. Of the 1,156 subjects randomized to COREG in a long‑term, placebo‑controlled trial in severe heart failure, 47% (547) were aged 65 years or older, and 15% (174) were aged 75 years or older. Of 3,025 subjects receiving COREG in heart failure trials worldwide, 42% were aged 65 years or older.Of the 975 subjects with myocardial infarction randomized to COREG in the CAPRICORN trial, 48% (468) were aged 65 years or older, and 11% (111) were aged 75 years or older.Of the 2,065 hypertensive subjects in U.S. clinical trials of efficacy or safety who were treated with COREG, 21% (436) were aged 65 years or older. Of 3,722 subjects receiving COREG in hypertension clinical trials conducted worldwide, 24% were aged 65 years or older.With the exception of dizziness in hypertensive subjects (incidence 8.8% in the elderly versus 6% in younger subjects), no overall differences in the safety or effectiveness (see Figures 2 and 4) were observed between the older subjects and younger subjects in each of these populations. Similarly, other reported clinical experience has not identified differences in responses between the elderly and younger subjects, but greater sensitivity of some older individuals cannot be ruled out.
Overdosage may cause severe hypotension, bradycardia, cardiac insufficiency, cardiogenic shock, and cardiac arrest. Respiratory problems, bronchospasms, vomiting, lapses of consciousness, and generalized seizures may also occur.The patient should be placed in a supine position and, where necessary, kept under observation and treated under intensive-care conditions. The following agents may be administered:For excessive bradycardia: Atropine, 2 mg IV.To support cardiovascular function: Glucagon, 5 to 10 mg IV rapidly over 30 seconds, followed by a continuous infusion of 5 mg per hour; sympathomimetics (dobutamine, isoprenaline, adrenaline) at doses according to body weight and effect.If peripheral vasodilation dominates, it may be necessary to administer adrenaline or noradrenaline with continuous monitoring of circulatory conditions. For therapy-resistant bradycardia, pacemaker therapy should be performed. For bronchospasm, β-sympathomimetics (as aerosol or IV) or aminophylline IV should be given. In the event of seizures, slow IV injection of diazepam or clonazepam is recommended.NOTE: In the event of severe intoxication where there are symptoms of shock, treatment with antidotes must be continued for a sufficiently long period of time consistent with the 7- to 10-hour half-life of carvedilol.Cases of overdosage with COREG alone or in combination with other drugs have been reported. Quantities ingested in some cases exceeded 1,000 milligrams. Symptoms experienced included low blood pressure and heart rate. Standard supportive treatment was provided and individuals recovered.
Carvedilol is a nonselective β-adrenergic blocking agent with α1-blocking activity. It is (±)-1-(Carbazol-4-yloxy)-3-[[2-(o-methoxyphenoxy)ethyl]amino]-2-propanol. Carvedilol is a racemic mixture with the following structure:COREG is a white, oval, film-coated tablet containing 3.125 mg, 6.25 mg, 12.5 mg, or 25 mg of carvedilol. The 6.25-mg, 12.5-mg, and 25-mg tablets are TILTAB tablets. Inactive ingredients consist of colloidal silicon dioxide, crospovidone, hypromellose, lactose, magnesium stearate, polyethylene glycol, polysorbate 80, povidone, sucrose, and titanium dioxide.Carvedilol is a white to off-white powder with a molecular weight of 406.5 and a molecular formula of C24H26N2O4. It is freely soluble in dimethylsulfoxide; soluble in methylene chloride and methanol; sparingly soluble in 95% ethanol and isopropanol; slightly soluble in ethyl ether; and practically insoluble in water, gastric fluid (simulated, TS, pH 1.1), and intestinal fluid (simulated, TS without pancreatin, pH 7.5).
COREG is a racemic mixture in which nonselective β-adrenoreceptor blocking activity is present in the S(-) enantiomer and α1-adrenergic blocking activity is present in both R(+) and S(-) enantiomers at equal potency. COREG has no intrinsic sympathomimetic activity.
COREG is rapidly and extensively absorbed following oral administration, with absolute bioavailability of approximately 25% to 35% due to a significant degree of first-pass metabolism. Following oral administration, the apparent mean terminal elimination half-life of carvedilol generally ranges from 7 to 10 hours. Plasma concentrations achieved are proportional to the oral dose administered. When administered with food, the rate of absorption is slowed, as evidenced by a delay in the time to reach peak plasma levels, with no significant difference in extent of bioavailability. Taking COREG with food should minimize the risk of orthostatic hypotension.Carvedilol is extensively metabolized. Following oral administration of radiolabelled carvedilol to healthy volunteers, carvedilol accounted for only about 7% of the total radioactivity in plasma as measured by area under the curve (AUC). Less than 2% of the dose was excreted unchanged in the urine. Carvedilol is metabolized primarily by aromatic ring oxidation and glucuronidation. The oxidative metabolites are further metabolized by conjugation via glucuronidation and sulfation. The metabolites of carvedilol are excreted primarily via the bile into the feces. Demethylation and hydroxylation at the phenol ring produce 3 active metabolites with β-receptor blocking activity. Based on preclinical studies, the 4'-hydroxyphenyl metabolite is approximately 13 times more potent than carvedilol for β-blockade.Compared with carvedilol, the 3 active metabolites exhibit weak vasodilating activity. Plasma concentrations of the active metabolites are about one-tenth of those observed for carvedilol and have pharmacokinetics similar to the parent.Carvedilol undergoes stereoselective first-pass metabolism with plasma levels of R(+)-carvedilol approximately 2 to 3 times higher than S(-)-carvedilol following oral administration in healthy subjects. The mean apparent terminal elimination half-lives for R(+)-carvedilol range from 5 to 9 hours compared with 7 to 11 hours for the S(-)-enantiomer.The primary P450 enzymes responsible for the metabolism of both R(+) and S(-)-carvedilol in human liver microsomes were CYP2D6 and CYP2C9 and to a lesser extent CYP3A4, 2C19, 1A2, and 2E1. CYP2D6 is thought to be the major enzyme in the 4’- and 5’-hydroxylation of carvedilol, with a potential contribution from 3A4. CYP2C9 is thought to be of primary importance in the O-methylation pathway of S(-)-carvedilol.Carvedilol is subject to the effects of genetic polymorphism with poor metabolizers of debrisoquin (a marker for cytochrome P450 2D6) exhibiting 2- to 3-fold higher plasma concentrations of R(+)-carvedilol compared with extensive metabolizers. In contrast, plasma levels of S(-)-carvedilol are increased only about 20% to 25% in poor metabolizers, indicating this enantiomer is metabolized to a lesser extent by cytochrome P450 2D6 than R(+)-carvedilol. The pharmacokinetics of carvedilol do not appear to be different in poor metabolizers of S-mephenytoin (patients deficient in cytochrome P450 2C19).Carvedilol is more than 98% bound to plasma proteins, primarily with albumin. The plasma-protein binding is independent of concentration over the therapeutic range. Carvedilol is a basic, lipophilic compound with a steady-state volume of distribution of approximately 115 L, indicating substantial distribution into extravascular tissues. Plasma clearance ranges from 500 to 700 mL/min.
Plasma levels of carvedilol average about 50% higher in the elderly compared with young subjects.
Compared with healthy subjects, patients with severe liver impairment (cirrhosis) exhibit a 4- to 7-fold increase in carvedilol levels. Carvedilol is contraindicated in patients with severe liver impairment.
Although carvedilol is metabolized primarily by the liver, plasma concentrations of carvedilol have been reported to be increased in patients with renal impairment. Based on mean AUC data, approximately 40% to 50% higher plasma concentrations of carvedilol were observed in subjects with hypertension and moderate to severe renal impairment compared with a control group of subjects with hypertension and normal renal function. However, the ranges of AUC values were similar for both groups. Changes in mean peak plasma levels were less pronounced, approximately 12% to 26% higher in subjects with impaired renal function.Consistent with its high degree of plasma protein‑binding, carvedilol does not appear to be cleared significantly by hemodialysis.
Since carvedilol undergoes substantial oxidative metabolism, the metabolism and pharmacokinetics of carvedilol may be affected by induction or inhibition of cytochrome P450 enzymes.
In a pharmacokinetic trial conducted in 106 Japanese subjects with heart failure, coadministration of small loading and maintenance doses of amiodarone with carvedilol resulted in at least a 2-fold increase in the steady-state trough concentrations of S(-)-carvedilol [see Drug Interactions (7.6)].
In a pharmacokinetic trial conducted in 10 healthy male subjects, cimetidine (1,000 mg per day) increased the steady-state AUC of carvedilol by 30% with no change in Cmax [see Drug Interactions (7.5)].
Following concomitant administration of carvedilol (25 mg once daily) and digoxin (0.25 mg once daily) for 14 days, steady-state AUC and trough concentrations of digoxin were increased by 14% and 16%, respectively, in 12 subjects with hypertension [see Drug Interactions (7.4)].
In 12 healthy subjects, combined administration of carvedilol (25 mg once daily) and a single dose of glyburide did not result in a clinically relevant pharmacokinetic interaction for either compound.
A single oral dose of carvedilol 25 mg did not alter the pharmacokinetics of a single oral dose of hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg in 12 subjects with hypertension. Likewise, hydrochlorothiazide had no effect on the pharmacokinetics of carvedilol.
In a pharmacokinetic trial conducted in 8 healthy male subjects, rifampin (600 mg daily for 12 days) decreased the AUC and Cmax of carvedilol by about 70% [see Drug Interactions (7.5)].
In a trial of 12 healthy subjects, combined oral administration of carvedilol 25 mg once daily and torsemide 5 mg once daily for 5 days did not result in any significant differences in their pharmacokinetics compared with administration of the drugs alone.
Carvedilol (12.5 mg twice daily) did not have an effect on the steady-state prothrombin time ratios and did not alter the pharmacokinetics of R(+)- and S(-)-warfarin following concomitant administration with warfarin in 9 healthy volunteers.
In 2-year studies conducted in rats given carvedilol at doses up to 75 mg per kg per day (12 times the MRHD as mg per m2) or in mice given up to 200 mg per kg per day (16 times the MRHD as mg per m2), carvedilol had no carcinogenic effect.Carvedilol was negative when tested in a battery of genotoxicity assays, including the Ames and the CHO/HGPRT assays for mutagenicity and the in vitro hamster micronucleus and in vivo human lymphocyte cell tests for clastogenicity.In a combined fertility/developmental/post-natal toxicity study, rats were given carvedilol (12, 60, 300 mg per kg per day) orally by gavage for 2 weeks before mating and through mating, gestation, and weaning for females and for 62 days prior to and through mating for males. At a dosage of 300 mg per kg per day (greater than or equal to 50 times the MRHD as mg per m2) carvedilol was toxic to adult rats (sedation, reduced weight gain) and was associated with a reduced number of successful matings, prolonged mating time, fewer corpora lutea and implants per dam, fewer live pups per litter, and delays in physical growth/development. The no-effect level for overt toxicity and impairment of fertility was 60 mg per kg per day (10 times the MRHD as mg per m2).
A total of 6,975 subjects with mild-to-severe heart failure were evaluated in placebo-controlled trials of carvedilol.
Carvedilol was studied in 5 multicenter, placebo‑controlled trials, and in 1 active-controlled trial (COMET trial) involving subjects with mild-to-moderate heart failure.Four U.S. multicenter, double‑blind, placebo‑controlled trials enrolled 1,094 subjects (696 randomized to carvedilol) with NYHA class II‑III heart failure and ejection fraction less than or equal to 0.35. The vast majority were on digitalis, diuretics, and an ACE inhibitor at trial entry. Patients were assigned to the trials based upon exercise ability. An Australia‑New Zealand double‑blind, placebo‑controlled trial enrolled 415 subjects (half randomized to carvedilol) with less severe heart failure. All protocols excluded subjects expected to undergo cardiac transplantation during the 7.5 to 15 months of double‑blind follow‑up. All randomized subjects had tolerated a 2‑week course on carvedilol 6.25 mg twice daily.In each trial, there was a primary end point, either progression of heart failure (1 U.S. trial) or exercise tolerance (2 U.S. trials meeting enrollment goals and the Australia‑New Zealand trial). There were many secondary end points specified in these trials, including NYHA classification, patient and physician global assessments, and cardiovascular hospitalization. Other analyses not prospectively planned included the sum of deaths and total cardiovascular hospitalizations. In situations where the primary end points of a trial do not show a significant benefit of treatment, assignment of significance values to the other results is complex, and such values need to be interpreted cautiously.The results of the U.S. and Australia‑New Zealand trials were as follows:Slowing Progression of Heart Failure: One U.S. multicenter trial (366 subjects) had as its primary end point the sum of cardiovascular mortality, cardiovascular hospitalization, and sustained increase in heart failure medications. Heart failure progression was reduced, during an average follow‑up of 7 months, by 48% (P = 0.008).In the Australia‑New Zealand trial, death and total hospitalizations were reduced by about 25% over 18 to 24 months. In the 3 largest U.S. trials, death and total hospitalizations were reduced by 19%, 39%, and 49%, nominally statistically significant in the last 2 trials. The Australia‑New Zealand results were statistically borderline.Functional Measures: None of the multicenter trials had NYHA classification as a primary end point, but all such trials had it as a secondary end point. There was at least a trend toward improvement in NYHA class in all trials. Exercise tolerance was the primary end point in 3 trials; in none was a statistically significant effect found.Subjective Measures: Health-related quality of life, as measured with a standard questionnaire (a primary end point in 1 trial), was unaffected by carvedilol. However, patients’ and investigators’ global assessments showed significant improvement in most trials.Mortality: Death was not a pre-specified end point in any trial, but was analyzed in all trials. Overall, in these 4 U.S. trials, mortality was reduced, nominally significantly so in 2 trials.
In this double-blind trial, 3,029 subjects with NYHA class II-IV heart failure (left ventricular ejection fraction less than or equal to 35%) were randomized to receive either carvedilol (target dose: 25 mg twice daily) or immediate-release metoprolol tartrate (target dose: 50 mg twice daily). The mean age of the subjects was approximately 62 years, 80% were males, and the mean left ventricular ejection fraction at baseline was 26%. Approximately 96% of the subjects had NYHA class II or III heart failure. Concomitant treatment included diuretics (99%), ACE inhibitors (91%), digitalis (59%), aldosterone antagonists (11%), and “statin” lipid-lowering agents (21%). The mean duration of follow-up was 4.8 years. The mean dose of carvedilol was 42 mg per day.The trial had 2 primary end points: all-cause mortality and the composite of death plus hospitalization for any reason. The results of COMET are presented in Table 3 below. All-cause mortality carried most of the statistical weight and was the primary determinant of the trial size. All-cause mortality was 34% in the subjects treated with carvedilol and was 40% in the immediate-release metoprolol group (P = 0.0017; hazard ratio = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.74 to 0.93). The effect on mortality was primarily due to a reduction in cardiovascular death. The difference between the 2 groups with respect to the composite end point was not significant (P = 0.122). The estimated mean survival was 8.0 years with carvedilol and 6.6 years with immediate-release metoprolol.Table 3. Results of COMETEnd PointCarvediloln = 1,511Metoprololn = 1,518Hazard Ratio(95% CI)All-cause mortality34%40%0.830.74 – 0.93Mortality + all hospitalization74%76%0.940.86 – 1.02Cardiovascular death30%35%0.800.70 – 0.90 Sudden death14%17%0.810.68 – 0.97 Death due to circulatory failure11%13%0.830.67 – 1.02 Death due to stroke0.9%2.5%0.330.18 – 0.62It is not known whether this formulation of metoprolol at any dose or this low dose of metoprolol in any formulation has any effect on survival or hospitalization in patients with heart failure. Thus, this trial extends the time over which carvedilol manifests benefits on survival in heart failure, but it is not evidence that carvedilol improves outcome over the formulation of metoprolol (TOPROL-XL) with benefits in heart failure.
In a double-blind trial (COPERNICUS), 2,289 subjects with heart failure at rest or with minimal exertion and left ventricular ejection fraction less than 25% (mean 20%), despite digitalis (66%), diuretics (99%), and ACE inhibitors (89%), were randomized to placebo or carvedilol. Carvedilol was titrated from a starting dose of 3.125 mg twice daily to the maximum tolerated dose or up to 25 mg twice daily over a minimum of 6 weeks. Most subjects achieved the target dose of 25 mg. The trial was conducted in Eastern and Western Europe, the United States, Israel, and Canada. Similar numbers of subjects per group (about 100) withdrew during the titration period.The primary end point of the trial was all‑cause mortality, but cause‑specific mortality and the risk of death or hospitalization (total, cardiovascular [CV], or heart failure [HF]) were also examined. The developing trial data were followed by a data monitoring committee, and mortality analyses were adjusted for these multiple looks. The trial was stopped after a median follow‑up of 10 months because of an observed 35% reduction in mortality (from 19.7% per patient-year on placebo to 12.8% on carvedilol; hazard ratio 0.65, 95% CI: 0.52 to 0.81, P = 0.0014, adjusted) (see Figure 1). The results of COPERNICUS are shown in Table 4.Table 4. Results of COPERNICUS Trial in Subjects with Severe Heart FailureEnd PointPlacebo(n = 1,133)Carvedilol(n = 1,156)Hazard Ratio(95% CI)% ReductionNominal P valueMortality1901300.65(0.52 – 0.81)350.00013Mortality + all hospitalization5074250.76(0.67 – 0.87)240.00004Mortality + CV hospitalization3953140.73(0.63 – 0.84)270.00002Mortality + HF hospitalization3572710.69(0.59 – 0.81)310.000004Cardiovascular = CV; Heart failure = HF.Figure 1. Survival Analysis for COPERNICUS (Intent-to-Treat) The effect on mortality was principally the result of a reduction in the rate of sudden death among subjects without worsening heart failure.Patients' global assessments, in which carvedilol‑treated subjects were compared with placebo, were based on pre-specified, periodic patient self-assessments regarding whether clinical status post-treatment showed improvement, worsening, or no change compared with baseline. Subjects treated with carvedilol showed significant improvements in global assessments compared with those treated with placebo in COPERNICUS.The protocol also specified that hospitalizations would be assessed. Fewer subjects on COREG than on placebo were hospitalized for any reason (372 versus 432, P = 0.0029), for cardiovascular reasons (246 versus 314, P = 0.0003), or for worsening heart failure (198 versus 268, P = 0.0001).COREG had a consistent and beneficial effect on all‑cause mortality as well as the combined end points of all‑cause mortality plus hospitalization (total, CV, or for heart failure) in the overall trial population and in all subgroups examined, including men and women, elderly and non‑elderly, blacks and non‑blacks, and diabetics and non-diabetics (see Figure 2).Figure 2. Effects on Mortality for Subgroups in COPERNICUS
CAPRICORN was a double‑blind trial comparing carvedilol and placebo in 1,959 subjects with a recent myocardial infarction (within 21 days) and left ventricular ejection fraction of less than or equal to 40%, with (47%) or without symptoms of heart failure. Subjects given carvedilol received 6.25 mg twice daily, titrated as tolerated to 25 mg twice daily. Subjects had to have a systolic blood pressure greater than 90 mm Hg, a sitting heart rate greater than 60 beats per minute, and no contraindication to β‑blocker use. Treatment of the index infarction included aspirin (85%), IV or oral β‑blockers (37%), nitrates (73%), heparin (64%), thrombolytics (40%), and acute angioplasty (12%). Background treatment included ACE inhibitors or angiotensin-receptor blockers (97%), anticoagulants (20%), lipid‑lowering agents (23%), and diuretics (34%). Baseline population characteristics included an average age of 63 years, 74% male, 95% Caucasian, mean blood pressure 121/74 mm Hg, 22% with diabetes, and 54% with a history of hypertension. Mean dosage achieved of carvedilol was 20 mg twice daily; mean duration of follow‑up was 15 months.All‑cause mortality was 15% in the placebo group and 12% in the carvedilol group, indicating a 23% risk reduction in subjects treated with carvedilol (95% CI: 2% to 40%, P = 0.03), as shown in Figure 3. The effects on mortality in various subgroups are shown in Figure 4. Nearly all deaths were cardiovascular (which were reduced by 25% by carvedilol), and most of these deaths were sudden or related to pump failure (both types of death were reduced by carvedilol). Another trial end point, total mortality and all-cause hospitalization, did not show a significant improvement.There was also a significant 40% reduction in fatal or non-fatal myocardial infarction observed in the group treated with carvedilol (95% CI: 11% to 60%, P = 0.01). A similar reduction in the risk of myocardial infarction was also observed in a meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials of carvedilol in heart failure.Figure 3. Survival Analysis for CAPRICORN (Intent-to-Treat)Figure 4. Effects on Mortality for Subgroups in CAPRICORN
COREG was studied in 2 placebo‑controlled trials that utilized twice‑daily dosing at total daily doses of 12.5 to 50 mg. In these and other trials, the starting dose did not exceed 12.5 mg. At 50 mg per day, COREG reduced sitting trough (12‑hour) blood pressure by about 9/5.5 mm Hg; at 25 mg per day the effect was about 7.5/3.5 mm Hg. Comparisons of trough-to-peak blood pressure showed a trough-to-peak ratio for blood pressure response of about 65%. Heart rate fell by about 7.5 beats per minute at 50 mg per day. In general, as is true for other β‑blockers, responses were smaller in black than non‑black subjects. There were no age‑ or gender‑related differences in response.The peak antihypertensive effect occurred 1 to 2 hours after a dose. The dose‑related blood pressure response was accompanied by a dose‑related increase in adverse effects [see Adverse Reactions (6)].
In a double-blind trial (GEMINI), COREG, added to an ACE inhibitor or angiotensin-receptor blocker, was evaluated in a population with mild‑to‑moderate hypertension and well-controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus. The mean HbA1c at baseline was 7.2%. COREG was titrated to a mean dose of 17.5 mg twice daily and maintained for 5 months. COREG had no adverse effect on glycemic control, based on HbA1c measurements (mean change from baseline of 0.02%, 95% CI: ‑0.06 to 0.10, P = NS) [see Warnings and Precautions (5.6)].
The white, oval, film‑coated tablets are available in the following strengths: •3.125 mg – engraved with “39” and “SB” •6.25 mg – engraved with “4140” and “SB” •12.5 mg – engraved with “4141” and “SB” •25 mg – engraved with “4142” and “SB” The 6.25-mg, 12.5-mg, and 25-mg tablets are TILTAB tablets. •3.125 mg bottles of 100: NDC 0007-4139-20 •6.25 mg bottles of 100: NDC 0007-4140-20 •12.5 mg bottles of 100: NDC 0007-4141-20 •25 mg bottles of 100: NDC 0007-4142-20Store below 30°C (86°F). Protect from moisture. Dispense in a tight, light‑resistant container.
Advise the patient to read the FDA-approved patient labeling (Patient Information).
Patients taking COREG should be advised of the following: •Patients should take COREG with food. •Patients should not interrupt or discontinue using COREG without a physician’s advice. •Patients with heart failure should consult their physician if they experience signs or symptoms of worsening heart failure such as weight gain or increasing shortness of breath. •Patients may experience a drop in blood pressure when standing, resulting in dizziness and, rarely, fainting. Patients should sit or lie down when these symptoms of lowered blood pressure occur. •If experiencing dizziness or fatigue, patients should avoid driving or hazardous tasks. •Patients should consult a physician if they experience dizziness or faintness, in case the dosage should be adjusted. •Diabetic patients should report any changes in blood sugar levels to their physician. •Contact lens wearers may experience decreased lacrimation.COREG, COREG CR, and TILTAB are trademarks owned by or licensed to the GSK group of companies.The other brand listed is a trademark owned by or licensed to its owner and is not owned by or licensed to the GSK group of companies. The maker of this brand is not affiliated with and does not endorse the GSK group of companies or its products. Manufactured forGlaxoSmithKlineResearch Triangle Park, NC 27709©2017 the GSK group of companies or its licensor.CRG:25PIPHARMACIST‑DETACH HERE AND GIVE INSTRUCTIONS TO PATIENT-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PATIENT INFORMATIONCOREG (Co-REG)(carvedilol) tabletsRead the Patient Information that comes with COREG before you start taking it and each time you get a refill. There may be new information. This information does not take the place of talking with your doctor about your medical condition or your treatment. If you have any questions about COREG, ask your doctor or pharmacist.What is COREG?COREG is a prescription medicine that belongs to a group of medicines called “beta-blockers”. COREG is used, often with other medicines, for the following conditions: •to treat patients with certain types of heart failure •to treat patients who had a heart attack that worsened how well the heart pumps •to treat patients with high blood pressure (hypertension)COREG is not approved for use in children under 18 years of age.Who should not take COREG?Do not take COREG if you: •have severe heart failure and are hospitalized in the intensive care unit or require certain intravenous medications that help support circulation (inotropic medications). •are prone to asthma or other breathing problems. •have a slow heartbeat or a heart that skips a beat (irregular heartbeat). •have liver problems. •are allergic to any of the ingredients in COREG. The active ingredient is carvedilol. See the end of this leaflet for a list of all the ingredients in COREG.What should I tell my doctor before taking COREG?Tell your doctor about all of your medical conditions, including if you: •have asthma or other lung problems (such as bronchitis or emphysema). •have problems with blood flow in your feet and legs (peripheral vascular disease). COREG can make some of your symptoms worse. •have diabetes. •have thyroid problems. •have a condition called pheochromocytoma. •have had severe allergic reactions. •are pregnant or trying to become pregnant. It is not known if COREG is safe for your unborn baby. You and your doctor should talk about the best way to control your high blood pressure during pregnancy. •are breastfeeding. It is not known if COREG passes into your breast milk. Talk with your doctor about the best way to feed your baby if you are taking COREG. •are scheduled for surgery and will be given anesthetic agents. •are scheduled for cataract surgery and have taken or are currently taking COREG. •are taking prescription or over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. COREG and certain other medicines can affect each other and cause serious side effects. COREG may affect the way other medicines work. Also, other medicines may affect how well COREG works.Keep a list of all the medicines you take. Show this list to your doctor and pharmacist before you start a new medicine.How should I take COREG?It is important for you to take your medicine every day as directed by your doctor. If you stop taking COREG suddenly, you could have chest pain and/or a heart attack. If your doctor decides that you should stop taking COREG, your doctor may slowly lower your dose over a period of time before stopping it completely. •Take COREG exactly as prescribed. Your doctor will tell you how many tablets to take and how often. In order to minimize possible side effects, your doctor might begin with a low dose and then slowly increase the dose. •Do not stop taking COREG and do not change the amount of COREG you take without talking to your doctor. •Tell your doctor if you gain weight or have trouble breathing while taking COREG. •Take COREG with food. •If you miss a dose of COREG, take your dose as soon as you remember, unless it is time to take your next dose. Take your next dose at the usual time. Do not take 2 doses at the same time. •If you take too much COREG, call your doctor or poison control center right away.What should I avoid while taking COREG? •COREG can cause you to feel dizzy, tired, or faint. Do not drive a car, use machinery, or do anything that needs you to be alert if you have these symptoms.What are possible side effects of COREG? •Low blood pressure (which may cause dizziness or fainting when you stand up). If these happen, sit or lie down right away and tell your doctor. •Tiredness. If you feel tired or dizzy you should not drive, use machinery, or do anything that needs you to be alert. •Slow heartbeat. •Changes in your blood sugar. If you have diabetes, tell your doctor if you have any changes in your blood sugar levels. •COREG may hide some of the symptoms of low blood sugar, especially a fast heartbeat. •COREG may mask the symptoms of hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid). •Worsening of severe allergic reactions. •Rare but serious allergic reactions (including hives or swelling of the face, lips, tongue, and/or throat that may cause difficulty in breathing or swallowing) have happened in patients who were on COREG. These reactions can be life-threatening.Other side effects of COREG include shortness of breath, weight gain, diarrhea, and fewer tears or dry eyes that become bothersome if you wear contact lenses.Call your doctor if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.How should I store COREG? •Store COREG at less than 86°F (30°C). Keep the tablets dry. •Safely, throw away COREG that is out of date or no longer needed. •Keep COREG and all medicines out of the reach of children.General Information about COREGMedicines are sometimes prescribed for conditions other than those described in patient information leaflets. Do not use COREG for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give COREG to other people, even if they have the same symptoms you have. It may harm them.This leaflet summarizes the most important information about COREG. If you would like more information, talk with your doctor. You can ask your doctor or pharmacist for information about COREG that is written for healthcare professionals.What are the ingredients in COREG?Active Ingredient: carvedilol.Inactive Ingredients: colloidal silicon dioxide, crospovidone, hypromellose, lactose, magnesium stearate, polyethylene glycol, polysorbate 80, povidone, sucrose, and titanium dioxide.Carvedilol tablets come in the following strengths: 3.125 mg, 6.25 mg, 12.5 mg, 25 mg.What is high blood pressure (hypertension)?Blood pressure is the force of blood in your blood vessels when your heart beats and when your heart rests. You have high blood pressure when the force is too much. High blood pressure makes the heart work harder to pump blood through the body and causes damage to blood vessels. COREG can help your blood vessels relax so your blood pressure is lower. Medicines that lower blood pressure may lower your chance of having a stroke or heart attack.COREG is a trademark owned by or licensed to the GSK group of companies.Manufactured forGlaxoSmithKlineResearch Triangle Park, NC 27709©2017 the GSK group of companies or its licensor.September 2017CRG:7PIL
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Posts Tagged ‘ veterans ’
Marijuana (Cannabis) News – 420 in 5 dayz!
Where is Florida at Right Now?
Day 42 of the 60 day Legislative Session brings a sense of anticipation. Last week four Republican Representatives said if the Florida Medical Association won’t get on board; we should go for legalization and they would support a system of regulation and control!
To those who have taken the time this legislative session to send an e-mail or make a phone call, I cannot thank you enough. Being so close to the process, spending every day in Tallahassee listening to the lawmakers, it is easy to see how much of a difference you are making. Lawmakers are getting the message loud and clear. Incoming Speaker Crisafulli assures me that reforming cannabis policy is a conversation happening at the highest level of Florida government.
The legislative process is slow and cumbersome. Just like it takes time to change the direction of a great ship; so it is with the moving the great state of Florida. I have come to believe this group of elected officials in Tallahassee is ready to right the wrongs of their predecessors, but it is a slow going. Nowhere is the law of unintended consequences more strongly felt then in cannabis policies; and many of our lawmakers get it. Where the intent may have been to protect the most vulnerable; the reality is those who could most use access to cannabis are made fodder for the criminal justice system.
Florida CAN has made the case for sensible reforms before the decision makers in our state. We have brought an incredible cast of characters to Tallahassee to speak on your behalf– and we are not done yet! This week, The Black Tuna Robert Platshorn, host of “Should Grandma Smoke Pot?” is joining me for a day at the Capitol.
Over the past weeks we have introduced lawmakers to senior citizens Cathy Jordan, Bob Jordan, John Chase, and Frank Dougherty. Most people have heard the story of Cathy Jordan, but few recognize the sacrifice Bob made in Vietnam. In March, Bob and Frank spent several days walking point for veterans in Florida. Florida is home to 1.6 million veterans. The VA – the only federal agency that practices medicine – has a directive allowing the use of cannabis where lawful under state statutes. John Chase of Pinellas has studied the harms of alcohol prohibition and used his time in Tallahassee to talk about the harms associated with this policy of prohibition.
Neill Franklin of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition joined FLCAN staff at the Capitol March 19th. Neill was on a two-week tour of Florida speaking about the unintended consequences of prohibition. Also representing sensible cannabis policies in Tallahassee that week was Ethel Rowland – woman of many hats; Jeff Borg – ACLU Board of Directors and Eric Stevens – FLCAN’s legislative liaison. Ethel and Eric bring great drug policy credentials to the table. Eric, a south Florida activist, was trained by American’s for Safe Access to advocate for cannabis reform. Ethel is a seasoned activist artist who uses her time and talent to expose the consequences of prohibition.
When we asked supporters to reach out to Representative Roberson, Chair of the House Quality Sub-Committee, more than a 1,000 of our supporters responded. Though he ultimately ran out of time for the workshop, when we cornered Representative Roberson he said if he had done a workshop on the “Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act” that would have been the only thing reported that day. While it works for me, apparently, what Representative Roberson is doing was bigger than our need for safe, legal access to cannabis without fear of a jail cell.
This past week, we asked you to write Senator Bean and encourage his committee to host a workshop to hear expert testimony on therapeutic access to cannabis. The Senator was on board to workshop the bill when President of the Senate, Don Gaetz, – Republican from Niceville, added a number of bills to the committee, putting ours off the agenda!
What did Don Gaetz think is more important than making sure people who may lose their life or their senses have access to cannabis? One bill making its way through the legislature deals with what color you can dye baby chicks at Easter.
Last week was a tipping point in the minds of many Florida lawmakers. Irv Rosenfeld, one of four surviving patients who receive cannabis from the Federal Government joined Cathy Jordan and the FLCAN team in Tallahassee. Tony Clymer of the Silver Tour and NORML of Florida was part of our team walking door-to-door with Eric Stevens, Cathy Jordan, Irv Rosenfeld and myself.
With the prosecutor accepting Cathy has a medical need for cannabis even lawmakers are beginning to wonder how we can continue to give cannabis to one man, Irv and deny it to Cathy.
There are still rules that will allow the Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act to go to the floor for a vote this year, but the changes are slim. Once in a while, the long shot wins and we all love to watch the story unfold.
Even as I write, several opportunities still exist for us to pass a bill this session that will allow safe access to cannabis before November of 2013. Patients out of time cannot wait another year for lawmakers to find the will or voters to pass a constitutional amendment; they need access now without fear of arrest. Rest assured, FLCAN will continue to explore every avenue available to assure that those you love have access to this plant.
We invite those who want to be sure we get access to therapeutic cannabis to do more than just wait for someone else to act. FLCAN has provided you with all the tools you need to pass a resolution of support in your home town or county. Passing resolutions of support in Florida puts pressure on the state to create safe access but it also puts pressure on the Federal Government to untie the hands of the states hesitant to step outside federal guidelines on cannabis.
FLCAN has one more opportunity to move decision makers into championing our cause. Friday, April 19, 2013 the Republican Party of Florida is hosting a walk to raise money for the cure to ALS – Lou Gehrig ’s disease. For three months, Cathy has been a living, breathing example of a patient who may have a key to the cure.
You can be part of the historic opportunity to energize leaders of the Republican Party to take the steps necessary to give patients access to cannabis now! They can remove the Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act from its committees of reference and send it to the Floor. It requires the will of the President of the Senate and Speak of the House to happen- they will not do this if they think it is safe to ignore this issue.
If enough people come forward demanding access to cannabis there is one last tactic the leadership can use to grant us immunity from prosecution while we create a system that allows therapeutic access. Lawmakers can create a committee bill that will strike cannabis from section 893 of the Florida Statute.
Everyone who can read knows cannabis does not belong in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act. This is it, with only days to go, activate your phone tree, share our messages with friends and keep those calls and letters coming!
This year I’ve raised the battle cry from Key West to Pensacola- “No surrender, no retreat” we are right and the people need us to stay the course. Victory is ours….
Jodi James, Executive Director
FLCAN continues to fight the good fight. Will you dig deep and make a contribution today to assure we can be a leading voice in creating responsible cannabis policies for Florida?
Posted by Jodi originally.
controlled substance act
don Gaetz
FLCAN
Florida Cannabis Action Network
ken roberson
will weatherford
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Clawpack: building an open source ecosystem for solving hyperbolic PDEs
Michael Plank @MichaelPlankNZ 698 days ago
RT @nhigham: To celebrate its 5th birthday the #openaccess journal @thePeerJ (e.g. https://t.co/t2OETS4868 and https://t.co/wId1eCEwsM…) is…
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Nick Higham @nhigham 698 days ago
To celebrate its 5th birthday the #openaccess journal @thePeerJ (e.g. https://t.co/t2OETS4868 and https://t.co/wId1eCEwsM…) is waiving all publication fees for submissions made in February 2018. Only one week left for this offer: https://t.co/qCn6y5QCpS
Arie van Deursen @avandeursen 717 days ago
RT @nhigham: To celebrate its 5th birthday the open access journal @thePeerJ (e.g. https://t.co/VdAA9bMxhm and https://t.co/b0sjqyPP4b) is…
Craig Kelly @binarydolphin 717 days ago
PeerJ CompSci @PeerJCompSci 717 days ago
To celebrate its 5th birthday the open access journal @thePeerJ (e.g. https://t.co/VdAA9bMxhm and https://t.co/b0sjqyPP4b) is offering full fee waivers for all manuscripts submitted in February 2018- https://t.co/kNjTPPGJVv
Note that a Preprint of this article also exists, first published March 7, 2016.
Kyle T. Mandli1, Aron J. Ahmadia2, Marsha Berger3, Donna Calhoun4, David L. George5, Yiannis Hadjimichael6, David I. Ketcheson6, Grady I. Lemoine7, Randall J. LeVeque8
1Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
2Continuum Analytics, Austin, TX, USA
3Courant Institute, New York University, New York, NY, USA
4Department of Mathematics, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA
5Cascade Volcano Observatory, United States Geological Survey, Vancouver, WA, USA
6Applied Mathematics and Computational Science, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
7CD-adapco, Bellevue, WA, USA
8Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
10.7717/peerj-cs.68
Academic Editor
Nick Higham
Distributed and Parallel Computing, Scientific Computing and Simulation
Partial differential equations, Finite volume methods, Parallel computing, Open source software, Conservation laws, Balance laws
© 2016 Mandli et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Computer Science) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Mandli KT, Ahmadia AJ, Berger M, Calhoun D, George DL, Hadjimichael Y, Ketcheson DI, Lemoine GI, LeVeque RJ. 2016. Clawpack: building an open source ecosystem for solving hyperbolic PDEs. PeerJ Computer Science 2:e68 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.68
The authors have chosen to make the review history of this article public.
Clawpack is a software package designed to solve nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations using high-resolution finite volume methods based on Riemann solvers and limiters. The package includes a number of variants aimed at different applications and user communities. Clawpack has been actively developed as an open source project for over 20 years. The latest major release, Clawpack 5, introduces a number of new features and changes to the code base and a new development model based on GitHub and Git submodules. This article provides a summary of the most significant changes, the rationale behind some of these changes, and a description of our current development model.
The Clawpack software suite (Clawpack Development Team, 2015) is designed for the solution of nonlinear conservation laws, balance laws, and other first-order hyperbolic partial differential equations not necessarily in conservation form. The underlying solvers are based on the wave propagation algorithms described by LeVeque in (LeVeque, 2002), and are designed for logically Cartesian uniform or mapped grids or an adaptive hierarchy of such grids. The original Clawpack was first released as a software package in 1994 and since then has made major strides in both capability and interface. More recently a major refactoring of the code and a move to GitHub for development has resulted in the release of Clawpack 5.0 in January, 2014. Beyond enabling a distributed and better managed development process, a number of user-facing improvements were made including a new user interface and visualization tools, incorporation of high-order accurate algorithms, parallelization through MPI and OpenMP, and other enhancements.
Because scientific software has become central to many advances made in science, engineering, resource management, natural hazards modeling and other fields, it is increasingly important to describe and document changes made to widely used packages. Such documentation efforts serve to orient new and existing users to the strategies taken by developers of the software, place the software package in the context of other packages, document major code changes, and provide a concrete, citable reference for users of the software.
With this in mind, the goals of this paper are to:
Summarize the development history of Clawpack,
Summarize some of the major changes made between the early Clawpack 4.x versions and the most recent version, Clawpack 5.3,
Summarize the development model we have adopted, for managing open source scientific software projects with many contributors, and
Identify how users can contribute to the Clawpack suite of tools.
This paper provides a brief history of Clawpack in ‘History of Clawpack’, a background of the mathematical concerns in ‘Hyperbolic problems,’ the modern development approach now being used in ‘Development approach,’ the major feature additions in the Clawpack 5.x major release up until Version 5.3 in ‘Advances.’ Some concluding thoughts and future plans for Clawpack are mentioned in ‘Conclusions.’
History of Clawpack
The first version of Clawpack was released by LeVeque (1994) and consisted of Fortran code for solving problems on a single, uniform Cartesian grid in one or two space dimensions, together with some Matlab (MathWorks, 2015) scripts for plotting solutions. The wave-propagation method implemented in this code provided a general way to apply recently developed high-resolution shock capturing methods to general hyperbolic systems and required only that the user provide a “Riemann solver” to specify a new hyperbolic problem. Collaboration with Berger (Berger & LeVeque, 1998) soon led to the incorporation of adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) in two space dimensions, and work with Langseth (Langseth & LeVeque, 2000; Langseth, 1996) led to three-dimensional versions of the wave-propagation algorithm and the software, with three-dimensional AMR then added by Berger.
Version 4.3 of Clawpack contained a number of other improvements to the code and formed the basis for the examples presented in a textbook (LeVeque, 2002) published in 2003. That text not only provided a complete description of the wave propagation algorithm, developed by LeVeque, but also is notable in that the codes used to produce virtually all of figures in the text were made available online (LeVeque, 2002).
In 2009, Clawpack Version 4.4 was released with a major change from Matlab to Python as the recommended visualization tool, and the development of a Python user interface for specifying the input data. Finally in January of 2013 the 4.x versions of Clawpack ended with the release of 4.6.3. 1
Version 5 of Clawpack introduces both user-exposed features and a number of modern approaches to code development, interfacing with other codes, and adding new capabilities. The move to git version control also allowed a more complete open source model. These changes are the subject of the rest of this paper.
Hyperbolic problems
In one space dimension, the hyperbolic systems solved with Clawpack typically take the form of conservation laws (1) q t x , t + f q x , t x = 0 or non-conservative linear systems (2) q t x , t + A x q x , t x = 0 , where subscripts denote partial derivatives and q(x, t) is a vector with m ≥ 1 components. Here the components of q represent conserved quantities, while the function f represents the flux (transport) of q. Equation (1) generalizes in a natural way to higher space dimensions; see the examples below. The coefficient matrix A in (2) or the Jacobian matrix f′(q) in (1) is assumed to be diagonalizable with real eigenvalues for all relevant values of q, x, and t. This condition guarantees that the system is hyperbolic, with solutions that are wave-like. The eigenvectors of the system determine the relation between the different components of the system, or waves, and the eigenvalues determine the speeds at which these waves travel. The right hand side of these equations could be replaced by a “source term” ψ(q, x, t) to give a non-homogeneous equation that is sometimes called a “balance law” rather than a conservation law. Spatially-varying flux functions f(q, x) in (1) can also be handled using the f-wave approach (Bale et al., 2002).
Examples of equations solved by Clawpack include:
Advection equation(s) for one or more tracers; in the simplest, one-dimensional case we have: q t + u x , t q x = 0 . The velocity field u(x, t) is typically prescribed from the solution to another fluid flow problem, such as wind. Typical applications include transport of heat, energy, pollution, smoke, or another passively-advected quantity that does not influence the velocity field.
The shallow water equations, describing the velocity (u, v) and surface height h of a fluid whose depth is small relative to typical wavelengths. (3) h t + h u x + h v y = 0 (4) h u t + h u 2 + 1 2 g h 2 x + h u v y = − g b x (5) h v t + h v 2 + 1 2 g h 2 y + h u v x = − g b y . Here g is a constant related to the gravitational force and b(x, y) is the bathymetry, or bottom surface height. Notice that the bathymetry enters the equations through a source term; additional terms could be added to model the effect of bottom friction. These equations are used, for instance, to model inundation caused by tsunamis and dam breaks, as well as to model atmospheric flows.
The Euler equations of compressible, inviscid fluid dynamics, which consist of conservation laws for mass, momentum, and energy. The wave speeds depend on the local fluid velocity and the acoustic wave velocity (sound speed). Source terms can be added to include the effect of gravity, viscosity or heat transfer. These systems have important applications in aerodynamics, climate and weather modeling, and astrophysics.
Elastic wave equations, used to model compressional and shear waves in solid materials. Here even linear models can be complex due to varying material properties on multiple scales that affect the wave speeds and eigenvectors.
Discontinuities (shock waves) can arise in the solution of nonlinear hyperbolic equations, causing difficulties for traditional numerical methods based on discretizing derivatives directly. Modern shock capturing methods are often based on solutions to the Riemann problem that consists of equations (1) or (2) together with piecewise constant initial data with a single jump discontinuity. The solution to the Riemann problem is a similarity solution (a function of x∕t only), typically consisting of m waves (for a system of m equations) propagating at constant speed. This is true even for nonlinear problems, where the waves may be shocks or rarefaction waves (through which the solution varies continuously in a self-similar manner).
The main theoretical and numerical difficulties of hyperbolic problems involve the prescription of physically correct weak solutions and understanding the behavior of the solution at discontinuities. The Riemann solver is an algorithm that encodes the specifics of the hyperbolic system to be solved, and it is the only routine (other than problem-specific setup such as initial conditions) that needs to be changed in order to apply the code to different hyperbolic systems. In some cases, the Riemann solver may also be designed to enforce physical properties like positivity (e.g., for the water depth in GeoClaw) or to account for forces (like that of gravity) that may be balanced by flux terms.
Clawpack is based on Godunov-type finite volume methods in which the solution is represented by cell averages. Riemann problems between the cell averages in neighboring states are used as the fundamental building block of the algorithm. The wave-propagation algorithm originally implemented in Clawpack (and still used in much of the code) is based on using the waves resulting from each Riemann solution together with limiter functions to achieve second-order accuracy where the solution is smooth together with sharp resolution of discontinuities without spurious numerical oscillations (see LeVeque (2002) for a detailed description of the algorithms). Higher-order WENO methods have also been developed relying on the same Riemann solvers. These methods can be found in PyClaw (see ‘PyClaw’), one of the packages in the larger Clawpack ecosystem.
Problem-specific boundary conditions must also be imposed, which are implemented by a subroutine that sets the solution value in ghost cells exterior to the domain each time step. The Clawpack software contains library routines that implement several sets of boundary conditions that are commonly used, e.g., periodic boundary conditions, reflecting solid wall boundary conditions for problems such as acoustics, Euler, or shallow water equations, and non-reflecting (absorbing) extrapolation boundary conditions. As with all Clawpack library routines, the boundary condition routine can be copied and modified by the user to implement other boundary conditions needed for a particular application.
In two or three space dimensions, the wave-propagation methods are extended using either dimensional splitting, so that only one-dimensional Riemann solvers are needed, or by a multi-dimensional algorithm based on transverse Riemann solvers introduced in (LeVeque, 1997). Both approaches are supported in Clawpack. A variety of Riemann solvers have been developed for Clawpack, many of which are collected in the riemann repository, see ‘Riemann: a community-driven collection of approximate riemann solvers.’
Adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is essential for many problems and has been available in two space dimensions since 1995, when Marsha Berger joined the project team and her AMR code for the Euler equations of compressible flow was generalized to fit into the software which became AMRClaw (Berger & LeVeque, 1998), another package included in the Clawpack ecosystem. AMRClaw was carried over to three space dimensions using the unsplit algorithms introduced in (Langseth & LeVeque, 2000). Starting in Version 5.3.0, dimensional splitting is also supported in AMRClaw, which can be particularly useful in three space dimensions where the unsplit algorithms are much more expensive. Other recent improvements to AMRClaw are discussed in ‘AMRClaw.’
There are several other open source software projects that provide adaptive mesh refinement for hyperbolic PDEs. The interested reader may want to investigate AMROC (Deiterding, 2011), BoxLib (https://ccse.lbl.gov/BoxLib/index.html), Chombo (Adams et al., 2014), Gerris (Popinet, 2001), OpenFOAM (OpenFOAM Foundation, 2016), or SAMRAI (Anderson et al., 2013), for example.
Development Approach
Clawpack’s development model is driven by the needs of its developer community. The Clawpack project consists of several interdependent projects: core solver functionality, a visualization suite, a general adaptive mesh refinement code, a specialized geophysical flow code, and a massively parallel Python framework. Changes to the core solvers and visualization suite have a downstream effect on the other codes, and the developers largely work in an independent, asynchronous manner across continents and time zones.
The core Clawpack software repositories are:
clawpack–responsible for installation and coordination of other repositories,
riemann–Riemann solvers used by all the other projects,
visclaw–a visualization suite used by all the other projects,
clawutil–utility functions used by most other projects,
classic–the original single grid methods in 1, 2, and 3 space dimensions,
amrclaw–the general adaptive mesh refinement framework in 2 and 3 dimensions,
geoclaw–solvers for depth-averaged geophysical flows which employs the framework in amrclaw, and
pyclaw–a Python implementation and interface to the Clawpack algorithms including high-order methods and massively parallel capabilities.
A release of Clawpack downloaded by users contains all of the above. The repositories riemann, visclaw, and clawutil are sometimes referred to as upstream projects, since their changes affect all the remaining projects in the above list, commonly referred to as downstream projects. There are some variations on this, for instance AMRClaw is upstream of GeoClaw, which uses many of the algorithms and software base from AMRClaw. To coordinate this the clawpack repository points to the most recent known-compatible version of each repository.
Beyond the major core code repositories, additional repositories contain documentation and extended examples for using the packages:
doc–the primary documentation source files. These files are written in the markup language reStructured Text (http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/stable/rest.html), and are then converted to html files using Sphinx (http://sphinx-doc.org). Other documentation such as drafts of this paper are also found in this repository.
clawpack.github.com–the html files created by Sphinx in the doc repository are pushed to this repository, and are then automatically served on the web. These appear at http://www.clawpack.org, which is configured to point to http://clawpack.github.com. The name of this repository follows GitHub convention for use with GitHub Pages (https://pages.github.com/).
apps–applications contributed by developers and users that go beyond the introductory examples included in the core repositories.
The Clawpack 4.x code is also available in the repository clawpack-4.x but is no longer under development.
The Clawpack team uses the Git distributed version control system to coordinate development of each major project. The repositories are publicly coordinated under the Clawpack organization on GitHub (https://github.com/clawpack) with the top-level clawpack super-repository responsible for hosting build and installation tools, as well as providing a synchronization point for the other repositories. The remaining “core Clawpack repositories” listed above are subrepositories of the main clawpack organization.
GitHub itself is a free provider of public Git repositories. In addition to repository hosting, the Clawpack team uses GitHub for issue tracking, code review, automated continuous integration via Travis CI (https://travis-ci.org/), and test coverage tracking via Coveralls (http://coveralls.io) for the Python-based modules. The issue tracker on GitHub supports cross-repository references, simplifying communication between Clawpack developer sub-teams. The Travis CI service, which provides free continuous integration for publicly developed repositories on GitHub, runs Clawpack’s test suites through nose (https://nose.readthedocs.org) on proposed changes to the code base, and through a connection to the Coveralls service, reports on any test failures as well as changes to test coverage.
The clawpack “super-repository” serves two purposes. First, it contains installation utilities for each of the sub-projects. Second, it serves as a synchronization point for the project repositories. The remainder of this section provides more details on how Git submodules enable this synchronization.
Whenever possible, teams of software developers coordinate their development in a single unified repository. In situations where this isn’t possible, one option provided by Git is the submodule, which allows a super-repository (in this case, clawpack), to nest sub-repositories as directories, with the ability to capture changes to sub-repository revisions as new revisions in the super-repository. Under the hood, the super-repository maintains pointers to the location of each submodule and its current revision. The submodule directories contain normal Git repositories, all of the coordination happens in the super-repository.
Each of the other core Clawpack repositories listed above is a submodule of the clawpack repository. Every commit that creates a new revision to the clawpack repository describes top-level installation code as well as the revisions of each of the submodules. In this way, Git submodules allow Clawpack team members to work asynchronously on independent projects while reusing and maintaining common software infrastructure.
Typically the Clawpack developers advance the master development branch of the top-level clawpack repository any time a major feature is added or a bug is fixed in one of the upstream projects that might affect code in other repositories. By checking out a particular revision in the clawpack repository and performing a git submodule update, all repositories can be updated to versions that are intended to be consistent and functional.
In particular, when Travis CI runs the regression tests in any project repository (performed automatically for any pull request), it starts by installing Clawpack on a virtual machine and the current head of the clawpack/master branch indicates the commit from each of the other projects that must be checked out before performing the tests. If the clawpack repository has not been properly updated following changes in other upstream projects, these tests may fail.
Any new release of Clawpack is a snapshot of one particular revision of clawpack and the related revisions of all submodules. These particular revisions are also tagged for future reference with consistent names, such as v5.3.1. (Git tags simply provide a descriptive name for a particular revision rather than having to refer to a Git hash code.)
Scientists who program are often discouraged from sharing code due to existing reward mechanisms and the fear of being “scooped.” However, recent studies indicate that scientific communities that openly share and develop code have an advantage because each researcher can leverage the work of many others (Turk, 2013), and that paper citation rates can be increased by sharing code (Vandewalle, 2012) and/or data (Piwowar, Day & Fridsma, 2007). Moreover, journals and funding agencies are increasingly requiring investigators to share code used to obtain published results. One of the goals of the Clawpack project is to facilitate code sharing by users, by providing an easy mechanism to refer to a specific version of the Clawpack software and ensuring that past versions of the software remain available on a stable and citable platform.
On the development side, we expect that the open source development model with important discussions conducted in public will lead to further growth of the developer community and additional contributions from users. Over the past twenty years, many users have written code extending Clawpack with new Riemann solvers, algorithms, or domain-specific problem tools. Unfortunately, much of this code did not make it back into the core software for others to use. Many of the development changes in Clawpack 5.x were done to encourage contributions from a broader community. We have begun to see an increase in contributions from outside the developers’ groups, and hope to encourage more of this in the future.
The primary development model is typical for GitHub projects: a contributor forks the repository on GitHub, then develops improvements in a branch that is pushed to her own fork. She issues a “pull request” (PR) when the branch is ready to be merged into the main repository. Increasingly, contributors are also using PRs as a way to conveniently post preliminary or prototype code for discussion prior to further development, often marked WIP for “work in progress” to signal that it is not ready to merge.
After a PR is issued, other developers, including one or more of the maintainers for the corresponding project, review the code. The Travis CI server also automatically runs the tests on the proposed new code. The test results are visible on the GitHub page for the PR. Usually there is some iteration as developers suggest improvements or discuss implementation choices in the code. Once the tests are passing and it is agreed that the code is acceptable, a maintainer merges it.
An additional benefit of using the GitHub platform is that any version of the code is accessible either through the command line git interface, through the GitHub website, or a number of available applications on all widely used platforms. More important however is the ability to tag a particular version of a repository with a digital object identifier (DOI) via GitHub and Zonodo.2 The combination of these abilities provides the capability for Clawpack to not only be accessible at any version but also allows for the citability of versions of the code used for particular results within the scientific literature.
Although Clawpack is continuously developed, it is convenient for users to be able to install stable versions of the software. The Clawpack developers provide these releases through two distribution channels: GitHub and the Python Package Index (PyPI). Full source releases are available on GitHub. Alternatively, the PyClaw subproject and its dependencies can be installed automatically using a PyPI client such as pip.
Clawpack does not follow a calendar release cycle. Instead, releases emerge when the developer community feels enough changes have accumulated since the last release to justify the cost of switching to a new release. For the most part, Clawpack releases are versioned using an M.m.p triplet, representing the major (M), minor (m), and patch (p) versions respectively. In the broader software engineering community, this is often referred to as semantic versioning. Small changes that fix bugs and cosmetic issues result in increments to the patch-level. Backwards-compatible changes result in an increase to the minor version. The introduction of backwards-incompatible changes require that the major version be incremented. In addition, the implementation of significant new algorithms or capability will also justify the increment of major release number, and is often an impetus for providing another release to the public. In practice, the Clawpack software has frequently included changes in minor version releases that were not entirely backwards compatible, but these have been relatively minor and documented in the release notes. Major version numbers have changed infrequently and related to major refactoring of the code as in going from 4.x to 5.0.
Staring with Version 5.3.1, the tarfiles for Clawpack releases will also be archived on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org), a data repository hosted at CERN that issues DOIs so that the software version can be cited with a permanent link (Clawpack Development Team, 2015) that does not depend on the long-term existence of GitHub.
Running any part of Clawpack requires a Python interpreter and the common Python packages numpy (Jones et al., 2001), f2py (Peterson, 2009), matplotlib (Hunter, 2007), as well as (except for the pure-Python 1D code) GNU make and a Fortran compiler. Other dependencies are optional, depending on which parts of Clawpack are to be used:
IPython/Jupyter if using the notebook interfaces (Pérez & Granger, 2007).
PETSc (Balay et al., 2010), if using distributed parallelism in PyClaw.
OpenMP, if using shared-memory parallelism in AMRClaw or GeoClaw.
MATLAB, if using the legacy visualization tools.
This section describes the major changes in each of the code repositories in moving from Clawpack 4.x to the most recent version 5.3. A number of the repositories have seen only minor changes as the bulk of the development is focused on current research interests. There are a number of minor changes not listed here and the interested reader is encouraged to refer to the change logs (http://www.clawpack.org/changes.html) and the individual Clawpack Git repositories for a more complete list.
Global Changes
Substantial redesign of the Clawpack code base was performed in the move from Clawpack 4.x to 5.x. Major changes that affected all aspects of the code include:
The interface to the Clawpack Riemann solvers was changed so that one set of solvers can be used for all versions of the code (including PyClaw via f2py (http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/f2py)). Rather than appearing in scattered example directories, these Riemann solvers have all been collected into the new riemann repository. Modifications to the calling sequences were made to accommodate this increased generality.
Calling sequences for a number of other Fortran subroutines were also modified based on experiences with the Clawpack 4.x code. These can also be used as a stand-alone product for those who only want the Riemann solvers.
Python front-ends were redesigned to more easily specify run-time options for the solver and visualization. The Fortran variants (ClassicClaw, AMRClaw, and GeoClaw) all use a Python script to facilitate setting input variables. These scripts create text files with a rigidly specified format that are then read in when the Fortran code is run. The interface now allows updates to the input parameters while maintaining backwards compatibility.
The indices of the primary conserved quantities were reordered. In Clawpack 4.x, the mth component of a system of equations in grid cell (i, j) (in two dimensions, for example), was stored in q(i,j,m). In order to improve cache usage and to more easily interface with PETSc (Balay et al., 2010), a global change was made to the ordering so that the component number comes first; i.e., q(m,i,j). A seemingly minor change like this affects a huge number of lines in the code and cannot easily be automated. The use of version control and regression tests was crucial in the successful completion of the project.
Riemann: a community-driven collection of approximate riemann solvers
The methods implemented in Clawpack, and all modern Godunov-type methods for hyperbolic PDEs, are based on the solution of Riemann problems as discussed in ‘Hyperbolic Problems.’ Whereas most existing codes for hyperbolic PDEs use Riemann solvers to compute fluxes, Clawpack Riemann solvers instead compute the waves (or discontinuities) that make up the Riemann solution. In the unsplit algorithm, Clawpack also makes use of transverse Riemann solvers, responsible for computing transport between cells that are only corner (in 2d) or edge (in 3d) adjacent.
For nonlinear systems, the exact solution of the Riemann problem is computationally costly and may involve both discontinuities (shocks and contact waves) and rarefactions. It is almost always preferable to employ inexact Riemann solvers that approximate the solution using discontinuities only, with an appropriate entropy condition. The solvers available in Clawpack are all approximate solvers, although one could easily implement their own exact solver and make it available in the format needed by Clawpack routines.
A common feature in all packages in the Clawpack suite is the use of a standard interface for Fortran Riemann solver routines. This ensures that new solvers or solver improvements developed for one package can immediately be used by all packages. To further facilitate this sharing and to avoid duplication, Riemann solvers are (with rare exceptions) not maintained under the other packages but are collected in a single repository named riemann. Users who develop new solvers for Clawpack are encouraged to submit them to the Riemann repository.
In the Fortran-based packages (Classic, AMRClaw, and GeoClaw) the Riemann solver is selected at compile-time by modifying a problem-specific Makefile. In PyClaw, the Riemann solver to be used is selected at run-time. This is made possible by compiling all of the Riemann solvers (when PyClaw is installed) and generating Python wrappers with f2py. For PyClaw, riemann also provides metadata (such as the number of equations, the number of waves, and the names of the conserved quantities) for each solver so that setup is made more transparent.
The classic repository contains code implementing the wave propagation algorithm on a single uniform grid, in much the same form as the original Clawpack 1.0 version of 1994 but with various enhancements added through the years. Following the introduction of Clawpack 4.4 the three-dimensional routines were left out of the Python user interfaces and plotting routines. These have been reintroduced in Clawpack 5. Additionally the OpenMP shared-memory parallelism capabilities have been extended to the three-dimensional code.
Figure 1: An illustration showing grid cells on levels one and two, and only grid outlines on levels three and four.
DOI: 10.7717/peerjcs.68/fig-1
AMRClaw
Fortran code in the AMRClaw repository performs block-structured adaptive mesh refinement (Berger & Oliger, 1984; Berger & Colella, 1989) for both Clawpack and GeoClaw applications. The algorithms implemented in AMRClaw are discussed in detail in (Berger & LeVeque, 1998; LeVeque, George & Berger, 2011), but a short description is given here to set the stage for a description of recent changes. This type of refinement solves the PDE on a hierarchy of logically rectangular grids. One (or more) level 1 grids comprise the entire domain, while grids at finer level are created and destroyed (as opposed to moving these grids) to follow important features in the solution (see Fig. 1).
AMRClaw includes the functionality for:
Coordinating the flagging of points where refinement is needed, with a variety of criteria possible for flagging cells that need refinement from each level to the next finer level (including Richardson extrapolation, gradient testing, or user-specified criteria; see http://www.clawpack.org/flag.html),
Organizing the flagged points into efficient grid patches at the next finer level, using the algorithm of (Berger & Rigoutsos, 1991),
Interpolating the solution to newly created fine grids and initializing auxiliary data (topography, wind velocity, metric data and so on) on these grids,
Averaging fine grid solutions to coarser grids,
Orchestrating the adaptive time stepping (i.e., sub-cycling in time),
Interpolating coarse grid solution to fine grid ghost cells, and
Maintaining conservation at patch boundaries between resolution levels.
AMRClaw now allows users to specify “regions” in space–time [x1, x2] × [y1, y2] × [t1, t2] in which refinement is forced to be at least at some level L1 and is allowed to be at most L2. This can be useful for constraining refinement, e.g., allowing or ensuring resolution of only a small coastal region in a global tsunami simulation. Previously the user could enforce such conditions by writing a custom flagging routine, but now this is handled in a general manner so that the parameters above can all be specified in the Python problem specification. Multiple regions can be specified, and a simple rule is used to determine the constraints at a grid cell that lies in multiple regions.
Auxiliary arrays are often used in Clawpack to store data that describes the problem and the routine. The routine setaux must then be provided by the user to set these values each time a new grid patch is created. For some applications, computing these values can be time-consuming. In Clawpack 5.2, this code was improved to allow reuse of values from previous patches at the same level where possible at each regridding time. This is backward compatible, since no harm is done if previously written routines are used that still compute and overwrite instead of checking a mask.
In Clawpack 5.3 the capability to specify spatially varying boundary conditions was added. For a single grid, it is a simple matter to compute the location of the ghost cells that extend outside the computational domain and set them appropriately. With AMR however, the boundary condition routine can be called for a grid located anywhere in the domain, and may contain fewer or larger numbers of ghost cells. For this reason, the boundary condition routines do not assume a fixed number of ghost cells.
Anisotropic refinement is allowed in both two and three dimensions. This means that the spatial and temporal refinement ratios can be specified independently from one another (as long as the temporal refinement satisfies the CFL condition). In addition, capabilities have been added to automatically select the refinement ratio in time on each level based on the CFL condition. This has only been implemented in GeoClaw where the wave speed in the shallow water equations depends on the local depth. The finest grids are often located only in shallow coastal regions, so a large refinement ratio in space does not lead to a large refinement ratio in time.
AMRClaw has been parallelized using OpenMP directives. The main paradigm in structured AMR is an outer loop over levels of refinement, and an inner loop over all grids at that level, where the same operation is performed on each grid (i.e., taking a time step, finding ghost cells, conservation updates, etc.). This inner loop is parallelized using a parallel for loop construct one thread is assigned to operate on one grid. Dynamic scheduling is used with a chunk size of one. To help with load balancing, grids at each level are sorted from largest to smallest, using the total number of cells in the grid as an indicator of work. In addition the grids are limited to a maximum of 32 cells in each dimension, otherwise they are bisected until this condition is met. Note that this approach causes a memory bulge. Each thread must have its own scratch arrays to save the incoming and outgoing waves and fluxes for future conservation fix-ups. The bulge is directly proportional to the number of threads executing. For stack-based memory allocation per thread, the use of the environment variable OMP_STACKSIZE to increase the limit may be necessary.
Figure 2 shows two snapshots of the solution to a three-dimensional shock-bubble interaction problem found in the Clawpack apps repository, illustrating localized phenomena requiring adaptive refinement. In Fig. 3 we show scalability tests and some timings for this example, when run on a 24 core Intel Xeon Haswell machine (E5-2670v3 at 2.3 GHz), using KMP_AFFINITY compact with one thread per core. For timing purposes, the only modifications made to the input parameters was to turn off check-pointing and graphics output. The plot on the left shows that most of the wall clock time is in the integration routine (stepgrid), which closely tracks the total time. The second chunk of time is in the regridding, which contains algorithms that are not completely scalable. Very little time is in the filling of ghost cells, mostly from other patches but also includes those at domain boundaries. The efficiency is above 80% until 24 cores. Note that there are only two grids on level 1, and an average of 22.8 level 2 grids. Most of the work is on level 3 grids, where there are an average of 138.1 grids over all the level 3 timestep. At 24 cores, there are on average 5.8 grids per core, and the grids are very different sizes.
Figure 2: AMRClaw example demonstrating a shock-bubble interaction in the Euler equations of compressible gas-dynamics at two times, illustrating the need for adaptive refinement to capture localized behavior.
There are two 20 × 10 × 10 grids at level 1. They are refined where needed by factors of 4 and then 2 in this 3-level run.
Figure 3: Scaling Results for AMRClaw.
(A) is strong scaling results for the AMRClaw example shown in Fig. 2. (B) is plot of efficiency based on total computational time.
The target architecture for AMRClaw and GeoClaw are multi-core machines. PyClaw on the other hand scales to tens of thousands of cores using MPI via PETSc (Balay et al., 2010) but is not adaptive.
GeoClaw
The GeoClaw branch of Clawpack was developed to solve the two-dimensional shallow water equations over topography for modeling tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation. The AMRClaw code formed the starting point but it was necessary to make many modifications to support the requirements of this application, as described briefly below. This code originated with the work of George (George, 2004; George, 2006; George, 2008) and was initially called TsunamiClaw. Later it became clear that many other geophysical flow applications have similar requirements and the code was generalized as GeoClaw.
One of the major issues is the treatment of wetting and drying of grid cells at the margins of the flow. The handling of dry states in a Riemann solver is difficult to handle robustly, and has gone through several iterations. GeoClaw must also be well-balanced in order to preserve steady states, in particular the “ocean at rest.” To achieve this, the source terms in the momentum equations arising from variations in topography are incorporated into the Riemann solver rather than using a fractional step splitting approach. This is critical for modeling waves that have very small amplitudes relative to the variations in the depth of the ocean. See LeVeque (2010) for a general discussion of such methods and George (2006) and George (2008) for details of the Riemann solver used in GeoClaw. Other features of GeoClaw include the ability to solve the equations in latitude–longitude coordinates on the surface of the sphere, and the incorporation of source terms modeling bottom friction using a Manning formulation. More details about the code and tsunami modeling applications can be found in (Berger et al., 2011; LeVeque, George & Berger, 2011). In 2011, a significant effort took place to verify and validate GeoClaw against the US National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) benchmarks (González et al., 2011). NTHMP approval of the code allows GeoClaw to be used in hazard mapping projects that are funded by this program or other federal and state agencies, e.g., (González, LeVeque & Adams, 2013; Gonzalez et al., 2014). One such project is illustrated in Fig. 4.
Figure 4: Tsunami Simulation and Planning for Westport, WA.
Gray’s Harbor showing Westport, WA on southern peninsula. (Map data ©2016 Google) (B) Simulation of a potential magnitude 9 Cascadia Subduction Zone event, 40 min after the earthquake. (C) Design for new Ocosta Elementary School in Westport, based in part on GeoClaw simulations (González, LeVeque & Adams, 2013). Image courtesy of TCF Architecture.
In addition to a variety of tsunami modeling applications, GeoClaw has been used to solve dam break problems in steep terrain (George, 2011), storm surge problems (Mandli & Dawson, 2014) (see Fig. 5 and Table 1), and submarine landslides (Kim, 2014). The code also formed the basis for solving the multi-layer shallow water equations for storm surge modeling (Mandli, 2011; Mandli, 2013), and is currently being extended further to handle debris flow modeling in the packages D-Claw (Iverson & George, 2014; George & Iverson, 2014) (see Figs. 6 and 7).
Figure 5: GeoClaw Storm Surge Example.
(A) A snapshot of a GeoClaw storm surge simulation of Hurricane Ike at landfall. (B) Tide gauge data computed from GeoClaw and adcirc along with observed data at the same location.
Computational effort and timings for GeoClaw and adcirc.
From Mandli & Dawson (2014).
Core Time
ADCIRC 4,000 35 min 2,333 h
GeoClaw 4 2 h 8 h
DOI: 10.7717/peerjcs.68/table-1
Figure 6: Debris-Flow Examples.
(A) Photograph of the 2010 Mt. Meager debris-flow deposit, from Allstadt (2013). (B) Simulated debris flow, from D. George.
Figure 7: Oso, WA Landslide Simulation.
Observed (yellow line) and computed (blue) landslide at Oso, WA in 2014 (Iverson et al., 2015).
Nearly one quarter of the files in the AMRClaw source library have to be modified for GeoClaw. There are currently 113 files in the AMRClaw 2D library, of which 26 are replaced by a GeoClaw-specific files of the same name in the GeoClaw 2D library. For example, to preserve a flat sea surface when interpolating, it is necessary to interpolate the surface elevation (topography plus water depth) rather than simply interpolating the depth component of the solution vector as would normally be done in AMRClaw. An additional 24 files in the GeoClaw shallow water equations library handle other complications introduced by the need to model tsunamis and storm surge.
Several other substantial improvements in the algorithms implemented in GeoClaw have been made between versions 4.6 and 5.3.0, including:
In depth-averaged flow, the wave speed and therefore the CFL condition depends on the depth. As a result, flows in shallow water that have been refined spatially may not need to be refined in time. This “variable-time-stepping” was easily added along with the anisotropic capabilities that were added to AMRClaw.
The ability to specify topography via a set of topo files that may cover overlapping regions at different resolutions has been added. The finite volume method requires cell averages of topography, computed by integrating a piecewise bilinear function constructed from the input topo files over each grid cell. In Clawpack 5.1.0, this was improved to allow an arbitrary number of nested topo grids. When adaptive mesh refinement is used, regridding may take place every few time steps. Improvements were made in 5.2.0 so that topography could be copied rather than always being recomputed in regions where there is an existing old grid.
The user can now provide multiple dtopo files that specify changes to the initial topography at a series of times. This is used to specify sea-floor motion during a tsunamigenic earthquake, but can also be used to specify submarine landslide motion or a failing dam, for example.
A number of new Python modules has been developed to assist the user in working with topo and dtopo files. These are documented in the Clawpack documentation and several of them are illustrated with Jupyter notebooks found in the Clawpack Gallery.
New capabilities were added in 5.0.0 to monitor the maximum of various flow quantities over a specified time range of a simulation. This capability is crucial for many applications where the maximum flow depth at each point, maximum current velocities in a harbor, or maximum momentum flux (a measure of the hydrodynamic force that would be exerted by the flow on a structure) is desired. Arrival time of the first wave at each point can also be monitored. Such capabilities were included in the 4.x version of the code, but were more limited and did not always perform properly near the edges of refinement patches. In Version 5.2 these routines were further improved and extended. The user can specify a grid of points on which to monitor values, and the new code is more flexible in allowing one-dimensional grids (e.g., a transect), two-dimensional rectangular grids, or an arbitrary set of points.3
PyClaw
PyClaw is an object-oriented Python package that provides a convenient way to set up problems and call the algorithms of Clawpack. It grew from what was initially a set of data structures and file IO routines that are used by the other Clawpack codes and by VisClaw. These routines were released in an early form in later 4.x versions of Clawpack. Those releases also included a fully-functional implementation of the 1D classic algorithm in pure Python. That implementation still exists in PyClaw and is useful for understanding the algorithm.
The current release of PyClaw includes access to the classic algorithms as well as the high-order algorithms introduced in SharpClaw (Ketcheson, Parsani & LeVeque, 2013) (i.e., WENO reconstruction and Runge–Kutta integrators) and can be used on large distributed-memory parallel machines. For the latter capability, PyClaw relies on PETSc (Balay et al., 2010). Lower-level code (whatever gets executed repeatedly and needs to be fast) from the earlier Fortran Classic and SharpClaw codes is automatically wrapped at install time using f2py.
Recent applications of PyClaw include studies of laser light trapping by moving refractive index perturbations (San Roman Alerigi, 2015), instabilities of weakly nonlinear detonation waves (Faria & Kasimov, 2015), and effective dispersion of nonlinear waves via diffraction in periodic materials (Ketcheson & Quezada de Luna, 2015). Two of these are depicted in Fig. 8.
Figure 8: PyClaw Example Simulations.
(A) A two-dimensional detonation wave solution of the reactive Euler equations, showing transverse shocks that arise from instabilities; see Faria & Kasimov (2015). (B) Dispersion of waves in a layered medium with matched impedance and periodically-varying sound speed; see Ketcheson & Quezada de Luna (2015).
Librarization and extensibility
Scientific software is easier to use, extend, and integrate with other tools when it is designed as a library (Brown, Knepley & Smith, 2015). Clawpack has always been designed to be extensible, but PyClaw takes this further in several ways. First, it is distributed via a widely-used package management system, pip. Second, the default installation process (“pip install clawpack”) provides the user with a fully-compiled code and does not require setting environment variables. Like other Clawpack packages, PyClaw provides several “hooks” for users to plug in custom routines (for instance, to specify boundary conditions). In PyClaw, these routines –including the Riemann solver itself –are selected at run-time, rather than at compile-time. These routines can be written directly in Python, or (if they are performance-critical) in a compiled language (like Fortran or C) and wrapped with one of the many available tools. Problem setup (including things like initial conditions, algorithm selection, and output specification) is also performed at run-time, which means that researchers can bypass much of the slower code-compile-execute-post-process cycle. It is intended that PyClaw be easily usable within other packages (without control of main()).
Python geometry
PyClaw includes Python classes for describing collections of structured grids and data on them. These classes are also used by the other codes and VisClaw, for post-processing. A mesh in Clawpack always consists of a set of (possibly mapped) tensor-product grids (interval, quadrilateral, or hexahedral), also referred to as patches. At present, PyClaw solvers operate only on a single patch, but the geometry and grids already incorporate multi-patch capabilities for visualization in AMRClaw and GeoClaw.
PyClaw solvers
PyClaw includes an interface to both the Classic solvers (already described above) and those of SharpClaw (Ketcheson et al., 2012). SharpClaw uses a traditional method-of-lines approach to achieve high-order resolution in space and time. Spatial operators are discretized first, resulting in a system of ODEs that is then solved using Runge–Kutta or linear multistep methods. The spatial derivatives are computed using a weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) reconstruction from cell averages, which suppresses spurious oscillations near discontinuities. The WENO routines in SharpClaw were generated by PyWENO (http://github.com/memmett/PyWENO), which is a standalone package that generates WENO routines.
The default time stepping routines in SharpClaw are strong stability preserving (SSP) Runge–Kutta methods of order two to four. Some of the methods use extra stages in order to allow more efficient time stepping with larger CFL numbers. Time stepping in SharpClaw has recently been augmented to include linear multistep methods with variable step size. These methods use a time step size selection that ensures the strong stability preserving property, as described in Hadjimichael et al. (2016).
PyClaw includes a distributed parallel backend that uses PETSc through the Python wrapper petsc4py. The parallel code uses the same low-level routines without modification. In the high-level routines, only a few hundred lines of Python code deal explicitly with parallel communication, in order to transfer ghost cell information between subdomains and to find the global maximum CFL number in order to adapt the time step size. For instance, the computation shown in the right part of Fig. 8 involved more than 120 million degrees of freedom and was run on two racks of the Shaheen I BlueGene/P supercomputer. The code has been demonstrated to scale with better than 90% efficiency in even larger tests on tens of thousands of processors on both the Shaheen I (BlueGene/P) and Shaheen II (Cray XC40) supercomputers at KAUST. A hybrid MPI/OpenMP version is already available in a development branch and will be included in future releases.
VisClaw : visualizing Clawpack output
A practical way to visualize the results of simulations is essential to any software package for solving PDEs. This is particularly true for simulations making use of adaptive mesh refinement, since most available visualization packages do not have tools that conveniently visualize hierarchical AMR data. VisClaw provides support for all of the main Clawpack submodules, including ClassicClaw, AMRClaw, PyClaw and GeoClaw.
From the first release in 1994, Clawpack has included tools for visualizing the output of Clawpack and AMRClaw runs. Up until the release of version Clawpack 4.x, these visualization tools consisted primarily of Matlab routines for creating one, two and three dimensional plots including pseudo-color plots, Schlieren plots, contour plots and scatter plots, including radially or spherically symmetric data. Built-in tools were also available for handling one, two and three-dimensional mapped grids. Starting with version 4.x, however, it was recognized that a reliance on proprietary software for visualization prevented a sizable potential user base from making use of the Clawpack software. The one and two dimensional plotting routines were converted from Matlab to matplotlib, a popular open source Python package for producing publication quality graphics for one and two dimensional data (Hunter, 2007).
With the development of Clawpack Version 5 and above, Python graphics tools have been collected into the VisClaw repository. The VisClaw tools extend the functionality of the Version 4.x Python routines for creating one and two dimensional plots, and adds several new capabilities. Chief among these are the ability to generate output to webpages, where a series of plots can be viewed individually or as an animated time sequence using the Javascript package (https://github.com/jakevdp/JSAnimation) (which was motivated by code in an earlier version of Clawpack). The VisClaw module Iplotclaw provides interactive plotting capabilities from the Python or IPython prompt. Providing much of the same interactive capabilities as the original Matlab routines, Iplotclaw allows the user to step, interactively, through a time sequence of plots, jump from one frame to another, or interactively explore data from the current time frame.
Tools for visualizing geo-spatial data produced by GeoClaw
The geo-spatial data generated by GeoClaw has particular visualization requirements. Tsunami or storm surge simulations are most useful when the plots showing inundation or flooding levels are overlaid onto background bathymetry or topography. Supplementary one dimensional time series data (e.g., gauge data) numerically interpolated from the simulation at fixed spatial locations are most useful when compared graphically to observational data. Finally, to more thoroughly analyze the computational data, simulation data should be made available in formats that can be easily exported to GIS tools such as ArcGIS (http://www.arcgis.com) or the open source alternative QGIS (http://www.qgis.org). For exploration of preliminary results or communicating results to non-experts, Google Earth is also helpful.
The latest release of Clawpack includes many specialized VisClaw routines for handling the above issues with plotting geo-spatial data. Topography or bathymetry data that was used in the simulation will be read by the graphing routines, and, using distinct colormaps, both water and land can be viewed on the same plot. Additionally, gauge locations can be added, along with contours of water and land. One dimensional gauge plots are also created, according to user-customizable routines. In these gauge plotting routines, users can easily include observational data to compare with GeoClaw simulation results.
In addition to HTML and Latex formats available for all Clawpack results, VisClaw will now also produce KML and KMZ files suitable for visualizing results in Google Earth. Using the same matplotlib graphics routines, VisClaw creates PNG files that can be used as GroundOverlay features in a KML file. Other features, such as gauges, borders on AMR grids, and user specified regions can also be shown on Google Earth. All KML and PNG files are compressed into a single KMZ file that can be opened directly in Google Earth or made available online. While VisClaw does not have any direct support for ArcGIS or QGIS, the KML files created for Google Earth can be edited for export, along with associated PNG files to these other GIS applications.
Matlab plotting routines
The Matlab plotting tools available in early versions of Clawpack are still included in VisClaw. While most of the one and two dimensional capabilities available originally in the Matlab suite have been ported to Python and matplotlib, the original Matlab routines are still available in the Matlab suite of plotting tools. Other plotting capabilities, such as two dimensional manifolds embedded in three dimensional space, or three dimensional plots of fully three-dimensional data are only available in the Matlab routines in a way that interfaces directly with Clawpack. More advanced three-dimensional plotting capabilities are planned for future releases of VisClaw.
Clawpack has evolved over the past 20 years from its genesis as a small and focused software package that two core developers could manage without version control. It is now an ecosystem of related projects that share a core philosophy and some common code (notably Riemann solvers and visualization tools), but that are aimed at different user communities and that are developed by overlapping but somewhat distinct groups of developers scattered at many institutions. The adoption of better software engineering practices, in particular the use of Git and GitHub as an open development platform and the use of pull requests to discuss proposed changes, has been instrumental in facilitating the development of many of the new capabilities summarized in this paper. These developer facing improvements of course affect the user as well since better and faster development cycles means better and faster implementation of features. The user facing features already implemented in version 5 have opened up the use of Clawpack to a broader audience.
The Clawpack development team continues to look forward to new ideas and efforts that will allow great accessibility to the project as well as new capabilities that the core development team has not thought of. To this end a number of the broad efforts that are being considered for the next major release of Clawpack include
An increased librarization effort with the Fortran based sub-packages,
An extensible and more accessible interface to the Riemann solvers,
An effort to allow PyClaw and the Clawpack Fortran packages to rely on more of the same code-base,
An increased emphasis on a larger development community,
More support for new frameworks such as ForestClaw (Burstedde et al., 2014),
Adjoint error estimation for flagging cells to increase the efficiency of the AMR codes (Davis & LeVeque, 2015),
A refactoring of the visualization tools in VisClaw, along with support for additional backends, particularly for three-dimensional results (e.g., Mayavi (http://docs.enthought.com/mayavi/mayavi/), VisIt (https://visit.llnl.gov), ParaView (http://www.paraview.org/), or yt (http://yt-project.org/)).
Details of these changes can be found at http://depts.washington.edu/clawpack/users-4.6/changes.html. Version 4.x used svn version control and the freely available software (under the BSD license) was distributed via tarballs.
For a guide on creating a DOI to a particular version of software see http://guides.github.com/activities/citable-code/.
Described in http://www.clawpack.org/fgmax.html.
We wish to thank the many people who have made contributions to the Clawpack software over the years, including users who have submitted bug reports (or even better, bug fixes!) or have suggested improvements to the software. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.
Additional Information and Declarations
Aaron J. Ahmadia is an employee of Continuum Analytics, Austin, Texas and Grady Lemoine is an employee of CD-adapco, Bellevue, Washington at the time of the writing.
Kyle T. Mandli, Marsha Berger, David I. Ketcheson and Randall J. LeVeque conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, performed the computation work, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Aron J. Ahmadia, Donna Calhoun, David L. George and Yiannis Hadjimichael conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, performed the computation work, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Grady I. Lemoine conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, performed the computation work, reviewed drafts of the paper.
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
All code is available at http://github.com/clawpack.
Funding sources that have contributed to the developments outlined in this paper include: NSF grants DMS-1216732, DMS-1419108, and EAR-1331412, DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing grant DE-FG02-88ER25053, KAUST OCRF grant 2156 CRG3, and the University of Washington Department of Applied Mathematics. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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MT Advisory Opinion Release
Monsanto Tribunal and People’s Assembly Press Review
Monsanto Tribunal Program – The Hague
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The Monsanto Tribunal and the People’s Assembly were held in The Hague from 14th to 16th October 2016.
Over the last century giant agribusiness interests which came out of the war industry have poisoned life, our ecosystems, destroyed our biodiversity and pushed farmers off the land. As these corporations become bigger, they gain more power, more immunity and more rights.
Using free trade neoliberal policies and deregulation of commerce to enlarge their empires, these corporations are attacking life on earth and biodiversity. They have broadened their control over our seed, our food and freedom, robbing us of our human rights and democracy. They have established monopolies and threatened farmers’ rights to seed and people’s rights to affordable medicine through patents and IPRs.
Across the world people are rising, democratic governments are responding to stop this ecocide and genocide. These giants have responded by attacking laws and policies of governments that take action in response to people’s movements and call to protect the earth and people’s rights.
The process of holding the Poison Cartel accountable for its crimes is the culmination of 30 years of scientific, legal, social, and political work by movements, concerned citizens and scientists. Since the ground for the tribunal was laid by the movement, a parallel People’s Assembly was created to allow for movements from across the world to gather together, sharing problems, political strategies and visions of the future for a sustainable agriculture. This is the coalition that has got together to organize the Monsanto Tribunal and People’s Assembly.
The Tribunal aimed to synthesize the existing crimes and violations for which Monsanto is in courts across the world— in India, Europe, US, Mexico, Argentina, as well as to expand the scope of criminal activity to include the crime of ecocide, the violation of the rights of nature. The judges will issue an advisory opinion, they will verify whether Monsanto’s activities are in compliance with the laws as they exist in the UN, along with other legal instruments. It is an educational tribunal, that can influence international human rights law
The People’s Assembly was a gathering of movements, seed savers, seed defenders, farmers and growers and civilians to address the crimes against nature and against humanity perpetrated by chemical and biotechnology corporations. The People’s Assembly included different aspects of the movements defending the corporate assault as well as positive people’s stories of the movements building the alternative.
After listening to witnesses and lawyers from the Tribunal, as well as to organizations, farmers, activists and common citizens from the People’s Assembly, the evidence is clear: “The poison cartel, which includes toxic makers such as Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, and the like, are together destroying both our bread and our freedom. They are corrupting governments, violating nations’ sovereignty and imposing on our planet a model of greed, poison and corruption”. Monsanto and the Poison Cartel are guilty of crimes against our planet and against humanity. This is the verdict from the People’s Assembly stated in the final press release.
Dr Vandana Shiva: “If you consider the attack on nature and the rights of nature that’s what’s called ecocide. If you take attacks on human beings in large numbers knowing that you chemicals will cause disease, knowing that your patents and royalties collection will create debt and farmers will commit suicide, in the UN definition that is called genocide.”
Andre Leu: “The reason why we have a People’s Assembly as well as the Tribunal is because while the Tribunal is a proper legally constituted trial, the real punishment is the one of public opinion.”
Nnimmo Bassey: “Coming to the People’s Assembly and the Monsanto tribunal is very important for me because we are going to build a platform for actually getting people to stand for their own rights and to fight against industrial toxic agriculture based on genetically engineered crops and toxic chemicals.”
Marie-Monique Robin: “This is really like a nightmare to be quite frank. When you see how toxic these products are and what Monsanto did to maintain its products on the market, it is really very difficult to believe. Along with the total lack of sense of responsibility and the impunity that is going on.”
Hans Herren: “Good food, quality food for the long term it’s absolutely not in the picture of these corporations. It is actually a scandal and it’s very tragic that short term profit – and the example is in all these mergers – over long term sustainability and survival for humanity. We know for sure that we can produce enough quality and diverse food to nourish a populations of 10 billion with sustainable agriculture practices”
Ronnie Cummins: “Now we’ve got these massive corporations like Monsanto who are trying to control everything, including our food, our health and if we work together internationally, we can make it, we can be much more powerful.”
People’s Assembly on Dow-DuPont crimes of Genocide and Ecocide
Bhopal Diaries – Visit to the Dow/Dupont Carbide factory in Bhopal
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HomeResearch Outputs Kulturforskningar i Tornedalen
Kulturforskningar i Tornedalen: Fältarbete och resultat från 1922 års Norrbottensexpedition
In the summer of 1922, fieldwork was conducted in the Tornedalen district of northern Sweden, in the immediate vicinity of the border with Finland. Three young men travelled together through the district on a motorcycle, documenting archaic buildings and villages in words and images. This documentation effort was part of a larger endeavour to survey and collect all the different aspects of what was presumed to be a vanishing peasant culture. The Nordic Museum (Nordiska museet) was responsible for the work in Tornedalen, with the ethnologist Sigurd Erixon in charge of all such investigations in Sweden. As early as 1917, the existence of a specific type of barn in the district had led Erixon to define Tornedalen as a specific cultural region.
The more in-depth studies conducted in 1922 did not change that. Another conclusion drawn by the fieldworkers was that there were no clear boundaries within the district that could be explained by differences between Swedish and Finnish culture. In the area they studied, most of the inhabitants spoke Finnish. Although one of the men could speak that language, this created difficulties for the expedition and had an effect on the results. The motorcycle caused the expedition a lot of trouble and greatly affected how their work was conducted and what knowledge about the past in the Tornedalen district could be produced. After the fieldwork was completed, archival records were made, preserving knowledge about the material culture of the district. These records have been used as a source of knowledge since the early 1920s, and the results of the fieldwork conducted almost 100 years ago still have an impact on our understanding of the past in Tornedalen.
Karin Gustavsson
production of knowledge, fieldwork, district of Tornedalen, cultural regions, language
Svenska landsmål ock svenskt folkliv
Published - 2018 Sep 20
Med det förflutna i sökaren
Gustavsson, K. (Lecturer)
2019 Mar 12
http://kgaa.nu/tidskrifter/bok/svenska-landsmal-och-svenskt-folkliv-2017
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