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Introduction
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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a serious threat to human health, ranking as the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in males and the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in females, with an estimated 1.4 million new cases and 693 900 deaths occurring in 2012 worldwide^[@bib1]^. In the clinic, the most common therapy for CRC is surgery combined with chemotherapy^[@bib2]^. In particular, the use of anticancer drugs in monotherapy or in combined regimens has significantly improved the survival rate in CRC stages III and IV in the past decade^[@bib3]^. The median survival among patients with metastatic CRC has been extended to \>20 months^[@bib4]^. Despite this progress, the response rate to current systemic therapies is only approximately 50%, and resistance is almost unavoidable in all patients^[@bib5]^.
Multidrug resistance (MDR) is one of the primary obstacles to effective cancer treatment, and ATP transporter-driven drug efflux is the major mechanism responsible for MDR^[@bib6]^. P-glycoprotein (P-gp), encoded by the MDR1 gene, is the most widely investigated transporter in chemoresistance^[@bib7]^. P-gp is the main barrier against effective intracellular drug accumulation, which is associated with clinical therapeutic failure in over 90% of patients with metastatic cancer^[@bib8],[@bib9]^. P-gp inhibitors have been used to overcome MDR in clinical trials, but treatment benefits have been found to be very limited due to significant side toxicity^[@bib10]^. Thus, there is a pressing need to develop new approaches that could improve the current chemotherapeutic regimen to overcome MDR.
Nanotechnology is considered a promising strategy to combat cancer multidrug resistance, and nano drugs can be resistant to drug efflux due to the size-exclusion effect and subcellular distribution pattern (*eg*, nucleic-preferential accumulation)^[@bib11],[@bib12]^. Of note, the efflux subtracts of P-gp is size dependent, limited to small drugs (300--2000 kDa)^[@bib13]^. The polymeric drug conjugates are also beneficial for anti-MDR therapy due to their increased size. Poly(amino acids) are biodegradable and have been investigated for drug delivery in oncology^[@bib14]^. For example, several poly(*L*-glutamic acid)-based drug conjugates (*eg*, paclitaxel, cisplatin) are in the advanced development stage.
Here, we developed a novel peptidyl structure-based drug conjugate system for enhanced drug delivery against MDR cancer ([Scheme 1](#fig11){ref-type="fig"}). Poly(aspartic acid) was synthesized by solid-phase synthesis and then conjugated to the cell-penetrating TAT peptide-polyethylene glycol (TAT-PEG) through a disulfide bond, thus forming the triblock material TAT-PEG-Asp~8~. Doxorubicin (Dox) molecules were further coupled to the Asp~8~ segments, and the ASP~8~-Dox can self-assemble as a hydrophobic body, whereas the hydrophilic TAT-PEG chains extend outward, forming a nanostructured system ([Scheme 2](#fig12){ref-type="fig"}).
Materials and methods
=====================
Materials
---------
Fmoc-Asp(OtBu)-OH, 2-chlorotrityl chloride resin, and Fmoc-Cys(OtBu)-OH were purchased from GL Biochem Co, Ltd (Shanghai, China); 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC), N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS), N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), ethyldiisopropylamine (DIEA), 2-(1*H*-benzotriazole-1-yl)-1,1,3,3-tetramethyluronium hexafluorophosphate (HBTU), glutathione (GSH), Verapamil, diethyl ether, 1-hydroxybenzotriazole (HOBt), and triisopropylsilane were purchased from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co, Ltd (Shanghai, China); Ellman\'s reagent, propidium iodide and 4\',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) were purchased from J&K Scientific (Beijing, China); annexin V-FITC was purchased from BioVision Inc (Mountain View, CA, USA). TAT-PEG~5000~-SH (TAT sequence YGRKKRRQRRR) was synthesized by Qufu Liyang Biochem Co, Ltd (Qufu, China).
Cell lines
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The human colon cancer parental cell line HCT8 and the drug-resistant version, HCT8/ADR, were cultured in RPMI-1640 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and antibiotics (100 μg/mL streptomycin and 100 U/mL penicillin) at 37 °C in a humidified incubator with 5% CO~2~.
Synthesis of Asp~8~-Cys and TAT-PEG-Asp~8~
------------------------------------------
Thiolated octo-aspartic acid (Asp~8~-Cys) was synthesized using a standard solid-phase synthesis procedure. Asp~8~-Cys was then conjugated to TAT-PEG~5000~-SH via the thiol/disulfide exchange reaction^[@bib15]^. Briefly, the TAT-PEG~5000~-SH was dissolved in PBS (pH 8), with the addition of Ellman\'s reagent. The mixture was stirred for 1 h and was then purified by heparin affinity column to remove excessive Ellman\'s reagent. The resultant was reacted with Asp~8~-Cys to form TAT-PEG-Asp~8~ via the disulfide bond. This purified product was confirmed by ^1^H NMR spectroscopy.
Preparation of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox conjugates
--------------------------------------------
TAT-PEG-Asp~8~ and doxorubicin conjugates were prepared based on a carboxyl-to-amine crosslinking method with EDC/NHS. Briefly, NHS and EDC were added to the methanol solution of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~ to activate the carboxyl groups of Asp~8~. The doxorubicin methanol solution was then added dropwise to the activated TAT-PEG-Asp~8~, stirring overnight at room temperature. The polymer-drug conjugates of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox were precipitated by adding excess cool ether. The Dox content in the conjugates was measured by fluorescence spectrophotometry (λex 485 nm and λem 590 nm).
Preparation and Characterization of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs
----------------------------------------------------------
The TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox was dissolved in water and self-assembled into nanoparticles. The particle size and zeta potential were measured using a Zeta Sizer Nanoparticle Analyzer (Malvern, UK). The morphology imaging of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs was conducted by JEM-200CX transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with negative staining using uranyl acetate.
Critical micelle concentration and stability of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox nanoparticles (NPs)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The critical micelle concentration (CMC) was determined by fluorescence spectroscopy using pyrene as a hydrophobic fluorescent probe as previously described^[@bib16]^. Briefly, the sample was prepared at a concentration ranging from 4 to 2×10^−3^ mg/mL and was mixed thoroughly with pyrene solution (2.4×10^−6^ mol/L) at a volume ratio of 1:1. The fluorescence intensity was recorded at Ex 338 nm and 333 nm, and Em 390 nm (F-4600 Fluorescence Spectrophotometer; Hitachi, Japan). The intensity ratio (*I*~338~/*I*~333~) was plotted against the logarithm of the sample concentration.
The TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs were GSH-responsive vehicles due to the disulfide bridge linkage between TAT-PEG and Asp~8.~ The size change of the NPs treated with GSH (1 μmol/L, 10 mmol/L) at room temperature was measured at different time intervals to evaluate the redox-responsive property of the NPs.
Intracellular and intranuclear delivery of the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs
---------------------------------------------------------------------
HCT8 (human colon cancer cell line) and HCT8/ADR (human colon cancer drug-resistant cell line) cells were seeded in 24-well plates at a density of 2×10^4^ cells per well and were incubated for 24 h before use.
For cellular internalization observation, the cells were incubated with the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs at an equivalent Dox concentration of 10 μg/mL in fresh culture medium with 10% FBS. After incubation for 4 h, the cellular uptake efficiency was determined by flow cytometry analysis (Becton Dickinson, USA).
For the intranuclear distribution study, after incubation with the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs or free Dox for 4 h, the cells were washed twice with ice-cold PBS and were fixed with fresh 4% paraformaldehyde for 15 min at room temperature. The cell nuclei were counterstained with DAPI, and imaging was performed using confocal laser scanning microscopy (Olympus FV1000, Japan).
Resistance to drug efflux
-------------------------
Intracellular drug retention in the drug-resistant HCT8/ADR tumor cells was investigated by incubation with free Dox or TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs for 2 h. After replacement with fresh culture medium supplemented with 10% FBS and further incubation for varying times (0.5, 1, 2, and 4 h), the cells were harvested in 200 μL of DMSO after treatment with RIPA lysis buffer for 10 min. The cell lysate was centrifuged at 8000 rounds per minute, and the supernatant was used to measure the Dox content by fluorescence spectrophotometry.
Effect of verapamil on drug efflux
----------------------------------
Verapamil is a commonly used P-gp inhibitor. HCT8/ADR cells were seeded in 24-well plates and were incubated for 24 h before use. The HCT8/ADR cells were pretreated with verapamil (50 μmol/L) for 2 h and then were incubated with free Dox or TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs. After incubation for 1 h or 2 h, the cellular Dox intensity was measured by flow cytometry analysis.
*In vitro* cytotoxicity study
-----------------------------
The cytotoxicity of the NPs in the HCT8 and HCT8/ADR cell lines was investigated using the standard MTT assay. Cells were seeded at a density of 5×10^3^ cells per well in 96-well plates and were cultured for 24 h before analysis. The cells were incubated with varying concentrations of TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs or free Dox for 48 h. MTT (20 μL, 5 mg/mL) was added to each well, and the samples were incubated for another 4 h. After removal of the medium, 200 μL of DMSO was added to each well, and the absorbance was measured at 490 nm using a microplate reader (Multiskan; Thermo Fisher, USA). The cell viability was calculated.
Cell apoptosis assay
--------------------
The apoptotic cells were detected by flow cytometry. Briefly, the HCT8/ADR cells were seeded in a 6-well plate at a concentration of 2×10^5^ cells/well and were cultured for 24 h before analysis. The cells were treated with the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs or Dox at a concentration of 10 μg/mL. After 48 h of treatment, the cells were harvested, washed, and stained with annexin-V/propidium iodide (PI) according to the manufacturer\'s instructions. The apoptotic cells were measured by flow cytometry analysis (Becton Dickinson, USA).
Western blot assay
------------------
P-gp expression in the cells was detected by Western blotting as previously described^[@bib17]^. Briefly, the cells were lysed, and proteins were separated by SDS-PAGE and were transferred to nitrocellulose membranes using semidry blotting. Primary antibodies, including anti-mouse P-gp (Abcam) and anti-mouse GAPDH (Sigma), were used for Western blotting analysis for overnight incubation at 4 °C.
*In vivo* cytotoxicity study
----------------------------
The animal study procedures were approved by the IACUC. The studies were conducted on female BALB/c-nu nude mice aged 3--4 weeks. Drug-resistant HCT8/ADR cells were subcutaneously implanted (1×10^6^ cells/mouse) on the back. The mice were divided into five groups randomly (six per group): PBS, TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox (peritumoral injection, pi), Dox (pi), TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox (intravenous injection, iv), Dox (iv). When the tumor reached approximately 100 mm^3^, the animals were treated with the NPs equal to a Dox dose of 2 mg/kg per two days over a period of 22 d. The tumor volume and body weight were monitored throughout the study. The tumor volume was calculated using the following formula:
At the experimental endpoint, the mice were sacrificed, and the tumors and major organs were harvested and weighed. Histological examination of the major organs was conducted. The organ coefficient was calculated using the following formula:
Tumor penetration
-----------------
BALB/c-nu nude mice harboring HCT8/ADR breast tumors were treated with Dox or TAT-PEG-Asp8-Dox NPs. After 4 h, the mice were sacrificed, and the tumor tissues were collected for cryosection. The frozen slides were observed using a fluorescence microscope.
Statistics analysis
-------------------
Data analyses were performed using GraphPad Prism 6. Statistical differences between groups were determined by one-way ANOVA. The Student\'s *t*-test was used when two parameters were evaluated. The cellular tests were run in triplicate, and animal studies were with six per group. *P*\<0.05 was considered significant.
Results
=======
Polymeric drug conjugates have been widely explored. To increase the cell penetration efficiency of such conjugates, cell-penetrating peptide-modified poly(Asp) was synthesized. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are a class of relatively short peptides that can penetrate the cell membrane and deliver various types of large cargoes (*eg*, proteins, nucleic acids, nanoparticles) into cells^[@bib18]^. Moreover, the arginine-rich CPP has also been demonstrated to be able to preferentially target the nucleus, where Dox can intercalate with DNA and thus inhibit cell proliferation^[@bib19]^. Importantly, cell nucleus-targeting delivery has become an emerging method for combating MDR^[@bib12],[@bib20]^.
The synthesized TAT-PEG-Asp~8~ was confirmed by ^1^H NMR ([Figure 1A](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). The self-assembling TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs are approximately 150 nm with a narrow particle size distribution (PDI 0.102), indicating good homogeneity ([Figure 1B](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). It is worth noting that NPs with a favorable size (less than 200 nm) could lead to an enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect for passive targeting and increase the drug accumulation at tumor sites^[@bib21],[@bib22]^. TEM was subsequently carried out to investigate the morphology ([Figure 1C](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Owing to the vacuum working conditions of TEM, the observed size on TEM was smaller than that from dynamic light scattering measurements. The zeta potential was approximately +15 mV ([Figure 1D](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}) owing to the modification of cationic TAT. Generally, poly(Asp) NPs have a low efficiency of cell internalization because of their negatively charged nature^[@bib23]^. TAT was used in this system to improve the intracellular delivery efficiency.
Disulfide bonds were strategically applied to conjugate TAT-PEG to Asp~8~. Owing to the highly reducing environment inside tumor cells, the NPs dissembled very quickly. As shown in [Figure 2B](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}, the diameter of GSH-treated (10 mmol/L) NPs increased dramatically, reaching approximately 600 nm within 1 h. Further incubation resulted in microsized particles and severe aggregation. However, without GSH treatment (in water) or at a very low GSH concentration, there was merely minor size variation within the same period.
To investigate the cellular internalization, the NPs were incubated with the HCT8 or HCT8/ADR cells for 24 h at an equivalent Dox concentration of 10 μg/mL and were analyzed by flow cytometry. In the non-resistant HCT8 cells, the NPs showed increased intracellular delivery efficiency compared with the free Dox (86.3% *vs* 57.8%, respectively) ([Figure 3A](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}). A more significant improvement was seen in the HCT8/ADR cells, which were resistant to drug uptake with a mere 20% positive rate for the free Dox group. However, the NPs were not affected and showed 4.3-fold higher intracellular accumulation than the free Dox. These results demonstrated that the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs could overcome drug efflux in HCT8/ADR cells and improve the intracellular accumulation of Dox.
P-gp overexpression in the tumor cell membrane is the major mechanism responsible for MDR. P-gp can actively pump out anticancer drugs, leading to an insufficient intracellular drug concentration to kill tumor cells. Western blot analysis confirmed the high expression of P-gp in HCT8/ADR cells ([Figure 3B](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}).
Interestingly, it was found that the NPs could enhance the intranuclear delivery ([Figure 4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}). In the free Dox-treated HCT8/ADR cells, Dox-related red fluorescence was hardly observed due to active drug efflux and consequent poor accumulation. By contrast, intensive red fluorescence was observed in the nuclei in the NP group, indicating the efficient TAT-mediated nuclear localization. The results demonstrated that the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs enhanced not only the cellular uptake but also the intranuclear disposition of drug. The increased intracellular and intranuclear delivery provided a potential solution to overcome MDR in cancer cells, leading to improved therapeutic efficacy.
The intracellular retention results further revealed the advantages of the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs for anti-MDR. The area under the curve (AUC) of the intracellular Dox concentration at 4 h was calculated to be 1183 and 463 h·ng·mL^−1^ for the NP group and free Dox group, respectively ([Figure 5](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}). The intracellular drug concentration in the free Dox group was dramatically decreased (merely 45% remaining after 4 h), demonstrating active drug efflux, whereas the NP group was effectively retained inside the cells (76% of the drug remained) because of the resistance to drug efflux.
Verapamil is a commonly used P-gp inhibitor. As shown in [Figure 6](#fig6){ref-type="fig"}, there was a clearly increased uptake efficiency in the free Dox group due to the inhibition of drug efflux. However, no significant difference was found in the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NP group, indicating that TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs were not affected by the P-gp-mediated drug efflux.
The cytotoxicity of the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs was investigated in HCT8 and HCT8/ADR cells ([Figure 7A](#fig7){ref-type="fig"}). In the HCT8 cells, the NPs displayed slightly better antitumor activity than free Dox, and both of them were potent to inhibit cell proliferation with an IC~50~ of approximately 1 μg/mL. However, the NPs still demonstrated high antitumor activity in HCT8/ADR cells, whereas free Dox was ineffective against HCT8/ADR cells even at a concentration up to 20 μg/mL. These results indicated that TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs could reverse MDR. There are three possible reasons responsible for enhanced cytotoxicity of the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs: TAT-mediated enhanced cellular uptake, TAT-mediated intranuclear delivery and enhanced intracellular retention.
Annexin V-FITC and propidium iodide (PI) were used as indicators of early and late apoptosis, respectively. For example, the dual labeling method can indicate intact cells (FITC^−^/PI^−^), cells in early apoptosis (FITC^+^/PI^−^) or late apoptosis (FITC^+^/PI^+^), and necrotic cells (FITC^−^/PI^+^). In HCT8/ADR cells, the late apoptosis rate was determined by flow cytometry, showing 94.6% in the NP group and 38.9% in the free Dox group ([Figure 7B](#fig7){ref-type="fig"}), indicating that TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs could induce apoptosis more efficiently than free Dox in the drug-resistant cells. The results further demonstrated the improved antitumor effect of the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs.
The subcutaneous HCT8/ADR tumor model was employed. The tumor growth curves of each group are presented in [Figure 8A](#fig8){ref-type="fig"}. The treatment of the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs resulted in a much smaller tumor volume compared with free Dox therapy. In contrast to an inhibition rate of 71.8% in the iv Dox group, the iv TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs exhibited an enhanced efficacy (84.2%), while pi treatment slightly improved the therapeutic efficacy, displaying 89.5% for the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs and 79.1% for free Dox. Therefore, the NPs significantly improved the MDR cancer treatment.
It should be mentioned that the free Dox-treated mice sustained remarkable body weight loss ([Figure 9A](#fig9){ref-type="fig"}), and there were two deaths in the iv Dox-treated group ([Figure 9B](#fig9){ref-type="fig"}), suggesting the severe side toxicity. However, the animal body weight in the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NP group underwent minor changes. In addition, at the endpoint, the major organs were collected and weighed to calculate the organ coefficients. In the liver and spleen, the organ coefficient of the iv Dox group was reduced markedly ([Figure 9C](#fig9){ref-type="fig"}). Histological examination ([Figure 9D](#fig9){ref-type="fig"}) showed degeneration and edema and focal cytolysis necrosis in the liver and spleen in the Dox-treated group. These results indicated that the TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs improved the therapeutic efficacy with reduced side toxicity.
In addition, intra-tumoral distribution analysis showed that TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox NPs could improve the penetration ability inside tumors compared with free Dox ([Figure 10](#fig10){ref-type="fig"}), a finding that was in accordance with our previous studies of CPP-mediated tumor penetration^[@bib12]^.
Discussion
==========
Polymer-drug conjugate strategies have been widely used to improve druggability profiles and therapeutic efficacy. Drug conjugates benefit from increased size when used in MDR cancer therapy to circumvent P-gp-mediated drug efflux. The polymeric drug TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox is characterized by its amphiphilic structure: Dox, which is hydrophobic, can form the core, with the peptide-PEG chains, which are hydrophilic, extending from this core, and the drug molecules thereby self-assemble into nanoparticle form.
TAT, which has a similar sequence to a nuclear localization signal (NLS), has demonstrated nuclear-targeting ability^[@bib19]^. The TAT, which is on the outside of the nanoparticles, can facilitate cellular uptake and intranuclear delivery. Therefore, in addition to the size effect-related resistance to drug efflux, deposit into the nuclei prevents the drugs from being subject to cell membrane-associated P-gp. Additionally, the CPP-mediated intratumoral penetration could further improve MDR cancer treatment outcomes^[@bib12]^. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the bio-fate of efficient intratumoral accumulation, penetration, and internalization plays an essential role in cancer drug delivery^[@bib24],[@bib25]^. TAT-based nano drug delivery provides a useful strategy for enhanced intratumoral drug delivery and treatment.
Concerns regarding nonselective distribution are often raised in CPP-based drug delivery^[@bib18]^. Recently, however, it has been discovered that CPP can preferentially bind to the tumor cells via certain overexpressed receptors (*eg*, heparan sulfate proteoglycans and neuropilin-1)^[@bib26],[@bib27]^. We previously also found that CPP-mediated cellular uptake in tumor cells was much higher than that in nontumoral cells (*eg*, human umbilical vein endothelial cells)^[@bib12]^. These findings suggested that the extravasation of CPP could be minor in normal blood vessels, in contrast to the leaky tumor vessels that are critical to the EPR effect of the nano drugs.
Conclusion
==========
In this study, a TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox nanoassembly system was developed to sensitize drug-resistant colon cancer to chemotherapy. The TAT-PEG-Asp~8~-Dox nanoparticles effectively increase cellular drug uptake and intranuclear drug delivery, thus retaining effective drug accumulation inside the cells. The nanoparticles significantly enhanced cytotoxicity toward drug-resistant cells and efficiently induced apoptosis. Therefore, our study reveals a promising method for the efficient intracellular delivery of anticancer drugs and MDR reversal.
Author contribution
===================
Zhen-zhen PAN performed most experiments and wrote the manuscript; Hui-yuan WANG participated the cellular and animal studies; Meng ZHANG, Wen-yuan ZHANG, and Ting-ting LIN helped conducted chemical synthesis; Peng-fei ZHAO and Yi-si TANG helped the animal studies; Yong XIONG helped developed the experimental design and reviewed the data; Yuan-er ZENG and Yong-zhuo HUANG designed the study; Yong-zhuo HUANG wrote the final manuscript.
We are thankful for the support from 973 Program, China (2014CB931900 and 2013CB932503) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (81172996, 81373357, 81422048, 81402883, and 81521005). We also thank National Center for Protein Science Shanghai, CAS, for the technical support at Electron Microscopy Facility.
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1. Introduction {#sec1}
===============
In many studies, alpaca (*lama pacos*) has been used for production of antigen-specific single domain antibodies (nanobodies) \[[@bib1], [@bib2], [@bib3]\]. In contrast, membrane proteins of alpaca have not been investigated due to the lack of specific antibodies. The type I transmembrane glycoprotein, podoplanin (PDPN)/T1alpha/Aggrus, is expressed in normal tissues, including type I lung alveolar cells, renal podocytes, and lymphatic endothelial cells \[[@bib4], [@bib5], [@bib6]\]. The interaction between PDPN on lymphatic endothelial cells and C-type lectin-like receptor-2 (CLEC-2) on platelets facilitates embryonic blood/lymphatic vessel separation \[[@bib4],[@bib6], [@bib7], [@bib8], [@bib9], [@bib10], [@bib11], [@bib12], [@bib13]\]. The expression of human PDPN (hPDPN) has been reported in several malignant tumors, including malignant brain tumors \[[@bib14], [@bib15], [@bib16], [@bib17]\], malignant mesotheliomas \[[@bib18],[@bib19]\], oral squamous cell carcinomas \[[@bib20]\], esophageal cancers \[[@bib21]\], lung cancers \[[@bib22]\], osteosarcomas \[[@bib23], [@bib24], [@bib25]\], chondrosarcomas \[[@bib24]\], and testicular tumors \[[@bib26]\]. The expression of hPDPN is associated with malignant progression and cancer metastasis \[[@bib9],[@bib14],[@bib27]\].
We have developed monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against human \[[@bib28]\], mouse \[[@bib28]\], rat \[[@bib29]\], rabbit \[[@bib30]\], dog \[[@bib31]\], cat \[[@bib32]\], bovine \[[@bib33]\], pig \[[@bib34]\], and horse \[[@bib35]\] PDPNs. However, mAbs against alpaca PDPN (aPDPN), useful for immunohistochemical analysis, remain to be developed. Sensitive and specific mAbs against aPDPN are necessary to investigate the expression and function of aPDPN. In the present study, we immunized mice with CHO/aPDPN cells and established hybridomas to produce mAbs against aPDPN.
2. Materials and methods {#sec2}
========================
2.1. Cell lines {#sec2.1}
---------------
CHO-K1 and P3X63Ag8U.1 (P3U1) cells were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA). The coding sequence of aPDPN bearing an *N*-terminal RAP16 tag (RAP16-aPDPN) was inserted into a pCAG-Neo vector (FUJIFILM Wako Pure Chemical Corporation, Osaka, Japan). The RAP16 tag comprises 16 amino acids (GPGDDMVNPGLEDRIE). CHO-K1 cells were transfected with pCAG-Neo/RAP16-aPDPN using Lipofectamine LTX with Plus Reagent (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Waltham, MA, USA). Stable transfectants were selected by limiting dilution and cultivating in a medium containing 0.5 mg/mL of G418 (Nacalai Tesque, Inc., Kyoto, Japan).
P3U1, CHO-K1, and CHO/aPDPN cells were cultured in Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI) 1640 medium (Nacalai Tesque, Inc.). All the media were supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.), 100 units/mL of penicillin, 100 μg/mL of streptomycin, and 25 μg/mL of amphotericin B (Nacalai Tesque, Inc.). Cells were grown at 37 °C in a humidified environment with an atmosphere of 5% CO~2~ and 95% air.
2.2. Hybridoma production {#sec2.2}
-------------------------
Female BALB/c mice (6 weeks old) were purchased from CLEA Japan (Tokyo, Japan). Animals were housed under specific pathogen-free conditions. The Animal Care and Use Committee of Tohoku University approved all the animal experiments. Two BALB/c mice were immunized with CHO/aPDPN cells (1 × 10^8^) intraperitoneally (i.p.) administered together with Imject Alum (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.). The procedure included three additional immunizations, followed by a final booster injection administered i.p. two days prior to the harvest of spleen cells, amounting to a total of five immunizations. These spleen cells were subsequently fused with P3U1 cells using PEG1500 (Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis, IN, USA), and the hybridomas were grown in RPMI medium supplemented with hypoxanthine, aminopterin, and thymidine for selection (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.). The cultured supernatants were screened using flow cytometry.
2.3. Flow cytometry {#sec2.3}
-------------------
The cells were harvested following brief exposure to 0.25% trypsin/1 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA; Nacalai Tesque, Inc.), washed with 0.1% bovine serum albumin (BSA)/phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and treated with primary mAbs for 30 min at 4 °C. Thereafter, the cells were treated with Alexa Fluor 488-conjugated anti-mouse IgG (1:2000; Cell Signaling Technology, Inc., Danvers, MA, USA). Fluorescence data were collected using a SA3800 Cell Analyzer (Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan).
2.4. Determination of binding affinity using flow cytometry {#sec2.4}
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CHO/aPDPN was suspended in 100 μL of serially diluted PMab-225, followed by the addition of Alexa Fluor 488-conjugated anti-mouse IgG (1:200; Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.). Fluorescence data were collected using EC800 Cell Analyzer (Sony Corp.). The dissociation constant (*K*~D~) was obtained by fitting the binding isotherms to built-in one-site binding models in GraphPad PRISM 6 (GraphPad Software, Inc., La Jolla, CA, USA).
2.5. Western blotting {#sec2.5}
---------------------
Cell lysates (10 μg) were boiled in sodium dodecyl sulfate sample buffer (Nacalai Tesque, Inc.). The proteins were subjected to electrophoresis on 5%--20% polyacrylamide gels (FUJIFILM Wako Pure Chemical Corporation) and subsequently transferred onto a polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membrane (Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany). After blocking with 4% skim milk (Nacalai Tesque, Inc.), each membrane was incubated with primary mouse mAbs, such as 1 μg/mL of PMab-225, anti-RAP16 tag (PMab-2), or *anti*-*β*-actin (AC-15; Sigma-Aldrich Corp., St. Louis, MO, USA), and subsequently with peroxidase-conjugated anti-mouse IgG (1:1000; Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). Bands were visualized using ImmunoStar LD (FUJIFILM Wako Pure Chemical Corporation) using a Sayaca-Imager (DRC Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan).
2.6. Immunohistochemical analyses {#sec2.6}
---------------------------------
Normal alpaca tissues were collected after autopsy at Hokkaido University, fixed in 10% neutral-buffered formalin \[[@bib36]\], and routinely processed to make paraffin-embedded tissue sections. Histological sections of 4 μm thickness were directly autoclaved in citrate buffer (pH 6.0; Nichirei Biosciences, Inc., Tokyo, Japan) or EnVision FLEX Target Retrieval Solution High pH (Agilent Technologies Inc.) for 20 min. These tissue sections were blocked using SuperBlock T20 (PBS) Blocking Buffer (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.), incubated with PMab-225 (1 μg/mL or 5 μg/mL) for 1 h at room temperature, and treated using an Envision + Kit (Agilent Technologies Inc.) for 30 min. Color was developed using 3,3′-diaminobenzidine tetrahydrochloride (Agilent Technologies Inc.) for 2 min, and counterstaining was performed using hematoxylin (FUJIFILM Wako Pure Chemical Corporation).
3. Results {#sec3}
==========
In this study, two mice were immunized with CHO/aPDPN cells ([Fig. 1](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Developed hybridomas were seeded into 96-well plates and cultivated for 8 days (first mouse) or 9 days (second mouse). Wells positive for CHO/aPDPN and negative for CHO-K1 were selected using flow cytometry. Screening identified strong signals against CHO/aPDPN cells and weak or no signals against CHO-K1 cells in 83 of 960 wells (8.6%). Of these 83 wells, two hybridomas were developed. One of these two clones, PMab-225 (IgG~2b~, kappa), was selected for immunohistochemistry against alpaca tissues.Fig. 1**Schematic illustration of the Cell-Based Immunization and Screening (CBIS) method.** Stable transfectants expressing the protein of interest are used as immunogens with no purification procedure. The selection of hybridomas secreting specific mAbs is performed by flow cytometry using parental and transfectant cells.Fig. 1
PMab-225 recognized CHO/aPDPN but showed no reaction with CHO-K1, as assessed using flow cytometry ([Fig. 2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Additionally, a kinetic analysis performed using flow cytometry assessed the interaction of PMab-225 with CHO/aPDPN. *K*~D~ of PMab-225 for CHO/aPDPN cells was determined to be 2.4 × 10^−9^, indicating high affinity for CHO/aPDPN cells.Fig. 2**Detection of aPDPN via flow cytometry using PMab-225.** CHO/aPDPN CHO-K1 cells were treated with 10 μg/mL of PMab-225 (red line) or 1 μg/mL of anti-RAP16 tag (PMab-2; blue line) or 0.1% BSA in PBS (gray) for 30 min, followed by incubation with secondary antibodies.Fig. 2
Western blotting performed using PMab-225 ([Fig. 3](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}) demonstrated that PMab-225 detects aPDPN in CHO/aPDPN cells. PMab-2, an anti-RAP16 tag mAb, also detected aPDPN bands in CHO/aPDPN cells. Several bands were obtained that might represent highly glycosylated forms.Fig. 3**Detection of aPDPN via Western blotting.** Cell lysates of CHO-K1 and CHO/aPDPN (10 μg) were electrophoresed and transferred onto PVDF membranes. The membranes were incubated with l μg/mL of PMab-225, anti-RAP16 tag (PMab-2), or *anti*-*β*-actin and subsequently with peroxidase-conjugated anti-mouse IgG.Fig. 3
The immunohistochemical analyses using antigen retrieval with citrate buffer (pH 6.0) revealed that PMab-225 strongly stained type I alveolar cells in the alpaca lung ([Fig. 4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}) and lymphatic endothelial cells in alpaca colon tissues ([Fig. 5](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}). Podocytes and Bowman\'s capsule of alpaca kidney were stained using antigen retrieval with EnVision FLEX Target Retrieval Solution High pH ([Fig. 6](#fig6){ref-type="fig"}). These results indicate that PMab-225 will be useful to elucidate the pathophysiological functions of aPDPN in alpaca tissues in the future.Fig. 4**Immunohistochemical analyses against alpaca lung.** Tissue sections of alpaca lung were directly autoclaved in citrate buffer and incubated with 1 μg/mL of PMab-225 (A, D) or with blocking buffer (B, E). Type I alveolar cells were stained. (C, F) Hematoxylin and eosin staining. Scale bar = 100 μm.Fig. 4Fig. 5**Immunohistochemical analyses against alpaca colon.** Tissue sections of alpaca colon were directly autoclaved in citrate buffer and incubated with 1 μg/mL of PMab-225 (A, D) or with blocking buffer (B, E). Lymphatic endothelial cells were stained. (C, F) Hematoxylin and eosin staining. Scale bar = 100 μm.Fig. 5Fig. 6**Immunohistochemical analyses against alpaca kidney.** Tissue sections of alpaca kidney were directly autoclaved in EnVision FLEX Target Retrieval Solution High pH and incubated with 5 μg/mL of PMab-225 (A, D) or with blocking buffer (B, E). Podocytes and Bowman\'s capsule were stained (C, F) Hematoxylin and eosin staining. Scale bar = 100 μm.Fig. 6
4. Discussion {#sec4}
=============
In our previous studies, we established a cancer-specific monoclonal antibody (CasMab) technology to produce CasMabs, such as LpMab-2 and LpMab-23 against hPDPN, in several studies \[[@bib17],[@bib37]\]. Those CasMabs against hPDPN can detect only hPDPN-expressing cancer cells, not normal cells, including lymphatic endothelial cells and pulmonary type I alveolar cells. Although LpMab-2 might bind to both a peptide and glycans of hPDPN \[[@bib17]\], LpMab-23 could detect the conformational change of hPDPN peptides, which might be induced by cancer-specific glycans \[[@bib38]\]. Both LpMab-2 and LpMab-23 possess high antitumor activities by those antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicities (ADCC) \[[@bib38],[@bib39]\]. Furthermore, LpMab-23-recognizing cancer-type podoplanin could be a novel predictor for a poor prognosis of early stage tongue cancer \[[@bib40]\]. Recently, we also utilized a Cell-Based Immunization and Screening (CBIS) method to establish mAbs against various membrane proteins, such as CD133 \[[@bib41]\], CD44 \[[@bib42]\], PD-L1 \[[@bib43]\], pig PDPN \[[@bib34]\], horse PDPN \[[@bib44]\], and cat PDPN \[[@bib32]\]. Importantly, those mAbs are very useful for flow cytometry, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry. In contrast, we could not develop useful mAbs by immunizing synthetic peptides (data not shown). Using selecting one method or the combination of those methods such as CasMab technology and CIBS method, we could produce sensitive and specific mAbs against membrane proteins, which are very useful for not only flow cytometry, but also Western blot and immunohistochemistry when we could not develop mAbs by immunizing synthetic peptides or recombinant proteins.
Indeed, we first tried to produce *anti*-aPDPN mAbs by immunizing synthetic peptides, which are corresponding to PLAG domains of aPDPN; however, we could not obtain any mAbs, which are applicable for Western blot or immunohistochemistry (data not shown). Then, we employed the CBIS method in this study to develop sensitive and specific mAbs against aPDPN for the immunohistochemical analysis of paraffin-embedded tissue sections ([Fig. 1](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Finally, PMab-225, which is very useful for flow cytometry ([Fig. 2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}), Western blot ([Fig. 3](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}), and immunohistochemical analyses ([Fig. 4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}, [Fig. 5](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}, [Fig. 6](#fig6){ref-type="fig"}), was developed. Interestingly, PMab-225 cross-reacted with human, bovine, tiger, bear, goat, sheep, and whale PDPNs, which were overexpressed in CHO-K1 cells (data not shown), although the percentage of homology of aPDPN with hPDPN is only 66%. In contrast, PMab-225 did not react with mouse, rat, rabbit, dog, cat, pig, Tasmanian devil, and horse PDPNs (data not shown). In future study, we should determine the critical epitope of PMab-225; then, we might uncover the mechanism of cross-reactivity against many species. In immunohistochemical analysis, PMab-225 stained lymphatic endothelial cells ([Fig. 5](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}) and pulmonary type I alveolar cells using antigen retrieval with citrate buffer ([Fig. 4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}). However, PMab-225 did not stain alpaca kidney in this condition (data not shown). In contrast, alpaca kidney was stained using antigen retrieval with EnVision FLEX Target Retrieval Solution High pH ([Fig. 6](#fig6){ref-type="fig"}). In the future study, we should clarify the molecular difference of aPDPNs, including post-translational modifications in several tissues.
In conclusion, we have established a mAb against aPDPN, PMab-225, which is suitable for use in flow cytometry, Western blotting, and immunohistochemical analyses. PMab-225 should prove useful to elucidate the pathophysiological functions of aPDPN in future studies. In contrast, sensitive and specific mAbs against membrane proteins for alpaca have not been established; therefore, we should develop many mAbs against alpaca membrane proteins, such as CD31 or LYVE-1 for investigation of vascular endothelial cells or lymphatic endothelial cells.
Conflicts of interest {#sec5}
=====================
The authors declare no conflicts of interest involving this article.
Funding {#sec6}
=======
This research was supported in part by AMED under Grant Numbers: JP18am0101078 (Y.K.), JP18am0301010 (Y.K.), and JP18ae0101028 (Y.K.), and by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 17K07299(M.K.K.) and Grant Number 16K10748(Y.K.).
We thank Takuro Nakamura, Miyuki Yanaka, Kayo Hisamatsu, Saori Handa, and Yoshimi Nakamura^**.**^ for their excellent technical assistance.
|
Articles of a treaty made and concluded at the Forks of the Wabash in the State of Indiana, between the United States of America, by her Commissioner Abel C. Pepper, and the Miami tribe of Indians on the sixth day of November in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-eight.
ARTICLE 1.
The Miami tribe of Indians hereby cede to the United States all that tract of land lying south of the Wabash river and included within the following bounds to wit: Commencing at a point on said river where the western boundary line of the Miami reserve intersects the same, near the mouth of Pipe creek; thence south two miles;
thence west one mile; thence south along said boundary line, three miles; thence east to the Mississinnewa river; thence up the said river with the meanders thereof to the eastern boundary line of the said Miami reserve; thence north along said eastern boundary line to the Wabash river; thence down the said last named river with the meanders thereof to the place of beginning.The said Miami tribe of Indians do also hereby cede to the United States, the three following reservations of land made for the use of the Miami nation of Indians by the 2d article of a treaty made and concluded at St. Mary's in the State of Ohio, on the 6th of October 1818 to wit:The reservation on the Wabash river, below the forks thereof:The residue of the reservation opposite the mouth of the river Abouette:The reservation at the mouth of a creek called Flat Rock, where the road to White river crosses the same.Also one other reservation of land made for the use of said tribe at Seeks village on Eel river, by the 2d article of a treaty made and concluded on the 23d October 1826.
ARTICLE 2.
From the cession aforesaid, the Miami tribe reserve for the band of Me-to-sin-ia, the following tract of land to wit: Beginning on the eastern boundary line of the big reserve, where the Mississinnewa river crosses the same; thence down said river with the meanders thereof to the mouth of the creek called Forked Branch; thence north two miles; thence in a direct line to a point on the eastern boundary line two miles north of the place of beginning; thence south to the place of beginning, supposed to contain ten square miles.
ARTICLE 3.
In consideration of the cession aforesaid, the United States agree to pay the Miami tribe of Indians three hundred and thirty-five thousand six hundred and eighty dollars; sixty thousand dollars of which to be paid immediately after the ratification of this treaty and the appropriation to carry its provisions into effect; and the residue of said sum after the payment of claims hereinafter stipulated to be paid, in ten yearly instalments of twelve thousand five hundred and sixty-eight dollars per year.
ARTICLE 4.
It is further stipulated that the sum of six thousand eight hundred dollars, be paid John B. Richardville; and the sum of two thousand six hundred and twelve dollars be paid Francis Godfroy; which said sums are their respective claims against said tribe prior to October 23, 1834, excluded from investigation by the late commissioner of the United States, by reason of their being Indians of said tribe.
ARTICLE 5.
The said Miami tribe of Indians being anxious to pay all their just debts, at their request it is stipulated, that immediately after the ratification of this treaty, the United States shall appoint a commissioner or commissioners, who shall be authorized to investigate all claims against said tribe which have accrued since the 23d day of October 1834, without regard to distinction of blood in the claimants; and to pay such debts as, having accrued since the said period, shall be proved to his or their satisfaction, to be legal and just.
ARTICLE 6.
It is further stipulated that the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of the amount agreed to be paid said tribe in the third article of this treaty, shall be set apart for the payment of the claims under the provisions of the fourth and fifth articles of this treaty, as well as for the payment of any balance ascertained to be due from said tribe by the investigation under the provisions of the treaty of 1834; and should there be an unexpended balance in the hands of said commissioner or commissioners after the payment of said claims, the same shall be paid over to the said tribe at the payment of their next subsequent annuity; but should the said sum so set apart for the purpose aforesaid, be found insufficient to pay the same, then the
ascertained balance due on said claims shall be paid in three equal instalments from the annuities of said tribe.And the said Miami tribe of Indians through this public instrument proclaim to all concerned, that no debt or debts that any Indian or Indians of said tribe may contract with any person or persons, shall operate as a lien on the annuity or annuities, nor on the land of the said tribe for legal enforcement. Nor shall any person or persons other than the members of said Miami tribe, who may by sufferance live on the land of, or intermarry in, said tribe, have any right to the land or any interest in the annuities of said tribe, until such person or persons shall have been by general council adopted into their tribe.
ARTICLE 7.
It is further stipulated, that the United States will cause the buildings and improvements on the land hereby ceded, to be appraised, and have buildings and improvements of a corresponding value made at such places as the chiefs of said tribe may designate: and the Indians of said tribe are to remain in the peaceable occupation of their present improvements, until the United States shall make the said corresponding improvements.
ARTICLE 8.
It is further stipulated that the United States patent to Beaver, the five sections of land, and to Chapine the one section of land, reserved to them respectively in the second article of the treaty made Anno Domino 1826, between the parties to the present treaty.
ARTICLE 9.
The United States agree to cause the boundary lines of the land of said tribe in the State of Indiana, to be surveyed and marked within the period of one year after the ratification of this treaty.
ARTICLE 10.
The United States stipulate to possess, the Miami tribe of Indians of, and guarranty to them forever, a country west of the Mississippi river, to remove to and settle on, when the said tribe may be disposed to emigrate from their present country, and that guarranty is hereby pledged: And the said country shall be sufficient in extent, and suited to their wants and condition and be in a region contiguous to that in the occupation of the tribes which emigrated from the States of Ohio and Indiana. And when the said tribe shall have emigrated, the United States shall protect the said tribe and the people thereof, in their rights and possessions, against the injuries, encroachments and oppressions of any person or persons, tribe or tribes whatsoever.
ARTICLE 11.
It is further stipulated, that the United States will defray the expenses of a deputation of six chiefs or headmen, to explore the country to be assigned to said tribe, west of the Mississippi river. Said deputation to be selected by said tribe in general council.
ARTICLE 12.
The United States agree to grant by patent to each of the Miami Indians named in the schedule hereunto annexed, the tracts of land therein respectively designated.And the said tribe in general council request, that the patents for the grants in said schedule contained, shall be transmitted to the principal chief of said tribe, to be by him distributed to the respective grantees.
ARTICLE 13.
It is further stipulated, that should this treaty not be ratified at the next session of the Congress of the United States, then it shall be null and void to all intents and purposes between the parties.
ARTICLE 14.
And whereas John B. Richardville, the principal chief of said tribe, is very old and infirm, and not well able to endure the fatigue of a long journey, it is agreed that the United States will pay to him and his family the proportion of the annuity of said tribe which their number shall indicate to be due to them, at Fort Wayne whenever the said tribe shall emigrate to the country to be assigned them west, as a future residence.
ARTICLE 15.
It is further stipulated that as long as the Congress of the United States shall in its discretion make an appropriation under the sixth article of the treaty made between the United States and said tribe in the year 1826 for the support of the infirm and the education
of the youth of said tribe one half of the amount so appropriated shall be paid to the chiefs, to be by them applied to the support of the poor and infirm of said tribe, in such manner as shall be most beneficial.
ARTICLE 16.
This treaty after the same shall be ratified by the President and Senate of the United States, shall be binding on the contracting parties.
In testimony whereof the said Abel C. Pepper commissioner as aforesaid, and the chiefs, headmen and warriors of the Miami tribe of Indians, have hereunto set their hands at the forks of the Wabash the sixth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty eight.
Abel C. Pepper, Commissioner.
J. B. Richardville,
Minjenickeaw,
Paw-lawn-zo-aw,
Ne-we-lang-guaung-gaw,
O-zan-de-ah,
Waw-pa-pin-shaw,
Nac-kaw-guaung-gaw,
Kaw-tah-maung-guaw,
Kah-wah-zay,
To-pe-yaw,
Pe-waw-pe-yaw,
Me-shing-go-me-jaw,
Nac-kon-zaw,
Ne-kon-zaw,
Waw-pe-maung-guaw,
Ching-guaw-ke-aw,
Aw-koo-te-aw,
Ke-mo-te-aw,
Kil-so-aw,
Taw-we-ke-juc,
Waw-paw-ko-se-aw,
Mac-quaw-ko-naung,
Maw-yauc-que-yaw.
Signed in presence of—
John T. Douglass, Sub-Agent.
Allen Hamilton, Secretary to Commissioner.
Danl. D. Pratt, Assistant Secretary to Commissioner.
J. B. Duret,
H. Lasselle,
Wm. Hulbert, Indian Agent.
(To the Indian names are subjoined marks.)
Schedule of grants referred to in the foregoing treaty article twelve.
To John B. Richardville, principal chief.Two sections of land, to include and command the principal falls of Pipe creek.Three sections of land, commencing at the mouth of the Salamania river, thence running three miles down the Wabash river, and one mile up the Salamania river.Two sections of land, commencing at the mouth of the Mississinnewa river, thence down the Wabash river two miles and up the Mississinnewa river, one mile.One and one half section of land on the Wabash river at the mouth of Flat Rock (creek) to include his mills and the privileges thereof.One section of land on the Wabash river opposite the town of Wabash:All of which said tracts of land are to be surveyed as directed by the said grantee.To Francis Godfroy a chief one section of land opposite the town of Peru and on the Wabash river.One section of land on Little Pipe creek, to include his mill and the privileges thereof.Four sections of land where he now lives.All which said tracts of land are to be surveyed as directed by the said grantee.To Po-qua Godfroy one section of land to run one mile on the Wabash river and to include the improvements where he now lives.To Catherine Godfroy, daughter of Francis Godfroy and her children one section of land to run one mile on the Wabash river, and to include the improvement where she now lives.
To Kah-tah-mong-quah, son of Susan Richardville one half section of land on the Wabash river below and adjoining the three sections granted to John B. Richardville.To Mong-go-sah, son of La Blonde one-half section of land on the Wabash river below and adjoining the half section granted to Kah-tah-mong-quah.To Peter Gouin one section of land on the Sixth mile reserve, commencing where the northern line of said reserve intersects the Wabash river; thence down said river one mile and back for quantity.To Mais-shil-gouin-mi-zah, one section of land to include the “Deer Lick,” alias La Saline, on the creek that enters the Wabash river nearly opposite the town of Wabash.To O-zah-shin-quah and the wife of Bronilette, daughters of the “Deaf Man” as tenants in common one section of land on the Mississinnewa river to include the improvements where they now live.To O-san-di ah one section of land where he now lives on the Mississinnewa river, to include his improvements.To Wah-pi-pin-cha one section of land on the Mississinnewa river, directly opposite the section granted to O-san-di-ah.To Mais-zi-quah one section of land on the Wabash river, commencing at the lower part of the improvement of Old Sally, thence up said river one mile and back for quantity.To Tah-ko-nong one section of land where he now lives on the Mississinnewa river.To Cha-pine one section of land where he now lives on the Ten mile reserve.To White Loon one section of land, at the crossing of Longlois's creek, on the Ten mile reserve, to run up said creek.To Francis Godfroy one section of land, to be located where he shall direct.To Neh-wah-ling-quah one section of land where he now lives on the Ten mile reserve.To La Fountain one section of land south of the section he now lives on and adjoining the same, on the Ten mile reserve.To Seek one section of land south of the section of land granted to Wa-pa-se-pah by the treaty of 1834 on the Ten mile reserve.To Black Loon one section of land on the Six mile reserve, commencing at a line which will divide his field on the Wabash river, thence up the river one mile and back for quantity.To Duck one section of land on the Wabash river below and adjoining the section granted to Black Loon, and one mile down said river, and back for quantity.To Me-cha-ne-qua a chief, alias Gros-mis one section of land where he now lives;One section to include his field on the Salamania river;One and one-half section commencing at the Wabash river where the road crosses the same from John B. Richardville, jr.'s; thence down the said river to the high bank on Mill creek; thence back so as to include a part of the prairie, to be surveyed as directed by said chief.To Tow-wah-keo-shee, wife of Old Pish-a-wa one section of land on the Wabash river below and adjoining the half section granted to Mon-go-sah.To Ko-was-see a chief one section of land now Seeks reserve, to include his orchard and improvements.To Black Loon one section of land on the Six mile reserve and on the Salamania river, to include his improvements.To the wife of Benjamin, Ah-mac-kon-zee-quah one section of land where she now lives, near the prairie and to include her improvements, she being commonly known as Pichoux's sister.
To Pe-she-wah one section of land above and adjoining the section and a half granted to John B. Richardville on Flat Rock (creek) and to run one mile on the Wabash river.To White Raccoon one section of land on the Ten mile reserve where he may wish locate the same.To La Blonde, the chiefs daughter one section of land on the Wabash river below and adjoining the section of land granted to Francis Godfroy, to be surveyed as she may direct.To Ni-con-zah one section of land on the Mississinnewa river a little above the section of land granted to the Deaf Man's daughters, and on the opposite side of the river, to include the pine or evergreen tree, and to be surveyed as the may direct.To John B. Richardville one section of land to include the Osage village on the Mississinewa river as well as burying ground of his family, to be surveyed as he may direct.To Kee-ki-lash-e-we-ah alias Godfroy one half section of land back of the section granted to the principal chief opposite the town of Wabash, to include the creek;One-half section of land commencing at the lower corner of the section granted to Mais-zi-quah, thence half a mile down the Wabash river.To Al-lo-lah one section of land above and adjoining the section granted to Mais-shie-gouin-mi-zah and on the same creek.To John B. Richardville, jr. one section of land on Pipe creek above and adjoining the two sections of land granted to the principal chief, to be surveyed as he may direct.To John B. Richardville, one section of land wherever he may choose to have the same located.It is understood that all the foregoing grants are to be located and surveyed so as to correspond with the public surveys as near as may be to include the points designated in each grant respectively. |
What the experts are saying about IIP.UN-T
All apartment REITs now are beasts--don't sell them. They keep going up. IIP owns great properties in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, many apartments which have little supply but strong demand. The IIP valuation is too high for him, but it will generate good cash flow growth at 10% a year. The only thing to stop this is a recession which he doesn't expect.
All apartment REITs now are beasts--don't sell them. They keep going up. IIP owns great properties in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, many apartments which have little supply but strong demand. The IIP valuation is too high for him, but it will generate good cash flow growth at 10% a year. The only thing to stop this is a recession which he doesn't expect.
He missed this and kicks himself for it. They own multi-dwelling apartments in Ontario and Quebec. They have executed incredibly well and have record occupancy. The only problem is that it trades at a 25% premium to NAV -- just too expensive.
He missed this and kicks himself for it. They own multi-dwelling apartments in Ontario and Quebec. They have executed incredibly well and have record occupancy. The only problem is that it trades at a 25% premium to NAV -- just too expensive.
Entry into Montreal? The management team is one of the best out there. They buy undervalued properties and get big uplifts. They have perfected in Ottawa and the GTO. Montreal is not a new market to them. Overall the residential market space is well favoured. The tech industry has spawned in Toronto and it is spreading across the country. There is a shortage of good quality housing across the country. The yield just above 3%, but you are really buying this for their growth opportunities.
Entry into Montreal? The management team is one of the best out there. They buy undervalued properties and get big uplifts. They have perfected in Ottawa and the GTO. Montreal is not a new market to them. Overall the residential market space is well favoured. The tech industry has spawned in Toronto and it is spreading across the country. There is a shortage of good quality housing across the country. The yield just above 3%, but you are really buying this for their growth opportunities.
Rental properties in Ontario. One of the best performing REITs. He kicks himself for not owning it. What he got wrong is that Ontario Government went into rent control he didn't have to deal with that, but they didn't have any hiccup with that at all. They are very good at what they do. It is expensive now.
Rental properties in Ontario. One of the best performing REITs. He kicks himself for not owning it. What he got wrong is that Ontario Government went into rent control he didn't have to deal with that, but they didn't have any hiccup with that at all. They are very good at what they do. It is expensive now.
(A Top Pick Oct 01/18, Up 25%) It's apartments in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. They've done an excellent job buying properities and refurbishing them. Margins are way up. They bought some apartments in Montreal recently. Pays only a 2% yield, but they consistently raise it.
(A Top Pick Oct 01/18, Up 25%) It's apartments in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. They've done an excellent job buying properities and refurbishing them. Margins are way up. They bought some apartments in Montreal recently. Pays only a 2% yield, but they consistently raise it.
Apartments in Southern Ontario and Montreal. They had a good 2018. The fundamentals for apartments are quite good. There is a lot of immigration into Southern Ontario. 67% payout ratio. Expect dividend increases in coming years. They will not do as well in 2019 as 2018.
Apartments in Southern Ontario and Montreal. They had a good 2018. The fundamentals for apartments are quite good. There is a lot of immigration into Southern Ontario. 67% payout ratio. Expect dividend increases in coming years. They will not do as well in 2019 as 2018.
Apartment in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. It's not exposed to tariffs. Management has done a good job and their chart looks good. They internalized management which will boost earnings. They continue to pick up rental units outside the urban core in the GTA. It helps that few rentals are being built. Stock price has risen a lot, but this is a good long-term play. (2.3% dividend, Analysts' price target: $12.10)
Apartment in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. It's not exposed to tariffs. Management has done a good job and their chart looks good. They internalized management which will boost earnings. They continue to pick up rental units outside the urban core in the GTA. It helps that few rentals are being built. Stock price has risen a lot, but this is a good long-term play. (2.3% dividend, Analysts' price target: $12.10)
He likes management. Their ability to increase distributions will be there as their more aggressive development plan starts kicking in. They have a number of large-scale developments, which have taken a bit longer, but the dividend will increase over time. More importantly is the amount of growth you can get in earnings when you are able to buy something broken and fix it. You are paying for broken, but you are getting fixed in the end. Returns are very strong. Thinks this will be issuing equity sometime in 2017, so you may want to wait for the equity deal. Dividend yield of 3.1%.
He likes management. Their ability to increase distributions will be there as their more aggressive development plan starts kicking in. They have a number of large-scale developments, which have taken a bit longer, but the dividend will increase over time. More importantly is the amount of growth you can get in earnings when you are able to buy something broken and fix it. You are paying for broken, but you are getting fixed in the end. Returns are very strong. Thinks this will be issuing equity sometime in 2017, so you may want to wait for the equity deal. Dividend yield of 3.1%.
Immigration significantly contributed to population growth in Canada. In the last year, it has probably accounted for about three quarters of it. There is a benefit to owning apartment REITs if you think the cost of housing is relatively high, and you have an influx of immigrants. This REIT has a fantastic management team that tends to be more focused on “value add”. They will buy a property that is not necessarily maximizing its income possibility. They will gussy it up, increase rents, which will drive a significant increase in the share price and the value proposition. He likes this very much.
Immigration significantly contributed to population growth in Canada. In the last year, it has probably accounted for about three quarters of it. There is a benefit to owning apartment REITs if you think the cost of housing is relatively high, and you have an influx of immigrants. This REIT has a fantastic management team that tends to be more focused on “value add”. They will buy a property that is not necessarily maximizing its income possibility. They will gussy it up, increase rents, which will drive a significant increase in the share price and the value proposition. He likes this very much.
(A Top Pick March 19/15. Up 19.04%.)An apartment REIT based in Eastern Canada. Most properties are in Ontario where rents are regulated, but they tend to focus more on “value add”, where they buy a property that is not really achieving its full potential, put a little bit of money into it, and try to ramp up the occupancy, which has certainly worked out well for them.
(A Top Pick March 19/15. Up 19.04%.)An apartment REIT based in Eastern Canada. Most properties are in Ontario where rents are regulated, but they tend to focus more on “value add”, where they buy a property that is not really achieving its full potential, put a little bit of money into it, and try to ramp up the occupancy, which has certainly worked out well for them.
(A Top Pick March 19/15. Up 8.46%.)Has exposure to Eastern Canada, so low income Housing. No exposure to Western Canada, strong balance sheet and good management has really helped. Dividend yield of 3.5%.
(A Top Pick March 19/15. Up 8.46%.)Has exposure to Eastern Canada, so low income Housing. No exposure to Western Canada, strong balance sheet and good management has really helped. Dividend yield of 3.5%.
He is a big fan of this company. They have a very entrepreneurial style. Dividend payout is very low and very sustainable. Sees more than average growth potential, so continues to like it. Good management.
He is a big fan of this company. They have a very entrepreneurial style. Dividend payout is very low and very sustainable. Sees more than average growth potential, so continues to like it. Good management.
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abstract: 'Variation of intensity of the flux at the cores of large features and spectral lines of the classical magnetic CP star $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn in the ultraviolet spectral region from 1150 to 3200 Å is investigated. This study is based on the archival [*International Ultraviolet Explorer*]{} data obtained at different phases of the rotational cycle. The shapes of two light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1415 Å at the core of large feature at $\lambda$ 1400 Å curves significantly differ. The light curve at $\lambda$ 1375 Å show similar shape as in the ’pseudo-continuum’. The same behavior of the flux is at the cores of Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64 and 1485 Å. While, the light curve at $\lambda$ 1415 Å show the phase displacement of minimum of the flux. The phase displacement also is presented at the cores of Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1304–09 and 1485 Å. The minimal values of the amplitude of the flux variations are reached at the cores of the large features at $\lambda\lambda$ 1560 and 1770 Å and at the cores of the strong Si II resonance lines. The flux at the cores of large feature at $\lambda$ 1770 Å and Fe II resonance line at $\lambda$ 1725–31 Å, within errors measurements, does not vary. The investigation of variability of the flux in the wings of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line indicate that the fluxes, which formed in inner layers of atmosphere, are redistributed into outer layers of atmosphere of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn.'
author:
- 'N. A. Sokolov'
title: 'Variations of Flux Intensity in Large Features and Spectral Lines of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn in Ultraviolet [^1]'
---
Introduction
============
The magnetic Chemically Peculiar (mCP) star $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn (HD 112413, HR 4915) displays strong line profile variations in the visual spectral region, attributable to the non-uniform chemical abundance distribution on stellar surface, particularly of the lines of Fe, Cr and Ti (Khokhlova & Pavlova 1984), Eu, Cr and Si (Goncharskii et al. 1983) and O (Gonzalez & Artru 1994). Ryabchikova et al. (1999) report the first identification of the Eu III $\lambda$ 6666.347 line in spectrum $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. Later Kochukhov et al. (2002) used the new magnetic Doppler Imaging code to reconstruct the magnetic field geometry and surface abundance distributions for six chemical elements of this star.
The study in the ultraviolet have been restricted to much lower resolution, usually without resolving individual stellar lines (e.g., Leckrone & Snijders 1979). Hensberge et al. (1986) identified the ions Mg II Si II, Cr II, Mn II, Fe II, Fe III, Co II, Ni II, Yb II and W II in the mid-ultraviolet spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn, which has been obtained with the BUSS (Balloon-Borne Ultraviolet Spectrograph). High-dispersion IUE observations of the two resonance lines of Mg II, at $\lambda\lambda$ 1650 and 1942 Å, were investigated by Leckrone (1984) for two normal stars, six HgMn stars and for the magnetic variable $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. The last star possesses moderately strong Hg II resonance lines, confirming its classification as Hg-rich, but its magnesium anomaly is less pronounced than that of the MgMn stars. Fuhrmann (1989) investigated the high-resolution spectra of the CP star HR 465. For comparison purposes, the spectra of some other stars, including $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn, were discussed as well. The author have noted that the C II resonance doublet at $\lambda$ 1334.5–1335.7 Å are comparatively weak in the spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn.
To quantify the ultraviolet variations of the C IV doublet at $\lambda\lambda$ 1548, 1550 Å, Shore et al. (1987) have formed the photometric line index, expressed in magnitudes. Later, Sokolov (2000, 2006) had introduced the analogous photometric indices in order to derive the variations of the total absorption in the broad features at far-UV spectral region. Unfortunately, these indices depends strongly upon the stability of the intensity of the near continuum. Based on the fact that the Newly Extracted Spectra (INES) data are presented in absolute units, it is possible to investigate the variations of the fluxes at the cores of the large features and spectral lines. Recently, such attempt was made by Sokolov (2010) for mCP star 56 Ari. Another mCP star is $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn for which there are enough data in order to investigate the variability of the flux at the cores of the large features and spectral lines. This is done in the present paper.
Observational Data and Analysis
===============================
spectra
--------
The spectra used in this study are low-resolution echelle spectra obtained with a resolution of about 6 Å. Additionally, the ’rebinned’ spectra from high-dispersion images of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn were used, as well. In all cases, the spectra were obtained through the large aperture (9.5$\arcsec$ $\times$ 22$\arcsec$). Finally, we analyzed 22 SWP, 10 LWR and 6 LWP spectra, distributed quite smoothly over the period of rotation. The description of these spectra in detail is done by Sokolov (2011).
Data analysis
-------------
To analyze the spectra of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn we used the linearized least-squares method. An attempt was made to describe the light curves in a quantitative way by adjusting a Fourier series. The method has already applied to the data of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn and has shown the very good descriptions of the monochromatic light curves in the ’pseudo-continuum’ (Sokolov 2011). Thus, the observations were also fitted by a simple cosine wave: $$F(\lambda,\,t)=A_{0}(\lambda) +
A_{1}(\lambda)\cos(2\pi(t-T_{0})/P +\phi(\lambda)),
\label{equation_2}$$ where $F(\lambda,\,t)$ is a flux for the given $\lambda$ and the $t$ is Julian date of the observation. The $T_{0}$ and $P$ are zero epoch and rotational period of Farnsworth (1932) ephemeris, respectively. The coefficients $A_{0}(\lambda)$ of the fitted curves define the average distribution of energy over the cycle of the variability while the coefficients $A_{1}(\lambda)$ define the semi-amplitude of the flux variations for the given $\lambda$.
Identification of Large Features and Spectral Lines in the Spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn {#sect_3}
===========================================================================================
In the far-UV spectral region silicon appears as the main absorber with the strong resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64, 1304–09, 1485, 1526–33 Å (see Fig. 2 of Sokolov 2011). It should be noted that the blend at $\lambda$1304–09 Å has two major contributors: the resonance doublet and the autoionising multiplets (Artru & Lanz 1987). According to Artru & Lanz (1987), the strong lines in the spectrum of CP stars appear from C II at $\lambda$ 1334 Å and Al II at $\lambda$ 1671 Å, which is close to a strong C I at $\lambda$ 1657 Å line. Fe II form a depression at $\lambda$ 1725–31 Å and Cr II produces line at $\lambda$ 1434 Å. Although in the case of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn the line from C II at $\lambda$ 1334 Å is not detectable at this resolution. Moreover, the C II resonance doublet at $\lambda$ 1334.5–1335.7 Å are comparatively weak at the high-resolution spectrum of this star (Fuhrmann 1989).
In previous study of the star 56 Ari we identified which elements are responsible for depressions of the flux centered at $\lambda\lambda$ 2140, 2250, 2540, 2607, 2624 and 2747 Å (Sokolov 2010). The synthetic spectrum calculation showed that Fe II appears as the main absorber for these depressions. On the other hand, the same synthetic spectrum calculation showed that mainly Fe, Cr and Ni are responsible for depression of the flux at $\lambda$ 2140 Å. Comparison of the average energy distribution of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn with the average energy distribution of 56 Ari showed that the depressions of the flux centered at $\lambda\lambda$ 2140, 2250, 2540, 2607, 2624 and 2747 Å also is presented in the spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. It is well known that Mg II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 2795, 2798 and 2803 Å are responsible for depression of the flux at $\lambda$ 2800 Å. This depression is not detectable at low-resolution mode in the spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. Prominent depressions of the flux in the near-UV spectral region are indicated in Fig. \[mean\_lw\] with their identification. In order to compare the average distributions of energy of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn and 56 Ari, the fluxes of 56 Ari were increased by the factor ten on Fig. \[mean\_lw\].
{width="150mm"}
Four large features at $\lambda\lambda$ 1400, 1560, 1770 and 2350–2400 Å, which are strongly enhanced in the spectrum of CP stars, are well seen in spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. Lanz et al. (1996) have given strong arguments supporting the idea that the intense autoionization resonanses of Si II could explain the features at $\lambda$ 1400 and 1560 Å in the spectrum of CP stars. On the other hand, they were unable to identify the depression of the flux at $\lambda$ 1770 Å. Another element may cause this strong depression. Comparison of the high resolution spectrum of 56 Ari with the full synthetic spectrum as well as those including lines from only one element showed that the iron is responsible for depression of the flux at $\lambda$ 1770 Å (see Fig. 9 of Sokolov 2006). It is necessary to note that this depression is considerably increased in spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn than in spectrum of 56 Ari. The large feature at $\lambda$ 2350–2400 Å which are strongly enhanced in the spectrum of CP stars, are well seen in spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. The lines of iron peak elements have a particularly important contribution to opacity at $\lambda$ 2350–2400 Å. Adelman et al. (1993) have given strong arguments supporting the idea that a large number the lines of iron can explain the feature at $\lambda$ 2350–2400 Å. Many CP stars have here a very pronounced depression of the flux compared to normal stars (Stepie[' n]{} & Czechowski 1993).
Average Flux Determination at the Cores of Large Features and Spectral Lines in the Spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn
====================================================================================================================
To measure the absorption at the cores of large features, the spectra were processed using the spectral reduction software [spe]{} developed by S. Sergeev at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO). The program allows measuring the average intensity of the flux and corresponding error in any selected rectangular spectral region. For the large features at $\lambda$ 1560 and 1770 Å spectral regions are $\sim$10 Å wide, while for the largest feature at $\lambda$ 1400 Å two spectral regions were selected and centered at $\lambda$ 1375 and 1415 Å. On the other hand, for the large feature at $\lambda$ 2350–2400 Å the spectral region was used with $\sim$50 Å wide and centered at $\lambda$ 2375 Å.
The resonance doublets of Si II and Fe II lines are looked as depressions in the low-resolution spectrum of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn, as illustrated by Fig. \[a0\_1725\]. Thus, the average intensity of the flux at the cores of the spectral lines was computed by averaging five nearest fluxes for a given $\lambda$: $$F(\lambda) = \frac{1}{5}\sum_{i=1}^{5} F(\lambda-\lambda_{step\cdot(i-3)})
\label{equation_2}$$ where $\lambda_{step}$ is equal 1.676 Å for SWP camera and is equal 2.669 Åfor LWR and LWP cameras. As far as the errors in $F(\lambda)$ are concerned, we computed them by taking into account the the errors in the fluxes as presented in INES $Catalog$, according to the standard propagation theory of errors. In order to check reliability of the average intensity of the flux at the cores of the spectral lines, the spectra were also processed using program [spe]{}. Experience showed that within errors of measurements the average intensity of the fluxes computed by program [spe]{} and by using equation \[equation\_2\] are the same.
![The spectral region of Fe II doublet at $\lambda$ 1725-31 Å of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. The rectangle shows the selected spectral region for calculation of the average intensity at the core of this doublet.[]{data-label="a0_1725"}](a0_1725.eps){width="85mm"}
Variations of Large Features
----------------------------
Figure \[features\] exhibits the variations of the average intensity of the fluxes at the cores of large features versus the rotational phase. First of all, the shapes of two light curves at the core of large feature at $\lambda$ 1400 Å significantly differ. The minimum of the light curve at $\lambda$ 1375 Å is reached at phase 0.05 while the minimum of the light curve at $\lambda$ 1415 Å is at phase 0.26. Although, the amplitudes of two light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1415 Å are approximately the same and are equal to 0.41 and 0.32 $\times$ , respectively. According to the model computation of Lanz et al. (1996), two features at $\lambda\lambda$ 1400 and 1560 Å are connected with the intense autoionization resonance of Si II. Qualitative comparison of the light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1560 Åshows the good agreement. The minimum of the light curve at $\lambda$ 1375 Å is reached at phase 0.05 while the minimum of the light curve at $\lambda$ 1560 Å is at phase 0.10. Also, the amplitudes of two light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1560 Åare approximately the same and are equal to 0.41 and 0.38 $\times$ , as illustrated by Fig. \[features\].
The identification of two features at $\lambda\lambda$ 1770 and 2375 Åare connected with a large concentration of iron lines (see Sect. \[sect\_3\]). The flux variations at the cores of the features at $\lambda\lambda$ 1770 and 2375 Å also significantly differ. Thus, the amplitude of the light curve at the core of the feature at $\lambda$ 1770 Å is equal to 0.11 $\times$ . Practically, the flux at the core of this feature, within errors measurements, does not vary. On the other hand, the amplitude of the light curve at the core of the feature at $\lambda$ 2375 Å is equal to 0.43 $\times$ . Although, the shapes of light curves are approximately the same, as illustrated by Fig. \[features\]. One can see, that the behavior of the flux is different at the cores of large features, even if the same element is responsible for the features. This puzzling situation was one of the incentives for studying the variations of the flux at the cores of the Si II resonance lines and the depressions for which is responsible a concentration of Fe II lines.
Variations of Si II Resonance Lines
-----------------------------------
Even for the normal stars, Si II appears as the main absorber with the strongest resonance lines recognizable at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64, 1304–09, 1485, 1526–33 Å (Artru & Lanz 1987). Figure \[features\] exhibits the variations of the flux at the cores of these depressions versus the rotational phase. Note that the vertical scales are the same for each part of the figure. One can see from Fig. \[features\], the light curves have the similar shapes in cores of resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64 and 1526–33 Å. The minima of the light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64 and 1526–33 Å are reached at phases 0.05 and 0.02, respectively. The similar behavior also shows the nearest monochromatic light curves in the ’pseudo-continuum’ (see Fig. 3 of Sokolov 2011). Also, the amplitudes of the light curves at the cores of the depressions at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64 and 1526–33 Å are in the good agreement and are equal to 0.49 and 0.63 $\times$ , respectively. It should be noted that the similar shape shows the light curve at $\lambda$ 1375 Å. On the other hand, the minima of the light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1304–09 and 1485 Å are reached at phases 0.12 and 0.30, as illustrated by Fig. \[features\]. Although, the minima of the monochromatic light curves are reached at phase $\sim$0.0 in the nearest ’pseudo-continuum’. Moreover, the amplitudes of the light curves are different at $\lambda\lambda$ 1304–09 and 1485 Å and are equal 0.38 and 0.64 $\times$ , respectively. It should be noted that the similar shape shows the light curve at $\lambda$ 1415 Å. The monochromatic light curves in the near-UV spectral region with $\lambda$ $>$ 2505 Å in the ’pseudo-continuum’ also shows such behavior. The near-UV spectral region is quite important in order to investigate the variability of the flux at the cores of Fe II lines.
{width="170mm"}
Variations of Fe II Lines
-------------------------
In the far-UV spectral region Fe II doublet at $\lambda$ 1725–31 Å gives only one depression of the flux (Artru & Lanz 1987). The synthetic spectrum calculation showed that Fe II appears as the main absorber of the flux at $\lambda\lambda$ 2250, 2540, 2607, 2624 and 2747 Å(see Sect. \[sect\_3\]). Additionally, the depression of the flux at $\lambda$ 2140 Å was included in our investigation. On the other hand, two depressions of the flux at $\lambda\lambda$ 2607 and 2624 Å showed the same behavior. Thus, we have included in our investigation only the depression of the flux at $\lambda$ 2607 Å. Figure \[iron\] exhibits the variations of the average intensity of the flux at the cores of Fe II lines versus the rotational phase. Note that the vertical scales are the same for each part of the figure. As can be seen on the graphs of Fig. \[iron\], the variability of the flux at the cores of Fe II lines shows by about the same behavior as the monochromatic light curves with $\lambda$ $>$ 2505 Å in the ’pseudo-continuum’ (see. Fig. 3 of Sokolov 2011). The light curves at the cores of of Fe II lines are showing the phase displacement of the minimum of the flux from 0.07 at $\lambda$ 2250 Åto 0.31 at $\lambda$ 2747 Å. Additionally, the minimum of the light curve at the core of of Fe II lines at $\lambda$ 2140 Å is at phase 0.16. Although, the amplitude of the light curve at $\lambda$ 2140 Å is big enough and is equal to 0.69 $\times$ . Possibly, it is because mainly three chemical elements (Fe, Cr, Ni) are responsible for this depression. The monochromatic light curves in the ’pseudo-continuum’ only with $\lambda$ $>$ 2505 Å shows the same phase displacement of the minimum of the flux. It should be noted that the amplitudes of the light curves here are bigger than at the cores of Fe II lines. On the other hand, the light curve at the core of Fe II resonance line at $\lambda$ 1725–31 Å where the amplitude is equal to 0.13 $\times$ . As at the core of large feature at $\lambda$ 1770 Å, the flux does not vary at the core of this line. Although, the variability of the flux in the nearest ’pseudo-continuum’ is significant. Thus, the amplitudes of the monochromatic light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1690 and 1794 Å are equal 0.41 and 0.51 $\times$ , respectively.
![Phase diagrams of the light curves in in the wings of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line for $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. Upper and lower panels show short-wavelength and long-wavelength sides of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line, respectively. Solid lines denote the fit according to equation \[equation\_2\].[]{data-label="laim_com"}](laim_com.eps){width="95mm"}
Variations of Lyman-Alpha Line
------------------------------
Leckrone & Snijders (1979) have compared Lyman-alpha (${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$) profiles of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn at two phases 0.0 and 0.5, using $Copernicus$ data. The authors have drawn the conclusion that brightness variations at the core of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line are anomalous with respect to the adjacent ultraviolet regions. In addition, they noted that coverage of the complete cycle by a future space instrument will be necessary to establish the specific phasing of these variations. Based on the fact that the star is enough bright ($m_{\rm v}$ = 2.90), the data have allowed to investigate behavior of the monochromatic light curves in short-wavelength and long-wavelength sides from the core of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line. Several monochromatic light curves in the wings of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line at different wavelengths were formed. Figure \[laim\_com\] exhibits the variations of the flux in short-wavelength and long-wavelength sides of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line versus the rotational phase. As can be seen on the graphs of Fig. \[laim\_com\] the monochromatic light curves have identical shapes in short-wavelength and long-wavelength sides of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line. The light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1187 and 1246 Å show the minimum and maximum of the flux at phases 0.0 and 0.5, respectively. Note that the monochromatic light curves in the ’pseudo-continuum’ show the same behavior in the far-UV spectral region. These monochromatic light curves are most removed from the line center of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ at $\lambda$ 1215 Å. On the other hand, the monochromatic light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1202 and 1234 Å show the minimum and maximum of the flux at phases 0.5 and 0.0, respectively. Also, the light curve in the $V$ filter shows the same behavior in the visual spectral region (Pyper 1969). While, the variation of the flux at $\lambda\lambda$ 1190 and 1239 Å is practically zero over the period of rotation. In other words, the so-called ’null wavelength regions’ is also disposed in these wavelengths. It should be noted that the fluxes at the cores of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line varies with the small amplitudes at $\lambda$ 1213 Å for two CP stars CU Vir and 56 Ari (Sokolov 2000, 2006).
![Two spectral regions of the broad feature at $\lambda$ 1400 Å for $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. The high-dispersion spectra in the region of $\lambda$ 1375 Å (top panel) and the high-dispersion spectra in the region of $\lambda$ 1415 Å (bottom panel) (see the text).[]{data-label="1400n"}](1400n.eps){width="100mm"}
Discussion
==========
Our result indicate that the variations of average intensity of the flux at the cores of large features and spectral lines show different behavior. First of all, the shapes of two light curves at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1415 Å at the core of large feature at $\lambda$ 1400 Å curves significantly differ. The minimum of the light curve at $\lambda$ 1375 Å is reached at phase 0.05 while the minimum of the light curve at $\lambda$ 1415 Å is at phase 0.26. Although, the difference in wavelength between these spectral regions is equal 40 Å. This puzzling situation was one of the incentives for studying the high-dispersion spectra of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn in these spectral regions. In the top panel of Fig. \[1400n\] two high-dispersion spectra are plotted in the spectral region near $\lambda$ 1375 Å. These spectra SWP27894 and SWP15828 were obtained at the phases 0.064 (dashed line) and 0.524 (full line), respectively. From Fig. \[1400n\] we see that the fluxes of the spectrum SWP27894 systematically lower than the fluxes of the spectrum SWP15828. In the bottom panel of Fig. \[1400n\] two high-dispersion spectra are plotted in the spectral region near $\lambda$ 1415 Å. These spectra SWP04813 and SWP27880 were obtained at the phases 0.204 (dashed line) and 0.702 (full line), respectively. Again, we can see that the fluxes of the spectrum SWP04813 lower than the fluxes of the spectrum SWP27880. The comparisons of the high-dispersion spectra in the spectral regions of the broad feature at $\lambda$ 1400 Å are in agreement with phase diagrams obtained from the low-dispersion spectra (see Fig. \[features\]). Although, the nature of such behavior of the fluxes in the spectral regions at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1415 Å still unclear. Possibly, the influence of different species of spectral lines can play a some role.
The light curves at the cores of Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64 and 1526–33 Å show the similar shapes as in the ’pseudo-continuum’. While, the light curves at the cores of Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1304–09 and 1485 Å show the phase displacement of minimum of the flux. On the other hand, the flux at the cores of large feature at $\lambda$ 1770 Åand Fe II resonance line at $\lambda$ 1725–31 Å, within errors measurements, does not vary. Moreover, the light curves at the cores of of Fe II lines show the phase displacement of minimum of the flux from 0.07 at $\lambda$ 2250 Åto 0.31 at $\lambda$ 2747 Å.
The vertically dependent abundance stratification in CP stars are suggested by many authors (e.g., Ryabchikova 2008, and references therein). This effect may influence our results, because the effective depth at which the fluxes is formed at $\lambda$ $<$ 2000 Å can differs from the effective depth at which the fluxes is formed at $\lambda$ $>$ 2505 Å. We can expect that the flux comes from upper layers of atmosphere at the cores of some large features and depressions than the flux coming from the nearest ’pseudo-continuum’ in the spectral region with $\lambda$ $<$ 2000 Å. Therefore, possibly, some large features and depressions show the displacement of position of minimum of the flux, though the flux in the nearest ’pseudo-continuum’ does not show such displacement. Although, the spectrum in the ’pseudo-continuum’ is also blocked by a great number of spectral lines of various chemical elements.
The main thing is that the energy blocking by silicon bound-free transitions and iron bound-bound transitions decreases the flux in the UV spectral region. The blocked flux appears in the visual and the red parts of the spectrum. Such an explanation is supported by the anti-phase relationship of light curves in the visual and the UV spectral regions. Probably, our investigation indicates that not only this mechanism may influence on the redistribution of the flux in atmosphere of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. The fluxes, situated in the wings of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line at different distances from its center, and hence formed at different depths in stellar atmosphere. The investigation of variability of the flux in the wings of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line indicate that the fluxes, which formed in inner layers of atmosphere, are redistributed into outer layers of atmosphere of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. Therefore, it should be some layer in atmosphere of the star where the fluxes do not vary over the period of rotation. Although, the independent investigation of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line variations for others CP stars is needed in order to confirm our result.
Conclusions
===========
The archival spectrophotometric data of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn have permitted to analyze the light variations at the cores of large features and spectral lines. The variations of intensity of the flux at the cores of large features and spectral lines show different behavior. The influence of different species of spectral lines play a some role in the different regions at $\lambda\lambda$ 1375 and 1415 Å of the large feature $\lambda$ 1400 Å. The light curve at $\lambda$ 1375 Å show similar shape as in the ’pseudo-continuum’. The same behavior of the flux is at the cores of Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64 and 1485 Å. While, the light curve at $\lambda$ 1415 Å show the phase displacement of minimum of the flux. The phase displacement also is presented at the cores of Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1304–09 and 1485 Å. The same phase displacement is at the cores of the Fe II depressions in the spectral region with $\lambda$ $>$ 2505 Å. But, the variability of the flux at the cores of the Fe II depressions in this spectral region is the same as in the ’pseudo-continuum’.
The minimal values of the amplitude of the flux variations are reached at the cores of the large features at $\lambda\lambda$ 1560 and 1770 Å and at the cores of the strong Si II resonance lines at $\lambda\lambda$ 1260–64, 1304–09 and 1485 Å. The flux at the cores of large feature at $\lambda$ 1770 Åand Fe II resonance line at $\lambda$ 1725–31 Å, within errors measurements, does not vary.
The investigation of variability of the flux in the wings of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line indicate that the fluxes, which formed in inner layers of atmosphere, are redistributed into outer layers of atmosphere of $\alpha^{\rm 2}$ CVn. Although, the independent investigation of ${\rm Ly}_{\alpha}$ line variations in the high-resolution mode is needed in order to confirm our result.
[References]{} S.J. Adelman, C.R. Cowley, D.S. Leckrone, S.W. Roby, G.M. Wahlgren, 1993, , 419, 276, M.-C. Artru, T. Lanz, 1987, , 182, 273, G. Farnsworth, 1932, , 75, 364, K. Fuhrmann, 1989, , 80, 399, A.V. Goncharskii, T.A. Ryabchikova, V.V. Stepanov, V.L. Khokholova, A.G. Yagola, 1983, Soviet Astr., 14, 652, J.F. Gonzalez, M.-C. Artru, 1994, , 289, 209, H. Hensberge, J. Van Santvoort, K.A. Van der Hucht, T.H. Morgan, 1986, , 158, 113, V.L. Khokhlova, V.M. Pavlova, 1984, PAZh, 10, 337, O. Kochukhov, N. Piskunov, I. Ilyin, I. Tuominen, 2002, , 389, 420, T. Lanz, M.-C. Artru, M. Le Dourneuf, T. Hubeny, 1996, , 309, 218, D.S. Leckrone, M.A.J. Snijders, 1979, , 39, 549, D.S. Leckrone, 1984, , 286, 725, D.M. Pyper, 1969, , 18, 347, T. Ryabchikova, N. Piskunov, I. Savanov, F. Kupka, V. Malanushenko, 1999, , 343, 229, T. Ryabchikova, 2008, Cont. Ast. Obs. Skalnaté Pleso, 38, 257, S.N. Shore, D.N. Brown, G. Sonneborn, 1987, , 94, 737, N.A. Sokolov, 2000, , 353, 707, N.A. Sokolov, 2006, , 373, 666, N.A. Sokolov, 2010, , 330, 37, N.A. Sokolov, 2011, this issue, p. 390 K. Stepie[' n]{}, W. Czechowski, 1993, , 268, 187,
[^1]: Based on $INES$ data from the $IUE$ satellite.
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Oesophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related mortality and the eighth most common cancer worldwide[@b1]. The so-called Asian belt, which encompasses Turkey, northeastern Iran, Kazakhstan, and northern and central China, has a very high incidence of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). There are more than 100 cases per 100,000 individuals in this population annually, and the incidence is equal in men and women[@b2]. In the USA, 16,980 new oesophageal cancer cases were diagnosed in 2015 and 15,590 deaths were estimated to occur in the same year[@b3]. The overall 5-year survival rate of oesophageal cancer patients ranges from 15% to 25%, even with the development of new diagnostic and treatment methods in recent years[@b4]. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify novel biomarkers that will provide better prognoses and individualization of treatment.
The Notch pathway has emerged as one of the major signalling cascades activated throughout development, and its misregulation has been associated with many diseases[@b5]. In total, mammals express four Notch receptors: Notch1, Notch2, Notch3 and Notch4. The dysregulation of Notch2 has been reported in human haematological malignancies and various solid tumours. Indeed, Notch2 mutations play a role in the pathogenesis and progression of splenic marginal zone lymphoma and are associated with poor prognoses[@b6]. A truncate mutation of Notch2 was shown to enhance cell proliferation by activating the NF-κB signal pathway in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma[@b7]. Notch2 has also been reported to be overexpressed in lung adenocarcinoma[@b8], glioma[@b9], cervical cancer[@b10][@b11], hepatoblastoma[@b12], gastric cancer[@b13][@b14] and salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma[@b15]. By contrast, Notch2 is down-regulated and plays suppressive roles in bladder cancer[@b16], lung cancer[@b17], breast cancer[@b18][@b19] and colorectal cancer[@b20]. Notably, its expression in ovarian cancer depends on the histological type. Papillary serous, endometrioid and clear cell ovarian cancers show negative or low Notch2 expression, while mucinous carcinomas show a high expression level[@b21]. As a result, the role of Notch2 in tumourigenesis remains controversial.
Song Y *et al*.[@b22] conducted whole-genome sequencing and whole-exome sequencing in ESCC patients and identified significantly mutated genes, including genes involved in Notch signalling. Similarly, Notch2 was reported to be more frequently altered in ESCC compared with oesophageal adenocarcinoma via a comprehensive genomic profiling method[@b23][@b24][@b25] and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining[@b26]. At present, the precise association between Notch2 and ESCC prognosis has yet to be elucidated. The present study used IHC, qRT-PCR and western blot to examine the expression of Notch2 in human ESCC tissues and paracancerous tissues. In addition, the association between Notch2 and various clinicopathological characteristics was investigated, along with the predictive potential of Notch2 in ESCC. Further *in vitro* assays were used to verify its effects in proliferation and survival of ESCC cells.
Results
=======
Notch2 expression in frozen ESCC tissues
----------------------------------------
We investigated the Notch2 mRNA and protein expression levels in 30 paired cancerous tissues and matched paracancerous tissues using qRT-PCR, IHC and western blot analysis. As shown in [Fig. 1](#f1){ref-type="fig"}, Notch2 expression was primarily localized to the cytoplasm of cancer cells. IHC staining revealed that Notch2 was overexpressed in 63.3% (19/30) of cancerous tissues and 26.7% (8/30) of paracancerous tissues, and the difference between these levels was statistically significant (*P* = 0.004, [Table 1](#t1){ref-type="table"}). The qRT-PCR analysis revealed that Notch2 was up-regulated in cancerous tissues compared with matched paracancerous tissues in 19 (63.3%) cases (*P* \< 0.0001). The mean fold increase in Notch2 mRNA in cancerous tissues was 4.71 ± 1.19 vs 1.04 ± 0.11 ([Fig. 2A](#f2){ref-type="fig"}). Furthermore, we randomly selected 8 pairs of cancerous and paracancerous tissues to identify the Notch2 protein level using western blot analysis ([Fig. 2B](#f2){ref-type="fig"}). The results showed higher Notch2 protein expression in cancerous tissues than in adjacent tissues (Notch2/β-actin: 0.70 ± 0.20 vs. 0.51 ± 0.14, *P* = 0.021, [Fig. 2C,D](#f2){ref-type="fig"}).
The prognostic value of Notch2 in ESCC
--------------------------------------
Of the 115 patients who provided formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) cancer tissues, 43 (37.4%) survived more than 5 years after subtotal esophagectomy and 72 (62.6%) died during the follow-up period. The mean survival time for all patients was 45.5 ± 19.1 months (range 12--80). Notch2 was overexpressed in 59 (51.3%) patients, although no significant relationship was identified with clinicopathological features such as age, gender, smoking, drinking, T stage, N stage and differentiation ([Table 2](#t2){ref-type="table"}). Kaplan-Meier analyses using the log-rank test were performed to calculate the effect of these clinicopathologic factors on the overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates. The log-rank analysis demonstrated that high Notch2 protein expression significantly predicted decreased 5-year OS (29.1% vs. 49.1%; *P* = 0.013) and PFS (15.3% vs. 34.4%; *P* = 0.006) ([Fig. 3A,B](#f3){ref-type="fig"}, [Table 3](#t3){ref-type="table"}). Furthermore, multivariate analysis identified Notch2 overexpression as an independent prognostic factor for OS (HR (95%CI): 2.266 (1.367--3.756), *P* = 0.002) as well as PFS (HR (95%CI): 2.160 (1.374--3.396), *P* = 0.006, [Table 3](#t3){ref-type="table"}). We also conducted receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, and the area under the curve (AUC) value of Notch2 was 0.63 ± 0.06 (*P* = 0.044) according to the OS prediction and 0.61 ± 0.54 (*P* = 0.044) according to the PFS prediction ([Fig. 3C,D](#f3){ref-type="fig"}).
Notch2 inhibition with shRNA decreased EC-9706 cell proliferation and survival ability
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ESCC cell lines (Eca 109 and EC 9706) were firstly transfected with shRNA- Notch2. qRT-PCR and western blot were used to test the efficacy of transfection. As shown in [Fig. 4A,B](#f4){ref-type="fig"}, Notch2 mRNA level in test group were significantly induced compared with the control group (Notch2/β-actin: 0.26 ± 0.04 vs 1.01 ± 0.10, *P* \< 0.0001 and 0.30 ± 0.04 vs 1.03 ± 0.08, *P* \< 0.0001, resp.). [Fig 4C,D](#f4){ref-type="fig"} showed that the protein level of Notch2 was also decreased in transfection group (Notch2/β-actin: 0.24 ± 0.01 vs 0.57 ± 0.02, *P* \< 0.0001, and 0.20 ± 0.02 vs 0.50 ± 0.04, *P* \< 0.0001, resp.). To determine if knock-down of Notch2 expression by shRNA could lead to a decrease in the proliferation and survival of ESCC cells, CCK8 and clonogenic assay were conducted. The OD450 values of the Eca 109 and EC 9706 cells transfected with shRNA-Notch2 showed significant decrease at 24, 48, and 72 h (all *P* \< 0.0001), compared with those cells in the control groups ([Fig. 5A,B](#f5){ref-type="fig"}). The colony formations of transfected Eca 109 and EC 9706 were also significantly reduced compared with the control groups (all *P* \< 0.0001, [Fig. 5C,D](#f5){ref-type="fig"}).
Discussion
==========
Notch signalling has several demonstrated essential roles in the regulation of tumour growth, invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis[@b27]. Furthermore, the overexpression and oncogenic role of Notch2 have been observed in numerous human cancer types, such as lung adenocarcinoma[@b8], glioma[@b9], cervical cancer[@b10][@b11], hepatoblastoma[@b12], gastric cancer[@b13][@b14] and salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma[@b15]. By contrast, there is evidence supporting a suppressive role for Notch2 in bladder cancer[@b16], lung cancer[@b17], breast cancer[@b19] and colorectal cancer[@b20]. In the present study, we investigated the Notch2 expression level in ESCC tissues and analysed its prognostic value. For the first time, via qRT-PCR, IHC and western blot analyses, we found that Notch2 was up-regulated in frozen cancerous tissues compared with paracancerous tissues at the mRNA (*P* \< 0.0001) and protein (IHC: *P* = 0.004; western blot: *P* = 0.021) levels. Similarly, Notch2 was overexpressed in 51.3% of FFPE tissues. Additionally, IHC staining revealed that Notch2 was primarily localized to the cytoplasm of cancer cells. These findings suggest an oncogene role for Notch2 in ESCC. However, Notch2 expression showed no significant relationship with clinicopathological features, such as the age, gender, smoking, drinking, T stage, N stage and differentiation, which may be due to the small quantity of sampling.
Notch2 has the potential to serve as a predictive biomarker in a variety of cancers. Accordingly, Notch2 mutations have been associated with a poor prognosis in splenic marginal zone lymphoma[@b6], and the loss of Notch2 positively predicts survival in subgroups of patients with glial brain tumours[@b28]. A similar prognostic value was also demonstrated for Notch2 in liver cancer[@b29]. By contrast, a synergistic effect of positive Notch1 and negative Notch2 coexpression in predicting poor overall survival has been demonstrated[@b30], and high Notch2 expression was shown to predict good survival for breast cancer patients[@b19]. In the present study, log-rank and multivariate analyses demonstrated that Notch2 expression in cancer tissues served as an independent prognostic factor for OS and PFS in ESCC patients. In particular, high Notch2 protein expression significantly predicted decreased 5-year OS and PFS; the T and N stages were also identified as prognostic indicators. The ROC-AUC was provided for the Cox regression models. It is a value that indicates the concordance level between observed and expected ordering of the data, and represents the percentage of concordance of all pairs of data with different outcome values, with concordance defined as occurring within a pair when the observation with the higher outcome value also has the higher predicted probability of the outcome. The AUC value for Notch2 was significant according to the OS and PFS predictions. Furthermore, CCK8 and clonogenic assay were conducted to determine if Notch2 inhibition could lead to a decrease in the proliferation and survival of ESCC cells. As expected, the results indicated that OD values and colony formations were significantly reduced in transfected group. Thus, we can conclude that Notch2 can be used as a biomarker for predicting ESCC survival in patients who underwent surgery. Besides, Notch1 has been widely reported in esophageal cancer[@b22][@b23]. It is also a novel potential prognostic biomarker for ESCC patients[@b31][@b32]. Further studies are necessary to investigate associations of Notch pathway signal molecules and synergistic effect of Notch1 and Notch2 coexpression in predicting survival of ESCC.
The detailed mechanisms of Notch2 have been studied and reported in several tumours. The silencing of Notch2 inhibits glioma cell proliferation by inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis *in vitro* and *in vivo*[@b9][@b33]. Constitutive Notch2 signalling in neural stem cells has been reported to promote tumorigenic features and astroglial lineage entry[@b34]. As a target gene of miR-107[@b35], miR-204-5p[@b10] and miR-23b[@b13], Notch2 may also regulate cell migration and tumour invasion. In particular, Notch2 may negatively regulate cell invasion by inhibiting the PI3K-Akt signalling pathway in gastric cancer[@b36]. In salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma tissues, Notch2 may target HEY2 and CCND1 to regulate cell proliferation, invasion, and migration. Furthermore, the loss of the Notch pathway was shown to promote the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in bladder cancer cells, which was partially mediated by the loss of HES1[@b16]. Moreover, Notch2 activation by ZER inhibits its proapoptotic and anti-migratory response in breast cancer cells[@b37]. However, the mechanisms governing the role of Notch2 in ESCC have not been reported, and further studies are necessary to elucidate these cellular processes.
In conclusion, Notch2 is up-regulated in ESCC tissue compared to matched paracancerous tissue, and its overexpression could serve as a promising biomarker to identify individuals with poor prognostic potential.
Methods
=======
Patient recruitment and data collection
---------------------------------------
Thirty pairs of ESCC and paracancerous tissue from patients were collected from October 2014 to March 2015 from Qilu Hospital of Shandong University. In addition, 140 FFPE cancer tissue samples from patients who underwent subtotal esophagectomy and esophagogastric anastomosis plus regional lymph node dissection in Qilu Hospital during 2009 were collected. Because 25 patients were lost to follow-up, we included 115 cases in the prognostic analysis. All cases were pathologically confirmed as ESCC. Patients did not receive chemotherapy or radiotherapy before surgery. We obtained the relevant data, including age, sex, smoking and drinking habits, histologic grade, invasion depth (T stage), lymph node metastasis (N stage), distant metastasis (M stage), differentiation degree and number of dissected lymph nodes, from clinical or pathologic records. The tumour, node, metastasis (TNM) classification was performed according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer staging manual (7th edition, 2010). The study protocol was approved by the ethics boards of Qilu Hospital, and tissue specimen acquisition was performed in accordance with the institutional guidelines. The written informed consent was obtained from all subjects.
Culture of ESCC cell lines
--------------------------
Two established human ESCC cell lines (Eca109 and Eca9706) were used for this study. Both of the two cell lines were cultured in RPMI 1640 (Gibco BRL, Gaithersburg, MD) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS, Gibco), 100 U/ml penicillin G and streptomycin in a 37 °C incubator with humidified atmosphere and 5% CO~2~.
Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR)
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Surgical specimens were processed immediately after surgery. Total RNA was extracted from tissues using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, USA) according to the manufacturer's protocol. Complementary DNA (cDNA) was generated using qPCR RT Kit (Toyobo, Osaka, Japan) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Primers were made by Sangon Biotech (Sangon Biotech, Shanghai, China). The primer sequences were as follows: Notch2 Forward primer: 5′-GGGACCCTGTCATACCCTCT-3′ and Reverse primer: 5′-GAGCCATGCTTACGCTTTCG-3′; β-actin Forward primer:5′-CAAAGGCCAACAGAGAGAAGAT-3′ and Reverse primer: 5′-TGAGACACACCATCACCAGAAT-3′. PCR was performed at 95 °C for 1 min and 40 cycles of 95 °C for 15 s, 58 °C for 15 s and 72 °C for 45 s. Notch2 expression was quantified using a Bio-Rad Single Color Real-Time PCR system (Bio-Rad, Hercules, California, USA) and calculated according to the mathematical model R = 2^−ΔΔCT^, where ΔCT = CT~Notch2~ − CT~β-actin~, and ΔΔCT = ΔCT~test~ −ΔCT~control~. All RT-PCRs were performed in triplicate, and the data are presented as the mean ± SD.
IHC staining
------------
All fresh specimens were collected during surgery, fixed with 10% formalin and embedded in paraffin. The FFPE cancerous tissues from 2009 were collected from the Department of Pathology of Qilu Hospital. These tissues were cut as 4-mm serial sections. Following deparaffinization with xylene and rehydration, the sections were retrieved in 10 mM citrate buffer. Then, incubation in 3% H~2~O~2~ in methanol for 20 min at room temperature was used to block the endogenous peroxidase enzyme activity. The slides were then incubated with primary rabbit anti-Notch2 polyclonal antibody (1:100, Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA) overnight at 4 °C in a high humidity chamber, followed by incubation for 30 min at 37 °C with biotinylated secondary antibodies and streptavidin-peroxidase complex. Finally, a 3,3′-diaminobenzidine solution was added, and the slides were counterstained with haematoxylin and mounted with neutral balsam. For negative controls, sections were incubated with PBS instead of the primary antibodies.
The sections were observed under a light microscope and independently scored by three investigators. Conflicting scores were resolved by selecting the value that was consistent between two observers or the average of the scores. The final score was determined by multiplying the staining intensity (scored as: 0, no staining; 1, weak staining; 2, moderate staining and 3, strong staining) by the percentage of positive cells (scored as: 0, 0--10% positive cells; 1, 10--25% positive cells; 2, 26--50% positive cells; 3, 51--75% positive cells; and 4, 76--100% positive cells). The final staining score was the sum of the staining intensity and percentage of positive cells, and it was further graded as follows: 0--1, (−); 2--3, (+); 4--5, (++); and 6--7, (+++). The expression of Notch2 was divided into a non-overexpressed group (− or +) and an overexpressed group (++ or +++).
Protein extraction and western blot
-----------------------------------
Protein was extracted from tissues. Tissues were pestled in liquid nitrogen and added to RIPA Lysis Buffer (50 mM Tris, 150 mM NaCl, 1% Triton X-100, 1% sodium deoxycholate, 0.1% SDS, sodium orthovanadate, sodium fluoride, EDTA, leupeptin) and PMSF (Phenylmethanesulfonyl fluoride, Beyotime,China), that the ratio is 100:1. Protein extracts were electrophoresed on 10% SDS polyacrylamide gels and transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. Membranes were blocked with 5% non-fat dried milk and incubated overnight with an appropriate primary Notch2 antibody (1:1,000, Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA) and β-actin antibody (1:1,000, Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA). Then, horseradish peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibodies were added. Bands were subsequently visualized using a chemiluminescence detection system (EMD Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA) and density was determined using an image analyzer. β-actin was used to ensure equivalent protein loading.
Transfection
------------
The Eca 109 and EC 9706 cells were transfected with specific Notch2 shRNA (Genechem, Shanghai, China) for 72 h using Lipofectamine™ reagent in serum-free 1640 medium according to the manufacture's instruction. The multiplicity of infection was 20 for Eca 109, and 40 for EC 9706 cells. Untreated cells were used as a negative control. The efficacy of transfection was tested by qRT-PCR and western blot.
CCK8 assay
----------
The Eca 109 and EC 9706 cells proliferation was detected using 2-(4-indophenyl)-3-(4-nitrophenyl)-5-(2,4-disulphophenyl)-2 Htetrazolium monosodium salt (cell counting kit-8 (CCK8)). After transfection, the logarithmically growing cells were seeded in 96-well plates at a cell density of 5 × 10^4^/well and incubated for 0, 24, 48, and 72 h. At different time intervals, the cells were incubated with CCK8 reagent for 1 h at 37 °C. The absorbance of each well was measured at 450 nm using Thermo Scientific Varioskan Flash (Thermo Scientific, Finland). Percentage of viable cells = (OD450 of treated sample −OD450 of blank sample)/(OD450 of control sample −OD450 of blank sample) ×100%. The results shown were mean values of three independent experiments.
Clonogenic assay
----------------
Clonogenic assay was also used to evaluate the function of Notch2. Transfected cells were trypsinized to generate a single cell suspension and seeded in 6-well plates at 500 cells per well. 14 days after seeding, colonies were stained with crystal violet, and the number of colonies containing at least 50 cells was counted. The colony survival fraction was calculated for each treatment.
Statistical analysis
--------------------
The difference in the Notch2 mRNA and protein level between cancerous and paired paracancerous tissues, as well as difference in Notch2 level, OD450 value and colony formation between shRNA-Notch2 and control group was compared using a paired Student's t-test. The chi-square test was used to test the correlation between Notch2 expression and clinicopathological factors. The Kaplan--Meier method was used to calculate the survival curves, and the log-rank test was used to compare the survival difference between patient subgroups. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to identify significant independent prognostic factors. The ROC-AUC was also provided for the Cox regression models. AUC values are calculated for each of the adjusted models to illustrate the predictive ability of the independent variables. Differences between groups were considered significant for *P* values \< 0.05. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 17.0 statistical software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
Additional Information
======================
**How to cite this article**: Wang, C. *et al*. Notch2 as a promising prognostic biomarker for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma. *Sci. Rep.* **6**, 25722; doi: 10.1038/srep25722 (2016).
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81572958).
**Author Contributions** W.C. and C.Y.F conceived and designed the experiments. W.C., L.Q.B., L.F., C.X., L.B.W., H.L.H., W.X.T. and T.B.X. performed the experiments and analysed the data. All authors helped with the writing, review, and approval of this paper for submission.
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###### Quantification of the expression of Notch2 in cancerous and paracancerous tissues via IHC staining.
Group n Overexpression (n) Overexpression rate (%) χ^2^ *P*value
---------------------- ---- -------------------- ------------------------- ------- ----------
Cancerous tissue 30 19 63.3% 8.148 0.004
Paracancerous tissue 30 8 26.7%
Abbreviation: IHC, immunohistochemical.
###### The correlation of ESCC clinicopathologic variables with Notch2 expression in FFPE cancerous tissues.
Clinicopathological features Notch2 overexpression *P*^a^ value
------------------------------ ----------------------- -------------- -------
Age 0.530
\<65 30 31
≥65 26 28
Gender 0.454
Female 25 28
Male 31 31
Smoking 0.381
No 45 45
Yes 11 14
Drinking 0.209
No 40 47
Yes 16 12
Differentiation 0.066
Well 27 21
Moderate 10 22
Poor 19 16
T stage 0.363
T1 10 5
T2 17 25
T3 20 19
T4 9 10
N stage 0.323
N0 23 24
N1 11 16
N2 11 14
N3 11 5
TNM stage 0.238
I 19 15
II 9 17
III 28 27
*P*^a^: Chi-square test. Abbreviation: FFPE, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded.
###### Univariate and multivariate analyses of prognostic variables.
Variable OS Univariate analysis OS Multivariate analysis PFS Univariate analysis PFS Multivariate analysis
---------------------------------------------- ------------------------ -------------------------- ------------------------- --------------------------- ---------------------- ---------
Gender (Male vs. Female) 0.880 0.796 (0.494--1.281) 0.347 0.807 0.816 (0.530--1.257) 0.357
Age (\<65 vs. ≥65) 0.656 0.839 (0.504--1.396) 0.498 0.676 0.892 (0.565--1.407) 0.622
Smoking (Yes vs. No) 0.497 1.226 (0.655--2.292) 0.524 0.922 0.994 (0.557--1.774) 0.985
Drinking (Yes vs. No) 0.105 1.222 (0.643--2.324) 0.541 0.134 1.230 (0.682--2.217) 0.491
T stage (T3 and T4 vs. T1 and T2) \<0001\* 1.430 (1.094--1.869) 0.009\* 0.002 1.489 (1.154--1.922) 0.002\*
N stage (N2 and N3 vs. N0 and N1) 0.001\* 1.442 (1.122--1.853) 0.004\* 0.001\* 1.308 (1.042--1.643) 0.021\*
Differentiation (Well vs. Moderate and Poor) 0.079 0.881 (0.655--1.184) 0.402 0.100 0.946 (0.725--1.235) 0.682
Notch2 (Overpression vs. nonexpression) 0.013\* 2.266 (1.367--3.756) 0.002\* 0.006\* 2.160 (1.374--3.396) 0.006\*
Abbreviations: OS, overall survival; PFS, progression-free survival; CI: confidence interval.
|
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Men clinch curling gold
The United States won its first gold medal in Olympic curling, beating Sweden 10-7. After starting 2-4, the U.S. won its last five games. With the win, the U.S. earned a medal in its 11th different sport in Pyeongchang. Eleven medals sets a record for any nation at a single Winter Olympics. It was also the U.S.’ ninth gold medal in Pyeongchang, which matches the U.S.’ total from each of the last three Winter Olympics. Curling fever caught on in the U.S., and despite the late start, curling was the top trending hashtag in the U.S. on Twitter, and Shuster was second.
The match was close from the start. The lead changed three times. However, the U.S. sealed the game by scoring five points in the eighth end. Skip John Shuster, playing in his fourth Olympics, used his final shot to remove two Swedish stones from the house, leaving five American stones and clinching the win.
Primetime spotlight
Ester Ledecka made history winning the snowboarding women’s parallel giant slalom. She becomes the first woman to win gold in two different sports at the same Winter Olympics. Exactly one week after shocking everyone by winning the super-G, Ledecka won in her better sport. She is the third athlete ever, and first since 1928, to accomplish the feat.
Two events made their Olympic debut: men’s big air and the Alpine team event. American Kyle Mack took home the silver in the debut of the men’s big air. Canada’s Sebastien Toutant won the gold. Americans Chris Corning and Red Gerard finished fourth and fifth, respectively. In an event where everyone was using their big tricks to get 1600s, Mack used style and finesse to win the silver.
The men’s 1000m speed skating final was on display. Kjeld Nuis won his second gold medal of the 2018 Games. It marks a comeback for Nuis, who dealt with psychological hurdles (anxiety and nerves) earlier in his career that caused him to miss the 2010 and 2014 Games. He worked with a sports psychologist, which helped him have a strong showing in Pyeongchang. It marks the seventh speed skating gold medal for the Netherlands.
South Korean Kim Tae-Yun earned the bronze medal. The home crowd advantage was definitely a factor, as medaling was not expected for Kim. He finished 30th in Sochi and has not been a factor at international events. Norway’s Havard Lorentzen, the 500m gold medalist, took home the silver.
American Joey Mantia just missed out on the podium, finishing fourth. Teammate Mitch Whitmore finished tenth. It is likely the last race for the three-time Olympian. Shani Davis finished seventh overall, in what is likely his last race. He is a two-time gold medalist but knows making the Olympics in four years at the age of 39 would be challenging.
Sweden won its first-ever men’s 4x7.5 relay in the men’s biathlon event. It all came down to the final shooting range, where Fredrik Lindstroem managed to avoid the gusting wind and have a clean shoot. The team of Peppe Femling, Jesper Nelin, Sebastian Samuelsson and Lindstroem won by 55.5 seconds over Norway. Norway’s silver medal was its 37th medal of the Games, which tied the U.S. record of 37 in Vancouver.
Exactly one week after winning gold in the super-G, Ledecka won in her primary sport. Unlike last time, her gold isn’t a huge upset. She is the No. 1 ranked athlete in women’s parallel giant slalom. She qualified with the fastest time, then won four straight head-to-head races to win gold.
Big air debut
Canada’s Sebastien Toutant won the snowboarding big air event in its Olympic debut. Everyone thought a Canadian would win, but they thought it would be Max Parrot or Mark McMorris. The big air gold was Canada’s first gold medal in snowboarding at these Games.
The U.S. contingent was all considered medal contenders heading into the event. Kyle Mack ended up winning silver, his first Olympic medal. Unlike some competitors who went for the biggest spins, Mack used stylish and creative grabs on his tricks to earn a combined score of 168.75 for silver.
In the final, each of the 12 riders had three attempts to try a trick. The worst score would be tossed, and the top two scores combined for a total score. The top two scores for a rider had to come from different tricks, meaning you couldn’t do the same trick over and over.
Toutant put together his winning combo by landing a cab triple cork 1620 on his first run. His second trick was a backside 1620, which ended up being the highest-scoring attempt of the day.
His teammates, Parrot and McMorris, are heavy hitters in the snowboarding world. They have also excelled at the big air event, winning the last five X Games between themselves. Neither favorite could land two solid tricks to put them in medal contention. Parrot and McMorris both leave Pyeongchang with silver and bronze medals, respectively, in the snowboarding slopestyle event.
Mack did not attempt 1620s like most of the other riders. Instead, he embellished two 1440s. On his first jump, he landed a backside triple cork 1440 with a Japan grab. On the following run, he landed a frontside 1440 with a two-handed grab known as a “Bloody Dracula” grab. It was enough to win silver by .75 of a point.
Team USA's Chris Corning finished in fourth. He landed a frontside 1440 melon and a backside triple cork 1440 melon on his first two runs. On his final run, Corning was sitting in fourth, so he knew he had nothing to lose. He went for a backside quad cork 1800. No one else attempted a quad in the contest, but Corning couldn’t lad it cleanly, resulting in him staying put in fourth.
Red Gerard was still flying high after his gold medal in slopestyle. Big air isn’t really his specialty. After flying to the United States and back for a media tour, he put down two solid runs but didn’t have as high of a score because he didn’t try any big tricks.
The U.S. ends Pyeongchang with seven medals in snowboarding. Seven medals is the largest total by a sport for the U.S. The four gold medals in snowboarding is also the best among the Americans.
Alpine team event
Switzerland won the inaugural Alpine team event. Austria claimed the silver, and Norway takes home the bronze.
The team event featured 16 teams of four athletes, with two men and two women. The event is bracket-style: lose and the team is done. It’s a race of head-to-head slalom races.
The U.S. lost to Great Britain in the opening round. Both teams had two points, but the tiebreaker of combined time gave Great Britain the advantage. Megan McJames, Nolan Kasper, Tricia Mangan and David Chodounsky represented the U.S. Many of the top competitors opted out of the team event because they have a world cup race next week in Slovenia.
Germany leads the charge
Germany’s Francesco Friedrich’s sled is in first after the first two runs of the 4-man event. Friedrich could win his second gold after winning gold in the 2-man. The German sled leads by .29 seconds with two runs remaining.
The South Koreans are in a strong position to challenge for Gold. Yunjong Won piloted the sled to second. Nico Walther’s German sled is in third, .35 seconds back of the lead.
Codie Bascue piloted the top American sled. They currently are in ninth place, .53 out of medal contention. Nick Cunningham’s sled is 20th and Justin Olsen’s sled is in 21st for Team USA. Olsen notoriously needed an emergency appendectomy before finishing as the top American sled in the 2-man event.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint
Finland’s Iivo Niskanen won the men’s 50km mass start. He led from the 17km mark and kept the lead for most of the race. He temporarily relinquished it to Alexander Bolshunov, an Olympic Athlete from Russia. The two men were ahead of the pack and in a race of their own from the 17km mark. Ultimately, Niskanen made a decision to change his skies with 8km to go. The change in skies helped give him a boost, and he took back the lead in the final 2km. He crossed the finish line with a time of 2:08:22.1.
Olympic Athlete from Russia Andrey Larkov managed to hold off a pack of four medal favorites to claim the bronze.
American Scott Patterson led the charge for Team USA. He finished 11th overall with a time of 2:13:14.2. It is the 26 year old's best finish of the season. Fellow Americans Noah Hoffman finished in 33rd place, and Tyle Kornfield finished 48th overall. |
Ken (Lakewood CA):
Thanks for the chat. Thinking Hayes may be the Pirate 3B as early as sometime in 2020? Are we realistically looking at a very good glove that hits 10 to 15 HR a year with a .270 to .280 average? Or are the Pirates optimistic his hitting stats can be better than that? Perhaps a better real life player than fantasy?
Tim Williams: Thanks for joining me, and thanks to Baseball America for the opportunity to put this year's list together! I could see Hayes arriving in 2020. I think your assessment is realistic. Hayes will lead the way with his defensive skills. He's got the reactions, range, glove work, and arm strength to be a Gold Glove defender at the position in the majors. He also has a compact, smooth swing that projects for an average in the .270-.280 range or higher. The big variable will be the power. I think it's safe to project 10-15 homers. Hayes also has a lot of room to add muscle to his frame, without losing a lot of defensive value at third. That could jump him up to a 20 home run hitter, which combined with the defense and the hitting, makes him a key figure to follow for the Pirates' future chances at contending.
Tommy (New York):
What is Mojica's upside?
Tim Williams: Alexander Mojica had an impressive season at age 16 in the DSL, hitting for a .351/.468/.580 line with eight homers and a .230 ISO. Those numbers at that age at any level will be eye-opening. They also make Mojica one of my most anticipated guys to watch as he jumps to the US next year. My concern with projecting him right now is the uncertainty with his position. He's at third base now, and can handle the position so far. He does have a thicker frame, which could move him to first base as he grows and fills out. That puts more emphasis on his bat. He's going to either need to show that the bat can provide enough value for first base, or he's going to need to show that he can stick at a more valuable position over the long-term before his upside becomes clear. Right now I just love the offense and the reports we've received on his hitting tools.
Karl of Delaware (Georgetown, Delaware):
Of the pitchers moving up to Greensboro from the short season teams - who are your favorites?
Tim Williams: I love that potential Greensboro rotation next year. The best and most realistic prospect group you could have there would include Tahnaj Thomas, Quinn Priester, Braxton Ashcraft, Michael Burrows, and Santiago Florez. I have all five as top 20 prospects in the system. To answer your question of who I'm most looking forward to, let's just say I might be making the hour drive to Greensboro a LOT next year to see Thomas and Priester. It's rare to see two guys with the makings of top of the rotation stuff at the same level.
Karl of Delaware (Georgetown, Delaware):
Greensboro outfielder Fabricio Macias seems to have had a pretty good bat in 2019 - is he a prospect or an organization guy in your eyes?
Tim Williams: He's more a prospect than an organizational guy, but ultimately a fringe-prospect. I've got his likely upside right now at 30, but there's chance to improve to 35-40 if the bat continues to show positive signs. His defensive skills are strong in center, and drive a lot of his value and future upside right now. I'm a bit skeptical of his 2019 offense, just because he's already played in leagues with players more advanced than who he'd face in Low-A. I want to see what he can do at higher levels.
Zac (NYC):
Is there room for Cruz to advance his hit tool? And if he does, do you think he could become a play-anywhere, top of the order type like DJ LeMahieu (another uncommonly tall infielder)?
Tim Williams: I projected Cruz for right field in 2023. I am not ruling out him sticking in the infield, either at shortstop or third base. I don't think he's going to be a defender who provides positive value at either of those spots. He definitely has the offensive potential to play anywhere. I thought it was interesting that we got a Gregory Polanco comp for Cruz. It's not what you want to hear, based on what Polanco has done so far. It does make sense. They're both highly athletic guys with tons of tools, but some obvious concerns, specifically with their swing length. I think Cruz will hit for power easier than Polanco has done. He does need to find a way to shorten his swing to improve the average and strikeouts, all without losing some of that power. I also see him as more of a middle of the order bat.
Karl of Delaware (Georgetown, Delaware):
Two high draft choices (2nd and 3rd round) Gorski and Fraizer seemed to flounder at short season last year. What do you expect from them this coming season and beyond?
Tim Williams: I wasn't high on Gorski because his profile is not one the Pirates have had success with in the past. He's got plus raw power, but some serious swing and miss issues to his game. The Pirates didn't have success with similar guys in the past. Casey Hughston is the biggest example who comes to mind. Plus raw power/too many strikeouts is a common profile and hard to develop. It will be interesting to see if the Pirates have better results with this type of hitter under Ben Cherington. Fraizer is the opposite end of the spectrum, with plus speed, and gap power upside. The Pirates didn't have good results with mid-round college hitters in general, so once again, we'll see how they do under BC.
Norm C (Connecticut):
Jack Herman seems to be making himself relevant in the lower minors. Did he make the book this year?
Warren (New London):
Jack Herman hit 13 home runs in 265 AB, but 9 of them were in his very friendly home park. How much power does he project to have, and what's the rest of his game like? Will he be in the 30?
Tim Williams: Spoiler alert: He's in the 30. I have the same concerns as you about his power distribution. Nine homers and a .563 slugging at home versus four and .374 on the road. But he was also doing that at age 19 when power isn't the most consistent tool. He has enough speed to play center, and enough arm strength to play right field if he moves to a corner. He added some muscle last offseason to improve his power production, but he also doubled his strikeout rate in the process. He could make it as a fourth outfielder who can play all three spots and hit for power off the bench. He's got plenty of time to improve that upside going forward, but will need to address the concerns above with his power and strikeouts.
Warren (New London):
Mason Martin had a big year after a disappointing 2018. Is he close to the top 10? While Swaggerty and Siani are a lot more athletic, it seems to me that he has a case to be ahead of them.
Tim Williams: I really like the raw power from Martin. He also has a great eye. My concern is that he's gotten too selective in the past, letting some hittable pitches go early in counts to try and crush a pitch later. He worked this year to get more aggressive early in the counts. I'd like to see how that plays out in higher levels, where his eye will really be tested, and there will be fewer pitches to crush. I wouldn't make an argument for Martin over either of those guys yet, but he has the ability to put himself ahead of both of those guys by this time next year.
Chris (Pittsburgh):
Does Yerry de los santos rank in top 30
Tim Williams: Not yet, but he's a great story to follow. Signed in 2014, made his debut in the DSL in 2015, then pitched 27 innings over the next three seasons due to Tommy John and setbacks. He's now sitting 95, reaching upper 90s, and pairing the fastball with a slider that led to a 38% strikeout rate in Low-A this year. He's a future reliever, and a guy who could move quickly through the system next year.
Sean (Pittsburgh):
Does Juan Pie rank in top 30
John (PA):
Where does Juan Pie start the season next year
Tim Williams: I could see Pie starting off in extended Spring Training and moving up to one of the short-season teams by the summer. Right now he's a line drive hitter with average speed and a fringe-average arm. He seems more likely as a left fielder in the future. He hit .231/.314/.347 in the GCL this year, with much better results against lefties than right-handers (Pie is a lefty). He's a lower level project right now who needs to see his power develop.
Dan (SoCal):
Was Jared Oliva close to the list? He looked great in the AFL.
Ke'Bryan Mays Hayes (Queens):
Jared Oliva had a nice year and has got some interesting tools - when and how do you see him contributing at the Major League level, if it all?
Tim Williams: I thought the most apt comp we got for Oliva was Rocco Baldelli. That's perfect for how I see him. He's a guy who can be a good fourth outfielder, can play all three outfield positions, and might even be able to put up a year or two with a WAR around 2.0, making him a good second division starter in those years.
Greg (Rainy Cincinnati):
What are your and your sources opinions about the pirates ability to identify and develop amateur talent as an organization, both historically and going forward, and in comparison to similar market size NL central rivals ? Thanks!
Tim Williams: Historically they have done well to identify talent and to develop them into top prospects. They've had some clear issues with turning top prospects into top players in the majors. That's why Pirates fans cringe every time they hear about Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, and others who are reaching their upsides elsewhere. The new group needs to identify guys like Cole and Meadows in the first round like the old guys. They need to identify fifth round prep sleepers like Glasnow. They need to develop them all to where they're top prospects in the league. But this time they need to make sure the next Cole, Glasnow, Meadows, or anyone else sees their impact MLB production in Pittsburgh.
WTM (Silver Spring, MD):
So if you’re Cherington looking at this right now, what are you thinking?
Tim Williams: This chat? Or this system? If I'm Cherington, I like the upside of the system, but want to add to the depth, as it really falls off in several areas. I'd also want to update the pitching and hitting philosophies throughout the system to modernize them for what we're seeing in today's MLB. And I'd pour all of my efforts into developing that Greensboro rotation. If I'm Cherington looking at this chat, I'd be thinking about how I'm not looking forward to answering all of the development-related questions I have for him over the next year.
Greg (Cincy):
So where do the pirates go from here ? Rebuilding?
Tim Williams: That would be my pick. They're not contenders as it stands right now for 2020, and they're not close. They only have key players like Marte under control for a few more seasons. And they've got a good group of prospects developing in the lower levels. All signs point to their best chance of winning being in the future, with very little chance in the next two years.
Timmy (Work):
Please speculate on the prospect return for trading Taillon.
Tim Williams: He's going to need to return from his second Tommy John surgery and show what kind of value he's got before he can be moved. No sense trading him before he returns.
Murray (Carlsbad, CA):
I'm excited about the new front office. We keep hearing about major leaguers like Marte and Bell being dealt, but can you see Cherington dealing from the farm to bring in different prospects that maybe he's had his eye on while in Toronto? If so, who might be most likely to go?
Tim Williams: Prospect for prospect trades are rare. I could see him turning to the Blue Jays system for some guys. I don't know who he'd target. I do know that the weakest spot in the system is catcher, and he needs to find a way to get a long-term option from some team.
JL (Charlotte):
How long are we going to ride with Stallings as a catcher?
Tim Williams: I think they should go with him splitting time in 2020, along with an upside guy in hopes of finding the next Russell Martin or Francisco Cervelli. Stallings is good managing pitchers, and the Pirates have some young pitchers to work with who can benefit from throwing to him in the next year or two. I don't see them as contenders during this time, so I'd at least give him a year to split as a starter, and keep him as a backup after that.
Mike C. (Lynchburg, Va.):
Thanks for the chat! How much is a concern is Keller's rough big league start last year?
Tim Williams: I'm less concerned after two developments. Number one is that he started throwing his fastball less, and the secondary stuff more. I think he's got the makings of two plus breaking pitches. His new slider already looked like a weapon in his first year using it, and I aggressively graded it as the best slider in the system based on the limited results. I think he's going to benefit most from an updated pitching philosophy. I loved what Ray Searage did in Pittsburgh, but it was clear the last few years that he and the Pirates had fallen behind. In four years the situation went from watching to see who the next reclamation project would be for Searage, to seeing who would be the next pitcher to benefit from leaving Pittsburgh for a more advanced organization. I think Keller will see a big boost with a new philosophy built in. That's coming from someone who has been asking him about his strategy to reduce extreme fastball usage since Keller was in High-A.
Bryan (Illinois):
Can we get a quick blurb on Cal Mitchell, Steven Jennings, and Gage Hinsz?
Tim Williams: Mitchell is my favorite of the three. I see plus raw power and a good hit tool, but he's raw. Jennings hasn't shown much velocity and has been disappointing so far for a high pick. Part of that is due to a broken rib that led to a lot of weight loss. That happened prior to 2018, and his velocity hasn't developed since. Hinsz has seen the worst luck the last few years. He's had shoulder issues, open heart surgery that cost him 2018, and a forearm strain that cost him 2019. He was sitting mid-90s before he went down, while tying to develop his curve into a consistent out pitch. It's hard to say where he's at now, all things considered. I will say that I don't think there's a player who I'm pulling for more to reach the majors after everything he's been through.
Andrew (Atlanta, GA):
Are there any unprotected Rule 5 Pirates Prospects that you could see being taken in the upcoming Rule 5 draft?
Tim Williams: I don't really see any strong chances. They added Blake Cederlind and Cody Ponce, who I thought were fringe guys to be added to the 40-man, and risks to be selected if they weren't added.
Sam (Pittsburgh):
Given the Pirates farm today - could you project a starting lineup of all prospects in, say, 2023-24? Who do you think has realistic shots of being impact players in MLB?
Tim Williams: I could project an all-prospects group, but it wouldn't be very good. The impact guys I see, who could arrive by 2023-24, include Mitch Keller, Ke'Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, and you might even see Tahnaj Thomas and Quinn Priester joining that group in those years. That's a good group for Cherington to improve upon.
Buried in Snow (Duluth):
Lolo Sanchez got dominated in High-A; any thoughts on his 2020 outlook?
Tim Williams: Sanchez is a guy who I really like. A lot of tools, but way too inconsistent. He could have 50 tools or better across the board. He's tried to hit for power too much in the past, taking away from the stronger parts of his game. I think he'd be fine as a speedy, leadoff hitting, defensive center fielder without much power. The focus on improving the power seems to be derailing the rest of his game.
Stephen (Pittsburgh):
As you prepared this list, with whom were you most surprised? Positive or negative. You follow the team closely but I am sure as you took a step back to get the big picture, someone stood out. "Wow, I did not realize this guy is blossoming into someone sneaky good" type observation
Tim Williams: Throughout the season, Tahnaj Thomas was the guy who made the biggest rise on my list. We were high on him heading into the season at Pirates Prospects, but the reports we got throughout the year were enough for me to feel comfortable ranking him ahead of a first round prep pitcher like Quinn Priester. For a deeper sleeper, I really liked what Nick Mears has done this year. I think he's got a shot to be a future late inning reliever in the majors.
John (CT):
What are your thoughts on the catching prospects of the Pirates now that Diaz is gone. I know they will get a free agent, but futures for Jason Delay, Deon Stafford, Grant Koch, Zac Susi and Kyle Wilkie.
Tim Williams: The best guys from that group profile as defensive backups if they reach the majors. I didn't go that deep for my rankings here, but we have Delay, Stafford, and Arden Pabst as 30 upsides, making them more number three catchers out of Triple-A. The Pirates desperately need starting catching prospects throughout their system.
Buried in Snow (Duluth):
Where would Cole Tucker have fit in? Thoughts on his future outlook?
Tim Williams: I'd probably have him in that group with Thomas, Priester, and Bae. I'm still high on him and think he's the shortstop of the future. Better defense and power potential than Kevin Newman, and he's got a good hit tool, with a line drive stroke and good plate patience. As I've said, the Pirates didn't do a good job transitioning top prospects over to the majors. I saw Tucker with average to above-average starting shortstop potential in the past. I want to see if the new group can get him there.
Jacob (Wilmington):
Thoughts on Jasiah Dixon? 2020 starting assignment: short season ball or Greensboro?
Tim Williams: I love the speed and the chance to stick in center field. The offense, in a small sample size, was also nice to see. The old group would have probably pushed him to Greensboro. We'll see if the new group does the same. It might all depend on how he looks throughout Spring Training.
Jim (Louisville, KY):
Travis Swaggerty is coming off a very average year in A+. Has that tempered your expectations from him and what is that you are going to look for most out of him in 2020?
Tim Williams: I haven't been high on Swaggerty. He hasn't lived up to his pre-draft reports. The power isn't there, and there's are some swing and miss concerns that haven't fully shown up in the stats in A-ball. Right now I see him with average starter upside.
Buried in Snow (Duluth):
Any commentary on Kevin Kramer and Pablo Reyes?
Tim Williams: I see Reyes as a utility player, probably less likely than Josh Harrison or Adam Frazier to transition to being a starter. I've been high on Kramer, but he took a step back this year. He's got above-average power for a middle infielder, and good contact skills. He's yet to consistently translate that to games, his numbers declined in a year when the ball was juiced in Triple-A, and the Pirates didn't call him up at the end of the year. I'm not writing him off, but he's got to work his way back into the picture at this point.
Paul Ivice (Jensen Beach, FL):
What do you project the Pirates will get from Blake Cederlind in 2020?
Tim Williams: In 2020 alone? A Triple-A reliever who can hit triple digits, with control issues and the need to improve his out pitch. If he does well enough on those last two things, he could arrive by the end of 2020.
Matt (Pittsburgh):
Do you see Will Craig getting any MLB action this season?
Tim Williams: I could see that happening if Josh Bell gets injured, or for any other reason Bell might not be available. Craig needs the Pirates to trade Bell, or the NL to add the DH in order for him to start in Pittsburgh in the next year or two. I'd go Bell as the DH in that scenario.
Mike (Altoona):
Could you rank Bell, Will Craig and Mason Martin on 20-80 scale on 1B defense? Thanks
Tim Williams: Bell 25, Martin 35, Craig 50.
Buried in Snow (Duluth):
Who's the best hope for a future .300/.400/.500 line in the system? Not seeing many well-balanced offensive profiles here - any hope on the horizon?
Tim Williams: Josh Bell, if we're including current MLB players. Oneil Cruz, if we're not.
Possum (Connecticut):
Tim, What’s your gut feeling on how the management changes and the de-emphasis on pitch-to-contact will impact the development of the pitchers in the Top 10?
Tim Williams: It's going to be an interesting look, because we'll see how it plays out across a lot of levels. Keller in the majors, Bolton in the upper minors, Thomas and Priester in the lower levels. The strength of this organization is pitching, and it will only help to modernize the pitching approach. I think that should be the biggest priority, considering the makeup of the system.
Coach (New England):
Nice to see them cleaning house and making changes. My son is in organization and I hear of the concerns first hand. Have they hired a new director on the minor league system, and if so what are your thoughts of him.
Tim Williams: They just hired Steve Sanders from the Blue Jays to be the new assistant GM. He oversaw a lot of big improvements to the farm system in Toronto, and it sounds like he'll be playing a big role here.
Joel Martin (Hamilton, Ontario):
What did you make of the Pirates AFL selections? Oliva was obviously a star. Beau Sulser has put together two solid seasons in the minors. Do you think he has the stuff to be in Pittsburgh in the next year or so?
Tim Williams: I think he could make it as a depth option, but his upside is limited to middle relief at best until he becomes more than a finesse pitcher. Oliva's performance was encouraging. Nick Mears was another encouraging guy with his performance carrying over strong from the end of the regular season.
Jake hurts (FL):
So many good middle infielders in the system. Where do you see tucker starting the year possibly MLB? And once he’s up where does Newman go? Also Cruz makes to many errors at short but his bat is amazing and you hVe bae coming up behind them also what you have on Alemais feel like he’s always hurt. Let’s say if he were to produce better power numbers and bat in his .280 like he did with altoona are we looking at someone that can take a job? In the upper levels? Where does he start the year? Coming off an injury.?
Tim Williams: My projection for the future is Tucker at short, Newman at second, and Cruz in the outfield. Alemais has the best defense of the group, but I question if he'll hit enough to be more than a September callup at best.
Oneil Cruz (The Unicorn!):
Thanks for chatting with us today. My collection of tools might be one of the most exciting in all of minor league baseball. After proving I could more than hold my own in AA to end the 2019 season, are scouts more convinced that I can make my long levers work? Do you see me as a potential massive breakout prospect that could rocket all the way into the top 10 prospects in all of baseball if I continue to put everything together offensively and defensively in 2020?
Tim Williams: So many Oneil Cruz questions.
Alex (Pitt):
Oneil Cruz has been lauded for his 80 raw power but has had trouble getting to it consistently in games due to his large frame and long swing. He showed the ability to tap into that power more in HiA in 2019. What does he have to do to continue to evolve into one of the truly elite prospects in baseball in 2020?
Tim Williams: You guys are excited about him. And it's easy to see why.
Matt (PA):
Everyone knows about Oneil Cruz's incredible raw power for someone that is built more like an NBA SF. However, what % of scouts are believers in his bat and that he can consistently tap into that power as he matures. It was quite encouraging to see him sine in HiA and hold his own after being promoted to AA as a still raw 20 year old. Do you think he's on the cusp of putting everything together and exploding in 2020?
Tim Williams: I saved all of these questions for the end, because I am also excited by Oneil Cruz's upside, but also have some concerns.
Oneil Cruz Fan (Pitt):
Oneil Cruz showed he could make his long levers work in his first taste of full season ball in 2018. He continued to build on that in 2019 and climbed all the way to AA. I'm cautiously optimistic he's on the brink of putting everything together and becoming an uber prospect in 2020. Am I crazy?
Tim Williams: So we'll wrap this up with a final answer on Cruz. He's the toughest guy to evaluate and project in my 11 seasons covering the Pirates. He's got the best raw power in the system. He's the most athletic player in the system. He might have a shot at playing the infield, but that's a luxury. It won't be a problem for his bat to play in right field. The issue with Cruz is that he's such a high beta prospect. He could be a star, or he could wash out in the upper levels due to issues with a longer swing. Honestly, I comfortably project him as a future MLB player. The tools are just too good for him to totally bust. The question I have is: How good can he be? I think this is another Gregory Polanco situation, where if Cruz disappoints in the majors, it's because he's an average starter at best, and not an impact player like everyone hopes. But I love his chances at being an impact guy. I see Pedro Alvarez power and Gregory Polanco's athleticism (without the awkward looking plays that happen too often), plus the downsides that come with Polanco's long levers. If he can improve that last aspect, the first two will take him far. Thanks so much for the chat everyone! |
Standing in a metal bar just three days after Trump’s election, the American flag should’ve been a clear sign that the show I was at was about to get weird.
The place was a stickered and dimly lit dive where I’d gone for the first time to see a friend’s band. Over the course of a life lived in metal, I’d set foot in hundreds of places just like it. That night, I’d worn my battle gear: Earth trucker-hat, Mayhem t-shirt, black hoodie. My wife was out of town for work. With my son babysat, I’d be good until midnight.
Uncommonly warm out, it still felt like winter. Daily life was poised and tense.
The day before the show, at a nearby café, my wife and I had argued with a vocal Trump-supporter; a debonair man with a coif of white hair who’d been airing his views to a wary barista. The encounter between us banked steeply on rage when the man turned to me, telling me to, “Fuck off.”
The American flag, which was massively draped behind the small stage where the band would perform, didn’t mean anything out of sorts on the surface.
I do live in Louisiana. The American flag, in some parts of New Orleans, is as common as the Fleur-de-lis. And anyway, metal has always been playful. It’s forever reclaiming and repurposing symbols to augment its thematic ends.
Psychedelic black metal band Wolves in the Throne Room play in front of black banners with twisted trees on them not because they’re sylvan kings enacting the rites of some Wicker Man-cult; they’re organic farmers from Washington state cultivating an aura of terrified awe. It’s a given that some bands step over the line such as black metal veterans, Taake, from Norway, who were hounded by scandal in 2007 when singer Hoest appeared on stage with a swastika painted on his chest.
Hoest’s public response to the blowup was weak-sauce. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “we are definitely not Nazis. We only used that symbol as another symbol for evil. The usual symbols, the pentagram and inverted cross, don’t invoke reactions anymore.”
While his antics were risky, in terrible taste, they were also fairly par for course.
As a Jew and a liberal, I keep this in mind whenever I engage with metal. Nine times out of ten, metal’s appropriation of certain kinds of charged imagery or ideology isn’t meant to preach or indoctrinate so much as to shock, to immerse in aesthetics. Bowie had his “Thin White Duke” years, and Joy Division—well, just look.
The band started up. To be honest, they rocked: like Queens of the Stone Age trade bong-rips with Melvins while Hawkwind and Trouble look on, nodding sagely.
Ignoring the flag, I bobbed my head.
A few songs in the band’s leader singer, a dark-haired, rangy guy with a handlebar ‘stache, started spouting some shit about how psyched he was about the events of the last couple days. “Things are finally going our way for once!” he announced.
There might’ve been a few thin claps.
Then the singer followed that with something about how anyone who disagreed with him was welcome to come take it up with him out in the parking lot.
I felt myself growing acutely aware of a frown on my face that I couldn’t control; of the way I was standing, hips awkwardly canted and not at all sure what to do with my hands; of my visibly Semitic features.
I grew paranoid, quickly.
Was it on me to show my dissent and walk out? Or was it on me to stand there and bear witness? Or wasn’t I maybe just overreacting, still tender from Election Night, hurt and appalled and unsure of the future?
These guys were hardly neo-Nazis; one of them was my close friend. So maybe a few of them voted for Trump. That’s not a crime, and not my business.
But the singer’s announcement had filled me with dread.
Because even though playing against stars-and-stripes in this or any other age is a far cry from slapping on Swastika chest-paint, in the wake of his words the flag felt charged, like the sinister ensign of some new world order.
It’s a feeling I’d imagine that many Americans of color have experienced for generations. Yet that moment of dread in the club was my first. And—I cringe at my naivete—it shocked me.
Thanks in no little part to a few speedy beers, I remained where I was through the band’s final song. A few minutes later my buddy came out and immediately made a beeline for me.
My son, two-and-a-half, and his, three, are best friends.
“Thanks for coming, brother,” he said. We shook hands. “Sorry about the rant.”
With an hour of paid babysitting to spare, I went for a solo cocktail to chill out. On my way to the bar two college girls passed me, assessed me as friendly and called back: “Fuck trump!” They’d also been drinking. “Fuck Trump, right?”
I might’ve over-compensated. “Double fuck him!” I called back.
As a left-leaning hesher, that night at the bar is far from the only FMS (Fraught Metal Situation) I’ve experienced.
I recently went to see Taake play live at a club not unlike where I saw my friend’s band. Before going to see most metal bands, especially black metal bands from Norway, I always try to do my research.
What are the band’s politics? Hmm: not great. Are they not-great enough that their music rocks less?
If the answer is yes, then I probably won’t go.
With Taake, I was on the verge, especially given the Swastika story, but then I saw another pic that, frankly, put that one to shame. It’s a photo of lead-singer Hoest in corpse-paint on stage at some show shrieking into the mike. He’s wearing black jeans full of holes. His cock-and-balls poke out the bottom. It’s perhaps the most un-metal pose in existence—certainly far from the “evil” Hoest courts, like so many “trve kvlt” black metal outfits: Darkthrone, Emperor, Carpathian Forest.
“Trve kvlt” (read: true kevelt, which now that I write it sounds passably Yiddish) is the truest iteration of the black metal sound and the amoral, blasphemous lifestyle that girds it, like a Euro-centric version of Original Gangster.
But the dic-pic allowed me to go to the show with what would amount to a mostly clean conscience; it was far too absurd to be actually threatening—anyway I told myself.
Live, Taake was fucking awesome. No Swastikas and veiled hate-speech, just tremolo riffage, blast-beats and death-shrieking. Withered and shirtless, in runny corpse-paint, wind-milling their hair, Taake looked the part, too.
“Those opening bands look like they just spent twelve hours on a tour bus,” said the friend who I’d gone to the show with that night, “but Taake looks like they just emerged from a fucking fissure in the earth.”
They were dyed-in-the-wool, “trve kvlt” black metal.
But I couldn’t escape a post-show shame that that ignoble dick-pic of Hoest had excused him; that by going to see the band play live, by paying them tribute and, partially, money, I’d been somehow complicit in what the band stood for, even if it wasn’t clear.
I felt like a coward, a self-hating Jew.
And maybe in some way I’m both, given what I’ve always known: retrograde views are no stranger to metal.
I don’t know really why they are or why, to this day, they continue to be.
It might have something to do with the fact that the aesthetics and thematic content of many metal bands are so strongly allied with the hateful and macabre side of life, they embrace bigotry as a natural extension. Or, that the scene as a whole is so protective of its philosophical mandate to “freedom”—living your life on your terms, will or nil—that even the most outre views get a pass, though encouraging hate based on gender, sexual orientation or race is probably the least rebel stance I can think of. Or simply because, like many subcultures, metal tends toward tribalism; the largely white, male crowds at shows and in the studio together is how it’s been these many years and metal is partial to keeping it that way.
Whatever the cause, it’s a thing in the scene.
And not just black metal, the genre’s “extreme,” where avowed neo-Nazi Varg Vikernes of Burzum (released from prison in 2010 where he was serving a 16-year jail sentence for murder) was convicted in 2014 of publishing bigoted attacks against Jews and Muslims on his blog. Or where Jan Axel Blomburg, the drummer of Mayhem, has been quoted as saying, ““I’ll put it this way, we don’t like black people [in Norway] Black metal is for white people.” Blomburg’s sentiments have been echoed by New Orleans’ own Phil Anselmo (formerly of Pantera, currently Down and Superjoint Ritual), who in March of 1995 at a Pantera show in Montreal went on a whackadoo rant wherein he claimed that while “Pantera are not a racist band,” it rubbed him the wrong way when rappers “[pissed] all over white culture,” and that white people in general need to take more pride in what unites them. “Tonight,” he said, presumably referring to the show itself, “is a white thing.” And as early as 2016, at a festival appearance with Down, Anselmo threw up a Nazi salute while yelling, “White Power!” Anselmo’s subsequent defense of his actions, although less adamant than Hoest of Taake’s, was on some level more telling when it comes to metal’s philosophy of equal-opportunity misanthropy.
“There’s plenty of fuckers to pick on with a more realistic agenda,” he said. “I fucking love everyone, I fucking loathe everyone, and that’s that.”
Though in interviews Anselmo has been justifiably cagey about who he supported in the 2016 presidential election, Slayer vocalist Tom Araya has made his alliance with Trumpism clear. When he’s not making jokes about Mike Pence’s gay conversion therapy “turning fruits into vegetables,” Araya has been working hard at policing anti-Trump sentiment among his fans. “…I never would have guessed there were so many snowflakes commenting their distaste for the new president,” Araya said.
For a band that in its early days adopted an unwashed, go-fuck-yourself stance toward the Reagan administration, Araya’s pronouncements are deeply ironic. Because, in spite of campaign bluster selling Trump as the anti-establishment pick, Trump is the establishment. Always has been. Just as America long has clung fast to hetero-normative, patriarchal, white supremacy. You can’t rebel against what is by failing to recognize what always has been.
But politics aren’t uniform, especially among band-mates; case in point my drummer-friend, who’s got no love for “45.” Which is why heavy metal’s are hard to pin down.
Slayer guitarist Kerry King, as vital to Slayer’s legend-status as Araya, has publicly called Trump “a sideshow,” “the biggest liar I’ve ever seen in politics.”
And politics and taste are seldom mutually exclusive.
I swear by the movies of Roman Polanksi. Roald Dahl’s twisted novels are dear to my heart. H.P. Lovecraft intrigues me—like, really intrigues me, to the point where I’ve written Lovecraftian stories and more than one essay debating his legacy. R. Kelly’s “Ignition” is pure sunny joy. Joseph Conrad was a genius.
A lot of the time, I’m content to acknowledge what makes the artist problematic, confront where these views show themselves in the work, and once I have to journey past it. Indeed, there can even be something rewarding in grappling with fucked-up art, because when you’re done grappling, you’ve earned your enjoyment,
My ongoing quest to interrogate metal has now become a book I’m writing.
It’s a homoerotic black metal crime novel that alludes to The Great Gatsby’s plot architecture, except in my book the doomed lovers are men. In it, a New Orleans-based black metal band’s front-man has been murdered. All the surviving band member’s are suspects. The bassist, who’s also the novel’s narrator—a nerdy Jew not unlike me when I was in my early 20’s—is arrested at first for committing the crime, but released when the evidence turns circumstantial. Working against a grand jury indictment, he finds himself caught in the role of detective; he must find out who killed his friend before the DA can arrest him again and make the gruesome charges stick.
If I’m doing it right, not only will the novel be steeped in the wrathful iciness of black metal music and culture but it will also seek to interrogate and subvert that same music and culture by putting it in conflict with its more extreme viewpoints. Thus, the inclusion of characters who in real life have traditionally existed on the outskirts of the scene, yet have always been there. In my novel, an African-American keyboardist, a woman guitarist, gender-queer men, and a whole bunch of Jews. And, because it’s set in post-Katrina New Orleans, specifically the hyper-gentrifying Bywater neighborhood with its legions of crusties and hipsters on fixies displacing the folks who have lived there for decades, the novel will also seek to reckon with the roles of, well, people like me in changing New Orleans in unforeseen ways.
In these many respects, it’s a personal novel and draws heavily from my life as I’ve lived it.
I grew up in San Diego, an experience I’ve often likened to trying to adhere to a slick windowpane. As my wife who grew up there as well likes to say: “There isn’t any there-there, really.” (Perhaps that’s why I’ve landed here, where the “there-there” is nothing if not unmistakable) Whatever San Diego lacks, in the 90’s it had an amazing punk-scene; Three Mile Pilot, Drive Like Jehu, Heroin, Antioch Arrow, The Locust, Run For Your Fucking Life, Cattle Decapitation, Durga —all of them from San Diego. All, together, forged its sound. As a teen, I grew addicted to it.
Most weekends, there was a show and I usually made it my business to be there.
In his mesmerizing essay for Defiant, “Punching Nazis Totally Works,” Darien Cavanaugh uses the frame of the Richard Spencer Inauguration Day-face punch to interrogate his own experience physically combatting Nazi-punks in the Florida hardcore scene. “It took several years of fighting,” Cavanaugh writes, “but we had created a safer?—?though still not perfect?—?space for our community. Yes, we used violence, but that violence was already there. We simply redirected it back at the source until the source relented and the violence dissipated.”
While there might’ve been the occasional skirmish between red-laces (non-racist) and white-laces (racist) skinheads at the local coffee shop, or minor dust-ups in the pit, not to mention a scene that, while culturally diverse, in gender makeup skewed toward men, San Diego’s hardcore/metal/punk scene was pretty progressive. It was mostly, already, the kind of safe space that Cavanaugh had to punch dudes to carve out. Indeed, upon asking a friend from back in the day if he could recall any shitty behavior toward women or queer folk or people of color, all that came to mind was that “one metal band who came through—you know, the one from Louisiana with the super-misogynistic lyrics who we hotboxed your Volvo with?”
My friend was referring to the band Soilent Green, who came to San Diego in 1999 as part of the Relapse Records Contamination Tour.
Though Soilent Green is now defunct, their legacy in New Orleans metal lives on. They’re part of a tightly knit scene of sludge bands (the signature New Orleans sound) that includes Down, Crowbar, Corrosion of Conformity, Superjoint Ritual, and genre-titans Eyehategod. Among them, there’s pervasive incest. Jimmy Bower, for instance, has played drums in Crowbar and Down, and guitar in Eyehategod and Superjoint Ritual, while Soilent Green and Eyehategod share guitarist Brian Patton. Sludge metal, like anything made in New Orleans, really has its own thing going: enormous blues riffs that could be used for fracking vie with punk breakaways under heavy distortion.
It’s like smoking a blunt overlooking a swamp when—buzzkill!—your toes get chewed off by a gator.
Though these days the O.G. sludge-maestros are scarce, there’s a host of new bands on the scene just as awesome. Mountain of Wizard, Fat Stupid Ugly People, Thou, Mehenet, Barghest (from Baton Rouge) and sui generis Cauche Mar (who have to be seen to be believed) are just some of the new generation of bands who I strong-arm myself to come out for on week-nights. Much like in San Diego, the scene in New Orleans seems fine, at a glance. Predictably, it skews toward men, and most of those you see are white. But the treacherously provocative and exuberantly un-PC nihilism of Soilent Green, Eyehategod and Anselmo’s side-projects have drained into something that’s more self-aware—more attuned to the vast, tangled web of our world.
Which isn’t to say Eyehategod still don’t rock.
I saw them play live for the first time, in fact, just a few months ago at a benefit show for the singer Mike “IX” Williams, who recently had a liver transplant. The festival-bill, several days in duration, read like some hesher cream-dream of New Orleans metal: Goatwhore, Down, Crowbar, Superjoint Ritual, Thou and, that night, Eyehategod. I’d gone to the show with two buddies of mine, one of them the drummer from the band at the dive.
We all had drinks and shot the shit.
The show, at a venue on St. Claude, was packed. Masses of metal t-shirts swarmed the curb; we took our place among the throng. We’d been talking about the Muslim ban, which all of us thought was an inhumane mess when our talk shifted gears, naturally, to Anselmo, his “white power” statements and Nazi salute.
Superjoint Ritual with Anselmo on vocals was just about to take the stage.
“If he tries to pull any of that bullshit tonight,” said the other friend I’d come with, “I’ll probably walk out.”
Like the Hydra or Cerberus, Cthulhu or Kraken, metal is a complex beast—an obliterating force of art that sometimes oversteps what’s just. With fascism on every tongue, vigilance starts to feel that much more urgent. Symbols, language—these things matter, even when they’re half in earnest, or yelled in a mic when you’re half in the bag. In particular now with Jewish graves being toppled, immigrant families ripped apart, trans people, already afraid for their lives, being gradually stripped of the merest protections—when a sitting, U.S. Congressman, Iowa’s Steve King, can publicly air that “demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
In a recent essay for the A.V. Club, “Metal Music Still Has an Unaddressed Nazi Problem,” David Anthony writes: “…at a time when fascism and Nazism aren’t just things kids play with for shock value—when they are, hard as it is to believe, actual growing concerns here in America and abroad—metal bands should no longer get a pass on this stuff.”
I believe we can take this resolve a step further.
We never choose the art that grips us. What we can choose, however, is how to discern it—how to reclaim that art when it outright rejects us, or rejects how we’re trying to be in this world. Just as metal embraces ideas and aesthetics that may drive us outside ourselves, it’s up to us to reclaim metal, to make it our own in a manner that suits us. And the first step toward this is acknowledging our complicity in a genre of art that can be indefensible.
I’m a Jew and a lefty, a feminist and an activist. I’m the husband of a woman progressive faith leader.
I’m also a head-banging, weed-smoking, beer-drinking, illegible-long-sleeved-black-t-shirt-clad hesher.
Always have been, will continue to be.
Will continue to worsen my chronic tinnitus, continue to rock my inverted cross necklace, continue to holler while throwing the goat in dives from New Orleans to Oslo, Norway. And so if metal wants to grow while still remaining loyal to its disaffected roots, it needs to see plainly that what might appear to be non-status-quo is the opposite, really. It needs to embrace those that dwell at its edges, and the complex connections that govern our lives.
At a time in our history when hate is a given, love is way more “trve kvlt.” |
Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says National Defence's process to buy equipment is broken if the way it handled the F-35 fighter jet program is normal.
In an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CBC's Power & Politics, Page pointed to committee testimony by top department officials who said the way they handled the process to buy the F-35 is the way they usually do it.
If that process is normal, Page said, then it's "broken. Completely broken. And wrong."
Officials gave one estimate to cabinet, he said, that included the full costs of the plane for the complete lifespan, but gave another estimate to MPs.
"To tell Parliament, effectively, to tell Canadians, that, well, actually it's a much smaller number, that's wrong," Page said.
Earlier in the day, Page testified at a committee that National Defence withheld information when he was preparing his controversial report on the costs of the F-35s, and he later indicated he thinks Canadians were misled about the true costs of buying the fighter jets.
Opposition MPs, including interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, reacted to testimony from Page and other officials at the public accounts committee meeting by saying the government "lied" to the Canadian people about the F-35 costs and didn't share its own internal cost estimates with the public.
During his hour of testimony, Page told MPs he has now learned in the wake of Auditor General Michael Ferguson's report released in April that his office didn't get all the information it asked DND for when he was trying to calculate the full life cycle costs of the planes the government is considering buying to replace the CF-18 fleet. Page's report was done in response to a request from the Commons finance committee.
When asked why he didn't get everything he asked for, Page responded, "We don’t know the reason for that."
"We also asked for information on their methodology and did not receive it," Page said.
Public should be given same numbers as cabinet
Conservative MP Chris Alexander, parliamentary secretary to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, had a tense exchange with Page during the meeting when he challenged the budget officer to explain why he calculated costs over 30 years while DND uses a 20-year cycle.
"I see actually no logic as a budget officer to use 20 years when we know that the real life cycle is going to be 30 years, potentially more," Page said, adding that the CF-18 life cycle is turning out to be around 40 years.
Just because the government has used the 20-year estimate for decades doesn't mean it's right, Page said.
Alexander suggested Page should be using the same time period as DND, since it is the department buying the plane, but Page shot back that taxpayers are the ones picking up the tab and that it is his job to provide independent analysis of government spending.
When he spoke to reporters after his testimony, Page was asked about comments he made on CBC's The House on Saturday when he said it looked as if the government kept two sets of books for F-35 estimates — one for internal use and one for the public.
Ferguson's report showed that cabinet was told in 2010 the planes would cost $25 billion. But in response to Page's report in March 2011, DND said the price tag was $15 billion. The difference in numbers is what has prompted opposition MPs to accuse the government of hiding the true costs of buying the planes.
"I don't think we should be providing different numbers," Page said Thursday. It would enhance trust in Parliament if the same numbers that were given to cabinet were given to the public, he said.
When asked if the government wanted Canadians to think the planes would cost less than was internally estimated, Page said yes.
NDP MP Malcolm Allen said after the meeting that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and MacKay both chose to communicate the lower number to Canadians.
"They tried to minimize the cost, to make it look as if it was a better program and a cheaper program than it was. Mr. Page is absolutely correct," he said.
'They lied to the people of Canada'
Rae, who doesn't normally sit on the public accounts committee, said Harper and his government also chose to attack Page and the opposition when they said the figure must be higher than the $15 billion instead of revealing its $25-billion estimate.
"They lied to the people of Canada before the election and they lied to them during the election about the real cost of the plane," said Rae.
Harper did "not tell the people of Canada the truth that he knew about the potential cost of this project," according to Rae.
In his opening statement, Page said he wanted to make it clear that his office did take operating costs into account when it calculated that the full life cycle costs for 65 F-35s would be close to $30 billion. DND officials testified earlier in the week that they didn't think his report included operating costs when the department responded to it and gave its $15-billion figure.
Page also said that his office understood it had been given all relevant information on the life cycle costs from DND, as per the request from the finance committee, but that "it has since become evident that the government's public figures did not include components of full life cycle costs" as required by the motion.
The budget officer also told MPs that the figures in Ferguson's report, confirmed by DND and its minister, MacKay, bring DND's estimates for full life cycle costs in line with his own.
Deputy ministers testify again
Page appeared at the committee for one hour, ahead of the same department officials who testified on Tuesday and who were back for a second time.
On Tuesday, the deputy minister of the Department of National Defence, Robert Fonberg, and other DND officials criticized the methodology Page used in his report. That report sparked controversy because Page's estimates for buying 65 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin as part of the U.S.-led Joint Strike Fighter program were more than double the government's estimates.
Fonberg was asked Thursday to respond to Page's statements earlier in the morning and he told MPs he stands by his belief that the PBO did not include operating costs in his calculations. He said DND has found no evidence that he did and that Page has been asked for clarification but hasn't provided it yet.
He also told the committee that he's unsure why Page drew the conclusion that he only received partial information from DND.
"To the best of my knowledge we fully responded to the PBO's request," Fonberg said.
Michelle d'Auray, secretary of the Treasury Board, told the committee that when her department considers requests from the government to buy new assets, it uses a 20-year time frame for estimated costs in order to make a decision.
Treasury Board has not received an approval request for the funds to buy the F-35, she said.
François Guimont, deputy minister of public works and government services, again expressed his confidence in the new secretariat that is being set up in response to Ferguson's findings to oversee the purchase of a new fleet of planes. The government said that DND would continue to evaluate options for replacing the CF-18s but at the same time it named the new oversight body the F-35 Secretariat, which opposition MPs said made it clear the government is intent on buying the Lockeed Martin model.
Public Works and Government Services Minister Rona Ambrose confirmed on Wednesday that the government has now dropped "F-35" from the group's name.
Lt-Gen. André Deschamps, who on Tuesday said the air force is preparing to acquire F-35s, told MPs that when DND was analyzing options for new planes it looked at what technology is needed to respond to future threats. He said those threats include the proliferation of advanced surface-to-air missile systems in some countries, he didn't name which ones, and said today's aircraft aren't well-equipped to respond to the "deadly" systems.
Read Kady O'Malley's live blog. Mobile-friendly feed here. |
ALERT
COVID-19 Info:
In light of the current Covid-19 situation, we are now pursuing both Online and Onsite ministries, including resuming our Sunday morning worship services onsite. For more information click on our “Continuity of Ministries” link. You can find videos of our recent worship services and Sunday school classes for various ages on our church Youtube channel.
I recently challenged our congregation to take just a few minutes a week (or a few minutes a day if you want to be on the fast track!) to respond to God’s loving, but also correcting, hand in the Covid-19 situation, by learning more about the Bible. I will plan to post a blog each week with a video link for each of the videos in this helpful series produced by The Bible Project.
As we watch this very short intro video, let’s ask ourselves some important questions:
– What am I most familiar with in the Bible?
– What do I understand the least?
– What do I think is the overarching theme of the Bible?
– How do the sections of the Bible relate to each other?
– If I have doubts about the Bible’s truth and reliability, what steps will I take to get answers?
A few nights ago, I made the mistake of watching a short Washington Post news video documenting the tragic conditions of those dying from COVID-19 in one of New York’s overwhelmed hospitals. I had a restless night and woke early, troubled. As a pastor I’ve encountered death, I’ve visited hospital rooms where I had to put on a complicated hazmat suit to enter, I’ve sat with a family as they disconnected life support, I’ve been to funerals with coffins just slightly larger than a shoebox, and I’ve even had a couple of my own near-misses. But seeing those ICU rooms with precious human beings straining to breathe their last breaths haunted me more than I thought it would. The few medical personnel who had time to enter patient rooms did so as rarely as possible, separated by layers of protective gear. Even more tragic, the severely sick could have no family or friends with them and no pastor or chaplain holding a hand. They were alone in this world, as they passed from it. Maybe a few were spiritually well-prepared for that moment. Whatever kind of life they had lived, they certainly seemed to be undergoing a very BAD DEATH.
A GOOD DEATH? – As we face COVID-19, even if we only experience the lowest estimated death tolls, we are all thinking more about health and sickness, life and death than we were 2 months ago. Of course it is fitting to mourn this loss, to be concerned for our wellbeing and that of loved ones, and to be stressed by the new framework of daily life into which we have been thrown. None of these seems particularly “good.” If we do see any good in the global pandemic it is in the sense of commonality we experience, or the blessing of added family time. Perhaps, we also have taken time to reflect on what is happening from a Christian posture, no doubt considering afresh the general truth that we are not in control as much as we thought. And this Easter season our pastor will probably help us to realize how the resurrection can have special meaning at this time. These are reasonable Christian thoughts. Yet they may lead us away too quickly from the powerful message God could want us to hear – about the hard-cold reality of death and the error of our normal practice of pushing it out of our sight. What if we are being beckoned to look head-on at what we could learn about the longstanding powerful perspective on death – the ARS MORIENDI – the “art of dying” – or as everyday Christians used to commonly understand – the GOOD DEATH.
THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING – Most academic histories probably do not end up the subject of light-hearted dinner parties or casual water-cooler discussions at work. But merely the title of Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, would be unwelcome at any carefree social engagement. These are not “carefree” days though, and maybe our current “distancing” will allow us the context to give Faust due attention. In any event, Faust, was the first woman president of Harvard, the first from the South, and the first since 1672 who did not have a degree from Harvard. So maybe she does not have to care if her writings would be a big hit at our social gatherings or not. She wrote, “The concept of the Good Death was central to mid-nineteenth-century America, as it had long been at the core of Christian practice. Dying was an art, and the tradition of ars moriendi had provided rules of conduct for the moribund and their attendants since at least the fifteenth century: how to give up one’s soul “gladlye and wilfully”; how to meet the devil’s temptations of unbelief, despair, and impatience, and worldly attachment; how to pattern one’s dying on that of Christ; how to pray.” (Page 6 of the abovementioned) What can we learn from Faust’s account of how American’s, from both North and South, generally viewed their “man-made” wave of death, one that took over 600,000 American lives, or what today would be 6 million deaths? And how can this help us with COVID-19?
OUR MORTALITY REALITY – Prior to the Civil War, most Americans faced their mortality much more regularly than we do. Today we have vaccines for many of the illnesses that threatened them daily, we have a massive medical infrastructure and they had almost no medical care. Infant mortality rates were so high that in any given family the number of children that died commonly outweighed the number who survived. But just as we have gotten used to the fact that most of us won’t make it past age 95, and we might get in a car wreck, and terrorist threats could take us out, the believers of the 1800s had grown used to “typical” mortality. The Civil War carnage changed all that, and forced them to reconsider not only human frailty, but how they processed death. Maybe this pandemic could do that for us.
ELEMENTS OF “THE ART” – Since most Americans before 1860 rarely traveled more than a day’s horseback ride from home, when a loved one took gravely ill, the family was customarily nearby. For Christian’s who sensed they were nearing death, they would have initiated the normative steps to ready themselves to give up their soul. In a time when “secular” would have been a perplexing concept to most, Christians recognized the devil was real and were particularly sensitive to how he might work through the threat of death. They guarded against discouragement, doubt and worldliness, to protect their final witness. Many of them, in a far less busy time than our own, had learned to pray, in greater depth and dependence. As the Civil War threatened to disrupt their patterns for encountering their day of reckoning, they, and their loved ones fought hard to keep hold of those practices. In short, they embraced a GOOD DEATH as a central concept for all Christians and prepared for it just as we spend hours with the school guidance counselor to help our child take the steps for college or we gather at least annually with our financial planner to organize our affairs for retirement.
THROUGH DEATH TO RESURRECTION – In our time, the threat of death from COVID-19 is not just redefining how we live, but maybe it could have the potential to recalibrate how our culture, including many Christians, comprehend death. We have all heard the saying, “He’s too heavenly minded, to be of any earthly good.” As Christians, we know the reverse is actually true. The more we “set our minds on things above,” the better we are equipped to live now. But how can we as 21st Century First-World Christians begin to have the heavenly mindset if we don’t first embrace our mortality? What if we don’t just take a quick glance at it, but a hard stare and even a sobering preparation for “giving up our soul?” What if we if we put on God’s armor through much deeper prayer lives so we can face COVID-19, or whatever will one day be our demise? What if we learned the art of walking in step with our Savior the path he took when He died, on that “good” Friday, that we might better appreciate the glorious resurrection He grants to us?!
In addition, as each of us personally works through this situation, I invite you to make use of the numerous great articles at The Gospel Coalition.
As I’m sure we are all aware, the health situation in our country and community continues to fluctuate daily. Unless some further action is taken by our state or other major developments occur, we plan to continue with 8:45 am Worship Service tomorrow (with the instructions below in place). We will not meet for Sunday school since it is of secondary importance, and would involve kids and adults in smaller spaces.
This week our church elders and deacons organized a committee to make recommendations regarding the Coronavirus. They, along with myself, certainly wrestle with two aspects of our Christian faith. One is that we need the encouragement of weekly worship at all times and especially in times of anxiety and difficulty. We are in one sense, a spiritual hospital, so we feel we should stay open to be physically present with each other if we can reasonably do so. The Church has weathered many storms over the centuries and been the source of strength, hope and love.
The other side of the coin is that we want to be good neighbors. We are mindful of members in our own church who are most vulnerable, the elderly and any with preexisting conditions and want them to be safe, as well as the membership of Lake Crest PCA, and our whole community, in terms of playing our part to restrain, not spread the virus. Below is a plan to pursue that tomorrow, and we will re-evaluate this week, for future Sundays.
At present our community schools remain in session thru Wednesday and the Governor has recommended no gathering larger than 500. We think those are also good guidelines.
THERE IS ZERO PRESSURE OR EXPECTATION ON ANYONE TO ATTEND WORSHIP TOMORROW. SO EACH HOUSEHOLD CAN MAKE ITS OWN DECISION AND WE SUPPORT EACH OTHER AS A CHURCH BODY.
Update on our Plan for Tomorrow:
1) If you are feeling sick or believe you have been exposed to the virus, please seek medical attention and stay at home. Particularly if you have fever, cough or shortness of breath.
2) We believe we will have the technology and connectivity in place to LIVE STREAM the service tomorrow. This is our first attempt. Thanks to William Monroe for his help. Go to the above link to find our youtube channel (great time to subscribe if you never have!). If for some reason this does not work, we will also aim to record the service and upload it in segments later in the day.
4) We will not have hospitality table, pass the worship registry, or serve communion. Offering plates will be placed at the back on a table for any contributions to be made. As always giving can be done in a variety of ways including digitally.
5) It is fine and in fact we recommend some other greeting beside shaking hands or hugging.
6) We will add extra seating if needed so people can maintain 6 ft buffer if they prefer and please try to respect that with others.
7) Stay tuned to your email. If we make any further changes we will notify everyone as soon as possible and at the latest Sunday by 730 am.
8) See the Creek Week this week for further info. I’m encouraging all our Groups leaders to make their best decision about whether to meet or not, but with Spring Break on the horizon it would probably be wise for groups to wait til April to see where we stand.
As we saw in our recent sermon series in Colossians we are called to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is…to set your minds on things that are above…For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (3:1-3) Later in the same chapter we read, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly…and whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” How do we fulfill this? Through the daily Christian 3-step dance of repenting, believing, and striving, in the Gospel.
The past several years, all in our church family have been encouraged to join in this dance of spiritual growth individually or as a household, which is also linked to readings in our weekly church worship service. With our lives often scattered and our attention easily distracted, carving out even just 10 minutes a day to learn something new from God’s Word or remind ourselves of things we forget, is vital. Having resources in hand to pursue that teaching during the week, is as important as it ever was. To that end, in the past, we have invited everyone to walk together through the Westminster Shorter Catechism (English from 1640s) and the Heidelberg Catechism (German from 1563), using the daily readings from Starr Meade, as well as the Read Scripture app for daily bible reading, and last year the New City Catechism (American from recent years!).
This year we are doing something similar and different. Similar in daily content that is easily accessible, but different because it is not in the question and answer format of a catechism. I hope everyone in our church will take a moment right now to purchase the book “New Morning Mercies” by Paul David Tripp through Christianbook.com or Amazon, in good ole fashion paper, or e-book if you prefer. If you have children old enough to read a one page devotional each day or several days a week, you may want to purchase extra copies for them as well. See video for an introduction.
The devotion runs Jan 1 – Dec 31, daily, but each stands on its own, so no worries if you missed the Jan 1 kickoff. (Our family has been on vacation so will be getting a start a few days late, while we are on the road). If you are a highly disciplined family, you may want to read the devotionals as a family, once a day and discuss, perhaps in the morning before the days activities or around the dinner table. Or it may make sense to block out 3-4 times a week to read together as a family and allow for individual reading the other days of the week.
For those with children, I would encourage you not to be the least bit surprised if your children are not excited about this! Ha. Just like us adults, they are not always enthusiastic about the means of grace we know we need for spiritual growth. As children do not usually love to eat a healthy meal, or go to the dentist, or yield their precious screen time, they will not necessarily see why they should read for spiritual growth on their own, or join in family devotional time, or for that matter, go to worship service or youth activities! Ha. They will need loving but clear direction from parents who care about them, and are okay with not always being perfectly liked by their children.
If you have another devotional plan for the year, this certainly does not need to replace that, but it would be awesome if everyone in our church engaged with this process at some level, beyond our Sunday morning worship. As we do, we will look for the truth of God’s Word to transform us, and make us a blessing to those around us for God’s Kingdom. John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.”
“Clear!” the nurse shouted to the array of other medical personnel who had rushed into the room where they had been performing a “routine” arteriogram on me. It was May 11, 2018, and she would yell that echoing word two more times, followed each time by what can only be described as feeling like my body was being exploded – internally detonated. I honestly still don’t know a year later, whether they had 10 more tricks up their sleeve to try and get my heart back going, or only one more. But, the doctor was able to figure out it was a blood flow issue and not just an electrical rhythm problem, and thankfully that approach proved successful. The doctors don’t have a good answer for why I had blockage there to begin with, in only one artery, somewhat unusually shaped, in a man of my age and health, but I’m thankful for the stint they were able to insert, and for good reports that I’m an otherwise healthy dude.
(If you would like to know more about all that happened last year, go here.)
KISS THE WAVE – A book my wife, Patience, has been reading to us, bit by bit, the last 6-7 months, quotes Charles Spurgeon, the preacher of the 1800s in London, who endured personal chronic suffering, as well as tragedies in his congregation. He said, “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.” The same man said, “I have learned to kiss the wave, that throws me against the Rock of Ages.” I have thought a lot and prayed a lot through those statements, which I recognize are absolutely in line with Biblical teaching, despite what the TV preachers might try to tell us. God uses struggle in our lives.
(For my messages from last fall on this theme, begin with Aug 12 in our sermon archive, here)
RARE PEARLS – In the weeks following my incident last year, I wrote a good bit, not necessarily to share with anyone but just to process and record what I sensed the Lord was teaching me. I’m thankful to be able to write some more, now one year later, and hope the Lord plans to give me a good number more years. As I recovered, some good friends from our church came by and the husband said that I would not believe this at the time, but I would one day see the whole experience as a gift. I’m still sorting through that for sure. But in my clear moments, I am seeing his point. The Lord has given me some “rare pearls.”
HEAVENLY MINDED? – One of those pearls is seeing that one can be worldly, even as a pastor. Pastors, like everyone else, have sin patterns that hound us daily. But in general I’d say most of us are a bit less likely than others to chase after the material things of this life. It kinda comes with the job description. But one can be worldly in other ways. This past year it has definitely been no fun to have a heightened, sometimes overly acute, sense of my mortality. Yet this has really helped me to see that I had preached to others about the blessings of living “heavenly minded” but I had not progressed very far toward that myself. I might not have been worldly in trying to stockpile material stuff in this life, or acquire the latest sportscar, but my attention, my focus, my hopes in many areas, were rooted in the here and now, not in the life to come.
TRUST IN THE LORD – When I came to faith in Christ during my high school years the passage that resonated so mightily in my soul was Prov 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and he will direct your path.” Fact is, I like my own understanding. I like thinking I can plan out the next 40 years of my life and I have control over it. I don’t like James 4:13 “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” I like trusting in myself. I don’t like losing my life to save it. I don’t know all that the Lord is doing in my life and those around me through the struggles I faced, and their continued effect on me, but I know that even if I have made some progress in applying these passages the last 27 years since I first began my spiritual journey, I still have a long way to go.
CHRIST THE SUFFERING ONE – Another spiritual lesson the Lord gave me, especially right after my struggles, was the contrast between the struggle I faced and that of Jesus. I’m not sure why this particular reality of my situation has stood out to me, but maybe it will help someone, somehow to read and consider it. Without Christ, I deserve God’s wrath and separation from Him. Jesus does not deserve any pain or separation. Yet he accepted it for us. A year ago today, I was surrounded by people trying to help me and the pain they inflicted was momentary and for my restoration. The people around Jesus were trying to hurt him, badly…so badly…and his pain was ongoing, comprehensive.
CHRIST THE RESURRECTED ONE – My heart will one day sputter again, and then stop completely, unless Jesus returns sooner. And so will yours, and your spouse’s and your children’s. But Jesus has a resurrected heart, and he will give you and me such a heart one day, if we are found in him, by faith and repentance. I’m more excited about that than I have ever been. And I hoped to be used in God’s hands to help others discover that resurrected life in Christ.
SUSTAINED BY GOD’S WORD – As I mentioned, my wife and I have been carving out time weekly, or close to it, for us to read a book together. I like listening to her read to me. As a preacher I’m always speaking stuff, and when folks speak to me, I’m sure like other professions, it is often because they are looking for something from me. My wife just reads to me, to help me…to help us. We’ve worked through an excellent book Kiss the Wave, by David Furman. He has suffered immensely and chronically. Others around me have as well. The book has been an invitation to dive deeper into the truths of God’s word about struggles and his grace to be found in them. Whatever challenges we face, certainly all are opportunities to live more dependent on the Rock of Ages.
THE WAY FORWARD – Thanks for taking time to read this far and let me share these matters with you. Maybe it will bless or challenge others in some God-glorifying way. Pray for me when you can. And redeem the time. Not in an anxious way, but in a heaven-focused way. Get yourself ready for heaven, not just by professing Christ as some kind of fire insurance but by plunging fully into the local body of Christ, a bit of heaven here on earth. Seek help from that body for your journey and offer what help you can to others along the path. Pray. Hug your wife or kids or friend. Pray. Embrace the first catechism question…what is the chief end of man…to glorify and enjoy God forever. And tell others the way to finding that “end.” And pray…
John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The past three or four years, all in our church family have been encouraged to pursue a pathway for spiritual growth individually or as a household, which is linked with our weekly church worship service. The goal has been to grow in spirit and truth. With our lives often scattered and our attention easily distracted, repeating a passage of the Bible or from a historic teaching tool, like a catechism, and then having resources in hand to pursue that teaching during the week, is as important as it ever was. To that end, in the past, we have invited everyone to walk together through the Westminster Shorter Catechism (English from 1640s) and the Heidelberg Catechism (German from 1563), using the daily readings from Starr Meade, and this last year, using the Read Scripture app for daily bible reading and helpful summary videos.
This year we are doing something similar and different. Similar in the catechism format (it just means using short questions and answers to learn important stuff), but different because it uses contemporary wording accessible in an app format. I hope everyone in our church will take a moment right now to download “New City Catechism” from your app store. Best of all, it is free. We will start the journey on Sun, Jan 6.
As you look at the app you will see 52 questions total…so, you guessed it…one question/answer per week. You will also see that for each question you can view a supporting scripture reference, read a short section from a helpful commentary, and listen to a little song. The songs can help everyone of any age, but in particular could be useful for moms and dads of young ones as they drive around town to activities, or spend time around the house. Even better, if you permit your child to have a device, let them download the app. I know at our house this last year we set a simple concept in place for our boys – 10-15 min of Read Scripture app each day, before any video game time. Can’t remember if you call that positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement, but it sure worked like a charm!
You can also find the videos here on a Youtube channel if you want to watch them as a family on a laptop or smart TV. We will have samples of several books for adults and kids that accompany the New City Catechism app. These are helpful for those who like to have an ole fashioned dead tree in their hand (like me), and because they provide supplemental content. They can be ordered here. The large one with the white cover replicates the exact content of the app.
One way to approach it might be to pursue a different element of the material Mon-Fri. Mon read the question and answer that you will have heard on Sun, Tues read the accompanying scripture passage, Wed pray over the application of the truth in your life, Thu read the first commentary entry and Fri the second. If you use a calendar on your device you could program these in as repeated weekly activities with a daily reminder to help. If you are doing it as a family or couple, your could each share questions it raises for you, or how you hope to apply it, or something new you learned.
If you have another devotional plan for the year, this certainly does not need to replace that, but it would be awesome if everyone in our church engaged with this process at some level, beyond our Sunday morning worship. As we do, we will look for the truth of God’s Word to transform us, and make a blessing to those around us for God’s Kingdom. John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.”
Most of us in the West enjoy relative protection as we live out and express our faith. No doubt challenges are brewing and have come for many Christians. But even if we have not faced particular attacks or losses as a result of our commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we have certainly all encountered a culture that is sometimes at best ambivalent about Jesus and the things of His Kingdom. In case we think we can gird ourselves with the buckle of the Bible belt, we would have to have blinders on to not see the shifting winds even in the American Deep South.
If we know our Bible, we know that God can bring revival as He wills, so we should be cautious about doomsday scenarios, and if we know our history, we will also be cautious about envisioning an idealized past 50 or 200 years. Some things are worse now, but others probably better, as we live out the Gospel.
But whether we find our neighbor critical of a Biblical worldview, or work in corporate America where certain aspects of Biblical teaching are taboo, or serve in the military where expressions of personal faith have recently been curtailed, or attend a school where other students embrace an entirely different religious system, we know that as believers we are called to walk in faithfulness in a world that may not be cheering us on.
As we look at the book of Daniel over the next weeks, I’m excited that we can get back to an Old Testament book of Scripture, and also happy to return to more expository preaching from a narrative/wisdom/prophetic book. Topical series are needed as well, but it is good to get back to our bread and butter! Daniel was one of the Old Testament people of God, a Jew, who was hauled off from the wayward nation-state of Israel to a completely foreign environment. The Hebrew people of the time had wandered from faithfulness to God, but their society still remained generally God-directed and many were Biblically focused. In Babylon, things were quite different.
How did Daniel make his way?
What was God doing in the famous stories about the Fiery Furnace and the Lion’s Den and then Handwriting on the Wall?
What does it mean for us today?
In preparation, I would encourage each person in our church body to carve out some time to either listen to Daniel on your bible app while driving or working out, or better yet, to sit down and read it all (takes about 40 minutes). Hope to see you this Sunday morning as we kick things off.
Just over 8 weeks ago we began a journey through what the Bible teaches about not wasting our struggles. Another title for the series could have been “How to Harness Our Struggles.” If you missed the blog I wrote about my personal struggles and how I felt God was leading and preparing me to preach that series, you can find it here.
If you missed a message or live out of town or just want to go back over where we have been, you can connect to the podcast here. I’ve also found the following two versions of the same song personally encouraging in times of struggle (introduced to me by Jeff Koonce)
This upcoming Sunday we will start a new series, but I know many have shared with me how “Don’t Waste Your Struggles” affected them. For further growth in these areas I recommend these resources. Several copies of each will be available on the welcome table at church this Sunday.
A Bruised Reed – a classic on struggle from a Puritan writer that is very accessible
Kiss the Wave – written recently by a man who struggles with severe physical limitations and serves as a pastor in Dubai. Based on a quote by Spurgeon that in suffering we learn to “kiss the wave that crashes us against the Rock of Ages.”
As some may know, this has been a summer of struggle for me and our family. Even as I begin to write about the challenges we have faced, I’m immediately aware, perhaps in a special way as a pastor, of the acute and chronic burdens many in our church and community face. My heart goes out to those ones in a fresh way, as I seek to make my way through what the doctors tell me is largely resolved. But for me and for others who face struggles, short-term or chronic, the effects carry forward. Daily we all have opportunity for negative obsessing, or positive maturing in Christ.
I’m also cognizant in a new way of the variety of difficulties people face. Mine was one of physical health, but others deal with struggles in marriage, parenting, addictive patterns (themselves or with a loved one), financial, employment, divorce, church conflict, mental illness, miscarriage, past choices.
If you know our story of the last few months, you may want to just scroll down to the summary of the upcoming sermon series I’ll be sharing. If not, here goes:
In late April, I was awakened one morning around 4:30 am by some chest discomfort. I assumed it was some kind of heartburn, but since I felt a bit nauseous and my skin got clammy, I decided to call two M.D. friends. Both said essentially the same thing, that it was likely a gastro issue, but since I was now headed toward my mid-forties, if I wanted to get a cardio workup, it would not be a terrible idea. On May 9, I went in for that testing, expecting just to rule some things out and at least get a thorough checkup. Since I was hospitalized in 2014 with a pulmonary embolism which I got by failing to move around enough on a flight back from a Peru Mission trip, I have learned to at least be a bit more aware of my health!
On May 10, I got a call first thing in the morning from my cardiologist, who also happens to be a friend and church member, and to my surprise, and perhaps his as well, the results showed potential blockage in a coronary artery. He encouraged me that it might be a false positive, but when he said I should get in for an arteriogram to confirm, and if necessary get a stent, the next day, I understood clearly that it might be a significant concern. I had a busy day, so was not able to speak face to face with my wife, Patience, until that evening. That was a tough conversation, but just that morning, she had shared with me a passage from Psalm 16 that she had been meditating upon. It brought us comfort. “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” We would need it in the next 24 hours.
May 11, I went in for the procedure. It was sobering to be the only guy under 60 in the waiting room. Patience and I prayed several times, but as the kind nurses assured us, the docs do these procedures every day. I won’t go into great detail about what happened during my procedure, but I was awake for the entire time and recall it vividly. The doctor and support staff walked me through their video analysis, and all looked good…except indeed for notable blockage in the suspected artery. The doctor doing the procedure was finishing explaining to me that it was not quite severe enough to need a stent, and that they would treat with medicine. Then something happened. I let the medical folks know something felt very wrong. All the personnel rushed back into the room and assessed that ventricular tachycardia had been triggered, the spasming of the lower part of my heart, a life-threatening event. After several rounds of chest thumping and electrical defibrillating, I was quite honestly not sure if they were going to figure things out and whether the Lord might be taking me home much earlier than I certainly expected to go. At just about that same moment they resolved the issue, and not surprisingly, the doctor decided a stent might be worth doing after all. I have been told later that this happens one in so many thousand times during these procedures. I certainly did not expect it to happen to me.
After several days of recovery in the hospital, I was released, with a promising prognosis, and several new medicines I’ll be taking for life.
In my youth I was hit one time by a car while riding my dad’s ten-speed bike, but walked away without a scratch – my dad’s bike was not so lucky! When I was in college I was rescued from a rock face in North Carolina, while foolishly attempting to climb without the right gear. Nine years ago, Patience, me and Clement (in utero) were rear-ended doing 70 on the interstate while headed to the first step in our church planting journey, producing significant injuries for Patience. And I already mentioned the pulmonary embolism. But I have certainly never been more scared for my life than I was on May 11.
Our family and our church body, and friends have a been a great support as I have been working my way back to health, in the Lord’s strength. It has been 2 steps forward and one step back at a few points. But as you can image, God has been gracious to use this season to draw me closer to Him, and Patience as well, and to link us closer, as husband and wife. It is not easy to be the care receiver or the caregiver. Even when physical things seem fine, the mental impact takes its own time to heal.
One of the things that has helped me, and I hope will be a help to others, whatever type of struggle they may face, or have faced or will face, is looking to Scripture. In particular, a booklet that I uncovered through our Hoover library Hoopla app, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer” by John Piper, has helped me frame up what God is doing, and how I can align with it, even if I don’t do so as much as I would like.
I don’t know all that the Lord may want to do with this experience in my life, with this difficulty, suffering, struggle. But at least one way I am pursuing is to preach an 8-week series, based on some of Piper’s key points, with a modified title, “Don’t Waste Your Struggle.” We will start on Aug 12, at our 8:45 am worship service at a church building we currently share with another congregation at 560 Lake Crest Drive. I look forward to how God is going to meet me as I continue to process my struggles in light of His gracious Word, and I look for God to meet his people through these messages, for those who can be present, or who may listen later through our podcast.
If you want a glimpse of where we are headed, here is our series outline.
August 12 – Hope-Filled Groaning – Romans 8:18-25 – Carrying and delivering a baby is painful and difficult, but a mother endures it, and even welcomes it, because of the result. So too, may we view the struggles of this life, as opportunity for increased hope in the heavenly deliverance, which is to come, for all who are in Christ.
August 19 – God Ordained Gift – Job – This is a tough one. When we struggle, we feel cursed. Sometimes God is disciplining us but as a loving father. Whether that is the case in all instances or not, God invites us to see our difficulties as designed by a sovereign and good being.
August 26 – Comfort from Odds or God? – Psalm 20:7, 2 Corinthians 1:9 – Especially with physical illness but also with other struggles, we can incorrectly hope in our odds. Odds of getting another job soon, or our child relinquishing their problematic behavior, or of the stock market recovering. God desires for us to trust in Him, even as we may choose to remain aware of any helpful statistics.
September 2 – Researching Our Redeemer – Psalm 1 – We waste our struggles if we spend countless hours studying…books on divorce recovery, articles on church conflict dynamics, blogs about breaking from addiction – but do not direct equal attention to studying God.
September 9 – Contemplating a Good Death – Psalm 90:12 – When we struggle, we do not always think of it as a reminder of our fallen world. But it is. We waste our difficulty if we resist thinking about the limitations of this life and learning to hope more in heaven. We are not called to seek escape through death, but we are invited to be those who are aware of life’s limitations and are preparing ourselves for heaven, as well as usefulness in this life.
September 16 – Deepening Human Relationships – Whether we are introverted or extroverted, one way we miss what God is doing in our seasons of difficulties, is if we move away from others rather than toward them. Numerous passages of Scripture invite us to be both givers and receivers of comfort from other people.
September 23 – Growing Godliness – Luke 9:25 – One thing struggles do, if you will excuse my innuendo, is to scare the sin out of us! Whether we have brought the challenges on ourselves or God has determined them for us, we are invited to seize the moment to grow in righteousness, and reject our sin.
September 30 – Glorify God in Our Struggle – Philippians 4:19 – Lastly, and maybe somewhat obvious, we are encouraged by the Lord to have our eyes on His glory in all things. If we can move away from “why is this happening to me?” we can begin to see “how is this a chance to magnify God?” Tough, but vital. |
"We are What We Pay Attention to"
October 23, 2017
Bridger Layton
In Port Townsend, we spent a morning strolling the beach and learning from Scott Brinton, a naturalist with the Cedar Root Folk School. Scott talked to us about the importance of observing the world around you with a critical eye and asking questions about how things came to be. It’s easy to live your life with blinders on, and in so doing to miss out on a deeper understanding of the world in which you live.
For instance, the average person can come bowling down a forest trail and see nothing but plants. The naturalist might meander down that same trail and witness a complete set of relationships between flora and fauna. They might hear the warning call of birds as a predator traverses the area. They might watch as a deer reacts cautiously to that alarm, and perhaps even glimpse the bobcat that caused the commotion as it slinks by. Of course, from time to time any person might find some luck and catch sight of a deer or a bobcat, but they will almost certainly miss the grander sequence of relationships before them. By virtue of careful curiosity, the naturalist has learned to fill a different role in the landscape and sees a completely different place
Later into our morning with Scott Brinton, he made a statement in relation to all this that was rather thought-provoking. “We are what we pay attention to,” he said. I thought this was a nice way to say that daring to examine things beyond their surface is important. It’s important because looking closely at almost anything will reveal a whole host of complexities that are easy to miss. For me, this is an emerging theme of the expedition.
Beneath the surface, everything is complicated. A dam is never just a dam. A salmon is not just a fish. A wolf is more than a wild dog, and the cow it ate for lunch is much more than calories for a hungry populace. Each and every one of these items has powerful connections both to ecological systems and to human ideologies. Dams create huge amounts of carbon-free energy, but they also affect salmon populations, displace entire towns, and drown fisheries and sacred locations that native populations have utilized for centuries. Salmon are a fish, but they are also a keystone species to numerous river ecosystems, providing an abundant and much needed source of nutrients to the inhabitants of the place. They are also a fish to which native populations in the Pacific-Northwest have a deep cultural connection. Wolves are a species that provide numerous services to their ecosystem. Perhaps most notably they maintain ungulate populations, protecting land from overgrazing. For some, wolves are a symbol of ecological interrelation, highlighting the ways in which one species’ absence or presence shapes an entire ecological system. Yet for others they are a symbol of death and destruction, wreaking havoc on cattle in the West and threatening a profession, ranching, that has impressive cultural power in rural America
The items highlighted above are just beginning to expose some of the texture that the West reveals when you look beyond the surface. With that in mind, we can see how the approach of the naturalist to examine the world with careful curiosity applies well in many contexts. In a sense, it is the approach of the naturalist that is guiding our studies on the road. We’re striving to see the West as more than an image of John Wayne on a horse. We’re striving to understand the diversity of people, landscape, and issues that have defined the West historically and continue to define it today. We’re striving to pay attention, and in so doing we’re beginning to see the West as a much richer place than we did on August 23rd when our studies began.
During the 2017 Fall Semester, 14 students, two professors, and a
program coordinator will load books, camping gear, and themselves into a
couple of vans and hit the road for a semester-long tour of the
American West.
The trip is designed as an
exploration into the issues at the heart of the contemporary West.
Students will earn 16 credits in environmental studies and history as
they study Environmental Cooperation and Conflict, Landscape and
Meaning, the History of Public Lands, and the Native West.
This
prolonged journey into the field will allow us to learn directly from
landscapes and ecosystems, as well as from people who live, work, and
study in those places. Together, we expect to build a cohort of
impassioned scholars with a particular breadth and depth of experiential
knowledge who are equipped to build a better future for the West.
We
will visit iconic, protected sites like Yellowstone and Glacier
National Parks, contentious places like the Little Bighorn and the
Malheur Wildlife Refuge, working landscapes like the Butte Copper Mines,
and communities from present-day Native nations to "New West" towns
like Bend, Twisp, and Moab.
Meet the Expedition
Read the Latest Journal Entry
"We are What We Pay Attention to"
October 23, 2017
Bridger Layton
In Port Townsend, we spent a morning strolling the beach and learning from Scott Brinton, a naturalist with the Cedar Root Folk School. Scott talked to us about the importance of observing the world around you with a critical eye and asking questions about how things came to be. It’s easy to live your life with blinders on, and in so doing to miss out on a deeper understanding of the world in which you live.
For instance, the average person can come bowling down a forest trail and see nothing but plants. The naturalist might meander down that same trail and witness a complete set of relationships between flora and fauna. They might hear the warning call of birds as a predator traverses the area. They might watch as a deer reacts cautiously to that alarm, and perhaps even glimpse the bobcat that caused the commotion as it slinks by. Of course, from time to time any person might find some luck and catch sight of a deer or a bobcat, but they will almost certainly miss the grander sequence of relationships before them. By virtue of careful curiosity, the naturalist has learned to fill a different role in the landscape and sees a completely different place
Later into our morning with Scott Brinton, he made a statement in relation to all this that was rather thought-provoking. “We are what we pay attention to,” he said. I thought this was a nice way to say that daring to examine things beyond their surface is important. It’s important because looking closely at almost anything will reveal a whole host of complexities that are easy to miss. For me, this is an emerging theme of the expedition.
Beneath the surface, everything is complicated. A dam is never just a dam. A salmon is not just a fish. A wolf is more than a wild dog, and the cow it ate for lunch is much more than calories for a hungry populace. Each and every one of these items has powerful connections both to ecological systems and to human ideologies. Dams create huge amounts of carbon-free energy, but they also affect salmon populations, displace entire towns, and drown fisheries and sacred locations that native populations have utilized for centuries. Salmon are a fish, but they are also a keystone species to numerous river ecosystems, providing an abundant and much needed source of nutrients to the inhabitants of the place. They are also a fish to which native populations in the Pacific-Northwest have a deep cultural connection. Wolves are a species that provide numerous services to their ecosystem. Perhaps most notably they maintain ungulate populations, protecting land from overgrazing. For some, wolves are a symbol of ecological interrelation, highlighting the ways in which one species’ absence or presence shapes an entire ecological system. Yet for others they are a symbol of death and destruction, wreaking havoc on cattle in the West and threatening a profession, ranching, that has impressive cultural power in rural America
The items highlighted above are just beginning to expose some of the texture that the West reveals when you look beyond the surface. With that in mind, we can see how the approach of the naturalist to examine the world with careful curiosity applies well in many contexts. In a sense, it is the approach of the naturalist that is guiding our studies on the road. We’re striving to see the West as more than an image of John Wayne on a horse. We’re striving to understand the diversity of people, landscape, and issues that have defined the West historically and continue to define it today. We’re striving to pay attention, and in so doing we’re beginning to see the West as a much richer place than we did on August 23rd when our studies began. |
Education Reform Inching Forward
RIA-Novosti Archive / Wikimedia CommonsA new bill aims to cut the number of higher educational institutions, leaving a smaller group of better-funded universities. Above, students sitting in front of the main building of Moscow State University.
As thousands of high school graduates enter universities on Saturday, a hotly debated bill to reform the nation's education system is inching forward.
A controversial plan already three years in the making, the bill promises the biggest shake-up of schools and universities since the 1990s, giving students more choice over the subjects they study and changing how universities are funded.
In late July, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev sent the bill to the State Duma. It is expected to be signed into law by the end of the year.
"The law must not only resolve the problems of education, but become the basis for the development of human capital in the country," Medvedev said in a recent blog post.
The bill aims to cut the number of higher educational institutions, leaving a smaller cadre of better-funded universities that pack a more powerful punch in international rankings.
Currently, Russia features nowhere in the world's top 100 universities on benchmark rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds, or QS, and Times Higher Education.
Only on the Shanghai Jiao Tong listing does Moscow State University rate 77th, but even this reflects past Nobel glory rather than citations in academic journals, the currency of modern academia.
The education bill has been knocked by the University Professors Union for failing to increase teachers' salaries and criticized by Communists for narrowing the curriculum, allowing students to drop subjects in the ninth grade.
Many gripe about the Unified State Exam, the common university entrance exam introduced in the last decade with the intention of giving every student an equal chance at the best institutions.
But the bill has supporters among those seeking to modernize higher education.
It is very good that the government is trying to make higher education more open to competition and more modern, although it is not going to be easy, Sergei Guriev, rector of the New Economic School, said in an interview.
The bill legitimizes many progressive practices that some universities have already been experimenting with, he said, such as online teaching and joint programs between universities.
Skepticism About Reform
Ivan Kurilla, head of the international relations department at Volgograd State University, is skeptical about the government's ability to achieve its goals.
"When [President Vladimir] Putin speaks about education he usually speaks in the same vein as he speaks about pensions. For him, [education] is a burden," Kurilla said. "I think that education should be considered part of the economy if you want to ensure that Russia is more than an oil and gas exporter."
Kurilla worries that the reforms will fracture society and deepen regional divisions. Plans to reduce the number of students mean that poorer children will be less able to go to university, thus increasing social tensions, he said.
Meanwhile, focusing on top-tier universities means that some good departments could close and some regions risk losing their institutions altogether.
"There are a lot of regions with neither federal universities nor national research institutes," Kurilla said. "We have 80-something regions in Russia, but we don't have 80-something with universities that meet all the criteria."
"To get a better education people will leave the region," he added, "and it is unlikely that they will come back."
Problems in Russian universities mirror the story of the last two decades: falling student numbers reflecting demographic decline, corruption, low wages and resulting brain drain, over-weening central management, as well as hyper-dominant Moscow attracting talented people from poorer regions.
Russia spends less on education than the European average and even less than its BRIC peer Brazil — 4.7 percent of national income compared with 5.3 percent spent by its South American peer — although it still outspends China.
Corruption
Many argue that professors' salaries will have to rise if universities are to attract the best people.
The average wage for a Russian academic is $617 a month, while peers in Canada and the United States earn almost 10 times more, according to research by Boston University and the Higher School of Economics.
In that survey of 28 countries, Russia's professors were the poorest, only slightly better off than their counterparts in Armenia.
Low salaries make it harder to root out corruption. Bribes to gain entry to an educational institution, including grade schools, or for better marks amounted to about $1 billion in 2009, according to the Higher School of Economics.
Corruption "is a great problem for universities, which cannot trust their students' grades," said Professor Mark Levin, head of macroeconomics at the Higher School of Economics.
"If students bribe in one field they will continue after university, and if knowledge is bad we will get bad doctors, government engineers and professors — it is the reproduction of inefficiency," he said.
"It is necessary to reduce corruption in the whole country. If the atmosphere is corruptible, it is very difficult to eliminate corruption in one field."
The success of Russia's educational reforms will depend not only on the quality of the legislation and its implementation, but also on the social and political climate.
"The new education minister, Dmitry Livanov, is progressive, reform-minded and very motivated to do the right thing," said Guriev at the New Economic School. But "the record of this government in general, though, has so far not been good when it comes to openness and competition."
"This government doesn't seem to like freedom of speech, this government is not known for its international cooperation, this government doesn't like feedback from society, so we don't know [whether it can achieve its educational reforms]."
Breaking Into the Top 100
When not a single Russian university was included on the Times Higher Education list for the second year in a row, Russia's then-education minister said it was time to come up with a new system of ranking universities.
Now the universities rather than the list-makers are back in focus, after Putin announced in May that five Russian institutions were expected to break into the top 100 by 2020.
Few doubt the goal is in reach, but many question the timing.
"Everybody, including Putin himself, understands that it is not realistic," said Zoya Zaitseva, director of Central Europe and Central Asia at QS.
Seven years is not enough time to implement all the things that need to be done, she said, although four or five institutions could be in contention for spots in the top 200.
Russian universities are relatively low in the QS rankings because those institutes lack kudos among their international peers and do not have their research cited often enough in academic journals, two of the criteria that QS uses to rank universities.
Russian professors need to learn English and participate in international conferences to share their ideas, Zaitseva said.
"Russian academics have a lot of good things to say," she said. "They have good labs and good projects, but they don't know how to promote themselves."
Russian oil output fell to 10.65 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, down from 10.71 million bpd in June, falling from post-Soviet highs maintained since March, Energy Ministry data showed on Sunday.
In an office building in Russia's northern city of Petrozavodsk, chance encounters between representatives of the mayor's office and the local legislature who share the building are avoided at all costs.
Back in April, the hottest topic in the Russian media and blogosphere was the news that the controversial director Nikita Mikhalkov and his brother, the director Andrei Konchalovsky, had applied for government funding of nearly a billion rubles ($16.5 million) to open a fast food chain that would be a healthier Russian alternative to McDonald's. |
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
CAUSE OF ACTION INSTITUTE,
Plaintiff,
v. Civil Action No. 16-871 (CKK)
W. NEIL EGGLESTON, et al.,
Defendants
MEMORANDUM OPINION
(December 15, 2016)
This case arises from several Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests Plaintiff has
made to various executive agencies that, Plaintiff alleges, have been delayed as a result of
agency consultation with the Office of White House Counsel (“OWHC”). Plaintiff alleges that
this delay is caused by agencies complying with a memorandum issued by the OWHC in 2009
that calls for consultation with the OWHC on FOIA requests that implicate “White House
equities.” Plaintiff claims that such consultation is unnecessary and engaged in to delay
politically sensitive or embarrassing FOIA requests.
Presently before the Court is Defendants’ [16] Partial Motion to Dismiss pursuant to
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Upon consideration of the pleadings, 1
the relevant legal authorities, and the record for purposes of this motion, the Court GRANTS
Defendants’ motion. The Court dismisses, without prejudice, Plaintiff’s FOIA claim to the
1
The Court’s consideration has focused on the following documents:
• Pl.’s Compl. for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Compl.”), ECF No. 1;
• Defs.’ Mem. in Support of Partial Mot. to Dismiss (“Defs.’ Mem.”), ECF No. 16-1;
• Pl.’s Mem. in Opp’n to Defs.’ Partial Mot. to Dismiss (“Pl.’s Opp’n”), ECF No. 17; and
• Defs.’ Reply in Support of Defs.’ Partial Mot. to Dismiss (“Defs.’ Reply”), ECF No. 19.
In an exercise of its discretion, the Court finds that holding oral argument in this action would
not be of assistance in rendering a decision. See LCvR 7(f).
1
extent that it includes a “policy or practice” claim under Payne Enterprises, Inc. v. United States,
837 F.2d 486 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Plaintiff has not pled sufficient facts that establish that the
agencies at issue have pursued a policy of violating FOIA that would be actionable under Payne
Enterprises. Plaintiff’s FOIA claim is not dismissed to the extent that it seeks the documents
requested in the FOIA requests at issue. The Court also dismisses Plaintiff’s Administrative
Procedure Act (“APA”) claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The APA does not provide
a waiver of sovereign immunity in this case because an adequate remedy for the conduct about
which Plaintiff complains is available under FOIA. Finally, the Court also dismisses Plaintiff’s
claim for non-statutory review of ultra vires action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The
Court does not have jurisdiction under this narrow doctrine because FOIA provides an adequate
alternative remedy and because Plaintiff has not pled the type of unlawful conduct that warrants
non-statutory review.
I. BACKGROUND
For the purposes of this motion, the Court accepts as true the allegations in the
Complaint. The Court does “not accept as true, however, the plaintiff’s legal conclusions or
inferences that are unsupported by the facts alleged.” Ralls Corp. v. Comm. on Foreign Inv. in
U.S., 758 F.3d 296, 315 (D.C. Cir. 2014).
A. The Parties
Plaintiff Cause of Action Institute is a nonprofit organization that files dozens of FOIA
requests each year seeking access to various government records. Compl. ¶ 1. Defendants in
this case include various executive agencies to whom Plaintiff has submitted FOIA requests,
including: the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), the Internal Revenue Service
(“IRS”), the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), the United States
2
Department of Defense (“DOD”), the United States Department of Energy (“DOE”), the United
States Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the United States Department of State (“DOS”), the
Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), the United States Department of the Interior
(“DOI”), the United States Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”), and the United States
Department of Transportation (“DOT”) (collectively, “Agency Defendants”). Id. ¶ 14.
Defendants also include the OWHC and White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston (collectively,
“OWHC Defendants”). Id. ¶¶ 12-13.
B. Plaintiff’s FOIA Requests
At issue in this case are several FOIA requests made by Plaintiff to the Agency
Defendants since August 2013. First, on August 6, 2013, Plaintiff submitted a FOIA request to
HHS requesting the “work calendars of the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Chief of Staff.” Id.
¶ 61. Shortly thereafter, Plaintiff made two additional FOIA requests to HHS seeking records
related to “Early Innovator Grants” awarded by HHS, and records related to incidents of
unauthorized disclosure of “Personally Identifiable Information” by health insurance exchanges.
Id. ¶ 62.
Next, on June 29, 2015, Plaintiff simultaneously sent similar FOIA requests to ten of the
Agency Defendants. Id. ¶ 66. Each of the requests sought:
a) “All travel records of [the agency head or heads] related to travel (1) on Air Force
One, (2) with the President or Vice President, or (3) to or from meetings with the
President or Vice President outside of Washington, D.C., from January 1, 2014 to
the present”;
b) “All work calendars of [the agency head or heads] related to meetings that (1)
occurred at the White House or (2) included representatives of the Executive
Office of the President, from January 1, 2014 to the present”;
c) “All records of correspondence received by the Office of the Secretary or the
Office of Congressional Relations from (1) Senator Barack Obama, or any
member of Senator Obama’s congressional staff, or (2) Senator Joseph Biden, or
3
any member of Senator Biden’s congressional staff, from January 3, 2005 to
November 3, 2008.”
Id. Plaintiff alleges that, at the time its complaint was filed, none of the Agency Defendants had
provided Plaintiff with a final determination regarding these requests. Id. ¶ 71. Plaintiff claims
that final determinations with respect to its requests have been delayed as a result of consultation
between Agency Defendants and the OWHC. Id. ¶ 80.
C. OWHC Review of FOIA Requests to Executive Agencies
The OWHC has a long history of consulting with executive agencies regarding FOIA
requests. 2 OWHC intermittently issues new memoranda instructing executive agencies on the
types of requests and records about which OWHC should be consulted. Beginning in 1988, the
OWHC, pursuant to a memorandum issued by then-Assistant Attorney General Stephen J.
Markman (“Markman Memorandum”), required agencies responding to FOIA requests to
provide for OWHC review “[r]ecords originating with or involving the ‘White House’ Office.” 3
The Markman Memorandum defined the term “White House Office” broadly to include “all
offices over which the Office of the Chief of Staff directly presides” including, for example, the
office of the First Lady. Id. at n.1. In 1992, the Markman Memorandum was superseded by a
memorandum written by Steven R. Schlesinger of the DOJ Office of Policy Development
2
In the following portion of this Memorandum Opinion, the Court references OWHC
memoranda not expressly pled in Plaintiff’s complaint. However, “[w]hen reviewing a challenge
pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), the Court may consider documents outside the pleadings to assure
itself that it has jurisdiction.” Al-Owhali v. Ashcroft, 279 F. Supp. 2d 13, 21 (D.D.C. 2003). The
Court may also take judicial notice of OWHC memoranda discussed herein pursuant to Federal
Rule of Evidence 201. See Sanders v. Kerry, 180 F. Supp. 3d 35, 41 (D.D.C. 2016) (public
records are subject to judicial notice).
3
Stephen J. Markman, White House Records in Agency Files: Referrals and Consultations (Sept.
1, 1988), available at http://causeofaction.org/assets/uploads/2014/04/1988-memo.pdf.
4
(“Schlesinger Memorandum”). 4 The Schlesinger Memorandum, while refining the procedures to
be used by agencies in certain situations, by in large retained the Markman Memorandum’s
structure as well as its broad definition of “White House Office.” Id. In 1993, then-Associate
Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell issued a memorandum that superseded the Schlesinger
Memorandum (“Hubbell Memorandum”). 5 Under the Hubbell Memorandum, agencies were
required to consult with the OWHC when a FOIA request sought “White House-originated
records (or records containing White House-originated information).” Id.
In 2009, White House Counsel Gregory Craig circulated a new memorandum (“Craig
Memorandum”) regarding consultation with the OWHC on FOIA requests. Compl., Ex. 1. The
Craig Memorandum is quite brief and does not purport to supersede the Hubbell Memorandum.
Id. It simply states that it is a “reminder that executive agencies should consult with the White
House Counsel’s Office on all document requests that may involve documents with White House
equities.” Id. The memorandum asks that “such consultation take place well in advance of the
deadline for responding.” Id. The term “White House equities” is not defined in the Craig
Memorandum, but the memorandum states that it includes, at least, “all documents and records,
whether in oral, paper or electronic form, that relate to communications to and from the White
House.” Id.
Plaintiff alleges that “[b]ecause the term ‘White House equities’ is vague and undefined,
agency FOIA officers interpret it broadly, referring FOIA requests to White House review
whenever the subject matter might be of ‘interest’ to the White House.” Id. ¶ 39. Plaintiff
4
Steven R. Schlesinger, White House Records in Agency Files: Referral and Consultations (Jan.
28, 1992), available at http://causeofaction.org/assets/uploads/2014/04/1992-memo.pdf.
5
Webster L. Hubbell, Memorandum Regarding FOIA Consultation Procedures Required For
Any White House-Originated Record or Information Found in Agency Files (Nov. 3, 1993),
available at https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-foia-memo-white-house-records.
5
alleges that, as a result, OWHC reviews requests in cases where such review does “not serve any
legitimate FOIA purpose” and that this “review is directed in particular at FOIA requests that the
administration finds politically sensitive or embarrassing.” Id. ¶¶ 53, 55. Accordingly, Plaintiff
alleges that the Craig Memorandum “inappropriately delays final determinations and production
of responsive documents until OWHC grants clearance.” Id. ¶ 53.
D. Plaintiff’s Claims in This Lawsuit
Plaintiff brought this lawsuit on May 9, 2016. “The gravamen of the Complaint is that
the White House cannot cause delay in producing the requested documents that is separate and
apart from the delays caused by the normal FOIA process within the agencies.” Pl.’s Opp’n at
15 n.8. Plaintiff asserts causes of action under the FOIA, APA and the Court’s “authority to
enjoin ultra vires actions by agents and organs of the federal government.” Id. ¶¶ 75-101. As
relief, Plaintiff requests that the Court order Agency Defendants to make final determinations
regarding Plaintiff’s FOIA requests and produce the requested documents. Id. at 32. Plaintiff
also requests that the Court enjoin OWHC consultation on FOIA requests under the Craig
Memorandum to the extent it causes any delay in the production of documents requested under
FOIA. Id. On July 15, 2016, Defendants moved for partial dismissal of Plaintiff’s Complaint
under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).
II. LEGAL STANDARDS
A. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)
To survive a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), plaintiff bears the burden of
establishing that the court has subject matter jurisdiction over its claim. See Moms Against
Mercury v. FDA, 483 F.3d 824, 828 (D.C. Cir. 2007). In determining whether there is
jurisdiction, the Court may “consider the complaint supplemented by undisputed facts evidenced
6
in the record, or the complaint supplemented by undisputed facts plus the court’s resolution of
disputed facts.” Coal. for Underground Expansion v. Mineta, 333 F.3d 193, 198 (D.C. Cir.
2003) (citations omitted). “Although a court must accept as true all factual allegations contained
in the complaint when reviewing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1),” the factual
allegations in the complaint “will bear closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion than in
resolving a 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim.” Wright v. Foreign Serv. Grievance Bd.,
503 F. Supp. 2d 163, 170 (D.D.C.2007) (citations omitted).
B. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a party may move to dismiss a
complaint on the grounds that it “fail[s] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed.
R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that a complaint contain “‘a
short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,’ in order to
‘give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’”
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47
(1957)). “[A] complaint [does not] suffice if it tenders ‘naked assertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further
factual enhancement.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S.
at 557). Rather, a complaint must contain sufficient factual allegations that, if true, “state a
claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. “A claim has facial
plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
In evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a court must
construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept as true all
reasonable factual inferences drawn from well-pleaded factual allegations. See In re United
7
Mine Workers of Am. Employee Benefit Plans Litig., 854 F. Supp. 914, 915 (D.D.C. 1994).
“That said, [the Court] accept[s] neither ‘inferences drawn by plaintiffs if such inferences are
unsupported by the facts set out in the complaint,’ nor ‘legal conclusions cast in the form of
factual allegations.’” Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (quoting Kowal
v. MCI Commc’ns Corp., 16 F.3d 1271, 1276 (D.C. Cir. 1994)). Finally, in deciding a Rule
12(b)(6) motion, a court may consider “the facts alleged in the complaint, documents attached as
exhibits or incorporated by reference in the complaint,” or “documents upon which the plaintiff’s
complaint necessarily relies even if the document is produced not by the plaintiff in the
complaint but by the defendant in a motion to dismiss.” Ward v. D.C. Dep’t of Youth Rehab.
Servs., 768 F. Supp. 2d 117, 119 (D.D.C. 2011) (citations omitted).
III. DISCUSSION
The Court will grant Defendants’ motion to partially dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint in
three respects: (A) the Court dismisses Plaintiff’s FOIA cause of action to the extent it alleges a
“policy or practice” claim because Plaintiff has not plausibly alleged facts showing that
Defendants have followed a policy or practice of violating FOIA, beyond the fact that final
determinations of several of Plaintiff’s FOIA requests are delayed; (B) the Court dismisses
Plaintiff’s APA claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because an adequate alternative
remedy is available under FOIA and accordingly the APA does not provide a waiver of
sovereign immunity; and (C) the Court also dismisses Plaintiff’s ultra vires claim for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction because FOIA provides an adequate alternative remedy and because
Plaintiff has not pled the type of unlawful conduct that warrants such non-statutory review.
8
A. The Court Dismisses Plaintiff’s “Policy or Practice” Claim Under FOIA For
Failure to State a Claim
First, the Court will dismiss Plaintiff’s FOIA claim to the extent that it alleges that
Agency Defendants’ compliance with the Craig Memorandum is a “policy or practice” of
violating FOIA actionable under Payne Enterprises, Inc. v. United States, 837 F.2d 486 (D.C.
Cir. 1988). In Payne Enterprises, officers of the Air Force Logistics Command had routinely
refused to release records sought by plaintiff despite the fact that there was “no justification” for
doing so, forcing plaintiff to repeatedly pursue “frustrating” and “costly” administrative appeals
to obtain the records. Id. at 490, 494. Plaintiff filed suit to challenge this practice, but its case
was dismissed as moot because plaintiff had eventually “received all of the material it had
requested.” Id. at 488. The D.C. Circuit reversed, holding that “even though a party may have
obtained relief as to a specific request under the FOIA, this will not moot a claim that an agency
policy or practice will impair the party’s lawful access to information in the future.” Id. at 491.
Accordingly, if adequately pled, a “policy or practice” claim under Payne Enterprises represents
an exception to the general rule that a “plaintiff’s specific claim regarding a FOIA request is
moot [once] the requested documents have been released.” Muttitt v. U.S. Cent. Command, 813
F. Supp. 2d 221, 228 (D.D.C. 2011).
“To state a claim for relief under the ‘policy or practice’ doctrine articulated in Payne . . .
a plaintiff must allege, inter alia, facts establishing that the agency has adopted, endorsed, or
implemented some policy or practice that constitutes an ongoing ‘failure to abide by the terms of
the FOIA.’” Muttitt v. Dep’t of State, 926 F. Supp. 2d 284, 293 (D.D.C. 2013) (quoting Payne
Enterprises, 837 F.2d at 491). Here, Plaintiff alleges that Agency Defendants have engaged in
an unlawful policy or practice of “submitting politically sensitive FOIA productions to the
[OWHC] for pre-production review, even when no applicable FOIA exemption or recognized
9
interest justifies White House involvement.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 12. Plaintiff alleges that this is done
to delay requests for “politically sensitive or embarrassing” records. Compl. ¶ 55.
The Court finds that Plaintiff’s allegations are insufficient to state a claim for such a
“policy or practice.” The Court begins by noting that Plaintiff’s Complaint is largely reliant on
allegations, newspaper articles and emails regarding FOIA requests that are not at issue in this
case, many of which appear to have been made by other groups or individuals. To have standing
to challenge an alleged “policy or practice,” a plaintiff must allege that it was subject to the
practice challenged. See Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. C.I.A., 931 F. Supp. 2d 77, 92 (D.D.C. 2013)
(“even assuming that an alleged policy or practice exists and some FOIA requesters may have
been subject to that policy, FOIA plaintiffs must establish that they have personally been subject
to the alleged policy to have standing to challenge it.”); Quick v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, Nat.
Inst. of Standards & Tech., 775 F. Supp. 2d 174, 187 (D.D.C. 2011) (“even assuming that
individuals other than Quick may have been subject to the alleged ‘pattern or practice,’ the
record is clear that Quick was not. That being the case, Quick lacks standing to pursue such a
claim in this action.”). Accordingly, the Court must focus its attention on Plaintiff’s allegations
of a policy or practice of violating FOIA with regard to the FOIA requests submitted by Plaintiff
actually at issue in this case.
With regard to these requests, Plaintiff falls short of pleading any “policy or practice” of
violating FOIA under Payne Enterprises. First, of the various FOIA requests at issue in this
case, Plaintiff only alleges facts showing that one has been sent to the OWHC for review at all.
With respect to all of Plaintiff’s other requests that are at issue, Plaintiff concedes that it is
possible that “Agency Defendants are delaying for reasons having nothing to do with the Craig
Memo[random] and have not sought to consult with the White House on any documents.”
10
Compl. ¶ 81. Plaintiff cannot state a “policy or practice” claim based on a single incident. See
Swan View Coal. v. Dep’t of Agric., 39 F. Supp. 2d 42, 46 (D.D.C. 1999) (noting that a policy or
practice claim is alleged when “plaintiff challenges not just an isolated action”).
Second, unlike the plaintiff in Payne Enterprises, Plaintiff does not allege that the
Agency Defendants have decided, even initially, to not produce any records that should be
produced. Plaintiff merely alleges that the Agency Defendants’ responses to its requests have
been delayed. This distinction is significant. “[R]ecogniz[ing] that agencies may not always be
able to adhere to the timelines,” the D.C. Circuit has held that the only “penalty” for delay is
“that the agency cannot rely on the administrative exhaustion requirement to keep cases from
getting into court.” Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington v. Fed. Election Comm’n,
711 F.3d 180, 189 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
Accordingly, delay alone, even repeated delay, is not the type of illegal policy or practice
that is actionable under Payne Enterprises. See Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland
Sec., No. 15-1983, 2016 WL 5660233, at *3 (D.D.C. Sept. 29, 2016) (policy or practice claims
involve “more egregious, intentional agency conduct than mere delay”); Del Monte Fresh
Produce N.A. v. United States, 706 F. Supp. 2d 116, 120 (D.D.C. 2010) (“Payne Enterprises
regards the repeated denial of Freedom of Information requests based on invocation of
inapplicable statutory exemptions rather than the delay of an action over which the agency had
discretion.”); Rocky Mountain Wild, Inc. v. U.S. Forest Serv., No. 15-CV-0127-WJM-CBS, 2016
WL 362459, at *11 (D. Colo. Jan. 29, 2016) (granting summary judgment to agency on policy or
practice claim because “a failure to make a ‘determination’ within 20 days—even a repeated
failure—already contains a statutory remedy: the right to sue. It is not properly comparable to
the behavior exhibited in . . . Payne, where the agencies continually and intentionally invoked
11
spurious reasons for nondisclosure”). The Court finds that Plaintiff must plead something more
than a mere failure to meet statutory deadlines to move forward on its policy or practice claim.
Finally, with regard to Plaintiff’s attempt to plead something more than mere delay, the
Court is not required to, and does not, accept Plaintiff’s conclusory and unsupported allegation
that its requests have been delayed for illicit purposes and not as a result of legitimate efforts to
review requested records. Plaintiff does not dispute that some degree of OWHC review of FOIA
requests is acceptable. Pl.’s Opp’n at 18 (Plaintiff “does not suggest that White House
consultation is per se unavailable under FOIA”); id. at 21 (FOIA “should not be interpreted so
literally as to preclude White House review”). To the contrary, Plaintiff acknowledges that “the
President may require that agencies . . . keep him informed of FOIA requests directed to them,”
that “[t]he President may also require that agencies consult about production of White House
documents or documents over which the President has statutory responsibility,” and that “[t]he
President may even require agency consultation more broadly.” Compl. ¶ 8. Plaintiff
additionally acknowledges that there are various FOIA exemptions that “relate specifically to
Presidential determinations or records,” Pl.’s Opp’n at 5, including 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), which
relates to records “specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be
kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy,” and § 552(b)(5), which relates to
“inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a
party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.” Plaintiff even concedes that the White
House can “direct consultation in violation of statutory deadlines” so long as it is “vital to the
application of a presidential privilege.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 19-20, n.11.
Plaintiff is clearly correct to concede that White House consultation is not “per se”
unlawful or unnecessary. Indeed, as one example, White House consultation may be necessary
12
to determine the applicability of FOIA Exemption 5, because that exemption “incorporate[s] the
presidential communications privilege,” and therefore its applicability depends in part on
whether the “‘President believes [a document] should remain confidential.’” Judicial Watch,
Inc. v. Dep’t of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (quoting In re Sealed Case, 121
F.3d 729, 744 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). In light of this concession that OWHC review is not “per se”
unlawful, Plaintiff’s claim that the delays in this case are actionable is quite narrow. It is
dependent not only on the allegation that the delays in this case are caused by OWHC review,
but also on the allegation that such review is unlawful under the circumstances because it is
“unnecessary,” Compl. ¶ 80, and merely used to “control[ ] political messages and avoid[ ]
political embarrassment,” Pl.’s Opp’n at 19.
This latter allegation, however, is conclusory and unsupported by the facts alleged.
Instead of supporting it with factual allegations, Plaintiff asks the Court to accept this claim
based on legal conclusions and inferences drawn from the nature of Plaintiff’s FOIA requests
and past instances of OWHC review. But the Court does not accept as true legal conclusions or
“inferences drawn by plaintiffs” where, as here, “such inferences are unsupported by the facts set
out in the complaint.” Browning, 292 F.3d at 242 (quoting Kowal, 16 F.3d at 1276).
The Court finds that the FOIA requests at issue in this case, and the past instances of
OWHC review documented in Plaintiff’s exhibits, do not support Plaintiff’s conclusory
allegation that the OWHC engages in “unnecessary” or politically-motivated review of FOIA
requests. To the contrary, the Court finds that the FOIA requests OWHC has allegedly reviewed
plausibly implicate records that either come from the White House or could reasonably call for
White House input to determine the applicability of FOIA exemptions. For example, a number
of the requests explicitly implicate White House records or correspondence, which even Plaintiff
13
concedes makes OWHC review reasonable. See, e.g., Compl., Ex. 7 (sending “a collection of
letters that the WH wrote”); id. Ex. 8 (giving notice of a release of “joint DOI-White House
records”); id., Ex. 24 (forwarding a “White House memo”); id., Ex. 27 (forwarding materials
including e-mails that originated with individuals who “are currently with the White House”).
Other FOIA requests that have been sent to the OWHC for consultation, as well as
Plaintiff’s own requests, implicate the travel plans or meetings of the President, Vice President,
First Lady or White House staff. See, e.g., id. ¶ 66 (requesting travel records related to “travel on
Air Force One” or “with the President or Vice President”); id., Ex. 9 (forwarding an invitation to
a meeting of the Domestic Policy Council, which coordinates the domestic policy-making
process in the White House); id., Ex. 25 (discussing request related to “the First Lady’s trip to
Spain”). Still others, again including Plaintiff’s requests, involve calendars or travel records for
Cabinet members. Id. ¶ 66 (requesting “[a]ll work calendars” of agency heads “related to
meetings that occurred at the White House”); id., Ex. 17 (forwarding request related to
“Secretary Chu’s travel on Air Force One”); id., Ex. 19 (“WH Counsel has asked that all FOIA’s
related to Cabinet members’ schedules/travel be sent to their office . . . for review prior to release
due to WH meetings, calls, etc.”). Defendant argues, and the Court finds reasonable, that the
OWHC seeks to be consulted on these requests because the records requested could reference
White House meetings and therefore potentially contain communications protected by the
executive privilege, which extends to “key White House advisers in the Office of the President
and their staff.” Judicial Watch, 365 F.3d at 1116.
Having reviewed all of the facts alleged, including the sixty-five exhibits attached to
Plaintiff’s Complaint, the Court finds no factual support for Plaintiff’s conclusions that OWHC
review has been used as a politically-driven delay tactic divorced from legitimate review. The
14
requests are not nearly so far removed from legitimate reasons the White House might have to
review FOIA requests to support this conclusion. Even if the OWHC has been consulted with on
FOIA requests that, as it turned out, did not in fact implicate White House records or records that
were protected by an executive-related FOIA exemption, the focus of the “policy or practice”
doctrine is conduct that is “wholly unjustified.” Payne Enterprises, 837 F.2d at 489 (emphasis
added). Plaintiff falls far short of alleging that OWHC’s mere review of the requests to
determine whether they might implicate such records is so “unnecessary” as to be “wholly
unjustified.” Id.
Accordingly, the Court DISMISSES Plaintiff’s FOIA claim to the extent that it alleges a
“policy or practice” claim under Payne Enterprises, WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Plaintiff has not
pled facts supporting its claim that Agency Defendants are engaged in a practice of delaying
Plaintiff’s FOIA requests by sending them to the OWHC for unnecessary or otherwise
inappropriate review. Plaintiff has pled that Agency Defendants’ responses to its FOIA requests
are delayed, but delay alone is insufficient.
B. The Court Dismisses Plaintiff’s APA Claim For Lack Of Subject Matter
Jurisdiction
Next, the Court dismisses Plaintiff’s claim under the APA for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. “‘[A] plaintiff must overcome the defense of sovereign immunity in order to
establish the jurisdiction necessary to survive a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss.’” Stone v.
Holder, 859 F. Supp. 2d 48, 51 (D.D.C. 2012) (quoting Jackson v. Bush, 448 F. Supp. 2d 198,
200 (D.D.C. 2006)). The APA waives sovereign immunity for certain claims against the
Government, but “there is no waiver of sovereign immunity where [plaintiffs] have an adequate
alternative remedy in court.” Nat’l Wrestling Coaches Ass’n v. Dep’t of Educ., 366 F.3d 930,
947 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see also 5 U.S.C. § 704 (“[a]gency action made reviewable by statute and
15
final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court are subject to judicial
review” under the APA) (emphasis added). In particular, “[w]here a statute affords an
opportunity for de novo district-court review,” APA review is “precluded because ‘Congress did
not intend to permit a litigant challenging an administrative denial . . . to utilize simultaneously
both [the review provision] and the APA.’” El Rio Santa Cruz Neighborhood Health Ctr., Inc. v.
U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 396 F.3d 1265, 1270 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (quoting Envtl. Def.
Fund v. Reilly, 909 F.2d 1497, 1501 (D.C. Cir. 1990)). Although courts analyzing the adequacy
of an alternative remedy “must give the APA a hospitable interpretation,” Garcia v. Vilsack, 563
F.3d 519, 523 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (quoting El Rio Santa Cruz, 396 F.3d at 1272) (internal quotation
marks omitted), dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is required where relief of the
“same genre” as the relief sought under the APA is available to plaintiff, El Rio Santa Cruz, 396
F.3d at 1272.
In this case, the relief Plaintiff seeks under the APA—preventing Agency Defendants
from complying with the Craig Memorandum and accordingly delaying FOIA productions—is
available under FOIA. Indeed, Plaintiff itself has asked for that same relief under the FOIA
count in its Complaint. Compl. ¶ 83 (“This Court should use its authority to enjoin agency
practices and procedures that violate the mandates of FOIA and order the prompt production of
all documents delayed by White House review.”). FOIA provides an avenue for Plaintiff to
complain of delayed determinations, and, as discussed above, FOIA also provides an avenue for
Plaintiff to challenge policies or practices regarding FOIA compliance. Payne Enterprises, 837
F.2d at 491.
Courts in this circuit have “have uniformly declined jurisdiction over APA claims that
sought remedies made available by FOIA,” including the equitable power of courts described in
16
Payne Enterprises. Feinman v. FBI, 713 F. Supp. 2d 70, 76-77 (D.D.C. 2010); see also Harvey
v. Lynch, 123 F. Supp. 3d 3, 7-8 (D.D.C. 2015) (holding that the court lacked jurisdiction over an
APA claim because it was “predicated on [an agency’s] failure to comply with FOIA deadlines”
for which there is a remedy under FOIA); Elec. Privacy Info. Ctr. v. Nat’l Sec. Agency, 795 F.
Supp. 2d 85, 95 (D.D.C. 2011) (“APA claims arising out of an agency’s response to a FOIA
request must be dismissed when they seek relief that can be obtained through a FOIA claim
itself.”); Muttitt, 813 F. Supp. 2d at 229 (“APA relief is foreclosed here because the Court
concludes that in this case—where a plaintiff challenges an alleged pattern and practice of
violating procedural requirements of FOIA in connection with the processing of the plaintiff’s
FOIA requests—the Court has the power under FOIA and Payne to provide the requested
declaratory and injunctive remedies.”).
Plaintiff seeks to avoid this result by advancing two arguments, neither of which the
Court finds persuasive. First, Plaintiff argues that it cannot obtain complete relief under FOIA
because compliance with the Craig Memorandum may constitute a violation of certain FOIA
regulations promulgated by Agency Defendants, and FOIA review “does not cover agency
violation of” such regulations. Pl.’s Opp’n at 24-26. Although Plaintiff expounds on this
argument at length in its Opposition, the Complaint is completely devoid of any allegation that
any Agency Defendant has violated their own FOIA regulations by coordinating with the OWHC
regarding FOIA requests. As such, Agency Defendants’ alleged violations of their own FOIA
regulations are not properly before the Court.
Second, Plaintiff argues that its APA claim is related to a “peripheral practice
unconnected to the disclosure of documents” and therefore “may be pursued under the APA
rather than under FOIA itself.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 26 (quoting Defs.’ Mem. at 25). Both parties
17
agree that some FOIA actions that are “outside the scope of § 552(a)(4)(B)” can be reviewed
under the APA. Pub. Citizen, Inc. v. Lew, 127 F. Supp. 2d 1, 9 (D.D.C. 2000). This is not,
however, such an action. The policy or practice of consulting with OWHC on particular FOIA
requests which results in a delay of the disclosure of the requested documents is not a “peripheral
practice unconnected to the disclosure of documents.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 26. It is fundamentally
connected to such disclosure. The cases cited by Plaintiff on this point are inapposite. The
Court considers the alleged practice complained of here far more central to the “disclosure of
documents” sought by Plaintiff than an agency’s “determination of which information systems
qualify as major,” which was the practice at issue in Pub. Citizen, Inc., 127 F. Supp. 2d at 8.
Moreover, the court in Reliance Electric Co. v. Consumer Prod. Safety Comm’n, 924 F.2d 274
(D.C. Cir. 1991) merely held that judicial review of an agency’s decision to release information
in a “reverse-FOIA action” is pursuant to the APA. Id. at 277. This is not a “reverse-FOIA
action.” Id.
In sum, an adequate alternative remedy is available under FOIA with respect to all of the
relief Plaintiff seeks in its APA claim, and therefore the APA does not provide a waiver of
Defendants’ sovereign immunity. The Court accordingly DISMISSES Plaintiff’s APA claim for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
C. The Court Dismisses Plaintiff’s Ultra Vires Claim For Lack Of Subject Matter
Jurisdiction
Finally, the Court also grants Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s ultra vires claim
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The doctrine of non-statutory review of ultra vires actions
allows a plaintiff in certain limited circumstances to challenge government action in court even if
the “plaintiff is unable to bring his case predicated on either a specific or a general statutory
review provision.” Chamber of Commerce of U.S. v. Reich, 74 F.3d 1322, 1327 (D.C. Cir.
18
1996). Sovereign immunity is not a bar to such a claim because “sovereign immunity does not
bar a suit challenging the actions of a federal officer who has acted in excess of his legal
authority.” Royster-Clark Agribusiness, Inc. v. Johnson, 391 F. Supp. 2d 21, 24 (D.D.C. 2005).
However, it is well-settled that this doctrine is narrow: “[t]here certainly is no question that
nonstatutory review ‘is intended to be of extremely limited scope.’” Trudeau v. Fed. Trade
Comm’n, 456 F.3d 178, 190 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Griffith v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth.,
842 F.2d 487, 493 (D.C. Cir. 1988)); Schroer v. Billington, 525 F. Supp. 2d 58, 65 (D.D.C. 2007)
(“Non-statutory review is a doctrine of last resort”).
Plaintiff’s claim fails to fit within this narrow doctrine. First, Plaintiff’s claim fails
because Plaintiff has not alleged that OWHC Defendants have taken any action that is clearly
and completely outside of their authority or in violation of any statute. See Larson v. Domestic
& Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U.S. 682, 689 (1949) (a suit against an executive officer is not
barred as a suit against the sovereign if “[t]he officer is not doing the business which the
sovereign has empowered him to do or he is doing it in a way which the sovereign has
forbidden.”). Under the doctrine of non-statutory review, an “officer may be said to act ultra
vires only when he acts ‘without any authority whatever.’” Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v.
Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 101 n.11 (1984) (quoting Florida Dep’t of State v. Treasure Salvors,
Inc., 458 U.S. 670, 697 (1982)). Here, Plaintiff alleges that OWHC Defendants have issued a
memorandum that “remind[s] . . . executive agencies [to] consult with the White House
Counsel’s Office on all document requests that may involve documents with White House
equities,” and asks that “such consultation take place well in advance of the deadline for
responding.” Compl., Ex. 1. Plaintiff does not allege that OWHC Defendants have no authority
to review FOIA requests made to federal agencies, or to issue memoranda regarding the same.
19
In fact, Plaintiff concedes that “White House consultation is [not] per se unavailable under
FOIA,” Pl.’s Opp’n at 18, and that, at least under certain circumstances, the White House can
even “direct consultation in violation of statutory deadlines,” id. at 19-20, n.11.
Accordingly, even though Plaintiff claims that OWHC has used this authority
erroneously or inappropriately, and that “[a]mbiguities in FOIA, in this respect, should be
construed against Defendants,” id., this is simply not the sort of completely unauthorized or
illegal conduct that would allow the Court to engage in ultra vires review. See Florida Health
Scis. Ctr., Inc. v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 830 F.3d 515, 522 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (holding
that plaintiff could not challenge agency action on the ground that it was ultra vires because
disagreement over appropriateness of action was insufficient to demonstrate an “obvious” or
“patent violation of agency authority”); Royster-Clark, 391 F. Supp. 2d at 24 (because ultra vires
claims are based on “‘the officer’s lack of delegated power,” a mere “claim of error in the
exercise of that power is . . . not sufficient.”) (quoting Larson, 337 U.S. at 690).
Moreover, even if such conduct were reviewable under the non-statutory review doctrine,
such review would nonetheless be inappropriate here because Plaintiff has not adequately alleged
such conduct. See Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, Dist. Lodge 166, AFL-CIO v.
Griffin, 590 F. Supp. 2d 171, 174-80 (D.D.C. 2008) (“The scarcity of factual support is
especially problematic where, as here, Plaintiffs seek non-statutory review, because the Court
cannot find, based on this sole conclusory allegation, that NASA implemented a ‘policy and
practice’ that represents such an extreme error as to warrant non-statutory review.”); Texas All.
for Home Care Servs. v. Sebelius, 811 F. Supp. 2d 76, 94 (D.D.C. 2011), aff’d, 681 F.3d 402
(D.C. Cir. 2012) (declining to conduct ultra vires review where “plaintiffs’ allegations of ultra
vires action” were “conclusory” and based on unsupported inferences). As discussed supra §
20
III.A, the aspect of OWHC review that Plaintiff claims is inappropriate—that it is unnecessary
and engaged in to delay FOIA requests for political reasons—is pled with only conclusory
statements and unfounded inferences.
Finally, to the extent that Plaintiff’s ultra vires claim against OWHC Defendants is
premised on Agency Defendants’ delays in responding to Plaintiff’s FOIA requests, Compl. ¶ 97
(alleging that OWHC Defendants “have no authority to require federal agencies to delay
production of documents past statutory deadlines”), this claim fails for a number of reasons.
First, FOIA places no obligation on OWHC Defendants with respect to deadlines for responding
to FOIA requests made to Agency Defendants. Second, the Court notes that Plaintiff’s claim
that OWHC Defendants “require federal agencies to delay production,” id., is expressly
contradicted by the Craig Memorandum upon which Plaintiff’s claim is based. The Craig
Memorandum does not require delay, and in fact requests consultation occur “well in advance of
the deadline for responding.” Compl., Ex. 1. Finally, even if Plaintiff had alleged that OWHC
Defendants were somehow violating Agency Defendants’ FOIA deadlines, Plaintiff’s ultra vires
claim would have to be dismissed because Plaintiff has “a meaningful and adequate opportunity
for judicial review of the validity of” this action. Bd. of Governors of Fed. Reserve Sys. v.
MCorp Fin. Inc., 502 U.S. 32, 43 (1991); Wise v. Glickman, 257 F. Supp. 2d 123, 127 n.1
(D.D.C. 2003) (“Non-statutory review actions may be proper only when a plaintiff is unable to
bring his case predicated on either a specific or a general statutory review provision.”) (citation
and internal quotation omitted); Schroer v. Billington, 525 F. Supp. 2d 58, 65 (D.D.C. 2007)
(“The doctrine does not apply in a case such as this one, where the injury the plaintiff alleges
may be fully remedied under a statutorily provided cause of action”). For the reasons described
21
above, supra § III.B, the Court has already determined that FOIA provides Plaintiff with an
adequate alternative opportunity for judicial review of delays in responding to FOIA requests.
Plaintiff’s arguments to the contrary are speculative and unpersuasive. Plaintiff claims
that review under FOIA is an insufficient alternative because OWHC Defendants could evade a
FOIA remedy by issuing a different memorandum in the future, or by continuing to apply the
Craig Memorandum to different agencies who are not a party to this lawsuit. Pl.’s Opp’n at 32.
These issues do not alter the Court’s conclusion because they are not before the Court in this
case. It is sufficient to say that there is a meaningful opportunity for review and redress of the
harm Plaintiff actually alleges it suffers in this case—delays in responses to FOIA requests made
to the Agency Defendants based on OWHC review pursuant to the Craig Memorandum. To the
extent the eventualities about which Plaintiff is concerned come to pass, Plaintiff could bring
additional suits under FOIA to challenge new practices and resulting delays. Accord Women’s
Equity Action League v. Cavazos, 906 F.2d 742, 751 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (holding in analogous
context that “situation-specific litigation affords an adequate, even if imperfect, remedy.”).
In sum, the Court DISMISSES Plaintiff’s claim for non-statutory review of ultra vires
action. The Court does not have jurisdiction under this doctrine because Plaintiff does not allege
that Defendants acted without any authority at all in reviewing agency FOIA requests, and, with
regard to the only statutory provision Plaintiff references in this claim, Plaintiff has a meaningful
and adequate alternative opportunity for review. 6
6
Because the Court determines that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s ultra vires
claim due to Defendants’ sovereign immunity, it does not reach Plaintiff’s other arguments for
dismissing the claim, including that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction for the additional
reason that Plaintiff does not have standing, and that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim under
Rule 12(b)(6).
22
IV. CONCLUSION
In light of the foregoing the Court hereby GRANTS Defendants’ [16] Partial Motion to
Dismiss. The Court dismisses Plaintiff’s FOIA claim to the extent that it purports to allege a
“policy or practice” under Payne Enterprises for failure to factually plead such a policy or
practice. The Court does not dismiss Plaintiff’s FOIA claim in any other respect. The Court
dismisses Plaintiff’s APA and ultra vires claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because
Plaintiff has not overcome the bar of sovereign immunity. An appropriate order accompanies
this Memorandum Opinion.
__ /s/______________________
COLLEEN KOLLAR-KOTELLY
United States District Judge
23
|
Ash is described as looking like a very lazy cat. He has ash-blonde colored hair and eyes that change color depending on his mood. This is a trait he inherited from his ancestor Maya, the first lamia vampire. Ash has appeared in numerous Night World tales, more than any other character. He has appeared in Secret Vampire,Daughters of Darkness, Dark Angel, and Soulmate. He will appear in the upcoming novel and conclusion to the series Strange Fate.===
Contents
Secret Vampire
In Secret VampireAsh Redfern is introduced as a sneaky bad-boy. He first appears in Poppy North's dream while she is being turned into a vampire. Ash is wearing a mask with the face of James Rasmussen, his cousin and also Poppy's soulmate. In the dream he tells Poppy that 'Bad magic happens" and then disappears.
Later when Poppy wakes up and is staying in James's apartment he finds Poppy knowing nothing of the dream. He kidnaps Poppy by telling her that if she stays with James the Night People will hunt him down and kill him. Poppy, not wanting to hurt James, goes with Ash to Las Vegas.
In Vegas, Ash takes Poppy to his cross-kin witch family Thea and Blaise Harman. Poppy feeds on Thea, who remains oblivious to the fact that Poppy is an illegal vampire. Blaise however is suspicious and tells Ash about the Solstice party at Thierry Descouedres's house. Ash says no to the party knowing Thierry would dispose of Poppy. Instead he takes Poppy to the Volcano Hotel where he tries to put the moves on her. Poppy, disgusted, tells Ash of the Soulmate Principle and how she will always love James and no one else. Ash recognizing defeat, decides to take her to Thierry's party to turn her in.
Before he can do so, he is ambushed by James and Poppy's brother, Phil. James forgives Ash and tells him "Someday you'll fall in love with someone, and it's going to hurt." Ash pays the advice no attention and goes back to the party, promising to never tell about the Night World about James and Poppy.
Daughters of Darkness
In Daughters of DarknessAsh's part begins with him having a conversation with a made-vampire named Quinn. Quinn is telling Ash that his sisters Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade have run away from home and that Ash has to persuade them to go back. Ash decides to make a tab of all the people his sisters have met to see how well they are managing to keep their Night World secrets.
Ash is next seen at Mary-Lynnette Carter's house questioning her step-mother. Mary-Lynnette then questions Ash in return. Not wanting her to get suspicious, Ash tries to flirt and dazzle Mary-Lynnette. He tickles her under her chin but the skin-to-skin contact shocks them both and Mary-Lynnette kicks him in the shin. He leaves the house planning to never see her again.
But Ash's wishes don't come true when he meets Mary-Lynnette on her way to go star-watching. She bosses him around and shows him the sky through her binoculars. He pays attention but doesn't seem to mind being bossed around by Mary-Lynnette. He leaves her and goes to spy on his sisters.
Mary-Lynnette and her brother Mark, now knowing about the Night World and its laws, perform a kinship ceremony with Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade. Back in the girls' house they try to figure out who killed the girl's Aunt Opal. Ash breaks into the house and is found by the Carters and the sisters. He tells them he knows that the Carters know all about the Night World. He tells them he didn't kill Aunt Opal and he doesn't know who did. At this point a goat from the barn out back is thrown onto the front porch and the children inspect it. The goat has been staked over and over with tiny pieces of wood and in the goats mouth is a black iris. They think it represents the Black Iris Club, a vampire club that welcomes various members from the Night World. Ash also belongs to this club.
The next morning the sisters, Ash, and the Carters go into town to ask the local gas station employee, Jeremy Lovett if he saw anything suspicious the previous night. Marry-Lynnette, who had been friends with him since childhood, figures out that Jeremy is actually a werewolf. Ash knows this too and verbally abuses Jeremy, as werewolves are considered low class citizens in the Night World. This makes Mary-Lynnette angry and she pulls Ash behind the gas station to tell him so. She says she is embarrassed that Ash can say those prejudiced things to Jeremy. Ash feels bad and realizes that he cares what she thinks about him. He stops making unkind werewolf jokes.
Ash and the sisters realize that they need to hunt so they go and Mary-Lynnette and Mark play "List the Suspects" to determine if they have a lead on who killed Aunt Opal. Ash and the sisters return and Mary-Lynnette decides to clear her mind by going star-watching. Ash joins her and Mary-Lynnette leads them to a discrete place. There Ash asks her if they can stop fighting and admits he loves Mary-Lynnette. Mary-Lynnette is in denial until she kisses him and asks to be made into a vampire. They do the first exchange of blood and head back to Aunt Opal's but they are cut off.
Mary-Lynnette's station wagon caught fire and was blowing up so they decide to walk back when Ash is hit in the head with a club made of yew wood (wood hurts and kills vampires) and is knocked out. Mary-Lynnette is tied up by Jeremy who reveals that he was the one who killed Aunt Opal. Mary-Lynnette gets free and kills Jeremy with a silver knife. She checks Ash and they both go back to the house.
Quinn returns and Ash covers for the whole thing saying his aunt betrayed Night World Law so he killed her and that he found a rouge werewolf and killed him too. He also says Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade had only run away because they wanted to learn to hunt. Since Ash is head of the family on the west coast he says the sisters can stay there as long as they like. Quinn accepts this story and leaves.
But there's still Mary-Lynnette. She says she's not as ready as she thought she was to become a vampire. Ash also realizes that his past is too dark for him to be with Mary-Lynnette. He leaves telling her that he will make up for all of his faults before he returns the following year.
Dark Angel
Ash is seen in this story when Gillian Lennox (a lost witch) wanders into the Black Iris club. The goons of the Night World there are about to kill Gillian because they don't believe her when she says she is a daughter of Hellewise. Ash grabs her from behind and leads her out of the club telling her to not come back because the Night People will kill her. When asked why he doesn't kill her Ash tells her about meeting a human girl the previous summer. Gillian obeys Ash and goes back to her car.
Soulmate
In SoulmateAsh is seen at the Circle Daybreak meeting at Thierry Descoudres's house and the only one without their soulmate there. Later in the night, Hannah Snow, Thierry's soulmate, asks about Ash's soulmate. He explains he left her in Oregon because he had faults to make up for. He tells Hannah she reminds him of Mary-Lynnette and then leaves Hannah in a quizzical state.
Strange Fate
Based on short-stories on L.J. Smith's website, during Strange Fatethe Apocalypse has been delayed and Ash is desperate to save Mary-Lynnette from the bombs shooting down on Harvard, where Mary-Lynnette is currently studying. Ash asks Thierry Descoudres if he can use one of his helicopters to get to Mary-Lynnette fast. Thierry tells him he must ask Sarah Strange because he had loaned his helicopters to her so she could fly her family to a safe house. Ash begs Sarah for the helicopter and Sarah asks Ash to tell her about Mary-Lynnette. Ash tells Sarah how eccentric and smart and stubborn Mary-Lynnette is. After Ash is done Sarah asks Ash to tell her what Mary-Lynnette looks like. Ash then tells her about Mary-Lynette's beauty. Sarah lets him have the helicopter because when she asked about Mary-Lynnette, Ash talked about her personality before beauty. Ash sets out for Harvard in the helicopter with many backups. They find Mary-Lynnette with another girl and her and Ash are reunited.
It has been said that 7 favorite Night World soulmates come together to fight the Apocalypse, but it is unknown who those couples are and how Ash and Mary-Lynette help in the final story. |
Gypsum calcium sulfate dihydrate, CaSO4.2H2O comes from a variety of sources. Land plaster is a term for natural gypsum which is any mixture containing more than 50% calcium sulfate dihydrate, CaSO4.2H2O (by weight).
Generally, gypsum-containing products are prepared by forming a mixture of calcined gypsum phase (i.e., calcium sulfate hemihydrate and/or calcium sulfate soluble anhydrite) and water, and, optionally, other components, as desired. The mixture typically is cast into a pre-determined shape or onto the surface of a substrate. The calcined gypsum reacts with the water to form a matrix of crystalline hydrated gypsum, i.e., calcium sulfate dihydrate. It is the desired hydration of calcined gypsum that enables the formation of an interlocking matrix of set gypsum, thereby imparting strength to the gypsum structure in the gypsum-containing product.
Stucco is defined as chemically calcium sulfate hemihydrate and is a well-known building material used to make building plasters and gypsum wallboard. Stucco is typically made by crushing the gypsum rock with and then heating the gypsum at atmospheric pressure to calcine (dehydrate) the calcium sulfate dihydrate into calcium sulfate hemihydrate. In addition to natural gypsum rock the use of Flue Gas Desulphurization gypsum or gypsum from chemical processes can be used as well. Traditionally, the calcining of gypsum has occurred in a large atmospheric pressure kettle containing a mixture of the various phases of the gypsum
U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,968 to Rowland et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses its own method and apparatus for continuous calcining of gypsum in a refractoryless atmospheric kettle. However, U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,968 to Rowland et al. also discloses a variety of kettles for calcining stucco. One such kettle has a thickened dome-shaped bottom, against which a gas-fired flame is directed, with the kettle and burner flame being enclosed in a suitable refractory structure. There is usually an associated hot pit into which the calcined material is fed. The kettle must withstand temperatures in the 2,000-2,400° F. (1093-1314° C.) range. U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,968 to Rowland et al. states U.S. Pat. No. 3,236,509 to Blair typifies this type construction.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,236,509 to Blair, incorporated herein by reference, discloses continuous fluidized kettle calcination in which dried mineral gypsum powder is fed to a covered, but air vented and lightly vacuum exhausted, calcination vessel. After a steady state of operation is attained in the vessel, a substantially continuous stream of cold gypsum that has been pre-dried and ground to a finely divided state and with a wide distribution of fragmented particle sizes, is added on top of the fluidized, boiling mass in the kettle. Under such conditions, the thermal shock upon the cold, dry mineral being dropped into the already boiling mass radically fractures the ground gypsum rock fragments, and the resultant stucco (beta hemihydrate) is highly fractured and fissured, as well as being widely distributed in particle size. This causes the stucco to disperse very rapidly in water, and requires high amounts of gauging water to be mixed with the stucco for rehydration to gypsum at customary use consistencies.
This “dispersed consistency”, also known in the art as “consistency” or “water demand”, is an important property of stucco. Stuccos of lower consistency generally result in stronger casts.
The normal consistency of stucco (gypsum plaster) is a term of art and is determinable according to ASTM Procedure C472, or its substantial equivalents. It is defined as the amount of water in grams per 100 grams of stucco.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,528 to Zaskalicky, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses directly feeding wet chemical gypsum cake to a continuous kettle calciner to produce beta hemihydrate of lower consistency. As explained in Zaskalicky, and also for purposes of the present description, “dispersed consistency” may be defined as the water volume required to give a standard viscosity or flow when a standard amount by weight of stucco is dispersed by mechanical mixing in a laboratory mixer at high shear intensity and for a standard time to equal mixing encountered in the gypsum board forming line, e.g., 7 seconds, or in an industrial plaster formulation casting mixer, e.g. 60 seconds.
For example, as explained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,595 to O'Neill, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, calcined gypsum made by continuous calcination may have a dispersed consistency of about 100-150 cc. “Dispersed consistency” for purposes of gypsum board manufacture may be defined as the water volume required to give a standard viscosity or flow when 100 grams of stucco is dispersed by mechanical mixing in a laboratory high speed blender at high shear intensity and for 7 seconds which is equivalent to the mixing encountered in the board forming line. While the dispersed consistency may be expressed in a particular numerical figure, it will be appreciated that any particular number is variable from one process to the next depending on the particular stucco and the rate of production.
Low consistency stucco is particularly advantageous in automated gypsum board manufacture, in which a large portion of the processing time and processing energy is devoted to removing excess water from the wet board. Considerable excess water is required in gypsum board manufacture to properly fluidize the calcined gypsum and obtain proper flow of the gypsum slurry.
A dispersed consistency value of 100-150 cc. indicates a water requirement of about 85-100 parts of water per 100 parts of the calcined gypsum for a typical slurry in a gypsum wallboard plant. The theoretical water required to convert the calcined gypsum (calcium sulfate hemihydrate or stucco) to set gypsum dihydrate is only 18.7% by weight on a pure basis. This leaves about 67 to about 82% of the water present in the gypsum slurry to be removed in drying the board. Ordinarily, gypsum board dryers in a gypsum board manufacturing line will remove this water, for example, by maintaining the air temperature at about 400° F. (204° C.) and requiring a drying time of about 40 minutes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,595 (also mentioned above), U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,117,070 and 4,153,373 to O'Neill, all incorporated herein by reference in their entirety, teach to lower the dispersed consistencies of continuously calcined kettle stuccos by an after calcination treatment of the stucco with small amounts of water or various aqueous solutions, resulting in a damp but dry appearing material and allowing the small amounts of free water to remain on the calcined gypsum particle surface for a short period of time, about 1-10 minutes for the treated stucco to “heal” .
U.S. Pat. No. 3,410,655 to Ruter et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, teaches producing alpha calcium sulfate hemihydrate. Ruter et al. states the alpha-hemihydrate forms non-needle like crystals, as opposed to the beta calcium sulfate hemihydrate which forms needle-like crystals. Ruter et al. also states the usual plaster of Paris (calcium sulfate hemihydrate) is the beta calcium sulfate hemihydrate. However, depending on the manner of preparation, the plaster of Paris still contains more or less anhydrous calcium sulfate, and/or alpha calcium sulfate hemihydrate. Moreover, plasters with definite alpha-hemihydrate content exhibit higher strengths. Ruter et al. teaches to make alpha calcium sulfate hemihydrate in the form of non-needle-like crystals by elutriating the dihydrate with water to remove organic impurities and fine and slimy crystal portions, forming an aqueous suspension of the dihydrate at a pH about 1.5-6, and subsequently heating under closely controlled conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,907,667 to Johnson, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, states alpha-hemihydrate is prepared by heating the dihydrate under controlled vapor pressure conditions in the presence of steam or in an aqueous solution.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,234345 to Fässle discloses fast-setting alpha calcium sulfate hemihydrate made from calcium sulfate dihydrate by hydrothermally recrystallizing calcium sulfate dihydrate to form a mixture containing 95%-99% by weight alpha calcium sulfate hemihydrate and 5 to 1% calcium sulfate dihydrate. The dihydrate in this mixture is then converted to beta calcium sulfate hemihydrate by calcining, except for a remainder of up to 0.5 percent of dihydrate, which remains in the mixture.
There is a need for stuccos having low consistency and good strength characteristics. |
Psychiatry, which has medicalized many forms of human distress, argues for individual treatments and interventions. It has blurred the disease-illness divide, subcategorized clinical presentations, lowered the thresholds for diagnosis and introduced many new psychiatric "disorders." Its phenomenological approach to diagnosis and classification employs symptom checklists and symptom counts sans context. The medicalization of distress is supported by the capitalistic project and the current political economy of health, fits in well with neoliberalism and allows the free market to expand its business interests. This essay contends that social and economic correlates of depression, anxiety and common mental disorders, despite robust evidence, are not emphasized. It argues that social and economic determinants of mental health demand public health and population-based strategies to prevent and manage common mental disorders in the community. Such approaches will impact a greater proportion of people than medical interventions.
Depression and anxiety, standard psychiatric diagnoses, are part of our vocabulary and popular culture. However, these terms are employed to highlight "idioms of distress," describe illness experience and to label diagnostic categories. Their widespread, flexible and interchangeable use has blurred the boundary between distress and disease. The disease halo has been inappropriately transferred to many forms of human suffering. The medicalization of distress has resulted in a focus on treating individuals. It has also resulted in ignoring the impact of social and economic stress on mental health resulting in very little emphasis on the need for and use of public health and population-based interventions.
PSYCHIATRIC CONTEXT {#sec1-1}
===================
Psychiatry in the 1970\'s was struggling with "unproven" etiologies for mental illness and with poor diagnostic agreement among psychiatrists. The discipline adopted an "atheoretical" approach to diagnosis using operational criteria,\[[@ref1]\] that emphasized reliability and counted symptoms. It dismissed the relevance of context and environmental stress to diagnosis, as these require interpretation and reduce inter-rater reliability.\[[@ref1][@ref2]\] The creation and use of the suffix "disorder" for psychiatric categories sidestepped the disease-illness divide. The discipline also created a diagnostic label called "major depressive disorder," which attempted to identify people with more severe distress and "clinical depression".\[[@ref1]\] It soon became the gold standard.
The diagnosis of depression, when viewed through the biomedical lens, tends to suggest the disease, supposes brain etiology and pathogenesis, documents signs and symptoms, offers differential diagnoses, recommends pharmacological therapies and prognosticates about the course and outcome. However, psychiatric diagnoses pose many challenges. The lack of laboratory tests for diagnosis has forced psychiatrists to rely on clinical features. The absence of pathognomonic symptoms has meant the use of clinical syndromes for labeling and symptom checklists for diagnosis. The criteria essentially count symptoms with little regard for context.\[[@ref3]\] The recent increase in the number of psychiatric categories and the lowering of the clinical threshold has resulted in a wide net, which medicalizes a variety of normal human responses to environmental stress.
Epidemiological studies of depression also use diagnostic instruments, which do not evaluate stress and context and fail to identify short-term adjustment problems.\[[@ref2]\] The elastic concept of depression and the rigid application of the diagnostic hierarchy and criteria has resulted in the marginalization of short-term stress-related adjustment disorders in clinical practice. Consequently, the hybrid category, major depressive disorder, identifies a heterogeneous group of people with melancholic depression (endogenous depression), those with chronic depression and with recent stressors (neurotic depression/dysthymia) and normal people under severe stress (adjustment disorders).\[[@ref2]\]
DISTINGUISHING DISEASE FROM DISTRESS {#sec1-2}
====================================
Separating normal human distress from depression is often difficult.\[[@ref3]\] General practitioners, who often see milder forms of morbidity frequently associated with psychosocial adversity, hold psychological and social explanatory models for depression. Psychiatrists, with their biomedical frameworks, on the other hand, argue for disease models for such illness. They transfer the disease halo reserved for severe mental illness to all psychiatric diagnoses. While psychiatrists argue that the depression is easily recognized using simple screening instruments, general practitioners contend that these screens identify people in distress rather than those with disease.\[[@ref3]\]
In the 1990\'s, specialist classifications of psychiatric disorders were simplified for use in general practice and many related categories employed in tertiary care were reduced to single diagnostic heads (e.g., anxiety, depression). However, these schemes (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV for Primary Care\[[@ref4]\] and International Classification of Diseases-10 for Primary Health Care\[[@ref5]\]), although endorsed by psychiatry and academic general practice, were rarely employed in primary care.\[[@ref6]\] The heterogeneity within labels, their frequent association with psychosocial stressors, high rates of spontaneous remission and of placebo response and the limited response to psychotropic drugs in milder conditions prevented their use in primary care\[[@ref6]\] and argued against the sole use of medication as the solution.\[[@ref7]\] Many critics argued against the medicalization of personal, social and economic distress.
PUBLIC HEALTH IMPLICATIONS {#sec1-3}
==========================
Nevertheless, many international investigations have since identified major depression as a significant contributor to the burden of disease.\[[@ref8]\] Its high-life-time prevalence, associated disability, chronic course and recurrence were highlighted. Its frequent association with other common chronic medical conditions (e.g., diabetes mellitus, angina, asthma, arthritis, etc.) and the incremental worsening their outcomes have been documented.\[[@ref9]\] Its contribution to suicide is widely recognized. Many national governments and international agencies acknowledge depression, with its significant impact on economies, as a major public health problem.
Many studies have also documented the link between poverty and depression, anxiety and common mental disorders. They have demonstrated a consistent relationship with low education\[[@ref10]\] and insecure working conditions.\[[@ref11]\] The experience of insecurity and hopelessness, rapid social change, risk of violence and physical illness are postulated as links between poverty and poor mental health.\[[@ref10]\] Poor mental health worsens the economic situation, setting up a vicious cycle of poverty and common mental disorders.
Social determinants have a significant impact on the health of girls and women in general and on depression in particular with women are at a higher risk when compared with men.\[[@ref12]\] Young women are overrepresented among those who commit suicide in India.\[[@ref13]\] Gender injustice is a major issue for women in traditional patriarchal societies. Social exclusion and cultural conflicts can also cause mental ill health, distress and depression.
The structural determinants of daily life contribute to the social determinants of mental health and fuel inequities in health.\[[@ref14]\] Viewing health in general as an individual or medical issue, reducing population health to a biomedical perspective and suggesting individual medical interventions reflect poor understanding.\[[@ref15]\] The major barrier to scaling up effective interventions is inequality based on social, cultural and economic issues. Failure to recognize this relationship and the refusal to tackle these issues result in poorer health and mental health indices for the underprivileged and the marginalized, who constitute a large proportion of the population. Poverty and social exclusion have a multiplicative effect on the social determinants of health with those at higher risk for distress and mental health concerns also having a higher probability of being excluded from health care services.
Consequently, there is a need to move beyond urgency-driven medical solutions and incorporate public health perspectives, policies and approaches\[[@ref14][@ref15][@ref16]\] in managing depression, anxiety and common mental disorders. The sole focus on medical solutions is an error of the public health movement in low and middle-income countries as it mistakes primary care for public health. Public health is often reduced to a biomedical perspective. Consequently, much of the efforts of the champions of public health end up in the provision of curative services, albeit at the small hospital, clinic or at the village level. Despite the failure of past mental health programs, they are repackaged\[[@ref17]\] as solutions to mental distress, illness and disease (e.g., Mental Health Gap Action Program\[[@ref18]\]). Public health requires the inputs from diverse disciplines (e.g., politics, finance, economics, law, engineering, social sciences, religion, etc.) and is much more than biomedical perspectives and solutions.
PUBLIC HEALTH STRATEGIES {#sec1-4}
========================
The medical/psychiatric, psychological, social and economic causes of depression, anxiety and common mental disorders argue for a multi-factorial etiology for these states of emotional distress. Such a perspective calls for a multi-sectoral understanding of mental health and illness.\[[@ref16]\] It argues for a multi-pronged approach to intervention. It contends that pure medical and psychiatric approaches to emotional distress would be restrictive and ineffectual for the vast majority of depression seen in the community. While severe and melancholic depression demands antidepressant medication, milder forms of distress respond to psychological support, social solutions and economic initiatives. Population interventions involving social and economic approaches would be mandatory for improving the mental health of a significant proportion of population.
Investments in education and provision of microcredit, in addition to reducing poverty, are recommended for their collateral benefits in reducing the risk of mental disorders.\[[@ref10]\] Population-based strategies of meeting basic needs of clean water, sanitation, nutrition, immunization, housing, health and employment and initiatives for gender justice have been suggested as strategies to reduce distress and suicide.\[[@ref19]\] Program to reduce social exclusion and discrimination, a reduced social class gradient and a more equal society will also help reduce emotional distress and depression.\[[@ref16]\]
The social determinants of health apply to mental health as well. There needs to be a commitment to equity, effective governance systems, and context-specific program that address the wider social and environmental determinants.\[[@ref14]\] Managing inequitable distribution of power, money and resources is cardinal to improving mental health of populations. Such population-based strategies will reduce a greater proportion of distress, now subsumed under a variety of mental disorder labels, than targeted medical interventions.
POLITICS AND ECONOMICS {#sec1-5}
======================
The blurred disease-illness divide, the inter-changeable use of these concepts and the illusion of specific brain pathology are supported by academia, health, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Despite evidence that social determinants produce significant mental morbidity, most intervention strategies favor *post-hoc* individual treatments to population-based public health approaches that are useful in reducing structural violence and in empowering large sections of society. Solutions that seem to make money trump those that promote health. The situation is similar to the one related to physical health where curative strategies which are profitable are preferred by the political and economic systems over approaches which are more equitable and will deliver better health. The technical approaches of evidence-based medicine are not necessarily value-neutral nor above specific interests.\[[@ref20]\] Medicine is politics writ large and the health sector is a powerful player in national economies.
Psychiatric labels for distress have shifted the focus from the responsibility of the state for poverty and structural violence and transferred pathology and burden to individuals. The disparate environments under which anxiety, depression and common mental disorders now exist are brought together as many strands, de-contextualized and unified into disease labels.
Psychiatric disease labels and individual treatments offer distinctive niches to diverse stakeholders: Disease, reimbursement, profit, and deflection of responsibility.
The political economy of health, deeply rooted in capitalistic economic and social systems, undergirds these formulations. It reiterates the historical relationship between medicine and governments, with governmental administration serviced by experts responsible for managing social security, stability and economic growth.\[[@ref21]\] It is an example of the broader role of medicine, of social control. Depression, anxiety, common mental disorder labels and the culture of medicine fit in well with the neoliberal agenda, allowing the free market to expand its business interests. It demonstrates the nested position of the discipline of medicine, within the agendas of governing, which determine perspectives, formation of knowledge, institutional control and policy.
Psychiatry, despite its current attempts at testable conjectures, is still within a paradigm, which seems inadequate for the complexity of the task. It is awaiting a paradigm shift,\[[@ref22]\] which will provide new understanding. Nevertheless, modern psychiatry, based on operational diagnostic criteria and phenomenological classification, will persist with its failed strategy\[[@ref23]\] of symptom counts sans context.
The discipline needs to acknowledge, that it helps people with emotional distress and with mental diseases; their differentiation is often difficult and that symptom counts do not distinguish them. It needs to accept that distress secondary to stress is heterogeneous; context, stressors, personality, coping, supports and meaning of the event impact outcomes. It needs to highlight the fact that much mental distress is also secondary to social determinants and not necessarily due to diagnosable or treatable biological abnormalities. Distress, commonly seen in the community and in primary care, does not require psychiatric disease labels or psychiatric treatments. It mandates population-based interventions including a social security net to reduce social and economic hardship. The solutions should not only include supporting individuals in distress but also argue for public health strategies to reduce poverty, ensure justice and empower people.
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155 A.2d 591 (1959)
Stanley HURWITCH, by Frances Goldberg, his next friend, Plaintiff Below, Appellant,
v.
Talbert Lee ADAMS, Defendant Below, Appellee.
Peter KOHANOVICH, Appellant,
v.
Cleo L. YOUREE, Appellee.
Supreme Court of Delaware.
October 30, 1959.
Reargument Denied November 25, 1959.
*592 John Biggs, III, and John Merwin Bader, Wilmington, for appellants.
George L. Sands (of Mortenson & Sands), Wilmington, for Talbert Lee Adams, appellee.
William F. Taylor, Wilmington (of Morford, Young & Conaway), Wilmington, for Cleo L. Youree, appellee.
SOUTHERLAND, C. J., and WOLCOTT and BRAMHALL, JJ., sitting.
WOLCOTT, Judge.
These two appeals, involving different facts but similar questions of law, were consolidated in this court for argument.
No. 45, 1959 is an action to recover damages for personal injuries arising out of a motor vehicle accident in Delaware on November 7, 1955. All of the parties involved in the accident were non-residents of Delaware. The appellee, Adams, at the time of the accident, was driving an automobile owned by his co-defendant who has not been joined in this appeal. At the time of the accident both the appellee and his co-defendant were members of the military service. The appellee was discharged from military service on March 26, 1957. The co-defendant still remains in the military service and remains a defendant in the action pending below. The action was commenced on May 6, 1958 with substituted service upon the defendants being obtained under 10 Del.C. § 3112 (Non-Resident Motorist Act), two years and seven months after the happening of the accident and more than one year after the discharge of the appellee from military service.
No. 47, 1959 is an action seeking to recover damages for personal injuries resulting from a motor vehicle accident occurring in Delaware on April 24, 1956. At the time of the accident the appellee, Youree, was a non-resident of Delaware. The action was commenced on September 6, 1957, more than one year after the occurrence of the accident, and substituted service of process was made upon the appellee under 10 Del.C. § 3112. The appellee at the time of the accident was not in military service, nor does it appear that he is in such service now.
In the court below in both cases, inter alia, the defense of the one-year statute of limitations on actions for personal injuries (10 Del.C. § 8118) was interposed by all defendants, who moved to dismiss. The co-defendant in No. 45, 1959, still being in military service, subsequently withdrew his motion to dismiss by reason of 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 525 (The Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act).
The Superior Court filed an opinion in No. 45, 1959 dismissing the action as to the appellee in that cause, and, on the authority of that opinion, an order was entered dismissing No. 47, 1959. From these orders of dismissal, the plaintiffs in both actions now appeal.
Two questions are presented for our decision:
I. Is the Delaware one-year statute of limitations on actions for personal injuries (10 Del.C. § 8118) tolled by reason of 10 Del.C. § 8116 which prevents the running of statutes of limitations by reason of a defendant's absence from the state?
II. Does the Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act (50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 525) toll 10 Del.C. § 8118 not only as to a serviceman defendant but also as to a civilian co-defendant?
A further point raised below in No. 45, 1959, to the effect that 10 Del.C. § 8118 is tolled by reason of the alleged incompetency of the appellant, has been abandoned in this court.
We consider first Question No. I.
By 10 Del.C. § 8118 it is provided that no action for the recovery of damages resulting from personal injuries shall be brought after the expiration of one year from the date upon which the injuries were sustained.
*593 By 10 Del.C. § 8116 it is provided that certain circumstances will toll the running of all Delaware statutes of limitations. For convenience, we set forth the statute in full:
"If at the time when a cause of action accrues against any person, he is out of the State, the action may be commenced, within the time limited therefor in this chapter, after such person comes into the State in such manner that by reasonable diligence, he may be served with process. If, after a cause of action shall have accrued against any person, he departs from and resides or remains out of the State, the time of his absence until he shall have returned into the State in the manner provided in this section, shall not be taken as any part of the time limited for the commencement of the action."
The effect of the two cited code sections was considered by this court's predecessor in Lewis v. Pawnee Bill's Wild West Co., 6 Pennewill 316, 66 A. 471. In that case the two cited statutes were construed and it was held that the then statute, now found as 10 Del.C. § 8118, was not subject to the exceptions of the statute now found as 10 Del.C. § 8116. The first code section was the last enacted law and no exceptions being found in its text to prevent the running of the statute of limitations, the Supreme Court held that none could be written in by judicial construction. The holding was based upon the elementary rule that where language of a statute is unambiguous, its meaning is that which is plainly expressed, and there is, thus, no necessity for judicial construction.
The court went on to point out that the plaintiff could at any time after the injury complained of have commenced an action by foreign attachment within the permissible period and, thereafter, kept it alive by alias and pluries writs until the defendant brought its property within the state and thus subject to process.
Subsequently, in Red Men's Fraternal Accident Ass'n of America v. Merritt, 2 W.W.Harr. 1, 117 A. 284, a plea of the statute of limitations raised by the defendant, a Massachusetts corporation, was upheld as not falling within the purview of the exceptions contained in what is now 10 Del.C. § 8116. The rationale of the decision was that the defendant foreign corporation in order to do business in Delaware necessarily was required by statute to designate the Insurance Commissioner of the state as its agent for the service of process and that, accordingly, suit could have been started within the permissible period and service obtained over the defendant.
To the same effect is Klein v. Lionel Corp., 130 F.Supp. 725, in which case the Federal District Court applied Delaware law and held that 10 Del.C. § 8116 had no application to a case in which during the limitation period the defendant was amenable to personal service.
The foregoing cases, we think, taken together, demonstrate that 10 Del.C. § 8116 has no tolling effect on the applicable statute of limitations when the defendant in the suit is subject to personal or other service to compel his appearance. Throughout the one-year periods following these accidents, all of the defendants named below could have been served by substitution under 10 Del.C. § 3112, a statute designed to obtain jurisdiction over non-residents using Delaware highways. As far as due process of law is concerned, such service is the equivalent of personal service.
Under the circumstances, therefore, we are of the view that there was no tolling of the one-year statute of limitations because of the fact that the defendants were non-residents.
However, the appellants argue to the contrary. First, it is said that 10 Del.C. § 8116 is plain on its face and that it applies in any action in which the defendant is a non-resident. We think this argument, *594 if accepted, would result in the abolition of the defense of statutes of limitation in actions involving non-residents, but the answer to the argument lies in the direct holding of the Pawnee Bill case to the contrary.
The appellants further argue that since 10 Del.C. § 8116 contains within itself no exception to the operating of its provisions with respect to the statute of limitations on actions for personal injuries, the teaching of the Pawnee Bill case must be applied to hold that the statute of limitations is in fact tolled. If we understand the argument thus made, it is an attempt to argue in reverse the argument that was rejected in the Pawnee Bill case. As such, it of course also finds its answer in the ruling of the Pawnee Bill case that the two code sections are completely independent of each other.
In any event, whatever the precise argument made may be, we think that the Delaware statute of limitations on actions for personal injuries runs continuously without interruption when there is available to the plaintiff throughout the period an acceptable means of bringing the defendant into court. Therefore, the answer to the first question posed is that there has been no tolling of the statute of limitations since these defendants, at all times, were subject to substituted service.
We now turn to the second question presented.
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act has as its purpose the temporary suspension of legal proceedings and transactions which may prejudice the civil rights of persons in the military services of the United States. To accomplish this purpose, it is provided that no applicable statute of limitations shall run against or for the benefit of such serviceman during the period of his military service. It is thus plain that the serviceman defendant in No. 45, 1959 properly withdrew his defense of the statute of limitations. Further proceedings against him in the action have been stayed.
However, the appellant in No. 45, 1959 seeks to hold his co-defendant, now in a civilian status, in an action commenced more than one year after the regaining of such status. If he can be so held, it must be solely by reason of the joining with him as a party defendant one who cannot be proceeded against because of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act.
Appellant argues that the purpose of the act is to assure to the individual in military service "a peace of mind respecting any civilian litigation which might be brought against him", and that this is achieved by tolling statutes of limitation both for and against him. However, it is argued, unless a similar tolling is made with respect to the same cause of action asserted against a civilian co-defendant the "tranquility" of the serviceman will be disturbed by the harassment of interrogatories, depositions, and the like.
We do not agree. This cause of action is not joint, but could have been asserted against these two defendants jointly or against each of them severally. If the exigencies of preparation for trial result in undue harassment of the serviceman, or if his absence makes such preparation impossible, those circumstances might justify the granting of a stay on the application of the civilian defendant, but, in our opinion, they do not operate to relieve the plaintiff of the necessity to commence his action against the civilian within a certain time or be forever after barred from asserting it.
We think the Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act by its very terms forces this conclusion. It is designed to avoid injury to a member of the armed forces and not to permit a plaintiff to allow his claim against a civilian to grow stale. Civilian defendants have rights as well as servicemen. Among them is the right to regard the failure to assert a timely claim against them as a bar to its further presentation. Particularly *595 is this true when the plaintiff could proceed against the two defendants by separate actions if he desired.
We think the answer to the question so apparent on the face of the statute as to require no citation of authority. We find, however, that other courts hold the same view. Cf. Patrikes v. J. C. H. Service Stations, 180 Misc. 917, 41 N.Y.S.2d 158 and State ex rel. Frank v. Bunge, 16 Wash. 2d 358, 133 P.2d 515.
Appellant cites Crawford v. Adams, Tex. Civ.App., 213 S.W.2d 721 in support of his position. But that case does not support him for it appears that the applicable Texas statute of limitations, Vernon's Ann.Civ. St. arts. 5526, 5527, was tolled in the circumstance that one of two joint payees on a note was in the military service. It also appears that under Texas law their claim in the note was joint. Presumably, an adverse judgment against one, therefore, would have been equally adverse to the other.
Lastly, appellant argues that the provisions of the act must extend to a civilian co-defendant because, under the rules of pleading of the Superior Court, Del.C.Ann., the plaintiff must join the serviceman or otherwise lose his right against him if the case goes to judgment prior to the termination of his term of military service.
We do not follow the argument. Rule 19 of the Superior Court requires that parties having a joint interest must be joined, while Rule 20 permits the joinder of parties against whom claims are asserted which arise out of the same occurrence. The claims asserted in No. 45, 1959 are in tort and, as such, they are several.
The judgments below are affirmed.
On Petition for Reargument.
Appellants' petition for reargument. The reason advanced is that Lewis v. Pawnee Bill's Wild West Co., 6 Pennewill 316, 66 A. 471, cited in the opinion, was overruled by the General Assembly at the 1909 session which next ensued by the enactment of 25 Laws, Ch. 234, which amended the predecessor of present 10 Del.C. § 8118 (the one-year statute of limitations for personal injuries) by adding a new section relating to causes of action accruing against a person who thereafter departs the state. The 1909 amendment in substance was the second clause of 1893 Code, Ch. 123, § 14, the predecessor of present 10 Del. C. § 8116 (the general tolling statute). The result, therefore, was that in 1909 there were two statutory provisions embodying the present 10 Del.C. § 8116, one general in nature, and the other apparently applying specifically to actions for personal injury. Thus, it is argued, the rule of Pawnee Bill was overruled for its premise was changed by statutory amendment.
We note that the argument is now made for the first time, the 1909 act not having been heretofore cited to us. We make no point of this omission, however, since we have concluded that reargument must be denied in any event. We so conclude because of the existence throughout the one-year period of process available to the plaintiff to bring the defendant into court. We so ruled in our opinion, in addition to our reliance upon the Pawnee Bill case.
Furthermore, the appellants' new argument might well be answered by the failure of the General Assembly, in enacting the 1915 Code, to enact the specific tolling statute applying to actions for personal injuries. Following the enactment of the 1915 Code in Nigro v. Flinn, 8 W.W.Harr. 368, 192 A. 685, an action for personal injuries, the then Supreme Court of the State approved the Pawnee Bill case and held that the one-year statute of limitations was not subject to the general tolling statute, now 10 Del.C. § 8116. No mention was made of the 1909 amendment. The failure to mention it, impliedly at least, might be considered as a holding that the omission of the 1909 amendment from the 1915 Code constitutes a repeal of that section, since the court held that the 1915 Code was a true Code which effected changes in the *596 basic law by omission as well as commission.
As we have said, however, we do not have to decide the question raised by the late discovery of the 1909 amendment. The point, therefore, may be taken to be still open.
Reargument denied.
|
Celebrating B Movies, Cult Films, and Indie Classics.
For all you gore fans out there, I got to thinking recently about horror movies, and some of the lesser known horror movies out there. Oh don’t get me wrong, they are not bad movies, but for whatever reason they have been forgotten to the test of time!
With said, I also got to thinking about some of these directors that I would say have definitely been forgotten to the test of time… Rather they be, because their work, or they, themselves are lesser known, or literally at this point are seldom ever thought about! An example of this would be, Scott Spiegel…
Now everyone knows about Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell, and Ted Raimi… I mean they have proven to be a great group, with the all of them having done such movies and TV series as , The Evil Dead (1981) and the TV series, Hercules: The Legendary Journey.
Did you know though that within the Raimi/Campbell/Tapert group that Scott Spiegel is a member of that group? That’s right folks, even though he is lesser known, not only is he a legitimate member of that group, but in the late 1980s there was a little known gem of movie called, Intruder (1989) which had everyone of them in it (except Robert Tapert).
With that said, Mr. Spiegel is a good example of a lesser known oft times forgotten Horror movie director.
With that said folks, here is my list of top 10 Lesser Known Horror Movie Directors:
At number 10 we got: F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu):
F.W. Murnau
Everyone knows Universal’s Dracula (1931). A lot of people I am sure probably think that this movie is even the first movie on Vampires… Well I am here to tell you that, that is not the case! That movie is not the first Vampire movie, or even the first Dracula movie. The director that I wanted to mention here is F.W. Murnau, and his work on creating legitimately the first movie on Bram Stoker’s, ‘Dracula’ and that movie is Noseferatu (1922).
Now I know that number 9 sounds bad for a director of a horror movie… Don’t worry, I actually did really like the job that Mr. Rader did on Grandma’s House, but besides that I have not seen any of his other directorial work. Although I did like the job that he did on writing the Kevin Costner movie Waterworld (1995).
With that said though, I am looking forward to more of his work in the future…
Until then, enjoy this trailer for the movie, Grandma’s House (1989) directed by Peter Rader:
At number 8 we got: Charles Band (Head Of The Family)
Charles Band.
Now you might think that it is rather odd, me recommending a director for a movie called, Head Of the Family (1996). But the truth is, is this is rather a brilliant horror movie, about a guy who black mails an incredibly rich and reclusive family that literally can’t live with out each other! What I mean by this is that each sibling in this family has a specific sense that work together to complete one complete experience for the ‘Head’ of the family, (and you can take this to be mostly literal as the head of the family mostly is a head!)
With that said, Mr. Band has roughly 319 horror movie credits to his resume, (give or take any films that he worked on in multiple capacities.)
This one I thought that I would recommend, because it is a great forgotten classic that I thought that I would mention, because I personally loved how he created both as the director and one of the writers of this piece, an atmosphere, in which you could have siblings psychically linked together and controlled by another sibling!
With that said, please enjoy the trailer for the classic, Head Of The Family (1996)
For number 7: Kevin Yagher (Hellraiser: Bloodline)
Kevin Yagher, who did special effects for, Child’s Play (1988) with a Chucky Doll.
Again I have to admit that this guy only got number 7 because he doesn’t have many directorial credits to his name (with the fact that mostly he is known for his special effects on movies.)
With that said though he did do a movies that was universally disliked when it first got released, as a matter of fact, Alan Smithee is credited for having made this movie…
Now before I continue on, let me just say that when ever a Director directs a movie under the pseudonym of ‘Alan Smithee’. It is the recognized way that directors have for not attaching their name to a project when they are not satisfied with how they’re movie turned out…
With that said, the movie that he did that I am mentioning here is: Hellraiser: Bloodline.
Now I don’t know why Mr. Yagher decided to use the ‘Alan Smithee’ moniker for this movie. I personally liked how he made this movie in to separate stories, that showed the history of the Hellraiser box, (This movie happens to be the 3rd sequel in Clive Barker’s highly successful, Hellraiser franchise.)
With that said, I thought that you might enjoy the trailer for Hellraiser: Bloodline:
At number 6 we got: Byron Werner (Starkweather):
Byron Werner
Now admittedly this director is quite a bit newer then the directors that I have mentioned so far. But I would like to acknowledge him as a great lesser known horror movie director for the work that he did on Death Valley: The Revenge Of Bloody Bill.
For more information on Death Valley: The Legend Of Bloody Bill, please enjoy this trailer for the movie:
Unfortunately, Shockwaves happens to be the only movie that I have seen of his, (an over-site that I intend to rectify.) But never the less, I am putting Mr. Wierderhorn on this list because, being a fan of Zombies as well as World War 2 history and having never really heard of his name before seeing this movie. I found that he did a great job in creating almost an air of historical significance to the piece, while still developing the characters and story well enough that through out the whole movie I was hoping that they would all escape!
I mean, you never know… Considering the Nazi attrocities… You know…
For more information on this movie, please enjoy this trailer for the movie, Shockwaves (1977).
For number 4: Victor Halperin (Revolt Of The Zombies)
Let me preface what I am about to say, with this: the movie that I am about to mention for the reason why I think that Victor Halperin, is a little bit more well known, but besides this movie, I doubt a lot of people really know this guys body of work…
With that said, the movie that I am going to be mentioning here is: White Zombie (1932)
I can’t really describe here in words why I like the work that Mr. Halperin did in White Zombie, except to say that I loved this movie, and I thought that Mr. Halperin did just a truly fantastic job on it and since this guy’s career is so archaic, and I doubt many people with the expection of die hard horror fans would have ever heard of him or the movies that he has done!
I mean you can’t really go wrong with the movie that produced the name for Rob Zombie’s old band!
For more information, please enjoy this trailer for the movie: White Zombie (1932):
For Number 3: Jim McCullough Sr. (The Aurora Encounter).
Jim McCullough Sr.
The reason that I think of Jim McCullough Sr. is such a great little known director, is because of the movie, Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986).
Despite the fact that this movie is very reminiscent of Psycho (Lets be honest, it is basically Psycho, with a female killer.) I also have to admit that this movie is just mindless entertainment, but I do like how Mr. McCullough shot this film, I mean I am still curious to figure out how he filmed the scenes when the latest victim is in these really tiny (and I mean really TINY) tunnels!
With that said, if you would like some more information on the movie, please enjoy this trailer for the movie, Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986):
At number 2: Amy Holden Jones (Love Letters):
Amy Holden Jones – Director
Now admittedly Ms. Jones is probably most well known for her writing credits. But there is a horror movie that she did, a classic that would ultimately join the Corman family of films… This movie, Slumber Party Massacre (1982).
What I liked about what she did, was she turned an otherwise paint by numbers slasher film, and turned it in to suspenseful edge of your seat shock fest, that I still to this day enjoy!
With that said, please enjoy this trailer for the movie, Slumber Party Massacre (1982):
And at number 1 we got: John Lafia (Man’s Best Friend):
John Lafia – Director
Now this guy admittedly has worked a bit more then most of the people that I have mentioned here, but I thought that I would mention him, because despite having created, Man’s Best Friend (1993). I am certain especially due to his lack of more recent movie credits, that he is one of those directors that at least as far as movies goes, seems to have fallen through the cracks!
With that said, please enjoy this trailer for the movie, Man’s Best Friend (1993):
With that said folks, none of these directors are bad, as a matter of fact they have all done in my opinion, some great work that I highly recommend that you check out! |
t 53/3*x**3 + 14/3*x**4 + 1/3*x**5 - 68*x + 48 - 8/3*x**2 = 0.
-6, -4, 1
Let r(v) = -v**3 - 38*v**2 - 18*v - 682. Let b be r(-38). Let 0 - 4/7*l - 2/7*l**b = 0. What is l?
-2, 0
Let x(z) be the second derivative of -2*z**6/45 - z**5/3 - 7*z**4/9 - 2*z**3/3 - 8*z + 25. Let x(m) = 0. Calculate m.
-3, -1, 0
Let n(o) be the second derivative of -o**4/36 + 11*o**3/18 - 5*o**2 - 339*o. Factor n(g).
-(g - 6)*(g - 5)/3
Let l(k) be the second derivative of -10*k + 0 + 35/6*k**3 + 5/6*k**4 - 7/4*k**5 - 5*k**2. Factor l(v).
-5*(v - 1)*(v + 1)*(7*v - 2)
Let u(p) be the third derivative of 0*p + 0 + 1/270*p**5 - 2/9*p**3 - 3*p**2 + 1/108*p**4. Factor u(c).
2*(c - 2)*(c + 3)/9
Let b(t) be the second derivative of t**5/45 - 2*t**4/9 + 2*t**3/3 + 4*t - 3. Suppose b(d) = 0. Calculate d.
0, 3
Let i(m) be the third derivative of 0*m**3 + 0 + 0*m**4 + 0*m - 2/105*m**7 - 4*m**2 - 1/3*m**5 + 1/5*m**6. Let i(a) = 0. What is a?
0, 1, 5
Let q(y) be the second derivative of y**7/10080 - y**6/720 + y**5/160 - 3*y**4/4 - 5*y. Let m(p) be the third derivative of q(p). What is o in m(o) = 0?
1, 3
Let a = -2091 - -2093. Find j such that 8/17*j**a + 4/17 - 2/17*j**3 - 10/17*j = 0.
1, 2
Suppose 4*x = -r - 10, 5*r = 33*x - 30*x + 19. Let y(f) be the second derivative of 1/8*f**4 - 3/2*f**r + 0 - 5*f + 1/4*f**3. Determine p, given that y(p) = 0.
-2, 1
Let t be ((-12)/8*-4)/2. Let v(o) be the first derivative of t*o - 3 + 0*o**3 - 5 - o**3 + 1. Let v(i) = 0. What is i?
-1, 1
Let w(f) = 24*f - 236. Let a be w(10). Let m(n) be the first derivative of 0*n - 5 + 4/21*n**3 + 0*n**2 + 2/21*n**6 + 3/7*n**a + 12/35*n**5. Factor m(g).
4*g**2*(g + 1)**3/7
Let z(p) = 15*p - 3*p**2 + 7 - 2 - 6*p - 3*p**2. Let t(m) = m - 1. Let a be 1 - ((-1)/(-1) + 2). Let v(n) = a*z(n) - 2*t(n). Solve v(w) = 0.
-1/3, 2
Let g(k) be the third derivative of -1/42*k**4 + 3/70*k**6 + 0 + 25*k**2 + 1/294*k**8 + 1/14*k**3 - 29/1470*k**7 - 1/30*k**5 + 0*k. Solve g(a) = 0.
-3/8, 1
Let t(g) = 4*g**3 - g**2 - 16*g - 11. Let c be (-9)/18 + (-5)/(-2). Let o(w) = 2*w**3 - 8*w - 6. Let m(l) = c*t(l) - 5*o(l). What is j in m(j) = 0?
-2, -1, 2
Let d(g) = g**3 - 2*g**2 + 2*g - 3. Let n be d(3). Suppose 4*x - 4 = n. Find l, given that -60*l**3 + 5*l + 28*l**2 + 36*l**x - l - 8*l = 0.
0, 1/3, 1
Let p(w) be the third derivative of -w**9/5040 - w**8/700 - w**7/280 - w**6/300 + 3*w**3/2 - 13*w**2. Let u(t) be the first derivative of p(t). Solve u(f) = 0.
-2, -1, 0
Suppose 0*b = 5*b - 10. Factor 27 + 2*j**b + 0*j**2 - 13 - 12 + 4*j.
2*(j + 1)**2
Let z(v) = -v**2 + 14*v + 10. Let l be z(16). Let c = l + 26. Factor -7*j**4 - 8*j**4 - 4 - 9*j**4 + 20*j**c + 8*j**2.
-4*(j - 1)**2*(j + 1)**2
Let w(l) be the first derivative of 4/35*l**5 + 3/14*l**4 - 8/21*l**3 + 0*l + 28 - 1/21*l**6 - 4/7*l**2. Solve w(u) = 0.
-1, 0, 2
Let o(r) = r**2 - 11*r + 38. Let f be o(4). Suppose -f*w - 13*w = -69. Solve 0*s**4 + 1/4*s**w + 0*s**2 - 1/4*s**5 + 0 + 0*s = 0 for s.
-1, 0, 1
Let y(p) be the second derivative of -p**7/14 + 3*p**6/10 + 27*p**5/20 + 5*p**4/4 + p - 94. Factor y(u).
-3*u**2*(u - 5)*(u + 1)**2
Suppose 0 = 2*p - 10, -2*n + 25 = -0*n + 3*p. Let b(h) be the third derivative of 0*h**4 + 1/150*h**n + 5*h**2 - 1/15*h**3 + 0*h + 0. Factor b(u).
2*(u - 1)*(u + 1)/5
Suppose -4*k = -20, -k + 367 = -5*u + 32. Let r = u + 69. Suppose 280/3*z - 20 + 145/3*z**2 - 1085/3*z**4 - 245/3*z**5 - 345*z**r = 0. Calculate z.
-3, -1, 2/7
Let b = 34 - 14. Let z(l) = 2*l**3 + 11*l**2 + 10*l + 1. Let w(d) = -6*d**3 - 34*d**2 - 30*d - 2. Let o(k) = b*z(k) + 6*w(k). Factor o(r).
4*(r + 1)**2*(r + 2)
Let h(l) = -l**2 - l + 2. Let t(s) = -2*s**2 + s + 2. Let v(r) = -h(r) + t(r). Factor v(a).
-a*(a - 2)
Determine m, given that -3/5*m**4 - 339/5*m**2 + 882/5 - 483/5*m - 57/5*m**3 = 0.
-7, -6, 1
Let j(k) be the third derivative of 1/24*k**6 + 0*k**3 + 0*k**4 + 1/12*k**5 + 0*k + 36*k**2 + 0. Let j(a) = 0. What is a?
-1, 0
Let q be 2 + (-8 - -3 - -7). Let r(s) be the third derivative of 2/9*s**3 + 1/180*s**6 + 0 - 1/30*s**5 + 2*s**2 + 0*s - 1/36*s**q + 1/315*s**7. Solve r(c) = 0.
-2, -1, 1
Let l(w) be the second derivative of 1/6*w**2 + 0 - 5*w + 1/6*w**4 + 7/18*w**3. Find y such that l(y) = 0.
-1, -1/6
Let w(a) = -a**3. Let l(j) = 5*j**3 + j**2 - 2*j. Let z(r) = 5*l(r) + 20*w(r). Factor z(f).
5*f*(f - 1)*(f + 2)
Let s(u) be the first derivative of 140*u**4 - 80*u + 135/2*u**6 - 520*u**3 + 279*u**5 + 12 - 360*u**2. Solve s(d) = 0 for d.
-2, -2/9, 1
Let d(g) be the third derivative of 0*g - 8*g**2 + 0*g**3 + 3/4*g**4 + 0 - 1/20*g**5. Suppose d(q) = 0. Calculate q.
0, 6
Let o(u) be the third derivative of u**5/30 - 4*u**4/3 + 64*u**3/3 + 70*u**2. Suppose o(v) = 0. What is v?
8
Let v(z) be the first derivative of 9*z**5/5 + 3*z**4 - 7*z**3 - 6*z**2 + 12*z - 142. Find i, given that v(i) = 0.
-2, -1, 2/3, 1
Suppose -5*l + 1 = 16. Let c(v) = -30*v**4 + 48*v**3 - 12*v**2 - 10*v. Let y(n) = 31*n**4 - 48*n**3 + 12*n**2 + 11*n. Let m(d) = l*c(d) - 2*y(d). Factor m(o).
4*o*(o - 1)**2*(7*o + 2)
Let n(o) = -153*o**3 - 681*o**2 - 340*o + 1147. Let s(j) = 76*j**3 + 340*j**2 + 170*j - 574. Let u(k) = 4*n(k) + 9*s(k). Factor u(f).
2*(f - 1)*(6*f + 17)**2
Determine k so that 1088/11*k + 224/11*k**3 + 34/11*k**4 + 640/11 + 712/11*k**2 + 2/11*k**5 = 0.
-5, -4, -2
Let p = 5 + -1. Let u(s) = -s**3 + 5*s**2 + 3*s - 13. Let h be u(5). Determine k so that h*k**3 - 52*k**2 + 22*k**3 - 4*k**p - 5 - 11 + 48*k = 0.
1, 2
Let j = -476/3 - -162. Let n(g) be the second derivative of j*g**3 + 4*g**2 + g**4 + 0 + 8*g. Solve n(t) = 0.
-1, -2/3
Let z(s) = s**3 + 13*s**2 - 18*s - 5. Let p be z(-14). Let 240*u - 61 - p*u**2 + 28 + 3*u**3 - 159 = 0. What is u?
1, 8
Let d(b) be the second derivative of -1/21*b**4 - 8*b + 0 + 0*b**2 - 2/21*b**3. Let d(i) = 0. Calculate i.
-1, 0
Let y(q) be the second derivative of -q**7/280 + q**6/120 - q**3/2 - 11*q. Let t(l) be the second derivative of y(l). Suppose t(n) = 0. Calculate n.
0, 1
Factor 8 - 23 + 9*f**3 - 6*f**2 - 36*f + 39 + 0*f**2.
3*(f - 2)*(f + 2)*(3*f - 2)
Let x(n) be the first derivative of -3*n**4/4 + n**3 + 24*n**2 - 48*n + 236. Find g, given that x(g) = 0.
-4, 1, 4
Let c(g) = -8*g + 188. Let f be c(23). Let s(r) be the first derivative of -2/39*r**3 + 2 + 2/13*r**2 + 0*r - 1/26*r**f. Determine j, given that s(j) = 0.
-2, 0, 1
Let b(t) be the third derivative of t**8/120 + 41*t**7/525 + 13*t**6/50 + 22*t**5/75 - 2*t**4/15 - 25*t**2 + 3. Factor b(d).
2*d*(d + 2)**3*(7*d - 1)/5
Factor -19/8*l + 1/8*l**2 - 21/4.
(l - 21)*(l + 2)/8
Solve -19/2*j**2 + 0 - 7/2*j**3 - 6*j = 0 for j.
-12/7, -1, 0
Let u = -238 - -240. Let h(j) be the second derivative of 1/48*j**4 + 0*j**u + 1/8*j**3 + 0 - 3*j. Determine x, given that h(x) = 0.
-3, 0
Let k(i) be the second derivative of 5*i + 3/4*i**4 - 3/20*i**5 + 0 + 2*i**2 + 1/80*i**6 - 2*i**3. Let n(x) be the first derivative of k(x). Factor n(z).
3*(z - 2)**3/2
Let n(c) be the second derivative of c**7/840 - c**6/120 + c**4/6 + 3*c**3/2 + 7*c. Let q(x) be the second derivative of n(x). Factor q(v).
(v - 2)**2*(v + 1)
Let u be -1*5/5 + (0 - -5). Factor -3*n**4 + 4*n**u + 107*n - 105*n - 3*n**2.
n*(n - 1)**2*(n + 2)
Let p = -195/212 + 62/53. Suppose -1 - 2*r - p*r**3 - 5/4*r**2 = 0. Calculate r.
-2, -1
Let c(l) be the third derivative of -l**5/420 - 15*l**4/28 - 675*l**3/14 - 2*l**2. Determine p so that c(p) = 0.
-45
Let a = -70 - -71. Suppose a = 3*j - 4*m, -4*m - 7 + 3 = -4*j. Solve -2/3*b**2 + 0 + 2/3*b**j + 0*b = 0.
0, 1
Let x(k) be the second derivative of -k**6/1980 + k**5/660 + k**4/66 + 5*k**3/2 + 4*k. Let a(q) be the second derivative of x(q). Factor a(u).
-2*(u - 2)*(u + 1)/11
Let d = -94 + 90. Let r(p) = -7*p - 25. Let b be r(d). Solve -b*v**2 - 15/4*v - 3/4*v**3 - 3/2 = 0.
-2, -1
Let x(k) = 2*k**3 + 3*k**2 + 2*k - 2. Let i be x(-2). Let o be (-56)/i - 3/5. Factor -2*m**o - 3*m**5 - 2*m**5 + 8*m**3 - 4*m + 3*m**5.
-4*m*(m - 1)**2*(m + 1)**2
Let c(z) be the third derivative of z**6/30 + 11*z**5/5 + 48*z**4 + 512*z**3/3 - 2*z**2 - 23*z. Factor c(g).
4*(g + 1)*(g + 16)**2
Suppose -11*u = -7*u - 172. Let x = u + -41. Factor -7/4*i**x - 1/2 + 9/4*i.
-(i - 1)*(7*i - 2)/4
Let a(s) be the first derivative of 2*s**3/3 - 24*s**2 + 288*s - 16. Determine v so that a(v) = 0.
12
Factor 45/7*v + 0 - 48/7*v**2 + 3/7*v**3.
3*v*(v - |
Every day, members of my profession, economists, find new ways to make me deeply regret I ever became one. The latest episode is a story of two economists named Paul.
President Harry Truman, the US President who suddenly and unexpectedly took office when President Roosevelt died in 1944, once said famously: “Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, ‘on the one hand…and, on the other’”.
Economists respond: “Give me a break, Truman! We are objective professionals. Our job is to offer alternatives and explain the implications of each. YOU are an elected official. We are your servants. YOU are the one elected by the democratic process to choose and decide, not us! We simply show you the choices.”
I myself used to repeat that mantra, during a year as head of an Israeli government planning body. But I soon learned – reality is different. When economics is a value-free zone, it is useless to political leaders. State your values, state your position, clean up the jargon, speak in ordinary language, and keep one hand anchored deeply in your pocket.
The Guardian now brings us a shocking, infuriating episode in which a future Nobel economist is fired for demanding clarity and truth. The economist is Paul Romer. In his Ph.D. dissertation, he built a powerful new theory now widely accepted, called “endogenous growth theory”. But another Paul, Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate, has for over two decades been a beacon of clarity and one-armed economics.
In brief: Since MIT economist Robert Solow, we’ve known that half or more of all economic growth is caused by technological change. But Solow treated it as ‘exogenous’, outside the system. Romer observed that technological change is endogenous – it is created by what we do, in education, innovation, and R&D, etc. His two Journal of Political Economy articles published in 1986 and 1990, respectively, started endogenous growth theory and changed the world. He will win a Nobel Prize soon for this. It has changed the way everyone thinks about pro-growth policies and plans.
The Guardian: “The chief economist at the World Bank has stepped down from its research arm after staff were vexed by demands to write succinctly, including cutting superfluous uses of the word “and” in reports or emails. Paul Romer, 61, will leave the Development Economics Group (DEC), according to a staff announcement reported by Bloomberg. He had asked for shorter emails, while also cutting staff off if they talked for too long during presentations, it said. In response to press inquiries about internal “objections to my insistence on clearer writing,” Romer published writing guidance he had issued to DEC staff on a blog on Thursday. He said he suffered from dyslexia, making writing hard, but added “everyone in the Bank should work toward producing prose that is clear and concise. This will save time and effort for a reader. Thinking about the reader is an example of what I mean when I say that we should develop our sense of empathy.” Romer cut more US$1 million in annual expenses from the DEC budget, a body of more than 600 economists. But it appeared to be his attacks on convoluted, lengthy reports of that researchers took cause with. In an email to staff, Romer argued that the bank’s flagship publication, World Development Report, would not be published “if the frequency of ‘and’ exceeds 2.6 percent,” according to Bloomberg. He reportedly cancelled a regular publication that did not have a clear purpose.”
“Romer is credited with the quote “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” which he said during a November 2004 venture-capitalist meeting in California. Although he was referring to the rapidly rising education levels in other countries compared to the United States, the quote became a sounding horn by economists and consultants looking for a positive take away from the economic downturn of 2007–2009.”
Paul Romer wanted one-handed economists, who speak clearly, and paid the price. But is there a role-model for clear-thinking clear-speaking economics? There is. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.
The Economist: “From a mono-manual perspective, at least, Harry Truman would have loved Paul Krugman, an economist who rarely hesitates to take a bold position—even when the subject is himself. In recounting the transformation of his twice-weekly New York Times column from a genial discussion of the “New Economy” into a widely read broadside against the Bush administration, the Princeton professor recently described himself as “a lonely voice of truth in a sea of corruption.”
Krugman has blasted Trump and the Republicans, and identified their scorn for economic truth.
In the 1930’s economics took a wrong turn. Influenced by the London School of Economics, economists decided to become like physicists and deal with only ‘pure science’, without ethical value judgments. At that moment, economics became irrelevant. And it remains so.
I hope Romer wins the Nobel Prize later this year. In his acceptance speech, I hope he tears several strips off the moribund walking-zombie economists there, hundreds of them, a whole building full of them at 1818 H Street in downtown Washington. That building is a wasteland desert, even though it is in the heart of Washington.
Paul Krugman’s New York Times column “Rich Man’s Recovery” draws our attention to Annie Lowrey’s New York Times blog Economix (Sept. 10). Using data from a study by French economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Pikkety, she shows alarmingly that for the U.S.:
* In 2012, the top 10 % of income earners took home more than half the country’s total income. This is the highest recorded level of inequality ever, higher even than in 1929! (Income includes capital gains).
* The top 1 % of income earners took home one fifth (20%) of all income, close to the previous record in 1929, and among the highest levels since 1913, when the income tax was imposed.
Recovery? It’s all gone to the fat cats. None to us, not even crumbs. That is why the ‘recovery’ is so weak and tenuous.
According to Lowrey: “The figures underscore that even after the recession the country remains in a new Gilded Age, with income as concentrated as it was in the years that preceded the Depression of the 1930s, if not more so. High stock prices, rising home values and surging corporate profits have buoyed the recovery-era incomes of the most affluent Americans, with the incomes of the rest still weighed down by high unemployment and stagnant wages for many blue- and white-collar workers.”
I would stress another related explanation. The U.S. Fed has fought the Depression with the only tool available, by printing scads of cheap money, lent at virtually zero interest. Directly and indirectly, this benefits the fat cats. But it hasn’t benefitted us ordinary people. Why? Because the goal of the Fed was to spur investment. But businesses aren’t investing, who needs to invest with demand so weak? Why is demand so weak? Because we don’t have money? Why don’t we have money? Because the fat cats have it. Why? Because they have quickly returned to the games that caused the financial collapse: financial manipulation, in place of real economic investments, leveraging cheap money. Not only that – by manipulating bond prices, they have panicked Fed Chair Bernanke into retreating from his plan to stop printing more and more and more money. If you think the Fed policy is independent, examine what happened when Bernanke just mildly hinted he might stop printing money. Wall St. slammed bond prices down, and stock prices – and Bernanke quickly backtracked.
The Fat Cats caused the crisis. We bailed them out. And now they’re back to their original games. They might as well all put this bumper sticker on their Porsche’s: “Hey…let’s have another bubble. Why the hell not?” |
---
abstract: 'We discuss the Newtonian limit of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes by means of the Ehlers’ frame theory. Conditions for the existence of such a limit are given and, in particular, we show that asymptotic flatness is an essential requirement. Consequently, generalized boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes describing particles moving in uniform fields will not possess such a limit. In the cases where the boost-rotation symmetric spacetime is asymptotically flat and its Newtonian limit exists, then the (Newtonian) gravitational potential agrees with the potential suggested by the weak field approximation. We illustrate our discussion through some examples: the Curzon-Chazy particle solution, the generalized Bonnor-Swaminarayan solution, and the C metric.'
author:
- |
Ruth Lazkoz [^1]\
*Fisika Teorikoaren eta Zientziaren Historiaren Saila*\
*Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea*\
*644 Posta Kutxatila*\
*48080 Bilbao, Spain*\
Juan Antonio Valiente Kroon [^2] [^3]\
*Max-Planck Institut für Gravitationsphysik,*\
*Albert Einstein Institut,*\
*Am Mühlenberg 1,*\
*14476 Golm, Germany.*
title: The Newtonian limit of spacetimes describing uniformly accelerated particles
---
PACS: 04.20.Jb, 04.25.Nx, 04.20.Cv
Introduction
============
Boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes can be thought of as describing uniformly accelerated particles. The uniform acceleration can in some cases be interpreted as due to an external field, and in other cases as the outcome of self-accelerations produced by the presence of positive an negative masses, or even as the effect of a strut connecting pairs of particles. Precisely these last two types of models comprise the only known classes of exact solutions to the Einstein field equations which are locally asymptotically flat, in the sense that they possess sections of null infinity which are spherical, but null infinity is not complete because some of its generators are not complete.
Boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes possess two (hypersurface orthogonal commuting) Killing vectors. One of them is an axial Killing vector. The other one leaves invariant the light cone through the origin, and can be regarded as the curved spacetime generalisation of the boost Killing vectors of Minkowski spacetime. The boost symmetry has a special status, being the only other symmetry a radiative axially symmetric spacetime can have [@BicSch84; @BicPra98; @Val00b].
Historically, these spacetimes were of outmost importance for it was a solution of this kind [@BonSwa64] that became the first explicit non-stationary solution describing gravitational radiation according to Bondi’s description and Penrose’s treatment of asymptotic flatness —[@Bic68]—.
A procedure to construct systematically boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes both in the case describing freely falling particles [@BicHoeSch83a], and in the case describing self-accelerated particles [@BicHoeSch83b] has been given. Bičák & Schmidt [@BicSch89a] have provided a unified discussion of those boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes which are as “asymptotically flat as possible”. There, it was shown that in order to obtain all the spacetimes in the class, one has to start by solving an inhomogeneous wave equation in flat space with sources moving along the orbits of the boost rotation Killing vector. These solutions to the inhomogeneous wave equation were then used as “seeds” for the boost-rotation space-times.
The boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes have been considered extensively in the literature. For a discussion of their role in the understanding of the theory of General Relativity see [@Bic00]. Some more specific studies can be found in [@Bic85; @Bic87; @PraPra00]. However, the discussion of their Newtonian limit has been only carried out from the weak field approximation perspective, and so the question of the validity of the obtained results has so far remained open in the lack of a more rigorous treatment. It is the purpose of the present article to address this very issue.
The study of the relationship between Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of gravitation, which are respectively predecessor and successor of one another, has lead to attempts to relate them under certain limiting conditions. Despite the fact the formulation of these two theories was grounded on very different concepts, the existence of a common description setup allows one to recognize Newton’s theory as a degenerate limit of that of Einstein. By working in this common framework it would in principle be possible to exploit some structural similarities and generalize theoretical results from the old theory to the new one.
Perhaps the main motivation for carrying out this sort of investigations is the fact that the observational consequences of General Relativity strongly rely on post-Newtonian approximations, or in other words, that the experimental refutations of General Relativity are usually reported in the language of Newton’s theory. Summarizing, the predecessor theory is an invaluable tool for devising approximation schemes allowing to establish links between the two theories.
As discussed above, one of the fundamental steps towards a well grounded link between the two theories is to give a precise definition of the relevant approximations. Nowadays, the vinculum between the equations of General Relativity and Newton’s theory is well understood. Yet the link between solutions to the equations remains not completely clear. The difficulty lies in the difference between the geometric notions used in the Newtonian setup and in the General Relativity theory. Several schemes have been devised to write both theories in a common language —see for example [@Dau97; @Win83; @Ehl98] and references therein— so that the transition from the relativistic theory to that of Newton can be taken in a conceptually consistent way. Among them, Ehlers’ theory is of particular interest due to its covariant nature; this approach has been further developed by Lottermoser —see for example [@Ehl98; @Lot88] for full references—. We will use this particular framework in our study of the Newtonian limit of the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes.
This article is structured as follows: in section 2 we begin by describing briefly Ehlers’ frame theory. In particular we focus on some technical results that will be used in our investigation of the Newtonian limit. In section 3 we proceed to a general discussion of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes in a way which is suited for our later discussion. In section 4 the discussion of the Newtonian limit of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes is actually carried out. A couple of propositions regarding the conditions needed to have such limit are here stated and proved. The role of asymptotic flatness in the existence of the Newtonian limit is discussed. Finally, we address some interpretational issues, in particular those of the determination of the proper Newtonian potential and Newtonian sources. In section 5 we analyse some examples: the Curzon-Chazy particle solution, the generalized Bonnor-Swaminarayan, and the C metric. Finally, an appendix containing an adaptation of the axioms of the frame theory as given by J. Ehlers —which are not so readily available in the literature— is included.
Ehlers’ frame theory
====================
First, we proceed to overview briefly the concepts, ideas and results of Ehlers’ frame theory in the form given by J. Ehlers —see e.g. [@Ehl98]— that will be used in our investigation. For completeness, and as a quick reference, an adapted version of the axioms of the frame theory is given in the appendix to this article. The required propositions and theorems will be stated without proof. For a thorough discussion and the full details of the proof we remit the reader to [@Lot88].
Ehlers’ frame theory considers a 4-dimensional differentiable manifold $M$ endowed with a torsion free connection (not necessarily metric) on which the two symmetric rank 2 tensors $t_{ij}$ (temporal metric) and $s^{ij}$ (spatial metric) are defined. The temporal metric and the spatial metric are related to each other via $$\label{inverses}
t_{ij}s^{jk}=-
\lambda\delta_{i}^{\phantom{i}k},$$ where $\lambda \geq 0$ is a constant known as the *causality constant*. Throughout this work all Latin indices will range from $0$ to $3$, except for $a$, that will range from $1$ to $3$. The summation convention is assumed. If $\lambda \neq 0$, then the causality constant can be identified with $1/c^2$, $c$ being the speed of light. The temporal metric and the spatial metric are compatible with the connection in the sense that $$\nabla_k t_{ij}=0, \qquad \nabla_k s^{ij}=0.$$
The spacetime manifold $M$ can be thought of as being parameterised by the causality constant $\lambda$, so that in fact $M=M(\lambda)$ describes a family of spacetime manifolds. For $\lambda\neq 0$ a change in the value of $\lambda$ can be regarded as a change of the units in which the speed of light is measured. Intuitively, one would wish to identify the Newtonian limit of the family $M(\lambda)$ with $\lambda=0$. This limit will be of a degenerate nature as can be seen from considering relation (\[inverses\]). Following Ehlers, we make the following definition:
\[def:newtonian\_limit\] **(Newtonian limit of a spacetime).** The family $M=M(\lambda)$ of spacetime manifolds is said to have a *Newtonian limit* if:
- the connection, the spatial metric, the temporal metric, and the Riemann tensor constructed from the connection have a limit for $\lambda\to 0$;
- the limiting value of the connection, the Riemann tensor, the spatial metric and the temporal metric as $\lambda\to 0$ satisfy the axioms of the frame theory.
One can easily understand that the spatial metric and the temporal metric are required to have a Newtonian limit by simply recalling that they are the fundamental objects of our theory. Similarly, the same must hold for the connection, which in the limit $\lambda\to0$ should (intuitively) yield the gravitational potential. The equivalent requirement on the Riemann tensor is not so clear though, the rationale behind it being that the Riemann tensor describes the effects of non-homogeneous gravitational fields: the tidal forces. From this point of view, it is natural to demand the Newtonian limits of spacetimes to have well defined tidal forces.
For $\lambda\neq 0$, it is not difficult to relate the temporal metric and the spatial metric to the metric tensor of General Relativity and its inverse. For $\lambda=0$, this ceases being the case and the spacetime acquires a degenerate metric structure. In order to study the behaviour of the connection under these circumstances, it is convenient to perform a 1+3 decomposition of it. This decomposition requires the introduction of a timelike congruence $u^i$ (four-velocity field of an observer) which on passing to the Newtonian limit will give rise to the Galilean simultaneity surfaces. Note that contrary to the case of (globally) stationary spacetimes, where a canonical choice for such an observer field exists (the flow lines of the timelike Killing vector), in radiative spacetimes such a canonical choice does not exist *a priori*.
The choice of a (normalized) observer field $u^i$ induces in a natural way the projection tensor $\pi^i_j=\delta^i_j-u^i\omega_j$, where we have defined $\omega_i=u^\bullet_i=t_{ij}u^j$. Here, and in what follows, the bullet ${}^\bullet$ indicates that the corresponding tensorial object has been constructed by lowering indices using the temporal metric $t_{ij}$. One can also define the tensors $$\begin{aligned}
&&\gamma_{ij}=\frac{1}{\lambda}(u^\bullet_i
u^\bullet_j-t_{ij}), \\
&&\kappa^{ij}=s^{ij}+\lambda u^i u^j.\end{aligned}$$ A “hydrodynamic”decomposition of the derivative of the covariant derivative $u^i$ arises naturally: $$\label{hydrodynamic}
u^i_{;j}=\kappa^{ik}\left(E_k\omega_j+\sigma_{kj}+
\frac{1}{3}\vartheta\gamma_{kj}+\Omega_{kj}\right),$$ where $E_i$ is the 3-acceleration, $\sigma_{ij}$ the shear, $\vartheta$ the expansion and $\Omega_{ij}$ the vorticity of the observer field. It can be shown that if $\Lie_u\gamma_{ij}=0$, where $\Lie_u$ denotes the Lie derivative along $u^i$ then $u^i_{;j}=\kappa^{ik}(E_k\omega_j+\Omega_{kj})$. This type of observers will be called *rigid*. The field $u^i$ induces, as well, a certain decomposition on the connection. In particular, one has the following result:
\[theorem:connection\] Let $u^i$ be a normalized observer (timelike) field. Let us define $$F_{ij}=\frac{1}{\lambda}u^\bullet_{[j,i]}\mbox{
(i.e. }F=\frac{1}{\lambda}{\mbox{d}}u^\bullet.)$$ If $\lambda=0$, $\Lie_u \gamma_{ij}=0$, and the Newtonian limit of $M(\lambda)$ exits then,
- locally there exists a scalar function $\eta$ (absolute time) such that, $$\omega_i=\eta_{,i};$$
- the connection can be written as, $$\begin{aligned}
&&\Gamma^i_{jk}=\overline{\Gamma}^i_{jk}+
2\delta^{i a}F_{a(j}\eta_{,k)}\nonumber \\
&&\phantom{\Gamma^i_{jk}}=\overline{\Gamma}^i_{jk}+
\delta^{i a}\left( 2\Omega_{a(j}\eta_{,k)}+
E_{a}\eta_{,j}\eta_{,k}\right)\end{aligned}$$ where, $$\overline{\Gamma}^i_{jk}=
\frac{1}{2}s^{il}\pi^m_j\pi^n_
k(\gamma_{l m,n}+\gamma_{n l, m}-
\gamma_{m n,\, l})$$ and $E^i$ and $\Omega_{ij}$ are defined via the hydrodynamic decomposition (\[hydrodynamic\]).
Moreover, one has the following corollary, which indicates which parts of the limit of the tensor $F_{ij}$ correspond to the (Newtonian) gravitational potential ($E_a$), and which to a Coriolis field ($\Omega_{ij}$). This corollary will be our main interpretational tool.
\[corollary:connection\] Choosing a Cartesian coordinate system, then (in the $\lambda=0$ case) the geodesics satisfy $$\ddot{\vec{x}}=\vec{g}+2\dot{\vec{x}}\times\vec{\Omega},$$ where $$\vec{g}=-(E_1,E_2,E_3) \qquad \vec{\Omega}=
-(\Omega_{23},\Omega_{31},\Omega_{12}).$$
There are several equivalent ways of verifying that a given family of spacetimes $M=M(\lambda)$ possess a Newtonian limit. The procedure that will be used in the present work is summarized in the following theorem.
\[existence:check\] Let $M(\lambda)$ be a family of spacetimes parameterised by $\lambda \geq 0$. Then if
- **(Newtonian limit of the metrics)**
- the limit of $s^{ij}$ as $\lambda\to 0$ exists and is of rank 3;
- $\lim_{\lambda\to 0}
\displaystyle{ \frac{1}{\lambda}}
\det s^{ij}$ exists;
- **(Newtonian limit of the connection)** given an observer field $u^i=u^i(\lambda)$ in $M(\lambda)$ such that $\lim_{\lambda\to 0} u^i$ exists and $$\lim_{\lambda\to 0} u^{i}_{,j}\,\exists =
(\lim_{\lambda\to 0}u^{i} )_{,j},$$ one has
- $$\lim_{\lambda\to 0} t_{ij,k}\,\exists=
(\lim_{\lambda\to 0}t_{ij})_{,k}, \qquad
\lim_{\lambda\to 0} {s^{ij}}_{,k}\,\exists=
(\lim_{\lambda\to 0}s^{ij} )_{,k},$$
- $$\lim_{\lambda\to 0}
\frac{1}{\lambda}t_{[i|j |} {u^j}_{,k]}\,\exists =
\lim_{\lambda\to 0} F_{ik};$$
- **(Newtonian limit of the Riemann tensor)**
$$\lim_{\lambda\to 0}
\frac{1}{\lambda}F_{ij,k}\,\exists =
(\lim_{\lambda\to 0} F_{ij})_{\!,k};$$
then the family of spacetimes $M(\lambda)$ has a Newtonian limit.
In this theorem the symbol $\exists =$ should be understood as meaning “exists and is equal to”. A final notational remark: given a quantity $x$ (scalar, tensor) such that its limit as $\lambda\to 0$ exists, we will often write $\overset{\circ}{x}$ for $\lim_{\lambda\to 0}x$.
Boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes
===================================
Let us recall the customary interpretation of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes as describing uniformly accelerated particles. As is well known, in General Relativity the causes of the motion are included in the theory. In our case, the acceleration can be either due to an uniform external field or the effect of repulsion between particles with positive and negative masses [^4]. Conical singularities could also be the cause of the accelerations. Boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes contain generally (naked) strut singularities. This feature makes them in a way not very physical [^5]. However, those containing what can be described as repelling pairs of positive and negative masses constitute the only explicit examples (in the realm of exact solutions) of locally asymptotically flat radiative spacetimes in the sense of Penrose [@Pen63]. The particles in the spacetime undergo uniform acceleration. Thus, they approach the speed of light asymptotically. Now, the smoothness of the spacetime requires that it possesses reflection symmetry. All this implies that null infinity has at least two singular points. Therefore, some of the generators of null infinity are not complete. This seems to be the best that can ever been achieved by means of exact radiative solutions.
As we said, boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes have two commuting hypersurface orthogonal Killing vector fields. One of them is an axial Killing vector ($\eta^i$), and the other is the generalization of the boost Killing vector of Minkowski spacetime ($\xi^i$), see figure 1. The Killing vector $\xi^i$ leaves invariant the light cone through the origin. As is the case in the Minkowski spacetime, there are regions where the boost Killing vector is timelike ($\xi_i
\xi^i>0$), null ($\xi_i \xi^i=0$), and spacelike ($\xi_i \xi^i<0$). The set for which $\xi^i$ is null will be known as the *roof* —see e.g. [@BicSch89a]—. Boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes are time symmetric, thus we will only consider in our discussion the region for which $t\geq 0$, as depicted in figure \[figure:boost\]. The region of the spacetime for which $t\geq 0$ and $\xi^i$ is timelike will be known as *below the roof*, whereas the portion for which $\xi^i$ is spacelike will be denoted as *above the roof*. As will be seen later, our discussion of the Newtonian limit of the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes will naturally deal with above the roof region of the spacetime.
\[figure:boost\] ![The action of the boost Killing vector on flat spacetime —see [@BicSch89a]—.](boostscheme.eps "fig:"){width=".5\textwidth"}
In the region below the roof, the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes can be locally put into the Weyl form, whereas above the roof, the spacetime can be put locally in the form of an Einstein-Rosen wave. The difference between the Weyl and Einstein-Rosen spacetimes and the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes arises when we consider their global structure. Above the roof, the line element of a boost-rotation symmetric spacetime can be written in the following form: $$\label{d_line_element}
{\mbox{d}}s^2=\frac{1}{c ^2t^2-z ^2}\{(e^\nu z^2-e^\mu
c ^2t^2){\mbox{d}}z^2+c ^2[2zt(e^\mu-e^\nu){\mbox{d}}z {\mbox{d}}t+
(c ^2e^\nu t^2-e^\mu z^2){\mbox{d}}t^2]\}
-e^\nu {\mbox{d}}\rho^2-\rho^2e^{-\mu}{\mbox{d}}\varphi^2,$$ the functions $\mu$ and $\nu$ [^6] have the following functional dependence: $$\begin{aligned}
&&\mu=\mu(\rho^2,t^2-z^2/c^2), \\
&&\nu=\nu(\rho^2,t^2-z^2/c^2).\end{aligned}$$ In the $(t,\rho,\varphi,z)$ coordinates the region above the roof corresponds to $c ^2 t^2>z^2$. If (\[d\_line\_element\]) corresponds to a vacuum solution of Einstein equations then the function $\mu$ satisfies the wave equation $$\label{wave}
\Box\mu=0,$$ while $\nu$ can be found by quadratures once $\mu$ has been obtained.
Note now that coordinates $\rho$ and $z$ ($[\rho]=[z]=L$) from line element (\[d\_line\_element\]) have dimensions of length, while $t$ has dimensions of time ($[t]=T$). In order to ease our discussion of the Newtonian limit, it will be convenient to make use of dimensionless coordinates. To this end, we assume that our system possesses a characteristic length $\alpha$ and a characteristic time $\tau$. The introduction of a characteristic time in the relativistic regime of the frame theory is superfluous because from a given length one can always construct a time just dividing by the speed of light. However, in the Newtonian limit such canonical choice of speed does not longer exist. This small redundancy is a price one has to pay in order to write the two theories in a common language. Dimensionless coordinates are then given by $$\begin{aligned}
&& \rhot=\alpha^{-1}\rho, \\
&& \zt=\alpha^{-1}z, \\
&& \ttilde=\tau^{-1}t,\end{aligned}$$ $\alpha$ and $\tau$ being constants such that $[\alpha]=L$ and $[\tau]=T$.
In the sequel, it will be convenient to use above the roof coordinates $(\bt,\rhot,\varphi,\tilde\chi)$, which diagonalize the line element of the spacetime [@BicSch89a]: $$\label{nd_line_element}
{\mbox{d}}s^2=\frac{\tau^2}{\lambda}e^\nu {\mbox{d}}\bt^2-\alpha ^2
\left(e^\nu {\mbox{d}}\rhot^2-\rhot^2e^{-\mu}{\mbox{d}}\varphi^2-
{\bt^2}e^\mu {\mbox{d}}\tilde\chi^2\right),$$ where now, $\mu=\mu(\rhot^2,\bt^2)$, $\nu=\nu(\rhot^2,\bt^2)$. Note, by the way, that $[\mu]=[\nu]=1$. The coordinate transformation relating the line elements (\[d\_line\_element\]) and (\[nd\_line\_element\]) is given by $$\begin{aligned}
&& \bt^2=\ttilde^2-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right) \zt^2, \\
&& \mbox{tanh}^2\left(\frac{\alpha\sqrt{\lambda}}
{\tau}\,\tilde\chi\right) =\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)
\frac{\zt^2}{\ttilde^2}.\end{aligned}$$ In the rest of this work only dimensionless coordinates will be used, therefore in order to simplify the notation we drop the tilde $\;\widetilde{}\;\,$ from the coordinates $(\ttilde,\rhot,\varphi,\zt)$, and $(\bt,\rhot,\varphi,\tilde\chi)$.
In terms of the $(b,\rho,\varphi,\chi)$ coordinates the field equations take the form, $$\begin{aligned}
&&\mu_{,\rho\rho}-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)\mu_{,bb}+
\rho^{-1}\mu_{,\rho}-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)
b^{-1}\mu_{,b}=0,
\label{field1}\\
&&\left(b^2-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)\rho^2\right)
\nu_{,\rho}=\frac{1}{2}\rho
b^2\left(\mu_{,\rho}^2+\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)
\mu_{,b}^2\right)-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)\rho^2 b
\mu_{,\rho}\mu_{,b} \nonumber \\
&&\phantom{\left(b^2-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)\rho^2\right)
\nu_{,\rho}=XXXXX}-\left(\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)\rho^2+
b^2\right)\mu_{,\rho}+2\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)
\rho b \mu_{,b},
\label{field2} \\
&&\left(b^2-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)\rho^2\right)
\nu_{,b}=-\frac{1}{2}\rho^2
b\left(\mu_{,\rho}^2+\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)
\mu_{,b}^2\right)+\rho b^2
\mu_{,\rho}\mu_{,b} \nonumber \\
&&\phantom{\left(b^2-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)
\rho^2\right)\nu_{,\rho}=XXXXX}-\left(\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}
{\tau^2}\right)\rho^2+b^2\right)\mu_{,b}+2\rho b \mu_{,\rho}.
\label{field3}\end{aligned}$$ Equation (\[field1\]) corresponds to the wave equation (\[wave\]), and is the integrability condition for (\[field2\]) and (\[field3\]). These field equations suggest considering boost-rotation symmetric solutions of the wave equation (\[wave\]) as seeds to construct boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes. In fact, one can construct an infinite number of spacetimes of that kind which are regular everywhere but blow up at infinity. These “[seeds]{}” lead to spacetimes describing uniformly accelerated particles under the action of an external field. Bičák & Schmidt [@BicSch89a] have shown that the only boost-rotation symmetric solution to (\[wave\]) which decays to zero at null infinity is $\mu=0$. Therefore, in order to construct (non-trivial) boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes which are as asymptotically flat as possible, one has to consider “[seeds]{}” $\mu$ which satisfy the wave equation with sources moving along boost-rotation symmetric orbits, i.e.: $$\label{wave_with_sources}
\Box \mu =8\pi \sigma,$$ with $\sigma=\sigma(\rho^2,b^2)=\sigma(\rho^2,t^2-\left({\alpha^2\lambda}
/{\tau^2}\right)
z^2)$, $[\sigma]=1$. This strategy will yield spacetimes which will be singular at least along the world lines of the uniformly accelerated particles. Bičák and Schmidt [@BicSch89a]) have briefly discussed tachyonic boost-rotation symmetric sources. Here, only sources moving with speed inferior to that of light ($t^2-\left({\alpha^2\lambda}/{\tau^2}\right) z^2<0$) will be considered. Hence, the trajectories of the sources will remain always below the roof. This fact will acquire relevance later, when we try to identify the sources of the gravitational field of the Newtonian limits.
Bičák & Schmidt analysed the fall-off conditions that $\mu$ and $\nu$ have to satisfy for the spacetime to have at least a local null infinity. Moreover, they showed that for metric functions $\mu$ and $\nu$ satisfying the aforementioned asymptotic flatness conditions, it is possible to add suitable constants to both $\mu$ and $\nu$ so that the resulting spacetime has a global null infinity, in the sense that it admits smooth spherical sections. Finally, they also showed that for a $\mu$ satisfying the fall off conditions and vanishing at the origin ($\mu(0,0)=0$), it is possible to construct a spacetime where null infinity is regular except for four points: the “good luck case”. These are the points where the particles enter and leave the spacetime.
As will be shown later —and perhaps not so surprisingly— asymptotic flatness will appear to be a crucial ingredient for the existence of the Newtonian limit of the spacetimes under consideration. Remarkably, non-asymptotically flat solutions (i.e. those describing accelerated particles in uniform fields) can be intuitively constructed from asymptotically flat solutions by sending one of the particles to infinity and at the same time increasing its corresponding mass parameter [@BicHoeSch83a].
The temporal metric and spatial metric of Ehlers’ theory can be constructed from the line element (\[d\_line\_element\]) by performing the replacement $c\mapsto{1}/{\sqrt{\lambda}}$ everywhere in (\[d\_line\_element\]), where $\lambda$ is the so-called causality constant. Then, the required temporal $t_{ij}$ will be obtained by multiplying the corresponding metric tensor $g_{ij}$ by $\lambda$. In terms of the $(t,z,\rho,\chi$) variables, and up to the two first orders in $\lambda$, these two tensors read $$t_{ij}=\left(\begin{matrix}
{\tau }^2\, e^{\nu } - \lambda{\alpha }^2\displaystyle{
z^2 }
{t^{-2}}\left( e^{\mu } - e^{\nu } \right) & 0 & 0 &
\lambda \alpha ^2 z \,
t ^{-1} \left( e^{\mu } - e^{\nu } \right) \cr 0 &
- \lambda\alpha ^2e^{\nu } & 0 & 0 \cr
0 & 0 & -{
{\alpha }^2\,\lambda \,{\rho }^2}{e^{-\mu }} & 0 \cr
\lambda \alpha ^2 z \,
t ^{-1} \left( e^{\mu } - e^{\nu } \right) & 0 & 0 &
-\lambda {\alpha }^2 e^{\mu } \cr
\end{matrix}\right)$$ $$s^ {ij}=\left(\begin{matrix}- {\lambda }\tau^{-2}{e^{-\nu }} & 0 & 0 &\lambda\tau^{-2} \,z\,t^{-1} {\left( e^{-\mu } - e^{-\nu }
\right) } \cr
0 & \alpha ^{-2}e^{-\nu } & 0 & 0 \cr
0 & 0 &{\alpha }^{-2}\,{{\rho }^{-2}} {e^
{\mu }} & 0 \cr
\lambda\tau^{-2} \,z\,t^{-1} {\left( e^{-\mu } - e^{-\nu }
\right) } & 0 & 0 & \alpha^{-2}e^{-\mu } +
{\lambda\,{\tau }^{-2}\, z^2 }
{t^{-2}\left( e^{-\mu } - e^{-\nu } \right)} \cr
\end{matrix}
\right).$$ It can be checked that $[t_{ij}]=T^2$, and $[s^{ij}]=L^{-2}$.
The Newtonian limit of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes
==========================================================
The natural arena for the discussion of the Newtonian limit of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes is the region above the roof, i.e. $t^2>\left({\alpha^2\lambda}/{\tau^2}\right) z^2$, where the spacetime is radiative. The reason for this is that as one makes $\lambda \to 0$, the region below the roof ($t^2<\left({\alpha^2\lambda}/{\tau^2}\right) z^2$) gets squeezed by the roof. That is, the region below the roof disappears in the limit, while the roof becomes the set $\{t=0\}$ —see figure 2—.
\[figure:roof\_limit\]
{width=".8\textwidth"}
Necessary conditions for existence and consequences
---------------------------------------------------
The conditions under which the hypothesis of theorem \[existence:check\] are satisfied for the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes described by either (\[d\_line\_element\]) or (\[nd\_line\_element\]) are summarized in the following proposition.
\[lemma:existence\] **(Necessary conditions for the existence).** Consider the observer field $u^i=(\tau^{-1}e^{-\nu/2},0,0,0)$. Necessary conditions for the existence of the Newtonian limit of the family $(M(\lambda),g_{ij}(\lambda))$ of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes are
- $\nu=\O(\lambda^0)$, $\mu=\O(\lambda^0)$, $\mu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda)$, $\mu_{,b}=\O(\lambda)$
- $\nu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda)$, $\nu_{,b}=\O(\lambda^0)$
- $\nu_{,\rho\rho}=\O(\lambda)$, $\nu_{,\rho b}=\O(\lambda)$, $\nu_{,b b}=\O(\lambda^0)$.
**Proof.** This follows from using theorem \[existence:check\] and direct inspection. Condition (i) arises from imposing hypothesis (a1) and (a2) of theorem \[existence:check\]. In particular, it is important to note that $$\frac{1}{\lambda}\det s^{ij}=-\frac{1}{\tau^2\alpha^6}
\left(\frac{1}{\rho^2}e^{-2\nu}\right).$$ So, the limit $\lambda \to 0$ may not exist if $\rho=0$. This peculiarity can be easily understood by recalling that the boost-rotation symmetric spaces contain struts or conical singularities on the axis $\rho=0$. These singularities represent the particles undergoing uniform acceleration. Along the same lines, condition (ii) of lemma \[lemma:existence\] arises from imposing hypothesis (b1) and (b2) of theorem \[existence:check\]. In particular, the condition $\nu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda)$ and $\nu_{,b}=\O(\lambda^0)$ appears from assuming that the limit $$\lim_{\lambda\to 0} F=\lim_{\lambda\to 0}
\frac{1}{\lambda} {\mbox{d}}u^\bullet$$ exists. This is because $$u^\bullet=t_{ij} u^i {\mbox{d}}x^j=\tau e^{\nu/2}{\mbox{d}}b=
\tau e^{\nu/2}{\mbox{d}}t+ \O(\lambda),$$ where we have used the relation $b=t+\O(\lambda)$. So, at the end of the day one has $$\label{forces}
F=-\frac{\tau}{2\lambda}e^{\nu/2}\left(\nu_{,\rho} {\mbox{d}}t \wedge {\mbox{d}}\rho+
\nu_{,z} {\mbox{d}}t \wedge {\mbox{d}}z+\O(\lambda)
\right),$$ and hence the need of $\nu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda)$ and $\nu_{,b}=\O(\lambda ^0)$ for the limit to exist. In the remainder, we will show that this condition has something to do with asymptotic flatness. Most boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes which are not at least locally asymptotically flat will not satisfy it.
Finally, condition (ii) stems from requiring the existence of the limit as $\lambda\to 0$ of the Riemann tensor. $\Box$
Using the field equations (\[field1\])-(\[field3\]) it is not hard to draw some immediate consequences of proposition \[lemma:existence\].
\[lemma:consequences\] **(Consequences of the necessary conditions).** Assume that the hypothesis of proposition \[lemma:existence\] hold. Then,
- $$\mu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda), \qquad \mu_{,\rho\rho}=\O(\lambda);$$
- $$\begin{aligned}
&& \mu=\overset{\circ}{\mu}(b^2)+\lambda\Xi(\rho^2,b^2), \\
&& \nu =\overset{\circ}{\nu}(b^2)+\lambda \Phi(\rho^2,b^2),\end{aligned}$$
where $\Xi=\O(\lambda^0)$, $\Phi=\O(\lambda^0)$, and according to the field equations $\overset{\circ}{\nu}_{,b}=-\overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,b}$;
- $$\sigma=\lambda \Sigma(\rho^2,b^2),$$
where $\Sigma=\O(\lambda^0)$.
**Proof.** The $\lambda$-dependencies given in (i) come directly from taking the limit $\lambda\to 0$ in the field equation (\[field2\]) and using the result in (\[field1\]). Consequence (ii) follows from the last discussion and from (ii) in proposition \[lemma:existence\]. Finally, (iii) comes from using (i) and (ii) in the wave equation with sources, $$\mu_{,\rho\rho}+\rho^{-1}\mu_{,\rho}-\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}
\right)\mu_{,bb}-
\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)b^{-1}\mu_{,b}=8\pi\sigma.$$ $\Box$
The role of asymptotic flatness
-------------------------------
So far, asymptotic flatness of the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes (or the lack of it) has not entered our analysis. Ehlers argued that the notion of asymptotic flatness should play a crucial role in the existence of Newtonian limits [@Ehl98]. This observation suggests the possibility that spacetimes describing accelerated particles in uniform (gravitational) fields may not possess a Newtonian limit proper.
Following reference [@BicSch89a], we will consider that a given metric function $\mu$ —satisfying a non-homogeneous wave equation— is said to be *compatible with asymptotic flatness* if $\Omega^{-1}\mu$ is smooth on null infinity, where $\Omega$ is a suitable conformal factor defining null infinity. This means that it should have (at least) the following asymptotic behaviour: $$\mu=\mu_1\Omega+\O(\Omega^2).$$ Consider for example the conformal factor, $$\label{Omega}
\Omega=\frac{1}{\left({\tau^2}/{\alpha^2\lambda}\right)t^2-\rho^2-z^2}\,,$$ which is valid for the region $\left({\tau^2}/{\alpha^2\lambda}\right)t^2>
\rho^2-z^2$. Now, consider a metric function $\mu^*$ not compatible with asymptotic flatness. For example, $$\begin{aligned}
&&\mu^*=\mu_{-1}\Omega^{-1}+\mu_0+\mu_1\Omega+\O(\Omega^2), \\
&&\phantom{\mu^*}=\mu_{-1}\left(\left(\frac{\tau^2}
{\alpha^2\lambda}\right)t^2-\rho^2-z^2\right) + \O(\Omega^0),\end{aligned}$$ where $\mu_{-1}=\O(\lambda^0)$. Whence, $$\begin{aligned}
\mu^*_{,\rho}=-2\rho\mu_{-1}+\cdots,\end{aligned}$$ so that $\overset{\circ}{\mu}\,^*\!_{,\rho}\neq 0$, and accordingly $\overset{\circ}{\nu}_{,\rho}\,^*\neq 0$. That is, condition (ii) of proposition \[lemma:existence\] is not satisfied, and thus the boost-rotation symmetric spacetime to be obtained from the seed function $\mu^*$ does not have a properly defined Newtonian limit. This last result shows that, in fact, asymptotic flatness is a prerequisite for the existence of a Newtonian limit. This should not be a surprise because Newton’s theory, as pointed out by Ehlers, is actually a theory of isolated bodies. Several ways to impose it have been suggested in the literature —see in particular [@Tra66]—. Note, however, that a decay of the form $$\mu=\mu_0+\mu_1\Omega+\O(\Omega^2),$$ is still compatible with condition (ii) of proposition \[lemma:existence\]. This particular class of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes could still have a Newtonian limit.
As should be expected, the asymptotic flatness of the general relativistic solution leaves an imprint on the asymptotic behaviour of its Newtonian limit. We have the following result.
\[proposition:af\_consequences\] **(Consequences of asymptotic flatness).** Let $\mu$ be a solution of the wave equation with sources (\[wave\_with\_sources\]) compatible with asymptotic flatness. Then it follows that
- $$\overset{\circ}{\nu}_{,b}=\overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,b}=0;$$
- similarly, for fixed $t$ and $z$ one has, $$\Xi\sim \frac{C}{\rho^2}, \qquad \Phi\sim-\frac{C}{\rho^2},$$ for large $\rho$, where $C$ is a constant.
**Proof.** Consider the conformal factor given in (\[Omega\]). It is not hard to see that $$\Omega=\frac{1}{t^2}\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right) +
\frac{\rho^2+z^2}{t^4}\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)^2+
O(\lambda^3).$$ As mentioned before, a function $\mu$ compatible with asymptotic flatness will be of the form $$\mu=\mu_1\Omega=\O(\Omega^2),$$ where $\mu_1=\O(\lambda^0)$, and $\partial_\Omega \mu_1=0$. Hence one has $$\label{mu:conformal}
\mu=\frac{\mu_1}{t^2}\left(\frac{\alpha^2\lambda}{\tau^2}\right)+O(\lambda^2).$$ Accordingly $\overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,b}=0$ —cfr. (ii) in proposition \[lemma:consequences\]—. Thus, from (ii) in (\[lemma:consequences\]) one has $\overset{\circ}{\nu}_{,b}=\overset{\circ}{\nu}_{,t}=0$. In order to prove (iii), let us consider the conformal factor $$\Omega'=\frac{1}{\rho^2+z^2-\left({\tau^2}/{\alpha^2\lambda}\right)t^2},$$ in the domain in which it is positive. Then, asymptotically one has $\Omega'\sim 1/\rho^2$, from which (ii) follows. $\Box$
Interpretation and sources
--------------------------
We are now in the position of discussing the Newtonian (gravitational) potential of those boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes possessing a Newtonian limit and describing the sources that give rise to them. Because of proposition (\[lemma:consequences\]) one has that the connection form —see equation (\[forces\])— is given by $$F=- \frac{1}{2}{\Phi_{,\rho}} (e^{\nu /2} ){\mbox{d}}t\wedge
{\mbox{d}}\rho- \frac{1}{2}{\Phi_{,z}} (e^{\nu /2} ){\mbox{d}}t\wedge
{\mbox{d}}z+\O(\lambda),$$ and because of (i) in lemma \[lemma:existence\] then $e^{\nu
/2}=\O(\lambda^0)$ and therefore $$\label{newtonian_potential}
\overset{\circ}{F}=-\frac{1}{2}\Phi_{,\rho}
{\mbox{d}}b\wedge {\mbox{d}}\rho-\frac{1}{2}\Phi_{,z}
{\mbox{d}}b\wedge {\mbox{d}}z$$ The last result, along with theorem \[theorem:connection\] and corollary \[corollary:connection\], indicates that $-\Phi/2$ is the Newtonian potential as measured by the rigid observers $u^i$. In reference [@BicSch89a] it was argued that because of equation (\[wave\_with\_sources\]) and since “$\Box\to \Delta$” in the $\lambda\to 0$ limit, it is suggestive to interpret $\mu/2$ as a (Newtonian) gravitational potential. It was also noticed that in the weak field approximation (i.e. weak sources) and for $t\approx 0$ one has $$g_{00}=e^\mu \approx 1+\mu,$$ which brings further support to their point of view. Here we want to make the point that this is only true if one enforces the requirement of asymptotic flatness. To see this, divide field equation (\[field2\]) by $\tau^{-2}\lambda$ and take the limit as $\lambda\to 0$. Recalling that $b\to t$ as $\lambda\to 0$ one obtains $$\label{Phi_relates_to_Xi}
\tau^2t^2\Phi_{,\rho}=\frac{1}{2}\alpha^2\rho t^2(\overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,t})^2
-\tau^2t^2\Xi_{,\rho}+2\alpha^2\rho t \overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,t}.$$ Thus, only if the boost-rotation symmetric spacetime is asymptotically flat one will have that $\overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,t}=0$ and accordingly $\Xi_{,\rho}=-\Phi_{,\rho}$. In addition to this, $\Xi_{,z}=-\Phi_{,z}$ follows from an analogous discussion involving equation (\[field3\]). For the Newtonian limit of the non-asymptotically flat spacetimes described in §4.2, whose metric seed function $\mu$ is of the form $\mu=\mu_0+\O(\Omega)$, the interpretation of $\mu/2$ as a potential is not valid. This example illustrates the subtle —but crucial— differences between the notions of weak field approximation and Newtonian limit. The weak limit approximation is still a curved spacetime theory valid for sources which in some sense are moving slowly. Recall that the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes are time symmetric, so that the uniformly accelerated particles start moving from rest at $t=0$. Thus, in our case, this weak field approximation should only be correct for $t\approx 0$, where they will still be moving slowly. On the other hand, in the Newtonian theory there is no restriction to the speed an object can attain, as long as it remains bounded for finite times. Accordingly, it is valid for all times. Finally observe that if one constructs a function $\mu$ such that $\overset{\circ}{\mu}_{,b}=0$ then one would indeed have $\Xi_{,\rho}=-\Phi_{,\rho}$ and $\Xi_{,z}=-\Phi_{,z}$.
Given a boost-rotation symmetric source $\sigma=\sigma(\rho^2,t^2-\lambda{\alpha^2} z^2/{\tau^2})$, then by means of Kirchoff integrals its is possible to construct retarded $(\mu_+)$ and advanced $(\mu_-)$ fields of the form $$\mu_\pm =\frac{1}{8\pi}\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^4} \frac{\sigma\left(\rho^{\prime 2},
t^{\prime 2}-({\alpha^2\lambda}/{\tau^2}) z^{\prime
2}\right)}{\sqrt{(\rho-\rho^{\prime})^2+(z-z^{\prime})^2}}\,\delta\left(
\frac{\alpha}{\tau}\sqrt{\lambda}\sqrt{(\rho-\rho^{\prime})^2+
(z-z^{\prime})^2}\mp (t-t^\prime)\right){\mbox{d}}^4x^\prime,$$ where the integral is evaluated over the whole Minkowski spacetime. We note that the boost-rotation symmetric source can be very complicated and posses all sorts of multipole structures —represented by derivatives of the $\delta$-function—. The relevance of these advanced and retarded solutions for our purposes is that by considering linear combinations of the functions $\mu_\pm$, one can construct [@BicSch89a] a metric function $\mu$ that is an *analytic* function of $\rho^2$ and $t^2-\lambda z^2$ outside the sources, and which is asymptotically regular at the fixed points of the boost-symmetry on null infinity, namely $$\mu= a\mu_+ +(1-a)\mu_-,$$ where $a$ is suitable constant. Recalling that $\sigma=\lambda
\Sigma$, where $\Sigma=\O(\lambda^0)$ is analytic in $\lambda$ so that $\lim_{\to 0} \Sigma(\rho^2,t^2-\lambda\alpha^2 z^2/\tau^2)$ does not depend on $z$, one has that $$\begin{aligned}
&&\lim_{\lambda\to 0} \frac{\mu}{\lambda}=\frac{a}{8\pi}\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^4}
\frac{\overset{\circ}{\Sigma}\;\delta(t -t^\prime)}{\sqrt{(\rho-\rho^{\prime})^2+
(z-z^{\prime})^2}}\,
{\mbox{d}}^4x^\prime \nonumber \\
&&\phantom{\lim_{\lambda\to 0} \frac{\mu}{\lambda}XXXXXXXXXX}+
\frac{(1-a)}{8\pi}\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^4}
\frac{\overset{\circ}{\Sigma}\;\delta(t -t^\prime)}{\sqrt{(\rho-\rho^{\prime})^2+
(z-z^{\prime})^2}} \,{\mbox{d}}^4x^\prime, \\
&&\phantom{\lim_{\lambda\to 0} \frac{\mu}{\lambda}}=\frac{1}{8\pi}
\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^3}
\frac{\overset{\circ}{\Sigma}|_{t}}{\sqrt{(\rho-\rho^{\prime})^2+
(z-z^{\prime})^2}}\,
{\mbox{d}}^3x^\prime.\end{aligned}$$ Thus, for an boost-rotation symmetric spacetime arising from an asymptotically flat seed $\mu$ one gets that —cfr. equation (\[Phi\_relates\_to\_Xi\])—, $$\Phi=-\frac{1}{8\pi}\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^3}
\frac{\Sigma(\rho^{\prime 2},t^2)}{\sqrt{(\rho-\rho^{\prime})^2+
(z-z^{\prime})^2}}
{\mbox{d}}^3x^\prime.$$ Consequently, the potential $\Phi$ satisfies the Poisson equation with moving sources: $$\Delta (-\Phi/2) =4\pi \Sigma(\rho^2,t^2).$$ Note, in particular, the minus sign in the source term. In the Newtonian limit, the boost-rotation symmetric source has been replaced by a moving cylindrically symmetric source analytic in $\rho^2$ and $t^2$. We finish this discussion by recalling that the boost-rotation symmetric source $\sigma$ is such that the amount of negative masses balances exactly the amount of positive masses. That is, $$\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^3} \sigma\left(\rho^2,t^2-\left({\alpha^2\lambda}/{\tau^2}\right)
z^2\right) {\mbox{d}}^3 x'=0.$$ It then follows that $\Sigma(\rho^2,t^2)$ will inherit this property. Indeed, $$\int_{{\mbox{{\SYM R}}}^3} \Sigma(\rho^2,t^2) {\mbox{d}}^3 x'=0.$$
Examples
========
We now proceed to briefly discuss the Newtonian limits of some examples of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes. As noted in the introductory sections, the first problem one has to face in order to proceed with this discussion is how to transcribe the exact general relativistic solutions —which almost always are expressed in terms of “natural” units for which $c=1$— into the language of the theory of frames. There is no canonical/unique way to do this. Indeed, one could for example, introduce the causality constant $\lambda$ in such a way into the Schwarzschild solution so that instead of the expected Newtonian limit of the potential due to a point mass one obtains a vanishing potential. Thus, the criteria for choosing a particular transcription rule is that it provides an interesting Newtonian limit. In our particular case, consistent with the discussion of section 3, we put forward the transition rules $$\begin{aligned}
\label{transcription}
&& \rho_{BHS} \mapsto \alpha \rho, \\
&& z_{BHS} \mapsto \alpha z, \\
&& t_{BHS} \mapsto \frac{\tau}{\alpha \sqrt{\lambda}} t,\end{aligned}$$ where $\rho_{BHS}$, $z_{BHS}$, $t_{BHS}$ are the $\rho$, $z$, $\tau$ coordinates used by Bičák, Hoenselaers and Schmidt [@BicHoeSch83a; @BicHoeSch83b] (Bonnor [@Bon83] labels them $\eta$, $\zeta$, $\tau$), and $\rho$, $z$ and $t$ are the dimensionless coordinates used throughout most of this article. In order to write the expressions in a more compact fashion, we define the dimensionless quantity $$\label{zeta}
\zeta=\left( \rho^2 +z^2 -\frac{\tau^2}{\alpha^2\lambda}t^2\right).$$
The two monopoles solution
--------------------------
In [@BicSch89a], Bičák & Schmidt have constructed what is arguably the simplest non-trivial example of a boost-rotation symmetric “potential” $\mu$: that obtained from the superposition of retarded and advanced potentials due to two uniformly accelerated point particles, one with a positive mass, and the other with a negative one. The function $\mu$ thus obtained is by construction compatible with asymptotic flatness. Therefore, the boost-rotation symmetric spacetime arising from it will also be asymptotically flat modulo the usual problems at the intersection of the light cone through the origin with null infinity. Because of its asymptotic flatness, the Newtonian limit is expected to exist, and therefore it can be determined by simply looking at $\mu$ (cfr. §4.2). In terms of the dimensionless coordinates $(t,\rho,\chi,z)$ one has that $$\label{dipole}
\mu= -\frac{4 m G \lambda}{\alpha \sqrt{(\zeta-1)^2+4\rho^2}},$$ where the constant $m$ has dimensions of mass and $\zeta$ given by (\[zeta\]). As explained previously, a non-trivial Newtonian limit for boost-rotation spacetimes will only exist, strictly speaking, for $t=0$ —the sources of the wave equation (\[wave\_with\_sources\]) and of the associated limiting Poisson equation vanish “above the roof”—. Thus, the direct naive evaluation of the limit $\lim_{\lambda \to 0} {\mu}/{\lambda}$ yields zero. In order to extract a non-trivial limit out of (\[dipole\]) we expand around $t=0$, so that $$\mu=-\frac{4 m G \lambda}{\alpha \sqrt{4\rho^2+(\rho^2+z^2-1)^2}}+
\O(t^2).$$ Thus, one could say that the Newtonian potential corresponding to the relativistic two-monopole boost-rotation symmetric spacetime is, for $t\approx 0$ given by $$\label{dipole_newtonian}
\Phi\approx\frac{2 m G}{\alpha \sqrt{4\rho^2+(\rho^2+z^2-1)^2}}.$$
\[figure:sources\_1\]
{width="6cm" height="6cm"} (-78,-6)[$z$]{} (-180,88)[$\rho$]{}
The latter inherits the axial symmetry from the relativistic solution. Furthermore, it is singular at two points lying on the $z$-axis, $(\rho_{sing},\varphi_{sing},z_{sing})=(0,0,1)$ —see figure 3—. These singularities are naturally identified with the presence of two point-particles. Note that the potential is —by construction— time independent. Thus, the Newtonian limit for early times is a strictly static Newtonian potential in which the sources are not moving. Another remarkable feature of the solution is that, as can readily be checked, the masses of the two point particles giving rise to the Newtonian field have the same (positive) sign.
The Curzon-Chazy $(01)$-pole particles solution.
------------------------------------------------
This example of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes was first given in [@BicHoeSch83b]. It was constructed from the classical Bonnor-Swaminarayan solution [@BonSwa64] by considering an appropriate limiting procedure. This solution is interpreted as the superposition of a monopole particle and a dipole particle. Again, by construction, the “seed” function is compatible with asymptotic flatness so that a Newtonian limit is bound to exist. In this case one has $$\mu= -\frac{\scrd
G\lambda}{\alpha^2}\frac{\zeta(\zeta-1)+2\rho^2}{\left((\zeta-1)^2+4\rho^2
\right)^{3/2}},$$ where $\scrd$ a constant of dipolar nature ($[\scrd]=ML$), and $\zeta$ as in (\[zeta\]). Again, expanding $\mu$ around $t=0$ one finds that $$\label{curzon_newton}
\Phi=\frac{\scrd G}{\alpha^2}\left(\frac{ (\rho^2+z^2)(\rho^2+z^2-1)+2\rho^2}
{(4\rho^2+(\rho^2z^2-1)^2)^{(3/2)}}\right).$$ The Newtonian potential is again singular at $(\rho_{sing},\varphi_{sing},z_{sing})=(0,0,\pm
\sqrt{t^2+1})$. Looking at the level curves of the potential (\[curzon\_newton\]) one can perceive the fingerprints of the “dipole structure” of the point particles.
The Generalized Bonnor-Swaminarayan solution
--------------------------------------------
This solution was obtained in [@BicHoeSch83a] by using Ernst’s regularization procedure [@Ern78]. It describes two identical particles symmetrically located with respect to the plane $z=0$ and uniformly accelerated along the axis $\rho=0$. The interest of this example for our purposes lies in the known fact that this spacetimes is not asymptotically flat. In this case one has $$\mu= \frac{\scrd G \lambda}{\alpha^2} \left(1-\frac{1}{
\sqrt{(\zeta-1)^2+4\rho^2}}\right) + \left(
2\rho^2-\zeta\right),$$ where again $[\scrd]=ML$, and $\zeta$ given by (\[zeta\]). It can be readily seen that $\mu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda^0)$, and thus, by propositions \[lemma:existence\] and \[lemma:consequences\], it does not possess a proper Newtonian limit.
\[figure:sources\_2\]
{width="6cm" height="6cm"} (-78,-6)[$z$]{} (-180,88)[$\rho$]{}
The C metric.
-------------
We conclude our discussion of examples by considering the epitome of the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes: the C metric. Bonnor [@Bon83] was the first to cast it in the form which exhibits its boost-rotation symmetric nature. The metric function $\mu$ arises from solutions to the wave equation with sources which are uniformly accelerated rods moving along the $z$ direction. In terms of our dimensionless coordinates one has $$\label{c}
\mu= \ln \left( \frac{1}{4\omega^2} \frac{ \sqrt{ (\zeta-\beta)^2
+4\beta\rho^2}+(\zeta-2\rho^2)-\beta}{\sqrt{ (\zeta-1)^2
+4\rho^2}+(\zeta-2\rho^2)-1} \right).$$ The classical parameters $m$ and $A$ are related to the parameters $\alpha$, $\beta$ and $\omega$ via, $$\alpha^2=2(z_2-z_1), \qquad \alpha^2\beta=2(z_2-z_3),$$ where $z_1$, $z_2$, $z_3$ are solutions of $$\label{cubic}
2A^4 z^3-A^2z^2+m^2=0.$$ It is assumed that the parameters $m$ and $A$ are such that the latter has 3 real solutions, and that $z_2$ is the biggest root. Finally, $$\omega^2=4m^2A^{-6}\alpha^{-8}(\beta-1)^{-2}.$$
The points where $\mu$ is singular can be identified with sources. A simple calculation shows then that this happens at $(0,0,z_{sing})$ with $z_{sing}\in(-\sqrt{\beta},-1)\cup (1,\sqrt{\beta})$ if $\beta > 1$ or $z_{sing}\in(-1,-\sqrt{\beta})\cup (\sqrt{\beta},1)$ if $\beta < 1$. If $\beta=1$, then no singular points occur, and the C metric is in fact Minkowski spacetime, that is, there are no sources. This seems to indicate that the geometry is induced by the presence two rods of finite length symmetrically located along the $z$-axis. This agrees with the description given by Bičák and Schmidt [@BicSch89a] on how to construct the C-metric from a “[s]{}eed”.
Now, a direct evaluation shows that the conditions $\mu_{,\rho}=\O(\lambda)$ and $\mu_{,z}=\O(\lambda)$ needed for the existence of a Newtonian limit of the C-metric do not hold unless $$\label{beta}
\beta=1+\beta_1\lambda+\O(\lambda).$$ Assuming the latter one finds $$\Phi = \frac{\beta_1}{2 \sqrt{4\rho^2+(\rho^2+z^2-1)^2}},$$ at $t\approx 0$. That is, one recovers the potential of the two monopoles solution. This is in agreement with the results by Bonnor, who concluded that in the weak field limit the C metric describes two accelerated monopoles [@Bon83].
Conclusions
===========
We have discussed the Newtonian limit of boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes. It has been shown that the existence, or not, of a Newtonian limit depends on the asymptotic flatness of the relativistic spacetime. As discussed in the main text, boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes posses two Killing vectors: an axial one which is inherited by the Newtonian limit, and a boost Killing vector. The boost Killing vector field is not inherited in any clear way by the Newtonian limit as this symmetry is of relativistic nature.
In order to construct “seed” fields $\mu$ which are analytical, one has to resort to suitable combinations of advanced and retarded fields due to boost-rotation symmetric sources for which the total amount of mass is zero. That is, one has to allow for the presence of negative masses. The presence of regions of space containing negative mass is preserved in the Newtonian limit in such a way that the total amounts of positive and negative masses cancel exactly each other.
The standard interpretation of the boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes regards them as models of uniformly accelerated particles. As has been shown with the examples, the Newtonian limits are well defined for all times, however the interpretation of particles moving in an uniformly accelerated fashion is only valid for early times $t\approx
0$. The time dependence of Newtonian potential can be traced back to the fact that the sources in the relativistic regime carry their own source of motion: the struts or conical singularities joining them. In other words, the motion of the Newtonian sources is the Newtonian consequence of the singularities in the relativistic boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes. Summarizing, the Newtonian limits obtained exhibit several unphysical features; however, all of them can be traced back to problems already existing in the general relativistic solutions. Whether the struts and strings appearing in the general relativistic solutions here considered are “terribly” unphysical or not, is nevertheless a matter of taste.
Finally, in §4.3 it has been shown that the potential suggested by a weak field analysis coincides, in the case where asymptotic flatness is required, with the Newtonian potential obtained through our analysis. There has been some discussion in the literature —cfr. [@BicSch89a; @Bon83]— in what regards writing the potentials as a combination of advanced and retarded fields. This discussion lies beyond the realm of our analysis, because in a purely Newtonian theory information travels with infinite speed. In order to look at these effects one would have to look at the post-Newtonian expansions of the solutions.
Acknowledgements {#acknowledgements .unnumbered}
================
We would like to thank Profs. J.M.M. Aguirregabiria, W.B. Bonnor, L. Bel, J. Bičák, Dr. B. Coll and Profs. J.B. Griffiths, J.M.M. Senovilla and B. Schmidt for their interest in this work and for enrichening discussions and remarks in previous versions of this article. J.A.V.K. wishes to thank the Dept. of Theoretical Physics of the University of the Basque Country for their hospitality during the completion of part of this work. R. L.’s work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology jointly with FEDER funds through research grant BFM2001-0988, the University of the Basque Country through research grant UPV172.310G02/99, and the Basque Government through fellowship BFI01.412. J. A. V. K. is currently a Lise Meitner fellow of the Austrian FWF (M690-N09).
Appendix: the axioms of Ehlers’ theory {#appendix-the-axioms-of-ehlers-theory .unnumbered}
======================================
The axioms of Ehlers’ frame theory and their consequences are discussed extensively for example in [@Lot88]. However, this reference is not so readily available. Therefore, for the sake of completeness we present them here. The axioms shown here are an adapted version of those appearing in Lottermoser’s thesis. The first set of axioms deals with the objects that the frame theory will attempt to describe.
**(On the objects described by the frame theory).** The mathematical objects of the theory are collections $(M,t_{ij},s^{ij},\Gamma^i_{jk},
T^{ij},\lambda,G)$ for which the following holds:
- $M$ is a 4-dimensional Hausdorff manifold endowed with a connection,
- $t_{ij}$, $s^{ij}$ and $T^{ij}$ are symmetric tensor fields on $M$ (**temporal metric, spatial metric, matter tensor**),
- $\Gamma^i_{jk}$ is a torsion-free linear connection on $M$ (**gravitational field**),
- $\lambda$ and $G$ are real numbers (**causality and gravitational constant**).
The axioms require some minimal differentiability conditions. Thus, $t_{ij}$, $s^{ij}$, $T^{ij}$ and $\Gamma^i_{jk}$ should at least be $C^1$ and $M$ at least a $C^3$ manifold.
The next set of axioms describes, by means of observable quantities, how the objects of the frame theory ought to be interpreted.
**(Physical interpretation)**
- **Observers** move along timelike curves, that is, curves such that their tangent vector $u^i$ satisfies $t_{ij}u^i u^j>0$ everywhere. The **space directions** of an observer are the tangent vectors $v^i\neq 0$ along the curves which are orthogonal to $u^i$ with respect to $t_{ij}$: $t_{ij}u^i v^j=0$.
- **Time intervals** are defined along timelike curves. Let $s$ be the curve parameter. Then for the infinitesimal time interval the following holds: $$dt=\sqrt{t_{ij}u^i u^j} ds.$$
- **Space intervals** are defined along spacelike curves, i.e. curves such that for their tangent vector $v^i$ there exists a 1-form $\omega_i$ which satisfies $$v^i=\omega^i_\bullet,$$ and $s^{ij}\omega_i\omega_j>0$. If $s$ is again the curve parameter, then the **spatial interval** is given by $$dl=\sqrt{s^{ij}\omega_i\omega_j}ds.$$
The following 2 axioms establish the conditions a mathematical model should satisfy in order to be called a “solution of the frame theory”.
**(Metric axioms)**
- At each point of the spacetime, there exists at least one timelike vector, $$\forall p \in M \;\;\exists u^i\in T_p M:\;\;
t_{ij} u^i u^j>0.$$
- At each point of the spacetime, the temporal metric is positive definite at each observer orthogonal subspace of the cotangent space. That is, $$\forall p \in M, \;\;u^i \in T_p M,\;\;
t_{ij}u^i u^j >0$$ $s^{ij}$ is positive definite in the set $H^+(u^i)=\{\omega \in
T_p^* M|\;\; \omega_i v^j =0 \}$.
- the temporal and spatial metrics are related to each other via, $$t_{ij}s^{jk}=-\lambda \delta_i^k.$$
**(Connection axioms)**
- The connection $\Gamma^i_{jk}$ is compatible with the temporal and spatial metrics metrics, i.e. $$t_{ij;k}=0, \qquad
s^{ij}_{\phantom{ij};k}=0$$
- the curvature tensor $R^i_{jkl}=
2(\Gamma^i_{j[l,k]}+
\Gamma^i_{m[k}\Gamma^m_{l]j})$ of $\Gamma^i_{jk}$ possesses the property, $$R^{i\phantom{j}k}_{\phantom{i}j\bullet l}=
R^{k\phantom{l}i}_{\phantom{k}l\bullet j}.$$
[10]{}
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J. Bičák, , in [*Einstein Field Equations and Their Physical Implications (Selected essays in honour of Juergen Ehlers)*]{}, edited by B. G. Schmidt, Springer Verlag, 2000.
J. Bičák, C. Hoenselaers, & B. G. Schmidt, , Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A [**390**]{}, 397 (1983).
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G. Dautcourt, , Class. Quantum Grav. [**14**]{}, A109 (1997).
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F. J. Ernst, , J. Math. Phys. [**19**]{}, 1986 (1978).
S. Hawking & S. F. Ross, , Phys. Rev. Lett. [**75**]{}, 3382 (1995).
M. Lottermoser, , PhD thesis, Lüdwig-[M]{}aximilians [U]{}niversität [M]{}ünchen, 1988.
R. Penrose, , Phys. Rev. Lett. [**10**]{}, 66 (1963).
V. Pravda & A. Pravdová, , Czech. J. Phys. [**50**]{}, 333 (2000).
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[^1]: email address: [wtplasar@lg.ehu.es]{}
[^2]: email address: [ jav@aei-potsdam.mpg.de]{}
[^3]: Current address: Institut für Theoretische Physik der Universität Wien, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090, Austria
[^4]: For a discussion of the concept of negative mass in General Relativity, the reader is remitted to the classical article by Bondi [@Bon57].
[^5]: See however [@HawRos95], in which it is argued that conical singularities arising in, for example, the C metric can be considered as a limit of real strings.
[^6]: In this article the function $\nu$ will correspond to the function $\lambda$ of Bičák & Schmidt [@BicSch89a] and most of the classical references on the subject. This is because $\lambda$ will be reserved for the causality constant. The reader has been warned!
|
from enum import IntFlag
from typing import List
from recognizers_text import Culture, Recognizer, Model
from recognizers_number.number.models import NumberMode, NumberModel, OrdinalModel, PercentModel, ModelResult
from recognizers_number.number.parser_factory import ParserType, AgnosticNumberParserFactory
from recognizers_number.number.english.extractors import EnglishNumberExtractor, EnglishOrdinalExtractor, EnglishPercentageExtractor
from recognizers_number.number.english.parsers import EnglishNumberParserConfiguration
from recognizers_number.number.spanish.extractors import SpanishNumberExtractor, SpanishOrdinalExtractor, SpanishPercentageExtractor
from recognizers_number.number.chinese.extractors import ChineseNumberExtractor, ChineseOrdinalExtractor, ChinesePercentageExtractor
from recognizers_number.number.chinese.parsers import ChineseNumberParserConfiguration
from recognizers_number.number.japanese.extractors import JapaneseNumberExtractor, JapaneseOrdinalExtractor, JapanesePercentageExtractor
from recognizers_number.number.japanese.parsers import JapaneseNumberParserConfiguration
from recognizers_number.number.spanish.parsers import SpanishNumberParserConfiguration
from recognizers_number.number.portuguese.extractors import PortugueseNumberExtractor, PortugueseOrdinalExtractor, PortuguesePercentageExtractor
from recognizers_number.number.portuguese.parsers import PortugueseNumberParserConfiguration
from recognizers_number.number.french.extractors import FrenchNumberExtractor, FrenchOrdinalExtractor, FrenchPercentageExtractor
from recognizers_number.number.french.parsers import FrenchNumberParserConfiguration
class NumberOptions(IntFlag):
NONE = 0
class NumberRecognizer(Recognizer[NumberOptions]):
def __init__(self, target_culture: str = None, options: NumberOptions = NumberOptions.NONE, lazy_initialization: bool = True):
if options < NumberOptions.NONE or options > NumberOptions.NONE:
raise ValueError()
super().__init__(target_culture, options, lazy_initialization)
def initialize_configuration(self):
# region English
self.register_model('NumberModel', Culture.English, lambda options: NumberModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.NUMBER, EnglishNumberParserConfiguration()),
EnglishNumberExtractor(NumberMode.PURE_NUMBER)
))
self.register_model('OrdinalModel', Culture.English, lambda options: OrdinalModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.ORDINAL, EnglishNumberParserConfiguration()),
EnglishOrdinalExtractor()
))
self.register_model('PercentModel', Culture.English, lambda options: PercentModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.PERCENTAGE, EnglishNumberParserConfiguration()),
EnglishPercentageExtractor()
))
# endregion
# region Chinese
self.register_model('NumberModel', Culture.Chinese, lambda options: NumberModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.NUMBER, ChineseNumberParserConfiguration()),
ChineseNumberExtractor()
))
self.register_model('OrdinalModel', Culture.Chinese, lambda options: OrdinalModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.ORDINAL, ChineseNumberParserConfiguration()),
ChineseOrdinalExtractor()
))
self.register_model('PercentModel', Culture.Chinese, lambda options: PercentModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.PERCENTAGE, ChineseNumberParserConfiguration()),
ChinesePercentageExtractor()
))
# endregion
# region Japanese
self.register_model('NumberModel', Culture.Japanese, lambda options: NumberModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.NUMBER, JapaneseNumberParserConfiguration()),
JapaneseNumberExtractor()
))
self.register_model('OrdinalModel', Culture.Japanese, lambda options: OrdinalModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.ORDINAL, JapaneseNumberParserConfiguration()),
JapaneseOrdinalExtractor()
))
self.register_model('PercentModel', Culture.Japanese, lambda options: PercentModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.PERCENTAGE, JapaneseNumberParserConfiguration()),
JapanesePercentageExtractor()
))
# endregion
# region Spanish
self.register_model('NumberModel', Culture.Spanish, lambda options: NumberModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.NUMBER, SpanishNumberParserConfiguration()),
SpanishNumberExtractor(NumberMode.PURE_NUMBER)
))
self.register_model('OrdinalModel', Culture.Spanish, lambda options: OrdinalModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.ORDINAL, SpanishNumberParserConfiguration()),
SpanishOrdinalExtractor()
))
self.register_model('PercentModel', Culture.Spanish, lambda options: PercentModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.PERCENTAGE, SpanishNumberParserConfiguration()),
SpanishPercentageExtractor()
))
# endregion
# region Portuguese
self.register_model('NumberModel', Culture.Portuguese, lambda options: NumberModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.NUMBER, PortugueseNumberParserConfiguration()),
PortugueseNumberExtractor(NumberMode.PURE_NUMBER)
))
self.register_model('OrdinalModel', Culture.Portuguese, lambda options: OrdinalModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.ORDINAL, PortugueseNumberParserConfiguration()),
PortugueseOrdinalExtractor()
))
self.register_model('PercentModel', Culture.Portuguese, lambda options: PercentModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.PERCENTAGE, PortugueseNumberParserConfiguration()),
PortuguesePercentageExtractor()
))
# endregion
# region French
self.register_model('NumberModel', Culture.French, lambda options: NumberModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.NUMBER, FrenchNumberParserConfiguration()),
FrenchNumberExtractor(NumberMode.PURE_NUMBER)
))
self.register_model('OrdinalModel', Culture.French, lambda options: OrdinalModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.ORDINAL, FrenchNumberParserConfiguration()),
FrenchOrdinalExtractor()
))
self.register_model('PercentModel', Culture.French, lambda options: PercentModel(
AgnosticNumberParserFactory.get_parser(
ParserType.PERCENTAGE, FrenchNumberParserConfiguration()),
FrenchPercentageExtractor()
))
# endregion
def get_number_model(self, culture: str = None, fallback_to_default_culture: bool = True) -> Model:
return self.get_model('NumberModel', culture, fallback_to_default_culture)
def get_ordinal_model(self, culture: str = None, fallback_to_default_culture: bool = True) -> Model:
return self.get_model('OrdinalModel', culture, fallback_to_default_culture)
def get_percentage_model(self, culture: str = None, fallback_to_default_culture: bool = True) -> Model:
return self.get_model('PercentModel', culture, fallback_to_default_culture)
def recognize_number(query: str, culture: str, options: NumberOptions = NumberOptions.NONE, fallback_to_default_culture: bool = True) -> List[ModelResult]:
recognizer = NumberRecognizer(culture, options)
model = recognizer.get_number_model(culture, fallback_to_default_culture)
return model.parse(query)
def recognize_ordinal(query: str, culture: str, options: NumberOptions = NumberOptions.NONE, fallback_to_default_culture: bool = True) -> List[ModelResult]:
recognizer = NumberRecognizer(culture, options)
model = recognizer.get_ordinal_model(culture, fallback_to_default_culture)
return model.parse(query)
def recognize_percentage(query: str, culture: str, options: NumberOptions = NumberOptions.NONE, fallback_to_default_culture: bool = True) -> List[ModelResult]:
recognizer = NumberRecognizer(culture, options)
model = recognizer.get_percentage_model(
culture, fallback_to_default_culture)
return model.parse(query)
|
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Tuesday, June 3, 2014
While I’m a big believer in the positive thinking movement,
one of the first misconceptions I work with clients on is that you can’t just
positively think, or will certain thoughts or feelings away. There gets to be an honoring and accepting
where you are in order to let go of what you don’t want. Only then can
you allow what you dowant to come into your space. The thought or emotion must be felt and validated in order for it to flow out of you. And while what once was a beautiful ability to
forge ahead into unknown territory, and what ultimately led our early pioneers
to settle this American soil, learning to feel was definitely unknown territory
that left much to be desired. Processing
emotions is not something that is well practiced or really accepted here in the
West.
From a very young age, how many of us were told “You’re ok”,
“Suck it up”, “You are just fine”, “Don’t cry”, or a myriad of ways that stated
what we were feeling was totally unacceptable?
And yet when we embrace the child that has an owie and is hurting, and
who just wants to be acknowledged with a hug, a validation of their hurt, and
possibly a band-aid, they are off running around again before you know it, their
owie completely forgotten.
I truly know there is power in validation and allowing
feelings and thoughts to be expressed without judgment. Who are we to say that what anyone else is
thinking or feeling is not ok, let alone ourselves? It’s what is thought/felt, so regardless, it
is what it is. Why not embrace it rather
than deny, shove down, bury, hide, ignore, or detach from it?
What we don’t realize that by burying or denying our
thoughts and emotions, we are shoving them down further into the abyss of our
very beings, giving them a place to reside and grow until one day, it has no
other option but to come out. Whether it
manifests through a host of dis-eases, old stories and battle wounds that we
carry around with us as justification to be angry, hurt, or with-held
forgiveness, or some other awful drama or trauma, those feelings/thought will
eventually find a way out. The question
is, wouldn’t you rather allow it to leave sooner than later without all the
trauma/drama, giving you a much more fulfilling and vibrant quality of life?
So how do you honor your thoughts and emotions? This question often comes up, especially when
clients don’t want to condone and foster more of the thoughts and emotions they
don’t like. There are a couple of beliefs
with this. One, “if I accept where I am,
I will never get to where I want.” Two, “If I accept this feeling/thought, then
it means I condone it.” And lastly, “By
allowing this feeling/thought to be accepted by me, I will be dwelling in
it.” These are completely untrue! The truth is that anything we resisting will
persist (sound familiar?) It’s why diets
don’t work, and addictions are addicting.
When we focus on all the things we are deprived of or “shouldn’t do”, it
isn’t any wonder why we bounce back into binging on all of the “forbidden”
foods, or go running back to the addiction we so hate.
There is SO much more I could write on this topic! However, my intention is to keep it simple
and share some solutions that bring quick results. In order to honor your
thoughts and emotions, you can do several things. I recommend trying them all out and going
with what works for you. Some may work
better at different times in your life. Don’t
write them off immediately because they seem too simple or strange. You never know what will be the key to your
finding success in processing emotions and learning how to live a more
rewarding life:
·When faced with an unwanted emotion/thought,
simply say, “Thank you” to it. Your
subconscious is reacting the way it is for a reason, and it is often out of
protection. By thanking the emotion/thought,
you are telling the subconscious that you got the gift and it doesn’t have to
keep protecting you.
·Often times we can’t validate what we’re feeling
because we’re so far removed from feeling.
In this case, I recommend searching on the internet for a list of
feelings. It can be basic or more
detailed. Just having a list of emotions
was huge for me to reference and actually identify what I was feeling. By simply noticing and owning what you’re
feeling/thinking also honors that emotion/thought and allows it to move through
you.
·Write down what you’re thinking/feeling. Write completely unhindered, getting
everything you feel/think out on the paper.
Take all the self-critic and whatever else comes out on the paper to a
metal trash can and match and burn it afterwards (ripping it into tiny shreds
also does wonders). It gives the
subconscious something tangible to see that what was felt and wrote about is
now able to leave.
·Tap on your thymus (2” down from the middle of
where the colar bone meets in the center) and say, “I’m ok that I feel/think
__________.” Or “I’m ok that I don’t
like feeling/thinking __________”. This is tapping on an acupressure point that
also sends a message to your subconscious.
It is greatly validating and allows the emotion/thought to easily flow
through. There is much information on
the internet about the benefits of tapping, along with the other sequential
points to tap on. However, I’ve found
tapping on the thymus to be just as effective as going through all the other
points.
·Deep breathe with the thought/emotion for at
least 5 deep breaths. Feel the emotion
in the heart area, and allow the thoughts to gel for a few breaths. Focusing on breathing makes it a conscious
act, allowing the focus to be intentional.
When you allow the emotion/thought to be felt/thought while consciously
breathing, it heightens the ability to flow the emotion/thought through.
·Simply allow the feeling/thought to exist
without judgment. Just let it be. Once validated, then you can choose what you
would like to replace it with. An
example is to sit with discouragement for a while. Once it is allowed to have a
voice and speak up, acknowledge it, thank it, and decide what you would like to
feel instead.
·Meditate on the thought/emotion for a while. This works great with the deep breathing.
·Forgive the emotion/thought that is
unwanted. Quite often, we resent that we
feel/think a certain way. When we have
such rejection for a part of us, the message gets out to the rest of us and we
find all kinds of limiting beliefs and ways that we hold ourselves back, all
the while justifying our undeserving-ness because of the things we feel/think
about ourselves. It’s a cycle that can
be broken by simply forgiving an emotion/thought for existing within us for a
moment.
·Realize that the emotion/thought exists only for
a moment. Allow it to be in that
moment. It’s when we judge that
emotion/thought, or hate it, or reject it, or bury it that it becomes a whole
lifetime of emotions/thoughts that are unwanted. The patterns really can change, but first we
must accept and embrace where we are at in the present before we can let go of
the past, or move forward to where we want to be.
Quite often, after an emotion has
been honored, answers to long-standing challenges are able to surface and a new
door opens. New insight about yourself
and how you see yourself in the world are discovered. Dreams seem to become a reality rather than
impossibility. And one of my personal
favorites, peace becomes a common friend in your life.
I hope this has been
helpful! I LOVE sharing information I
have learned and look forward to sharing with you again! Please contact me if you have any more
questions and I would be happy to answer them.
Much Love, Light, and Courage in
facing your own emotions/thoughts along this beautiful Earthly journey.
H.I. Visitors
Disclaimer
We provide the material in this blog for informational purposes only. We do not prescribe and we do not diagnose. If you use the information in this blog without the approval of a health professional, you prescribe for yourself, which remains your constitutional right, but the authors assume no responsibility. The authors shall have neither liability or responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any damage, loss, or injury caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained in this blog. The information presented herein is in no way intended as a substitute for medical counseling. Anyone suffering from any disease, illness, or injury should consult a qualified health care professional. The statements made in this blog have not been evaluated by the FDA. |
All relevant data are within the paper.
Introduction {#sec001}
============
Thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) are rare epithelial malignancies (0.2--1.5%) of the anterior mediastinum, with an estimated incidence of about 1.3--3.2 cases per million worldwide \[[@pone.0197655.ref001]\]. The WHO classification distinguishes thymomas and thymic carcinomas \[[@pone.0197655.ref002]\]. Thymomas are defined as A, AB, B1, B2, B3 sub-types according to the morphology of tumor epithelial cells, the proportion of non- tumoral thymic lymphocytes (decreasing from B1 to B3) that are associated with tumor cells, and their similarities to normal thymic architecture. Thymic carcinomas present with a high degree of epithelial cells atypia associated with a loss of normal thymic architecture.
Surgical resection is the corner stone of the multimodal treatment of thymomas \[[@pone.0197655.ref003]\]. Tumor stage \[[@pone.0197655.ref004]\] and radical complete surgical resection have been shown as independent prognosis factor of best outcome \[[@pone.0197655.ref005]--[@pone.0197655.ref007]\]. Advanced or metastatic cases are treated with induction chemotherapy, surgery, combined radiation-chemotherapy \[[@pone.0197655.ref008]--[@pone.0197655.ref011]\] with variable outcomes \[[@pone.0197655.ref012]--[@pone.0197655.ref015]\]. Meanwhile about 30% of patients are presenting with recurrences requiring systemic treatment.
The pathogenesis of thymic epithelial tumors remains poorly elucidated. Sustained efforts have been made to characterize molecular abnormalities occurring in TETs to improve their treatment and eventually the patient prognosis. Sequencing of 197 cancer-related genes revealed the presence of non-synonymous somatic mutations in over 60% thymic carcinomas and barely 15% thymomas \[[@pone.0197655.ref016]\]. The most frequent mutations (26% of thymic carcinomas) were located in the p53 tumor suppressor gene \[[@pone.0197655.ref017]\]. The Cancer Genome Atlas recently reported results using multi-platform omics analyses on 117 TETs, leading to identify four subtypes accordingly to their genomic hallmarks \[[@pone.0197655.ref017]\]. GTF2I was confirmed as an oncogene associated with type A thymoma, and mutations in HRAS, NRAS, and TP53 were identified in thymomas. A major limit of those studies was the use of tumor tissue specimens precluding specific analysis of epithelial tumor cells while lymphocytes may present with a high level of expression of genes related to carcinogenesis \[[@pone.0197655.ref017]--[@pone.0197655.ref023]\]
The PIK3/ Akt/ mTOR pathway plays a key role in various cancers and among them thymic tumors. Mutations of genes encoding regulatory subunit of PIK3 have been reported in a tumorigenic thymic carcinoma cell line, using targeted exome sequencing, predicting the efficacy of PIK3 inhibitors \[[@pone.0197655.ref024]\]. Several phase I/ II studies of mTOR inhibitors were reported in advanced thymic epithelial tumors, reporting on high disease control rates \[[@pone.0197655.ref025]--[@pone.0197655.ref027]\]. Meanwhile the cellular dysregulation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway has not been described in thymomas. Using primary thymic epithelial cells derived from A, AB and B thymomas, we report the dysregulation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway in thymomas and the anti-proliferative effect of rapamycin on thymic epithelial cells.
Materials and methods {#sec002}
=====================
Biological samples {#sec003}
------------------
Between January 2015 and December 2017, thymic samples from patients that have undergone removal surgery for thymic tumors (N = 12) ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}) or cardiac surgery (N = 2) for normal thymuses have been included. Tumoral and normal tissues and their associated data ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}) were obtained from the CardioBiotec biobank (CRB-HCL, Hospices Civils de Lyon BB-0033-0046), a center for biological resources authorized by the French ministry of social affairs and health. Patients with thymic epithelial tumors were identified by the departments of pulmonary medicine and thoracic oncology, and thoracic surgery (Groupement Hospitalier Est, HCL, Lyon). All samples were collected and used in accordance with the ethical rules of the biobank and in agreement with the French legislation. All patients signed a written informed consent. Immediately after surgery, the thymic tumors were placed in RPMI 1640 cell medium supplemented with penicillin and streptomycin and processed in a biosafety level 2 lab in the next two hours for cell derivation or snap frozen in liquid nitrogen for further use.
10.1371/journal.pone.0197655.t001
###### Clinical features of thymomas included in the study.
{#pone.0197655.t001g}
Patient \# Age (yr) Gender Myasthenia gravis Tumor size (cm) Previous chemotherapy Subtype[^1^](#t001fn001){ref-type="table-fn"} Staging[^2^](#t001fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} TNM[^3^](#t001fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}
------------ ---------- -------- ------------------- ----------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
3153 73 M No ?[^4^](#t001fn004){ref-type="table-fn"} No A (pleural metastasis) IVA T3N0M1a
3154 70 M No 5.7 No A (Micronodular with lymphoid stroma) IIA T1aN0M0
2635 57 M No 6 No AB I T1aN0M0
2646 83 F No 5 No AB I T1aN0M0
2836 46 M No 10 No AB I T1aN0M0
3147 70 M No 11 No AB III T2N0M0
3148 65 F No 3.5 Yes[^5^](#t001fn005){ref-type="table-fn"} AB I T1aN0M0
3152 68 F No 3.5 No AB I T1aN0M0
3146 71 M Yes 3.2 No B2 IIA T1aN0M0
3149 63 F No 9 Yes[^6^](#t001fn006){ref-type="table-fn"} B2/ B3 I T1aN0M0
3150 66 M Yes 6 No B2/ B3 III T3N0M0
2637 68 M No 7 No Thymic carcinoma III T3N0M0
^1^ Subtype according to the WHO classification
^2^ staging according to the Masaoka-Koga classification
^3^ TNM according to the ITMIG guidelines
^4^ unknown, pleural metastasis
^5^ received Caelyx therapy for Kaposi treatment
^6^ received cisplatin, adriamycin and cyclophosphamide neo-adjuvant treatment.
Derivation of thymic epithelial cells {#sec004}
-------------------------------------
Thymic epithelia cells (TECs) were obtained from thymic epithelial tumors as previously described with minor modifications \[[@pone.0197655.ref028], [@pone.0197655.ref029]\]. Thymic tissues were immediately placed in ice cold RPMI 1640 medium, cut in 1--3 mm^3^ pieces and transferred in \"Liberase digestion solution\" (RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 0.5 U/ml Liberase (Roche) and 0.1% w/v DNase I) with \~ 2 ml of digestion solution/ cm^3^ of tissues. After 20 min incubation at 37°C under gentle agitation, supernatants were collected, mixed (v/v) with 1X PBS supplemented with 0.1% bovine serum albumin, and 0.5 mM EDTA, and centrifuged at 480g for 10 min at 4°C. The digestion procedure was repeated 4--6 times. Cells were counted in trypan blue using a Cellometer (Nexcelon BioSciences), seeded at 2--4.10^6^ cells/ cm^2^ in \"TEC medium\" (RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 2% Ultroser serum substitute (Pall corporation) and penicillin/streptomycin) and incubated at 37°C, 5% CO~2~ in humid atmosphere. After 24 hours, cell culture supernatants were centrifuged at 480g for10 min at 4°C to eliminate non-adherent cells, supplemented with an equal volume of new \"TEC medium\" and added to the cultured cells. Cells were checked daily and passaged at confluence with trypsin EDTA solution.
Phenotypic characterization of primary thymic epithelial cells {#sec005}
--------------------------------------------------------------
Primary thymic epithelial cells were cultured on treated glass slides (LabTek, Thermo Scientific) in \"TEC medium\", rinsed in PBS and fixed with ice cold acetone. After 20 min rehydration in PBS, cells were incubated for one hour at room temperature with the BM4048 mouse monoclonal anti-cytokeratin (Acris) or mouse monoclonal anti-vimentin (Sigma) antibodies diluted in PBS supplemented with 1% bovine serum albumin as recommended. After PBS washes, cells were incubated for one hour at room temperature with anti-mouse IgG Dylight antibodies (Eurobio). Nuclei were stained with DAPI for 10 min and mounted with Fluoromount G (Electron Microscopy Sciences). Microscopic examinations were performed using an Axio-Imager Z1 epifluorescence microscope and analyzed using the Zen software (Zeiss).
Protein expression in thymic tissues and thymic epithelial cells {#sec006}
----------------------------------------------------------------
Proteins were prepared from thymic tissues and primary thymic epithelial cells using respectively T-PER extraction reagent or M-PER extraction reagent (Thermo Fisher) supplemented with \"HALT protease and \"phosphatase inhibitor cocktail" (Thermo Fisher). Lysates were homogenized by sonication on ice and proteins were quantified in the collected supernatants. Twenty to thirty micrograms of total proteins were separated on SDS-PAGE, transferred onto PVDF membrane and used for the detection of Akt with \"Akt1 Precision Ab antibody\" (BIORAD VMA00253), phospho-Akt with \"phospho-Akt (Ser 473) antibody\" (Cell signaling, 9271S), mTOR with \"mTOR PrecisionAb Antibody\" (BIORAD, VPA00174), phospho mTOR with \"phospho-mTOR (Ser2448) Antibody\" (Cell signaling, 2971), phospho p70S6k with \"phospho-p70 S6 Kinase (Thr389) Antibody\" (Cell signaling, 9205) and β-actin (Monoclonal Anti-β-Actin−Peroxidase antibody, Sigma) as recommended. Immunoreactive bands were detected with goat anti-rabbit IgG (whole molecule)-peroxidase antibodies produced in goat (Sigma) and revealed using the \"Clarity Max Western ECL Blotting Substrate\" (BIORAD) on a \"ChemiDoc Imaging System\" (BIORAD).
Thymic epithelial cells proliferation upon rapamycin exposure {#sec007}
-------------------------------------------------------------
Primary thymic epithelial cells (5000 cells/well) derived from patients \#3147 (AB type), \#3146 (B2 type) and \#3149 (B2/B3 type) were incubated in \"TEC medium\" in 96 well plates for twelve hours then treated with 1, 10 or 100 nM rapamycin (Sigma). Controls with DMSO or untreated cells have been included. Proliferation was measured 24, 48 and 72 hours after rapamycin treatment with the "CellTiter-Glo Luminescent Cell viability assay" (Promega). All tests have been repeated at least twice and performed in triplicates.
Cell death of thymic epithelial cells upon cisplatin and rapamycin exposure {#sec008}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary thymic epithelial cells (5.10^4^ cells/well) derived from thymomas \#3146 (B2), \#3147 (AB) and \#3149 (B2/B3) were incubated in \"TEC medium\" in 6 well plates for twelve hours then treated with 100 nM rapamycin (Sigma) or 10 μM cisplatin (Promega). Negative controls with untreated cells have been included. HeLa cells treated with 10 μM cisplatin have been used as positive controls of induced cell death. Cell death assay was measured by flow cytometry (Becton Dickinson) 24- and 48-hours post-treatment, using 10μg/ml propidium iodide.
Mutations analysis in the PIK3CA, PIK3R1and GTF2I genes {#sec009}
-------------------------------------------------------
Mutations of PIK3CA, PIK3R1 and GTF2i have been analyzed using primers in exons 1 to 21 for *PIK3CA* (GenBank NM06218.3), exons 5 to 16 for *PIK3R1* (GenBank NM181523) and exons 5--15 for *GTF2I* (GenBank NM001518.4) gene ([Table 2](#pone.0197655.t002){ref-type="table"}).
10.1371/journal.pone.0197655.t002
###### Primers used to amplify GTF2i and PIK3 genes.
{#pone.0197655.t002g}
Gene Region 5\'-3\' sequence (5\'- 3\')
--------------------------------- ---------------------------------- ------------------------------
PIK3CA Exons 1 to 4 FOR---`AAGAGCCCCGAGCGTTTCT`
REV- `TGCTTCAGCAATTACTTGTTCTGG`
Exons 4 to 11 FOR---`ACCATGACTGTGTACCAGAACAA`
REV- `ACACAATAGTGTCTGTGACTCCA`
Exons 18 to 21 FOR---`AAGGAGAAATATATGATGCAGCCA`
REV- `CCAGAGTGAGCTTTCATTTTCTCA`
PIK3R1 Exons 5 to 9 FOR---`ACGTTTTGGCTGACGCTTTC`
REV- `GGTTAATGGGTCAGAGAAGCCA`
Exons 10 to 16 FOR---`ACTCTTACACTAAGGAAAGGGGGA`
REV- `GCCTCAGGGTGGCTGAACT`
GTF2I Exons 10 to 15 FOR---`TGAAGGCACAGAAATGGA`
REV- `ACCATTCTTCCTTTACTCC`
Briefly, RNAs were extracted with the \"Pure Link RNA minikit\" (Ambion), reverse transcribed using the \"iScript cDNA synthesis kit\" (Bio-Rad) and amplified with the \"KAPA HIFI hotstart polymerase\" (Clinisciences) for 35 cycles (2 min at 98°C, 15 sec at 60°C and 30 sec at 72°C) on a Mic qPCR system (BioMolecularSystem). Amplicons were controlled on agarose gel, sequenced (GTAC Biotech) and analyzed with the Vector NTI software (Invitrogen). The potential impact of identified mutation was analyzed with the \"PolyPhen-2 (Polymorphism Phenotyping v2) predictive model\".
Statistical analysis {#sec010}
--------------------
Statistical analyses (threshold of α = 0.05) were performed using the t test with the \"GraphPad Prism\" (GraphPad) software. All tests were done with a significant threshold of α = 0.05.
Results {#sec011}
=======
Clinical features {#sec012}
-----------------
From January 2015 to December 2017, twelve patients (8 males and 4 females, mean age of 66.67 ± 8.99 years (46--83)) who have undergone surgery ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}) for thymic epithelial tumors (3154, 2635, 2646, 2836, 3147, 3148, 3152, 3146, 3149, 3150, 2637) or for pleural relapse of a type A thymoma removed 25 months before the surgery (3153) have been included in our study ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}).
Among them, patients 3148 and 3149 received chemotherapy before surgery to respectively treat cutaneous Kaposi lesions with Caelyx and initially locally advanced thymoma with cisplatin, adriamycin and cyclophosphamide. Two patients (3146 and 3150) presented myasthenia gravis and were treated with intra venous polyvalent immunoglobulins one week before surgery ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}). According to the WHO pathological classification, tumors were of type AB for 6 patients (2635, 2646, 2836, 3147, 3148, and 3152), B2 for 3 patients (3146, 3149, 3150) and thymic carcinoma for patient 2637 ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}). Tissues from patient 3153 and 3154 were respectively identified as pleural metastasis of subtype A thymoma and as micronodular thymoma with lymphoid stroma, a rare presentation of subtype A thymoma. According to the Masaoka classification, tumors were of stage I for six patients, IIA for two patients, III for three patients and IVA for one patient ([Table 1](#pone.0197655.t001){ref-type="table"}).
Derivation of thymic epithelial cells {#sec013}
-------------------------------------
Primary thymic epithelial cells were successfully derived from the twelve tumors immediately after removal and expanded in culture. Daily observation under phase microscope showed that cells had an epithelioid morphology ([Fig 1](#pone.0197655.g001){ref-type="fig"}). Cells proliferated, and the epithelial morphology was maintained along the study up to passages 6 to 7, corresponding to a median time of culture of 56 days. The thymoma-derived primary thymic cells expressed cytokeratin ([Fig 1](#pone.0197655.g001){ref-type="fig"}), a marker of epithelial cells, with a mean of 79% positive cells except for cells derived from the thymic carcinoma 2637 that were negative for cytokeratin but expressed vimentin.
{#pone.0197655.g001}
To summarize, we successfully derived primary thymic epithelial cells from various types of thymic tumors as well as pleural metastasis. These cells expressed cytokeratin and were able to proliferate *in vitro* over several passages. The subsequent analyses (detection of protein as well as proliferation studies) were performed on early passages, to be as close as possible to the *in vivo* phenotype.
Mutations of PiK3 and GTF2i genes {#sec014}
---------------------------------
A screening of PIK3 and GTF2I mutations was performed on all tumors. Among the 12 tumors, only patient 3149 (B2/ B3 thymoma) carried a non-conservative A/C transversion localized on position 56 of exon 2 of PIK3CA ([Fig 2A](#pone.0197655.g002){ref-type="fig"}). The mutation induced a K → Q amino-acid change, predicted as deleterious with PolyPhen-2.
{#pone.0197655.g002}
We also detected a GTF2I mutation for tumor 3154, reported as a micronodular thymoma with lymphoid stroma, a rare presentation of type A thymoma ([Fig 2B](#pone.0197655.g002){ref-type="fig"}). The mutation located on exon 15 was associated with a non-conservative T/A transversion leading to L→ H amino-acid change in the deduced amino-acid sequence ([Fig 2B](#pone.0197655.g002){ref-type="fig"}).
Activation of the Akt/ mTOR/ P70S6K pathway in thymomas {#sec015}
-------------------------------------------------------
The Akt/ mTOR pathway is a key pathway implicated in cell proliferation. We analyzed its activation in thymomas as well as in normal thymuses from cardiac surgery. Akt, mTOR and P70S6K were activated in all thymomas, as shown by the detection of phosphorylated proteins ([Fig 3A](#pone.0197655.g003){ref-type="fig"}). B2 thymomas expressed significantly higher levels of Akt and phospho- Akt than A or AB subtypes ([Fig 3B](#pone.0197655.g003){ref-type="fig"}). Total mTOR and Phospho-mTOR were expressed in thymomas, with no significant differences between subtypes but undetectable in normal thymuses. Phospho- P70S6K was absent in normal thymuses, expressed in all thymic tumors whatever their subtypes, and significantly higher in AB as compared to B thymomas.
![Activation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway in thymic epithelial tumors.\
A. Total and phosphorylated protein expression was analyzed using antibodies directed against total Akt and phosphorylated- Akt (P- Akt) (60 kDa), total mTOR and phosphorylated- mTOR (P- mTOR) (289 kDa), phosphorylated P70S6K (P- P70S6K) (70 kDa) and β-Actin (40 kDa). B. Protein expression (Akt, phospho- Akt, phospho- P70S6K, mTOR, phospho- mTOR) has been measured and expressed as \[protein of interest/ actin\] relative expression in A (white bars), AB (grey bars) and B (B2 and B2/ B3; black bars) thymomas, thymic carcinoma (TC, hatched bars) or normal thymus (N, dotted bars). Detection have been repeated at least 3 times. Data have been statistically analyzed with an unpaired T test.](pone.0197655.g003){#pone.0197655.g003}
Overall, the Akt/ mTOR pathway was activated in A, AB and B thymomas as demonstrated by the detection of phosphorylated Akt, mTOR and P70S6K proteins, with various level of expression that probably reflected the relative frequency of tumoral and non-tumoral cells within the tumors.
Activation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway in thymic epithelial cells derived from thymomas {#sec016}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To determine the role of the Akt/ mTOR pathway in proliferation of tumoral thymic epithelial cells, we analyzed expression of mTOR, Akt and P70S6K in thymic epithelial cells derived from seven patients with A, AB or B thymomas. Interestingly, all the primary cells expressed detectable levels of phosphorylated Akt and mTOR while phospho-P70S6K was low or barely detectable ([Fig 4](#pone.0197655.g004){ref-type="fig"}). This suggests that the activation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway might participate to the cell proliferation associated with tumor growth.
![Activation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway in thymoma-derived thymic epithelial cells.\
**A.** Total and phosphorylated protein expression was analyzed using antibodies directed against total Akt and phosphorylated- Akt (phospho- Akt), total mTOR and phosphorylated- mTOR (phospho- mTOR), phosphorylated P70S6K (phospho- P70S6K) and β-Actin in thymic epithelia cells derived from A, AB or B2 thymomas. B. Protein expression has been measured and expressed as \[protein of interest/ actin\] relative expression in A (white bars), AB (grey bars) and B (B2 and B2/ B3; black bars) thymomas.](pone.0197655.g004){#pone.0197655.g004}
Effects of rapamycin treatment on tumoral TECs proliferation {#sec017}
------------------------------------------------------------
We analyzed the effect of rapamycin, an inhibitor of mTOR, on proliferation of primary thymic epithelial cells. We focused our analysis on cell cultures derived from AB (\# 3147), B2 (\# 3146) and B2/ B3 (\#3149) thymomas at early passages because these cells had good proliferative abilities (\~24 hours doubling time), a prerequisite for the study of rapamycin inhibition over a 72-hour period. Importantly, these three thymomas and the derived thymic epithelial cells expressed mTOR and phospho-mTOR (Figs [3](#pone.0197655.g003){ref-type="fig"} and [4](#pone.0197655.g004){ref-type="fig"}). We controlled the inhibition of mTOR and phospho-mTOR in cells treated for 24 hours with 100 nM rapamycin. The activation of mTOR was reduced by \~90%, \~30% and \~ 50% in thymic epithelial cells respectively derived from AB (3147), B2 (3146) and B2/B3 thymomas ([Fig 5](#pone.0197655.g005){ref-type="fig"}).
![Inhibition of mTOR and phospho-mTOR expression upon rapamycin treatment of thymoma- derived cells.\
A. Expression of mTOR and phospho-mTOR proteins in thymoma-derived cells after 48 hours treatment with 100 nM rapamycin (+) or no rapamycin (-). B. Protein expression of mTOR (with bars) and Phospho-mTOR (hatched bars) has been measured and expressed as the ratio of protein expression in \[treated/ untreated\] cells.](pone.0197655.g005){#pone.0197655.g005}
The proliferation rate was measured daily, in triplicates and repeated at least twice over 72-hour treatment with 1 nM, 10 nM or 100 nM rapamycin. No effect was detectable with 1 nM rapamycin; while with 10 or 100 nM, the proliferation was significantly reduced in all three primary cell cultures ([Fig 5](#pone.0197655.g005){ref-type="fig"}). When compared to untreated cells, 100 nM rapamycin significantly blocked cell proliferation with a 40%, 25% and 29% decrease of the cell number for TECs derived respectively from thymomas 3146, 3149 and 3147. The inhibitory effect of rapamycin was similar to what we observed (\~30%) in A549 cells treated with 100 nM rapamycin ([Fig 6A](#pone.0197655.g006){ref-type="fig"}).
{#pone.0197655.g006}
We measured cell death using flow cytometry in TECs treated for 24 and 48 hours with 100 nM rapamycin or 10 μM cisplatin. Rapamycin had no significant effect on cell death. Interestingly, only TECs 3147 derived from a B2 lymphoma significantly died upon cisplatin treatment ([Fig 6B](#pone.0197655.g006){ref-type="fig"}).
Discussion {#sec018}
==========
Deciphering the molecular events in thymomas has remained a major challenge given the rarity and the histological heterogeneity of those tumors, precluding large genomic studies to be conducted. The presence of lymphocytes intermixed with epithelial tumoral cells in tissue may lead to potential misinterpretation of genomic features specifically associated with thymic carcinogenesis \[[@pone.0197655.ref027], [@pone.0197655.ref030], [@pone.0197655.ref031]\]. In this study, we report the derivation of primary thymic epithelial cell cultures from type A, AB and B thymomas, their phenotypic and genetic characterization as well as the deregulation of the Akt-mTOR pathway and its impact on cell proliferation.
Previous reports of derivation of cells from thymic epithelial tumors have been made available. Most cell lines were obtained from thymic carcinoma specimens, with limited molecular characterization. Besides PIK3 regulatory subunits mutations \[[@pone.0197655.ref024]\], copy number gain of the anti-apoptotic molecule BCL2 was observed at comparative genomic hybridization of such cell lines, while *in vitro* siRNA knockdown reduced cell proliferation, and *in vivo* exposure to a pan-BCL2 inhibitor led to an inhibition of xenograft growth, *via* a mechanism involving the PIK3/AKT/mTOR pathway \[[@pone.0197655.ref023]\]. Exposure of thymic carcinoma cells to HSP90 inhibitors led to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, and blocked invasiveness, through the downregulation of HSP90 oncogenic clients, including insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R), a transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor frequently overexpressed in thymic carcinomas, CDK4, and PIK3/ Akt \[[@pone.0197655.ref032]\]. Taken together, these data were of significant therapeutic relevance: while pictilisib is mostly developed in breast cancers, which more frequently harbor PIK3 alterations, phase II trials dedicated to thymic epithelial tumors were conducted with the IGF-1R inhibitor cixutumumab \[[@pone.0197655.ref033]\], the mTOR inhibitor everolimus \[[@pone.0197655.ref034]\], and the CDK inhibitor milciclib \[INS\], reporting on clinical antitumor activity in advanced, refractory cases. Meanwhile, the IU-TAB-1- cell line was established from type AB thymoma, with phenotypic and molecular profiling but limited information of derivation protocol and success rate, and subsequent analysis of molecular pathways of interest, including PIK3/ AKT/ mTOR \[[@pone.0197655.ref035]\].
In our study, we were able to derive primary thymic epithelial cells from all twelve patients immediately after tumor removal, and we have successfully maintained and expanded the cells *in vitro*. We provide the community with a reliable protocol that worked not only for thymic carcinomas but also for thymomas which are known to have lower proliferation index associated with slow growth and better outcome.
We used primary thymic epithelia cells to study the deregulation of the Akt-mTOR signaling pathway and the efficacy of rapamycin to block cell proliferation, thus providing with a helpful tool to validate findings from high-throughput analysis on thymic tissues. We demonstrated that the Akt-mTOR pathway was activated in thymomas as well as in thymic epithelial tumor cells derived from type A, AB, and B thymomas. The proliferation of these cells was significantly reduced after exposure to rapamycin through the decrease of mTOR phosphorylation, in absence of significative cell death. The Akt/ mTOR pathway might be an important player for the tumor development and a good target for drugs in patients. Rapamycin specifically inhibits mTORC1, and many reports highlight the role of mTORC2 in cancer \[[@pone.0197655.ref036]\]. From our data, phosphorylation of mTORC1 target p70S6K together with the AKT phosphorylation at Ser473, would support the potential activation of both mTORC1 and mTORC2 in thymomas. Ultimately, our findings showing activation of the Akt-mTOR pathway in thymomas are of significant clinical relevance, given the recent results of a phase II study of everolimus in advanced thymic epithelial tumors, reporting on a disease control rate of 88%, with median progression-free survival of 10.1 months and median overall survival of 25.7 months \[[@pone.0197655.ref034]\]. Everolimus is currently available and may represent an off-label option for refractory tumors \[[@pone.0197655.ref003]\]. In the future, more specific inhibitors of the PIK3/ AKT/ mTOR pathway may be evaluated in those tumors.
Beside the deregulation of the Akt/ mTOR pathway, we have identified for the first time PIK3CA mutation in a type B2/B3 thymoma, which may participate to the deregulation of the Akt-mTOR pathway, among others \[[@pone.0197655.ref037]\]. PIK3 activation was also reported to be related to overexpression of a microRNA cluster on chr19q13.42 in type A and AB thymomas, observed in IU-TAB1 cell line \[[@pone.0197655.ref038]\]. This alteration was observed in the cohort of The Cancer Genome Atlas \[[@pone.0197655.ref039]\]. Interestingly, only one of our cases harbored a GTF2I mutations, that was associated at RPPA analysis in this cohort, with lower expression of the apoptosis, cell cycle, DNA damage response, hormone receptor signaling, breast hormone signaling, RAS/MAPK, RTK, and TSC/mTOR pathways \[[@pone.0197655.ref039]\].
In conclusion, our data enhance the potential role of thymic epithelial cells derived from tissue specimens for an *in vitro* exploration of molecular abnormalities specific to thymic carcinogenesis. This may be relevant in a research setting to assess the value of molecular alterations observed at high-throughput genomic profiling, and develop in vivo models, but also to develop approaches for precision medicine strategies at the patient individual level.
[^1]: **Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
[^2]: ‡ JMM and CMDV are joint first coauthors on this work. CL and NG are joint last authors on this work.
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1. Introduction {#sec1}
===============
The success of artificial insemination (AI) programs in cattle depends on the use of bulls with optimal fertility. Using animals with high fertility rates, maximum conception rates can be achieved during the breeding season, reducing the cost of the program. However, until now, the most efficient way to estimate the fertility of a particular bull is to use a field fertility test \[[@B1]\], which is very expensive and time consuming \[[@B2]\].
In the past decades, many studies have been performed with the objective of developing a laboratory test to evaluate semen from different animals and predict its performance after insemination. This kind of test would be beneficial, since it would reduce the probability of using low-fertility bulls in AI programs \[[@B3]\] without the necessity of inseminating a large number of females to perform the bull fertility test.
Several semen characteristics have been analyzed to ensure quality and fertility. The most studied characteristics are sperm motility \[[@B4], [@B5]\] and morphology \[[@B6]\] and plasmatic \[[@B7]\] and acrosomal \[[@B8]\] membrane integrity. Although those characteristics have proven to be important in semen analysis, their correlation with bull fertility is very low \[[@B9]\], with substantial variation among studies.
In bovine IVP, the *in vitro* fertilization and the *in vitro* culture of embryos have been proposed as suitable biotechnical tools for the prediction of fertility performance in bulls \[[@B2], [@B10]--[@B12]\]. However, even though the use of IVP has led to interesting results, especially when combined with semen analysis (motility, morphology and membrane integrity), previous studies have found conflicting results when IVP and fertility results from the same bull are compared \[[@B13], [@B14]\]. Until now, no laboratory test has successfully predicted, with good repeatability, male fertility in domestic animals.
The objective of the present study was to evaluate the application of a statistical model using Bayesian inference \[[@B15]\] to estimate fertility performance in Zebu bulls using data from an IVP program and the true conception rates previously obtained from each bull.
2. Materials and Methods {#sec2}
========================
2.1. *In Vitro* Maturation {#sec2.1}
--------------------------
Ovaries obtained from a commercial slaughterhouse were utilized in this experiment. Oocytes were aspirated with an 18-gauge needle connected to a 10 mL syringe from follicles of 2 to 8 mm in diameter. Oocytes were selected according to cytoplasm morphology and number of cell layers in the cumulus oocyte complexes. Only oocytes surrounded by more than three layers of cumulus cells and having homogeneous cytoplasm were used. The selected oocytes (*N* = 997) were matured for 22 to 24 hours at 38.5°C in an incubator with 5% CO~2~ in the air and 100% humidity. Oocytes (20--30 per drop) were matured in 90 *μ*L drops covered with mineral oil. The maturation medium was composed of TCM-199 with Earle\'s salts and L-glutamine (Gibco 31.100, Grand Island, NY, USA) supplemented with 5 mg/mL BSA, 2.2 mg/mL sodium pyruvate, 1 mg/mL estradiol 17 *β*, 50 *μ*g/mL hCG (Profasi, SE, Brazil, 5.000 UI), 1 *μ*g/mL FSH (Foltropin-V, Vetrepharm, ON, Canada), and 75 *μ*g/mL gentamicin. All drugs were purchased from Sigma (Sigma-Aldrich Corp., St. Louis, Mo, USA) unless otherwise specified.
2.2. *In Vitro* Fertilization {#sec2.2}
-----------------------------
For fertilization, commercial frozen-thawed semen of an unique batch from three different Zebu bulls were used, and all of them were Nellore breed bulls (*Bos taurus indicus*), named V, T, and G. Sperm cells from all bulls were selected through a Percoll gradient, and the concentration was adjusted to 1 × 10^6^ sperm cells/mL. Fertilization was performed in HTF medium (Irvine Scientific, Santa Ana, Calif, USA) supplemented with 5 mg/mL BSA, 0.5 mg/mL caffeine, 2.2 mg/mL sodium pyruvate, 30 *μ*g/mL heparin, 18 *μ*M penicilamine, 10 *μ*M hypotaurine, 1.8 *μ*M epinephrine, and 75 *μ*g/mL gentamicin. Groups of 20--30 oocytes were incubated with the sperm cells for approximately 18 hours under the same conditions described for maturation.
2.3. Evaluation of Pronuclear Formation {#sec2.3}
---------------------------------------
For pronuclear formation analysis, forty presumptive zygotes per group were denuded and stained with 1% acetic orcein (COA) for pronuclear visualization. The rate of fertilized zygotes was obtained based on the total number of presumptive zygotes in each sample. The zygotes were transferred to small drops of DPBS with 1% BSA on a histological slide and covered with a cover slip. The slides were then fixed in Carnoy\'s fixative. After 24 hours of fixation, the zygotes were stained with 1% acetic orcein and examined under a light microscope.
2.4. *In Vitro* Culture {#sec2.4}
-----------------------
The remaining zygotes were denuded and transferred to culture dishes containing SOFaa medium (Nutricell, Campinas, SP, Brazil). Embryos were cultured for seven days in a mixed-air incubator (90% N~2~, 5% CO~2~, and 5% O~2~). Cleavage and blastocyst formation data were collected on days three and seven of culture, respectively, based on the total number of oocytes used in each group (except for the ones removed for COA staining).
2.5. *In Vivo* Bull Fertility, Cows and Artificial Insemination {#sec2.5}
---------------------------------------------------------------
The *in vivo* bull fertility was obtained after a fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) program with the same commercial semen batches from Nellore breed bulls (*Bos taurus indicus*) named V, T, and G used in IVF. Nonlactating mature Nellore (*Bos taurus indicus*) cows (*N* = 492; 7 to 10 years old; 441 ± 19 kg body weight) were used in this study. Cows were managed under an extensive grazing system based on tropical pastures. Free access to mineral supplement and water was allowed. Cows, at random stage of the estrous cycle (Day 0), received a Norgestomet implant in the auricular subcutaneous tissue containing 3 mg Norgestomet (Crestar, Intervet, SP, Brazil) along with 5 mg estradiol valerate and 3 mg Norgestomet i.m. (Intervet, SP, Brazil). On Day 9, the cows received a dose of 300 IU eCG i.m. (Folligon, Intervet, SP, Brazil), and the Norgestomet implant was withdrawn. On Day 11, 54 hours after Norgestomet implant withdrawn, all cows were FTAI. All FTAI were performed by only one technician, using commercial frozen-thawed semen from bulls V (*N* = 149), T (*N* = 109), and G (*N* = 234). Pregnancy diagnosis after the FTAI program, defined as true conception rate, was performed by transrectal ultrasonography (Aloka 500 V equipped with a 5.0-MHz linear array transducer) 60 days after the end of the synchronized period.
2.6. Statistical Analysis {#sec2.6}
-------------------------
Cleavage and blastocyst percentage data were analyzed by ANOVA followed by Tukey\'s test. The untransformed data is presented in [Table 1](#tab1){ref-type="table"}. The conception rates from the three bulls were compared using a Chi-square test. As the environments and animal categories were the same, there was not any possible other significant effect. Both sets of data were analyzed using the statistical software GraphPad InStat 3.0 (*P* \< .05).
In order to determine the correlation between laboratory results and the true fertility of each bull, cleavage, and blastocyst formation means were analyzed in comparison with the true conception rates for bulls V, T, and G using Bayesian inference \[[@B16]\]. First, a binomial model was adopted to establish linked functions and predictive models (Appendix (A), (B), and (C), resp.). Using the Bayesian procedure implemented in the program Winbugs 1.4 \[[@B15]\], the predictive model parameters *α*, *β*~1~, and *β*~2~ were calculated through Marcov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) computer algorithms using the Gibbs sampler method to establish the predictive model (Appendix (C)) based on the data of cleavage, blastocyst formation and the true conception rates of bulls provided to the program. Noninformative or vague prior distributions with normal curve centered at the origin (zero) and relatively large variance were used \[[@B17]\]. With the predictive model established, the mean values of cleavage and blastocyst formation rates were provided to the program Winbugs 1.4 to estimate bull fertility on the basis of combined data of cleavage and blastocyst formation rates; cleavage rates alone and blastocyst formation rates alone of each bull (Appendix (C): model 1, 2 and 3 resp.).
In Appendix, first a binomial model was adopted (Appendix (A): *Y*~*i*~: number of pregnant cows; *N*~*i*~: total number of cows; *P*~*i*~: conception rate; *i*: bull) to establish linked functions (Appendix (B): *α*, *β*~1~ and *β*~2~ were constants calculated in program Winbugs 1.4 through MCMC computer algorithms to establish the predictive model; Cleavage data (*f*~1*i*~) and Blastocyst formation data (*f*~2*i*~) that were provided to the program Winbugs 1.4 to estimate conception rates (*p*~*i*~)) and finally the predictive models obtained using the program Winbugs 1.4 (Appendix (C): *model 1*: estimation of bull fertility based on combined data of cleavage and blastocyst formation; *model 2*: estimation of bull fertility based on cleavage rates only; *model 3*: estimation of bull fertility based on blastocyst formation rates only; *f*~1*i*~: cleavage rate provided; *f*~2*i*~: blastocyst formation rate provided; *p~io~*: estimated bull fertility).
3. Results {#sec3}
==========
Statistically significant differences were not observed among bulls in the visualization of two or more pronuclei and in blastocyst formation rates ([Table 1](#tab1){ref-type="table"}). However, the cleavage rate observed for bull T was lower (*P* \< .05) than bulls V and G ([Table 1](#tab1){ref-type="table"}). The *in vivo* bull fertility data is presented in [Table 1](#tab1){ref-type="table"} as true conception rates after an FTAI program. All three bulls presented statistically similar fertility performance (*P* = .1299).
In this experiment, models of binomial regressions were first adopted to establish linked functions. Subsequently, the parameters *α*, *β*~1~ and *β*~2~ of the predictive models were calculated using the program Winbugs 1.4 through MCMC. Bull fertility was estimated in the program Winbugs 1.4 using provided mean data of combined cleavage and blastocyst formation rates, cleavage rates alone, and blastocyst formation rates alone (Appendix (C): model 1, 2 and 3, resp.).
Estimated conception rates and *in vivo* bull fertility, expressed as true conception rates, for each bull are presented in [Table 2](#tab2){ref-type="table"}. The results show that when data from cleavage or blastocyst formation rates were used alone, the estimated conception rates were similar to true conception rate. However, when both parameters (cleavage and blastocyst formation rates) were used in combination, the estimated conception rates were nearly identical to those observed for all three bulls.
4. Discussion {#sec4}
=============
The results of this experiment show that it is possible to estimate the fertility of bulls based on data obtained during IVP, using a Bayesian statistical inference model. Moreover, while the use of different bulls for *in vitro* embryo production has an influence on the cleavage rates of oocytes, the development of embryos until blastocyst stage becomes similar between the bulls studied.
The use of semen from different bulls influenced *in vitro* embryo production, since cleavage rates were different among the tested bulls ([Table 1](#tab1){ref-type="table"}). In the same way, the use of sperm cells from different bulls during IVF results in variable fertility rates \[[@B18]\]. This effect, which is related to each individual male, results in variable cleavage and blastocyst formation rates and embryo viability \[[@B19], [@B20]\]. Our results are similar, since the observed cleavage rate is statistically different for bull T in comparison with bulls V and G.
Nevertheless, the percentages of pronuclear formation and blastocyst production do not differ among bulls. These results agree with the work of Shamsuddin and Larsson \[[@B21]\], who have demonstrated that the use of different bulls during IVF leads to different embryo developmental rates until the fourth cellular cycle (16 cells). However, when this particular developmental stage, which corresponds to embryonic genome activation, is bypassed, embryo development is similar among bulls until the morulae/blastocyst stage.
It is commonly recognized that the best method to analyze field fertility in a bull is to estimate the conception rate after an AI or natural breeding program \[[@B1]\]. The inconvenience of this procedure is related to the high cost and long time period necessary to obtain results \[[@B2]\]. Therefore, the development of an alternative laboratory test capable of estimating the fertility of bulls would be very beneficial for the cattle industry.
Previous studies have not \[[@B13], [@B14]\] or poorly shown \[[@B22], [@B23]\] a correlation between IVP data and *in vivo* bull fertility. However, many authors indicated the benefit of using IVP data to estimate *in vivo* bull fertility \[[@B10], [@B11], [@B21], [@B24]\]. Advances in bovine IVP embryos systems have allowed the relationship between *in vivo* bull fertility and IVP outcomes to be examined \[[@B12], [@B25]--[@B27]\]. However, arising from variations in protocols between laboratories it is still unclear whether the ability of a bull to fertilize oocytes *in vitro* is useful as a predictor of *in vivo* fertility following artificial insemination \[[@B26]\]. In addition, it has been shown that individual bulls have marked variability in their response to *in vitro* capacitation methods \[[@B10], [@B28]\].
Zhang et al. \[[@B11]\] showed that both cleavage and blastocyst production rates may be positively correlated with fertility in bulls. The authors were able to determine predicted conception rates for the bulls they studied. Our experiment has produced similar findings, since the conception rates of bulls were efficiently estimated using IVP data from the same bulls ([Table 2](#tab2){ref-type="table"}). Also, Marquant-Le Guienne et al. \[[@B10]\] and Ward et al. \[[@B26]\], using a small number of bulls (*n* = 6), have reported a correlation between IVP and *in vivo* bull fertility, suggesting that IVP data can be utilized to predict bull fertility.
The efficiency of a particular laboratory test to predict bull fertility is directly related to the statistical analysis methods used. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use Bayesian inference to estimate fertility in bulls. The use of Bayesian inference has been growing as an alternative statistical method, because complex problems in many fields can be solved using this method, including a limited set of data which are frequently observed in biological experiments. Moreover, the use of these models has been stimulated by the development of more sophisticated and efficient computer algorithms, like the program Winbugs 1.4 \[[@B16]\].
In this experiment, the estimated conception rates obtained when cleavage and blastocyst formation combined data used in the model were almost identical to the true conception rates observed for the same bulls, indicating that this is an efficient method to establish *in vivo* bull fertility estimation in commercial FTAI programs.
The estimated conception rates were still close to the previously observed true conception rates, even when cleavage rate data or blastocyst formation data were used alone. However, since the IVP methodology can lead to a great deal of variation using the same bull and in this experiment only three animals were studied, this model should be investigated for a larger number of bulls, with extremely high and low IVP and FTAI results and different *in vitro*culture conditions in order to improve its accuracy. Moreover, field source of variations, like inseminator, moment of insemination, female ciclicity, hormonal treatment, season, geographical area, and type of food should be lead in consideration in the statistic model in order to minimize the influence of external factors \[[@B29]\].
We conclude that Bayesian inference is a suitable statistical method to estimate the fertility of bulls using IVP data. These results are interesting because they open the possibility of developing a statistical program to estimate *in vivo* bull fertility performance, based on laboratorial data, for application in the cattle industry reducing the probability of using low-fertility bulls in AI programs.
The authors would like to thank the São Paulo Research Foundation FAPESP (Grant no. 06/51429-3).
Bayesian inference implemented in the program Winbugs 1.4.
1. Binomial Model:
$$\begin{matrix}
{Y_{i} \backsim \text{Binomial}{\,\,}\left( {N_{i},p_{i}} \right),\quad i = 1,2,3} \\
\end{matrix},$$ where *Y*~*i*~: number of pregnant cows, *N*~*i*~: total number of cows, *P*~*i*~: conception rate, and *i*: bull.
1. Linked functions: $$\begin{aligned}
{\text{model}{\,\,}1:{{\log\,}\,\left( \frac{p_{i}}{1 - p_{i}} \right)}} & {= \alpha + \beta_{1}f_{1i} + \beta_{2}f_{2i}} \\
& \left. \Rightarrow p_{i} = \frac{e^{\alpha + \beta_{1}f_{1i} + \beta_{2}f_{2i}}}{1 + e^{\alpha + \beta_{1}f_{1i} + \beta_{2}f_{2i}}}, \right. \\
{\text{model}{\,\,}2:{{\log\,}\,\left( \frac{p_{i}}{1 - p_{i}} \right)}} & {= \alpha + \beta_{1}f_{1i}} \\
& \left. \Rightarrow p_{i} = \frac{e^{\alpha + \beta_{1}f_{1i}}}{1 + e^{\alpha + \beta_{1}f_{1i}}}, \right. \\
{\text{model}{\,\,}3:{{\log\,}\,\left( \frac{p_{i}}{1 - p_{i}} \right)}} & {= \alpha + \beta_{2}f_{2i}} \\
& \left. \Rightarrow p_{i} = \frac{e^{\alpha + \beta_{2}f_{2i}}}{1 + e^{\alpha + \beta_{2}f_{2i}}}, \right. \\
\end{aligned}$$ where *α*, *β*~1~ and *β*~2~ are constants calculated in program Winbugs 1.4 through MCMC computer algorithms to establish the predictive model. Cleavage data (*f*~1*i*~) and Blastocyst formation data (*f*~2*i*~) that were provided to the program Winbugs 1.4 to estimate conception rates (*p*~*i*~).
2. Predictive models obtained using the program Winbugs 1.4:
$$\begin{aligned}
{\text{model}{\,\,}1:p_{io}} & {= \frac{e^{1.0 - 3.23f_{1i} + 13.39f_{2i}}}{1 + e^{1.0 - 3.23f_{1i} + 13.39f_{2i}}},} \\
{\text{model}{\,\,}2:p_{io}} & {= \frac{e^{- 0.47 + 1.1f_{1i}}}{1 + e^{- 0.47 + 1.1f_{1i}}},} \\
{\text{model}{\,\,}3:p_{io}} & {= \frac{e^{- 1.01 + 4.87f_{2i}}}{1 + e^{- 1.01 + 4.87f_{2i}}}.} \\
\end{aligned}$$ *Model 1:* estimation of bull fertility based on combined data of cleavage and blastocyst formation. *Model 2:* estimation of bull fertility based on cleavage rates only. *Model 3:* estimation of bull fertility based on blastocyst formation rates only. *f*~1*i*~*:* cleavage rate provided; *f*~2*i*~*:* blastocyst formation rate provided; *p*~*io*~: estimated bull fertility.
######
Fertility performance of each bull expressed as conception rate after fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI). Pronuclei visualization, cleavage rates, and blastocyst formation rates (means ± SD) observed at 12, 72, and 168 hours after in vitro fertilization, respectively.
Bull Inseminated cows Conception rate after FTAI (%)\* Total oocytes Analyzed zygotes Pronuclei (%) Cleavage\*\* (%) Blastocyst\*\* (%)
------ ------------------ ---------------------------------- --------------- ------------------ --------------- ------------------ --------------------
V 149 54.4 344 40 52.5 ± 1.7 77.9 ± 1.0^b^ 27.9 ± 0.5
T 109 54.1 341 40 40.0 ± 1.6 57.4 ± 0.4^a^ 22.8 ± 0.4
G 234 63.3 312 30 40.0 ± 1.8 78.1 ± 1.8^b^ 30.5 ± 0.5
^a,b^Values with different superscripts in the same column are significantly different (*P* \< .05).
\*Percentage calculated based on the number of pregnant cows in relation to the total number of inseminated cows.
\*\*Percentage calculated based on the total number of oocytes minus the zygotes removed for pronuclei evaluation.
######
Comparison between conception rate after fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) and estimated fertility for each bull, established using the program Winbugs 1.4 with 95% of credibility interval, based on data from cleavage, blastocyst formation rates, and on the combined data.
Bulls Conception rate after FTAI (%) Estimated conception rate (%±SD) and Credibility interval (%)
------- -------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------
V 54.4 59.8 ± 2.5 (54.9--64.5) 58.5 ± 2.2 (54.1--62.7) 54.7 ± 3.9 (47.1--62.3)
T 54.1 54.2 ± 4.7 (44.8--63.6) 52.3 ± 4.5 (43.6--61.2) 54.2 ± 4.8 (44.8--63.5)
G 63.3 59.8 ± 2.5 (54.9--64.6) 61.5 ± 2.8 (55.9--66.9) 63.0 ± 3.1 (56.9--68.9)
\*Model 1 is based on combined data cleavage and blastocyst formation.
\*\*Model 2 is based on cleavage data only.
\*\*\*Model 3 is based on blastocyst formation data only (Appendix (C)). The conception rate was calculated based on the number of pregnant cows in relation to the total number of inseminated cows. Values in the same column are not significantly different (*P* \> .05).
[^1]: Academic Editor: Lorraine M. Sordillo
|
230 U.S. 537 (1913)
SOUTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY AND OREGON & CALIFORNIA RAILROAD COMPANY
v.
CAMPBELL ET AL., CONSTITUTING THE RAILROAD COMMISSION OF OREGON.
No. 428.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued April 9, 1912.
Decided June 16, 1913.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON.
Mr. Maxwell Evarts for appellants submitted.
Mr. Joseph N. Teal, with whom Mr. A.M. Crawford, *538 Attorney General of Oregon, and Mr. Clyde B. Aitchison were on the brief, for appellees.
*547 MR. JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court entered July 18, 1911, dismissing the bill, on demurrer, for want of equity. 189 Fed. Rep. 182.
The bill was filed by the complainants, the Southern Pacific Company and the Oregon & California Railroad Company, to set aside an order made by the Railroad Commission of Oregon under date of September 21, 1910, and to enjoin the defendants, the members of the commission and the Attorney-General of the State, from enforcing it. By this order, the commission found, after hearing, that certain freight rates maintained by the Southern Pacific Company between Portland and other places on its lines in Oregon were unreasonable, excessive and discriminatory, and the commission required the company, in lieu of the rates thus disapproved, to put into effect the "just and reasonable and non-discriminatory charges" set forth in the order.
The first, and principal, contention of the appellants, is that this requirement was invalid as constituting a regulation of interstate commerce. The order, however, related solely to intrastate traffic, and the question raised by the bill, so far as its allegations bear upon the conditions of interstate transportation, does not differ in its essential features from that which was passed upon in the Minnesota rate cases. Minnesota Rate Cases, ante, p. 352. This objection to the order cannot be sustained.
It is further insisted that the order was confiscatory. *548 The railroad property in question was that of the Oregon & California Railroad Company which was operated by the Southern Pacific Company under lease made in 1887. It was provided by the lease that the Southern Pacific Company should keep the property in good condition, "operate, maintain, add to, and better the same at its own expense," and should pay over annually to the lessor company the amount remaining of the net earnings, after all charges and expenses incurred by the Southern Pacific Company under the lease, and all taxes and interest, current fixed charges and all indebtedness of the lessor to the Southern Pacific Company, had been paid, save that if such amount should exceed specified percentages of the preferred and common stock of the lessor, the excess might be retained by the lessee.
It was alleged that after payment of operating expenses, taxes, interest, and other reasonable and legitimate expenses, a deficit had accumulated representing an indebtedness to the Southern Pacific Company and amounting on June 30, 1906, to the sum of $6,222,037; but it also appeared that this deficit was reduced in the following years so that on June 30, 1909, it amounted to $3,207,008.37.
The capital stock consisted of preferred stock of the par value of $12,000,000, and common stock of the par value of $7,000,000, and the bonded indebtedness amounted to $17,745,000, making in the aggregate $36,745,000. In one part of the bill it was alleged, without particulars showing the constituent items, that the total value of the property in Oregon, held under the lease, consisting of approximately 670 miles of road with rolling stock, stations, terminals and appurtenances, amounted to $43,594,886.73. But a later averment, in connection with the allegations as to outlays and return, was that "the properties of the Oregon & California Railroad Company are of the reasonable value of a sum representing the outstanding *549 bonded indebtedness and the deficit, as aforesaid and the capital stock of the company"; and so valued, the total would be $39,952,008.37.
The receipts from the entire property and the disbursements for several years were stated. It was averred that for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, the total receipts were $7,104,081 and the disbursements, $5,839,698. As the court below pointed out, the bill was silent as to what was embraced in the aggregate expenditures, and the court thought it fair to assume that the total disbursements, as alleged, included not only the expenses of operation, but also interest on bonds and on open accounts and thus, that the averment showed, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, a net balance of $1,264,383 as a return on the investment represented by $19,000,000 in par value of capital stock. It was alleged that the "annual loss of interstate and intrastate business combined," which would result if the order in question were enforced, would amount to $156,072.48. The court below concluded that on this showing it could not be said in advance of actual experience, that the rates fixed by the commission would not afford a fair return upon the value of the property.
The order, as already noted, was made in September, 1910, and the bill was brought in October, 1910, but the receipts and disbursements for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, were not given. In addition to this omission, the bill was destitute of any allegation showing the expenses incurred in the conduct of the intrastate business as distinguished from the interstate business, or the share of the value of the property which was assignable to the former. In short, the allegations of the bill were wholly insufficient to show that the complainants would be deprived of just compensation in their business of intrastate transportation by virtue of the operation of the order.
In sustaining the demurrer, the court gave to the complainants *550 thirty days in which to plead further; and they thus had opportunity for amending their bill so as to present additional averments which would correct deficiencies in the original allegations and remove any possible misapprehension as to the facts intended to be set forth. But the complainants informed the court that they did not desire to avail themselves of this opportunity and accordingly the bill was dismissed. We think that it cannot be said that any error was committed in thus disposing of the contention as to confiscation.
It is also urged that the railroad commission act of Oregon (February 18, 1907 Laws of 1907, chap. 53, p. 67), and the order in question, were void as against the Oregon & California Railroad Company, and the lessee of its property, upon the ground that the act and order impaired the obligation of the contract contained in the charter of the first-mentioned company. That company was incorporated in 1870, under the general incorporation act of Oregon, approved October 14, 1862, which, in § 34, provided: "Every corporation formed under this act for the construction of a railroad, as to such road shall be deemed common carriers, and shall have power to collect and receive such tolls or freight for transportation of persons or property thereon as it may prescribe." Reference is also made to the following provision of the constitution of Oregon pursuant to which this incorporation act was enacted: "Corporations may be formed under general laws, but shall not be created by special laws except for municipal purposes. All laws passed pursuant to this section may be altered, amended or repealed but not so as to alter or destroy any vested corporate rights." (Art. XI, § 2.) The sole question presented on this branch of the case, it is said by counsel for the appellants, "is whether the judgment of the carrier in fixing rates for transportation of persons or property shall be supervised, *551 regulated and supplanted by the judgment of the State exercised through a Railroad Commission, or shall it remain as it was at common law, within the exclusive power and jurisdiction of the carrier to fix these rates, subject only to the power of the courts upon judicial inquiry, to denounce and decline to enforce rates that are excessive and unreasonable?"
As to this question, it is sufficient to say that it is well established that a general charter provision such as the one quoted, giving power to charge and collect tolls, necessarily implies that the charges shall be reasonable and does not detract from the power of the State through its legislature, or the agency lawfully constituted thereby, to prescribe reasonable rates to be observed by the carrier. State v. Southern Pacific Co., 23 Oregon, 424, 432, 433; Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 116 U.S. 307, 330; Dow v. Beidelman, 125 U.S. 680, 688; Georgia R.R. & Banking Co. v. Smith, 128 U.S. 174, 181; Chicago, M. & St. P. Railway Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418, 455; Covington & C. Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U.S. 204, 215; Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Kentucky, 161 U.S. 677, 696; Owensboro v. Owensboro Waterworks Co., 191 U.S. 358, 370. In the case of Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., supra, where the charter empowered the railroad company "from time to time to fix, regulate, and receive the toll and charges by them to be received for transportation of persons or property on their railroad," and it was insisted that a subsequent statute creating a railroad commission with authority to fix maximum rates was an impairment of contract obligation, the court said (p. 330): "The claim now is that by § 12" (the provision referred to) "the State has surrendered the power to fix a maximum for this company, and has declared that the courts shall be left to determine what is reasonable, free of all legislative control. We see no evidence of any such intention. Power is granted to fix reasonable charges, *552 but what shall be deemed reasonable in law is nowhere indicated.. . . Consequently, all the power which the State had in the matter before the charter it retained afterwards. The power to charge being coupled with the condition that the charge shall be reasonable, the State is left free to act on the subject of reasonableness within the limits of its general authority as circumstances may require. The right to fix reasonable charges has been granted, but the power of declaring what shall be deemed reasonable has not been surrendered."
The remaining questions may be briefly disposed of. The complainants were not entitled to have the court below substitute its judgment for that of the commission or determine the matters which properly fell within the province of that body. The conditions of traffic, the adjustment of rates with respect to the different commodities transported, and the appropriate basis for classification, were subjects for the consideration of the commission, and there was nothing shown which would have warranted the court in overriding the decision of the commission upon the ground that its action was of such an arbitrary character as to constitute an abuse of power.
The criticism made in the bill that the railroad commission act violated the state constitution in conferring upon the commission authority to exercise legislative, executive and judicial powers, has been answered by the decision of the state court, sustaining the statute. State v. Corvallis & Eastern R.R. Co., 59 Oregon, 450; 117 Pac. Rep. 980. The provision of the statute that suit might be brought in the state court to set aside orders of the commission upon the ground that the rates fixed were unlawful, or that the regulation or practice prescribed was unreasonable, did not infringe the rights of the complainants. The procedure permitted by the statute is consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. Portland *553 Railway, Light & Power Co. v. Railroad Commission of Oregon, 229 U.S. 397. And, finally, the penal provisions, of which complaint is made, are separable; Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 154 U.S. 362, 395; Willcox v. Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U.S. 19, 53, 54; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Richmond, 224 U.S. 160, 172; they furnish no ground for denying effect to the rates, if otherwise valid.
Our conclusion is that the demurrer was properly sustained.
Decree affirmed.
|
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
__all__ = ["optimize"]
import os
import sys
import numpy as np
import pymc3 as pm
import theano
from pymc3.blocking import ArrayOrdering, DictToArrayBijection
from pymc3.model import Point
from pymc3.theanof import inputvars
from pymc3.util import (
get_default_varnames,
get_untransformed_name,
is_transformed_name,
update_start_vals,
)
from .utils import (
deprecated,
get_args_for_theano_function,
get_theano_function_for_var,
logger,
)
def start_optimizer(vars, verbose=True, progress_bar=True, **kwargs):
if verbose:
names = [
get_untransformed_name(v.name)
if is_transformed_name(v.name)
else v.name
for v in vars
]
sys.stderr.write(
"optimizing logp for variables: [{0}]\n".format(", ".join(names))
)
if progress_bar is True:
if "EXOPLANET_NO_AUTO_PBAR" in os.environ:
from tqdm import tqdm
else:
from tqdm.auto import tqdm
progress_bar = tqdm(**kwargs)
# Check whether the input progress bar has the expected methods
has_progress_bar = (
hasattr(progress_bar, "set_postfix")
and hasattr(progress_bar, "update")
and hasattr(progress_bar, "close")
)
return has_progress_bar, progress_bar
def get_point(wrapper, x):
vars = get_default_varnames(wrapper.model.unobserved_RVs, True)
return {
var.name: value
for var, value in zip(
vars, wrapper.model.fastfn(vars)(wrapper.bij.rmap(x))
)
}
@deprecated("the optimize function from the pymc3-ext library")
def optimize(
start=None,
vars=None,
model=None,
return_info=False,
verbose=True,
progress_bar=True,
**kwargs
):
"""Maximize the log prob of a PyMC3 model using scipy
All extra arguments are passed directly to the ``scipy.optimize.minimize``
function.
Args:
start: The PyMC3 coordinate dictionary of the starting position
vars: The variables to optimize
model: The PyMC3 model
return_info: Return both the coordinate dictionary and the result of
``scipy.optimize.minimize``
verbose: Print the success flag and log probability to the screen
progress_bar: A ``tqdm`` progress bar instance. Set to ``True``
(default) to use ``tqdm.auto.tqdm()``. Set to ``False`` to disable.
"""
from scipy.optimize import minimize
wrapper = ModelWrapper(start=start, vars=vars, model=model)
has_progress_bar, progress_bar = start_optimizer(
wrapper.vars, verbose=verbose, progress_bar=progress_bar
)
# This returns the objective function and its derivatives
def objective(vec):
nll, grad = wrapper(vec)
if verbose and has_progress_bar:
progress_bar.set_postfix(logp="{0:e}".format(-nll))
progress_bar.update()
return nll, grad
# Optimize using scipy.optimize
x0 = wrapper.bij.map(wrapper.start)
initial = objective(x0)[0]
kwargs["jac"] = True
info = minimize(objective, x0, **kwargs)
# Only accept the output if it is better than it was
x = info.x if (np.isfinite(info.fun) and info.fun < initial) else x0
# Coerce the output into the right format
point = get_point(wrapper, x)
if verbose:
if has_progress_bar:
progress_bar.close()
sys.stderr.write("message: {0}\n".format(info.message))
sys.stderr.write("logp: {0} -> {1}\n".format(-initial, -info.fun))
if not np.isfinite(info.fun):
logger.warning("final logp not finite, returning initial point")
logger.warning(
"this suggests that something is wrong with the model"
)
logger.debug("{0}".format(info))
if return_info:
return point, info
return point
@deprecated("the optimize_iterator function from the pymc3-ext library")
def optimize_iterator(
stepper, maxiter=1000, start=None, vars=None, model=None, **kwargs
):
"""Maximize the log prob of a PyMC3 model using scipy
All extra arguments are passed directly to the ``scipy.optimize.minimize``
function.
Args:
stepper: An optimizer object
maxiter: The maximum number of steps to run
start: The PyMC3 coordinate dictionary of the starting position
vars: The variables to optimize
model: The PyMC3 model
return_info: Return both the coordinate dictionary and the result of
``scipy.optimize.minimize``
verbose: Print the success flag and log probability to the screen
progress_bar: A ``tqdm`` progress bar instance. Set to ``True``
(default) to use ``tqdm.auto.tqdm()``. Set to ``False`` to disable.
"""
wrapper = ModelWrapper(start=start, vars=vars, model=model)
x = wrapper.bij.map(wrapper.start)
n = 0
stepper.reset()
while True:
x, nll = stepper.step(wrapper, x)
yield nll, get_point(wrapper, x)
n += 1
if maxiter is not None and n >= maxiter:
break
def allinmodel(vars, model):
notin = [v for v in vars if v not in model.vars]
if notin:
raise ValueError("Some variables not in the model: " + str(notin))
class ModelWrapper:
def __init__(self, start=None, vars=None, model=None):
model = self.model = pm.modelcontext(model)
# Work out the full starting coordinates
if start is None:
start = model.test_point
else:
update_start_vals(start, model.test_point, model)
self.start = start
# Fit all the parameters by default
if vars is None:
vars = model.cont_vars
vars = self.vars = inputvars(vars)
allinmodel(vars, model)
# Work out the relevant bijection map
start = Point(start, model=model)
self.bij = DictToArrayBijection(ArrayOrdering(vars), start)
# Pre-compile the theano model and gradient
nlp = -model.logpt
grad = theano.grad(nlp, vars, disconnected_inputs="ignore")
self.func = get_theano_function_for_var([nlp] + grad, model=model)
def __call__(self, vec):
try:
res = self.func(
*get_args_for_theano_function(
self.bij.rmap(vec), model=self.model
)
)
except Exception:
import traceback
print("array:", vec)
print("point:", self.bij.rmap(vec))
traceback.print_exc()
raise
d = dict(zip((v.name for v in self.vars), res[1:]))
g = self.bij.map(d)
return res[0], g
class Adam:
"""https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/blob/master/torch/optim/adam.py"""
def __init__(
self,
lr=1e-3,
betas=(0.9, 0.999),
eps=1e-8,
weight_decay=0,
amsgrad=False,
):
if not 0.0 <= lr:
raise ValueError("Invalid learning rate: {}".format(lr))
if not 0.0 <= eps:
raise ValueError("Invalid epsilon value: {}".format(eps))
if not 0.0 <= betas[0] < 1.0:
raise ValueError(
"Invalid beta parameter at index 0: {}".format(betas[0])
)
if not 0.0 <= betas[1] < 1.0:
raise ValueError(
"Invalid beta parameter at index 1: {}".format(betas[1])
)
if not 0.0 <= weight_decay:
raise ValueError(
"Invalid weight_decay value: {}".format(weight_decay)
)
self.lr = lr
self.betas = betas
self.eps = eps
self.weight_decay = weight_decay
self.amsgrad = amsgrad
self.reset()
def reset(self):
self.state = {"step": 0}
def step(self, loss_and_grad_func, p):
loss, grad = loss_and_grad_func(p)
state = self.state
if state["step"] == 0:
# Exponential moving average of gradient values
state["exp_avg"] = np.zeros_like(p)
# Exponential moving average of squared gradient values
state["exp_avg_sq"] = np.zeros_like(p)
if self.amsgrad:
# Maintains max of all exp. moving avg. of sq. grad. values
state["max_exp_avg_sq"] = np.zeros_like(p)
exp_avg, exp_avg_sq = state["exp_avg"], state["exp_avg_sq"]
if self.amsgrad:
max_exp_avg_sq = state["max_exp_avg_sq"]
beta1, beta2 = self.betas
state["step"] += 1
bias_correction1 = 1 - beta1 ** state["step"]
bias_correction2 = 1 - beta2 ** state["step"]
if self.weight_decay != 0:
grad[:] += self.weight_decay * p
# Decay the first and second moment running average coefficient
exp_avg[:] *= beta1
exp_avg[:] += (1 - beta1) * grad
exp_avg_sq[:] *= beta2
exp_avg_sq[:] += (1 - beta2) * grad ** 2
if self.amsgrad:
# Maintains the maximum of all 2nd moment running avg. till now
max_exp_avg_sq[:] = np.maximum(max_exp_avg_sq, exp_avg_sq)
# Use the max. for normalizing running avg. of gradient
denom = (
np.sqrt(max_exp_avg_sq) / np.sqrt(bias_correction2) + self.eps
)
else:
denom = np.sqrt(exp_avg_sq) / np.sqrt(bias_correction2) + self.eps
step_size = self.lr / bias_correction1
return p - step_size * exp_avg / denom, loss
|
While medical and technological advances continue to shape and advance health care, these advances have not always directly translated to significant improvement in overall health care quality outcomes in the United States. Incorporating advancements into the health care models creates complex challenges in delivering high-quality medical care. In this article, we provide a brief outline on the history of such efforts and how they have changed health care systems.
Improving the quality of care rendered to patients has been a principle since the time of Hippocrates. Over time, there have been various advances in systems of care (Walter Letterman developing systems of triage of casualties in the American Civil War) as well as nursing (Florence Nightingale instilling Listerean principles of infection control in hospitals). However, the past century has seen many innovators and changes instrumental in the improvement in the quality of care in medicine. Understanding these recent contributions to quality improvement in health care frames future directions and emphasis in complex fields such as spinal surgery.
Abraham Flexner is an early contributor to the United States' effort in quality improvement in that he performed a retrospective analysis and review of the system. He constructed a *Report to the Carnegie Foundation*, which were published his results and recommendations in 1910. He described the poor organization of major hospitals and medical schools in the nation. With the aim of improving physician training, the report encouraged improving scientific method, and strengthening validity of medical licensure. This report resulted in restructuring of the medical education in the United States and resulted in the closure or merging of more than half the medical schools.^[@bibr1-2192568219853529]^
Meanwhile, Ernest Codman, an orthopedic surgeon from Boston, Massachusetts was championing changes for quality improvement through the use of patient registries and serial patient follow-up. He created a systematic protocol for following long-term patient progression and "end patient results." Codman felt that all patients should be tracked in this manner and results be made public so that all patients could use the information in choosing their physicians and hospitals. While public reporting such as this may have incentivized hospitals to preselect patients to avoid bad results, Codman's emphasis was largely placed on identifying effective versus ineffective implementation of health care treatments.^[@bibr2-2192568219853529]^
Codman's description of his end-result system inspired Dr Franklin Martin. He envisioned principles of patient outcomes assisting in surgeon and hospital standardization leading to an improvement in patient care. To address these needs, Dr Martin largely proposed and catalyzed the founding of the American College of Surgeons in 1913. The committee found it necessary to reject 60% of fellowship applications in its first 3 years of existence given the inability to determine clinical competency with the case records presented by the applicants.^[@bibr3-2192568219853529]^
As the American College of Surgeons' influence increased, John Bowman, PhD, the director acquired a large donation to fund a hospital standardization program. Over 300 fellows and hospital administrators met in 1917 to discuss an accreditation process and establish the "minimum standards" required of hospitals nationwide.^[@bibr4-2192568219853529]^ Such standards included 5 main objectives: organize hospital medical staff, ensuring employment of only well-qualified and licensed physicians, ensuring regular staff and clinical performance review, maintaining thorough and organized medical records, and establishing facilities such as clinical laboratories and radiology departments ([Figure 1](#fig1-2192568219853529){ref-type="fig"}). Using these principles, the Hospital Standardization Program was established and reviewed 692 hospitals with 100 beds or more. Unfortunately, only 89 hospitals met these minimum standards for accreditation. While many hospitals were able to remediate and address their deficiencies, the report demonstrated the continued need for quality improvement in the United States' hospital system and the "minimum standard" was officially adopted to firmly establish a hospital accreditation process. This was paramount in instituting and maintaining organized quality improvement in the United States.^[@bibr5-2192568219853529]^
{#fig1-2192568219853529}
As the number of hospitals, nonsurgical specialties, and complexity of health care continued to grow, the size of the Hospital Standardization Program rapidly grew requiring over 2 million dollars in investment from the American College of Surgeons by 1950. It became apparent that support for this quality improvement initiative could not be sustained by the College alone and the scope of its involvement extended to many nonsurgical aspects of health care. As a result, the American College of Surgeons was joined by the American College of Physicians, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, and briefly the Canadian Medical Association to form the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals in 1952. The independent, nonprofit organization begin offering accreditation to hospitals in 1953 while upholding the values championed by the American College of Surgeons. The Joint Commission expanded the Hospital Standardization program by hiring surveyors and careful interviews and observation of medical staff and patient care issues. As the program expanded more hospitals continued to meet and maintain the "minimum standards." As a result, the Joint Commission no longer felt that the standards were pushing hospitals to strive for higher levels of quality than already achieved.
Concurrently, others in the nation were looking to further quality improvement. Health Services Research Section of the US Public Health Service convened a meeting in 1965 during which leaders from many health-related fields convened to discuss social and economic research on public health and quality improvement. Among these leaders was Avedis Donabedian, considered by many to be one of the founders of the contemporary health care quality movement.^[@bibr6-2192568219853529]^ Born 1919, in Beirut, Lebanon, his family moved to Palestine after fleeing the Armenian holocaust. Eventually attending American University of Beirut, he obtained his BA and MD. Using this training, he served as a general practitioner in Beirut and Jerusalem until 1954 at which point he moved to Boston. He obtained an MPH degree at Harvard School of Public Health and spent most of his career teaching at the School of Public Health at The University of Michigan. He was very passionate about the relationship between quality and systems in health care and felt that the skills of system management were not well taught in medical school.^[@bibr7-2192568219853529]^ As such, he was commissioned to review the research on quality assessment. When he published his paper "Evaluating the Quality of Medical Care" in July 1966, the reception was enormous. It became one of the most frequently cited public health pieces over the next half century.
In his paper, Donabedian describes 7 pillars of quality in medicine:EfficacyEfficiencyOptimalityAcceptabilityLegitimacyEquityCost
The difficulty in the past was how to measure these goals. To accomplish this, he described three types of metrics for evaluating quality in health care: structure, process, and outcome ([Figure 2](#fig2-2192568219853529){ref-type="fig"}). *Structure* includes credentialing of providers, adequacy of facilities, and administrative systems delivering care. *Process* observes which components of care are delivered and their appropriateness and competency of delivery. He recognized that it is rarely the individual that creates the problem but rather the process is a fault and needs to be changed for better results. *Outcome* involves evaluation of recovery, restoration of function, and survival. Measuring outcomes is necessary to determine what interventions are effective and should be implemented. Within these standards, he emphasized the need for clear presentation of these metrics (dashboards and scorecards) and broad quality measurements, including prevention, recovery, continuity of care, societal and cultural values, and economic efficiency. This way physicians can begin to truly understand evidence surrounding a problem and recognize issues affecting health care quality. This also provided the framework on which the interest in patient individualized outcomes and value-based care was developed.^[@bibr8-2192568219853529]^
{#fig2-2192568219853529}
These advances largely structured health care improvement quality for several decades. During this time, the Institute of Medicine was founded in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences. Originally formed in 1863, the Academy, a nonprofit private institution, was formed to advise the government on scientific and technological issues. Over time, the scope of the Academy's responsibilities began to include medicine and different aspects of health care. After Avedis Donabedian published his work, the concern over establishing a body advising the government on issues regarding social, economic, and political aspects of health care as well as medicine evolved. Out of this need the Institute of Medicine was founded in 1970. The members of this committee included not only major health profession disciplines but also economists, sociologists, engineers, writers, ethicists, and innovative business representatives with success in areas related to health care issues in the United States.^[@bibr9-2192568219853529]^
Since its founding, the Institute of Medicine has continued to produce field defining publications. As an organization, it publishes roughly 50 well-vetted reports in medicine each year. One such publication, *America's Health in Transition: Protecting and Improving Quality*, was published in 1994. It asserts that health care quality is the degree to which health care improves outcomes and maintain consistency with current knowledge of practice. Obstacles to achieving this goal were outlined as unnecessary/inappropriate care, underuse of effective/appropriate care, and shortcomings in technical or personnel in care.^[@bibr10-2192568219853529]^ This was followed by the Institute of Medicine's initiative proposing a coordinated effort to further exam quality improvement issues, devise measurements of quality improvement issues, all while paying special attention to vulnerable populations that do not traditionally receive the same quality of care as others in the United States.
While this launched a coordinated effort, it was not until the 1999 report *To Err Is Human* that the quality improvement initiative gained public traction.^[@bibr11-2192568219853529]^ Reporting that nearly as high as 100 000 preventable deaths per year occur during health care delivery due to medical errors. The leading causes of the death were medication and communication errors. This report outlined the need for improvement in medical electronic information systems and reporting of medical errors. The medical electronic information system remained far less developed than in other disciplines such as banking or the airline industry. In addition, liability without protection for health care workers inhibited error reporting and resulting improvements.^[@bibr11-2192568219853529]^ This spurred public awareness and catalyzed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to perform a review on quality assessment and improvement in US health care.
As this investigation was launched, there was an additional publication by the Institute of Medicine in 2001, *Crossing the Quality Chasm*, further demonstrated the discrepancy between the recommended delivery of health care and the reality of American health care in its current form. It described the factors that delivered inconsistent health care across the country regardless of insurance status, race, gender, geographic location of the patient. The Institute of Medicine report illustrated that medical information has irregular distribution secondary to poor information systems and lagging use of current technology. This prevents scientific advances from becoming uniformly available to practitioners across the country. From this discrepancy, new clinical education centered on increased interdisciplinary cooperation identified specific aims as drivers of health care change. These drivers were safety, efficacy, patient-centered care, timely, efficient, and equitable.^[@bibr12-2192568219853529]^ Overall, the report emphasized use of new technologies to deliver safer, more efficacious, and cost-effective care without financially penalizing individuals streamlining the care.
Since these publications defining the future direction of quality improvement, the Institute of Medicine has worked through three platforms: environmental, health care organization, and the interface between physicians and patients. Such efforts include redesigning primary care and care for patients with chronic conditions, restructuring insurance coverage and malpractice in *Fostering Rapid Advances in Health Care: Learning form System Demonstrations*.^[@bibr13-2192568219853529]^ Another agenda laid forth ideas for educational reform, including establishment of core competencies, public reporting, and fostering training environments and oversight.^[@bibr14-2192568219853529]^ It was also during this time that the Institute of Medicine emphasized institution of electronic health record systems with national standards for collection of this data.^[@bibr15-2192568219853529],[@bibr16-2192568219853529]^ Finally, the Institute of Medicine outlined common and costly medication errors as well as a comprehensive approach to minimizing these errors in the report *Preventing Medication Errors*.^[@bibr17-2192568219853529]^
Since its founding, the Institute of Medicine has changed its name to The National Academy of Medicine (<http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/>). It has been instrumental in launching a quality improvement initiative consisting of 3 phases. Already, in the first 2 phases, the Institute of Medicine has outlined and highlighted the discrepancy between current and ideal delivery of health care, made proposals on how to transform the health care system to close this gap. The final phase of this quality improvement initiative focuses on ongoing efforts to execute this transformation and the proposed mechanisms for quality improvement.
Understanding this history is vital for spine surgeons moving forward. Spine surgery has not been immune to the health care quality initiative. The quality improvement movement will define the future trajectory of major specialties such as spine surgery. All the concepts defined in the past century such as outcome-based care, standardization, and resource efficiency will guide future policy. Health systems are moving away from the fee for service model and pushing for a more sustainable system. This system is grounded in population health and preventative medicine, value-based care, and new payment models.^[@bibr18-2192568219853529]^ Traditionally, the surgical management of patients with spinal disorders represented a very heterogeneous population with varied outcomes. Variability can be defined as both expected variation as well as unexpected variation.^[@bibr19-2192568219853529]^ This unexplained variation can lead to excess waste and costs. Costs associated with surgical intervention may be very high and outcomes are poorly characterized. This is may be due to the homogenization of techniques that evidence-based medicine encourages. As prospective trials and studies with high levels of evidence require rigid inclusion/exclusion criteria with control of confounding variables, large studies quickly lose their generalizability. This makes higher level evidence costly and difficult to apply to patients with spinal disorders. This is an example of the Institute of Medicine's described discrepancy between current and ideal delivery of health care.
As such, there is opportunity for quality improvement as cost, efficacy, safety, and patient centered outcomes have yet to be fully defined for many treatment paradigms in existence. To address this deficiency, spine registries have gained popularity in parallel with growing emphasis on health care quality improvement. With a foundation laid upon Ernest Codman's work in "end result theory," registries represent a more scalable, cost-effective, alternative to randomized clinical control trials evaluating outcomes in a more generalizable context.
The first major registry established was the National Spinal Cord Injury Database. Started in 1973, the database was originally part of a project mean to demonstrate superiority of comprehensive spinal cord injury care over fragmented care across different centers.^[@bibr20-2192568219853529]^ As multiple centers joined the project, large volumes of data were generated for analysis. In the first 10 years alone, the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center spurred advancements in spinal cord injury care in emergency, acute care, and rehabilitation settings. Rare for the time period, prospective data was collected on patient demographics, pathology, procedures, complications, implants, and patient-reported outcomes. Being one of the longer maintained databases, it has served as an example on the data that can be generated from years of follow-up on a variety of spinal pathology. Since then, many major registries have been established with ongoing enrollment since then. Such registries include the Swedish Spine Registry, Spine Tango, Rick Hansen SCI, N^2^QOD, British Spine, AOSpine, Kaiser Permanente, Vanderbilt Prospective Spine, North America Clinical Trials Network (NACTN), NASS and include various pathologies such as trauma, degenerative lumbar disease, and deformity among other conditions.^[@bibr21-2192568219853529],[@bibr22-2192568219853529]^ As the scope of a registry gets larger, the follow-up tends to be shorter as the infrastructure required to maintain the database increases. As such, along with the Swedish Spine register, N^2^QOD (renamed as the QOD, Quality Outcomes Database) is a multicenter registry collecting prospective patient-reported outcomes with 12-month follow-up rates exceeding 75%. As these databases accumulate data, it is becoming apparent that while spinal surgery generally has low rates of morbidity and high rates of sustained treatment effects. However, there is a large degree of heterogeneity and significant variation in treatments as well as individual's response to treatment from patient to patient. It is important to note that there are wide variations in the design and data accumulated. Registries may have prospective versus retrospective designs, variability in follow-up and sample sizes, and different metrics used to evaluate outcomes. All of this must be weighed carefully as different clinical conclusions may be drawn from different data sets. However, understanding this will allow physicians to identify registries that best suit the population they serve when using them to enforce clinical decisions. These registries will become extremely important in improving quality care by identifying which cohorts of patients will or will not benefit from a particular surgery. Using data from a registry like QOD, a surgeon will be able to create a personalized predictive calculator for an individual patient's response to therapy.^[@bibr23-2192568219853529]^
As Donabedian noted late in his career, "There's lip service to quality and, goodness knows, propaganda, but real commitment is in short supply."^[@bibr24-2192568219853529]^ As clinical registry databases continue to grow, and the information technology platforms on which they are based improve, their predictive modeling capabilities and comparative power will continue to accumulate and drive quality improvement in medicine forward. They will provide invaluable data on comparative efficacy of various surgical and nonsurgical treatments for spinal disease. The development of these quality improvement efforts will also improve the systems of care to patients at the local level. These registries represent invaluable adjuncts to randomized clinical trials that will evaluate rapidly changing heterogeneous populations and practices.^[@bibr25-2192568219853529]^ Using these tools, treatment paradigms may be altered so that the quality of spinal care delivered may be more efficacious, cost-effective, safe, and patient centered. As the history of quality improvement in recent years has shown, value-based and outcome-driven policy is becoming more important in every field, including spinal surgery. The future of spine surgery is interwoven with these quality improvement developments as the field searches for ways to improve the outcomes of these heterogeneous, complex patients.
**Declaration of Conflicting Interests:** The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
**Funding:** The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This supplement was supported by funding from AO Spine North America.
**ORCID iD:** Kevin Hines, MD  <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1700-174X>
Nikolaos Mouchtouris, MD  <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9495-9391>
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to sinks. More specifically, the invention is a portable wheeled cabinet containing a sink for that dispenses hot and cold water from stored water supplies.
2. Description of the Related Art
The related art of interest describes various sinks, but none discloses the present invention. There is a need for a wheeled cabinet capable of supplying a sink for comfortably shampooing the hair of children and bedridden persons. The related art will be described in the order of perceived relevance to the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,255, issued on Oct. 21, 1997, to Melvin C. Stroudamire, Sr. describes a portable hair washing system that has a collapsible basin table for transporting. The system comprises: a collapsible basin table having a top member supported by a plurality of telescopic legs; a first collapsible container having a spout; a second collapsible container having a spout; a first flexible conduit having a connector end and a nozzle end; and a second flexible conduit having a first and second connector end. A curved portion extends downwardly forms a neck surface extending into the basin for resting the user's neck. The portable hair washing system may also have a collapsible tray assembly and a case for carrying the equipment. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring separate carts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,371, issued on May 14, 1991, to Jurgen D. Heel describes a portable salon unit that includes a movable cart having a washbasin. The washbasin is adjustable vertically. A device for supplying clean water to an object located in the basin includes a water connector at one end and a spraying end. A flexible supply hose is provided on a supply reel to allow the water connector to be located at some distance from the cart. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a spatially separated washbasin from the cart.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2003/0019031 A1, published on Jan. 30, 2003, for Joseph K. Mosis describes a portable sink with internal or optionally external water supply comprising a double sink with and one faucet mounted on a lightweight cabinet with wheels. Hot and cold water are produced by the faucet from either an internal self-contained fresh water tank or an optional external source that passes from a sink to a self-contained used water holding tank. The cabinet has two doors for accessing it's interior. The cabinet holds a self-contained fresh water holding tank and one self-contained used water holding tank. A heater heats the water coming from either the internal or optional external water source. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a double basin and optionally an external source of hot and cold water.
U.S. Design Pat. No. 333,343, issued on Feb. 16, 1993 to Samuel P. Farchione describes an ornamental portable shampoo and styling unit apparatus comprising a wheeled cabinet having a contoured sink with an indented front space for laying down the head, an array of electrical outlets and hose connections on a block extension on its left side, and a horizontal bar and water hose connections in the rear cavity. The ornamental apparatus is distinguishable for requiring an ornamental contoured sink having an indented front portion.
U.S. Design Pat. No. 342,121, issued on Dec. 7, 1993 to Jong Y. Lim describes an ornamental combined foldable and portable sink table in a folding case with four folding legs, a hinged cover with internal drying shelves and pegs, two hinged side tables, and a sink and draining table. The ornamental apparatus is distinguishable for requiring an ornamental folding sink table.
U.S. Design Pat. No. 362,715, issued on Sep. 26, 1995 to Michael A. Trottier describes an ornamental portable sink for overlying a utility tub comprising a stainless steel sink basin with side handles and various side panel apertures for toothbrushes, hair brush, a soap bottle, and a soap dish depression. The ornamental apparatus is distinguishable for requiring only a portable sink for overlying a utility tub.
U.S. Design Pat. No. 401,679, issued on Nov. 24, 1998 to Richard L. Tagg describes an ornamental portable sink comprising a base cabinet having four oval sinks with a single faucet each on top covered by an umbrella on a pole having two soap dispensers. Two apparent water containers are located on opposite sides of the wheel-less base cabinet. The ornamental apparatus is distinguishable for requiring multiple sinks, an umbrella cover and lacking wheels.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2001/0052681 A1, published on Dec. 20, 2001 for Pericles Deavila describes a mobile safety compliance apparatus comprising a rectangular box shell having a plurality of open compartments having doors, a self-contained water supply, and a wastewater collection system. Removable doors serve also as a stretcher or a freestanding table. The water supply provides drinking water, tepid hand washing water, and water for a stowaway eyewash hingedly attached to the shell. A stowaway seat and table are hingedly attached to the shell. The apparatus includes an electrical system with a battery backup for powering the lights, water heating, refrigeration devices, electronic communication equipment, and two wheels and two anchor points. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a stowaway seat and table, a battery backup, and electronic communication equipment.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2002/0066141 A1, published on Jun. 6, 2002 for Josue' D. Rivera et al. describes a collapsible and portable work sink station comprising a collapsible telescopic four leg structure. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring collapsible telescopic legs.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,325, issued on May 8, 1973 to Joseph S. Guarrasi describes a potable hair wash sink attachment apparatus comprising a board section and a neck yoke section. The board section can be attached to the front wall of a sink basin to extend upward and outward. The neck yoke section can slide along the board and fits around the neck of the user. A dish attached slidingly to the board is placed under the chin to collect any excess wash water drain down the board into the sink. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a board section and a neck section to attach to a sink.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,048, issued on Sep. 11, 1979 to Mary E. Williams for a portable shampoo seat adapter with a liquid run-off attachment apparatus for children that is disposed on the seat of a conventional barber or beautician chair with the back thereof adjacent to and below a conventional shampoo wash bowl. A headrest on the backrest of the seat adapter is disposed in front and above the shampoo washbowl on which rests the neck of the child. A water run-off guide extends from the neck rest and surrounds the neck to provide a path over which water dripping from the child's hair is returned to the shampoo wash-bowl. The apparatus is distinguishable for being limited to washing children's hair on a barber or beautician chair, and requiring a water run-off guide on the neck rest.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,043, issued on Apr. 23, 1985 to William D. Nolan describes a portable rectangular hair shampoo and scalp treatment basin in a closed box-like form with the removed top connected to the head receiving end of the basin box and acting as a sloped backrest support. The basin's head receiving end has a sloped backrest support for the person, and a half-moon cutout at the top of the end wall for receiving the neck. A hand pump is located in the waterline of a downwardly curved nozzle pipe, and another spray nozzle is located in the end facing upwards. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a backrest, a hand pump and two water nozzles,
U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,361, issued on Mar. 24, 1987 to William D. Nolan describes a portable combination hair shampoo basin and a drying hood for a bedridden person receiving shampooing, hair coloring, permanent hair waving, and the subsequent drying. The box-like apparatus has a double-walled basin reservoir and a half-moon cutout in a front wall for the neck. The basin's inner wall has a plurality of openings that drain the water poured from a pitcher over the head through a hose. After the shampoo, the water is drained from its reservoir, a blow dryer inserted in an outer wall opening is activated, and hot air forced into the reservoir and out the plurality of openings. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a plurality of holes in one side of the box.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,233, issued on Apr. 28, 1987 to Lueretta Beaver describes a portable shampoo, manicure, pedicure and washing apparatus comprising a wheeled cabinet housing clean and waste water tanks, and heating and pressurizing means for the clean water. Head and foot basins having drains to the waste water tank are pivotally mounted on lining arms. The support mounting the basins on the cabinet also provides for vertical adjustment to accommodate different bed heights. Spray nozzles connected to the pressurized, heated and clean water tank are extendible by hoses. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring pivotally mounted head and foot basins.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,169, issued on May 31, 1988 for Rene F. Valbuena describes a portable sink having a pressurized water supply comprising a main case having a hinged top cover and containing a two-unit sink bowl unit and a supply tank in an inner case. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring at least four different containers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,378, issued on Feb. 20, 1990 to Lealyce Reddell describes a shampoo basin comprising a first embodiment having a rectangular basin with a front semicircular neck supporting cutout having a row of water delivering apertures below it on the inside surface of the basin. A spray nozzle on a flexible conduit is positioned on the upper rear edge of the basin. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring two water delivery sources.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,118, issued on Apr. 16, 1991 to Larry W. Ebersole describes a head care station on rollers and kit for reclining a wheelchair occupant against a head support having an adjustable height basin with a frontal semicircular head support notch. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a rollable head care station.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,144,701, issued on Sep. 8, 1992 to Ralph W. Clark describes a wheel chair shampoo apparatus for mounting and positioning a wheel chair in a tilted position to a shampoo basin mounted in an open cart and the water supply in a mounted pouch. FIG. 8 describes a washbasin entrance with a semicircular collar, which is slidably movable outward. The shampooing apparatus is distinguishable for requiring an open cart, a mounted water pouch and designed for mounting a wheel chair.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,376, issued on Apr. 12, 1994 to Norbert G. Herbert describes a portable sink apparatus comprising three separable housing sections stacked for transport or storage. The middle housing includes a sink that receives water from the upper housing and drains to the bottom housing. The apparatus is distinguishable for being limited to a three-section portable case.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,481, issued on Apr. 26, 1994 to J. Clyde Nebb describes a mobile salon station comprising a rear-wheeled open cart having two upright frame members that are vertically telescopic and joined on top. A basin that is carried inverted is placed upright on a shelf, and its water supply connected to two 4.5 gallon tanks carried on a bottom shelf. The basin has a shallow recess for the neck. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring an open cart with a telescopic upper frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,381,562, issued on Jan. 17, 1995 to Joan M. Holloway et al. describes a contoured portable rectangular basin for cleaning a selected part of a person's body such as the head or a limb. The basin has a notched seat for one's neck. An outlet port has a drainage tube. The apparatus is distinguishable for being limited to a basin.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,434, issued on Nov. 18, 1997 to Richard L. Tagg describes a portable stand-alone wash station comprising an upright paper towel and soap dispenser unit, a sink unit containing two basins, a flexible inner tank for used water, and a rigid outer tank for fresh water. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring paper towel and soap dispensers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,078, issued on Jan. 6, 1998 to Velma Chandler describes a portable sink comprising a cabinet containing a 5 gallon bottle of water. The sink is designed to drain into a portable toilet, and a supply of deodorizing soap operates to clean the user's hands and deodorize the apparatus. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring only a washbasin and a water bottle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,813,063, issued on Sep. 29, 1998 to Louis S. Watkins et al. describes a portable sink having four telescopic legs. The housing has a basin, a drainage system, a fresh water supply system, and an electrical system for servicing the basin. The basin is formed as a drawer in the front of the housing. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring electricity, telescopic legs, and the basin in a drawer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,751, issued on Oct. 19, 1999 to Shirley A. Chiarelli describes a portable hair washing apparatus comprising a basin having a shaped neck support, a horizontal head support, a flexible drainage hose, and a used water receptacle combined and encased in a carrying case. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a carrying case configuration.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,076,202, issued on Jun. 20, 2000 to M. Olene Lockwood describes a shampoo sink system comprising a telescoping vertical support assembly having a telescoping horizontal sidewall brace ending in a suction cup. The sink has a rear-hinged liner having a semicircular anti-drip lip sitting in an exterior plastic sink and supported by the telescoping vertical support. The apparatus is distinguishable for requiring a vertical and horizontal telescoping support structure, and a hinged liner for the basin.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,228, issued on Dec. 19, 2000 to Jan Wietecha describes a portable sink structure attachable to an external portable reservoir capable of containing wastewater and carried in a case. The sink has no neck depression. The apparatus is distinguishable for having a sink without a neck depression and requiring the sink to fit into a case structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,458 B1, issued on Jan. 16, 2001 to Larry J. Maddux describes a portable self-contained sink and water storage cart on wheels having a two-cavity sink inside a sink module lacking any neck depression, a towel rack, a soap dispenser, an angled spigot, hot and cold water knobs, and in a lower compartment a fresh water tank, a used water reservoir, a pump, a heater, and electrical connections. The apparatus is distinguishable for lacking a neck depression in its sink.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,427,259 B1, issued on Aug. 6, 2002 to Gregory S. Cawthon describes an outdoor portable lidded sink capable of being connected to a water supply, and having folding legs, an adjustable spigot, a spray nozzle, a storage drawer, a shelf, a large drain, a funnel, a strainer for the drain, cutting boards, baskets, and the like. The sink is U-shaped and lacks any neck depression. The sink is distinguishable for requiring a water connection and a U-shaped sink lacking a neck depression.
Japan Patent No. 11-107336, published on Apr. 20, 1999, for Motoyuki Kawanishi describes a square-shaped portable sink having a water tap elevated above the sink by a strut support and connected to a city water pipe by a hose. A bottom drain has a separate drain hose. The sink can be staked to the ground. The apparatus is distinguishable for utilizing a connection to available water supply and draining on the ground.
W.I.P.O. Application No. WO 99/20848, published on Apr. 29, 1999, for Aseptico, Inc., U.S. describes a portable sink apparatus comprising a rectangular sink without a neck rest having a gooseneck spigot, a drain leading by a hose to a water container, a water supply container providing water to the spigot by a foot pump and heated by an electrical outlet, and four foldable legs. The apparatus is distinguishable for lacking a neck rest in the sink and requiring foldable legs.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus, a portable shampoo sink solving the aforementioned problems is desired. |
---
abstract: 'Absolute normalisation of the LHC measurements with $\cal{O}$(1%) precision and their relative normalisation, for the data collected at variable centre-of-mass energies, or for variable beam particle species, with $\cal{O}$(0.1%) precision is crucial for the LHC experimental programme but presently beyond the reach for the general purpose LHC detectors. This paper is the third in the series of papers presenting the measurement method capable to achieve such a goal.'
address:
- |
LPNHE, Pierre and Marie Curie University, CNRS-IN2P3, Tour 33, RdC,\
4, pl. Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France.
- ' Institute of Teleinformatics, Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, Cracow University of Technology, ul. Warszawska 24, 31-115 Kraków, Poland.'
- ' Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN, ul. Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Kraków, Poland.'
author:
- 'M. W. Krasny, J. Chwastowski , A. Cyzand K. S[ł]{}owikowski'
title: |
[**Luminosity Measurement Method for the LHC:\
Event Selection and Absolute Luminosity Determination**]{}[^1]
---
Introduction {#sec:Introduction}
============
The requirements for the luminosity measurement precision at the LHC are often misunderstood. According to the present paradigm [@Mangano], 2% precision is the benchmark and the ultimate target for the LHC experiments. Such a target may soon be reached by the method based on van der Meer scans for which $\delta L /L = \pm 3.7~\%$ has already been achieved [@vdM].
The main argument underlying such a paradigm reflects the present precision of theoretical calculations of the cross sections for hard parton processes. These calculations are based on the perturbative, leading-twist QCD framework which allows only to approach the experimental precision target. Thus, as long as a significant reduction of uncertainties of both the matrix elements and the parton distribution functions (PDFs) is beyond the reach of the available calculation methods and DIS experiments, the impact of further reduction of the experimental luminosity error would hardly improve the present understanding of parton collisions.
In our view, there are at least four reasons to push the luminosity measurement precision frontier as much as possible.
1. Precision observables, based on the data collected at variable c.m.-energies have been proposed for the precision measurement programme of the Standard Model parameters at the LHC [@krasnySMparameters], and for the experimental discrimination of the Higgs production processes against the SM ones [@krasnyHiggs]. These observables are specially designed to drastically reduce their sensitivities to the theoretical and modeling uncertainties limiting the overall measurement precision of the canonical ones. Their measurement precision is no longer limited by the theoretical and modeling uncertainties but by the precision of the relative luminosity measurements at each of the collider energy settings.
2. The general purpose LHC experiments, ATLAS and CMS, and the specialised experiment, LHCb, measure the same parton cross sections in different regions of the phase-space. Relative normalisation of their results determine the ultimate LHC precision for those of the measurements which are based on a coherent analysis of their data. The best example here is the measurement of $\sin^2(\theta _W)$ associated with concurrent unfolding of the valence and sea quarks PDFs.
3. The LHC collides proton beams while the Tevatron collides proton and anti-proton beams. The $W$ and $Z$ boson differential cross sections measured at these two colliders constrain the flavour dependent PDFs within the precision of the relative LHC and Tevatron luminosity measurements because the theoretical uncertainties on the hard partonic cross sections largely cancel in the cross section ratios.
4. A fraction of the LHC running time is devoted to collisions of ions. The precision of the relative normalisation of the $pp$ interaction observables with respect to the corresponding ion-ion ones is crucial for a broad spectrum of measurements ranging from the classical measurements of the shadowing effects to more sophisticated ones including the experimental studies of the propagation of W and Z bosons in the vacuum and in the hadronic matter [@krasny_jadach].
For all the above and many other reasons any future improvement of the luminosity measurement precision will be directly reflected in the increased precision of the interpretation of the LHC measurements in terms of the Standard Model (SM) and Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) processes, in particular if specially designed precision observables are used.
The method of the luminosity measurement proposed in this series of papers attempts to push the precision frontier as much as possible at hadron colliders. Its ultimate goal is to reach the precision of $\cal{O}$(1%) for the absolute normalisation of the LHC measurements and of $\cal{O}$(0.1%) for the relative normalisation of the data recorded at variable centre-of-mass energies or different beam particle species (protons, ions). It is based on the detection of those of the electromagnetic collisions of the beam particles in which they can be treated as point-like leptons. For these collisions the corresponding cross sections can be calculated with a precision approaching the one achieved at lepton colliders. In this series of papers such collisions are tagged by the associated production of the unlike-charge electron-positron pairs.
In the initial paper [@first] of this series we have selected the phase-space region where the lepton pair production cross section is theoretically controlled with precision better than 1%, is large enough to reach a comparable statistical accuracy of the absolute luminosity measurement on the day-by-day basis and, last but not the least, its measurement is independent of the beam emittance and of the Interaction Point (IP) optics. Collisions of the beam particles producing lepton pairs in this phase-space region cannot be triggered and selected by the present LHC detectors. A new detector must be incorporated within one of the existing general purpose LHC detectors to achieve this goal.
In our second paper [@second] the performance requirements for a dedicated luminosity detector were discussed. In the present paper we discuss the luminosity measurement procedure based on the concrete luminosity detector model and on the present host detector performance parameters. We evaluate quantitatively the systematic precision of the proposed luminosity measurement method.
This paper is organised as follows. In Section 2 the model of the luminosity detector is introduced. Section 3 specifies the performance requirements for the host detector. The on-line selection procedures for the luminosity events are proposed in Section 4 and optimised in Section 5. Section 6 presents the rates of the signal and background events at the consecutive stages of the event selection process. The methods of monitoring of the instantaneous, relative luminosity are described in Section 7. Section 8 introduces the luminosity measurement methods for the low, medium and high luminosity running periods of the LHC machine. Merits of the dedicated runs are discussed in section 9. Section 10 introduces a novel and simple method of calculating the absolute cross sections for any sample of the user-selected events. Finally, Section 11 is devoted to the evaluation of the systematic uncertainties of the proposed luminosity measurement method.
Luminosity Detector Model
=========================
In the studies presented below the model of the luminosity detector is specified in terms of a minimal set of its required output signals. Its concrete hardware design is open and depends solely on the specific constraints imposed by the host detector construction and by the wishes of the host detector collaboration. The luminosity detector can be realised using one of the available particle tracking technologies and does not require dedicated R&D studies. The D0 fibre tracker [@D0tracker] can serve as an example in most of its functional aspects with a notable exception of the radiation hardness issue which would need to be addressed anew in the LHC context.
The geometry of the proposed luminosity detector model was presented in [@second]. The detector fiducial volume consists of two identical cylinders placed symmetrically with respect to the beam collision point. Each cylinder is concentric with the proton-proton collision axis defined in the following as the $z$-axis of the coordinate system. The cylinders have the following dimensions: the inner radius of 48 cm, the outer one of 106 cm and the length of 54.3 cm. They occupy the regions between $z_f^{right} = 284.9$ cm and $z_r ^{right}=
339.2$ cm and $z_f ^{left}= -284.9$ cm and $z_r ^{left}= -339.2$ cm. Each cylinder contains three layers (the $z_1, z_2, z_3$ planes) providing the measurements of the charged particles hits. These planes are positioned at the distances of $z_1 = 285.8$, $z_2 = 312.05$ and $z_3 = 338.3$ cm from the interaction point. Each of the luminosity detector $z$-planes is segmented into 3142 $\phi$-sectors providing the azimuthal position of the hits[^2]. Such a detector could occupy the space foreseen for the TRT C-wheels - a sub-component of the ATLAS detector which has not been built.
The basic role of the luminosity detector is to provide, for each charged particle $j$, produced in $pp$ collisions, the “track segment", specified in terms of the three azimuthal hit positions, $i_{j,k}$, where $k \in \{1, 2, 3\}$ is the plane number and $j$ denotes the particle number. It is assumed that each reconstructed track segment has a “time-stamp". The time-stamp assigns the track segment to the ${\cal O}(1)$ ns wide time slot synchronised with the machine clock[^3]. Further timing requirements, discussed in detail in [@second], such as adding a precise, sub-nanosecond relative timing for each of the $\phi$-hits, for a better level 1 (LVL1) trigger resolution of the $z$ position of the origin of the track segments, are not required in the base-line detector model.
The time stamped track segments and their associated hits are the input data for the algorithmic procedures allowing to select, within the 2.5$\mu s$ LVL1 trigger latency of the host detector, the “luminosity measurement bunch crossings" and “monitoring bunch crossings". The subsequent event selection algorithms are based solely on the host detector signals. The “Region of Interest" (ROI) [@ATLAS] mechanism is used to correlate, within the level 2 (LVL2) trigger latency, the luminosity detector data with the relevant data coming from the host detector.
Host Detector Model
===================
The ATLAS detector [@ATLAS] was chosen in our studies as the host detector. The following data coming from this detector are used in the LVL2 and Event Filter (EF) trigger algorithms:
- the parameters of the tracks selected using the ROI mechanism – available within the LVL2 0.01 s long trigger latency. We recall here that the luminosity detector angular acceptance is covered fully by the acceptance of the ATLAS silicon tracker [@ATLAS],
- the energies, the shape variables and timing of the electromagnetic/hadronic clusters in the LAr calorimeter in the ROI-restricted ($\phi, \eta$) regions – available within the LVL2 trigger latency,
- the reconstructed hits in the LUCID detector [@ATLAS] – available within the LVL2 trigger latency,
- the reconstructed hits in the BCM (Beam Current Monitor)[@ATLAS] – available within the 1 s long Event Filter (EF) trigger latency,
- the precise parameters of the vertex-constrained tracks and the multiplicity of all the charged particles with $p_T > 0.4$ GeV/c produced within the range of pseudorapidity $|\eta| <2.5$ – available within the EF trigger latency.
It is assumed further that the following host detector performance requirements will be fulfilled:
- the pion/electron rejection factor of 10 at both the LVL2 and the EF trigger levels,
- full identification of bunch crossings in which the charged particles are traversing the LUCID detector ($5.5 \leq |\eta| \leq 6.5$),
- full identification of bunch crossings in which the charged particles are traversing the BCM ($3.9 \leq |\eta| \leq 4.1$) detector.
In the studies presented below the host detector measurement and event selection biases are not taken into account. The LVL2 and the EF event selection efficiencies, the reconstruction and the electron/positron identification efficiencies, for the specified above values of the electron/pion rejection factors, are thus set to be equal 1. It is further assumed that the lepton pair momentum vectors are reconstructed with infinite precision.
Detailed studies based on realistic host detector performance simulations, indispensable if the proposed method is endorsed by the host detector collaboration, are both external to the scope of this paper and, more importantly, of secondary importance. The luminosity measurement method presented in this series of papers was designed such that all the host detector measurement biases, resolution functions and efficiencies can be determined directly using the data coming from the host detector recorded event samples.
The selection algorithms are discussed below for the two settings of the strength of a uniform solenoidal magnetic field: $B~=~0$ and $B~=~2$ T which are labeled respectively as $\bf{B0}$ and $\bf{B2}$. These two magnetic field configurations correspond to the zero current and the nominal current of the ATLAS central tracker solenoid.
Event Selection Model {#sec:selection}
=====================
Level 1 Trigger
---------------
The luminosity detector trigger logic analyses the pattern of hits on a bunch-by-bunch basis. In the first step it selects only the “low multiplicity bunch crossing" candidates [@second] i.e. the crossings with less than $N_0$ hits in both the $z > 0$ and the $z < 0$ sections of the luminosity detector[^4].
In the second step, for each low multiplicity bunch crossing, the track segments are formed and time-stamp validated. The time-stamp validation of the track segments consist of assigning each of them to one of the following two classes: the “in-time segments" and the “out-of-time segments". These and the subsequent LVL1 selection steps are distinct for the $\bf{B0}$ and $\bf{B2}$ magnetic field configurations.
### $\bf{B0}$ Case {#sec:evseltrigB0}
In the $\bf{B0}$ case a track segment is formed by any combination of the hits, $i_1$, $i_2$ and $i_3$, in the three detector planes satisfying the following requirements:
$$min(| i_1 - i_3 |, | i_1 - i_3 +3142 |, | i_3 - i_1 +3142 | ) < i_{cut},$$
AND
\
$$\left\{\frac{i_3+i_1}{2}+ i_{cut} > i_2 > \frac{i_3+i_1}{2}-i_{cut}
{\rm\ \ \}
\underline{{\rm\ if\ } | i_1 - i_3 | < 1571 \ }}\right.,$$
OR
\
$$\left.\frac{i_3+i_1 + 3142}{2} + i_{cut} < i_2 < \frac{i_3+i_1 +3142}{2}-i_{cut} \right.\\$$ $$\left. \underline{{\rm\ if\ } | i_1 - i_3 | > 1571, ~ i_1 + i_3 < 3142\ }\right.,$$ [ ]{} $$\centerline{OR}\\$$ $$\left.\frac{i_3+i_1}{2} - 1571+ i_{cut} < i_2 < \frac{i_3+i_1}{2} -1571-i_{cut} \right.\\$$ $$\left. \underline{{\rm\ if\ } | i_1 - i_3 | > 1571,~ i_1 + i_3 \geq 3142\ }\right\}.$$ The $i_{cut}$ parameter value is driven by the luminosity detector thickness expressed in units of the radiation length.
The in-time segments have the time stamps within the time window of $\Delta
t_{B0}$ width and an off-set of $t0_{B0}$ with respect to the bunch crossing time stamp. All the other track segments are assigned to the out-of-time class[^5]. In the $\bf{B0}$ case the width of the time window reflects both the longitudinal LHC bunch size and the radial size of the luminosity detector.
A bunch crossing is selected by the luminosity detector LVL1 trigger as the “2+0" candidate if there are exactly two in-time track segments specified in terms of the hit triples: $i_{1,1}$, $i_{1,2}$, $i_{1,3}$ ($i_{2,1}$, $i_{2,2}$, $i_{2,3}$) in the left (right) detector part and no in-time track segments in the opposite right(left) one. The “coplanar pair" bunch crossing candidates are those of the “2+0" ones in which the hit positions in the first and in the third plane satisfy the following conditions: $$\left\{
\begin{array}{ccl}
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) \leq 3142 &\wedge& (i_{2,1}+i_{2,3}) <
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) + a_0 \\
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) \leq 3142 &\wedge& (i_{2,1}+i_{2,3}) >
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) + b_0 \\
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) > 3142 &\wedge& (i_{2,1}+i_{2,3}) <
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) - b_0 \\
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) > 3142 &\wedge& (i_{2,1}+i_{2,3}) >
(i_{1,1}+i_{1,3}) - a_0.
\end{array}
\right.
\label{eq:eqline}$$ The above conditions represent the algorithmic, LVL1 trigger implementation of the coplanar particle pair selection procedure for the $\bf{B0}$ magnetic field configuration discussed in [@second].
A bunch crossing is selected as the “silent bunch crossing" candidate if there are no in-time track segments in both the left and right side of the luminosity detector.
### $B2$ Case {#sec:evseltrigB2}
In the $\bf{B2}$ case a track segment is formed by any combination of the hits $i_1$, $i_2$, $i_3$ in the three detector planes which satisfy the requirements outlined below:
$$min(| i_1 - i_3 |, | i_1 - i_3 +3142 |, | i_3 - i_1 +3142 | ) < i_{cut}+i_{helix},$$
AND
\
$$\left\{\frac{i_3+i_1}{2}+ i_{cut} > i_2 > \frac{i_3+i_1}{2}-i_{cut}
{\rm\ \ \}
\underline{{\rm\ if\ } | i_1 - i_3 | < 1571 \ }}\right.,$$
OR
\
$$\left.\frac{i_3+i_1 + 3142}{2} + i_{cut} < i_2 < \frac{i_3+i_1 +3142}{2}-i_{cut} \right.\\$$ $$\left. \underline{{\rm\ if\ } | i_1 - i_3 | > 1571, ~ i_1 + i_3 < 3142\ }\right.,$$ [ ]{} $$\centerline{OR}\\$$ $$\left.\frac{i_3+i_1}{2} - 1571+ i_{cut} < i_2 < \frac{i_3+i_1}{2} -1571-i_{cut} \right.\\$$ $$\left. \underline{{\rm\ if\ } | i_1 - i_3 | > 1571,~ i_1 + i_3 \geq 3142\ }\right\}.$$ The magnetic field strength dependent $i_{helix }$ value drives the effective momentum cut-off of the charged particles reaching the luminosity detector. The in-time track segments have the time-stamps within the time window of $\Delta
t_{B2}$ width and the off-set of $t0_{B2}$ ns with respect to the bunch crossing time-stamp. The timing parameters are different for the $\bf{B0}$ and $\bf{B2}$ cases because for a given charged particle its track length measured from the interaction vertex to the entry point into the fiducial volume of the luminosity detector is different in these two cases.
For the equidistant spacing of the $z$-planes the track segment finding and the time-stamp validation algorithms remain invariant with respect to the change of the magnetic field configuration - its influence is restricted only to the parameters of the algorithms.
As in the $\bf{B0}$ case, a bunch crossing is selected, by the luminosity detector LVL1 trigger, as the “2+0" candidate if there are exactly two in-time track segments in the left (right) detector part and no in-time track segments in the opposite one. However, in the $\bf{B2}$ case a supplementary condition is required to retain only the opposite charge particle tracks: $$( i_{1,1} - i_{3,1} \geq 0 ~~if~~ i_{1,2} - i_{3,2} < 0) ~~or~~
(i_{1,1} - i_{3,1} < 0 ~~if~~ i_{1,2} - i_{3,2} \geq 0).$$
The “coplanar pair" bunch crossing candidates are those of the “2+0" ones in which the hits $i_{1,1}$, $i_{1,3}$ $(i_{2,1}, i_{2,3})$ satisfy the following conditions: $$\left\{
\begin{array}{ccl}
| i_{1,1} - i_{2,1}| &<& a_2\cdot( i_{1,1} - i_{1,3} + i_{2,1} - i_{2,3} )\\
| i_{1,1} - i_{2,1}| &<& b_2\cdot( i_{1,1} - i_{1,3} + i_{2,1} - i_{2,3})+e_2 \\
| i_{1,1} - i_{2,1}| &>& c_2\cdot( i_{1,1} - i_{1,3} + i_{2,1} - i_{2,3}) \\
| i_{1,1} - i_{2,1}| &>& d_2\cdot( i_{1,1} - i_{1,3} + i_{2,1} - i_{2,3})-f_2.
\end{array}
\right.
\label{eq:diamond}$$ The above conditions define the LVL1 trigger algorithm for the coplanar particle pair selection procedure for the $\bf{B2}$ magnetic field configuration (see [@second] for detailed discussion).
Similarly to the $\bf{B0}$ case, a bunch crossing is selected as the silent bunch crossing if there are no in-time track segments in both parts of the luminosity detector.
LVL1 Trigger Bits
-----------------
It is assumed that the following LVL1 trigger bits are sent by the luminosity detector to the Central Trigger Processor (CTP) of the host detector:
- the “coplanar pair candidate" (CPC) trigger bit,
- the “2+0" (two plus zero - TPZ) trigger bit,
- the “silent bunch crossing" (SBC) trigger bit,
- the “low multiplicity bunch crossing" (LMBC) trigger bit.
They are assumed to be broadcasted on the bunch-by-bunch basis. For the CPC (TPZ)-trigger-selected bunch crossings the information on the $\phi$-sector positions of the two in-time track segments is delivered the host detector Level 2 trigger algorithms using the ROI mechanism. The CPC trigger is not prescaled at the CTP level.
While the CPC-selected bunch-crossing data are used in the luminosity determination, the CTP-prescaled TPZ, SBC and LMBC ones, together with the CTP-selected random bunch crossings data, are used for a precision monitoring of the luminosity detector performance. In particular, in all the aspects which require correlating of the luminosity detector signals with the host detector ones on bunch-by-bunch basis.
Level 2 Trigger
---------------
The next step in the event selection chain is based entirely on the host detector LVL2 trigger algorithms. In the following we shall discuss only the LVL2 selection criteria for the LVL1-accepted coplanar pair candidate events, for which the CPC trigger bit was set to one[^6]. As before, the selection criteria are different for each of the two magnetic field configurations.
### $\bf{B0}$ Case {#bfb0-case}
In the first step of the LVL2 selection algorithm chain a search for a narrow energy cluster of the total energy above 1 GeV is performed. The search is confined to the electromagnetic calorimeter $\phi$-sectors pointed out by the luminosity detector LVL1 ROI. If two electromagnetic clusters are found and if their timing, determined from the pulse-shapes in the channels belonging to clusters, is compatible with the track segment time-stamp the event is retained for the subsequent selection steps. The next step links the luminosity detector track segments to the Silicon Tracker (SCT) hits. If the linking is successful and if the corresponding SCT track segments cross each other in a space point within the proton bunch overlap IP region then the reduced $vertex$ acoplanarity $\delta\phi_r$ is recalculated using the SCT hits. Events are retained for further processing if $\delta\phi_r < \delta\phi_r^{cut}$ is fulfilled. The subsequent algorithm verifies if both clusters pass the electron selection criteria by analysing their lateral and longitudinal shape. Events passing all the above selection steps will be called in the following the LVL2 trigger “inclusive electron-positron pair" candidates. In the subsequent LVL2 step the LUCID detector signals are analysed and an event is selected as the LVL2 “exclusive electron-positron pair" candidate if there are no in-time particle hits in the LUCID tubes[^7].
### $\bf{B2}$ Case
The only difference in the selection steps of the LVL2 exclusive electron-positron pair candidates for the $\bf{B2}$ case is that the cluster energy cut is no longer imposed. This is because the equivalent cut, was already made by the LVL1 trigger.
Event Filter
------------
The LVL2 selection of the exclusive electron-positron pair candidate events is subsequently sharpened at the Event Filter (EF) level. Similarly to the LVL1 and LVL2 cases the selection criteria for both configurations of the magnetic field slightly differ.
### $\bf{B0}$ case {#bfb0-case-1}
In the first step of the EF selection algorithm chain events with any reconstructed particle tracks within the tracker fiducial volume other than the tracks of the electron pair candidate are rejected. Subsequently, the reduced [*vertex*]{} acoplanarity $\delta\phi_r$ is recalculated using the re-fitted vertex constrained values of the parameters of the lepton tracks and the $\delta\phi_r < \delta\phi_r^{cut}$ cut is sharpened. Next, the EF electron selection algorithms exploiting full information coming from both the tracker and the LAr calorimeter are run and a further rejection of hadrons mimicking the electron signatures is performed. Finally, the event exclusivity requirement is sharpened by demanding no particle hits in the BCM in a tight time window.
### $\bf{B2}$ Case
There are only two differences in the selection steps of the exclusive lepton pair candidates in the $\bf{B2}$ field configuration case. These are:
- a replacement of the exclusivity criterion using the reconstructed track segments by the corresponding one based on the reconstructed tracks with the transverse momentum $p_{T} > 0.4$ GeV/c,
- a restriction of the transverse momentum of a pair to the region $p_{T,pair}~<~0.05$ GeV/c.
Optimisation of the LVL1 Trigger
================================
Algorithm parameters
--------------------
The LVL1 trigger optimisation goal is to determine an optimal set of the algorithm parameters. These parameters, defined in Section \[sec:evseltrigB0\] and \[sec:evseltrigB2\], specify:
- the definition of the track segments,
- the classification of the track segments into the in-time and out-of-time classes,
- the coplanarity of particle pairs (at the interaction vertex).
An optimal set of parameters maximises the rate of the exclusive coplanar pair candidate events while retaining the overall luminosity detector LVL1 trigger rate at ${\cal O}(1)$ kHz level. The latter restriction takes into account the present capacity of the ATLAS TDAQ system and assumes that at most $\sim 2\%$ of its throughput capacity can be attributed to the luminosity detector triggered events. For these events the event record length and the LVL2 and the EF filter processing times are significantly smaller than for any other physics triggers of the present host detector LVL1 trigger menu. Therefore, the strain on the LVL2 and EF throughputs is negligible.
The LVL1 trigger algorithm parameters were optimized by simulating the selection process for large samples of the bunch crossings containing the signal and the background events. The LVL1 trigger algorithms assigned the 0 or 1 values to the CPC, SBC and LMBC LVL1 trigger bits for every bunch crossing[^8].
The following sets of parameters maximises the signal to background ration while retaining the overall luminosity detector LVL1 trigger rate below 2 kHz level:
- track segment definition: $$i_{cut}=20, i_{helix }= 130,$$
- selection of in-time track segments: $$\Delta t_{B0}= 1.5~ns,
\Delta t_{B2} = 4~ns, t0_{B0} = t0_{B2} = 19~ns,$$
- pair acoplanarity selection: $$a_0 = 3202, b_0 = 3082,$$ $$a_2 = 5.97, b_2 = 1.78, c_2 = 4.97,$$ $$d_2 = 30.97, e_2 = 953.4, f_2 = 6630.0.$$
The $i_{helix }= 130$ corresponds to the effective low-momentum cut-off for particles producing a track segment in the luminosity detector of 1 GeV/c. The $i_{cut}=20$ reflects the assumed thickness of the detector planes of 0.1$X_0$ each. The increase of the width of the in-time window, for the $\bf{B2}$ case reflects the dispersion of the helix length of the charged particle trajectories between the interaction vertex and the first plane of the luminosity detector. The optimal selection region of coplanar pairs is illustrated in Fig. \[plot15\] for a chosen set of selection parameters.
(130,120) (0,65)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (0, 3)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65,65)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65, 3)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (95,62)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(b)**]{}]{} ( 33,62)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(a)**]{}]{} ( 33,-2)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(c)**]{}]{} (95,-2)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(d)**]{}]{}
(110,121)[(0,0)\[cb\][**[B = 0 T]{}**]{}]{} ( 46,121)[(0,0)\[cb\][**[B = 0 T]{}**]{}]{} ( 46,59)[(0,0)\[cb\][**[B = 2 T]{}**]{}]{} (110,59)[(0,0)\[cb\][**[B = 2 T]{}**]{}]{}
Note, that for the $\bf{B2}$ configuration a sizable fraction of the electron-positron pair signal events is rejected by the track segment validation criteria. In these events at least one of particles has the momentum lower than $\sim$1 GeV/c.
The selection efficiency of the coplanar particle pairs is determined using the reduced acoplanarity, $\delta\phi_r$, variable which is defined as $$\delta\phi_r = \delta\phi/\pi,$$ with $$\delta\phi=\pi-min(2\pi-|\phi_{1}-\phi_{2}|,|\phi_{1}-\phi_{2}|),$$ where $\phi_{1}$, $\phi_{2}$ are the azimuthal angles of the particles at the interaction vertex.
Algorithm efficiency
--------------------
The efficiency of the LVL1 trigger algorithms of selecting the coplanar particle pairs using the above sets of parameters is illustrated in Fig. \[plot16\]. In this figure the reduced acoplanarity distributions are plotted for the signal and background events, the two magnetic field configurations and for the initial and the CPC-trigger selected samples events. In the $\bf{B0}$ case the LVL1 algorithms rejects majority of the background events while retaining the signal events. In the case of the $\bf{B2}$ field configuration a sizable reduction of the electron-positron pair selection efficiency is not related to the luminosity detector performance. It is almost entirely driven by the constraint on the luminosity detector position within the host detector fiducial volume giving rise to a large probability of bremsstrahlung of the hard photon by the electron or positron on the path between the collision vertex and the luminosity detector entry point.
The efficiencies presented above correspond to the most pessimistic assumptions on the luminosity detector performance and on the dead material budget in front of the luminosity detector. Firstly, the base-line luminosity detector model was used. This model does not employ a precise relative timing in each of the three detector planes. Therefore, the event-by-event LVL1-trigger reconstruction of the position of the collision vertex, an option discussed in our previous paper [@second], was not made. Such a function would significantly improve the sharpness of the LVL1 acoplanarity algorithm. Secondly, the studies were made for the 0.9$X0$ of dead material in front of the luminosity detector giving a rise to large multiple scattering effects. Thirdly, and most importantly, the hard photon radiation was assumed to take place at the collision vertex, inducing significant loss of efficiency for the $\bf{B2}$ case. Therefore, the results in this section represents the most conservative estimate of the electron-positron pair event selection efficiency.
Rates
=====
In Figure \[plot17\] the integrated rates of the LVL1-accepted coplanar pair candidate events are plotted as a function of the upper limit on the pair $\delta\phi_r$ for the two magnetic field configurations, for the signal and the background events. The distributions for the background events are shown at all the stages of the event selection procedure. This plot was made for the machine luminosity of $L~=~10^{33}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ distributed uniformly over all the available bunch crossing slots.
(130,150) (0,65)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (0, 0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65,65)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65, 0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} ( 33,63)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(a)**]{}]{} (95,63)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(b)**]{}]{} ( 33,-3)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(c)**]{}]{} (95,-3)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(d)**]{}]{}
This figure demonstrates that the proton-proton collisions producing coplanar electron-positron pairs can be efficiently selected from the background of minimum bias events. A reduction of the signal rate seen for the $\bf{B2}$ field configuration as compared to the $\bf{B0}$ configuration is driven mainly by radiation of hard photons by the electrons/positrons passing the host detector dead material. The signal to noise ratio is the largest for the smallest reduced acoplanarity cutoff. It underlines the need for a fine $\phi$-segmentation of the luminosity detector.
(130,70) (0,0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65,0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} ( 33,-5)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(a)**]{}]{} (95,-5)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(b)**]{}]{}
In Figure \[plot18\] the ratio of the signal to the background rates at the EF selection stage is shown as a function of the machine luminosity for the three values of the upper limit of the reduced acoplanarity for the two settings of the detector magnetic field. These plots show that, already for the model of the base-line detector, the proposed event selection procedure assures a comfortable value of the signal to noise ratio over a large range of the machine luminosities. The drop of the signal to noise ratio for large luminosities is driven solely by a decreasing probability of the silent bunch crossing. For the $\bf{B2}$ case the signal to background ratio can be improved significantly by selecting events in a narrow bin of the reduced acoplanarity.
(130,60) (0,0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65,0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} ( 33,-5)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(a)**]{}]{} (95,-5)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(b)**]{}]{}
(130,60) (0,0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} (65,0)[(0,0)\[lb\][ ]{}]{} ( 33,-5)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(a)**]{}]{} (95,-5)[(0,0)\[cb\][**(b)**]{}]{}
In Figure \[plot19\] the signal rates for events passing the EF selection stage are shown as a function of the machine luminosity for the three values of the reduced acoplanarity cut. The rates drop significantly below the initial level of 1 Hz level discussed in [@first] but are sufficiently high to provide a statistically precise measurement of the luminosity.
For the luminosities below $L\simeq 6\cdot 10^{32}$ s$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$ the rate of the signal events rises with increasing luminosity. At higher luminosities the apparent rate drop is a consequence increasing average number of collisions per bunch crossing. For $L \simeq 6 \cdot 10^{32}$s$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$ a 1% statistical precision can be achieved over the integrated time intervals of about 30 hours for the $\bf{B0}$ configuration and about 400 hours for the $\bf{B2}$ configuration. These time intervals could be decreased significantly if the LVL1 track acoplanarity tagging were made in vicinity of the collision vertex - a solution which is presently out of reach for the existing trackers of the LHC detectors but can be reconsidered while upgrading the LHC detector’s trackers for the high luminosity phase of collider operation.
It is important to note that the direct extension of the proposed method beyond the luminosity value of $L= 10^{33}$s$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$ requires at least one of the following three possible upgrades of the base-line luminosity detector:
- adding a precise hit-timing measurement,
- adding the z-planes to the luminosity detector and developing fast algorithms capable to determine the z-position of the track origins with a 1 mm precision within the LVL1 trigger latency,
- adding the LVL1 trigger electron/pion rejection capacity functions.
If such upgrades are not made, the absolute luminosity can be measured in the low and medium luminosity periods and subsequently “transported" to the high luminosity periods. Foundation of such a procedure is precise monitoring of the relative instantaneous luminosity over the whole range of the LHC luminosities and in fine time intervals.
Monitoring of Instantaneous Luminosity
=======================================
Goals
-----
There are two basic reasons to measure the relative, instantaneous changes of the luminosity, $L(t)$, with the highest precision:
- the method discussed here can reach the absolute luminosity precision target only for selected runs and selected bunch crossings and must be subsequently transported (extrapolated) to all the runs and bunch crossings,
- the statistically significant samples of the electron-positron pair production events are collected over the time periods which are sizeably longer than the time scales of the changes in the detector recorded data quality (the electronic noise, the beam related noise, the event pile-up, the detector calibration and efficiencies, etc.) – the time evolution of the corresponding corrections must thus be weighed according to the instantaneous luminosity in the precision measurement procedures.
Precise measurement of the relative instantaneous luminosity in fine time intervals is bound to be based on the rate of strong rather than electromagnetic interactions of the beam particles. In the scheme proposed in this paper the on-line luminosity is determined by counting the luminosity detector in-time track segments produced in strong interactions of the colliding protons. It is determined using solely the luminosity detector data and its local data acquisition system. The on-line luminosity is determined in ${\cal O}(1)$ minute intervals. The corresponding final off-line luminosity is then recalculated using the data recorded by the host detector.
Counters
--------
The following luminosity detector counters are proposed for a precision measurement of the instantaneous, relative on-line luminosities:
1. [**Track-Global**]{} - representing the mean number of the in-time track segments per bunch crossing both in the left and in the right side of the luminosity detector,
2. [**Track-Global-OR**]{} - representing the mean number of the in-time track segments per bunch crossing seen in both parts of the luminosity detector with the additional requirement that only those bunch crossings are considered for which there is at least one in-time track segment in either the left or in the right side of the luminosity detector,
3. [**Track-Global-AND**]{} - representing the mean number of the in-time track segments per bunch crossing in both sides of the luminosity detector with the additional requirement that only those bunch crossing are considered for which there is at least one in-time track segment in each of the luminosity detector sides,
4. [**Track-Event-OR**]{} - representing the fraction of bunch crossings with at least one in-time track segment either in the left or in the right half of the detector,
5. [**Track-Event-AND**]{} - representing the fraction of bunch crossings with at least one in-time track segment in each of the detector halfs,
6. [**Track-Left (Right)**]{} - representing the mean number of the in-time track segments per bunch crossing in the left (right) part of the luminosity detector,
7. [**Track-Event-OR-Left(Right)**]{} - representing the fraction of bunch crossings with at least one in-time track segment in the left (right) side of the luminosity detector,
8. [**Track-Sector($i_{L(R)})$**]{} - representing the mean number of the in-time track segments per bunch crossing in the $i_{L(R)}$–th $\phi$-sector of the left (right) side of the luminosity detector,
9. [**Track-Sector-OR($i_{L(R)})$**]{} - representing the fraction of bunch crossings with at least one in-time track segment in the $i_{L(R)}$–th $\phi$-sector of the left (right) side of the luminosity detector,
10. [**Track-Sector-Coinc($i_L,i_R)$**]{} - representing the mean number of the in-time track segments per bunch crossing in the $i_{L}$–th $\phi$-sector of the left detector side and in the $i_{R}$–th $\phi$-sector of the right detector side,
11. [**Track-Sector-Coinc-AND($i_L,i_R)$**]{} - representing the fraction of bunch crossings with at least one in-time track segment both in the $i_{L}$–th $\phi$-sector of the left detector side and in the $i_{R}$–th $\phi$-sector of the right detector side,
12. [**Track-SBC**]{} - representing the fraction of bunch crossings with no in-time track segments in each detector side.
Subdividing the sample of track segments into 36 $\phi$-segment sub-samples allows to provide precise measurements over the whole range of the LHC luminosities ($10^{30} - 10^{34}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$) independently of the number of pile-up collisions occurring within the same bunch crossing.
The counting is done separately for paired, unpaired (isolated and non-isolated) and empty (isolated and non-isolated) bunch crossings. The counters proposed above, together with the corresponding hit-based and out-of-time track segments based counters, provide the necessary input data to determine also the instantaneous luminosity of the LHC in the whole range of the average number of collisions per bunch crossing, $< \mu >$ and in the full range of the dispersion of the bunch-by-bunch luminosity. The track segment based counters, contrary to the LUCID or BCM detector ones [@ATLAS_LUMI], are insensitive to the beam induced background and afterglow effects obscuring the extrapolation of the van der Meer scan luminosity to arbitrary data collection periods. Moreover, they can be precisely controlled in the off-line analysis of the host detector tracks traversing the luminosity detector volume.
While the first five counters provide a fast diagnostic for the $L$ and $<\mu >$ dependent optimisation of the luminosity counting method, the following six counters are used directly by the instantaneous luminosity measurement algorithms. A detailed presentation of the counting algorithms is outside the scope of the present paper and will not be discussed here. The only aspect which may be elucidated is the extension of presently applied methods of the instantaneous luminosity measurement [@ATLAS_LUMI] to the full range of $<
\mu >$. As the $< \mu >$ value increases the inclusive track counters are replaced, at first by counting of tracks separately in each of the $\phi$-sectors of both detector parts, and eventually, at the highest $< \mu >$, by counting of the left-right $\phi$-sector coincidences. For such a “step-by-step" procedure the unfolding of the number of interaction per bunch crossing $< \mu >$ is no longer necessary.
Since the $L(t)$ value is determined locally by the luminosity detector algorithms it is, by definition, independent of the host detector dead time. Moreover, the relative luminosity can be monitored over the time periods when the host detector sub-components are in the stand-by mode.
The precise off-line corrected $L(t)$ values can be determined for all the time periods for which at least the tracker and the calorimeter are in the data taking mode. The off-line correction factors can be determined using the sample of the host detector reconstructed tracks traversing the fiducial volume of the luminosity detector. The tracks are parasitically sampled with $\cal{O}$(1) kHz frequency using the sample of the host detector recorded events.
In the method based on the track segments the event pile-up plays a positive role. It allows to increase the track sampling frequency and, as a consequence, to control the off-line correction factors in finer than ${\cal O}(1)$ minute time intervals.
Absolute Luminosity
===================
Low Luminosity Periods
----------------------
We shall consider first the case of the luminosity determination during the low instantaneous luminosity periods defined by the following condition on the average number of interaction per bunch crossing: $<\mu> \ll 1$. In these periods the probability of the silent bunch crossings is sufficiently large to base the luminosity determination on the measurement of the rate of the bunch crossings with exclusive production of electron-positron pairs.
The integrated luminosity $L_{int}$ is calculated using the following formula: $$L_{int} = \sum_{t_i} \frac{N_s(t_i)\cdot(1- \beta(t_i))}{P^{silent} (t_i) \cdot Acc(t_i) \cdot \epsilon(t_i) \cdot \sigma_{e+e-} }
\label{eq:lumi}$$ where,
- $N_s(t_i)$ is the total number of the exclusive electron-positron pair candidates passing the LVL1, LVL2 and EF selection criteria which were recorded over the time interval $(t_i, t_i +\Delta t_i)$;
- $\beta(t_i)$ is the fraction of the total number of the exclusive electron-positron pair candidates passing the LVL1, LVL2 and EF selection criteria which originate from the background strong interaction processes. This quantity is determined using a monitoring sample of the reconstructed TPZ trigger events. The rate of pairs created in strong interaction is measured in the $0.1 < \delta\phi_r < 0.3 $, where the contribution of the electromagnetic processes is negligible, and subsequently extrapolated to the signal $\delta\phi_r < \delta\phi_r^{cut}$ region. This extrapolation is insensitive to the particle production mechanism in strong interactions and can be performed in the model independent way. It is important to note that, as far as the silent bunch crossings are concerned, the time variation of $\beta(t_i)$ is very week as compared to the time variation of $N_s(t_i)$ and $P^{silent}(t_i)$. As a consequence only insignificant increase of the fraction of the host detector LVL1 band-width is required for the TPZ accepted events. The background sources other than those related to the genuine strong interactions processes are controlled using the unpaired and empty bunch crossings;
- $P^{silent} (t_i)$ is defined as: $$P^{silent} (t_i) = \frac{R_{SBC}}{R_{BC}},$$ where $R_{BC}$ and $R_{SBC}$ are, respectively, the total number of paired bunch crossings and the total number of silent bunch crossings in the sample of paired bunch crossings within the time interval $(t_i, t_i +\Delta t_i)$;
- $Acc(t_i)$ is the acceptance for the electron-positron pairs traversing the luminosity detector and satisfying the $ \delta\phi_r < \delta\phi_r^{cut}$ condition. The acceptance correction includes the detector smearing effects, the geometric acceptance of the luminosity detector, and all the dead material effects. The $Acc(t_i)$ values are determined in the model independent way using those of the particles produced are in recorded strong interaction collisions which traverse both the luminosity detector and the host detector tracker. The momentum scale, the detector smearing and the dead material effects, discussed in [@second], are directly measured using the abundant sources of electrons and positrons – the conversions of photons coming from the decays of neutral pions in the material of the beam pipe. The correction factors sensitive to the precise position of the electron (positron) track origin, are determined using the electron-positron pairs from Dalitz decays. The time variation of the acceptance due to an increase of the longitudinal emittance of the proton beam over the LHC run is controlled using the time evolution of the $z$-vertex distribution for the bulk of recorded events;
- the efficiency $\epsilon(t_i)$ can be decomposed as follows: $$\epsilon(t_i) = \epsilon_{extr-}(t_i) \cdot\epsilon_{extr+}(t_i)
\cdot\epsilon_{id-}(t_i) \cdot\epsilon_{id+}(t_i)\cdot P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF}
(t_i),$$ where: $\epsilon_{extr+}(t_i) (\epsilon_{extr-}(t_i))$ is the efficiency of linking of the positive (negative) charge luminosity detector track segments to the vertex constrained, SCT/Pixel ones; $\epsilon_{id-}(t_i)$ $(\epsilon_{id+}(t_i))$ is the electron (positron) identification efficiency in the host detector LAr calorimeter; $P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF} (t_i)$ is the fraction of the luminosity detector silent bunch crossing with no LUCID (BCM) particle hits and no reconstructed charged particle tracks pointing the electron-positron pair vertex. The linking efficiency and the electron/positron identification efficiencies are determined using the full sample of recorded and reconstructed events. Their rate (${\cal O}(200)$ Hz) is sufficiently large for a precise control of the time dependence of these efficiencies. The $P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF}(t_i)$ values are determined using the CTP-prescaled fraction of the SBC triggered events. As in the previous case, the time variation of $P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF}(t_i)$ is by far less important than that of $N_s(t_i)$ or $P^{silent}(t_i)$;
- $\sigma_{e+e-}$ is the total exclusive $e^+e^-$ pair production cross section. For exclusive coplanar pairs reconstructed in the fiducial volume of the luminosity detector this cross section is largely dominated by the cross section for peripheral collisions of the beam particles mediated by two photons [@first].
The acceptance and efficiencies depend upon the momenta of the electron and positron. This dependence and the corresponding integrations in eq. (\[eq:lumi\]) was dropped in the formulae for simplicity.
The strength of presented method is that it is based on low $p_T$ electrons/positrons which are produced abundantly in the minimum bias collisions and recorded with the host detector, independently of the LVL1/LVL2 and EF class of events. These particles play the role of high precision calibration candles for the luminosity measurement procedures allowing to avoid almost completely the use of the Monte-Carlo based methods relying both on the modeling of the strong interactions and on the modeling of the luminosity detector performance. In addition, since the luminosity events are processed by the TDAQ system of the host detector, no corrections for the detector dead time and event losses at various stages of the data filtering process are required for the absolute normalisation of any recorded data sample.
Medium Luminosity Periods
-------------------------
In the phases of the LHC operation when the average number of $pp$ interactions per bunch crossing is $<\mu> = {\cal O}(1)$ the probability of an overlap of the electromagnetic and the strong interaction driven collisions becomes large and the losses of the $e^+e^-$ pair events by applying the exclusivity criteria at the LVL2 and EF levels need to be monitored with significantly higher precision and at much finer time intervals.
The remedy is to extend the definition of the Silent Bunch Crossing, based so far exclusively on the luminosity detector signals, to a Global Silent Bunch Crossing (GSBC) based on the CTP coincidence of the SBC bit with the corresponding SBC bits coming from the LUCID and from the BCM detectors. The GSBC occurrence probability, $P_G^{silent}(t_i)$, would have to be monitored with precision similar to that of the instantaneous luminosity.
Another, more elegant solution, is to multiplex selected LUCID and BCM LVL1 trigger signals and to send them as the input signals to the luminosity detector trigger logic. In this case, a care would have to be taken to position the luminosity detector trigger electronics racks in a place where the LUCID and BCM signals could arrive in-time.
The luminosity formula \[eq:lumi\] remain valid for the medium luminosity periods. The only change with respect to the low luminosity case is to replace $P^{silent}(t_i)$ by $P_G^{silent}(t_i)$ and to replace $P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF}(t_i)$ by $P^{silent}_{EF}(t_i)$ representing the fraction of the global silent bunch crossings in which no reconstructed charged particle tracks pointing the lepton pair vertex were found within the tracker volume.
High Luminosity Periods With Base-line Luminosity Detector
----------------------------------------------------------
For the phases of the LHC operation when the average number of $pp$ interactions per bunch crossing $<\mu> \gg 1$ the method based on the counting of $e^+e^-$ pairs in the restricted sub-sample of silent bunch crossings does not work any longer. There are two ways to proceed. An optimal one is to upgrade the capacities of the luminosity detector. This will be discussed in the next section. Another one, discussed below, uses the base-line detector and reorganises the data taking at the expense of a small reduction of the time-integrated luminosity. This method uses only a fraction of collisions for which the condition $<\mu> = {\cal O}(1)$ is fulfilled. The absolute luminosity is then extrapolated to the arbitrary data taking period using the measurement of the relative, instantaneous luminosity.
There are three ways of collecting $<\mu> = {\cal O}$(1) data over the high luminosity running period of the LHC.
1. The first, obvious one, is based on dedicated machine runs with reduced luminosity per bunch crossing. If a fraction below 10% of the machine running time is devoted to such runs the effect of reduced overall luminosity on the physics results would be unnoticeable for the searches of rare events and very useful for the physics programs requiring large samples of events with single collisions per bunch crossing. This programme profits from the relatively large cross section for the electron-positron pair production.
2. In the second method the luminosity detector triggers are activated only at the end of the machine luminosity run when the currents of the beams decrease or the beam emittance increases such that the $<\mu> = {\cal O}(1)$ condition is fulfilled. The applicability of this method depends upon the beam life-time and the run-length of the collider. For the present running strategy, maximising the collected luminosity, only a small increase of the range is feasible.
3. The third method would require a special LHC bunch-train injection pattern in which one of the twelve bunch trains (4 $\times$ 72 bunches), reflecting the complete Linac, Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB), Proton Synchrotron (PS) and Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) cycle, contains bunches with a reduced number of protons. The reduction factor, $~ \sqrt{<\mu>}$, depends upon the average number of collisions per bunch crossing for the remaining eleven bunch trains. The luminosity detector triggers are proposed to be masked unless they are in coincidence with crossings of the low intensity bunches. If such running mode can be realised at the LHC[^9] the absolute and relative luminosities could be sampled over the same time periods. This could allow for a drastic reduction of all the relative, time dependent measurement uncertainties. More importantly, a concurrent storage of the highest possible intensity bunches with the low intensity bunches at the LHC would be beneficial for the LHC precision measurement programme. It would allow concurrent measurement of the pile-up effects in those of the physics observables which need to be measured over the large time span, thus inevitably over a large $<\mu>$ range. The above running scenario is technically feasible [@Myers], but requires a wide consensus of the four LHC experiments.
In each of the above strategies the extrapolation of the absolute luminosity measured for the $<\mu>= {\cal O}(1)$ bunch crossings, to an arbitrary bunch crossing set and data collection period is derived from the following $\phi$-sector track counters: [**Track-Sector$(i_{L(R)})$**]{}, [**Track-Sector-OR$(i_{L(R)})$**]{}, [**Track-Sector-Coinc$(i_L,j_R)$**]{} and [**Track-Sector-Coinc-AND$(i_L,j_R)$**]{}). The reason for choosing the method based upon the $\phi$-sector track rates is to assure that the probability of an observation of a track segment in a restricted phase space per minimum bias event is sufficiently small to disregard the pile-up effects in the luminosity calculation algorithms in the whole luminosity range: ([**Track-Sector($i_{L(R)}$)**]{}$ \ll 1$ or [**Track-Sector-Coinc($i_L,j_R)$**]{} $\ll 1$). The statistical precision of this method is assured by the use of the mean values over all the $\phi$-sectors of the [**Track-Sector-OR($i_{L(R)})$**]{} or [**Track-Sector-Coinc-AND($i_L,j_R)$**]{}.
High Luminosity Periods with Upgraded Luminosity Detector
---------------------------------------------------------
In all the studies presented so far in this paper the model of the base-line detector was used. For the direct measurement of the absolute luminosity in large $<\mu>$ runs an upgrade of the detector functionalities is necessary. The detailed discussion of such an upgrade is beyond the present work scope. However, it is worth sketching already here the basic conceptual and hardware aspects of such an upgrade.
The principal upgrade goal is to provide, within the LVL1 trigger latency, not only the luminosity detector in-time track segments but, in addition, the measured $z$-positions of their origin with ${\cal O}(1)$mm precision. The search of the coplanar particle pairs must be restricted, in large $<\mu>$ runs producing multiple vertices, only to the track segments pointing to the same vertex and satisfying the condition that no other luminosity detector track segment, except for the two coplanar tracks, is associated with it. Similarly, at the EF level, the luminosity events have to be selected only if there were no reconstructed host detector tracks pointing to the $e^+e^-$ pair vertex. It should be noted that the LUCID and the BCM detectors’ signals can no longer be used in the search process of the exclusive electron-positron pairs. The corresponding reduction of the rejection power of the background events based on the exclusivity criteria would have to be recuperated by a more efficient electron/pion recognition. On the other hand, the restriction of the luminosity measurement to only the silent bunch crossings would no longer be necessary. The rate of selected electron-positron pairs would increase significantly at the price of a smaller signal to noise ratio, which in turn could be compensated by a higher cut-off on the electron (positron) momentum leading to a better pion rejection than the one assumed in the base-line model.
Two directions of upgrading the luminosity detector can be singled out. The first one is to use the detector technology which provides a high precision timing of the particle hits, such as the one being developed for the Roman Pot Project [@RomanPot]. The use of the hit timing was discussed in our earlier paper [@second]. In addition an extra radial segmentation of the luminosity detector would have to complement the hit-timing based backtracking by reconstructing the track segments in three rather than in two dimensions. Both can be achieve applying for example the micromegas technology [@micromegas].
The second one, is to use a hadron blind detector [@Charpak]. Note that in both cases a significant increase of the processing power of the LVL1 trigger FPGAs would be required.
Merits of [**B0**]{} Runs
=========================
All the algorithms and methods presented above can be used for the runs with the nominal strength of the host detector magnetic field and in those for which the solenoid magnetic field switched off.
The merits of supplementing the standard [**B2**]{} configuration runs by the dedicated, [**B0**]{} ones are numerous. First of all, the luminosity measurement becomes almost insensitive to the radiation of photons by the electrons and positrons traversing the host detector dead material. The [**B0**]{} runs allow to cross-check the precision of the understanding of radiation effects which otherwise have to be monitored using the Dalitz pairs and photon conversions. Moreover, the complexity of the luminosity detector FPGA algorithms would be drastically reduced facilitating the applicability of the proposed method to the periods of high luminosity. This is because, only in the [**B0**]{} case, the algorithms reconstructing the vertices of the interactions occurring in the same bunch crossing can be decoupled from the acoplanarity algorithms. In addition, the EF exclusivity cut based on the reconstructed host detector reconstructed tracks is significantly more efficient in rejecting fake electron-positron pairs due to the strong interactions (all the charged particle tracks including a very low momentum ones could be reconstructed). It has to be stressed that the rate of the selected coplanar electron-positron pairs in the high luminosity periods reaches the ${\cal O}(1)$Hz level. Therefore, only insignificant fraction of the luminosity would be sacrificed for the absolute luminosity measurement runs.
The propagation of the absolute luminosity from the [**B0**]{} runs to the [ **B2**]{} runs can be performed precisely and elegantly by a simultaneous measurement of the rate $Z$ bosons in the [**B0**]{} runs[^10] which can be subsequently used for the absolute luminosity extrapolation to any [**B2**]{} period of the duration larger than that required to collect ${\cal
O}(10)$pb$^{-1}$ of the integrated luminosity. Note, that several systematic uncertainties of the absolute luminosity measurement cancel in the ratio of cross section for the coplanar electron-positron pair production and to that for the $Z$ boson production (among these are the LAr absolute scale error, remaining effects of electron radiation, etc..,)
The advantage of the scheme described above comes from the extraordinary coincidence that in the fiducial volume of the proposed luminosity detector the rate of the electron-positron pairs produced in “elastic" collisions of point-like protons is comparable to the rate of the $Z$ bosons produced in the inelastic ones.
Absolute Cross Sections
=======================
The luminosity method proposed in this series of papers extends and simplifies the present techniques of the absolute normalisation of those of the distributions of physical observables which are derived from the data collected over a long time-period. The standard luminosity block based technique [@ATLAS_LUMI] remains valid. However, it is no longer indispensable.
In the proposed method users could choose independently the optimal fraction of collected data satisfying the data quality criteria defined on the bunch-by-bunch rather than on the block-by-block basis. The only requirement is that the same criteria are used both for the user selected sample and for the corresponding sample of the electron-positron pair luminosity events. Instead of the list of valid luminosity blocks the user would be provided with the ready-to-use offline algorithms to calculate the integrated luminosity corresponding to the user-specific data quality criteria[^11]. The overall detector dead time and all the losses of the events at any stage of the data selection process which are independent of the data content (LVL2/EF processors’ timeouts, etc.) need no longer be monitored and accounted for - these effects are automatically taken into account in the coherent analysis of the two data samples:
- the user selected sample,
- the electron-positron pair luminosity event sample.
The key simplification, proposed below, is to avoid altogether all the uncertainties on the rate of the silent bunch crossing and on the time dependent efficiencies of the $e^+e^-$ pair selection. The underlying trick is to assign each event of the user selected samples of bunch crossings into the following two samples: the first one containing all the user preferred events and the second one containing only those events for which there were no luminosity detector track segments other than those associated with selected $pp$ collision. The absolute luminosity is determined first for the latter class of events and subsequently extrapolated, using the measurement of the relative luminosity, to the full sample. For such a procedure the uncertainties in the monitoring of the silent bunch crossings cancel in the ratio of the numbers of accepted luminosity and the user-selected events. The electron-positron pair selection efficiencies for the luminosity events are calculated, within this method, using only the soft particles produced in the user-selected events. Thus all the efficiencies can be sampled in the same way for the luminosity and for the user selected events. Precise monitoring of the time dependent detector and the beam quality related features is thus no longer necessary.
Systematic Uncertainties
========================
The overall luminosity measurement errors, are dominated by the systematic measurement uncertainties[^12]. The key element of the measurement strategy presented in this series of papers, allowing for a significant reduction of the systematic errors and for a precise control of the remaining ones, is the placement of the luminosity detector within the host detector tracker and calorimeter geometrical acceptance regions.
The dominant systematic uncertainties, reflecting all the time dependent aspects of the machine and detector performances, can be controlled using the soft particle tracks and energy deposits in the sample of ${\cal O}(100)$ bunch crossings recorded by the host detector. The rate of soft particles is large enough to use only the preselected bunch crossing data for the monitoring[^13]. If the sample of the bunch crossings chosen for the monitoring is identical to the one selected for the measurement of any given observable than, by definition, both the luminosity measurement monitoring data and the user selected data are sampled concurrently. Such a concurrent sampling does not only reduce the systematic errors but, in addition, simplifies the procedure of the absolute normalisation of the measured observables by replacing the time dependent quantities, entering the luminosity master formula, by the quantities averaged over the selected sample of bunch crossings. This is one of the merits of the proposed method. It allows for a continuous improvement of the accuracy of the absolute measurements with the increase of the measurement time without a necessity of a precise book-keeping of all the time dependent detector and machine performance features.
Background Subtraction
----------------------
The fraction of the total number of exclusive electron-positron pair candidates coming from the strong interaction background sources, $\beta(t_i)$, is determined using solely the monitoring data, bypassing all the modeling uncertainties of the minimum bias events. The upper bound of its initial (anticipated) systematic uncertainty was determined using the simulated PYTHIA events. This procedure, illustrated in Figure \[plot20\], mimics algorithmically the ultimate procedure based on the recorded events.
The continuous line, depicted in Figure \[plot20\], represents a linear fit to the reduced acoplanarity distribution of the unlike charge particle pairs for those of the background events (PYTHIA) for which the TPZ LVL1 trigger bit was set to 1. This distribution was fitted in the $(0.1, 0.3)$ interval in which the contribution of the electron-positron pair events is negligible [@first], and then extrapolated down to $\delta\phi_r = 0$ using the fit parameters. The extrapolation result is represented by the dash-doted line in Figure \[plot20\].
In the next step, the $\delta\phi_r$ distribution for the like charge pairs satisfying the $TPZ = 1$ condition was fitted in the $(0.1, 0.3)$ interval and extrapolated to $\delta\phi_r = 0$ using the fit parameters. The extrapolation result is marked with the dotted line in Figure \[plot20\]. The upper bound of the background subtraction uncertainty corresponds to the spread of the distributions and is of the order of 0.4% for $\delta\phi_r < 0.05$[^14].
This plot proves that the extrapolation to the small acoplanarity region is insensitive to the total particle pair charge and reflects merely the phase-space for multi-particle production in strong interactions.
Acceptance Correction
---------------------
The systematic uncertainties on the acceptance, $Acc(t_i)$, are, as before, controlled using the host detector recorded data. The systematic effects are subdivided into two classes: the host detector effects and the luminosity detector effects.
The contribution of the host detector effects such as:
- the losses of the electrons and positrons on the way from the interaction vertex to the luminosity detector fiducial volume – due to hard photon radiation in the material of the beam pipe or of the host detector,
- the biases in the reconstructed momentum scale of those of the host detector reconstructed charged particles which traverse the fiducial volume of luminosity detector,
- the momentum resolution biases,
- the biases in the absolute energy calibration of the LAr calorimeter (important only for the [**B0**]{} configuration),
- the systematic shifts and resolution biases in the reconstructed azimuthal angles of particles at the interaction vertices,
to the overall measurement error is significantly smaller that the contribution of the luminosity detector effects[^15].
The luminosity detector systematic errors were determined by simulating the full data selection and measurement chain with the biases introduced on one-by-one basis. The goal of these simulations was to quantify the impact of each of the luminosity detector systematic effects on the final systematic uncertainty of the measured luminosity. The results of these simulations can be summarised as follows:
- the effect of the luminosity detector misplacement by $0.5$ cm with respect to the nominal $z$-collision point of the LHC bunches translates into a 0.3% luminosity bias,
- the effect of decentering of the luminosity detector with respect to the beam axis ($x = y = 0$) by $1$ mm translates into a 0.8% luminosity bias,
- the effect of the relative $\phi$-tilt of the luminosity detector planes with respect to each other by 1 mrad translates into a 0.1% luminosity bias,
- the effect of misjudgement of the length of the LHC bunches by 1 cm around the central value of 7.5 cm translates into a 0.6% luminosity bias,
- the effect of 0.1% uncertainty on the value of magnetic field in the volume of the host detector tracker and in the fiducial volume of the luminosity detector translates into a 0.4% luminosity bias.
These results show that already for the initial geometrical survey of the luminosity detector, before applying the alignment corrections deduced form the monitoring data, these contributions are below a 1% level. Ultimately the luminosity detector contribution to the overall measurement uncertainty are expected to be driven by the monitoring precision of the length of the LHC bunches. The corresponding biases are expected to be smaller than 1%, provided that the length of the LHC bunches is controlled with a 10% precision.
Efficiencies
------------
The systematic errors of the efficiencies of the electron/positron identification and of the efficiencies of linking of the luminosity detector tracks to the host detector tracks reflect the purity of the monitoring sample of small invariant mass electrons and positions pairs originated from photons converted in the beam pipe and from the Dalitz decays of neutral pions.
A special care have to be taken to understand the dependence of the electron selection efficiency on the isolation of the electromagnetic cluster. For low and medium luminosity runs this can be done by pre-selecting only those of the minimum bias events which are characterised by a low multiplicity of particles traversing the fiducial volume of the luminosity detector. For the high luminosity runs the efficiency of electron identification decreases and must be monitored in the instantaneous luminosity dependent way.
The impact of the precision of monitoring of $P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF}(t_i)$ on the luminosity measurement systematic uncertainty is expected to be negligible in the low luminosity periods in which the $P^{silent}_{LVL2/EF}$ value is approaching 1. For medium luminosities this quantity needs to be precisely monitored using the dedicated samples of random events. The monitoring precision and the corresponding precision of the luminosity measurement depend only on the fraction of the total host detector throughput which can be allocated to these events.
In general systematic errors reflecting the achievable precision of monitoring of the selection efficiencies can be properly estimated using only real data collected at the LHC. They are not expected to contribute significantly to the overall measurement uncertainty for the low luminosity periods. To which extent this can be achieved for the medium and high luminosity runs remains to be demonstrated.
Theoretical Cross Section
-------------------------
The following source of uncertainties on the theoretical calculations of $\sigma_{e+e-}$ were taken into account:
- the uncertainty of the elastic form factors of the proton,
- the uncertainty in inelastic form factors of the proton, in the resonance, photo-production, transition and in the deep inelastic regions,
- the uncertainty in the strong and electromagnetic re-scattering cross sections,
- the uncertainty in the higher order electromagnetic radiative corrections.
The first two sources of systematic errors have been analysed and evaluated in our previous paper [@first]. It was found that for the $e^+e^-$ pairs in the fiducial volume of the luminosity detector fulfilling the requirement: $\delta\phi_r^{cut} < 0.01$ the present uncertainty on the elastic and inelastic proton form factors translates into a 0.3% precision of the cross section. The size of the re-scattering corrections was analysed and found to be smaller than 0.1% in the above kinematic region. At present, the largest contribution to the total uncertainty comes from the missing calculation of the higher order electromagnetic radiative corrections. Their contribution to the cross sections can reach 1%. There is, however, no other than a technical obstacle in calculations of these corrections – if requested they can be made to the precision significantly better than the form factors related uncertainties [@Skrzypek].
Conclusions and Outlook
=======================
It has been demonstrated that the proposed method of the luminosity measurement has a large potential to provide the highest achievable precision at hadron colliders. It is based on the electromagnetic collisions of the beam particles in the kinematic regime where they can be treated as point-like leptons and, as a consequence, their collision cross sections can be calculated with a precision approaching the one achieved at the lepton colliders.
The rate of a fraction of these collisions which can be selected and reconstructed using a dedicated luminosity detector is large enough to deliver better that 1% precision over the data collected over less than one month of the data taking with a nominal solenoid current, and a couple of days for the ${\bf B0}$ field configuration. The systematic measurement uncertainties can be controlled to a better than 1% precision, by using parasitically, samples of the host detector recorded events. The absolute luminosity measurement procedures are insensitive to the modeling of the collisions mediated by the strong interaction.
The proposed method can be directly applied by the LHCb experiment which can take a full profit from the sizable Lorentz boost of the lepton-pair rest frame allowing to replace the electron-positron pairs by the unlike charge muon pairs which radiate less and can be identified more easily. Thus the LHCb and the host detector distributions could be cross-normalised to a high precision.
The method presented in this series of papers can be directly used in the $pA$ and $AA$ collision modes of the LHC collider. For these collision modes the signal-to-background ratio increases, respectively, by $Z^2$ and $Z^4$ due to the nucleus charge coherence effects. Moreover, a significant increase of the signal rate allows to retain its high statistical precision.
Last but not the least, the scaling of the collider energy dependent rate of the luminosity events can be theoretically controlled with a per-mille precision allowing to cross normalise the data taken at variable collision energies.
This series of papers is only a first step towards its ultimate goal: an implementation of the proposed method in the LHC environment. The preliminary studies presented in this series of papers, and the use of the base-line detector model, are sufficient as a proof of feasibility of the method. Any further steps must be preceded by the acceptation of the method by one of the LHC collaboration. Should this happen the concrete detector design using the host detector preferred technology would be the next step. A conservative approach would be to design a detector for the measurement of the absolute luminosity in the dedicated low/medium luminosity periods. An ambitious programme must have as a target an upgrade the present base-line detector concept such that it can be directly used in the high luminosity period of the machine operation. This is anything but easy but the gain in the precision of all the LHC measurements makes it worth an effort.
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[^1]: This work was supported in part by the programme of co-operation between the IN2P3 and Polish Laboratories No. 05-117, Polonium Programme No. 17783NY and Polish Grant No. 665/N-CERN-ATLAS/2010/0.
[^2]: Adding the pseudorapidity segmented $z$-planes (or equivalently $\phi$-tilted planes) would certainly be useful, in particular for the periods of the highest LHC luminosities. Since, the main purpose of this paper is a proof of principle, these aspect will not be discussed further here. The presented luminosity detector model can be thus considered as the model of the base-line detector satisfying a minimal set of requirements.
[^3]: Note that this requirement may lead to adding, if necessary for a chosen technology, an extra, coarse $\phi$-granularity timing plane in front of the three highly segmented hit planes.
[^4]: The $N_0$ parameter depends upon the processing power of FPGA-based electronics.
[^5]: For a detailed discussion of the timing of the luminosity detector signals see [@second].
[^6]: The LVL2 and EF processing of the monitoring events will be discussed later while addressing the precision of the proposed luminosity measurement method.
[^7]: The LUCID “particle hit" is expected to be set at a sufficiently high discriminator threshold to be as much as possible noise-free.
[^8]: The electron-positron pair signal events were generated with the LPAIR [@LPAIR] generator. This generator was upgraded to suit our needs (see [@first] for details). For the simulations of the minimum bias events the PYTHIA [@PYTHIA] event generator was used. As discussed in details in our earlier papers [@first], [@second], the studies were based on simplified methods of particle tracking in the detector magnetic field, parametrised simulation of their multiple scattering in the dead material, and on conservative estimation of the effects of the photon radiation by electrons.
[^9]: Such a running mode is anything but easy in the presence of coherent bunch interaction effects which depend on the bunch charge. The maximal acceptable dispersion range of the bunch intensities would have to be determined by the LHC machine experts. There are several consequences for such a running scenario. For example, one has to take into account here that the four LHC experiments are running at the same time, and that the colliding bunch partners are different in different Interaction Points (IPs) of the LHC – it is worth stressing here that the distance between the ATLAS and CMS IPs is half of the LHC ring circumference, and that the IPs at which the bunches of different intensity interact are those of the ALICE and LHCb experiments for which maximising the collected luminosity is of secondary importance.
[^10]: The invariant mass of the electron-positron pair is determined in the [**B0**]{} runs using the angles of the leptons and the LAr energy deposits linked to the lepton tracks.
[^11]: Physicists using the data coming from different detector components may prefer different data quality criteria. In addition, depending on their tasks they may reject algorithmically, again on bunch-by-bunch basis, a sample of selected bunch crossings properties e.g. reject the bunch crossings with interactions of the halo particles within the detector volume.
[^12]: For example, for the machine luminosity of $L= 10^{33}$s$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$ the sampling time to reach the 1 % statistical precision of the luminosity measurement is three days for the [**B0**]{} runs and one month for the [**B2**]{} runs.
[^13]: Of the order of 10$^{5}$ electrons (positrons) coming from the photon conversions and crossing the luminosity detector volume are recorded over one minute.
[^14]: Note that the pairs used in the luminosity measurement contribute to the like sign pair sample only if the charge of one of the particles charge is wrongly reconstructed. For the low momentum particles the probability of the particle charge misidentification is small enough to be neglected. The sample of like sign pairs represents, thus, a pure background sample.
[^15]: The performance precision targets for the host detector can be relaxed by about an order of magnitude with respect to those necessary for the precision measurements of the parameters of the electroweak models such as e.g. the mass of the W bosons [@krasnySMparameters].
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Does MITE Make Right? On Decision-Making Under Normative Uncertainty Brian Hedden 1 Introduction We are not omniscient agents. Therefore, it is our lot in life to have to make decisions without being apprised of all of the relevant facts. We have to act under conditions of uncertainty. This uncertainty comes in at least two kinds. First, there is ignorance of descriptive facts; you might be ignorant of the potential causal impacts of the various actions available to you. For instance, you might be unsure whether to give the pills to your headache-suffering friend because you are uncertain whether they are painkillers or rat poison. Second, there is ignorance of normative facts, or facts about whether a certain action or outcome is good or bad, permissible or impermissible, blameworthy or praiseworthy, etc.1 For instance, you might know exactly what would happen (descriptively speaking) if you (or your partner) had an abortion and what would happen if you didn't, and yet still be uncertain about whether having an abortion is a morally permissible thing to do.2 Due to the ubiquity of normative, and not just descriptive, uncertainty, we might want a theory that provides some guidance about how to take this normative uncertainty into account in deciding what to do. While I will be concerned with specifically moral uncertainty, much of what I say will carry over to other cases of normative uncertainty, such as uncertainty about what would be instrumentally rational to do or what it would be epistemically rational to believe. At this stage-setting phase, some terminology will be helpful. Let us say that what you objectively ought to do depends only on how the world in fact is, and not on how you believe the world to be. For Utilitarians, what you objectively ought to do is whatever will in fact maximize happiness, irrespective of your beliefs about what will maximize happiness. For non-consequentialists, what you objectively ought to do might depend, for instance, on facts about whether 1Moral non-cognitivists might resist talk of moral facts. But I do not take this paper to be committed one way or the other regarding moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism. I speak of moral facts merely for the sake of convenience. See Sepielli (2012) for discussion of how the problem of what to do under conditions of normative uncertainty arises even for non-cognitivists. 2This example is from Sepielli (2009). 1 some act would in fact cause an innocent person to die (thereby violating that person's rights), irrespective of your beliefs about whether it would cause an innocent person to die. And let us say that what you subjectively ought to do depends in some way on your descriptive beliefs about how the world is. For consequentialists, what you subjectively ought to do might be whatever will maximize expected world value (expected total happiness, for utilitarians), relative to your beliefs. And for non-consequentialists, what you subjectively ought to do might depend on whether you believe that some act would cause an innocent person to die. (Note that my usage of the term 'subjective ought' differs from that of some authors, who define what you subjectively ought to do as whatever you believe that you objectively ought to do. There are at least two ways in which my usage of the term differs from theirs. First, their usage is incompatible with an expectational account of what you subjectively ought to do, such as the consequentialist one just mentioned. Second, their usage makes the subjective ought simultaneously sensitive to both descriptive and normative uncertainty.) Neither the objective ought nor the subjective ought, on my usage, is sensitive to your moral uncertainty. We might then introduce a super-subjective ought and say that what you super-subjectively ought to do depends on both your descriptive uncertainty and your moral uncertainty. This gives us a tripartite distinction: Objective ought : Insensitive to your descriptive and moral uncertainty. Subjective ought : Sensitive to your descriptive uncertainty but insensitive to your moral uncertainty. Super-subjective ought : Sensitive to your descriptive and moral uncertainty. Before moving on, let me flag that making these distinctions does not commit one to the claim that the English word 'ought' is ambiguous or that it admits all and only these three readings. It may be, for instance, that modals are highly context-sensitive, so that different contexts can give rise to all sorts of readings of 'ought' claims. My aim here is simply to highlight some possible senses of 'ought' that may be of particular interest to normative theorists. The remainder of this paper is dedicated to evaluating the prospects for theorizing about decision-making under moral uncertainty. My evaluation, which is largely negative, has two parts. I begin by examining what has already emerged as the preeminent proposal for what you super-subjectively ought to do. This proposal takes the dominant theory of what you subjectively ought to do, namely expected value theory, and attempts to extend it to take into account your moral uncertainty as well. I argue that this proposal is unworkable. In the second part of my evaluation, I question whether we should want an account of decision-making under moral uncertainty in the first place. I tentatively suggest that a super-subjective ought has no important role to play in our normative theorizing and should thus be abandoned. There is no normatively 2 interesting sense of ought in which what you ought to do depends on your uncertainty about (fundamental) moral facts.3 In this respect, moral uncertainty is importantly different from descriptive uncertainty. 2 Does MITE Make Right? While theorizing about what you objectively and subjectively ought to do has a long and distinguished history, theorizing about the super-subjective ought, about decision-making under normative uncertainty, is still in its infancy. But already, a preeminent theory has emerged. This theory incorporates insights from the preeminent theory of the subjective ought, namely expected value theory. For this reason, it will be helpful to start with a brief overview of this theory. Suppose that we can represent your doxastic, or belief-like, state with a probability function P and that the value function V represents how good or bad different outcomes Oi are. If we are interested in what you morally ought to do, then V can be thought of as representing moral goodness in some way, while if we are interested in what you prudentially ought to do, then it can represent your own preferences or levels of happiness. Since we are concerned with morality, let us understand V in the former way. Then, we say that what you subjectively ought to do is to make-true the act-proposition with the highest expected moral value, defined thus: Expected Moral Value: EMV(A) = ∑ i P (Oi | A)V (Oi)4 Given the attractiveness of the expected value maximization framework for theorizing about the subjective ought, it is tempting to try to extend it to the super-subjective ought. If it is possible to represent all moral theories in expected value terms (this assumption will be questioned shortly5), then there is 3This is compatible with the idea that there may be natural language uses of 'ought' where the context is such as to give rise to a reading on which it is sensitive to your moral uncertainty. I am just denying that such a sense of 'ought' is important for purposes of normative theorizing. 4This is the formula for evidential expected value, rather than causal expected value. The debate over evidential decision theory and causal decision theory is an important one, but it is not our topic, and so I set it aside. 5See Sen (1982), Oddie and Milne (1991), Dreier (1993, Smith (2009), Colyvan, Cox, and Steele (2010), and Portmore (2011) among others, for discussion of this question outside the context of moral uncertainty. In my view, the considerations raised in section 2.2, among others, show that not all moral theories can be represented in expected value terms (or 'consequentialized,' insofar as this means being represented using a value function). More exactly, I take these considerations to show that not all moral theories can be represented in the same expected value maximization framework. Perhaps there are different modifications of the expected value framework that can helpfully represent different moral theories, but they cannot all be squeezed into the same framework. But that seems to be what is necessary in order to do the relevant trade-offs and aggregations needed to yield a theory about what on ought to do in light of one's moral uncertainty. 3 an apparently straightforward way in which to extend the expected value framework to deal with moral uncertainty as well. Expected moral value (EMV ) is an intratheoretical notion. When we take the expected moral value of an action on each moral theory and sum them up, weighted by the probability of each theory, we get an intertheoretical notion, which we can call the 'intertheoretic expectation.' Intertheoretic expectation: IE(A) = ∑ i P (Ti)EMVi(A) = ∑ i P (Ti) ∑ j P (Oj |A)Vi(Oj) Now, the proposal is that what you super-subjectively ought to do is to make-true the act-proposition with the highest intertheoretic expectation. Let us call this theory 'MITE,' for: Maximize InterTheoretic Expectation. MITE is a natural extension to the super-subjective ought of expected value theory as a theory of the subjective ought. Expected value theory evaluates an action by looking at how objectively good (or bad) an action would be in different states of the world and discounting that goodness by your degree of belief that that state of the world is actual. MITE evaluates an action by looking at how (subjectively) good (or bad) an action would be according to each moral theory you take seriously and discounting that goodness (or badness) by your degree of belief that that moral theory is correct. Versions of MITE have been defended by Lockhart (2000), Ross (2006), and Sepielli (2009, dissertation), and it has swiftly established itself as the dominant theory of the super-subjective ought. This is no accident. MITE has the attractive feature of taking into account both how confident you are in each moral theory and how good or bad the given act would be, according to each of those moral theories. (Later I will be questioning whether it makes sense to speak of how good or bad an act is, according to different moral theories, but for now I grant the intuition that such talk does make sense.) By contrast, a decision rule which just recommended acting in accordance with the moral theory to which you assign highest credence would ignore facts about the relative goodness or badness of acts according to the different moral views.6 You might be 51% confident that having an abortion would be slightly morally better than not having one, and 49% confident that having an abortion would be absolutely monstrous, but this decision rule would say that you should just go with the view you're 51% confident in. Similarly, a maximin-style decision rule which recommends ranking acts according to their worst possible moral badness and then performing the highest act in that ranking would ignore your differing levels of confidence in each moral theory. (In the next section, however, I will be questioning whether there are any grounds for making these sorts of comparisons between how good or bad a given act is, according to different moral theories.) 6This view is sometimes called the 'My Favorite Theory' view, and is defended by Gracely (1996) and Gustafsson and Torpman (2014). 4 For this reason, I would venture so far as to say that when it comes to trying to devise a formal theory of what you super-subjectively ought to do, MITE (or some slight variant thereof) is the only game in town. This is important, since if MITE ultimately fails, as I will argue it does, then this casts serious doubt on the prospects for coming up with any formal theory of what you super-subjectively ought to do. In 2.1 and 2.2, I consider two serious problems for MITE that show that its ambitions must be considerably scaled back. The first is the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons, first noted by Hudson (1989), Gracely (1996), and Lockhart (2000). To employ MITE, we must make precise comparisons of 'degrees of wrongness' across moral theories. I argue that there is no principled way to make these comparisons, unless we start off with a considerable number of judgments about what agents in various circumstances super-subjectively ought to do. Thus, MITE can at best aspire to take us from a smaller set of judgments about the super-subjective ought to a larger set of such judgments. The second problem is the impossibility of adequately representing certain sorts of moral theories, such as theories which distinguish between supererogatory and merely permissible acts, in expected value maximization terms, as MITE requires. If there are moral theories that cannot be squeezed into the expected value maximization framework that MITE presupposes, then MITE cannot say anything about what an agent who assigns any credence to such theories supersubjectively ought to do. Thus MITE cannot provide a general framework for decision-making under moral uncertainty. 2.1 Axiological Uncertainty and the Problem of Intertheoretic Value Comparisons Let us begin with a type of moral uncertainty which would seem to be naturally and fruitfully dealt with by MITE. Consider an agent who is certain that (maximizing) consequentialism is correct; that is, she is certain that one ought to maximize value. However, she is uncertain about what is of value. She doesn't know what the right axiology is. It would seem that we should be able to straightforwardly give her advice about what to do by calculating the expected moral values of the available actions, relative to the value function corresponding to each possible axiology, and summing up those expected moral values, weighted by her degree of belief that the corresponding axiology is correct, thus arriving at an intertheoretic expectation for each action. But even in this highly artificial case, we already run into problems. In particular, we run into the problem of calibrating value functions. As we know from decision theory, a preference ordering (satisfying certain axioms) over worlds and prospects (gambles) does not uniquely determine a value function. Instead, such a preference ordering only determines a value function which is unique at most up to addition of a constant and multiplication by a positive scalar.7 As such, if 7For the systems of von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944) and Savage (1954), if your preferences satisfy their axioms, you are representable as an expected utility maximizer with 5 the value function V represents a given set of preferences, so does the function aV + b, for real numbers a (> 0) and b. Axiologies generally only give us a preference ordering, but in order to apply the expected value framework to cases of axiological uncertainty, we need to fix on one value function corresponding to each axiology. And it is doubtful whether there is any principled reason for privileging any one function from axiologies to value functions over the other possible such functions. This is the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons. The thrust of this problem can be seen through an example which is wellknown from Parfit (1984). Even if one is certain that happiness is what matters, one can be uncertain about whether worlds are ranked by total happiness or by average happiness. This uncertainty will be important in situations where one has the option of implementing a policy which will increase the world's population, but at the cost of decreasing average happiness. In order to give guidance to the agent making this choice using MITE, we have to choose value functions to correspond to Totalism and to Averagism. However, it appears that any such choice will be arbitrary and have unintuitive consequences.8 Suppose we start with a simple proposal – for Totalism we let the value of a world be the total happiness in that world, while for Averagism we let the value of a world be the average level of happiness. Unfortunately, this will have the result that for most real-life cases where one can substantially increase population at the cost of decreasing average happiness, our framework will recommend doing what Totalism recommends unless the agent is overwhelmingly confident that Averagism is correct. Suppose that the agent has the choice of increasing the world's population from 6 billion to 24 billion people at the cost of halving the average happiness level. Let the present average happiness level be x (x > 0). Then, for Totalism, the difference between the expected moral value of increasing the world's population and the expected moral value of the status quo will be 24, 000, 000, 000 × (x/2) − 6, 000, 000, 000x = 6, 000, 000, 000x. For Averagism, the difference between the expected moral value of increasing the population and the expected moral value of the status quo is −(x/2). Crunching the numbers, maximizing intertheoretic expectation will recommend that the agent implement the population-increasing policy (i.e. doing what Totalism recommends) unless she is over 99.9999999916% confident that Averagism is right. But this seems crazy. We could perhaps improve things by representing Averagism not by the value function that assigns each world its average happiness as its value, but rather by a value function that assigns each world some large multiple of its average happiness as its value. But this proposal is not without its own problems. No matter what value functions we use to represent Averagism and Totalism, once we fix on proposed decrease in average happiness, Averagism will swamp a utility (or value) function that is unique up to positive linear transformation. In Jeffrey's (1983) system, the uniqueness condition for utility functions is more complicated, but nonetheless it is true that if V represents your preferences, so does aV + b (a > 0). 8William MacAskill recently informed me that he also uses Totalism and Averagism to illustrate this point, though he attributes it to Toby Ord. See MacAskill (2014, 93-4). 6 Totalism for smaller population increases while Totalism will swamp Averagism for larger population increases. This is perhaps natural enough. After all, in situations where one can increase population by decreasing average happiness, Totalism will say that the moral significance of the situation increases with the size of the possible increase in population, while Averagism will say that the moral significance of the situation does not depend on the size of the possible population increase. So we would expect Averagism to outweigh Totalism for small possible population increases, and we would likewise expect Totalism to outweigh Averagism for very large possible population increases. The problem is that representing Totalism and Averagism by particular value functions requires us to choose a point along the continuum of possible population increases where Totalism starts to outweigh Averagism (for a given reduction in average happiness). And any such choice will seem arbitrary and unmotivated. There is nothing in the moral theories themselves that tells us how to make intertheoretic value comparisons.9 Can we make any plausible non-question-begging stipulations about interthe9The astute reader may notice a structural similarity between the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons for MITE, and the familiar problem of interpersonal comparisons of utility for theories of social choice. One difference, however, is that we may have some grip on how to make interpersonal comparisons of utility that doesn't depend just on the functions that we'd get if we used Ramsey's (1931) method to construct utility functions for the individuals involved. For one, our shared biology may provide some grounds for calibration–it seems plausible that two people undergoing the same painful medical procedure, with each protesting as loudly as the other and displaying similar patterns of neuronal activity, perspiration, and other common indicators of discomfort, should be treated as suffering a similar level of disutility, at least for the purposes of social choice. While such considerations may help us ground interpersonal comparisons of utility, it's not obvious whether there's anything that could play a similar role in grounding intertheoretic comparisons of value. While I'll discuss a different method for attempting to solve this problem from Sepielli (2009) later in this section, in more recent work (Sepielli (2010, ch 4)), he offers a strategy that's somewhat analogous to the one I've just suggested might work in the case of interpersonal utility comparisons. He suggests that we might be able to appeal to conceptual connections between various normative concepts in order to ground intertheoretic value comparisons. Just as we might ground interpersonal utility comparisons by assuming that people in similar behavioral and neurological states are undergoing similar levels of disutility, we might ground intertheoretic value comparisons by assuming, for instance, that if two theories recommend similar degrees of blame for an act, that they each regard the reasons against that act as equally weighty. While Sepielli acknowledges that he hasn't provided a detailed, psychologically realistic account of the various conceptual connections between normative concepts of the sort he thinks would solve the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons, there are reasons for skepticism about the prospects for any such strategy. For example, two moral theories might disagree about how much we should blame somebody for acting in a certain way for reasons that have nothing to do with what they say about the reasons in favor of acting in that way (Gustafsson and Torpman (2014) and MacAskill (2014) also make this point). One theory might imply that we ought never blame anybody because it implies that justified blame would require contra-causal free will, while the other theory might be compatibilist about blame. Similar issues will also arise with consequentialist theories on which whether blame is recommended in a given circumstance depends not on the wrongness of the act in question, but rather on the consequences that would result from blaming. I raise this example to motivate skepticism that there is anything like a silver bullet that will allow us to determine that two theories must be interpreted as assigning some act equal value, so long as they agree on some other normative claim. 7 oretic value comparisons? In the remainder of this section, I look at three prominent proposals for doing so and find them wanting. Start with Lockhart (2000), who proposes a Principle of Equity among Moral Theories (PEMT), according to which all moral theories should be deemed to have the same amount of moral rightness at stake in any given situation. In each situation, the worst available actions according to each moral theory should be assigned the same (low) expected moral value, and similarly for the best available actions according to each moral theory. This is a version of the 'zero-one' rule, a proposal for solving the problem of interpersonal comparisons of utility by scaling each person's utility function to the zero-one interval. (Note that the PEMT will likely require us to use different value functions to represent a given moral theory in different choice situations.) Unfortunately, the PEMT is implausible (see Ross (2006) and Sepielli (2013)). It arbitrarily rules out the possibility of situations in which moral theories would seem to differ dramatically in how morally significant they consider the choice at hand. Consider again the case of Averagism and Totalism. We can imagine a scenario in which one has the option of creating on another planet a population of ten billion people who are all just slightly less happy than the average here on earth the difference between our average happiness and theirs is equivalent, say, to the difference between not having a hangnail and having one. The PEMT rules out by fiat the possibility of saying that this is a situation that carries far more weight for Totalism than for Averagism. Now, I am not claiming that this in fact is a situation that carries more weight for Totalism than for Averagism. After all, I am denying the possibility of making such intertheoretic value comparisons. My claim is simply that there is no intuitive support for the PEMT's claim that this is a situation that is equally weighty for Averagists and Totalists, and that more generally, moral theories cannot differ in how morally significant they consider a given choice to be.10 10Of course, we could modify the PEMT and instead stipulate that all moral theories should be treated as having the same maximum and minimum possible moral value at stake. That is, we consider the worst possible actions (not holding fixed a given choice situation) according to the various theories and make sure that they are all assigned the same (very low) expected moral value, and we also consider the best possible actions according to the competing theories and assign them all the same (very high) expected moral value. But this too is implausible. First, there is little reason to think that there will be worst and best possible actions for given moral theories, or even that expected moral value should be bounded for every moral theory (Sepielli (2013)). Certainly, utilitarians will likely think that possible acts grow better and better without bound as more and more happiness is created, and also that acts grow worse and worse without bound as more and more suffering is created. Second, some moral theories may just think that no possible situation can be terribly significant from a moral standpoint. Various moral nihilistic views hold that no acts are morally better than any others. Note, however, that such nihilistic theories are independently problematic for MITE, since some versions of decision theory prohibit all acts and outcomes being equally preferred. For instance, Savage's (1954) postulate P5 says that it is not the case that for all pairs of acts, one is at least as good as the other. One can also imagine slight deviations from moral nihilism which hold that no acts are are substantially morally better than any others (MacAskill (2014, 135)). It would be a distortion of what such a view says to represent it as being such that its best and worst possible acts have the same expected moral values as the utilitarian's best and worst possible acts, respectively. This is especially relevant for Ross (2006), who 8 Next consider an interesting proposal made by Sepielli (2009) (though Sepielli (2010) disavows it). Sepielli's approach relies on the existence of some background agreement among moral theories that will serve as a fixed point that we can use to make the requisite intertheoretic value comparisons.11 The idea is to find at least three actions or outcomes A, B, and C such that all of the moral theories the agent takes seriously agree that A is better than B, which is better than C and also agree about the ratio of the value difference between A and B and the value difference between B and C. We then stipulate that the value functions chosen to represent each moral theory must agree in the numbers they assign to A, to B, and to C. Consider Averagism and Totalism again. They agree about the one-person case. They agree that a world A where there is one person with happiness level 10 is better than a world B where the one person has happiness 4, which in turn is better than a world C where the one person has happiness 2. Moreover, they agree on the ratio of value differences between A and B, and B and C; they agree that the value difference between A and B is three times the value difference between B and C. So, on Sepielli's proposal, we just pick three numbers x, y, and z to serve as the values of A, B, and C for both Averagism and Totalism, with the constraints that x > y > z and x − y = 3 × (y − z). So, for instance, we can assign world A value 10, world B value 4, and world C value 2. And, having set down these values, we fill in the rest of Averagism's value function and the rest of Totalism's value function in the usual way. This proposal has some intuitive appeal, but it will not provide a general solution to the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons. First, there is no guarantee that there will always be even this minimal sort of background agreement among all of the moral theories to which the agent assigns some credence (Gustafsson and Torpman (2014)). Sepielli's approach to the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons will not work in these cases, and so MITE will not provide a fully general framework for decision-making under conditions of moral uncertainty. Worse, there are cases in which Sepielli's proposal will lead to contradiction.12 This problem can arise when theories agree on more than one ratio of value differences. Indeed, this will happen in the case of Averagism and Totalism. As noted, Averagism and Totalism agree about the ratio of value differences between A and B, and B and C. But they also agree about a lot of other ratios of value differences. Consider, for examples, worlds D, E, and F. World D contains two people, each with happiness level 10; world E contains two people, each with happiness level 4; and world F contains two people, each with happiness level 2. Averagism and Totalism agree that the degree to which employs MITE for the purpose of arguing that moral theories that hold that there is little moral difference between the acts available to us should be treated as false for the purposes of deliberation, since having some credence in such theories will not affect which act has highest intertheoretic expectation. This result is impossible if the PEMT or modifications thereof are adopted. 11Ross (2006) briefly considers a proposal like this. 12I recently learned that Gustafsson and Torpman (2014) independently sketched this sort of problem. 9 D is better than E is three times the degree to which E is better than F. Now, we cannot apply Sepielli's proposal both to A, B, and C and to D, E, and F without contradiction. Suppose that we start with A, B, and C. We'll set the values of A, B, and C as, say, 10, 4, and 2 (respectively) for both Averagism and Totalism. But then, Averagism and Totalism must differ in the values they assign to D, E, and F. Averagism must assign worlds D, E, and F values 10, 4, and 2 (respectively), while Totalism must assign D, E, and F values 20, 8, and 4 (respectively). Similarly, if we start by applying Sepielli's proposal to D, E, and F, Averagism and Totalism will agree on the values of D, E, and F but differ in the values they assign to A, B, and C. So, Sepielli's proposal leads to contradiction if we try to apply it both to A, B, and C and also to D, E, and F. More generally, contradiction threatens whenever moral theories agree about more than one ratio of value differences, for the constraints that result from applying Sepielli's proposal to one ratio of value differences may be incompatible with the constraints that result from applying it to a different one. Finally, consider a proposal which explicates intertheoretic value comparisons in terms of their practical implications. This strategy is explicit in Ross (2006) and Riedener (2015), and also hinted at in Sepielli (unpublished). Ross (2006, 763) outlines the strategy thus: [W]e can explicate intertheoretic value comparisons in terms of claims about what choices would be rational assuming that the ethical theories in question had certain subjective probabilities. Thus, to say that the difference in value between ordering the veal cutlet and ordering the veggie wrap is one hundred times as great according to Singer's theory as it is according to the traditional moral theory is to say, among other things, that if one's credence were divided between these two theories, then it would be more rational to order the veggie wrap than the veal cutlet if and only if one's credence in Singer's theory exceeded .01. But this proposal is circular, if MITE's ambition is to provide a framework which takes as input an agent's credences in moral theories (and credences about descriptive matters of fact) and outputs what the agent supersubjectively ought to do, without presupposing any facts about what agents super-subjectively ought to do in various situations (see also Gustafsson and Torpman (2014)). After all, Ross's proposal is to start with facts about what agents super-subjectively ought to do in certain cases and use those facts to reverse-engineer the desired intertheoretic value comparisons. But we could scale back MITE's ambitions. Instead of trying to use MITE to yield what agents super-subjectively ought to do given only their credences in moral theories, we could instead content ourselves with starting out with some facts about what agents super-subjectively ought to do in some circumstances (arrived at by some independent means, such as brute intuition) and then just using MITE to arrive at further facts about what agents super-subjectively ought to do in other circumstances. MITE could be thought of simply as a framework for imposing consistency on our judgments about what agents in different states of 10 uncertainty super-subjectively ought to do. This is how many decision theorists think of expected utility theory, as simply requiring a certain coherence among your preferences and decisions. If we scale back MITE's ambitions in this way, then Ross's observation does solve our problem. Riedener (MS) proves that if our judgments about what agents in various states of uncertainty super-subjectively ought to do obey certain decision-theoretic axioms, and if each moral theory's 'preferences' obey the same decision-theoretic axioms, then there is a choice of value functions to represent each moral theory such that an act A is super-subjectively better than B just in case the Intertheoretic Expectation (IE) of A is higher than that of B, relative to the aforementioned choice of value functions. I am unsatisfied. There is an analogy between Riedener's proof and Harsanyi's (1955) proposed solution to the problem of intertheoretic comparisons of utility. Harsanyi proves (with some supplemental assumptions, which I set aside) that if there are 'social preferences' that satisfy standard decision-theoretic axioms, and if each individual's preferences also satisfy those axioms, then there is a choice of individual utility functions such that the social preferences can be represented by a social utility function which is the weighed sum of those individual utility functions. Importantly, however, Harsanyi's theorem doesn't tell us how to pick an individual utility function to represent a given individual's preferences unless we already have the social utility function in hand. For this reason, Harsanyi's proposal leaves much to be desired. As one with Utilitarian sympathies (with utility understood as a representation of preferences), I would have liked to be told how to start off with individual's preferences and construct a social preference ordering therefrom, but I am instead told that if I start off with individual's preferences and a social preference ordering, then there is a way of fixing the zero point and scale of each individual's utility function such that social utility can be thought of as a weighted sum of individual utility. But I have no independent way of arriving at judgments about the social preference ordering. Insofar as I am a Utilitarian, I think that any facts about social betterness must be rooted in prior facts about individuals' preferences. I don't come up with judgments about social betterness through brute intuition, for instance. Similarly, I might want to be told how to start off with my credences in moral theories and use them to derive a verdict on what I super-subjectively ought to do, but instead the Ross/Sepielli/Riedener approach tells me that if I start off with credences in moral theories and facts about the 'preferences' of the super-subjective ought, then there is a way of fixing the zero point and scale of each moral theory's value function such that the super-subjective ought can be thought of as mandating IE-maximization relative to those choices of zero points and scales. But I have little or no independent grip on (alleged) facts about super-subjective betterness. I, for one, have few if any brute intuitions about what agents super-subjectively ought to do in a various cases (with the possible exception of extreme cases, such as where one assigns all but a vanishingly small probability to one theory's being true). And while this is simply an autobiographical report, I suspect that most readers will likewise find 11 themselves with few if any firm intuitions about what agents super-subjectively ought to do in various cases. Note that the case of ordinary decision theory is importantly different. Expected utility theory may just be a framework for imposing consistency on preferences, but it is still of some use since I come to the table with many preferences arrived at independently of thinking about expected utility theory. In sum, if MITE is understood modestly, as a framework for imposing consistency on our judgments about the super-subjective ought, it is of little value unless we start off with at least some such judgments which are arrived at by independent means. But I am skeptical of whether we can or do arrive at such independent judgments about the super-subjective ought. 2.2 Options and Non-EVM-Representable Theories Many moral theories cannot be represented in expected value maximization terms. For example, many moral theories hold that morality shouldn't be overly demanding. Morality gives us options.13 According to these views, some actions are supererogatory, while others are merely permissible. For instance, giving a large proportion of one's time and money to charity is a wonderful thing to do, but it isn't required. After all, these theorists say, morality leaves us space to pursue our own goals and projects.14 Options are a challenge for MITE because on the face of it, they seem to say that one needn't always maximize value, whereas MITE requires all theories to be put in an expected-value maximization framework.15 At first blush, these theories seem to differ from consequentialist theories not in their value theories, but in their decision rules. Some moral theories involving options, such as Slote's Satisficing Consequentialism (1984) are explicitly presented as differing from maximizing consequentialist views in employing a different decision rule.16 Now consider an agent who gives some credence to a moral theory which accepts a utilitarian axiology but gives the agent options. For instance, suppose that it says that while it's best to give as much money as possible to charity, one is only required to give away $1,000. How should defenders of MITE deal with this agent's state of uncertainty? If we represent this options theory using a utilitarian value function and then plug it into MITE, then we effectively ignore the fact that the theory says that 13The term 'options' comes from Kagan (1989). 14See Williams (116-117, from Smart and Williams (1973)) for a famous defense of this claim, presented as an argument against Utilitarianism. 15See Sepielli (2010) for further interesting discussion of various issues regarding moral uncertainty and supererogation, although his focus is considerably different from ours. 16The problem of supererogation is discussed by Lockhart (2000, ch. 5), but he takes the strategy of arguing against moral theories involving supererogation. I am inclined to agree with him that the true moral theory, whatever it is, will not involve supererogation. But in the context of defending a framework for decision-making under moral uncertainty, this move is beside the point. As long as an agent could reasonably have some credence in a options or supererogation theory (even if such a theory is in fact false), then a theory of the super-subjective ought must be able to say something about that case. 12 there are options! We would be ignoring the distinction between this optionsbased utilitarian view and standard utilitarianism. In the extreme case in which the agent is certain of that options theory, MITE would say that she is supersubjectively obligated to maximize total happiness and give as much money as possible to charity. This is the wrong result. So clearly some added complexity is required if MITE is to deal with options theories. We might try to somehow 'average' the relevant decision rules in aggregating her moral uncertainty. That is, in the case where an agent divides her credence between an options theory and a standard maximizing consequentialist theory, we might not only try to weight the different value functions by her credence in the corresponding theories, but also try to weight the different decision rules (maximization versus satisficing, for instance) by her corresponding credences. But it is doubtful whether any sense can be made of the notion of 'averaging' decision rules. What would it be, for instance, to average maximization with satisficing? A more promising approach for the defender of MITE would be to draw a distinction between different senses in which a theory might be associated with a value function. Suppose our options theory T makes various claims about which outcomes are better than others and by how much, and that these claims can be unified by representing T as endorsing a value function (as is the case for our options theory which accepts the utilitarian axiology). Call this value function T 's explicit value function. We have already seen that options theories cannot be interpreted as requiring that agents maximize value according to their explicit value functions (else there would be no supererogatory acts, according to the theory). However, perhaps it will be possible to represent theories like T as recommending that agents maximize expected value, so long as the value function whose expectation they're asked to maximize is not T 's explicit value function, but rather one reverse-engineered by looking at which actions T recommends in which choice-situations. Call this sort of reverseengineered value function an implicit value function. Will such implicit value functions always exist? Sepielli (2009) and Ross (2006) both suggest that arguments ultimately inspired by Ramsey (1931) show that they will. Roughly, the idea is that Ramsey showed that if an agent's preferences satisfy certain axioms, then they can be represented with a value function. So for any moral theory, we can just imagine an agent who always prefers to act as the theory recommends, and then use Ramsey's method to construct the implicit value function of the theory, which can then be used together with the other theories the agent takes seriously to generate intertheoretic expectations for actions. (What Sepielli and Ross are appealing to here is known as a Representation Theorem, which says that if an agent has preferences which satisfy such-and-such axioms, then she can be represented as a agent who maximizes expected value, relative to some probability-utility function pair < P,U > which is unique up to certain sorts of transformations, which differ depending on the axiom system in question. See von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944), Savage (1954), and Jeffrey (1983) for examples of Representation Theorems.) But there are reasons to doubt whether we really can represent options 13 theories using implicit value functions in this way. One main reason is that the options theory's preferences are likely to violate standard decision-theoretic axioms. In particular, the preferences of the options theory are likely to be negatively intransitive. That is, there will likely be acts A, B, and C such that neither of A and C is preferred to the other (in the sense that, given a choice between the two, neither is required), neither of B and C is preferred to the other, and yet A is preferred to B. For instance, let A be giving $1,000 to charity online (so that it arrives immediately), let B be giving $1,000 to charity by snail mail (so that it arrives after some delay), and let C be saving the money. Neither of A and C is preferred to the other, since both are permissible, and similarly for B and C. But A is preferred to B; if you're going to give to charity, you ought to choose the option that gets the money there more quickly if that requires no extra cost or effort. If the options theory has such negatively intransitive preferences, then it cannot be represented in EMV-maximization terms.17 Even setting this aside, it seems unlikely that any implicit value function assigned to an options theory would yield plausible results when plugged into MITE. For the implicit value function cannot assign the supererogatory act a higher expected moral value than the merely permissible one, for this would mean that in the limiting case where the agent is certain of that options theory, she would be required to perform the supererogatory act. And the implicit value function cannot assign the supererogatory and the merely permissible acts equal expected moral values, for then options theories can be easily swamped by other theories when we apply MITE to a morally uncertain agent. Consider an agent who gives some credence to an options theory which says that donating to charity is supererogatory while saving is merely permissible. The other theory 17This points merits some clarification. In an important and underappreciated paper, Oddie and Milne (1991) prove that in a certain sense of 'representation,' any moral theory whatsoever (subject to two constraints mentioned below) can be represented in EMV-maximization terms, relative to some agent-neutral value function. But their interpretation of what it is for a moral theory to be represented by another differs importantly from the interpretation that is relevant in the context of evaluating MITE. Oddie and Milne assume that each moral theory (i) has finitely many deontic categories (where deontic categories are things like supererogatoriness, obligatoriness, permissibility, wickedness, etc.), and (ii) that the moral theory gives a partial ordering of these deontic categories (supererogatoriness will be ranked higher than impermissibility, for instance). Then, they prove that for each such moral theory M , there is an agent-neutral value function V such that, if act A's deontic category is ranked at least as highly as act B's according to M, then the expected value of A is at least as great as the expected moral value of B, relative to value function V . But importantly, as Carlson (1995) notes, Oddie and Milne allow one moral theory to count as representing another even if the former does not even contain the same deontic categories as another. This is relevant because expected value theory as standardly interpreted employs just two deontic categories permissibility (corresponding to having maximal expected value) and impermissibility (corresponding to having sub-maximal expected value). So on Oddie and Milne's criterion of representation, a theory on which A is supererogatory and B is merely permissible is adequately represented by a value function which assigns greater value to A than to B and hence deems A to be obligatory and B to be impermissible. This may be fine for some purposes. But in the context of MITE, it is unacceptable, for it does not enable us to respect the original moral theory's distinction between the supererogatory and the merely permissible. In effect, squeezing the supererogation theory into the EMV-maximization framework needed for MITE obliterates distinctions that the theory deems to be of fundamental importance. 14 to which the agent assigns some credence is a mild egoist theory that says that saving is slightly better than donating. For the options theory, on the proposal under consideration, donating and saving have the same expected moral value. For the mild egoist theory, saving has a slightly higher expected moral value than donating. Applying MITE, we will get the result that the agent ought to save her money no matter what (non-zero, real-valued) credence she assigns to each theory. This is an implausible result. Even if the agent is overwhelmingly confident that donating is supererogatory and saving merely permissible, a tiny degree of confidence that saving is required will tip the balance in favor of saving, so long as we represent options theories as assigning supererogatory and merely permissible acts the same expected moral value. I am skeptical that there is any satisfactory way to squeeze options theories into MITE's expected value maximization framework.18 But even if I am wrong about the case of options, it is overwhelmingly likely that very many moral theories that are worth taking seriously will be unable to be squeezed into this framework. They will have 'preferences' that fail to satisfy the axioms of the relevant Representation Theorem (see MacAskill (2014)). Just to take one possible example, an absolutist moral theory, on which some acts (murder, say) are absolutely prohibited, might have 'preferences' which fail to satisfy the Continuity axiom of Von Neumann and Morgenstern's decision theory. Suppose that our absolutist moral theory says that murdering one person (M) is worse than the status quo (S), which is worse than rescuing one person (R). That is, M < S < R. Moreover, murdering is absolutely prohibited, which on this theory means that if you're uncertain whether some act would result in murdering someone or saving someone, it's wrong to do it. In particular, for any probability p, an act with probability p of resulting in M and probability 1−p of resulting in R is worse than the status quo S. This violates the Continuity axiom19, which says: Continuity : If A ≤ B ≤ C, then there exists some positive probability p such that: (p)A + (1− p)C ∼ B (where ∼ is the relation of indifference) So, an absolutist moral theory on which it is impermissible to run any risk at all of murdering someone, even for the sake of having a chance of rescuing someone will have 'preferences' which violate one of the standard axioms of decision theory. As a result, that absolutist moral theory's verdicts will not be representable by a value function.20 18Recently, Ben West suggested to me that it may be possible to represent options theories in EU-maximization terms using vector-valued value functions. I will not pursue this strategy here. 19An absolutist moral theory would also likely violate the Archimedean axiom adopted by many decision theories, which in effect says that no options are infinitely good or infinitely bad. See Sepielli (2009) and Smith and Jackson (2006) for further discussion of absolutist moral theories in the context of decision-making under moral (Sepielli) and descriptive (Smith and Jackson) uncertainty. 20One might simply reject the Continuity axiom (and the Archimedean axiom) and assign 15 Even if options-based moral theories, absolutist moral theories, and others whose preferences cannot be represented by a value function are ultimately false, it seems that insofar as any moral uncertainty at all is rationally permissible, it should be rationally permissible to assign some positive credence to one of these problematic types of moral theory. If so, then there are moral theories which it can be rational to take seriously and which are such that if you do take them seriously, MITE cannot say anything about what you super-subjectively ought to do. There is a general lesson here. MITE, and probably any plausible theory of the super-subjective ought, requires that the different moral theories in which an agent has some credence be translated into a common currency so as to allow them to be weighed up against each other.21 But moral theories differ radically, and often in deep, structural ways. There is no reason to think that all respectable moral theories, from consequentialism, to Kantianism, to absolutist theories, to Ross-style pluralist theories (perhaps involving incommensurability, or Chang's (1997) 'parity'), to virtue ethical theories, will all be amenable to being squeezed into a common framework, whether that common framework is an expectational decision-theoretic one, or something else entirely. This doesn't necessarily mean that not all moral theories can be put into some decisiontheoretic framework or other, but it is important to be careful about quantifier scope. It may be that, for each moral theory, there is some formal decisiontheoretic framework that can (in some sense) represent it,22) but I am deeply skeptical that there will be some formal decision-theoretic framework that can be used to represent each moral theory. Instead, different departures from orthodox expected value theory (the system of Savage (1954), say) will be needed for different moral theories; some may require infinite values, others may require sets of value functions, still others may require a non-maximizing rule, and so on. For some purposes, like coming up with a way to think about how that absolutely prohibited actions a negative infinite value. But then absolutist moral theories will swamp non-absolutist theories. It may be possible to attempt to avoid this swamping by representing Absolutist theories using a variety of technical devices, such as context-dependent value functions which, in any context, always assign values in such a way as to prohibit the absolutely prohibited action (Sepielli (2010)). Or perhaps surreal numbers will be of help (see Hàjek (2003) for discussion of surreal numbers in the context of decision theory). This technical moves may help the defender of MITE avoid uncomfortable conclusions when faces with absolutist theories e.g., that if you given any credence to an absolutist moral theory, it will swamp all other theories to which you give some credence in virtue of its involving infinite values and disvalues. But it is difficult to see how one would motivate a particular choice among the various technical devices that might be wheeled in to help deal with absolutist theories, and yet different choices will yield different recommendations from MITE in various situations. At any rate, the present point is simply that many moral theories would seem, on the face of it, to violate standard decision-theoretic axioms needed to get representation theorems off the ground. 21An exception is the view that one super-subjectively ought to take the theory in which one has highest credence, and then simply act on its basis. See Gracely (1996) and Gustafsson and Torpman (2014) for a defense of this approach. Unfortunately I do not have the space to argue against it here. 22See footnote 5 above for references to discussions of attempts to find decision-theoretic representations of various moral theories. 16 theory should say you ought to act under descriptive uncertainty, it may only be important that each moral theory be representable in some formal decisiontheoretic framework or other. But for the purpose of coming up with a formal framework for decision-making under moral uncertainty, it is crucial that each moral theory be representable in the same formal decision-theoretic framework (or common currency, as I put it earlier). And this, I am arguing, is not the case. 3 Whither the Super-Subjective Ought? In the previous two sections, I have argued that MITE is unlikely to succeed as a theory of what a morally uncertain agent super-subjectively ought to do. If my arguments are sound, what does that mean for the super-subjective ought? I see three possibilities. First, perhaps we just need to pull up our socks and continue the hard work of trying to devise an adequate decision theory for the super-subjective ought. This strikes me as unattractive. The problems I have raised seem like in-principle problems, not likely to be solved through technical subleties. Second, we might hold that there are facts about what one super-subjectively ought to do in most, or perhaps all, possible situations, but that these facts cannot be encapsulated in any formal or otherwise finitely statable theory. Perhaps there is little to be said by way of exceptionless principles, save for extreme cases (e.g., that if you are certain that A is not morally worse than B, and not certain that B is not worse than A, then you super-subjectively ought to do A).23 This would amount to a sort of particularism about the super-subjective ought. I have no compelling argument against this second option, but I want to explore a third, perhaps more radical, response. I want to suggest that perhaps there is no need to come up with a theory of the super-subjective ought, for the super-subjective ought has no clear role to play in our normative theoriz23Note that one who adopts the third option I consider (below), which denies the existence of a super-subjective ought, can still hold that there is something wrong with someone who is certain that A is better than B but then goes on to do B. But the explanation of what is wrong with that person will be different. If fundamental moral facts are a priori, then there is a sense in which one always ought to believe the true moral theory (though this this need not entail that one is blameworthy for having false moral beliefs, as Harman (2011) holds; the sense of ought may be purely epistemic, for instance). Then, if the true moral theory is one on which A is better than B, our imagined agent is criticizable for simply for acting wrongly, while if the true moral theory is one on which the A is not better than B, then our imagined agent is criticizable for having a moral belief that she ought not have. So in essence, we can account for what's wrong with an akratic agent by appealing (perhaps among other things) to a wide-scope norm stating that one ought to be such that if one believes one ought to do A, then one does A. But there are multiple ways ot satisfy such a wide-scope norm. One can make the antecedent of the embedded conditional false, or one can make the consequent true. In my view, if the moral belief refered to in the antecedent is false, then one ought to make the antecedent false (i.e. not have the false moral belief), while if that moral belief is true, then one ought to make the consequent true (i.e. perform the action that is in fact morally required). 17 ing. This discussion will be regrettably brief and speculative. I cannot show conclusively that the super-subjective ought has not role to be play in our theorizing. Instead, I proceed by looking at three main motivations for introducing the subjective ought to supplement the objective one, and then showing how we might resist the thought that these motivations carry over to motivate the introduction of a super-subjective ought. This discussion will clarify what kinds of commitments will likely have to be take on board by someone who wishes to adopt this third, more deflationist, response. Start by recapping three interrelated motivations for bringing in the subjective ought. First, what you objectively ought to do often depends on factors inaccessible to you. You might be in no position to know that the pills in your bottle are rat poison, and you justifiably take them to be painkillers. In this case, even though you objectively ought not given them to your friend, you are not in a position to know that you ought not do so. Second, and relatedly, the objective ought is insufficiently action-guiding. It does not give advice to the deliberating agent that she can effectively use to determine what to do. Third, non-culpable ignorance of the facts which determine what you objectively ought to do is typically an excusing factor. Suppose you give your friend the pills, and after taking them he writhes around on the floor foaming at the mouth, and then dies. While you helped cause his death, you are not blameworthy for it, since you were justifiably ignorant of the fact that the pills were rat poison. On the basis of these considerations, we then introduce the subjective ought, which is intended to (i) be such that what you subjectively ought to do doesn't depend on things inaccessible to you, (ii) is action-guiding, and (iii) links up more closely with blameand praiseworthiness than does the objective ought. (It is not clear that (i) should be regarded as a separate motivation, since it may be that the only grounds for wanting an ought which is always accessible to you is that accessibility is required for action-guidingness and blameworthiness.) The subjective ought is supposed to satisfy these demands by making what you ought to do depend on your credences in the relevant descriptive propositions, rather than on which of the relevant descriptive propositions are in fact true. Now, there are serious questions about whether the subjective ought really can satisfy these demands, especially in light of Williamson's (2000) AntiLuminosity Argument. If Williamson is right, then there are no conditions that are such that whenever they obtain, you are in a position to know that they obtain. Even the facts about your own doxastic state that determine what you subjectively ought to do may be inaccessible to you. And in a case where you are not in a position to know what your own beliefs or credences are, the subjective ought may not be fully action-guiding, and your self-ignorance might excuse you from any blame stemming from your failure to do what you subjectively ought to do. But set these issues aside. After all, my aim is not to defend the subjective ought but to oppose the super-subjective ought. What I now want to do is suggest that these considerations accessibility, action-guidingness, and links with blameand praiseworthiness might not carry over to motivate the introduction of a super-subjective ought to supplement the objective and subjective ones. 18 First, even if descriptive facts may often be inaccessible to you, it is not clear that normative facts are likewise inaccessible. If fundamental moral truths are a priori, then there is a sense in which any agent is in a position to know the moral truth. There is no in-principle obstacle to her coming to know the moral facts. Moreover, your evidence (whatever it is), will entail each of the fundamental moral truths By contrast, your evidence will often not entail, or even support, the true descriptive propositions that are relevant in a given decision situation. Of course, even if the fundamental moral truths are a priori, this does not mean that they are obvious. But it is not clear that we should demand a sense of ought on which what you ought to do depends only on factors that are obvious as opposed to merely knowable in some weaker sense. Admittedly, I have not argued that in fact fundamental moral truths are a priori. While I find this claim plausible (after all, the sorts of considerations typically given for or against particular moral theories tend to be of the a priori variety), it is certainly open to dispute. Some theorists might doubt that fundamental moral truths are even necessary (and it's unlikely that they would be contingent a priori), while others might hold that they are necessary a posteriori, in which case fundamental moral truths might be no more accessible than descriptive necessary a posteriori truths like the proposition that Hesperus is Phosphorus. Nevertheless, those theorists sympathetic to an a priori conception of ethics should hold that fundamental moral truths are unlike even very unobvious descriptive truths in being in-principle accessible. Second, consider the morally uncertain agent's felt need for some sort of guidance. Certainly, such an agent will wish she knew what morality demands of her, and she will often have reason to deliberate further (though if she must act now, she may need to simply make a decision and defer deliberation until later). But reasons to deliberate further may be ordinary, garden variety epistemic and moral reasons. We have epistemic reasons to deliberate about matters of great importance in our lives. And the true moral theory T , whatever it is, will often want the agent to deliberate further about morality, since deliberating (insofar as it is reliable) will lead her to beliefs which better approximate T , and (insofar as her motivational state is sensitive to her moral beliefs) this will lead her to act in accordance with T more often. So a theory of the super-subjective ought is not needed to account for why uncertain agents often ought to continue deliberating about morality (and indeed, it gives no special role to deliberation anyway). The super-subjective ought really aims to earn its keep by giving agents guidance about how to hedge their bets, morally speaking. That is, it tells them how to act so as to minimize their expected degree of wrongness. But there is a case to be made that a desire for guidance about how to engage in moral hedging involves an objectionable sort of moral fetishism, so that a morally good agent would not look to a theory of the super-subjective ought like MITE to guide her actions in the first place. Michael Smith (1994, 75) distinguishes between caring about morality de dicto and caring about morality de re: Good people care non-derivatively about honesty, the weal and woe 19 of their children and friends, the well-being of their fellows, people getting what they deserve, justice, equality, and the like, not just one thing: doing what they believe to be right, where this is read de dicto and not de re. Indeed, commonsense tells us that being so motivated is a fetish or moral vice, not the one and only moral virtue. Now, Smith uses the allegedly fetishistic character of de dicto concern for morality to argue against judgment externalism, the view that it is possible to judge that an action is morally required without being in any way motivated to perform that action. The details of Smith's anti-externalist argument needn't occupy us here, since the internalist/externalist debate is not our topic, and in any event I am persuaded by criticisms of Smith's argument by Shafer-Landau (1998), and Svavarsdóttir (1999), and especially Dreier (2000).24 But Harman (2011) and Weatherson (2013) have recently raised this moral fetishism objection against theories on which an agent's moral beliefs affect how she ought to act. It is easy to overstate the case, however (and I suspect that Harman, at least, has). An agent who feels the need to deliberate further about some moral matter needn't always be fetishistic. This is especially clear where the agent's deliberation concerns thick moral concepts like fairness or respect, rather than thin ones like wrongness or permissibility.25 And we do want agent's motivational states to somehow be sensitive to their beliefs about morality; else what is the point in debating moral matters? (Indeed, see Dreier (op cit) for discussion of how to explain why good, well-motivated agent's motivations are sensitive to their moral beliefs without attributing to them de dicto concern for morality.) So my narrow, and hopefully more cautious, claim is just that the kind of motivation involved in moral hedging is objectionably fetishistic, even if a felt need to deliberate further, and a general sensitivity of one's motivational state to one's beliefs about morality, are not. But reasons to deliberate further, or to have a motivational state that is responsive to beliefs about morality, can be accounted for without positing a super-subjective ought. Third, and finally, while it is quite clear that (non-culpable) ignorance of relevant descriptive facts often excuses you from blame, it is rather controversial whether (non-culpable) ignorance of fundamental moral facts likewise exculpates. Harman (2011) has recently argued that it does not.26 She argues that it is possible to come to have deeply false moral beliefs without having been epistemically irresponsible in any way (unless failure to know a priori facts itself constitutes epistemic irresponsibility), but that in such cases an agent who acts on those false moral beliefs still strikes us as blameworthy. As just one example, she considers people who protest at abortion clinics and yell at the women and 24See also Lillehammer (1997) for an argument that de dicto concern for morality needn't be fetishistic in the first place. By contrast, Dreier agrees that de dicto concern for morality is objectionably fetishistic but argues that we can explain the fact that good, strong-willed agents are motivated to act in accordance with their moral beliefs without attributing to them such de dicto concern for morality. 25This point is emphasized by Sepielli (unpublished). 26See Zimmerman (1997) and Rosen (2004) for defenses of the opposing view. 20 doctors going inside. Assume that abortion is morally permissible and that it 'is wrong to yell at women outside abortion clinics: these women are already having a hard time and making their difficult decision more psychologically painful is wrong' (458). While perhaps many of these particularly strident protesters have been epistemically irresponsible in coming to their beliefs, it is not plausible to think that this is the case for all of them. But nevertheless, these protesters are blameworthy for the distress they cause. Arpaly (2003), using Smith's de dicto/de re distinction, argues for the same conclusion, writing that: An action is blameworthy just in case the action resulted from the agent's caring inadequately about what is morally significant where this is not a matter of de dicto caring about morality but de re caring about what is in fact morally significant. Now, it is clear that we are not inclined to excuse Hitler, say, from blame simply on account of his erroneous moral beliefs (if indeed he believed he was acting rightly). But matters are less clear, and so the stance of Harman and Arpaly is less compelling, in cases where the stakes are smaller or where the moral ignorance or error is less egregious. Vegetarians typically do not have strong negative reactive attitudes when their friends or colleagues eat meat. But this may not be because the carnivores do not merit blame, but rather because we are generally disinclined to hold others to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. Often when we judge that someone acting wrongly, we do not blame them if we could easily see ourselves acting in that manner. And it is coherent to judge that someone is blameworthy despite not actually having a strong negative reactive attitude toward that person.27 So the fact that an agent's false moral beliefs may sometimes make us disinclined to blame her, not because moral ignorance is itself exculpatory, but rather because we could easily see ourselves being in her situation. Now, even if you are not convinced, and believe that (non-culpable) moral ignorance is exculpatory (whether always, often, or just sometimes), we can still resist the thought that this means there must be an ought that is sensitive to moral uncertainty. For it is possible for some factor to be exculpatory without there being an ought that is specially sensitive to that factor. For instance, if an agent commits a violent act, the fact that he had a brutal, abusive upbringing can excuse him from blame, or at least mitigate his blameworthiness. But that does not mean that there is a special ought which is sensitive to the degree to which one's upbringing was normal. There is no sense in which he ought to have done as he did. Similarly, it may be that moral ignorance is exculpatory without there being a super-subjective ought. 27Consider a case not involving false moral beliefs, but rather akrasia. I believe that I and other reasonably well-off people are morally required to give very large portions of our wealth to the distant needy, but do not have strong negative reactive attitudes towards people who don't do so, even when they also believe they are so obligated. That's because I myself don't give tons of money away! The people who don't give generously to charity (myself included) are blameworthy, even though few actually experience an attitude of blame toward them (even those who are convinced about our obligations toward the distant needy). 21 This concludes my tentative argument that the introduction of the supersubjective ought is unmotivated. Admittedly, it is not a water-tight case. Perhaps one of the three motivations for introducing the subjective ought does carry over to the case of moral uncertainty. Perhaps there are other possible motivations for introducing a super-subjective ought besides the three that I have considered here. But I hope at least to have done some softening-up work to suggest that before we become invested in solving the technical problems that face particular theories of decision-making under moral uncertainty, such as MITE, or accept a form of particularism about the super-subjective ought, we should get clearer about whether and why we wanted such a ought in the first place. Until a strong case is made that we need the super-subjective ought to play certain well-defined roles in our normative theorizing, we should be neither surprised nor worried when attempts to theorize about a super-subjective ought run into trouble. The default position should be that there are no rules for how to act in light of moral uncertainty; beliefs about descriptive matters make a difference to how you ought to act, while beliefs about moral matters do not. What you ought to do, in any moral sense of ought, depends on which moral theory is in fact true, not on your (possibly mistaken) beliefs about what morality requires.28 References Arpaly, N. 2003. Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry into Moral Agency. New York: Oxford University Press. Carlson, E. 1995. Consequentialism Reconsidered. Dordrecht: Springer. Chang, R. 1997. 'Introduction.' In R. Chang (ed), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reasoning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Colyvan, M., Cox, D., and Steele, K. 2010. 'Modelling the Moral Dimensions of Decisions.' Noûs 44, 503-29. Dreier, J. 1993. 'Structures of Normative Theories.' The Monish 76, 22-40. Gracely, E. 1996. 'On the Noncomparability of Judgments Made by Different Ethical Theories.' Metaphilosophy 27, 327-332. Gustafsson, J. and Torpman, O. 2014. 'In Defence of My Favourite Theory.' Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 95, 159-74. Hàjek, A. 2003. 'Waging War on Pascal's Wager.' Philosophical Review 112, 27-56. 28Thanks to Caspar Hare, Stefan Riedener, and especially Daniel Greco, who collaborated on an ancestor of this paper. Thanks also to audiences at the 2010 Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, Oxford University, and the 2014 Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop. This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. 22 Harman, E. 2011. 'Does Moral Ignorance Exculpate?' Ratio 24, 443-68. Harsanyi, J. 1955. 'Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility.' Journal of Political Economy 63, 309-21. Hudson, J. 1989. 'Subjectivization in Ethics.' Americal Philosophical Quarterly 26, 221-9. Jeffrey, R. 1983. The Logic of Decision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kagan, S. 1989. The Limits of Morality. New York: Oxford University Press. -2012. The Geometry of Desert. New York: Oxford University Press. Lockhart, T. 2000. Moral Uncertainty and its Consequences. New York: Oxford University Press. MacAskill, W. 2014. Normative Uncertainty. Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford. Oddie, G. and Milne, P. 1991. 'Act and Value: Expectation and the Representability of Moral Theories.' Theoria 57, 42-76. Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Portmore, D. 2011. Commonsense Consequentialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Ramsey, F. 1931. 'Truth and Probability.' In his The Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays. New York: Routledge. Riedener, S. 2015. Maximizing Expected Value under Axiological Uncertainty. Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford. Rosen. G. 2004. 'Skepticism about Moral Responsibility.' Philosophical Perspectives 18, 295-313. Ross, J. 2006. 'Rejecting Ethical Deflationism.' Ethics 116, 742-68. Savage, L. 1954. The Foundations of Statistics. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Sen, A. 1982. 'Rights and Agency.' Philosophy and Public Affairs 11: 3-39. Sepielli, A. Unpublished. 'Normative Uncertainty, Intertheoretic Comparisons, and Conceptual Role.' University of Toronto. -2009. 'What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do.' Oxford Studies in Metaethics 4, 5-28. 23 -2010. Along an Imperfectly-Lighted Path: Practical Rationality and Normative Uncertainty. Ph.D. thesis, Rutgers University. -2012. 'Normative Uncertainty for Non-Cognitivists.' Philosophical Studies 160, 191-207. -2013. 'Moral Uncertainty and the Principle of Equity Among Moral Theories.' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86, 580-9. Slote, M. 1984. 'Satisficing Consequentialism.' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 58, 139-63. Smart, J. and Williams, B. 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell. -2009. 'Kinds of Consequentialism.' In E. Sosa and E. Villanueva (eds), Philosophical Issues: Metaethics. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Smith, M. and Jackson, F. 2006. 'Absolutist Moral Theories and Uncertainty.' Journal of Philosophy 103, 267-83. von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. 1944. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Weatherson, B. 2013. 'Running Risks Morally.' Philosophical Studies 167, 1-23. Williamson, T. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zimmerman, M. 1997. 'Moral Responsibility and Ignorance.' Ethics 107, 41026. |
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abstract: 'An abstract would go here.'
author:
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Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL-61801\
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bibliography:
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title: 'Safe and Robust Control using Gaussian Process Regression and $\mathcal{L}_1$-Adaptive Control'
---
List of keywords
Questions to discuss with Chengyu
- Does our observations make sense to you? These observations include the performance improvement (even under reduced sampling rate), robustness margin maintaining (if L1 filter is not changed) or improvement (if L1 filter bandwidth is reduced)
- To remove the control input jumps induced by GP model update, we can either use a low-pass filter or rate limiter. Which one makes more sense?
- Adaptive filter bandwidth for L1. Is it easy to implement? Any practical issues?
- The concept of safe learning guaranteed by L1. After learning well, the closed-loop system can transform from an adaptive system to a non-adaptive system, which will have higher robustness margins. Does this make sense?
- In practice, one can never learns all the uncertainties, especially when the uncertainties are time-varying, e.g. disturbances. We claim that we just learn the learn-able part while using L1 to cancel the remaining uncertainties. Does this make sense to you?
Introduction Placeholder {#sec:intro}
========================
[@rawlings2009model]
Transient bounds blah blah with learning blah blah
Fast adaptation with slow learning
Performance, via performance bounds, improve both with fast adaptation (hardware dependent) and learning (data dependent)
An important point to mention, GP updates are produced at very slow rates, however, the fast adaptation in the $\mathcal{L}_1$ ensures that the closed loop system remains stable w/ computable bounds between every update of the GP.
The manuscript is organized as follows: In Section \[sec:problem\_statement\] we present the problem statement. Section \[sec:problem\_statement\] presents the design of the $\mathcal{L}_1$ controller without learning, i.e., relying only on the fast adaptation. In Section \[sec:L1-GP\] we present the proposed methodology of incorporating GPR learned dynamics within the $\mathcal{L}_1$ architecture. Finally, Section \[sec:sims\] presents the numerical results.
Notation {#subsec:notation}
--------
We denote $\|\cdot\|_p$ as the $p^{th}$ norm defined on the space $\mathbb{R}^n$, $n \in \mathbb{N}$. Similarly, defined on the space $\mathbb{R}^{n \times m}$, $n,m \in \mathbb{N}$, $\|\cdot\|_p$ denotes the induced $p^{th}$ norm and $\|\cdot|$ denotes the $2$-norm. We denote by $\|\cdot\|_{\mathcal{L}_p}$ the $p^{th}$ norm on $\mathcal{L}_p$, the space of real-valued functions, where the domain and range of the functions will be omitted when clear from context. Given a positive scalar $\kappa$, we define by $\mathbb{X}_\kappa$ the compact set containing all $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ satisfying $\|x\|_\infty \leq \kappa$. Similarly, we denote arbitrary compact subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$ by $\mathbb{X}$. Given any $\xi \in \mathbb{N}$, we denote by $\mathbb{X}^\xi$ the discretization of the compact set $\mathbb{X}$ such that $\max_{x \in \mathbb{X}} \min_{x' \in \mathbb{X^\xi}}\|x - x'\| \leq \xi$. Similarly, we define $C(\xi,\mathbb{X})$ as the covering number of $\mathbb{X}$ with respect to $\xi$, i.e., the number of $\xi$-norm balls needed to completely cover $\mathbb{X}$.
Problem Statement {#sec:problem_statement}
=================
Consider the following Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) system:
\[eqn:system\_dynamics\] $$\begin{aligned}
\dot{x}(t) = &A_m x(t) + b(\omega u(t) + f(x(t))), \quad x(0) = x_0, \\
y(t) = & c^\top x(t),\end{aligned}$$
where $x(t) \in \mathbb{R}^n$ is the measured system state, $A_m \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n}$ is a known Hurwitz matrix which specifies the desired closed-loop dynamics, $b,~c \in \mathbb{R}^n$ are known vectors, $\omega \in \mathbb{R}$ is the *unknown* input gain, $f:\mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is the *unknown* non-linearity, and $y(t) \in \mathbb{R}$ is the regulated output. We place the following assumptions:
\[assmp:kernel\] The unknown non-linearity $f(x)$ is a sample from Gaussian process $\mathcal{GP}(0,K_f(x,x'))$ where the kernel $K_f:\mathbb{R}^n \times \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is known. Furthermore, we assume that the kernel and its partial derivatives are Lipschitz on compact subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$ with known Lipschitz constants. That is, there exist known $L_k(\mathbb{X})$ and $\partial L_k(\mathbb{X})$ such that $$L_k(\mathbb{X}) = \max_{x,x' \in \mathbb{X}}\left\|
\nabla_x K_f(x,x')
\right\| \quad \text{and} \quad
\partial L_k(\mathbb{X}) = \max_{x,x' \in \mathbb{X}}\left\|
\nabla_x^2 K_f(x,x')
\right\|,$$ where $\nabla_x K_f(x,x') \in \mathbb{R}^n$ and $\nabla_x^2 K_f(x,x') \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n}$ denote the gradient and the Hessian matrix of $K_f$ with respect to $x$, respectively.
\[assmp:Lip\_bounds\] There exist known conservative bounds $L_f(\mathbb{X})$, $\partial L_f(\mathbb{X})$, and $B$ such that $$\left\| \nabla_x f(x) \right\|_\infty \leq L_f(\mathbb{X}), \quad \left\| \nabla_x^2 f(x) \right\|_\infty \leq \partial L_f(\mathbb{X}), \quad |f(0)| \leq B, \quad \quad \forall x \in \mathbb{X}.$$ Note that this assumption implies that $f$ and $\partial_x f$ are Lipschitz continuous on $\mathbb{X}$ with the conservative knowledge of the constants being $ L_f(\mathbb{X})$ and $\partial L_f(\mathbb{X})$, respectively.
\[assmp:3\] The scalar $\omega$ is the unknown input gain whose conservative bounds are known a-priori, i.e., $\omega \in [\underline{\omega},\bar{\omega}]$, $0 < \underline{\omega} < \bar{\omega} < \infty$.
\[assmp:initial\_condition\] The initial condition $x_0$ satisfies $\|x_0\|_\infty \leq \rho_0 < \infty$, where the arbitrarily large positive scalar $\rho_0$ is assumed to be known.
Assumption \[assmp:kernel\] merits a discussion on its conservatism. We argue that this assumption does not introduce any undue conservatism. Indeed, by Mercer’s theorem [@williams2006gaussian Thm. 4.2], the compact integral operator induced by $K_f$, admits countable eigenfunctions $\phi_i$ and absolutely summable eigenvalues $\lambda_i$ such that $K_f(x,x') = \sum_{i=1}^\infty \lambda_i \phi_i(x)\phi_i(x')$, $\forall x,x' \in \mathbb{X} \subset \mathbb{R}$, $\mathbb{X}$ compact. Thus, using the fact that the normal distribution has an infinite support, it is easily established that each sample $f$ from $\mathcal{GP}(0,K_f(x,x'))$ satisfies $f \in \mathcal{F}$, where $$\mathcal{F} = \{f:\mathbb{X} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}~:~ f \in \text{span}\{\phi_i(x)\}.$$ The set of functions to which $f$ belongs is solely a function of the kernel $K_f$. Any prior knowledge of $f$ can be incorporated by designing the kernel appropriately. For example, continuous functions can be learned arbitrarily well when $K_f$ is universal in the sense of [@steinwart2001influence]. Furthermore, the set $\mathcal{F}$ is larger than the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS) associated with $K_f$. For example, the set of sample paths $\mathcal{F}$ for the squared-exponential kernels contains continuous functions on $\mathbb{X}$. Whereas, its associated RKHS contains only analytic functions [@vaart2011information]. Finally, various kernels like the squared-exponential and Matérn kernels verify the assumption that they and their derivatives be Lipschitz continuous.
The objective is to use Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) to learn the model uncertainty $f$, and use the learned dynamics to design a controller so that the regulated output $y(t)$ tracks a given bounded reference signal $r(t)$ with *uniform performance bounds* and *guaranteed robustness margins*.
Preliminaries {#sec:prelim}
-------------
Gaussian Process Regression {#subsec:GPR}
---------------------------
Brief overview of GPR. A paragraph, max.
$\mathcal{L}_1$-Adaptive Control {#subsec:L1}
--------------------------------
Brief overview of $\mathcal{L}_1$ with the important architectural components, decoupling of estimation from control, adaptation dependent performance w.r.t. the reference system etc. A couple of paragraphs, max.
In this subsection, we briefly review the existing standard control architecture for the uncertain system incorporation of learned dynamics. Consequently, in we will show how the GPR learned dynamics can be incorporated within the $\mathcal{L}_1$ architecture. The reader is directed to [@L1_book] for further details on the following material. An controller consists of four components: a state predictor, an adaption law, a low-pass filter and a control law. The state predictor predicts the state trajectories of the actual system, while the prediction error is used to update the uncertainty estimates based on the adaption law. In terms of the adaptation law, we consider the pieweise-constant adaptation law, introduced in [@L1_book Section 3.3], since it is easier to implement compared to the projection-based adaptation law, due to direct connection with the controller sampling rate. The control law tries to cancel the estimated uncertainty within the bandwidth of the low-pass filter These components are detailed as follows.
**Low-Pass Filter**: The filter, denoted by $C(s)$, is a $m$ by $m$ transfer function matrix with $C(0) = \mI_m$. In addition, it is designed to ensure that for a given $\rho_0$, there exists a positive constant $\rho_r$ such that the following *$\mathcal{L}_1$-norm condition* $$\label{eqn:L1_norm_condition}
\|G(s)\|_{\mathcal{L}_1} < \frac{\rho_r - \|H(s)C(s)k_g\|_{\mathcal{L}_1} \|r\|_{\mathcal{L}_\infty} - \rho_{in}}{L_{\rho_r}\rho_r + B_0}$$ holds, where $G(s) = H(s)(1-C(s))$, $H(s) = (s\mathbb{I} - A_m)^{-1}b$, $\rho_{in} = \|s(s\mathbb{I} - A_m)^{-1}\|_{\mathcal{L}_1} \rho_0$, $\rho_0$ is defined in Assumption \[assmp:initial\_condition\], and $k_g = (C_m A_m^{-1}B_m)^{-1}$ is the feed-forward gain matrix designed to track step reference commands with zero steady-state error. Furthermore, $$\label{eqn:L_rho_r}
L_{\rho_r} \triangleq \frac{\bar{\rho}_r }{\rho_r}L_f(\mathbb{X}_{\bar{\rho}_r }), \quad \bar{\rho}_r \triangleq \rho_r + \bar{\gamma}_1,$$ where $\bar{\gamma}_1$ is an arbitrary positive scalar. Finally, $L_f(\cdot)$ and $B$ are defined in Assumption \[assmp:Lip\_bounds\], $r(t)$ is a bounded reference signal, and $\mathbb{X}_{(\cdot)}$ is defined in Section \[subsec:notation\].
Before proceeding further, we define the following constants of interest. We define $$\label{eqn:constants}
\rho \triangleq \rho_r + \bar{\gamma}_1, \ \gamma_1 \triangleq \frac{\|H(s)C(s)H_y^{-1}(s)C_m\|_{\mathcal{L}_1}}{1 - \|G(s)\|_{\mathcal{L}_1} L_{\rho_r}} \bar{\gamma}_0 + \beta,\quad
\rho_u \triangleq \rho_{ur} + \gamma_2, % \quad \theta_b = L_f(\mathbb{X}_{\bar{\rho}_r}), \quad \Delta = B + \epsilon,$$ where $H_y(s) \triangleq C_m(s\mI-A_m)^{-1}B_m$, $\bar{\gamma}_0$ and $\beta$ are arbitrary small positive scalars ensuring $\gamma_1 < \bar{\gamma}_1$, and $$\begin{aligned}
\rho_{ur} &\triangleq \left\| C(s) \right\|_{\mathcal{L}_1}(\|k_g\|_\infty\|r\|_{\mathcal{L}_\infty} + L_{\rho_r} \rho_r + B_0), \label{eqn:rho_ur_defn}\\
\gamma_2 & \triangleq \left\| C(s) \right\|_{\mathcal{L}_1} L_{\rho_r}\gamma_1 + \left\| C(s)H_y^{-1}(s)C_m \right\|_{\mathcal{L}_1} \bar{\gamma}_0. \label{eqn:gamma_2_defn}\end{aligned}$$
**State Predictor**: The state predictor is defined as
\[eqn:vanilla\_predictor\] $$\begin{aligned}
\dot{\hat{x}}(t) = &A_m \hat{x}(t) + B_m(u(t) + \hat{\sigma}_1(t)) + B_{um} \hat{\sigma}_2(t), \ \hat{x}(0) = x_0\\
\hat{y}(t) = & C_m \hat{x}(t),\end{aligned}$$
where $\hat{x}(t)\mathbb{R}^n$ is the predicted system state $B_{um}\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times(n-m)}$ is a constant matrix such that $[B_m \ B_{um}]$ is invertible and $B_m^TB_{um} = 0$[^1], $\hat{\sigma}_1(t)\in \mathbb{R}^m$ and $\hat{\sigma}_2(t)\in \mathbb{R}^{n-m}$ are the adaptive estimates, which are computed based on the adaptation law as explained below.
**Adaptation Law**: The adaptive estimates are defined as $$\label{eqn:vanilla_adaptation}
\begin{split}
\begin{bmatrix}
\hat{\sigma}_1(t) \\
\hat{\sigma}_2(t)
\end{bmatrix}
& = \begin{bmatrix}
\hat{\sigma}_1(iT_s) \\
\hat{\sigma}_2(iT_s)
\end{bmatrix},
t\in [iT_s, (i+1)T_s), \\
\begin{bmatrix}
\hat{\sigma}_1(iT_s) \\
\hat{\sigma}_2(iT_s)
\end{bmatrix}
& = -
\begin{bmatrix}
\mI_m & 0 \\
0 & \mI_{n-m}
\end{bmatrix}
[B_m\ B_{um}]^{-1}\Phi^{-1}(T_s)\mu(iT_s),\ \textup{for } i=0,1,2,\dots,
\end{split}$$ where $\Phi(T_s) \triangleq A_m^{-1}(e^{A_mT_s}-\mI_n)$, $\mu(iT_s)\triangleq e^{A_mT_s}\tilde{x}(iT_s)$, and $\Tilde{x}(t) \triangleq \hat{x}(t) - x(t)$ is the prediction error.
**Control Law**: The control law is given as $$\label{eqn:vanilla_control_law}
u(s) = C(s)(\hat{\sigma}_1(s) - k_g r(s)),$$ where $\hat{\sigma}_1(s)$ is the Laplace transform of $\hat{\sigma}_1(t)$. Note that since the actual system only contains matched uncertainty, $f(x(t))$, the control law tries to cancel only the [*matched*]{} uncertainty estimate, $\hat{\sigma}_1(t)$, within the bandwidth of the filter $C(s)$. In case when the actual system has both matched an unmatched uncertainty, the control law can be adjusted to cancel both of them. See [@L1_book Section 3.3] for the details.
In summary, the $\mathcal{L}_1$ controller is defined via \[eqn:vanilla\_predictor,eqn:vanilla\_adaptation,eqn:vanilla\_control\_law\], subject to the $\mathcal{L}_1$-norm condition in . The analysis of the closed-loop system with the controller follows two steps. First, the stability of a *reference system* is established. The reference system is given by
\[eqn:reference\_system\] $$\begin{aligned}
\dot{x}_{\text{ref}}(t) = & A_m x_{\text{ref}}(t) + B_m ( u_{\text{ref}}(t) + f(x_{\text{ref}}(t))), \quad x_{\text{ref}}(0) = x_0,\\
u_{\text{ref}}(s) = &C (s)(k_gr(s) - \eta_{\text{ref}}(s)),\quad y_{\text{ref}}(t)= C_m x_{\text{ref}}(t),\end{aligned}$$
where $\eta_{\text{ref}}(s)$ is the Laplace transform of $\eta_{\text{ref}}(t) \triangleq f(x_{\text{ref}}(t))$. The reference system defines the *ideal achievable performance* where the effect of the uncertainties are cancelled only within the bandwidth of the filter $C(s)$. The stability of the reference system is guaranteed by the norm condition . The following lemma characterizes the behavior of the reference system. Since it is a simpler version of Lemma 3.3.2 in [@L1_book], the proof is omitted for brevity.
For the closed-loop reference system in , subject to the $\lone$-norm condition in , if Assumption \[assmp:initial\_condition\] holds, then $$\label{eqn:xref_uref_bounds}
x_\Ref \in \mX_{\rho_r}, \quad u_\Ref \in \mX_{\rho_{ur}},$$ where $\rho_r$ is from and $\rho_{ur}$ is defined in .
When the bandwidth of the filter tends to infinity, one can easily see that the behavior of the reference system will converge to that of an idea system, defined as
\[eqn:ideal\_system\] $$\begin{aligned}
\dot{x}_{\text{id}}(t) = & A_m x_{\text{id}}(t) + B_m k_g r(s), \quad x_{\text{id}}(0) = x_0,\\
u_{\text{id}}(s) = & k_gr(s) - \eta_{\text{id}}(s),\quad y_{\text{id}}(t)= C_m x_{\text{id}}(t),\end{aligned}$$
where the uncertainty $f(x(t))$ is perfectly cancelled by $\eta_{\text{id}}(s)$ in the control law, which is the Laplace transform of $\eta_{\text{id}}(t) \triangleq f(x_{\text{id}}(t))$. Therefore, the filter determines the difference between the reference system and the ideal system .
Define $$\begin{aligned}
\alpha_1(t) \triangleq \norm{e^{A_mt}}_2,\ \nonumber \alpha_2(t), \triangleq \int_0^t \norm{e^{A_m(t-\tau)}\Phi^{-1}(T_s)e^{A_mT_s}}_2 d\tau,\nonumber, \alpha_3(t) \triangleq \int_0^t \norm{e^{A_m(t-\tau)}B_m}_2 d\tau.\end{aligned}$$
Let $$\bar{\alpha}_1(T_s) \triangleq \max_{t\in[0,T_s]}\alpha_1(t),\ \bar{\alpha}_2(T_s) \triangleq \max_{t\in[0,T_s]}\alpha_2(t),\ \bar{\alpha}_3(T_s) \triangleq \max_{t\in[0,T_s]}\alpha_3(t), \ \Delta = (L_\rho \rho + B_0) \sqrt{m}$$ and $$\gamma_0(T_s) \triangleq (\bar{\alpha}_1(T_s) + \bar{\alpha}_2(T_s)+1) \bar{\alpha}_3(T_s) \Delta.$$ Since $\bar{\alpha}_1(T_s)$, $\bar{\alpha}_1(T_s)$ and $\Delta$ are bounded, and $\lim_{T_s \rightarrow 0}\bar{\alpha}_3(T_s) = 0,$ we have
$$\lim_{T_s \rightarrow 0}\gamma_0(T_s) = 0.$$ If we select $T_s$ to ensure that $$\label{eqn:Ts_requirement}
\gamma_0 (T_s) < \bar{\gamma}_0,$$ then uniform performance bounds can be obtained for the signals of the closed-loop system with the controller defined via \[eqn:vanilla\_predictor,eqn:vanilla\_adaptation,eqn:vanilla\_control\_law\], both input and output, simultaneously, with respect to the reference system . This is formalized in the following theorem. The proof can be readily obtained following the proof of Theorem 3.3.1 in [@L1_book], and is thus omitted due to space limit.
Let the adaptation rate be selected to satisfy . Given the closed-loop system with the controller defined via \[eqn:vanilla\_predictor,eqn:vanilla\_adaptation,eqn:vanilla\_control\_law\],subject to the $\lone$-norm condition , and the closed-loop reference system in , then we have $$\begin{aligned}
x\in \mX_\rho, u\in \mX_{\rho_u},\label{eqn: x_and_u_bounds}\\
\Linfnorm{\tilde{x}} \leq \bar{\gamma}_0 \label{eqn: xtilde_bound}\\
\Linfnorm{x_{ref}-x} \leq {\gamma_1} \label{eqn:x_xref_error_bound} \\
\Linfnorm{u_{ref}-u} \leq \gamma_2 \label{eqn:u_uref_error_bound}\end{aligned}$$
$\mathcal{L}_1$-GP Controller {#sec:L1GP}
=============================
In this section we present the $\mathcal{L}_1$-GP controller wherein the online GPR learned dynamics are incorporated within the $\mathcal{L}_1$ architecture. We begin with the learning problem.
Learning the dynamics using GPR {#subsec:GP_learning}
-------------------------------
The uncertain component in is $$\label{eqn:GP:uncertain_component}
h(x,u) = f(x) + g(u),$$ where $g(u) = \omega u$. Now, by Assumption \[assmp:kernel\], $f \sim \mathcal{GP}(0,K_f(x,x'))$, i.e., the underlying function is a sample from the known associated GP. Furthermore, since $g(u) = \omega u$, the following holds true $$\label{eqn:GP:input_gain_GP}
g \sim \mathcal{GP}(0,K_g(u,u')), \quad K_g(u,u') = uu'.$$ Note that this is equivalent to the statement that $g(u) = \omega u$ with $\omega$ being a sample from a normal distribution. Due to the independence of the functions $f$ and $g$, we can jointly learn the function $f+g$ by using an Additive Gaussian Process (AGP) regression as presented in in [@duvenaud2014automatic Chapter 2]. To be precise, we may write $$\label{eqn:GP:h_GP}
f+g \sim \mathcal{GP}(0,K_h(x,x',u,u')), \quad K_h(x,x',u,u') = K_f(x,x') + K_g(u,u').$$ For the learning, we now setup the measurement model. Assuming we have $N \in \mathbb{N}$ measurements of the form $$y_i = h(x_i,u_i) + \zeta = \|b\|^{-2} b^\top (\dot{x}_i - A_m x_i) + \zeta, \quad \zeta \sim \mathcal{N}(0,\sigma_n^2), \quad i \in \{1,\cdots, N\},$$ we define the data set $$\label{eqn:GP:data}
\mathcal{D}_N = \{\mathbf{Y},\mathbf{X},\mathbf{U}\},$$ where $\mathbf{Y},~\mathbf{U} \in \mathbb{R}^N$ and $\mathbf{X} \in \mathbb{R}^{N \times n}$ are defined as $$\mathbf{Y} = \begin{bmatrix} y_1 & \cdots & y_N \end{bmatrix}^\top, \quad
\mathbf{X} = \begin{bmatrix} x_1 & \cdots & x_N \end{bmatrix}^\top, \quad
\mathbf{U} = \begin{bmatrix} u_1 & \cdots & u_N \end{bmatrix}^\top.$$Note that we usually only have access to measurements of $x$ and $u$, and not $\dot{x}$. However, estimates of $\dot{x}$ may be numerically generated with the estimation errors incorporated into $\zeta$. As an example, one may use the Savitsky-Golay filter for this purpose [@schafer2011savitzky]. Now, using the a priori independence of $f \in \mathcal{GP}(0,K_f(x,x'))$ and $g \in \mathcal{GP}(0,K_g(u,u'))$, we get the following joint distributions at any test inputs $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ and $u \in \mathbb{R}$
\[eqn:GP:joint\_dsitributions\] $$\begin{aligned}
\begin{bmatrix} f(x) \\ \mathbf{Y} \end{bmatrix} \sim & \mathcal{N}
\left(
\begin{bmatrix} 0 \\ 0_N \end{bmatrix},
\begin{bmatrix}
\mathbf{K_f^{\star \star}}(x) & \mathbf{K_f^{\star}}(x)^\top \\
\mathbf{K_f^{\star}}(x) & \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N
\end{bmatrix}
\right), \\
\begin{bmatrix} g(u) \\ \mathbf{Y} \end{bmatrix} \sim &\mathcal{N}
\left(
\begin{bmatrix} 0 \\ 0_N \end{bmatrix},
\begin{bmatrix}
\mathbf{K_g^{\star \star}}(u) & \mathbf{K_g^{\star}}(u)^\top \\
\mathbf{K_g^{\star}}(u) & \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N
\end{bmatrix}
\right),\\
\begin{bmatrix} \nabla f(x) \\ \mathbf{Y} \end{bmatrix} \sim &\mathcal{N}
\left(
\begin{bmatrix} 0_n \\ 0_N \end{bmatrix},
\begin{bmatrix}
\mathbf{\nabla^2 K_f^{\star \star}}(x) & \mathbf{\nabla K_f^{\star}}(x)^\top \\
\mathbf{ \nabla K_f^{\star}}(x) & \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N
\end{bmatrix}
\right),\end{aligned}$$
where we have used the fact that GPs are closed under linear transformations [@williams2006gaussian Sec. 9.4]. Here $\mathbf{K_f^{\star \star}}(x),\mathbf{K_g^{\star \star}}(u) \in \mathbb{R}$, $\mathbf{K_f^{\star }}(x),\mathbf{K_g^{\star}}(u) \in \mathbb{R}^N$, $\mathbf{K_f},\mathbf{K_g} \in \mathbb{S}^N$, $\mathbf{\nabla^2 K_f^{\star \star}}(x) \in \mathbb{S}^n$, and $\mathbf{\nabla K_f^{\star }}(u) \in \mathbb{R}^{N \times n}$ are defined as $$\begin{aligned}
&\mathbf{K_f^{\star \star}}(x) = K_f(x,x), \quad \mathbf{K_g^{\star \star}}(u) = K_g(u,u), \quad \mathbf{K_f^{\star}}(x) = K_f(X,x), \quad \mathbf{K_g^{\star}}(u) = K_g(U,u), \\
&\mathbf{K_f} = K_f(X,X), \quad \mathbf{K_g} = K_g(U,U), \quad \left[\mathbf{\nabla K_f^{\star \star}} \right]_{i,j} = \partial_{x_i x_j'}K_f(x,x), \quad \mathbf{\nabla K_f^{\star}} = \left( \nabla_x K_f(X,x) \right)^\top.\end{aligned}$$ Further discussion on the derivation of these joint distributions can be found in [@duvenaud2014automatic Chapter 2]. Now, we derive the conditional distributions by using [@bishop2006pattern Sec. 2.3.1] to get $$\label{eqn:GP:conditional_posteriors}
f(x)|\mathbf{Y} \sim & \mathcal{N}(\mu_f(x),\sigma_f(x)^2), \quad
\nabla f(x)|\mathbf{Y} \sim & \mathcal{N}(\partial \mu_f(x),\partial \sigma_f(x)^2), \quad
\omega|\mathbf{Y} \sim & \mathcal{N}(\mu_\omega,\sigma_\omega^2),$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
\mu_f(x) = &
\mathbf{K_f^\star}(x)^\top \left( \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N \right)^{-1} \mathbf{Y}, \quad \partial \mu_f(x) =
\mathbf{\nabla K_f^\star}(x)^\top \left( \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N \right)^{-1} \mathbf{Y}, \\
\mu_\omega = & \mathbf{U}^\top \left( \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N \right)^{-1} \mathbf{Y},\quad \sigma_\omega^2 = 1 - \mathbf{U}^\top \left( \mathbf{ K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N \right)^{-1} \mathbf{U},\\
\sigma_f(x)^2 = & \mathbf{K_f^{\star\star}}(x) - \mathbf{K_f^\star}(x)^\top \left( \mathbf{K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N \right)^{-1}\mathbf{K_f^\star}(x),\\
\partial \sigma_f(x)^2 = & \mathbf{\nabla^2 K_f^{\star\star}}(x) - \mathbf{\nabla K_f^\star}(x)^\top \left( \mathbf{ K_f} + \mathbf{K_g} + \sigma_n^2 \mathbb{I}_N \right)^{-1}\mathbf{\nabla K_f^\star}(x). \end{aligned}$$ Note that we obtained the posterior distribution of $\omega$ by fist determining the posterior conditional $g(u)$. Then, the linearity of $g(u) = \omega u$ allows us to then extract the posterior distribution of $\omega$.
We now proceed by obtaining high probability uniform prediction error bounds between each of the means and the true values. The following result is directly obtained by following the material in [@lederer2019uniform], with the exception of a few additional terms. The proof is provided in Appendix \[app:GP\_bound\_proof\].
\[thm:GP\_bounds\] . Given any $\delta \in (0,1)$, we have following bounds hold w.p. at least $1-\delta$ $$\|\nabla_x (f(x) - \mu_f(x))\|_1 \leq L_{\Tilde{f}}(\mathbb{X}_\kappa), \quad |f(0) - \mu_f(0)| \leq \tilde{B}, \quad |\omega - \mu_\omega| \leq L_{\tilde{\omega}}, \quad \forall x \in \mathbb{X}_\kappa$$
Note that for both upper bounds presented in this theorem, $\gamma(\tau)$ and $\partial \gamma(\tau)$ can be made arbitrarily small compared to $\sqrt{\beta(\tau)}\tilde{\sigma}(x)$ and $\sqrt{\beta(\tau)}\partial \tilde{\sigma}(x)$, respectively, since $\beta(\tau)$ grows only logarithmically with a vanishing $\tau$.
We now set-up the on-line learning algorithm presented in Algorithm \[algo:learning\]. The algorithm has access to the discrete measurements of the form from the system . The main idea is that the learner computes the posterior distributions conditioned on data using . Then, using the bounds provided by Theorem \[thm:GP\_bounds\], the algorithm returns $\mu_f$ and $\mu_\omega$ if the bounds are improved by some heuristically designed factor. We begin by defining the *model parameters* $\mathcal{M}$ as $$\mathcal{M}=\{\mu_f,\mu_\omega,L_{\tilde{f}}(\mathbb{X}),L_{\tilde{\omega}},\tilde{B}\}.$$ Additionally, we define $\eta_{\text{tol}} \in (0,1)$ as the *tolerance* which measures the improvements of the learning based updates.
\[algo:learning\] Initialize: $\mathcal{M} \leftarrow {0}$, $\mathcal{D} \leftarrow \emptyset$, $N \in \mathbb{N}$, $\mathbb{X}$, $L_f(\mathbb{X})$, B, $L_\omega = \bar{\omega} - \underline{\omega}$, $\eta_{\text{tol}}$\
Input: Discrete data stream $\mathcal{D}_i$\
$\mathcal{L}_1$ using GP learned dynamics {#subsec:GP_w_learning}
-----------------------------------------
Numerical Experiments {#sec:sims}
=====================
Comparison of performance with i) only $\mathcal{L}_1$, and ii) $\mathcal{L}_1$ with incorporated learned dynamics with various sizes of datasets (say, 3 different datasets).
Conclusions and Future Work {#sec:sims}
===========================
Online update of predictor, using variance as a guide. Consideration of spatio-temporal non-linearities. Extension to MIMO plants with non-linear reference dynamics for use in robotics. SSGP uniform bounds for incorporation within L1.
Proof of Theorem \[thm:GP\_bounds\] {#app:GP_bound_proof}
===================================
[^1]: In case $B_m$ is an invertible matrix, there is no need to introduce $B_{um}$ and $\hat{\sigma}_2(t)$.
|
(AP Photo/Michael R. Sisak, File). FILE - In this Jan. 22, 2018, file photo, Bill Cosby, in his first public performance since his last tour ended amid protests in May 2015, plays the drums at the LaRose Jazz Club in Philadelphia. Cosby is set to atten...
(AP Photo/Don Thompson, File). FILE - In this April 12, 2016, file photo, Kelly Johnson, then referred to as "Kacey," front left, one of Bill Cosby's accusers, and attorney Gloria Allred, front right, attend a hearing at the State Capitol in Sacramento...
(AP Photo/Nick Ut, File). FILE - In this March 29, 2016, file photo, model Janice Dickinson leaves a hearing about her defamation lawsuit against Bill Cosby in Los Angeles Superior Court. Cosby is set to attend a Monday, March 5, 2018, pretrial hearing...
(Pedro Portal/ The Miami Herald via AP). this March 10, 2018 photo shows an early morning view of the main span of the a pedestrian bridge that is being positioned to connect the City of Sweetwater, Fla., to Florida International University near Miami....
The deadly collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Florida has cast a spotlight on a rapid construction technique widely used around the U.S.More >>
The deadly collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Florida has cast a spotlight on a rapid construction technique widely used around the U.S.More >>
(AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File). FILE - This Monday, June 19, 2017, file photo shows a user signing in to Facebook on an iPad, in North Andover, Mass. Facebook has a problem it just can’t kick: People keep exploiting it in ways that could sway election...
The federal government is demanding that the company building a giant nuclear waste treatment plant in Washington state provide records proving that the steel used in the nearly $17 billion project is safe.More >>
The federal government is demanding that the company building a giant nuclear waste treatment plant in Washington state provide records proving that the steel used in the nearly $17 billion project is safe.More >>
Unsealed court documents from an on-going gender discrimination lawsuit against Microsoft claims that the tech giant confirmed only one of 118 complaints made by female employees was "founded.".More >>
Unsealed court documents from an on-going gender discrimination lawsuit against Microsoft claims that the tech giant confirmed only one of 118 complaints made by female employees was "founded.".More >>
(Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP). FBI agents meet at the scene of an explosion in Austin, Texas, Sunday, March 18, 2018. At least a few people were injured in another explosion in Texas' capital late Sunday, after three package bombs deto...
Police have warned residents near the site of the latest explosion in Austin to remain indoors and to call 911 if they need to leave home before 10 a.m.More >>
Police have warned residents near the site of the latest explosion in Austin to remain indoors and to call 911 if they need to leave home before 10 a.m.More >>
(Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP). FBI agents work the scene of an explosion in Austin, Texas, Sunday, March 18, 2018. At least a few people were injured in another explosion in Texas' capital late Sunday, after three package bombs detonat...
At least two people injured in another explosion in Texas' capital after three package bombs that detonated earlier this month in other parts of the city killed two people and injuring two others.More >>
At least two people injured in another explosion in Texas' capital after three package bombs that detonated earlier this month in other parts of the city killed two people and injuring two others.More >>
(AP Photo/Eric Gay). Federal investigators work near the site of Sunday's explosion, Monday, March 19, 2018, in Austin, Texas. Multiple people were injured in the explosion Sunday night, and police warned nearby residents to remain indoors overnight as...
Austin police chief's plea for bomber to come forward may be an attempt to coax the perpetrator to give additional clues.More >>
Austin police chief's plea for bomber to come forward may be an attempt to coax the perpetrator to give additional clues.More >>
Authorities said Friday that the cables suspending a pedestrian bridge were being tightened after a "stress test" when the 950-ton concrete span collapsed over traffic, killing at least six people and injuring 10
Authorities said Friday that the cables suspending a pedestrian bridge were being tightened after a "stress test" when the 950-ton concrete span collapsed over traffic, killing at least six people and injuring 10
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Bill Cosby made his first court appearance of the #MeToo era on Monday as defense lawyers tried without success to get his sexual assault case thrown out, then turned their attention to blocking some of the 80-year-old comedian's dozens of accusers from testifying at his looming retrial.
Prosecutors are trying to persuade the judge to allow as many as 19 other women to take the stand, including model Janice Dickinson, as they attempt to show the comedian had a long history of drugging and attacking women.
They're also trying to insulate Cosby's accuser, Andrea Constand, from what a prosecutor called "inevitable attacks" on her credibility.
Allowing other women to take the stand will show jurors that Cosby "systematically engaged in a signature pattern of providing an intoxicant to his young female victim and then sexually assaulting her when she became incapacitated," Assistant District Attorney Adrienne D. Jappe told the judge.
Cosby's lawyers will address the issue in court Tuesday. They've argued in writing that some of the women's allegations date to the 1960s and are impossible to defend against, given that some witnesses are dead, memories are faded and evidence has been lost.
Judge Steven O'Neill said he would not rule on whether to allow the testimony by the end of the two-day hearing, calling it an "extraordinarily weighty issue" that he needs time to review.
The judge allowed just one other accuser to take the stand at Cosby's first trial last year, barring any mention of about 60 others who have come forward to accuse Cosby in recent years.
The only other hint that jurors got of Cosby's past came from deposition excerpts from 2005 and 2006 in which the star admitted giving quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.
Cosby, who entered the courtroom on the arm of his spokesman, has said his encounter with Constand was consensual. A jury deadlocked on the case last year, setting the stage for a retrial.
Earlier Monday, Cosby's retooled defense team, led by former Michael Jackson lawyer Tom Mesereau, had argued that telephone records, travel itineraries and other evidence show the alleged assault couldn't have happened when Constand says it did and thus falls outside the statute of limitations.
The defense disputed Constand's testimony at last year's trial that he assaulted her at his suburban Philadelphia home in January 2004, when she was a Temple University women's basketball executive and he was a powerful Temple trustee. Constand didn't give a specific date, but said the incident had to have happened prior to Jan. 20, when her cousin moved into her Philadelphia apartment.
Cosby's lawyers told O'Neill they'd found evidence that Cosby wasn't even in Pennsylvania during that time. Constand testified she would have called Cosby to be let into his home, but his lawyers said her phone records don't reflect such a call within her timeframe.
The date is important because Cosby wasn't arrested until Dec. 30, 2015 - meaning any assault prior to Dec. 30, 2003, would have fallen outside the 12-year statute of limitations.
O'Neill said he'd leave that for the jury to decide, rejecting a defense motion to dismiss the charges.
Jury selection is slated to begin March 29.
Even before Monday's arguments got underway, Cosby's lawyers were rapped by the judge for falsely accusing prosecutors of hiding or destroying evidence.
District Attorney Kevin Steele asked O'Neill to throw Cosby's legal team off the case for claiming that prosecutors failed to reveal they'd interviewed a woman who cast doubt on Cosby's accuser.
The defense withdrew the allegation days later after his former lawyer confirmed he knew that the prosecution interviewed the woman before Cosby's first trial.
The DA argued Cosby's new lawyers acted recklessly and "are at best incompetent and otherwise unethical."
O'Neill, who presided over Cosby's first trial, said he was reluctant to break up Cosby's legal team with his retrial several weeks away. But he added the defense lawyers were essentially "on notice."
Monday's hearing came just 10 days after Cosby's 44-year-old daughter, Ensa, died of kidney disease. The judge expressed condolences to Cosby at the start of the hearing.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand and Dickinson have done.
___
Follow Mike Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak
___
For more coverage visit apnews.com/tag/CosbyonTrial
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
#!/usr/bin/env python
# pyroute2 - ss2
# Copyright (C) 2018 Matthias Tafelmeier
# ss2 is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
# ss2 is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
import json
import socket
import re
import os
import argparse
from socket import (AF_INET,
AF_UNIX
)
try:
import psutil
except ImportError:
psutil = None
from pyroute2 import DiagSocket
from pyroute2.netlink.diag import (SS_ESTABLISHED,
SS_SYN_SENT,
SS_SYN_RECV,
SS_FIN_WAIT1,
SS_FIN_WAIT2,
SS_TIME_WAIT,
SS_CLOSE,
SS_CLOSE_WAIT,
SS_LAST_ACK,
SS_LISTEN,
SS_CLOSING,
SS_ALL,
SS_CONN)
from pyroute2.netlink.diag import (UDIAG_SHOW_NAME,
UDIAG_SHOW_VFS,
UDIAG_SHOW_PEER)
try:
from collections.abc import Mapping
from collections.abc import Callable
except ImportError:
from collections import Mapping
from collections import Callable
# UDIAG_SHOW_ICONS,
# UDIAG_SHOW_RQLEN,
# UDIAG_SHOW_MEMINFO
class UserCtxtMap(Mapping):
_data = {}
_sk_inode_re = re.compile(r"socket:\[(?P<ino>\d+)\]")
_proc_sk_fd_cast = "/proc/%d/fd/%d"
_BUILD_RECURS_PATH = ["inode",
"usr",
"pid",
"fd"]
def _parse_inode(self, sconn):
sk_path = self._proc_sk_fd_cast % (sconn.pid, sconn.fd)
inode = None
sk_inode_raw = os.readlink(sk_path)
inode = self._sk_inode_re.search(sk_inode_raw).group('ino')
if not inode:
raise RuntimeError("Unexpected kernel sk inode outline")
return inode
def __recurs_enter(self,
_sk_inode=None,
_sk_fd=None,
_usr=None,
_pid=None,
_ctxt=None,
_recurs_path=[]):
step = _recurs_path.pop(0)
if self._BUILD_RECURS_PATH[0] == step:
if _sk_inode not in self._data.keys():
self._data[_sk_inode] = {}
elif self._BUILD_RECURS_PATH[1] == step:
if _usr not in self._data[_sk_inode].keys():
self._data[_sk_inode][_usr] = {}
elif self._BUILD_RECURS_PATH[2] == step:
if _pid not in self._data[_sk_inode][_usr].keys():
self._data[_sk_inode][_usr].__setitem__(_pid, _ctxt)
elif self._BUILD_RECURS_PATH[3] == step:
self._data[_sk_inode][_usr][_pid]["fds"].append(_sk_fd)
# end recursion
return
else:
raise RuntimeError("Unexpected step in recursion")
# descend
self.__recurs_enter(_sk_inode=_sk_inode,
_sk_fd=_sk_fd,
_usr=_usr,
_pid=_pid,
_ctxt=_ctxt,
_recurs_path=_recurs_path)
def _enter_item(self, usr, flow, ctxt):
if not flow.pid:
# corner case of eg anonnymous AddressFamily.AF_UNIX
# sockets
return
sk_inode = int(self._parse_inode(flow))
sk_fd = flow.fd
recurs_path = list(self._BUILD_RECURS_PATH)
self.__recurs_enter(_sk_inode=sk_inode,
_sk_fd=sk_fd,
_usr=usr,
_pid=flow.pid,
_ctxt=ctxt,
_recurs_path=recurs_path)
def _build(self):
for flow in psutil.net_connections(kind="all"):
proc = psutil.Process(flow.pid)
usr = proc.username()
ctxt = {"cmd": proc.exe(),
"full_cmd": proc.cmdline(),
"fds": []}
self._enter_item(usr, flow, ctxt)
def __init__(self):
self._build()
def __getitem__(self, key):
return self._data[key]
def __len__(self):
return len(self._data.keys())
def __delitem__(self, key):
raise RuntimeError("Not implemented")
def __iter__(self):
raise RuntimeError("Not implemented")
class Protocol(Callable):
class Resolver:
@staticmethod
def getHost(ip):
try:
data = socket.gethostbyaddr(ip)
host = str(data[0])
return host
except Exception:
# gracefully
return None
def __init__(self, sk_states, fmt='json'):
self._states = sk_states
fmter = "_fmt_%s" % fmt
self._fmt = getattr(self, fmter, None)
def __call__(self, nl_diag_sk, args, usr_ctxt):
raise RuntimeError('not implemented')
def _fmt_json(self, refined_stats):
return json.dumps(refined_stats, indent=4)
class UNIX(Protocol):
def __init__(self, sk_states=SS_CONN, _fmt='json'):
super(UNIX, self).__init__(sk_states, fmt=_fmt)
def __call__(self, nl_diag_sk, args, usr_ctxt):
sstats = nl_diag_sk.get_sock_stats(states=self._states,
family=AF_UNIX,
show=(UDIAG_SHOW_NAME |
UDIAG_SHOW_VFS |
UDIAG_SHOW_PEER))
refined_stats = self._refine_diag_raw(sstats,
usr_ctxt)
printable = self._fmt(refined_stats)
print(printable)
def _refine_diag_raw(self, raw_stats, usr_ctxt):
refined = {'UNIX': {'flows': []}}
def vfs_cb(raw_val):
out = {}
out['inode'] = raw_val['udiag_vfs_ino']
out['dev'] = raw_val['udiag_vfs_dev']
return out
k_idx = 0
val_idx = 1
cb_idx = 1
idiag_attr_refine_map = {'UNIX_DIAG_NAME': ('path_name', None),
'UNIX_DIAG_VFS': ('vfs', vfs_cb),
'UNIX_DIAG_PEER': ('peer_inode', None),
'UNIX_DIAG_SHUTDOWN': ('shutdown', None)}
for raw_flow in raw_stats:
vessel = {}
vessel['inode'] = raw_flow['udiag_ino']
for attr in raw_flow['attrs']:
attr_k = attr[k_idx]
attr_val = attr[val_idx]
k = idiag_attr_refine_map[attr_k][k_idx]
cb = idiag_attr_refine_map[attr_k][cb_idx]
if cb:
attr_val = cb(attr_val)
vessel[k] = attr_val
refined['UNIX']['flows'].append(vessel)
if usr_ctxt:
for flow in refined['UNIX']['flows']:
try:
sk_inode = flow['inode']
flow['usr_ctxt'] = usr_ctxt[sk_inode]
except KeyError:
# might define sentinel val
pass
return refined
class TCP(Protocol):
INET_DIAG_MEMINFO = 1
INET_DIAG_INFO = 2
INET_DIAG_VEGASINFO = 3
INET_DIAG_CONG = 4
def __init__(self, sk_states=SS_CONN, _fmt='json'):
super(TCP, self).__init__(sk_states, fmt=_fmt)
IDIAG_EXT_FLAGS = [self.INET_DIAG_MEMINFO,
self.INET_DIAG_INFO,
self.INET_DIAG_VEGASINFO,
self.INET_DIAG_CONG]
self.ext_f = 0
for f in IDIAG_EXT_FLAGS:
self.ext_f |= (1 << (f - 1))
def __call__(self, nl_diag_sk, args, usr_ctxt):
sstats = nl_diag_sk.get_sock_stats(states=self._states,
family=AF_INET,
extensions=self.ext_f)
refined_stats = self._refine_diag_raw(sstats,
args.resolve,
usr_ctxt)
printable = self._fmt(refined_stats)
print(printable)
def _refine_diag_raw(self, raw_stats, do_resolve, usr_ctxt):
refined = {'TCP': {'flows': []}}
idiag_refine_map = {'src': 'idiag_src',
'dst': 'idiag_dst',
'src_port': 'idiag_sport',
'dst_port': 'idiag_dport',
'inode': 'idiag_inode',
'iface_idx': 'idiag_if',
'retrans': 'idiag_retrans'}
for raw_flow in raw_stats:
vessel = {}
for k1, k2 in idiag_refine_map.items():
vessel[k1] = raw_flow[k2]
for ext_bundle in raw_flow['attrs']:
vessel = self._refine_extension(vessel, ext_bundle)
refined['TCP']['flows'].append(vessel)
if usr_ctxt:
for flow in refined['TCP']['flows']:
try:
sk_inode = flow['inode']
flow['usr_ctxt'] = usr_ctxt[sk_inode]
except KeyError:
# might define sentinel val
pass
if do_resolve:
for flow in refined['TCP']['flows']:
src_host = Protocol.Resolver.getHost(flow['src'])
if src_host:
flow['src_host'] = src_host
dst_host = Protocol.Resolver.getHost(flow['dst'])
if dst_host:
flow['dst_host'] = dst_host
return refined
def _refine_extension(self, vessel, raw_ext):
k, content = raw_ext
ext_refine_map = {'meminfo': {'r': 'idiag_rmem',
'w': 'idiag_wmem',
'f': 'idiag_fmem',
't': 'idiag_tmem'}}
if k == 'INET_DIAG_MEMINFO':
mem_k = 'meminfo'
vessel[mem_k] = {}
for k1, k2 in ext_refine_map[mem_k].items():
vessel[mem_k][k1] = content[k2]
elif k == 'INET_DIAG_CONG':
vessel['cong_algo'] = content
elif k == 'INET_DIAG_INFO':
vessel = self._refine_tcp_info(vessel, content)
elif k == 'INET_DIAG_SHUTDOWN':
pass
return vessel
# interim approach
# tcpinfo call backs
class InfoCbCore:
# normalizer
@staticmethod
def rto_n_cb(key, value, **ctx):
out = None
if value != 3000000:
out = value / 1000.0
return out
@staticmethod
def generic_1k_n_cb(key, value, **ctx):
return value / 1000.0
# predicates
@staticmethod
def snd_thresh_p_cb(key, value, **ctx):
if value < 0xFFFF:
return value
return None
@staticmethod
def rtt_p_cb(key, value, **ctx):
tcp_info_raw = ctx['raw']
try:
if tcp_info_raw['tcpv_enabled'] != 0 and \
tcp_info_raw['tcpv_rtt'] != 0x7fffffff:
return tcp_info_raw['tcpv_rtt']
except KeyError:
# ill practice, yet except quicker path
pass
return tcp_info_raw['tcpi_rtt'] / 1000.0
# converter
@staticmethod
def state_c_cb(key, value, **ctx):
state_str_map = {SS_ESTABLISHED: "established",
SS_SYN_SENT: "syn-sent",
SS_SYN_RECV: "syn-recv",
SS_FIN_WAIT1: "fin-wait-1",
SS_FIN_WAIT2: "fin-wait-2",
SS_TIME_WAIT: "time-wait",
SS_CLOSE: "unconnected",
SS_CLOSE_WAIT: "close-wait",
SS_LAST_ACK: "last-ack",
SS_LISTEN: "listening",
SS_CLOSING: "closing"}
return state_str_map[value]
@staticmethod
def opts_c_cb(key, value, **ctx):
tcp_info_raw = ctx['raw']
# tcp_info opt flags
TCPI_OPT_TIMESTAMPS = 1
TCPI_OPT_SACK = 2
TCPI_OPT_ECN = 8
out = []
opts = tcp_info_raw['tcpi_options']
if (opts & TCPI_OPT_TIMESTAMPS):
out.append("ts")
if (opts & TCPI_OPT_SACK):
out.append("sack")
if (opts & TCPI_OPT_ECN):
out.append("ecn")
return out
def _refine_tcp_info(self, vessel, tcp_info_raw):
ti = TCP.InfoCbCore
info_refine_tabl = {'tcpi_state': ('state', ti.state_c_cb),
'tcpi_pmtu': ('pmtu', None),
'tcpi_retrans': ('retrans', None),
'tcpi_ato': ('ato', ti.generic_1k_n_cb),
'tcpi_rto': ('rto', ti.rto_n_cb),
# TODO consider wscale baking
'tcpi_snd_wscale': ('snd_wscale', None),
'tcpi_rcv_wscale': ('rcv_wscale', None),
# TODO bps baking
'tcpi_snd_mss': ('snd_mss', None),
'tcpi_snd_cwnd': ('snd_cwnd', None),
'tcpi_snd_ssthresh': ('snd_ssthresh',
ti.snd_thresh_p_cb),
# TODO consider rtt agglomeration - needs nesting
'tcpi_rtt': ('rtt', ti.rtt_p_cb),
'tcpi_rttvar': ('rttvar', ti.generic_1k_n_cb),
'tcpi_rcv_rtt': ('rcv_rtt', ti.generic_1k_n_cb),
'tcpi_rcv_space': ('rcv_space', None),
'tcpi_options': ('opts', ti.opts_c_cb),
# unclear, NB not in use by iproute2 ss latest
'tcpi_last_data_sent': ('last_data_sent', None),
'tcpi_rcv_ssthresh': ('rcv_ssthresh', None),
'tcpi_rcv_ssthresh': ('rcv_ssthresh', None),
'tcpi_segs_in': ('segs_in', None),
'tcpi_segs_out': ('segs_out', None),
'tcpi_data_segs_in': ('data_segs_in', None),
'tcpi_data_segs_out': ('data_segs_out', None),
'tcpi_lost': ('lost', None),
'tcpi_notsent_bytes': ('notsent_bytes', None),
'tcpi_rcv_mss': ('rcv_mss', None),
'tcpi_pacing_rate': ('pacing_rate', None),
'tcpi_retransmits': ('retransmits', None),
'tcpi_min_rtt': ('min_rtt', None),
'tcpi_rwnd_limited': ('rwnd_limited', None),
'tcpi_max_pacing_rate': ('max_pacing_rate', None),
'tcpi_probes': ('probes', None),
'tcpi_reordering': ('reordering', None),
'tcpi_last_data_recv': ('last_data_recv', None),
'tcpi_bytes_received': ('bytes_received', None),
'tcpi_fackets': ('fackets', None),
'tcpi_last_ack_recv': ('last_ack_recv', None),
'tcpi_last_ack_sent': ('last_ack_sent', None),
'tcpi_unacked': ('unacked', None),
'tcpi_sacked': ('sacked', None),
'tcpi_bytes_acked': ('bytes_acked', None),
'tcpi_delivery_rate_app_limited':
('delivery_rate_app_limited', None),
'tcpi_delivery_rate': ('delivery_rate', None),
'tcpi_sndbuf_limited': ('sndbuf_limited', None),
'tcpi_ca_state': ('ca_state', None),
'tcpi_busy_time': ('busy_time', None),
'tcpi_total_retrans': ('total_retrans', None),
'tcpi_advmss': ('advmss', None),
'tcpi_backoff': (None, None),
'tcpv_enabled': (None, 'skip'),
'tcpv_rttcnt': (None, 'skip'),
'tcpv_rtt': (None, 'skip'),
'tcpv_minrtt': (None, 'skip'),
# BBR
'bbr_bw_lo': ('bbr_bw_lo', None),
'bbr_bw_hi': ('bbr_bw_hi', None),
'bbr_min_rtt': ('bbr_min_rtt', None),
'bbr_pacing_gain': ('bbr_pacing_gain', None),
'bbr_cwnd_gain': ('bbr_cwnd_gain', None),
# DCTCP
'dctcp_enabled': ('dctcp_enabled', None),
'dctcp_ce_state': ('dctcp_ce_state', None),
'dctcp_alpha': ('dctcp_alpha', None),
'dctcp_ab_ecn': ('dctcp_ab_ecn', None),
'dctcp_ab_tot': ('dctcp_ab_tot', None)}
k_idx = 0
cb_idx = 1
info_k = 'tcp_info'
vessel[info_k] = {}
# BUG - pyroute2 diag - seems always last info instance from kernel
if type(tcp_info_raw) != str:
for k, v in tcp_info_raw.items():
refined_k = info_refine_tabl[k][k_idx]
cb = info_refine_tabl[k][cb_idx]
refined_v = v
if cb and cb == 'skip':
continue
elif cb:
ctx = {'raw': tcp_info_raw}
refined_v = cb(k, v, **ctx)
vessel[info_k][refined_k] = refined_v
return vessel
def prepare_args():
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="""
ss2 - socket statistics depictor meant as
a complete and convenient surrogate for
iproute2/misc/ss2""")
parser.add_argument('-x', '--unix',
help='Display Unix domain sockets.',
action='store_true')
parser.add_argument('-t', '--tcp',
help='Display TCP sockets.',
action='store_true')
parser.add_argument('-l', '--listen',
help='Display listening sockets.',
action='store_true')
parser.add_argument('-a', '--all',
help='Display all sockets.',
action='store_true')
parser.add_argument('-p', '--process',
help='show socket holding context',
action='store_true')
parser.add_argument('-r', '--resolve',
help='resolve host names in addition',
action='store_true')
args = parser.parse_args()
return args
def run(args=None):
if psutil is None:
raise RuntimeError('ss2 requires python-psutil >= 5.0 to run')
if not args:
args = prepare_args()
_states = SS_CONN
if args.listen:
_states = (1 << SS_LISTEN)
if args.all:
_states = SS_ALL
protocols = []
if args.tcp:
protocols.append(TCP(sk_states=_states))
if args.unix:
protocols.append(UNIX(sk_states=_states))
if not protocols:
raise RuntimeError('not implemented - ss2 in fledging mode')
_user_ctxt_map = None
if args.process:
_user_ctxt_map = UserCtxtMap()
with DiagSocket() as ds:
ds.bind()
for p in protocols:
p(ds, args, _user_ctxt_map)
if __name__ == "__main__":
run()
|
Background {#Sec1}
==========
Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) is a disorder of the microvasculature with hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia and acute kidney injury. The pathogenesis of aHUS involves the uncontrolled activation of the alternative complement pathway \[[@CR1]--[@CR5]\]. Nowadays, aHUS is successfully treated with eculizumab \[[@CR3]--[@CR7]\]. Eculizumab is a humanized, chimeric IgG2/4 kappa antibody, which binds human complement C5 and blocks C5a generation and complement-mediated cell lysis via membrane-attack-complex \[[@CR6]\]. However, it is not known whether the administration of eculizumab in pregnant patients with end-stage renal disease due to aHUS may cause reduced membrane-attack-complex formation also in the fetal circulation. The objective of the present study was to alert clinicians to the effect of therapeutic antibodies in newborns.
For this report we measured the deposition of complement C3 and C9 in the mother's blood, in index newborn's umbilical cord vein blood (obtained after delivery, i.e., 2 h after the last eculizumab infusion), and in blood 3 weeks after birth we measured deposition of complement C3 and C9 using the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA as previously described \[[@CR8], [@CR9]\]. The sensitive and specific Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA determines the capacities of three complement pathways using wells pre-coated with immune complexes, lipopolysaccharides, or mannan, to activate classical, alternative, and lectin pathway, respectively \[[@CR9]\]. The deposition of C3 was measured using monoclonal anti-human C3, clone C3 F1--8, which identifies C3, C3b, iC3b and C3c; and deposition of C9 was measured using anti-human C9 (Bioporto A/S, Gentofte, Denmark), which reacts with the membrane-attack-complex \[[@CR9]\]. The advantages of the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA had been described \[[@CR9]\]. Briefly, CH50 and AH50 methods are not based on ELISA principle but based on the spectrophotometric measurements of the degree of cell lysis following addition of antibody-sensitized sheep erythrocytes and sheep erythrocytes in solution, respectively. The protocol for the CH50 and AH50 methods is laborious, difficult to standardize, and it is well established that the ELISA methodology is more sensitive compared to these older techniques. Further, and in contrast to the CH50 and AH50 methods, Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA is able to distinguish complement capacity between C3- and C9 (membrane-attack-complex) -level.
Case presentation {#Sec2}
=================
Clinical findings {#Sec3}
-----------------
A previously healthy 25-year-old woman presented to the hospital's emergency department with high blood pressure, hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and oliguric acute kidney injury. Her blood pressure was 158/101 mmHg. Laboratory data revealed elevated plasma creatinine level, 925 μmol/L (normal range, 45--90), plasma urea, 34.1 mmol/L (normal range 2.6--6.4), reduced hemoglobin, 5.5 mmol/L (normal range, 7.3--9.5), plasma lactate dehydrogenase, 714 U/L (normal range, 105--205), reduced plasma haptoglobine levels less than 0.08 g/L (normal range, 0.35--1.85), and reduced platelet count, 42 per nL (normal range, 165--400). A peripheral blood smear showed 6--12 schistocytes per high power field (normal, less than 5). Antinuclear antibodies, antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, anti-glomerular basement membrane antibodies, anti-complement factor H antibodies, and Hanta virus antibodies were negative. A Disintegrin And Metalloproteinase with a ThromboSpondin type 1 motif, member 13 activity was normal, thus excluding thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Urine analyses showed microscopic hematuria and urinary protein/creatinine ratio was 3.807 mg/g.
Stool culture and multiplex polymerase chain reaction for verotoxin-producing *Escherichia coli* in stool were negative. A renal biopsy showed 7 glomeruli without fresh thrombotic material, but ischemic damage of glomeruli and tubuli. Vessels showed increased wall thickening without thrombotic material, which may indicate weak thrombotic microangiopathy, and immunofluorescence was negative.
Genetic findings {#Sec4}
----------------
Genetic workup revealed no mutations located in the genes for complement factor H, complement factor I, and membrane cofactor protein. The patient had a homozygous deletion of exon 3--6 in the complement factor H related gene 1 (CFHR1), and a heterozygous deletion of exon 4--6 in the complement factor H related gene 3 (CFHR3).
Treatment of atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome and chronic kidney disease {#Sec5}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the case dates back several years, daily plasmapheresis had been started (i.e., plasma exchange of 1.0 plasma volume every day), resulting in attenuation of the hemolytic anemia whereas renal function did not recover. Nowadays administration of eculizumab may be considered \[[@CR3]--[@CR7]\]. Hemodialysis treatment was continued until 20 months later when she received a crossmatch negative AB0-compatible, nonrelated living donor kidney transplant. The immunosuppressive regimen included basiliximab, tacrolimus, and mycophenolate mofetil, and immediate transplant function was unremarkable. However, rising plasma creatinine levels were observed after transplantation together with hemolytic anemia and thrombocytopenia, indicating a relapse of atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome. One biopsy obtained 1 week after transplantation showed 17 glomeruli without thrombotic material, there were no signs for rejection, g0-1v0i1-3 t0-1ah0ptc0. Another biopsy obtained 6 weeks after transplantation showed 7 glomeruli without thrombotic material. Vessels showed increased wall thickening without thrombotic material, and immunofluorescence was positive for C3 and C4d. There were no signs for rejection, g1v0i1t0ah1ptc0.
Although tacrolimus was discontinued, whereas prednisolone, plasmapheresis, and eculizumab were started, we observed a progressive deterioration of transplant function and three months later hemodialysis treatment was resumed because of uremic symptoms.
Treatment with eculizumab during pregnancy {#Sec6}
------------------------------------------
The patient performed home dialysis 6 days per week for 5 h using a biocompatible membrane. Ten months later, she got pregnant. At gestational age 11 + 1 a relapse of the hemolytic anemia and thrombocytopenia was observed (hemoglobin 4.8 mmol/L, haptoglobine levels less than 0.08 g/L, platelet count 83 per nL). Intravenous eculizumab (1200 mg every other week) was started and given throughout pregnancy. The pregnancy was followed closely with repeated ultrasound monitoring growth and fetal blood flows. Intrauterine growth retardation was diagnosed due to suspected fetal distress, a healthy male index baby was delivered by cesarean section in week 34 + 2. An eculizumab infusion was given 2 h before cesarean section. Hemodialysis and eculizumab treatment were continued in the mother and follow ups in both baby and mother after 12 months were uneventful.
Complement C3 deposition is not affected by eculizumab {#Sec7}
------------------------------------------------------
In the mother's blood, in index newborn's umbilical cord vein blood (obtained after delivery, i.e., 2 h after the last eculizumab infusion), and in blood three weeks after birth we measured deposition of complement C3 and C9 using the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA as previously described \[[@CR8], [@CR9]\]. Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"} shows the capacities of three complement pathways as determined by complement C3 deposition in the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA. Complement C3 deposition was similar in umbilical cord blood from control newborns and index child. The control group consisted of five pre-term (born in gestational week 35--36) boys born to healthy mothers. The lectin pathway activity was abrogated in the index baby as well as the control newborns.Fig. 1Complement C3 deposition in index newborn and mother. Complement C3 deposition after activation of the classic, alternative, and lectin pathway in umbilical cord blood from preterm new born controls (box and whiskers plot), umbilical cord blood from the index newborn, in blood from the mother treated with eculizumab, and in blood from the index newborn at 3 weeks. Results are given for the deposition of complement C3 using the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA \[[@CR9]\]
Eculizumab reduces membrane attack complex formation in the index newborn {#Sec8}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Complement C9 deposition which occurs downstream of eculizumab inhibition is shown in Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}. As expected in the mother's blood, complement C9 deposition induced by activation of the classical pathway was completely abolished (0% compared to 59 to 130% in healthy adults) \[[@CR9]\]. It should be noted that complement C9 deposition induced by activation of the classical pathway was almost completely abrogated in umbilical cord blood from the index newborn (2%), whereas newborn controls showed a median of 70%. The control group consisted of five pre-term (born in gestational week 35--36) boys born to healthy mothers. Complement C9 deposition normalized in the index child after 3 weeks. Furthermore, in vitro administration of 100 μg/mL complement factor C5 increased complement C9 deposition in index child from 2 to 38%. The in vitro effect of eculizumab on complement C9 deposition is depicted in Fig. [3](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}. In-vitro administration of eculizumab to control umbilical cord blood dose-dependently reduced complement C9 deposition with apparent IC50s ranging from 6 to 10 μg/mL.Fig. 2Complement C9 deposition in index newborn and mother. Complement C9 deposition after activation of the classic pathway in umbilical cord blood from preterm new born controls (box and whiskers plot), umbilical cord blood from the index newborn, in blood from the mother treated with eculizumab, and in blood from the index newborn at 3 weeks. Results are given for the deposition of complement C9 using the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA \[[@CR9]\]Fig. 3Dose-dependent effect of eculizumab on complement C9 deposition induced by activation of the classical pathway in umbilical cord blood from controls in vitro
Discussion and conclusions {#Sec9}
==========================
Servais et al. indicated that the administration of eculizumab during pregnancy in three patients with atypical haemolytic uremic syndrome displayed no overt safety issues \[[@CR10]\]. However, it should be noted that all babies were born preterm \[[@CR10]\]. The index child presented in our study was also born preterm. End-stage renal disease and dialysis may well explain premature birth in our case. However, Segura-Cervantes et al. showed that women with premature preterm rupture of membranes as well as preterm labor had lower soluble C5b-9 complement complexes compared to women during term labor \[[@CR11]\]. Human IgG are known to cross the human placental barrier especially in the third trimester \[[@CR12]\]. Furthermore, in umbilical cord blood from three mothers with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria or antiphospholipid syndrome eculizumab concentrations had been reported \[[@CR13]\]. Thus eculizumab may potentially cause terminal complement inhibition in the fetal circulation \[[@CR14]\]. This assumption is supported by our present observation. We showed that eculizumab specifically reduces complement C9 deposition, but not complement C3 deposition, in umbilical cord blood from a mother with end-stage renal disease. The impact of eculizumab was supported by the observation that complement C9 deposition could be rescued in-vitro by administration of complement C5. Furthermore, we confirmed that eculizumab may reduce formation of membrane-attack complex in umbilical cord blood from controls in-vitro. The in-vitro effect of antibodies which neutralize complement factors have recently been reported \[[@CR15]\]. The fact that eculizumab infusion was given very close to cesarean section may explain why the present results may differ from other cases in the literature.
Genetic studies showed deletions in the gene for CFHR1 and CFHR3 in the mother. According to literature, deletions in CFHR1 and CFHR3 may be associated with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome \[[@CR2]\]. Our case shows that the lectin pathway activity was abrogated in the index baby as well as the control newborns, which is often found in premature children, thus excluding major contamination with blood from the mother, who had normal lectin pathway activity. The present case shows that complement C9 deposition induced by activation of the classical pathway was almost completely abrogated in umbilical cord blood from the index newborn, whereas newborn controls showed a median of 70%. These findings may indicate that the observed effect in the index newborn is more likely due to eculizumab. That is also supported by our finding that complement C9 deposition normalized in the index child after 3 weeks consistent with eculizumab's half-life being of 12--14 days \[[@CR16]\].
Limitation of the study {#Sec10}
-----------------------
The present study has several limitations: Additional spectrophotometric assays may be appropriate to confirm the complement findings. Furthermore, genetic findings were not based on next-gen sequencing. Another limitation is that eculizumab titers would have been helpful to strengthen the conclusions.
Taken together we give evidence that eculizumab treatment of the index child's mother reduces the membrane-attack-complex formation in the newborn. This may cause reduced innate immunity which could render newborns more susceptible to infections.
aHUS
: Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome
CFHR1
: Complement factor H related gene 1
CFHR3
: Complement factor H related gene 3
**Publisher's Note**
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Subagini Nagarajah, Christian Nielsen and Kristian Assing contributed equally to this work.
None.
SN, MT, LLTA, LBL, and CB contributed to patient management. KA organized sampling. CN and YP performed the Palarasah-Nielsen-ELISA-assay. SN, MT, KA, and CB designed the study. SN and MT wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. SN, MT, CN, KA, YP, LLTA, and CB contributed to writing of the report. SN, MT, CN, KA, YP, LLTA, LBL, and CB approved the final version. Written consent to publication was obtained.
Authors' information {#FPar1}
====================
None.
The authors declare that there was no funding.
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
Approval was obtained from the regional committee (Data protection agency, Datatilsynet Region Syddanmark, number 17/43602).
Written informed consent was obtained from the person to publish information.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
|
+ 10 = 4, -3*i - z + 48 = 0. Calculate the remainder when i is divided by d.
3
Let k(u) = u**3 + 14*u**2 + 4*u + 25. Calculate the remainder when k(-12) is divided by 38.
37
Suppose -z = 2*u - 101, -3*u - 513 = -5*z - 5*u. What is the remainder when z is divided by 52?
51
Let u(q) = -q**2 + 22*q + 4. Let t(g) = g + 3. Let s be t(17). Calculate the remainder when u(s) is divided by 12.
8
Let x(j) = -6*j + 16. Let l be x(-14). Suppose l - 22 = 2*q. What is the remainder when q is divided by 8?
7
Let g = 212 - 178. What is the remainder when g is divided by 18?
16
Let r = -48 - -54. Suppose -r*s + 81 = -105. Calculate the remainder when 59 is divided by s.
28
Calculate the remainder when 127 is divided by 336/((-128)/(-16)) + (-1 - -3).
39
Let j = 676 + -648. Calculate the remainder when 185 is divided by j.
17
Suppose 5*u + 253 = 2*q, -4*u + 351 = 3*q - 2*u. What is the remainder when q is divided by 15?
14
Suppose 3*s + 16 = 7*s. Suppose -s*p + 37 = -19. Let h = 17 - p. What is the remainder when h is divided by 2?
1
Calculate the remainder when ((-300)/35)/((-18)/84) is divided by 38.
2
Calculate the remainder when 1145 is divided by (46/12)/((-67)/(-402)).
18
Let j be (5/5*-6)/(-2). Calculate the remainder when 2 + (-15)/j + 73 is divided by 36.
34
Suppose 5*k - 138 = 5*a + 197, a = -2*k + 143. Suppose -f + k = -0*f + s, 2*s - 10 = 0. Let c = -49 - -71. Calculate the remainder when f is divided by c.
21
Let o(f) = f**3 + 6*f**2 + 4*f - 3. Let q be o(-5). Suppose 0 = 3*a + 6, -a = q*k + a - 118. Calculate the remainder when k is divided by 3 - (2/1 + -15).
13
Let i = -87 - -56. Let v = -8 - i. Calculate the remainder when v is divided by 12.
11
Let u = 210 + -178. Calculate the remainder when 87 is divided by u.
23
Let s(t) = 4*t**2 - 32*t + 1. Suppose 2 - 26 = -3*b. Let v = -3 - -5. What is the remainder when v is divided by s(b)?
0
Suppose 4*t + 16 = 0, -5*v + 3*t + 1633 + 459 = 0. Calculate the remainder when v is divided by 105.
101
Suppose -221*q + 246*q = 1250. Let r = 16 - -8. Suppose -28 = -4*l + r. What is the remainder when q is divided by l?
11
What is the remainder when 10 is divided by (-28)/(-12)*3/1?
3
Let b = -39 - -110. Let a = b - 46. What is the remainder when 98 is divided by a?
23
Let t be 22*((-9)/(-2) - 4). Suppose t*c - 207 = -53. What is the remainder when 39 is divided by c?
11
Let r = 13 + -9. Let t be 21/(-28) + 11/4. Suppose l + t*l - 21 = 0. Calculate the remainder when l is divided by r.
3
Suppose 5*i - 50 = -3*r, 0*r = 2*r. Suppose 37 = x - 12. Calculate the remainder when x is divided by i.
9
Let n = -14 + 21. Suppose 4*l - 276 = -4*j, 0 = 5*j + n + 3. Suppose 0 = o - l + 7. What is the remainder when o is divided by 33?
31
Let m(o) = -55*o**3 + o**2 - o - 2. Let w be m(-1). Let i = w + -16. Calculate the remainder when i is divided by (14/(-3))/(1/(-3)).
11
Suppose -3*d - 5 = -8*d. Let l be (d + 0)*(-65)/(-5). Calculate the remainder when l/(2 + (-36)/20) is divided by 22.
21
Let a = -20 + 48. Suppose 2*i = 5*t - 2*i - a, -5*i = -2*t + 1. What is the remainder when t is divided by 3?
2
Calculate the remainder when (-59 - -23)/((-9)/60) is divided by 63.
51
Suppose -16 = -4*k + 4*r, 3*k - 3*r - 2*r = 14. Suppose -2*c = -1 + k, -c = 3*s - 398. Calculate the remainder when s is divided by 45.
43
Suppose 0 = 156*d - 159*d + 744. Suppose 5*r + d = -2*u + 1529, 0 = 4*r + 2*u - 1024. What is the remainder when r is divided by 52?
49
Let v(b) = 2*b**2 + 9*b + 44. Calculate the remainder when 69 is divided by v(-4).
29
Let d be (6/18)/((-2)/6). Let b be 0 + (-2)/d - 4. Calculate the remainder when 113 is divided by b/((-4)/38) + 4.
21
Suppose 7*x - 2*x = 10. Suppose 104 = x*a - 28. Suppose -6*o + a = -0*o. Calculate the remainder when 30 is divided by o.
8
Suppose 5*p - 5*t + 9 = 2*p, 15 = 3*p + 3*t. Suppose 3*m + 297 = 8*m - p*a, -5*a = m - 81. Let c = 102 - m. Calculate the remainder when c is divided by 11.
8
Let h be ((-81)/6)/((-3)/(-4)). What is the remainder when (5 - 6)*h/2 is divided by 4?
1
Suppose 7 = -11*a + 106. Calculate the remainder when 128 is divided by a.
2
Let m(j) = -13*j + 83. Suppose -2*n + 3*w = 6, 0 = -4*w + 9 + 7. Calculate the remainder when m(-3) is divided by 188/6 + n/(-9).
29
Let a = 8 - 3. Let b(c) = c**3 + c**2 - 16*c - 6. Calculate the remainder when b(a) is divided by 14.
8
Let t(d) = d**3 + 19*d**2 + 6. Let l be t(-19). What is the remainder when 29 is divided by l/27 - ((-426)/27 - 0)?
13
Calculate the remainder when 54/(-12)*(-474)/(-18)*-2 is divided by 16.
13
Suppose -i - 5*r = 7, 2 = -r - 0. Suppose 0 = -i*a + 139 - 115. Let m(j) = -8*j - 3. Calculate the remainder when m(-4) is divided by a.
5
Let v(p) = p**3 + 31*p**2 + p + 86. What is the remainder when 105 is divided by v(-31)?
50
Let d(o) = 2*o**3 + o**2 - 7*o + 2. Let p be d(-4). Let l = p - -94. Calculate the remainder when 34 is divided by l.
10
Let x(h) = 65*h**2 + 2*h + 2. What is the remainder when x(-1) is divided by 27?
11
Suppose -4*o + 58 = q, -2*q + 6*q = 5*o - 62. What is the remainder when 107 is divided by o?
9
Let g = 6 - -4. Suppose -g*x + 150 = -5*x. Calculate the remainder when x is divided by 8.
6
Let j = 40 - 37. Suppose 2*q - 109 = j*d, -q = q + 4*d - 74. What is the remainder when q is divided by 17?
13
Suppose -4*c - 120 = -8*c. Let b(i) = 127*i - 2333. Calculate the remainder when b(20) is divided by c.
27
Let z(r) = -r**3 + 18*r**2 - 14*r + 18. Suppose 0 = c + 2*c - 42. Calculate the remainder when z(17) is divided by c.
13
Suppose -5*d = -4*b + b - 12, -3*d + 2*b = -7. Suppose -4*n = -c + 9, 90 = 4*c + d*n - n. Calculate the remainder when 60 is divided by c.
18
Suppose 9 - 6 = t. Suppose 15 = t*i - 21. Calculate the remainder when 34 is divided by i.
10
Let d(l) = 2*l**3 - 9*l**2 + 2*l + 10. Let c be d(6). Let x = c + -55. Calculate the remainder when x is divided by 26.
23
Suppose b + 12 = 3*m, 0 = 2*b - 4*b - 6. Suppose -3*y + 1 = -2, -m*y = 3*t - 267. What is the remainder when t is divided by 9?
7
Let a(s) = s**3 + 10*s**2 - 24*s + 18. Let i be a(-12). Suppose -22*u + 356 = -i*u. Calculate the remainder when u is divided by 15.
14
Let y(a) = -a + 274. What is the remainder when y(5) is divided by 16?
13
Suppose -35*a + 33*a + 18 = 0. Suppose -w + a = 2*s, 28 = 4*w + 5*s - 23. Calculate the remainder when 75 is divided by w.
18
Let x = 256 + -248. Calculate the remainder when 366 is divided by x.
6
Let p be (-219)/(-21) - (-6)/(-14). Let m be 28/(-2)*5/p. Let w = 21 + m. What is the remainder when 55 is divided by w?
13
Let x(b) be the third derivative of b**5/60 - b**4/6 - 16*b**3/3 - 5*b**2. What is the remainder when x(11) is divided by 8?
5
Let z(l) = l**3 + 4*l**2 - 5. Let g be z(-4). Suppose -m - 2*k = -16 - 5, 2*k + 45 = 5*m. Let d = m + g. Calculate the remainder when 9 is divided by d.
3
Let m(f) = f**3 + 5*f**2 - 11*f + 7. Suppose 32*x - 34*x = 12. Suppose l = 4*l - 30. What is the remainder when m(x) is divided by l?
7
Let d = 29 - -16. What is the remainder when 162/d + (-3)/5 is divided by 2?
1
Suppose 0 = 5*n + 4*n + 72. Calculate the remainder when -4 - (0 + n) - -73 - 3 is divided by 38.
36
Suppose 9*g - 71 - 19 = 0. Suppose -12 = -g*m + 6*m. What is the remainder when m is divided by 3?
0
Suppose -4*m = 40 - 56. What is the remainder when m is divided by 2?
0
Let q(v) = 3*v**2 - 4*v - 7. What is the remainder when q(-3) is divided by 21?
11
Calculate the remainder when 9/(-18)*20*(-3)/1 is divided by 16.
14
Suppose 0 = -23*j + 24*j - 84. What is the remainder when 249 is divided by j?
81
Let k = 7 - -50. Calculate the remainder when 187 is divided by k.
16
What is the remainder when (-8129)/(-11) - (-3 + 9) is divided by 8?
5
Let p(w) = w**3 + 17*w**2 - 58*w + 50. Let s be p(-20). Let u = 85 + -57. Suppose u = f - s. What is the remainder when f is divided by 10?
8
Let f(c) = 3*c**2 - 4*c. Suppose 7*p - 12 = 16. What is the remainder when f(3) is divided by (2/(-4))/(p/(-48))?
3
Let t(x) = -82*x - 482. Calculate the remainder when t(-13) is divided by 98.
94
Let i(b) = -b + 4. Let l = 5 - 1. Let q be i(l). Suppose 8 = u - q*u + 3*f, 3*u = 2*f + 79. Calculate the remainder when u is divided by 5.
3
Suppose 0 = 2*x - 5*x + 9. Let n(f) = 2*f**3 - 5*f**2 + 4*f + 1. What is the |
Buttle UK
Buttle UK, formerly known as The Frank Buttle Trust, is a UK charity that provides financial grants to children in need. Founded by Frank Buttle in 1937 but not operational until after his death in 1953, the charity has helped many thousands of people throughout the United Kingdom. In 2015–2016, it made 10,068 grants totalling just over £3.9 million.
The people the charity helps are often in particularly difficult circumstances and may be experiencing significant deprivation. They may be estranged from their family, seriously ill, or experiencing a range of other social problems.
Areas of support
Buttle UK offers a wide variety of support to vulnerable children and young people.
Small grants
In 2009–2010 Buttle UK made 8,887 awards to nearly 20,000 disadvantaged individual children and young people across the UK to help them obtain basic necessities.
The BBC Children in Need Emergency Essentials programme
Buttle UK distributes grants on behalf of BBC Children in Need and welcomes applications from referring agencies throughout the United Kingdom on behalf of children and young people aged 18 or under who are in need. Grants are generally for such items as clothing, beds, bedding, washing machines, cookers and other basic essentials.
In 2007, online grant applications were launched on the charity’s website for Child Support and BBC Children in Need grants, streamlining the process and greatly reducing the response time.
School fees
The organization provides funding for school fees for at-risk children.
Students and trainees
Buttle UK has now closed this programme, but supports Estranged Young People ages 16–20. Awards financial support to young people (aged 16–20), with severe social problems, particularly those who are estranged from their parents, to attend further education and training. By funding course costs, equipment, field trips or basic day-to-day living costs, Buttle UK relieves the financial pressures and worries that often force these vulnerable young people to abandon their studies early. In 2009–2010 Buttle UK enabled 172 young people to access courses as varied as architecture, music technology, business and tree surgery.
Access to the Future
Buttle UK has now closed this programme, but supports Estranged Young People ages 16–20. Offers bespoke packages of support for hard to reach young people (aged 18–25) to aid their return to education, employment or training. Working with local partner organisations, our grants are targeted at removing the barriers to learning and work for vulnerable young people as well as funding a range of courses, activities and learning that would otherwise be unavailable. The support may vary from something like the cost of security guard training and licence, to driving lessons, or buying suitable cloths for an interview. Buttle UK aims to provide a complete package designed specifically for each young person, that will help them access a better future.
Estranged Young People
Buttle UK ran the Students and Trainees and Access to the Future Programmes successfully however analysis showed that these grants would be more impactful when focused on a certain group of young people. Therefore a programme for estranged young people ages 16–20 offers more focused support enabling young people who have no support from their families to re-engage with education, training and employment.
Quality Mark for Care Leavers
Buttle UK has now closed the Quality Mark for Care Leavers programme. It was launched in 2006 to address the specific challenges that this group of people face in higher education. The Quality Mark represents a statement of commitment for higher education (HE) institutions to sign up to which requires them to meet certain criteria demonstrating their commitment to support this group of students.
It stemmed from Buttle UK’s grant giving activities. In the process of its grants programme for students and trainees it recognised that Care Leavers have a unique set of difficulties in aspiring to and progressing well through higher education. Buttle UK therefore commissioned a five-year action research study "By Degrees: Going to University from Care", in which 129 Care Leavers participated.
The commitment seeks to facilitate an increase in the number of Care Leavers entering HE, help HE institutions to identify how best to support Care Leavers, raise awareness of the needs of this group of students, enable Care Leavers to make the most of their time in HE and to complete their courses successfully, as well as contribute to a national framework to assist local authorities to fulfil their obligations to Care Leavers.
The four broad Quality Mark for Care Leaver criteria are:
1. to raise aspirations and achievements,
2. to have appropriate admissions procedures,
3. to provide entry and ongoing support, and
4. to monitor the implementation of the Commitment.
If all HE institutions work towards implementing the scheme then large steps will be made towards making the aspirations of young people leaving care achievable.
Research – a Strategic Approach to Children’s Problems
Buttle UK commissions research projects. They have found this to be an effective way of obtaining knowledge to be able to target specific issues.
Crisis Points
Buttle UK worked with nkm (Mayhew Harpers Associates Ltd) to analyse 10 years worth of data from their grant giving database, representing 125,000 grant applications made from 10,000 referral agencies in the UK, to commission their Crisis Points report. The groundbreaking research revealed the many families and children currently at crisis point in the UK. Moreover, it also highlights those who are potentially falling under the radar, living in unreported poverty.
Your Family Your Voice : Growing up with relatives or friends
Buttle UK and Bristol University have received funding from the Big Lottery Fund to research kinship care. The first findings of the project were published in 2011 and were based on the 2001 census. The findings showed that more than 90% of kinship care arrangements in each region of the UK were informal agreements between parents and relatives. Therefore, carers were not entitled to financial support from social services. Poverty was a recurrent feature with 44% of kinship families were living in the poorest areas of the country. The second phase of the project involves interviewing children growing up in kinship care, and their carers and is expected to be disseminated at the end of 2012.
Dyslexia Action Research Project
This two-year action research project was funded jointly by The Frank Buttle Trust and the British Dyslexia Association (BDA). The project raised the level of awareness of the needs of children with dyslexia in the state education system and published a report "'I'm glad that I don't take No for an answer': Parent-Professional Relationships and Dyslexia Friendly Schools".
Parenting on a Low Income: Stress, Support and Children’s Well-being
Buttle UK commissioned the NSPCC and the University of York to undertake this research project, which was funded by the Big Lottery Fund. The final report was called "Living with hardship 24/7: the diverse experiences of families in poverty in England".
Influencing Policy
Buttle UK is a founder member of the charity End Child Poverty. It seeks to influence government on public policy that affects children and young people, and works collaboratively with a number of other children’s charities to effect change for children.
Change of name
In March 2011, The Frank Buttle Trust changed its name to Buttle UK.
Finances
Buttle UK's income for the year ending March 2011 was £3.33m compared with £3.53m in the previous year.
References
External links
Buttle UK
Category:1953 establishments in the United Kingdom
Category:Charities based in London
Category:Children's charities based in the United Kingdom
Category:Organizations established in 1953 |
5. Essentials
The change in setting – from tranquility, contemplation to representation – reflects, by and large, the distinctive features of the First, Second and the Third Quadrant of the quadralectic world view. These stages lead to the Fourth Quadrant, which is characterized here as the essentials. This qualification has a touch of superiority, but does not pretend to be better or ‘higher’ than the previous ones. It just wants to get things clear and straight, go into depth by touching the indispensable requirements in the relation between a way of thinking and a way of building. Those elements can be divided in the two main characteristics: space and time.
The former entity (space) is an abstract unity where a division takes place, the latter (time) is an invisible image, pointing to the existence of movement (fig. 781). Every communication is ‘ruled’ by these supra-human, natural variables. Their distribution in a four-fold (quadralectic) setting is proposed as follows:
Fig. 781 – A quadralectic interpretation of the main constituents of any conceivable communication. The characterization of the visibilities is derived from the duality visible – invisible. The assignment of the foursome Space/Time – Division – Time/ Space – Movement to the quadrants is a very general indication of the nature of these positions.
The essentials in architecture can only be expressed if the value system of the internal relations is understood. We have to know what visibility means (and how it comes about) before any sensible word about architecture can be said. A deliberate choice in the division-environment is the primary action before any judgment of a building or urban design can be given. What is beauty? Alternatively, why are certain designs better than others? The answer to this type of fundamental questions should be found in the knowledge of a measuring system, which provides the parameters to come to a result (an opinion, a judgment).
This chapter will try to convey some aspects of the abstract entities, which regulate a communication and in particular with regards to the world of architecture. The inquiry starts with the nature of Space, the great Enigma in architecture (and science in general). The journey continues to the more visible items of volume, surface and outlay (plan). The understanding of the multiplicity of architecture-as-a-whole is the final step. All approaches will be described briefly, but the main aim of this overview is the notion that any valuation of architecture is a matter of going through these motions in a conscious way.
Quadralectic architecture aims at the understanding of a value system, which underlies any creative activity. The old-fashioned division in an objective or subjective approach – which is still at the roots of classical science – has to be abolished. The human mind has since Descartes’’ hypotheses in the early seventeenth century made an enormous progress. Einstein’s theory of relativity opened the doors to a wider view, adding the speed of light as a philosophical contingency. Observation found a new boundary (limit) in the invisible invisibility, which can now be measured in a proper division environment.
A new cadre had to be found to accommodate the revealing insight that broke the opposition between objectivity and subjectivity. It is believed that the quadralectic philosophy can provide this width of thinking – or is, at least, a pointer in the right direction. The oppositional survival strategy is replaced by an equilibrium of four stages, providing a deeper and richer insight in the nature of our communication with the world. The journey (of life) is no longer a matter of ‘to be or not to be’, but can be calculated in terms of a concordance between ourselves and the universe in a four-fold setting.
The essential understanding of architecture – and life in general – depends on the position in a divided reality. This ‘choice’ is given to every individual in a point of recognition (POR), where and when our being in the world gets its identity and historical meaning. The correspondence of these points of recognition with those of other people gives in a common understanding and realization of a mutual history.
A remarkable correspondence was found between the interpretation of the (quadralectic) quadrants and the way in which Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1962/1966) was organized (fig. 782). This similarity might be a case of pure coincidence, but it seems more likely that the ordering followed lines of thinking, which are similar to the four-fold way of thinking. The classification was (first?) applied in the above mentioned Penguin Edition of the early sixties and not yet in the American Signet Books edition of 1958.
Peter Mark Roget (1779 – 1869), who was a medical doctor, started to collect lists of words as a hobby and grouped them when they were related. Synonyms like illegal and unlawful and antonyms, like peaceful and warlike, were joined together. The first publication of Roget’s list of words took place in 1852 and was called a thesaurus, or treasury of words.
The various classes in Roget’s Thesaurus in the Penguin Edition of 1962/66 might be applied in quadralectic architecture to find its essentials.
Fig. 782 – The organization of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1962/1966) contains distinct ‘quadralectic’ elements. The organization of the great quantity of words probably followed similar lines of thinking as those, which led to the interpretation of the (quadralectic) quadrants.
The six classes can be brought back to a four division by joining the classes 4, 5 and 6 in the Fourth Quadrant (because they are all dealing with ‘feelings’ as subjective mind actions, in one way or another):
This overview is most remarkable, because it offers in this form a perfect guideline to place the essentials of architecture in perspective. Any building of a certain stature can be ‘measured’ along the lines of these four classes and its significance rated accordingly.
Another example of the quadripartite approach was found in the work of the anthropologist Mark MOSKO (1985). He studied the inter-human relations in the Bush Mekeo, a Papuan tribe living in southeastern part of New Guinea. Some anthropological questions with regards to the position of the observer (with his or her own cultural background) and the application of certain concepts in the description of another culture (structuralism) are treated in the introduction.
Anthropological studies often focused on binary or dualistic forms, putting opposing entities in a frame of reference (nature/culture, sacred/ profane, male/female, etc.). Mosko acknowledged this fact, but he extended his frame of reference: ‘Categories distinguished and mutually defined as belonging to the same set systematically come in fours. Each fourfold category group is initially composed of a single binary opposition, which is itself bisected by its own inverse or reverse’ (p. 3).
Mosko illustrated the structure of bisected dualities, which systematically underlie the category distinctions of Bush Mekeo culture, in their notion of the relation between village and bush, inside and outside, resource and waste, etc. There is a transfer of things between village and bush, where the latter is seen – curiously enough – as the ‘inside’ (resources) and the former as ‘outside’ (waste producing). However, a notion of a reversal or inversion of each accompanies this opposition in the mind of the Mekeo people.
The outside village has its own inside place (i.e. an inverted outside), and the inside bush has its own outside (i.e. a reverted inside). A Bush Mekeo village normally has a central, elongated open space (abdomen), and the dwellings are arranged in parallel rows (fig. 783). This rectangle empty space is the ‘inside’ of the outside (the inverted outside). The spatial categories in this seemingly ‘primitive’ human society provide a model for an approach to ‘space’ in modern architecture. City development has to deal – at least in a quadralectic approach – with four types of space consciousness. The invisible invisibility of space is present as a notable aspect in the other quadrants.
Fig. 783 – The sphere of ordinary transfers in and around a Bush Mekeo village, Papua New Guinea as described by Mark MOSKO (1985). The bush is in the view of the villagers seen as the ‘inside’, while the village is the ‘outside’. Goods (food) are brought in from the inside of the (remote) bush to the outside (peripheral) of the village (a). After consumption the waste is collected on the inside of the village abdomen (b) and returned to the (adjacent) bush (c).
A city can be regarded – just like the Bush Mekeo did – as an ‘outside’ place, ‘feeding’ on the countryside (bush) and bringing its waste back to nature. A city square becomes in that vision a new ‘inside’, a place of ‘production’ (of community feeling?). These options of reversal should be kept open, even if the contemporary city sees itself often as the ‘inside’ place. The city is, in a modern view, the place of ‘production’, and the countryside is just the ‘outside’ to dump the waste. The city square (or park) is in this urban centrism a reminiscence to nature, the outside place. In particular the dog owners understand and utilize this modern function of an open space within the city limits, as can be observed in any city park today.
The essentials of architecture are illustrated here in a very compact form. The message is the understanding of four types of relations to a building (or a group of buildings, like a village or a city). Every architectonic entity has its boundaries – and subsequent value – in a ‘double’ interaction, taking place between the participants of the communication.
A particular awareness of space was found in the conception of a village plan by the Batak people, living in the Toba region of Sumatra (Indonesia). A drawing in a bius pustaha (accordeon book of bark with a wooden cover) shows the concentric conception of space with the bindu matoga motif, consisting of two squares turned over forty-five degrees (fig. 784). The same motif, now called a mandoedoe, is used as a warding off of a bad omen and obtain happiness and bliss. The magic figure is drawn on the ground in yellow, white and black flour close to the entrance of the house, where the mandoedoe is to be held by the wizard (SCHNITGER, 1939).
The (basic) four posts to support a house are orientated with respect to the cardinal directions or facing a mountain. The substructure of the house consists of wooden pillars resting on flat stones as protection against damp. The number of pillars varies from six to eight lengthways. The front of the house is made of two transverse rows of pillars to support the entrance through a trap-door. The peak of the house is made half circle. The interior of a Toba Batak house is divided into four main parts called ‘jabu’, which have the same principles of ordering as the erection of the house-posts and holds a similar ideology (NIESSEN, 1985; p. 256-258).
The four-fold way of thinking (in anthropology) was also noted by van FRAASSEN (1987) in his study of the social organization on the island of Ternate in the Indonesian archipelago. This island played a key-role in the priority question of the evolution theory by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. The latter wrote down his ideas about the ‘survival of the fittest’ in Ternate when he was ill of malaria. His letter to Darwin was sent on March 9, 1858, when Darwin prepared his ‘Origin of Species’ (published one-and-a-half year later in November 1859). In how far Darwin used Wallace ‘law’ of natural selection and altered his manuscripts is still a matter of debate (BROOKS, 1984).
Van Fraassen noted a possible geographical origin of the four-fold division on the island Ternate (fig. 785). The so-called soa’s (social units, the equivalent of the Maleian kampung) consisted of the villages Soa Sio, Sangaji, Héku and Cim. The etymological and semantic aspects are less clear. The term bobula raha (the four parts) or ampatpihak (four sides, four categories, and four groups) was used, but not very often. Van Fraassen (I, p. 381) noticed the absence of a general term to indicate the four parts of the society, and concluded that the (four) division was at present less important.
Fig. 785 – This map indicates the territorial four-division of the island of Ternate at the beginning of the seventeenth century (given by van FRAASSEN, 1987).
The four division is more prominent in texts where the four parts are related to the geographical areas and used in the same sequence. Sao Sio and Sangaji are mentioned together, just as Héku and Cim. The latter words mean ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ and are related to the directions of the winds. Inversions are possible (in relation to the island of Halmahera or in the history of Ternate itself) and the direction can have a metaphorical sense.
The two-division (as a conceptual setting) also becomes visible (within the four-division) as a dominance of one of the members of the pairs. Sao Sio is slightly dominant over Sangaji and Héku over Cim. The following scheme expressed the distribution of political power:
Sao Sio + Héku
————————–
Sangaji + Cim
This complementary opposition can be followed in the history of the island group of the Molucs (Maluku, Indonesian archipelago). There were four political powers concentrated on the following islands: 1. Ternate; 2. Tidore; 3. Jailolo and 4. Bacan. They teamed up in much the same way as the smaller power units on the island of Ternate did (only in a different sequence). Ternate and Tidore were rivals (and as such ‘locked together’) just as the political partners Jailolo and Bacan. The scheme would be as follows:
Ternate + Bacan
——————————-
Tidore + Jailolo
The sense of opposition is even more visible in the architecture of the forts (Benteng) Toloko and Kaya Merah, who depict in their plan in a straight-forwards way the male and female genitals (left and fig. 786).
.
Fort Toloko (Photo: Garuda Magazine).
The former fort (male orientated, left) was built by the Portuguese naval general Aphonso de Albequerque in 1512 and the latter (female orientated, right) by the English in 1518. Fort Oranje, built by the Dutch in 1607, is the largest fort on the island Ternate, following a rectangular design.
Fig. 786 – The forts (Benteng) Toloko and Kayu Merah (Red Wood) are situated respectively north and south of the city of Ternate on the island of the same name. A sexual symbolism is obvious.
Fig. 787 – The design for a House of Pleasure in Montmartre (Paris) by the French architect Ledoux, created in 1787.
This type of symbolic architecture was repeated by the French architect Ledoux, who gave his House of Pleasure in Paris (fig. 787) and later his Oikèma in Chaux (fig. 788) a phallic layout (VIDLER, 1990; LISS, 2006). These explicit efforts, with admittedly little followers, are the extreme specimens of dualistic architecture. The first (colonial) examples, by the Portuguese and British, were built in the middle of the Third Quadrant – at the Pivotal Point (1500) – of the European cultural history. The later (French) examples did not materialize, but remained in the planning stage at the end of the Third Quadrant (1800).
Fig. 788 – The phallic plan of the Oikèma or a temple dedicated to libertine pleasures was designed by Ledoux for the city of Chaux. To the left: the basement plan, to the right: the ground floor.
The connection of architecture and sexuality is also evident in the buildings of the Dogon, an African ethnic group living in Mali, south of the River Niger. The sculptural art of the Dogon was often hidden in houses, sanctuaries or kept by the Hogon (spiritual leader) in order to protect their symbolic meaning. The animist religion of the Dogon people is focused on ancestral spirits (like Nommo, a twin pair from the God Amma born in the second creation) and the star Sirius seems to play an important role (although recent investigations put question marks by the possibility of a Dogon astrology based on scientific facts, which cannot be seen with the naked eye).
The differentiation in gender is a far better documented element in the Dogon society. This division (in male and female) is a typical sign of lower division thinking – as it is known from the people on the eastern side of the Mediterranean. A typical house is modeled on the human female form, with a round kitchen (respiratory organ) as head of the house. The living room (body) has two storage rooms on either side. The house has no windows and is therefore dark (and cool) inside.
The obsession with sexuality (as manifested in fig. 789) is the result of psychological forces, which belong – in a quadralectic interpretation – in the Third Quadrant of a communication. It is remarkable, that the Dogon fled for the Muslims to the remote places along the escarpment of the Dogon plateau, for the very reason of their oppositional thinking. The beauty of the Dogon architecture seems to have a link to this form of division thinking. A preliminary conclusion can be that architecture needs this component of antagonism. It could also explain why many of the great modern architects have their roots in geographical areas were oppositional thinking is dominant.
Fig. 789 – The Mosque of Sangha in the Dogon valley displays male sexual symbols, reflecting the emphasis on a division in gender in the patriarchal Dogon culture.
Architecture in mud, like it was described by DETHIER (1981), has resulted in explicit architecture in other arid areas as well (fig. 790).
Fig. 790 – A traditional house for the celibataires (celibates) of the Bozo tribe, in the Mopti region of Mali, has several tetradic features.
A four-fold notion of the personality was described by Jean-Paul LEBEUF (1978) in the Likouba tribe in the northeast of the Republic of Congo Brazzaville. These people see the personality (nzoto) as consisting of four elements, the masotu, the molimo, the elimo and the elilingi, coming together in life (bomoy).
The masotu is the perishable body, connected with the earth. The molimo is the invisible temperament, providing the (creative) thoughts, which influence the movements in life. When the molimo leaves the body, man dies. It is connected with water. The elimo is the invisible and immaterial soul, which stimulate action in much the same way as the molimo. It is connected with air. Molimo and elimo are closely connected as spiritual entities, giving a consciousness and an intellectual power. Finally, elilingi is the shadow of the body, which appears at birth and finishes after death, and is a reflection of the molimo and elimo of the individual. A connection with fire – creating the shadow – is made.
A quadralectic interpretation of the tetradic personality of the Likouba would be: I. First Quadrant – elilingi (fire); II. Second Quadrant – elimo (air); III. Third Quadrant – masotu (earth) and IV. Fourth Quadrant – molimo (water). Their division also includes the human body, which has four principal parts: the head (motu), the upper extremities (maboko), the trunk (moy) and the lower extremities (makolo). Leboeuf does not mention any relation with architecture, but he noticed a close correspondence of the material and spiritual aspects of the human personality.
The four elements and their representations on a human level provide for the Likouba the immortal framework of their existence and shape their character, their aptitudes, attitudes and sentiments. It is a clarifying matter that these so-called ‘primitive’ people, living as fishermen and hunters in the tropical forests of the Congo, stage a self-knowledge, which is highly advanced in terms of division thinking. It proves that a cultural content can be present in a group of people, even if the material proof of their enlightenment is lacking. This conclusion was one of the major findings of the (field)work done by Claude Levi-Strauss (1908 – 2009). His notion, that the Western civilization was neither superior nor unique, is still valuable. Levi-Strauss emphasized the mutual influences in a communication between representatives of different cultures: the observer and the observed are part of a reciprocal interaction, which partakes in a continuous process.
Maybe the continent of Africa, with its relative lack of ancient architecture, should be seen in a different light. ‘Invisible’ values (like story-telling and myths) are rated higher than or are equal with the material world. This approach to the people of Africa – drifting away from the basic principle of many western scientific researchers, with their interest in the empirical traces of a culture – could change our view to the continent. The essential element in quadralectic architecture, all over the world, is the abstract experience of a four-fold division, surpassing the opposition of the two-fold and the indeterminable character of the three-fold. The ‘neutrality’ of the quadralectic approach also rules out any feelings of superiority. The only measure in a communication is the degree of understanding between the contributing partners.
The word ‘architecture’ is allowed, at this stage, to go beyond its most common meaning as ‘the process of building with an aesthetic appeal’. The essential understanding of architecture includes all the forms of organization in a particular division environment. The emphasis of building (with physical materials) can shift to the organization of the building process (with conceptual elements) and even further to a type of ‘philosophical architecture’ (in which the cognitive elements question their own identity). One has to realize that ‘architecture’, in a quadralectic setting, moves through all the different quadrants and its meaning is related to the prominent type of visibility in a particular subdivision.
Architecture in the First Quadrant (I) is in the realm of the invisible invisibility with its unknown properties. One could minimize the relevance of this type of architecture, because there is no substantial proof of its existence, but that would be wrong. In fact, it is very important to account for this ‘empty space’ in a communication, since it gives the other types of visibility room to maneuver.
Architecture of the Second Quadrant (II) emerges in a field of general ideas about habitation. Every man aims at a place of its own and the characterizing of such a place can have many faces. The specter runs from a realization of an identity in a psychological setting to the physical presence in a personal living place. This type of architecture runs from the partly visible to the greatest highlight of creative possibilities (when the CF-graph reaches its lowest value of CF = 6).
Architecture of the Third Quadrant (III) is the common-classical architecture as it is known in daily life, referring to the realization of a building from its earliest conception to its material finalization The descriptions in hand-books mainly deal with this type of historical architecture. Style periods are distinguished – often in an oppositional environment – by pointing to certain obvious architectonic features.
Architecture of the Fourth Quadrant (IV) is the quadralectic architecture proper. The quadralectic model – with the CF-graph as its visible representation – is accepted as a guide into the interpretation of structures in the widest sense. Most important is a relative feeling of the essential. |
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<h1>storage.c</h1><div class="fragment"><pre class="fragment"><a name="l00001"></a>00001 <span class="comment">/*</span>
<a name="l00002"></a>00002 <span class="comment"> * $Id: storage.c,v 1.8 2003/12/02 08:25:00 troth Exp $</span>
<a name="l00003"></a>00003 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00004"></a>00004 <span class="comment"> ****************************************************************************</span>
<a name="l00005"></a>00005 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00006"></a>00006 <span class="comment"> * simulavr - A simulator for the Atmel AVR family of microcontrollers.</span>
<a name="l00007"></a>00007 <span class="comment"> * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003 Theodore A. Roth</span>
<a name="l00008"></a>00008 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00009"></a>00009 <span class="comment"> * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify</span>
<a name="l00010"></a>00010 <span class="comment"> * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by</span>
<a name="l00011"></a>00011 <span class="comment"> * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or</span>
<a name="l00012"></a>00012 <span class="comment"> * (at your option) any later version.</span>
<a name="l00013"></a>00013 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00014"></a>00014 <span class="comment"> * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,</span>
<a name="l00015"></a>00015 <span class="comment"> * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of</span>
<a name="l00016"></a>00016 <span class="comment"> * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the</span>
<a name="l00017"></a>00017 <span class="comment"> * GNU General Public License for more details.</span>
<a name="l00018"></a>00018 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00019"></a>00019 <span class="comment"> * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License</span>
<a name="l00020"></a>00020 <span class="comment"> * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software</span>
<a name="l00021"></a>00021 <span class="comment"> * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA</span>
<a name="l00022"></a>00022 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00023"></a>00023 <span class="comment"> ****************************************************************************</span>
<a name="l00024"></a>00024 <span class="comment"> */</span>
<a name="l00025"></a>00025
<a name="l00026"></a>00026 <span class="preprocessor">#include <config.h></span>
<a name="l00027"></a>00027
<a name="l00028"></a>00028 <span class="preprocessor">#include <stdio.h></span>
<a name="l00029"></a>00029 <span class="preprocessor">#include <stdlib.h></span>
<a name="l00030"></a>00030
<a name="l00031"></a>00031 <span class="preprocessor">#include "avrerror.h"</span>
<a name="l00032"></a>00032 <span class="preprocessor">#include "avrmalloc.h"</span>
<a name="l00033"></a>00033 <span class="preprocessor">#include "avrclass.h"</span>
<a name="l00034"></a>00034 <span class="preprocessor">#include "storage.h"</span>
<a name="l00035"></a>00035
<a name="l00036"></a>00036 <span class="comment">/***************************************************************************\</span>
<a name="l00037"></a>00037 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00038"></a>00038 <span class="comment"> * Storage(AvrClass) Methods</span>
<a name="l00039"></a>00039 <span class="comment"> *</span>
<a name="l00040"></a>00040 <span class="comment">\***************************************************************************/</span>
<a name="l00041"></a>00041
<a name="l00042"></a>00042 Storage *
<a name="l00043"></a>00043 storage_new (<span class="keywordtype">int</span> base, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> size)
<a name="l00044"></a>00044 {
<a name="l00045"></a>00045 Storage *stor;
<a name="l00046"></a>00046
<a name="l00047"></a>00047 stor = <a class="code" href="avrmalloc_8c.html#a543f348351cdcaebdd8947d1a591578" title="Macro for allocating memory.">avr_new</a> (Storage, 1);
<a name="l00048"></a>00048 storage_construct (stor, base, size);
<a name="l00049"></a>00049 <a class="code" href="avrclass_8c.html#82d397ff00a7f1c1447832dbff1856e1" title="Overload the default destroy method.">class_overload_destroy</a> ((AvrClass *)stor, storage_destroy);
<a name="l00050"></a>00050
<a name="l00051"></a>00051 <span class="keywordflow">return</span> stor;
<a name="l00052"></a>00052 }
<a name="l00053"></a>00053
<a name="l00054"></a>00054 <span class="keywordtype">void</span>
<a name="l00055"></a>00055 storage_construct (Storage *stor, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> base, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> size)
<a name="l00056"></a>00056 {
<a name="l00057"></a>00057 <span class="keywordflow">if</span> (stor == NULL)
<a name="l00058"></a>00058 <a class="code" href="avrerror_8c.html#4f6ec50114a7d63093baecafe47d7f1a" title="Print an error message to stderr and terminate program.">avr_error</a> (<span class="stringliteral">"passed null ptr"</span>);
<a name="l00059"></a>00059
<a name="l00060"></a>00060 <a class="code" href="avrclass_8c.html#ffeb66dd49a62ad1b7606cde0e3b039e" title="Initializes the AvrClass data structure.">class_construct</a> ((AvrClass *)stor);
<a name="l00061"></a>00061
<a name="l00062"></a>00062 stor->base = base; <span class="comment">/* address */</span>
<a name="l00063"></a>00063 stor->size = size; <span class="comment">/* bytes */</span>
<a name="l00064"></a>00064
<a name="l00065"></a>00065 stor->data = <a class="code" href="avrmalloc_8c.html#ac6d810b48b67b90412badbd4b71f4e3" title="Macro for allocating memory and initializing it to zero.">avr_new0</a> (uint8_t, size);
<a name="l00066"></a>00066 }
<a name="l00067"></a>00067
<a name="l00068"></a>00068 <span class="comment">/*</span>
<a name="l00069"></a>00069 <span class="comment"> * Not to be called directly, except by a derived class.</span>
<a name="l00070"></a>00070 <span class="comment"> * Called via class_unref.</span>
<a name="l00071"></a>00071 <span class="comment"> */</span>
<a name="l00072"></a>00072 <span class="keywordtype">void</span>
<a name="l00073"></a>00073 storage_destroy (<span class="keywordtype">void</span> *stor)
<a name="l00074"></a>00074 {
<a name="l00075"></a>00075 <span class="keywordflow">if</span> (stor == NULL)
<a name="l00076"></a>00076 <span class="keywordflow">return</span>;
<a name="l00077"></a>00077
<a name="l00078"></a>00078 <a class="code" href="avrmalloc_8c.html#082a9d6d40f5e8bad64441ad950ec12c" title="Free malloc&#39;d memory.">avr_free</a> (((Storage *)stor)->data);
<a name="l00079"></a>00079 <a class="code" href="avrclass_8c.html#86e290a528dd1ed0bf5057056b5731e5" title="Releases resources allocated by class&#39;s &lt;klass&gt;_new() function.">class_destroy</a> (stor);
<a name="l00080"></a>00080 }
<a name="l00081"></a>00081
<a name="l00082"></a>00082 <span class="keyword">extern</span> <span class="keyword">inline</span> uint8_t
<a name="l00083"></a>00083 storage_readb (Storage *stor, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> addr);
<a name="l00084"></a>00084
<a name="l00085"></a>00085 <span class="keyword">extern</span> <span class="keyword">inline</span> uint16_t
<a name="l00086"></a>00086 storage_readw (Storage *stor, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> addr);
<a name="l00087"></a>00087
<a name="l00088"></a>00088 <span class="keywordtype">void</span>
<a name="l00089"></a>00089 storage_writeb (Storage *stor, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> addr, uint8_t val)
<a name="l00090"></a>00090 {
<a name="l00091"></a>00091 <span class="keywordtype">int</span> _addr = addr - stor->base;
<a name="l00092"></a>00092
<a name="l00093"></a>00093 <span class="keywordflow">if</span> (stor == NULL)
<a name="l00094"></a>00094 <a class="code" href="avrerror_8c.html#4f6ec50114a7d63093baecafe47d7f1a" title="Print an error message to stderr and terminate program.">avr_error</a> (<span class="stringliteral">"passed null ptr"</span>);
<a name="l00095"></a>00095
<a name="l00096"></a>00096 <span class="keywordflow">if</span> ((_addr < 0) || (_addr >= stor->size))
<a name="l00097"></a>00097 <a class="code" href="avrerror_8c.html#4f6ec50114a7d63093baecafe47d7f1a" title="Print an error message to stderr and terminate program.">avr_error</a> (<span class="stringliteral">"address out of bounds: 0x%x"</span>, addr);
<a name="l00098"></a>00098
<a name="l00099"></a>00099 stor->data[_addr] = val;
<a name="l00100"></a>00100 }
<a name="l00101"></a>00101
<a name="l00102"></a>00102 <span class="keywordtype">void</span>
<a name="l00103"></a>00103 storage_writew (Storage *stor, <span class="keywordtype">int</span> addr, uint16_t val)
<a name="l00104"></a>00104 {
<a name="l00105"></a>00105 <span class="keywordtype">int</span> _addr = addr - stor->base;
<a name="l00106"></a>00106
<a name="l00107"></a>00107 <span class="keywordflow">if</span> (stor == NULL)
<a name="l00108"></a>00108 <a class="code" href="avrerror_8c.html#4f6ec50114a7d63093baecafe47d7f1a" title="Print an error message to stderr and terminate program.">avr_error</a> (<span class="stringliteral">"passed null ptr"</span>);
<a name="l00109"></a>00109
<a name="l00110"></a>00110 <span class="keywordflow">if</span> ((_addr < 0) || (_addr >= stor->size))
<a name="l00111"></a>00111 <a class="code" href="avrerror_8c.html#4f6ec50114a7d63093baecafe47d7f1a" title="Print an error message to stderr and terminate program.">avr_error</a> (<span class="stringliteral">"address out of bounds: 0x%x"</span>, addr);
<a name="l00112"></a>00112
<a name="l00113"></a>00113 stor->data[_addr] = (uint8_t) (val >> 8 & 0xff);
<a name="l00114"></a>00114 stor->data[_addr + 1] = (uint8_t) (val & 0xff);
<a name="l00115"></a>00115 }
<a name="l00116"></a>00116
<a name="l00117"></a>00117 <span class="keywordtype">int</span>
<a name="l00118"></a>00118 storage_get_size (Storage *stor)
<a name="l00119"></a>00119 {
<a name="l00120"></a>00120 <span class="keywordflow">return</span> stor->size;
<a name="l00121"></a>00121 }
<a name="l00122"></a>00122
<a name="l00123"></a>00123 <span class="keywordtype">int</span>
<a name="l00124"></a>00124 storage_get_base (Storage *stor)
<a name="l00125"></a>00125 {
<a name="l00126"></a>00126 <span class="keywordflow">return</span> stor->base;
<a name="l00127"></a>00127 }
</pre></div></div>
<hr width="80%">
<p><center>Automatically generated by Doxygen 1.5.5 on 7 Nov 2008.</center></p>
</body>
</html>
|
---
abstract: 'The Conditional Probability Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics replaces the abstract notion of time used in standard Quantum Mechanics by the time that can be read off from a physical clock. The use of physical clocks leads to apparent non-unitary and decoherence. Here we show that a close approximation to standard Quantum Mechanics can be recovered from conditional Quantum Mechanics for semi-classical clocks, and we use these clocks to compute the minimum decoherence predicted by the Conditional Probability Interpretation.'
author:
- 'Vincent Corbin and Neil J. Cornish'
bibliography:
- 'decoherencebib.bib'
title: 'Semi-classical limit and minimum decoherence in the Conditional Probability Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics'
---
Introduction
============
In Quantum Mechanics, each measurable quantity is associated with a quantum operator, and therefore is subject to quantum fluctuations and to an uncertainty relation with its canonical conjugate. All except one, time. Time in Quantum Mechanics (and position in Quantum Field Theory) has a special role. There is no time operator, no fluctuation, and the time-energy uncertainty is of a different nature than the position-momentum uncertainty [@Messiah]. In Quantum Mechanics, time is classical. One can measure time precisely without affecting the system. One can measure time repeatedly without any consequences whatsoever. In the view of the quantization of Gravity, where spacetime becomes a quantum dynamical variable, this is not acceptable. Many theories have been developed to try and fix this “problem of time”. One in particular, the Conditional Probability Interpretation, is of special interest to us. It was first developed by Page and Wootters [@wooters], and was recently refined by Dolby [@dolby]. There, time as we know it in Quantum Mechanics, becomes a parameter - some kind of internal time that one cannot measure. Instead one chooses a quantum variable, which will be used as a “clock”. Then the probability of measuring a certain value for a variable at time $t$, is replaced by the probability of measuring this value when we have measured the “clock” variable at a given value. This interpretation is quite natural in every day experiments. Indeed, one never directly measures time, but instead reads it through a clock. What we really measure is the number of swings a pendulum makes, how many particles decay or other similar physical processes. Conventional Quantum Mechanics would then only arise when taking the limit in which the “clock” behaves classically.
The Conditional Probability Interpretation predicts effects absent from the standard Quantum theory. In particular, it predicts a non-unitarity with respect to the variable chosen for “time”, and the presence of decoherence in the system under study which leads to a loss of information [@relational_solution]. It turns out that using any physical clock will lead to this phenomenon. An estimate of the minimum decoherence has been made by Gambini, Porto, and Pullin [@fundamental_decoherence], but, to the best of our knowledge, it has never been calculated directly from the Conditional Probability Interpretation, without resorting to results from standard Quantum Mechanics. Our goal is to provide a direct calculation of the minimum decoherence.
A brief background of the Conditional Probability Interpretation is given in Section 2. Section 3 describes in details how standard Quantum Mechanics arises from the Conditional Probability Interpretation, in which limits and for what kind of clock. We also talk about the semi-classical regime of a simple “free particle clock”, which represents the simplest possible physical clock. In Section 4, we calculate the minimum decoherence one can achieve using the “free particle clock”, and compare our results with previous estimates. Conclusions are presented in Section 5.
Conditional Probability Interpretation
======================================
In the Conditional Probability Interpretation (CPI) of quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as a direct measurement of time. The notion of measuring time is expressed through the use of a physical clock. A clock is simply a physical system, and its variables (position, momentum...) are what we measure, and use as references, or “time”. We usually choose the clock to be the least correlated with the system under study, so that a measurement of the clock variables will not greatly affect a measurement in the system of interest. Being a physical system, a clock can be fully described by a Hamiltonian, and since, from now on, we will assume the clock is fully uncorrelated with the system (which practically can never be exactly achieved), we can write $$\label{Hamiltonian }
H_{\rm tot}=H_{\rm Clock}+H_{\rm System}.$$ The action then becomes $$\label{Action }
S_{\rm tot}=\int \textrm{d}n \textrm{ } \left( L_{\rm Clock}(n)+L_{\rm System}(n)\right).$$
In the above equation, $n$ is a parameter, not a variable, and as such it can not be measured. In a certain way, it could be seen as some abstract internal time. This parameter ensures the unitarity of the quantum theory emerging from the CPI. It may not be unitary with respect to the time measured by a physical clock, but it will stay unitary with respect to this “internal time”. This is important since it indicates that the CPI does not in fact question one of the fundamental pillar of Quantum Mechanics. Also $n$ defines simultaneity. Two events are said to be simultaneous if they happen for the same value $n$. In the CPI, the probability of measuring a system in a state $|o\rangle$ at a time $t$, becomes the probability of measuring the system in a state $|o\rangle$ *when* measuring the clock in a state $|t\rangle$, and for a closed system is expressed as [@relational_solution] $$\label{single time probability }
\mathcal{P}(o\in \Delta o | t\in \Delta t)=\frac{\int_{n}\langle\psi|P_{t}(n)P_{o}(n)P_{t}(n)|\psi\rangle}{\int_{n}\langle\psi|P_{t}(n)|\psi\rangle},$$ where $|\psi\rangle$ is the initial state (at some $n_{o}$) of the total system (*clock-system of interest*). The projectors are defined by $$\begin{aligned}
P_{o}(n)=\int_{\Delta o}\int_{i}|o,i,n\rangle\langle o,i,n| \nonumber \\
P_{t}(n)=\int_{\Delta t}\int_{j}|t,j,n\rangle\langle t,j,n| \nonumber.\end{aligned}$$
We have assumed in the previous set of equations that the eigenvalues of the operators $\widehat{O}$ and $\widehat{T}$ have continuous spectra, which usually will be the case. However for now on, we will drop the integral over the interval $\Delta o$ and $\Delta t$, in an attempt to simplify the notation. That is to say we consider the spectrum to be discrete. The future calculations will not be greatly affected by this approximation. Since the intervals in questions are very small, the results will only differ by factors of $\Delta o$ and $\Delta t$. Those factors will be absorbed in the normalization of the probability. So as long as we keep in mind that $\int\textrm{d}o\mathcal{P}(o|t)=1$, we can forget that the spectra are continuous. Also, in order to keep the equation more concise we assume the eigenvalues of $\widehat{O}$ and $\widehat{T}$ form a complete set. We can now rewrite the projectors as $$\begin{aligned}
P_{o}(n)=|o,n\rangle\langle o,n| \nonumber \\
P_{t}(n)=|t,n\rangle\langle t,n| .\end{aligned}$$ Since the clock and the system under study are assumed to be fully uncorrelated, the operators associated with the clock commute with the operators associated with the system. Therefore we can split a vector into a *clock vector* and a *system vector*, $$\label{vector separation}
|\psi\rangle=|\psi_{c}\rangle\otimes|\psi_{s}\rangle .$$ In the same fashion, $$\label{projection operator fusion}
P_{t}(n)P_{o}(n)P_{t}(n)=P_{t,o}(n)=(|t,n\rangle\otimes|o,n\rangle)(\langle t,n|\otimes\langle o,n|).$$ The parameter $n$ replaces $t$ as the parameter of the action, so as in “Standard Quantum Mechanics” (SQM) we can define a unitary operator $\widehat{U}(n_{f}-n_{i})=e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}H(n_{f}-n_{i})}$ which will evolve operators from $n_{i}$ to $n_{f}$: $$\label{evolution operator}
P_{t,o}(n)=\widehat{U}^{\dag}(n)P_{t,o}\widehat{U}(n).$$
With this framework now defined, we can make more meaningful calculations, for example the probability corresponding to a two-time measurement, which is simply the square of the propagator in SQM. This particular calculation was used by Kuchar to argue against the CPI [@kuchar]. However in Kuchar’s approach of the CPI, the parameter $n$ was missing, forbidding the system to evolve. The correct expression for the probability of measuring $o$ at $t$ when we have $o'$ at $t'$, is given in Ref. [@relational_solution]: $$\label{two time probability }
\mathcal{P}(o|to't')=\frac{\int_{nn'}\langle\psi_{c}|P_{t'}(n')P_{t}(n)P_{t'}(n')|\psi_{c}\rangle\langle\psi_{s}|P_{o'}(n')P_{o}(n)P_{o'}(n')|\psi_{s}\rangle}{\int_{nn'}\langle\psi_{c}|P_{t'}(n')P_{t}(n)P_{t'}(n')|\psi_{c}\rangle\langle\psi_{s}|P_{o'}(n')|\psi_{s}\rangle}.$$ Using (\[projection operator fusion\]), (\[evolution operator\]) and defining $U_{s}(n)=e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}H_{s}(n)}$, $U_{c}(n)=e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}H_{c}(n)}$, we find $$\label{num_o}
\langle\psi_{s}|P_{o'}(n')P_{o}(n)P_{o'}(n')|\psi_{s}\rangle = |\psi_{s}(o',n')|^{2}|\langle o'|U_{s}(n'-n)|o\rangle|^{2},$$ where $\psi_{s}(o',n')=\langle o'|U_{s}(n')|\psi_{s}\rangle$. Similarly, $$\label{num t }
\langle\psi_{c}|P_{t'}(n')P_{t}(n)P_{t'}(n')|\psi_{c}\rangle = |\psi_{c}(t',n')|^{2}|\langle t'|U_{c}(n'-n)|t\rangle|^{2},$$ and $$\label{ den o}
\langle\psi_{s}|P_{o'}(n')|\psi_{s}\rangle = |\psi_{s}(o',n')|^{2}.$$ We can now write the final expression for the conditional probability, $$\label{conditional probability }
\mathcal{P}(o|to't')=\frac{\int_{nn'}|\psi_{s}(o',n')\psi_{c}(t',n')\langle t'|\widehat{U}_{c}^{\dag}(n-n')|t\rangle\langle o'|\widehat{U}_{s}^{\dag}(n-n')|o\rangle|^{2}}{\int_{nn'}|\psi_{s}(o',n')\psi_{c}(t',n')\langle t'|\widehat{U}_{c}^{\dag}(n-n')|t\rangle|^{2}},$$ and one can easily check $$\label{normalization }
\int \textrm{d}o \mathcal{P}(o|to't')=1$$
In SQM, the probability of measuring a variable $o$ at time $t$ when we measured $o'$ at time $t'$ is given by the propagator $K(ot,o't')=\langle o'|\widehat{U}_{s}^{\dag}(t-t')|o\rangle$. In the CPI the propagator is replaced by the conditional probability. At first sight it is not obvious that the two descriptions are equivalent. However, the success of SQM demands that the CPI must give a propagator that recovers the SQM propagator in the limit of today’s experimental accuracy.
Semi-Classical Clock
====================
To recover SQM from the CPI, one has to choose a clock that behaves almost classically. Two things will dictate such behavior. First, the clock itself. Some clocks will allow a more classical regime than others. Second is the clock’s initial state (at a given $n_{o}$). Indeed, this can be easily understood from the uncertainty principle. When we measure a variable very precisely, the uncertainty in its canonical conjugate will be great. Since the evolution of a variable usually depends on its canonical conjugate (thought not always as we will see), the measurement after a certain “time” (internal time $n$) will be meaningless. For example, if we use a free particle as a clock, associating time with its position, and we start with a definite value for its initial position, $$\label{initial position state}
|\psi_{s}\rangle=\int\textrm{d}x \, \delta(x-x_{0})|x\rangle,$$ the wavefunction in momentum space will obviously indicate that there is equal probability for the momentum to be taking any value (of course we are not treating the particle as being relativistic since Quantum Field Theory would need to be used in such cases). At the second measurement (that is at a greater $n$), we have equal probability of finding the particle at any position. That makes for a very poor clock, and definitely not a classical clock.
In Quantum Mechanics, generally the recovery of classical results is not straightforward. For example, the free particle propagator is usually not the same as what is predicted by Classical Mechanics: $$\label{classical propagator}
K(xt,x_{o}t_{o})=\delta\big(x-(x_{o}+\frac{p^{2}}{m})\big).$$
However it is possible to find a propagator in the Quantum regime that mimics the classical one closely by using coherent states. Instead of a delta function, we choose the state of the particle in momentum space, at time $t_{o}$, to be a Gaussian distribution of width $\sigma_{p}$ peaked around a value $p_{o}$, $$\label{gaussian momentum distribution}
|\psi\rangle \propto \int \textrm{d}p \, e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\big(\frac{p-p_{o}}{2\sigma_{p}}\big)^{2}}|p\rangle.$$ In the position basis, we also get a Gaussian distribution of width $\sigma_{x}=\frac{\hbar}{2 \sigma_{p}}$, peaked around 0. We evolve the system through a time $t$ to find $$\label{gaussian momentum evolved}
|\psi(t)\rangle \propto \int \textrm{d}p \, e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\frac{p^{2}}{2m}t}e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\big(\frac{p-p_{o}}{2\sigma_{p}}\big)^{2}}|p\rangle.$$ We finally express the wavefunction in the position basis by Fourier transforming, $$\label{evolved postion distribution}
|\psi(t)\rangle \propto \int \textrm{d}x \, e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\big(\frac{x-\frac{p_{o}t}{m}}{2\sigma(t)}\big)^{2}}|x\rangle.$$ The Gaussian in the position domain is peaked around $p_{0} t/ m$, the classical distance traveled by the particle.
Also, we know the non-classicality of the clock comes from the uncertainty principle between the variable we use as a measure of time, and its canonical momentum. Coherent states minimize the uncertainty: $\sigma_{x}\sigma_{p}=\frac{\hbar}{2}$. Therefore we expect the clock to be the most classical when using a coherent state. To illustrate the dependence of the classical regime to the type of clock and to the initial state of the clock, we will go through two examples, the parameterized Hamiltonian and the free particle.
Parameterized Hamiltonian
-------------------------
This particular clock has already partly been studied by Dolby, who used a different formalism of the CPI [@dolby]. The clock’s Hamiltonian is linear in its generalized momentum $k$. The system under study is described by a general Hamiltonian $H_{s}$: $$\label{parametrized hamiltonian}
H=k+H_{s}.$$ Let’s solve the classical equation of motion for the clock to have an idea of what to expect. The action is defined as $$\label{parametrized action}
S=\int\textrm{d}n\big[k \dot{t}-k+L_{s}(q,\dot{q})\big],$$ where $\dot{t}=\frac{\textrm{d}t}{\textrm{d}n}$. The equations of motion are simply $\dot{p}=0$ and $\dot{t}=1$. Then, up to a constant, $t=n$. We see that the variable $t$ we choose to measure is exactly equal to the internal time $n$, and its evolution is not dictated by its momentum. We can already guess that in the Quantum regime, the uncertainty principle won’t affect the evolution of the operator $\widehat{T}$ associated with the variable $t$. Then if we start with a state $|\psi_{t}\rangle=|t=0\rangle$, the delta function will not spread and will remain sharp, the clock therefore remains classical. From (\[conditional probability \]), we have $$\label{two time probability 2}
\mathcal{P}(o|to't')=\frac{\int_{nn'}|\psi_{s}(o',n')\psi_{c}(t',n')\langle t'|\widehat{U}_{c}^{\dag}(n-n')|t\rangle\langle o'|\widehat{U}_{s}^{\dag}(n-n')|o\rangle|^{2}}{\int_{nn'}|\psi_{s}(o',n')\psi_{c}(t',n')\langle t'|\widehat{U}_{c}^{\dag}(n-n')|t\rangle|^{2}}.$$ Replacing the clock Hamiltonian by $H_{c}=k$, and using the completeness of the basis, we get $$\label{propagator part}
\langle t'|e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}k(n'-n)}|t\rangle=\int\textrm{d}k \langle t'|k\rangle e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}k(n'-n)}\langle k|t'\rangle=\delta\big((n'-n)-(t'-t)\big).$$ Using (\[two time probability 2\]), we finally find $$\label{quantum classical propagator}
P(o|t,o',t')=\big|\langle o'|U_{s}(t'-t)|o\rangle\big|^{2}=\big|K(ot,o't')\big|^{2},$$ as expected. We see that the propagator from SQM is recovered from the CPI in the case of the parameterized Hamiltonian for any initial state of the clock. However the recovery of the whole SQM without any dependence on the shape of the initial state is not possible. Indeed the one time probability in the CPI is given by (\[single time probability \]): $$\label{single time probability 2}
\mathcal{P}(o|t)=\frac{\int\textrm{d}n\big|\langle\psi_{c}|U_{c}^{\dagger}(n)|t\rangle\big|^{2}\big|\langle\psi_{s}|U_{s}^{\dagger}(n)|o\rangle\big|^{2}}{\int\textrm{d}n\big|\langle\psi_{c}|U_{c}^{\dagger}(n)|t\rangle\big|^{2}}.$$ Or, in the same notation as Ref. [@fundamental_decoherence]: $$\label{single time probability 3}
\mathcal{P}(o|t)=\int_{n}\big|\langle\psi_{s}|U_{s}^{\dagger}(n)|o\rangle\big|^{2}\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)=\int\textrm{d}n\big|\langle\psi_{s}|U_{s}^{\dagger}(n)|o\rangle\big|^{2}\frac{\big|\int\textrm{d}k e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}k(n-t)}\langle\psi_{c}|k\rangle\big|^{2}}{\int\textrm{d}n\big|\int\textrm{d}k e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}k(n-t)}\langle\psi_{c}|k\rangle\big|^{2}},$$ where $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)$ is the probability that the “internal time” takes the value $n$ when we measure $t$. The SQM equivalence, $\mathcal{P}(o|t)=\big|\langle\psi_{s}|U_{s}^{\dagger}(t)|o\rangle\big|^{2}$, is only recovered for $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)=\delta(n-t)$, which is achieved for $$\label{ideal clock limit }
|\psi_{c}\rangle=\int dt \, \delta(t)|t\rangle.$$ This agrees with the result found by Dolby, who calls $\psi_{c}\rightarrow\delta(t)$ the “ideal clock limit”. It is certainly true for this specific type of clock, but it won’t necessarily be an ideal limit for every clock, as we shall see. In this light, SQM is a non-physical limit to the CPI. It implies the use of a non-physical clock.
Free Particle
-------------
Here we use the position of a free particle of mass $m$ as a measure of time. The Hamiltonian for the clock is $$\label{free particle hamiltonian}
H_{c}=\frac{p^{2}}{2m}.$$ This particular clock was studied in a recent paper by Gambini [*et al.*]{} [@Conditional_probabilities_dirac]. There, the authors approach the problem in a slightly different way. They consider the Hamiltonian to be parametrized, their goal being to show that the CPI behaves well for a constraint system. They also mention that SQM can be recovered only to leading order. Here, we will not worry about constraints but rather focus on how closely the SQM can be recovered. We will then use this result in section 4 to calculate the minimum decoherence one could achieve with this simple clock.
If we calculate the single time probability $\mathcal{P}(o|x)$ using Dolby’s “ideal clock limit”, we find $$\label{ideal free particle part}
\langle\psi_{c}|U_{c}^{\dag}(n)|x\rangle=\sqrt{\frac{2m\hbar\pi}{i}}e^{\frac{it^{2}m}{2\hbar n}},$$ and then the probability becomes $$\label{ ideal free particle }
\mathcal{P}(o|x)=\frac{1}{V_{n}}\int_{n}\big|\langle\psi_{s}|U_{s}^{\dag}(n)|o\rangle\big|^{2}$$ If we were to measure $x$ for the particle position, there would be an equal probability that it corresponds to any possible value for the internal time. Therefore the time measured does not give any indication on the internal time. This is [*not*]{} an ideal clock. In fact $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)=\delta(t-n)$ (with $t=m x /p_{o}$) cannot be achieved for such a clock, since any wave packet in position space will spread due to the position-momentum uncertainty. However it is possible to get a probability distribution sufficiently peaked to approximate a delta function. In order to minimize the peak’s width in both position and momentum, we use a coherent state: $$\label{coherent state}
|\psi_{c}\rangle=\int\textrm{d}p \frac{1}{(2\pi)^{1/4}\sqrt{\sigma_{p}}}e^{-\big(\frac{p}{2\sigma_{p}}\big)^{2}}|p+p_{o}\rangle=\int\textrm{d}x \frac{1}{(2\pi)^{1/4}\sqrt{\sigma_{x}}}e^{-\big(\frac{x}{2\sigma_{x}}\big)^{2}}|x\rangle,$$ where $\sigma_{x}\sigma_{p}=\frac{\hbar}{2}$, and where we centered the Gaussian in momentum space around the classical momentum $p_{o}$. Using these expressions, and performing some algebra, we find the probability distribution to be a Gaussian $$\label{free particle distribution}
\mathcal{P}_{n}(x)\alpha e^{-\frac{1}{2}\big(\frac{x-\frac{p_{o}}{m}n}{\delta(n)}\big)^{2}},$$ of width $\delta(n)=\sqrt{\sigma_{x}^{2}+\frac{\sigma_{p}^{2}n^{2}}{m^{2}}}$. The width can be minimize with respect to $\sigma_{x}$, taking into account that the width of the Gaussians in position and momentum are related through the uncertainty principle by $\sigma_{x}\sigma_{p}=\frac{\hbar}{2}$. The minimum will occur at $\sigma_{x}^{2}=\frac{\hbar n}{2m}$ and will take the value $$\label{distribution minimum width}
\delta_{min}(n)=\sqrt{\frac{\hbar n}{m}}.$$ The optimum initial state for the clock will depend on “when” (at which internal time) we are making the measurement. Of course this presents a problem since one cannot tell “when” the measurement on the clock is taken before taking it, and even then one will have only a peaked probability distribution as an indication of what the final internal time is. It is therefore not possible to “prepare” the clock in order to ensure a minimal spread for $\mathcal{P}_{n}(x)$. To conclude this example, we note that for a free particle clock, SQM is only recovered on scales larger than $\frac{\hbar n}{m}$, and even then the recovery will only be partial, since some small deviation from the SQM will still occur as we will see in the next section.
Limitation in the accuracy of a clock and Decoherence
=====================================================
The CPI implies a non-unitarity of the theory with respect to the “time” measured through the physical clock. This in turn implies that the system under study will not evolve as SQM predicts. Rather, a Lindblad type equation [@lindblad] describes its evolution [@relational_solution; @isidro], $$\label{Lindblad equation}
\frac{\partial\tilde{\rho}_{s}(t)}{\partial t}=-\frac{i}{\hbar}\big[(1+\beta(t))\widehat{H}_{s},\tilde{\rho}_{s}\big]-\sigma(t)\big[\widehat{H}_{s},[\widehat{H}_{s},\tilde{\rho}_{s}]\big].$$ Here $\tilde{\rho}_{s}$ is the corrected density matrix of the system under study. It is corrected in the sense that it satisfies the usual equation for a single time probability, $$\label{tilde single time probability}
\mathcal{P}(o|t)=\frac{Tr\big(P(o)\tilde{\rho}(t)\big)}{Tr\big(\tilde{\rho}(t)\big)}.$$ Instead of modifying this equation as we did earlier, we have defined a new density operator $\tilde{\rho}_{s}$. It is the density matrix in the CPI regime.
The second term in (\[Lindblad equation\]) is the major point of departure from the standard Heisenberg evolution equation for Quantum operators. Due to this term, a system will loose information upon evolution. The system is said to decohere. The decoherence factor $\sigma(t)$ is closely related to the probability distribution $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)$. However Gambini and Pullin showed it only depends on the spread $b(t)$ and the asymmetry of the distribution [@real_rods]. If we assume there is no asymmetry, which is true for the clocks we studied, then the decoherence factor is given by $$\label{decoherence factor}
\sigma(t)=\frac{\partial}{\partial t}b(t)$$
In order to give an estimate for the fundamental decoherence, Gambini and Pullin used a limit on the accuracy of physical clocks found by Ng and van Dam. This limit was found using a simple clock composed of two mirrors and a photon bouncing between them. Using SQM and the uncertainty in the position of the mirror, they argued that the time it takes for the photon to travel from one mirror to the other can not be measured exactly. This in turn implies that there is a limit in the accuracy of spatial measurement, given by [@limitation] $$\label{Ng limitation}
\delta x=\delta x(0)+\delta x(n)= \delta x(0) +\frac{1}{2}\frac{\hbar t}{m\delta x(0)}.$$ This was used to calculate a minimum decoherence (after minimization with respect to $\delta x(0)$). However we believe that the CPI is self-consistent, and the minimum spread in a clock accuracy (and consequently a minimum decoherence) can be found without relying on any SQM result.
First we note that the clock used by Ng and van Dam is really measuring a distance, since they assume there is no uncertainty in the time measured for a photon to cover a given distance. Therefore their time $t$ is equivalent to our internal time $n$. Since the clock gives us the spatial separation between the two mirror, it is equivalent to a free particle in the CPI, the particle taking the role of the mirror. There is only one difference between the two pictures. In the free particle clock, the mirror’s momentum is peaked around a classical value $p_{o}$ instead of being classically stationary. But since being stationary correspond to the special case $p_{o}=0$, the precision of the measurement will be unchanged. Then we realize that the particle wavefunction in the position representation depends only on the probability distribution $\mathcal{P}_{n}(x)$, $$\label{position wrt distribution}
|\psi(n)\rangle=e^{-\frac{ip_{o}^{2}n}{2m\hbar}}\int\textrm{d}x\sqrt{\mathcal{P}_{n}(x)}|x\rangle.$$ We already calculated $\mathcal{P}_{n}(x)$ for a free particle (\[free particle distribution\]), $$\label{free particle distribution 2}
\mathcal{P}_{n}(x)\alpha e^{-\frac{1}{2}\big(\frac{x-\frac{p_{o}}{m}n}{\delta_{x}(n)}\big)^{2}},$$ where $\delta_{x}$ is $$\label{delta x}
\delta_{x}=\big|\langle x^{2}\rangle-\langle x\rangle^{2} \big|^{1/2}=\sqrt{\delta^{2}_{x}(0)+\frac{\hbar^{2}n^{2}}{4\delta^{2}_{x}(0)m^{2}}}.$$
We immediately see that our result differs from Ng and van Dam’s. Instead of adding the uncertainty at $n_{\rm initial}$ with the one at $n_{\rm final}$, we sum their squares. This discrepancy is conceptually important. However upon minimization of $\delta_{x}$ with respect to $\delta_{x}(0)$, the two versions agree, $$\label{minimum spread}
\delta x_{min}=\sqrt{\frac{\hbar n}{m}}.$$ One can find the decoherence’s strength associated, using $b(t)=(\delta x_{min})^{2}_{n=t}$, $$\label{minimum decoherence}
\sigma(t)=\frac{\hbar}{m}.$$
The CPI enables us to recover an important result, in a very fundamental way. We started from a simple Hamiltonian, and established without any assumption and without using any results from SQM that there is indeed a limit to the clock accuracy, which in turn will induce a loss of information in any system studied, through decoherence. This is a very powerful method since we can now imagine doing a similar calculation with a more realistic clock (pendulum or particle decay). All we need is the Hamiltonian for such a clock.
One last point worth noting is the lack of decoherence when using the (un-realistic) clock described by the Hamiltonian $H_{c}=p$. Indeed the spread $b(t)$ in the distribution $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)$ does not depend on $t$. It is not surprising since this clock is the closest to a classical clock. This lack of decoherence is exact for the “ideal clock limit” (\[ideal clock limit \]), but is also observed for a general initial state as long as we consider sufficiently large time. By large we mean much larger than the spread of $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)$. If we are interested in time scales similar to $\sqrt{b(t)}$, then we cannot approximate our distribution with delta functions: $$\label{delta function approximation}
\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)\neq\delta(n-t)+b(t)\delta''(n-t).$$ One has to use the full expression for the probability distribution, $$\label{full probability distribution}
\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)=\frac{\sqrt{2}e^{-\frac{(t-n)^{2}}{2\sigma_{t}^{2}}}}{\sqrt{\pi}\sigma_{t}{\rm erfc}(-\frac{t}{\sqrt{2}\sigma_{t}})}.$$ Here the initial state was a Gaussian of width $\sigma_{t}$ in time. To calculate the magnitude of the decoherence, we use a density matrix expressed in its eigenenergy basis: $$\label{rhotilde}
\tilde{\rho}_{s}(t)=\int_{0}^{\infty} \textrm{d}n e^{-i\frac{\hat{H}_{s}n}{\hbar}} \rho_{s} e^{i\frac{\hat{H}_{s}n}{\hbar}}\mathcal{P}_{n}(t),$$ and $$\label{densityeigenenergy}
\rho_{s}=\int\int\textrm{d}E\textrm{d}E' A_{EE'}|E\rangle\langle E'|.$$ This choice allows us to explicitly perform the integration over the parameter $n$, which greatly simplifies the calculation. We find $$\label{rhotilde2}
\tilde{\rho}_{s}(t)=e^{-i\frac{\hat{H}_{s}t}{\hbar}} \tilde{\rho}_{o} e^{i\frac{\hat{H}_{s}t}{\hbar}},$$ with $$\label{rhoo}
\tilde{\rho}_{o}(t)=\int\int\textrm{d}E\textrm{d}E' \frac{A_{EE'}|E\rangle\langle E'|}{erfc\big(\frac{-t}{2\sigma_{t}}\big)}erfc\Big(\frac{E-E'}{2\sigma_{E}}i-\frac{t}{2\sigma_{t}}\Big)e^{-\big(\frac{E-E'}{2\sigma_{E}}\big)^{2}}.$$ Consequently, the evolution of the density operator is given by $$\label{evolutionpluscorrection}
\frac{\partial\tilde{\rho}_{s}(t)}{\partial t}=\frac{i}{\hbar}[\tilde{\rho}_{s}(t),\widehat{H}_{s}]+e^{-i\frac{\hat{H}_{s}t}{\hbar}} \frac{\partial\tilde{\rho}_{o}(t)}{\partial t} e^{i\frac{\hat{H}_{s}t}{\hbar}},$$ which is the Heisenberg equation of motion plus a correction. We are interested in the magnitude of this correction, and especially in the rate at which it dies off as $t$ becomes large compared to $\sigma_{t}$. We explicitly calculate $\frac{\partial\tilde{\rho}_{o}(t)}{\partial t}$: $$\label{rhooevolution}
\frac{\partial\tilde{\rho}_{o}(t)}{\partial t}=\int\int\textrm{d}E\textrm{d}E' A_{EE'}|E\rangle\langle E'|f(t),$$ with $$\label{correctionmagnitude}
f(t)=\frac{e^{-\big(\frac{t}{2\sigma_{t}}\big)^{2}-\big(\frac{E-E'}{2\sigma_{E}}\big)^{2}}}{\sqrt{\pi}\sigma_{t}erfc\big(\frac{-t}{2\sigma_{t}}\big)}\left[ \frac{ e^{-\big(\frac{t}{2\sigma_{t}}-\frac{E-E'}{2\sigma_{E}}i\big)^{2}}}{e^{-\big(\frac{t}{2\sigma_{t}}\big)^{2}}} - \frac{erfc\big(\frac{E-E'}{2\sigma_{E}}i-\frac{t}{2\sigma_{t}}\big)}{erfc\big(-\frac{t}{2\sigma_{t}}\big)} \right] .$$
We first notice that the magnitude of the correction to the evolution equation depends on the density matrix element we are looking at. In particular, the correction vanishes for the diagonal terms. In general, the correction factor will stay small for nearly diagonal elements ($\|E-E'\|<\sigma_{E}$), and will be constant throughout the rest of the matrix. Also $f(t)$ vanishes when $\sigma_{t}=0$ for any nonzero $t$. This was expected since we fully recover SQM in that limit. The correction function will vanish as well for values of $t$ much bigger than the spread $\sigma_{t}$ in the clock’s initial state ($t>3\sigma_{t}$). The system will therefore decohere for an amount of time that depends on the spread of the probability distribution $\mathcal{P}_{n}(t)$, which for this Hamiltonian is equivalent to how well localized is the clock’s initial state in the $t$ representation. For times larger than $t \sim 3\sigma_{t}$ the system will undergo a standard evolution. This type of decoherence will be present for any type of clock, but will die off in a similar fashion and can be neglected for large enough time scales.
Conclusion
==========
In this paper we have shown that a classical clock can be described by an Hamiltonian linear in momentum. Even though the initial state of the clock must be a delta function in the time variable space (Dolby’s “ideal clock limit”) in order for the clock to be fully classical, the dynamical features of SQM (two-time probability or propagator) is recovered no matter what initial state is used, which negates Kuchar’s objection to the CPI. This is also the case for the lack of decoherence at sufficiently large scale. However, even for the simplest physically realistic clock, a free particle, the classical limit can not be recovered, and the use of the “ideal clock limit” will actually move the clock away from its classical regime. We showed that even though this clock cannot behave classically, there exist a semi-classical regime in which the CPI discrepancies with SQM are kept to a minimum. It can be achieved by using an initial state that minimizes the uncertainty relation between the “time variable” and its canonical momentum. This state is said to be coherent, and its distribution in the variable or its associated momentum space is a Gaussian. We then used those coherent states to calculate the minimum decoherence one can achieve for a “free particle clock”, and we found our results to be in agreement with previous estimates [@limitation]. We also found out that one cannot be sure the decoherence one observes is minimal. Indeed the initial state needed to get closest to the classical regime depends on the internal time $n_{\rm final}$ at which the final measurement is taken. Since $n_{\rm final}$ cannot be exactly predicted, one cannot “prepare” the clock in advance in order to achieve the minimal decoherence.
Similar calculation could be carried for more realistic clocks, such as a pendulum, or a particle decay, in order to fully understand the implications of the CPI in concrete experiments. This is particularly important in the view of the development of Quantum information theory, and Quantum computing. To do so, one would need to generalize the above calculation to include the use of “rods”, in addition to “clocks”, to measure distances and therefore be able to study systems traditionally described by Quantum Fields. The use of measuring “rods” in Quantum Field Theory has been discussed in Ref. [@rods]. The effect of decoherence in dramatically curved space would also be essential in the understanding of black holes and of the early stages of our Universe.
|
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author:
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S.V. Demidov, D.G. Levkov\
Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences,\
60th October Anniversary Prospect 7a, 117312, Moscow, Russia\
E-mail: ,
title: Soliton pair creation in classical wave scattering
---
Introduction {#sec:intro}
============
Wonders related to classical dynamics of solitons in non–integrable models surprised theorists for decades [@Makhankov; @soliton_chaos; @Belova; @Weinberg]. Intriguing long–living bound states of solitons and antisolitons — oscillons — are found in a variety of models . Another interesting example is kink–antikink annihilation in $(1+1)$–dimensional $\phi^4$ theory which displays chaotic behavior [@resonance_JETP; @resonance0; @fractal]. Most of these phenomena are explained qualitatively by reducing the infinite number of degrees of freedom in field theory to a few collective coordinates [@Manton1; @Manton2; @Manton_kinks]. Then, mechanical motion along the collective coordinates shows whether soliton evolution is regular or chaotic.
Recently [@kinks_particles; @Shnir] a question of kink–antikink pair production in classical wavepacket scattering was addressed[^1], cf. Refs. . The interest to this question stems from the fact that, within the semiclassical approach, wave packets describe multiparticle states in quantum theory. Studying kink–antikink creation from wave packets one learns a lot about the quantum counterpart process: production of nonperturbative kink states in multiparticle collisions. The prospect of Refs. [@kinks_particles; @Shnir] was to describe a class of multiparticle states leading to classical formation of kinks.
Due to essential nonlinearity of classical field equations the process of kink–antikink creation cannot be described analytically[^2] and one has to rely on numerical methods. A difficulty, however, is related to the space of initial Cauchy data which is infinite–dimensional in field theory. Because of this difficulty the analysis of Refs. [@kinks_particles; @Shnir] was limited to a few–parametric families of initial data.
In this paper we explore the entire space of classical solutions describing soliton–antisoliton pair creation from wave packets. To this end we sample stochastically over the sets of Cauchy data and obtain large ensemble of solutions, cf. Refs. [@Rebbi1; @Rebbi2]. We select solutions evolving between free wave packets and soliton–antisoliton pair and compute the energies $E$ and particle numbers $N$ of the respective initial states. In this way we obtain the region in $(E,N)$ plane corresponding to classical creation of solitons. We are particularly interested in solutions from this region with the smallest $N$.
The model we consider is somewhat different from the standard $\phi^4$ theory used in Refs. [@kinks_particles; @Shnir]. We do study evolution of a scalar field in $(1+1)$ dimensions but choose nonstandard potential $V(\phi)$ shown in Fig. \[fig:V\]a, solid line. The reason for the unusual choice is chaos in kink–antikink scattering in $\phi^4$ theory: it would be a venture to try applying new method in a potentially nontrivial chaotic model. We will comment on generalizations of our technique in the Discussion section.
With the above set of classical solutions we test the method of Ref. [@DL] where classically forbidden production of kinklike solitons in the same model was studied. Namely, we compare the boundary of the “classically allowed” region in $(E,N)$ plane with the same boundary obtained in Ref. [@DL] from the classically forbidden side. Coincidence of the two results justifies both calculations.
The paper is organized as follows. We introduce the model in Sec. \[sec:model\] and explain the stochastic sampling technique in Sec. \[sec:method\]. In Sec. \[sec:results\] we present numerical results which confirm, in particular, results of Ref. [@DL]. We conclude and generalize in Sec. \[sec:discussion\].
The model {#sec:model}
=========
The action of the model is $$\label{eq:11}
S = \frac{1}{g^2} \int dt \, dx\, \left[(\partial_\mu \phi)^2/2 -
V(\phi)\right]\;,$$ where $\phi(t,x)$ is the scalar field; semiclassical parameter $g$ does not enter the classical field equation $$\label{eq:1}
\left(\partial_t^2 - \partial_x^2\right) \phi = - \partial
V(\phi)/\partial \phi\;.$$ We assume that the potential $V(\phi)$ has a pair of degenerate minima $\phi_-$ and $\phi_+$. Then there exists a static solution of Eq. (\[eq:1\]) — topological kinklike soliton $\phi_S(x)$ shown in Fig. \[fig:V\]b. Antisoliton solution $\phi_A(x)$ is obtained from $\phi_S(x)$ by spatial reflection, $\phi_A(x) = \phi_S(-x)$.
We consider classical evolutions of $\phi(t,x)$ between free wave packets in the vacuum $\phi_-$ and configurations containing soliton–antisoliton pair. Initial and final states of the process are shown schematically in Fig. \[fig:process\]. We restrict attention to $P$–symmetric solutions, $\phi(t,x)=\phi(t,-x)$. This is natural since soliton and antisoliton are symmetric with respect to each other.
In what follows we solve Eq. (\[eq:1\]) numerically. To this end we introduce a uniform spatial lattice $\{x_{i}\}$, $i=- N_x,\dots
N_x$ of extent $-L_x \le x_{i} \le L_x$. At lattice edges $x=\pm
L_x$ we impose energy–conserving Neumann boundary conditions $\partial_x \phi =0$. We also introduce a uniform time step $\Delta
t$. Typically, $L_x = 15$, $N_x = 400$, $\Delta t =
0.03$. Discretization of Eq. (\[eq:1\]) is standard second–order[^3]. We take advantage of the reflection symmetry $x\to -x$ and use only one half of the spatial lattice.
We consider the potential $$\label{eq:2}
V(\phi) = \frac{1}{2}(\phi+1)^2\left[1 - v\,
W\left(\frac{\phi-1}{a}\right)\right]\;,$$ where dimensionless units are introduced; $W(x) = \mathrm{e}^{-x^2}( x
+ x^3 + x^5)$, $a=0.4$. The value of $v$ is chosen to equate the energy densities of the vacua, $v\approx 0.75$. The potential (\[eq:2\]) is depicted in Fig. \[fig:V\]a, solid line. We denote the masses of linear excitations in the vacua $\phi_-$ and $\phi_+$ by $m_-$ and $m_+$, respectively.
Our choice of the potential is motivated in two ways. First, we have already mentioned that kink dynamics in the standard $\phi^4$ theory is chaotic [@resonance_JETP; @resonance0; @fractal]. The source of chaos hides in the spectrum of linear perturbations around the $\phi^4$ kink. The latter contains [*two*]{} localized modes: zero mode due to spatial translations and first excited mode representing kink periodic pulsations. Localized modes accumulate energy during kink evolution which is thus described by two collective coordinates. Mechanical model for these coordinates is chaotic [@fractal], just like the majority of two–dimensional mechanical models.
We get rid of the chaos by choosing the potential (\[eq:2\]) where the spectrum of linear perturbations around the soliton contains only one localized mode. Due to this property soliton motion is described by one–dimensional mechanical system which cannot be chaotic.
Let us compute the spectrum of the soliton in the model (\[eq:2\]). Consider small perturbations $\phi -
\phi_S(x) = \delta\phi (x)\cdot\mathrm{e}^{\pm i\omega t}$ in the background of the soliton. Equation (\[eq:1\]) implies, $$\label{eq:3}
\left[- \partial_x^2 + U(x)\right] \delta
\phi(x) = \omega^2 \delta \phi(x)\;,$$ where $U(x) = V''(\phi_S(x))$ and nonlinear terms in $\delta\phi$ are neglected. Discretization turns the differential operator in Eq. (\[eq:3\]) into a symmetric $(2N_x+1)\times (2N_x+1)$ matrix; we compute the eigenvalues $\{\omega_k^{(S)}\}$ of this matrix by the standard method of singular value decomposition. Several lower eigenvalues are shown in the inset in Fig. \[fig:V\]b. One sees no localized modes between zero mode and continuum $\omega^{(S)} > m_-$.
Another, unrelated to the soliton spectrum, mechanism of chaos was proposed recently in Ref. [@Dorey:2011yw]. This mechanism works under condition $m_+ < m_-$ which is not met in our model.
The second reason for the choice (\[eq:2\]) is linearization of classical solutions at large negative times. Interaction terms should be negligible in the initial part of the classical evolution; otherwise initial wave packets cannot be associated with the perturbative Fock states. However, $(1+1)$–dimensional solutions linearize slowly due to wave dispersion. Brute force linearization would require large lattice which is a challenge for the numerical method. Our model is specifically designed to overcome this difficulty. At $a\ll 1$ the potential (\[eq:2\]) is quadratic everywhere except for the small region $\phi\approx 1$. Wave packets move freely in this potential if their tops are away from $\phi=1$, see Fig. \[fig:process\]. After collision the wave packets add up coherently and hit the interaction region $\phi\approx
1$. Below we find that all classical solutions of interest behave in the described way. We use $a=0.4$ which is small enough to provide, for the chosen lattice size, linearization at the level of 1%.
It is worth noting that the problem with slow linearization is absent in multidimensional theories because amplitudes of spherical waves in $D>2$ decay at power laws with distance. In general $(1+1)$–dimensional model linearization can be achieved artificially by switching off the interaction terms of the potential at $|x| > L_{int}$. This corresponds to a physical setup where interaction takes place in a sample of length $2 L_{int}$.
We compute the energy $E$ and particle number $N$ of the initial wave packets in the following way. Since the wave packets move freely in the vacuum $\phi_{-}$, $$\label{eq:4}
\phi(t,x) \to \phi_- + \sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi}}\int_0^{\infty}
\frac{dk}{\sqrt{2\omega_k}} \,\cos(kx)\left[a_k
\mathrm{e}^{-i\omega_k t} +
a_k^* \mathrm{e}^{i\omega_k t}\right]
\qquad{as} \;\; t\to -\infty\;,$$ where we took into account the reflection symmetry and introduced the amplitudes $a_k$; ${\omega_k^2 = k^2 + m^2_-}$. Given the representation (\[eq:4\]), one calculates $E$ and $N$ by the standard formulas, $$\label{eq:5}
E = \frac2{g^2}\int_0^\infty dk \,\omega_k |a_k|^2\;,\qquad \qquad
N = \frac2{g^2}\int_0^\infty dk \,|a_k|^2\;.$$ Expression for $N$ can be thought of as a sum of mode occupation numbers $n_k=|a_k|^2$, where the latter are defined as ratios of mode energies $\omega_k |a_k|^2$ and energy quanta[^4] $\omega_k$. Note that the energy $E$ is conserved; it can be calculated at arbitrary moment of classical evolution as $$\label{eq:8}
E=\frac1{2g^2}\int dx \left[(\partial_t \phi)^2 + (\partial_x\phi)^2 +
2V(\phi)\right]\;.$$ In the case of free evolution this expression coincides with the first of Eqs. (\[eq:5\]). Needless to say that Eqs. (\[eq:5\]) can be used only in the linear regime; this is the practical reason for continuing solutions back in time until Eq. (\[eq:4\]) holds. Below we check the linearity of classical solutions by comparing their exact and linear energies, Eqs. (\[eq:8\]) and (\[eq:5\]). We characterize classical solutions by points in $(E,N)$ plane.
Expressions (\[eq:4\]), (\[eq:5\]) are naturally generalized to the lattice system.[^5] One solves numerically the eigenvalue problem (\[eq:3\]), where $U(x) = m_-^2$, and finds the spectrum $\{\delta\phi_k(x),\,\omega_k\}$ of linear excitations above the vacuum $\phi_-$. In this way one obtains lattice analogs of the standing waves $\cos(kx)$ and frequencies $\omega_k=\sqrt{k^2+m_-^2}$. Arbitrary linear evolution in the vacuum $\phi_-$ has the form $$\label{eq:6}
\phi(t,x) = \phi_- + \sum_k \delta\phi_k(x)
\left[a_k \mathrm{e}^{-i\omega_k t} +
a_k^* \mathrm{e}^{i\omega_k t }\right]\;,$$ cf. Eq. (\[eq:4\]), where we used the eigenmode basis with normalization $$\label{eq:6_5}
\sum_i \Delta x \,\delta\phi_k(x_i) \delta\phi_{k'}(x_i) = \delta_{k,k'}
/\omega_k\;,\;\;
\Delta x = x_{i+1}-x_{i}.$$ One extracts the amplitudes $a_k$ from the classical solution $\phi(t,x)$ at large negative $t$ by decomposing $\phi(t,x)$, $\partial_t\phi(t,x)$ in the basis of $\delta\phi_k(x)$ and comparing the coefficients of decomposition with Eq. (\[eq:6\]). Summing up the energies and occupation numbers of different modes, one obtains $$\label{eq:7}
E = \frac{2}{g^2}\sum_k \omega_k |a_k|^2 \;, \qquad \qquad
N = \frac{2}{g^2}\sum_k |a_k|^2\;,$$ where Eq. (\[eq:6\_5\]) is taken into account.
The method {#sec:method}
==========
Modification of the potential {#sec:modification}
-----------------------------
It is difficult to select solutions containing soliton–antisoliton pairs in the infinite future. On the one hand, numerical methods do not allow us to extend $\phi(t,x)$ all the way to $t\to +\infty$. On the other hand, soliton and antisoliton attract; taken at rest, they accelerate towards each other and annihilate classically into a collection of waves. Thus, we never can be sure that $\phi(t,x)$ contains solitons at $t\to +\infty$, even if lumps similar to soliton–antisoliton pairs are present at finite times. We solve this difficulty by changing the value of $v$ in Eq. (\[eq:2\]) and thus adding small negative energy density $(-\delta \rho)$ to the vacuum $\phi_+$, see Fig. \[fig:V\]a, dashed line. This turns soliton–antisoliton pair into a bubble of true vacuum $\phi_+$ inside the false vacuum $\phi_-$ [@false; @false1; @false2]. Large bubbles expand at $\delta\rho>0$ since attraction between the solitons in this case is surmounted by the constant pressure $\delta\rho$ inside the bubble. Thus, at $\delta\rho > 0$ we simply look whether solution $\phi(t,x)$ contains large bubbles at finite $t$. In the end of calculation, however, we have to consider the limit $\delta\rho \to 0$.
We remark that solutions containing soliton–antisoliton pairs at $t\to +\infty$ can be identified by other methods. Our way, besides being particularly simple, has the following advantage: at $\delta\rho >0$ there exists a critical bubble [@false] — unstable static solution $\phi_{cb}(x)$ lying on top of the potential barrier between the true and false vacua. Given the critical bubble, one easily constructs classical evolutions between the vacua. Indeed, in the critical bubble attraction between the soliton and antisoliton is equal to repulsion due to $\delta\rho$. Being perturbed, it either starts expanding or collapses forming a collection of waves in the vacuum $\phi_-$. Thus, adding small perturbation to the critical bubble and solving classical equations of motion forward and backward in time, one obtains the classical solutions of interest. Critical bubble at $\delta \rho=0.4$ is depicted in Fig. \[fig:sphaleron\]a.
Let us obtain a particular solution describing creation of expanding bubble from wave packets at $\delta\rho>0$. We solve numerically Eq. (\[eq:3\]) with $U(x) = V''(\phi_{cb}(x))$ and find the spectrum of linear perturbations $\{\delta
\phi_k^{(cb)}(x)\,, \omega_k^{(cb)}\}$ around the critical bubble. This spectrum is shown in the inset in Fig. \[fig:sphaleron\]a; it contains precisely one negative mode $\delta \phi_{neg}(x)$, $\omega_{neg}^2 < 0$ due to changes in the bubble size. The latter mode describes decay of the critical bubble, $$\label{eq:10}
\phi(t,x) \approx \phi_{cb}(x) + B_{neg}\,
\delta\phi_{neg}(x) \,\mathrm{sh}\left(|\omega_{neg}|(t-t_0)\right)\;,$$ where we fix $t_0=0$, $B_{neg}=10^{-2}$ in what follows. Using the configuration (\[eq:10\]) and its time derivative as Cauchy data at $t=0$, one solves numerically Eq. (\[eq:1\]) forward and backward in time and obtains $\phi(t,x)$, see[^6] Fig. \[fig:sphaleron\]b. The latter solution interpolates between free wave packets above the vacuum $\phi_-$ and expanding bubble. We compute the values of $(g^2E,g^2N)\approx (6.1,4.4)$ by Eqs. (\[eq:7\]) and mark the respective point “cb” in Fig. \[fig:sampling\]a.
In Fig. \[fig:sphaleron\]b we check the linearity of evolution at $t\to
-\infty$ by comparing the linear and exact energies of $\phi(t,x)$, Eqs. (\[eq:7\]) and (\[eq:8\]). As expected, the linear energy coincides with the exact one at large negative times and departs from it when wave packets collide. In what follows we estimate the precision of linearization as fractions of percent.
Stochastic sampling technique {#sec:stoch-sampl-techn}
-----------------------------
In this Section we sample over classical solutions with bubbles of true vacuum in the final state, see Refs. [@Rebbi1; @Rebbi2]. It is hard to pick up the initial Cauchy data for such solutions: most of the initial wave packets scatter trivially and do not produce expanding bubbles. Instead, we consider the data $\{\phi(0,x),\,\partial_t\phi(0,x)\}$ at $t=0$. We decompose these data in the basis of perturbations around the critical bubble, $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq:9}
&\phi(0,x) = \phi_{cb}(x) + A_{neg}\,\delta \phi_{neg}(x) + \sum_k A_k\,
\delta\phi^{(cb)}_k(x)\;,\\
\notag
&\partial_t\phi(0,x) = B_{neg}\,|\omega_{neg}|\,\delta \phi_{neg}(x) +
\sum_k B_k\, \omega_k^{(cb)}\,
\delta\phi^{(cb)}_k(x)\;,\end{aligned}$$ where the negative mode is treated separately. Note that any functions $\phi(0,x)$, $\partial_t\phi(0,x)$ can be written in the form (\[eq:9\]). For each set of Cauchy data $\{A_{neg},\,
A_k, $ $B_{neg},\, B_k\}$ we solve numerically Eq. (\[eq:1\]) and obtain classical solution $\phi(t,x)$. Due to instability of the critical bubble there is a good chance to obtain transition between the vacua $\phi_-$ and $\phi_+$.
Next, we study the region in $(E,N)$ plane corresponding to classical formation of expanding bubbles from colliding wave packets. We are particularly interested in the lower boundary $N = N_{min}(E)$ of this region. Let us organize the artificial ensemble of solutions describing transitions between the vacua. The probability of finding each solution in our ensemble is proportional to $$\label{eq:12}
p \propto \mathrm{e}^{-E\tau - N\vartheta}\;,$$ where $E$ and $N$ are the energy and initial particle number of the solution; $\tau$ and $\vartheta$ are fixed numbers. At large positive $\vartheta$ solutions with the smallest $N$ dominate in the ensemble and we obtain the boundary $N_{min}(E)$ with good precision. Value of $\tau$ controls the region of energies to be covered.
We use Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm to construct the ensemble (\[eq:12\]). In our approach solutions are characterized by the coefficients in Eq. (\[eq:9\]); condition $A_{neg}=0$ is used to fix the time translation invariance of Eq. (\[eq:1\]). The algorithm starts from the solution (\[eq:10\]) describing decay of the critical bubble; it has $B_{neg} = 10^{-2}$, $A_k = B_k = 0$. Denote the energy and particle number of this solution by $(E_0,N_0)$. We pick up a random coefficient from the set $\{A_k,\, B_k,\, B_{neg}\}$ and change it by a small step. The latter step is a Gauss–distributed random number with zero average and small dispersion[^7] $\sigma$. Substituting the modified set of coefficients into Eqs. (\[eq:9\]), we find $\phi(0,x)$ and $\partial_t\phi(0,x)$. Then, solving numerically the classical field equation, we obtain the entire solution $\phi(t,x)$. We compute the values of $(E, N)$ by Eqs. (\[eq:7\]). Solution is rejected if it does not interpolate between the vacua $\phi_-$ and $\phi_+$; otherwise we accept it with the probability $$\label{eq:13}
p_{accept} = \min \left( 1,\; \mathrm{e}^{-\tau\Delta E - \vartheta \Delta
N}\right)\;,$$ where $(\Delta E,\Delta N)$ are differences between the new values of $(E,N)$ and the values $(E_0,N_0)$ for the solution we started with. If the new solution is accepted, we write it down and use its parameters $\{A_k,\,
B_k,\, B_{neg}\}$, $(E,N)\to (E_0,N_0)$ for the next cycle of iterations. After many cycles we obtain the ensemble (\[eq:12\]) of accepted solutions.
A typical run of the Monte Carlo algorithm is shown in Fig. \[fig:sampling\]a where the accepted solutions are marked by dots in $(E,N)$ plane. The algorithm starts in the vicinity of the critical bubble, then moves to smaller $N$ and finally arrives to the boundary $N_{min}(E)$ where the majority of solutions is found.
Numerical results {#sec:results}
=================
We perform Monte Carlo runs at different values of $\tau$ and $\vartheta$ until the entire curve $N=N_{\min}(E)$ is covered with solutions. In total we obtained $2\cdot 10^7$ solutions, where the value of $\tau$ was ranging between $0$ and $10^4$; $\vartheta = 10^3,\, 10^4,\, 5\cdot10^4$.
The boundary $N=N_{min}(E)$ is constructed by breaking the energy range into small intervals $\Delta E = 0.01$ and choosing solution with minimal $N$ inside each interval. This is the result we are looking for: $N_{min}(E)$ gives the minimum number of particles needed for classically allowed production of bubbles. It is plotted in Fig. \[fig:sampling\]b, solid line. As expected, $N_{min}(E)$ starts from $(E,N)=(E_{cb},N_{cb})$ and decreases monotonously with energy. At high energies $N_{min}(E)$ is approximately constant. Note that the particle number is parametrically large in the “classically allowed” region, ${N_{min} \sim 1/g^2}$. This means, in particular, that the probability of producing the bubble from few–particle initial states is exponentially suppressed.
Given the boundary $N_{min}(E)$, we check results of Ref. [@DL] where classically forbidden transitions between $N$–particle states and states containing the bubble were considered. The probability of these processes is exponentially suppressed in the semiclassical parameter, $$\label{eq:14}
{\cal P}_N(E) \sim \mathrm{e}^{-F_N(E)/g^2}\;,$$ where $F_N(E)$ is suppression exponent. One expects that this exponent vanishes in the “classical” region ${N>N_{min}(E)}$. We extract the boundary of the set $F_N(E)=0$ from the results of Ref. [@DL] and plot this boundary in Fig. \[fig:sampling\]b (dashed line). It coincides with $N_{min}(E)$ within 0.5% accuracy; the agreement justifies both calculations.
Let us look at solutions with almost–minimal initial particle number, $N\approx N_{min}(E)$. Two such solutions are plotted[^8] in Fig. \[fig:solutions\], their parameters $(E,N)$ are shown by circles in Fig. \[fig:sampling\]b. At $t\to -\infty$ the solutions describe free wave packets moving in the vacuum $\phi_-$. After collision the wave packets emit waves and form the bubble.
The most surprising part of the evolutions in Fig. \[fig:solutions\] is emission of waves during the bubble formation. One assumes that the role of these waves is simply to carry away the energy excess which is not required for the creation of bubble. Indeed, solutions at different $E$ look alike, cf. Figs. \[fig:solutions\]a and \[fig:solutions\]b; besides, $N_{min}(E)$ is independent of energy at high values of the latter. In Refs. [@Shifman; @Levkov; @Levkov1] it was assumed that there exists certain limiting energy $E_{l}$ which is best for bubble creation. Then, classical solutions with minimal particle number at $E > E_{l}$ are sums of two parts: non–trivial soft part describing bubble production at $E = E_{l}$ and trivial hard part — waves propagating adiabatically in the soft background. Hard waves carry away the energy excess $E - E_l$ without changing the initial particle number; this is achieved at small wave amplitudes and high frequencies, see Eqs. (\[eq:7\]).
Numerical results do not permit us to judge whether the limiting energy exists. We can, however, confirm the conjectured structure of high–energy solutions. Consider the energies $\epsilon_k=\omega_k |a_k|^2/g^2$ of the modes at $t\to -\infty$, where the amplitudes $a_k$ and frequencies $\omega_k$ are defined in Eq. (\[eq:6\]). In Fig. \[fig:fk\] we plot these energies for the two solutions depicted in Fig. \[fig:solutions\]. Soft parts of the graphs are almost coincident. Long tail of excited high–frequency modes is seen, however, in the graph representing the high–energy solution \[fig:solutions\]b. The tail carries substantial energy while the corresponding modes propagate adiabatically and do not participate in nonlinear dynamics. This is precisely the behavior conjectured in Refs. [@Shifman; @Levkov; @Levkov1].
It is reasonable to assume that solutions at arbitrarily high energies have the same “hard+soft” structure. Then, $N_{min}(E)$ stays constant as $E\to +\infty$ and classical formation of bubbles is not possible at any energies unless the initial particle number is larger than $N_{min}(E=+\infty)$.
Finally, we consider the limit ${\delta\rho \to 0}$. A typical solution at small $\delta \rho$ is depicted in Fig. \[fig:drho\]a. It describes creation of soliton and antisoliton which move away from each other at a constant speed. The boundaries $N_{min}(E)$ at $\delta\rho=0.04,\; 0.02$ are plotted in Fig. \[fig:drho\]b (dashed lines). They are almost indistinguishable; thus, the limit ${\delta\rho \to 0}$ exists. Extrapolating $N_{min}(E)$ to $\delta
\rho = 0$ with linear functions, we obtain the region in $(E,N)$ plane for classically allowed production of soliton–antisoliton pairs (above the solid line in Fig. \[fig:drho\]b). All initial wave packets leading to classical creation of soliton pairs have the values of $(E,N)$ within this region. The region in Fig. \[fig:drho\]b is qualitatively similar to the regions at $\delta\rho>0$; in particular, $N_{min}(E)$ is constant at high energies.
Discussion {#sec:discussion}
==========
In this paper we studied multiparticle states leading to classically allowed production of soliton–antisoliton pairs in $(1+1)$–dimensional scalar field model. We characterized these states with two parameters — energy $E$ and particle number $N$; we have found the corresponding “classically allowed” region in $(E,N)$ plane. There were two main ingredients in our technique. First, we added constant pressure $\delta\rho$ pulling soliton and antisoliton apart. This modification led to appearance of the critical
[r]{}[2cm]{}
(25,65) (0,5)[{width="15mm"}]{} (2,16.5)[$\bar{M}$]{} (2,49)[$M$]{} (1,34)[$\boldsymbol{F}_{att}$]{} (-2,1.2)[$-g_m\boldsymbol{H}$]{} (0.3,65.5)[$g_m\boldsymbol{H}$]{} (16,61)[$\boldsymbol{H}$]{}
bubble — unstable static solution lying on the boundary between the perturbative states and soliton–antisoliton pair. Second, we applied stochastic sampling over Cauchy data in the background of the critical bubble. We thus obtained large ensemble of classical solutions describing formation of soliton–antisoliton pairs. Calculating the values of $(E,N)$ for each solution we found the required “classically allowed” region.
Our method is naturally generalized to higher–dimensional models. For example, consider formation of t’Hooft–Polyakov monopole–antimonopole pairs in four–dimensional gauge theories [@Hooft; @Polyakov]. Constant force dragging monopole and antimonopole apart is provided [@Shnir_Kiselev] by external magnetic field $\mathbf{H}$, see the figure. At $\mathbf{H}\ne 0$ there exists a direct analog of the critical bubble [@Manton]: unstable static solution where the attractive force $\boldsymbol{F}_{att}$ between the monopole and antimonopole is compensated by the external forces $\pm g_m\boldsymbol{H}$ ($g_m$ is a magnetic charge of the monopole). One performs Monte Carlo simulation in the background of this static solution and obtains many classical evolutions between free wave packets and monopole–antimonopole pairs.
A particularly interesting application of our technique might be found in the study of kink–antikink production in $(1+1)$–dimensional $\phi^4$ theory. In this model the boundary $N_{min}(E)$ is lowered [@kinks_particles; @Shnir] due to chaos. We do not expect any difficulties related to nontrivial dynamics of solitons. However, classification of initial data for kink–antikink formation may require modification of our method.
#### Acknowledgments. {#acknowledgments. .unnumbered}
We are indebted to V.Y. Petrov and I.I. Tkachev for helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by grants NS-5525.2010.2, MK-7748.2010.2 (D.L.), RFBR-11-02-01528-a (S.D.), the Fellowship of the “Dynasty” Foundation (awarded by the Scientific board of ICPFM) (D.L.) and Russian state contracts 02.740.11.0244, P520 (S.D.), P2598 (S.D.). Numerical calculations have been performed on Computational cluster of the Theoretical division of INR RAS.
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[^1]: Related yet different problem is creation of kink–antikink pairs from wave packets in the background of preexisting kink [@kink_to_3kinks].
[^2]: In particular, collective coordinates cannot be introduced since solitons are absent in the beginning of the process.
[^3]: One changes $\partial_x^2\phi(x_i)$ to $(\phi_{i+1} +
\phi_{i-1} - 2\phi_i)/\Delta x^2$, where $\phi_i = \phi(x_i)$. The time derivative $\partial_t^2 \phi$ is discretized in the same way.
[^4]: In our units $\hbar=1$.
[^5]: Discretization of Eq. (\[eq:8\]) is standard second–order.
[^6]: Only the central parts of solutions are shown in this and other figures.
[^7]: We used $\sigma = 10^{-2},\, 10^{-3}$; the final result was insensitive to this number.
[^8]: Small ripples covering the solutions represent fluctuations due to stochastic sampling.
|
Reviews for Bird Box have not been kind. The postapocalyptic thriller starring Sandra Bullock was panned by critics and currently sits at 66 percent among audience members on Rotten Tomatoes. Chief among the film’s problems is its lack of originality (and more than passing resemblance to another 2018 movie, A Quiet Place). The sensory-deprivation horror flick is “filmed with illustrative approximations, in generic gestures and fragments,” according to The New Yorker’s Richard Brody. Amy Nicholson, writing for The Guardian, called it “forcibly screwed together, a movie marionetted by strings of data code.” I personally have seen more creative claustrophobic disaster scenarios played out by Sims characters.
“Is it good?” asked Salon’s Melanie McFarland. “Not really, but it doesn’t need to be.” In the context of a movie review, this is an unexpected statement, but also spot-on: The circumstances under which Bird Box wormed its way into our zeitgeist explain why, in the age of direct-to-consumer streaming, quality may be more irrelevant than ever. Bird Box is a “Netflix original” adapted from Josh Malerman’s 2014 sci-fi novel of the same name and one of the many high-budget films that the company has funded in an expensive mission to prove that it can upend the traditional production cycle of a Hollywood studio. But even if the Bay Area–based corporation has overseen an impressive lineup of genuinely delightful projects—from rom-com revivers To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Set It Up to a legitimate Oscar contender like Roma—Bird Box’s results are quite different. Its SEO-friendly name, overcrowded cast, gimmicky imagery, and savvy release schedule all add up to pure meme bait. And meme the world has. The formulaic nature that hurt Bird Box’s critical reception is, as they say in Silicon Valley, a feature, not a bug.
First, I should offer you a quick play-by-play of why we are currently discussing an otherwise unremarkable movie. Bird Box premiered at the top of Netflix’s homepage December 21, around the time that people were settling into their couch grooves for a sedentary holiday vacation. Even if the company’s 58.46 million U.S. subscribers were confused by Bird Box’s title, its recognizable star, autoplay previews, and prime above-the-fold real estate were enough to catch people’s attention. Aaron M. White recalled seeing its trailer advertised during Thanksgiving break, around the time the movie premiered at the American Film Institute Festival. “Eventually I learned enough about the movie through pop culture osmosis to have the idea that it involved Sandra Bullock, that it was like A Quiet Place but with blindfolds,” White, a 28-year-old civil litigation attorney in Chicago, told me via email. “I had this vague idea that it was a good enough movie to be on Netflix but not good enough for anyone to get excited about.”
It wasn’t until White noticed images from the film inundating his feeds on Twitter and Instagram that he seriously considered watching it. In the Bird Box universe, looking at one of the world’s invisible monsters causes people to immediately die by suicide, a grim reality that requires Bullock’s character, Malorie, and her fellow survivors to spend most of the film blindfolded. For that reason, screen shots of the movie were almost immediately recognizable and—because humans look clumsy while navigating the world with their vision shielded—ripe for mimicry. Images of Bullock rowing a boat down a river while blindfolded became the first of many joke backdrops that eventually led to a full-blown raid of the film’s most intense moments to harvest fresh memes. People referred to tertiary Bird Box characters by their first names, the same way that Stranger Things fans toss around the name “Barb.” In an effort to promote the film earlier in December, Netflix presented a handful of well-known Twitch gamers with a Bird Box “challenge,” asking them to play their favorite game while blindfolded. (This is the type of sponsorship that is often offered to popular influencers on various social networks.) But as the search term “bird box” surged the week of Christmas, creators began integrating the concept into their videos unprompted. YouTubers applied the Bird Box challenge to their daily lives, pawing through Popeyes drive-throughs and stumbling on escalators in the name of clicky content. TikTok users fashioned their own signature, blindfolded dance. At least one Atlanta nightclub is hosting a Bird Box–themed party, complete with a “blindfolded shot for shot challenge.”
As White watched these memes multiply in his feed, he was hit with a familiar sensation: the fear of missing out.
“I figured that I just about got the gist of the joke, visual memes are largely self-explanatory,” he said. “But there was just so many of them, and they seemed so versatile, so I ultimately decided to watch the movie to make sure I wasn’t missing any nuance.”
White’s journey to the play button is likely one of the reasons that, according to Netflix, more than 45 million accounts viewed Bird Box within the first week of its release, a statistic that it touted as its best-ever debut for an original film. (The company later qualified that those it counted as viewers had watched at least 70 percent of the movie’s total running time. Netflix declined to comment for this story.) Aside from disclosing the occasional disturbingly specific statistic, Netflix is notorious for withholding viewership data, and a January 8 Nielsen report found that the number of viewers who watched the whole movie was around 26 million. Based on the online buzz, it’s safe to say many of those millions of people were driven to watch Bird Box—a film that most people also agree is bad—just to better understand the collective conversation online. And in the case of Netflix subscriber Stafford Heppenstall, that didn’t mean completing it.
“I only watched Bird Box for the memes,” Heppenstall, a 31-year-old operations manager, told me via direct message. “After the scene with the guy forcing the old women’s eyes open, I stopped watching the movie. I got enough context to know what the memes were and after I read a spoiler on Twitter (while I was watching the movie) I really didn’t think I needed to watch more.”
Hollywood has learned that, when executed correctly, memes can be a far more effective marketing tool than any online ad or freeway billboard. Usually, a positive symbiotic relationship between a meme and a movie (or TV show) relies on two factors: general access and a positive critical reception of the show or movie from which it samples. Scandal drew crowds to Twitter because people already enjoyed watching it (and were also able to easily on ABC). Arthur, The Simpsons, and SpongeBob SquarePants have been mined for online jokes for years because they feature familiar characters from long-running, beloved, and—most importantly—streamable shows. The same logic goes for reality-TV shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Vanderpump Rules, which thrive on the online culture dedicated to tracking their main characters’ every online action. A Star Is Born demonstrated the power of preemptive memes on a movie’s reception—in part because it ultimately stood up to the hype.
Bird Box is the cynical inverse of your typical pop culture meme. Though it has all the necessary visual ingredients that help a movie spread online, viewers seem more attached to the memes it has generated than the movie itself. In other words, it’s like your average Drake single: best when picked over, remixed, and memed by more creative minds on the internet. Because social media has become a form of entertainment in and of itself, online chatter is enough to drive traffic to what is almost universally acknowledged as lesser content—just for the sake of context.
“[This is] definitely a new level of influence,” Jack Daley, a 32-year-old medical sales rep who watched the movie after seeing a meme that compared it to A Quiet Place, told me via direct message. “The power of memes is crazy. Who would have thought that memes would have got me to do something? We live in a weird time.”
Streaming services like Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix may have spent the last few years throwing money at projects designed to earn them respect in Hollywood. But ultimately Netflix will need to prove its staying power to investors via sheer strength of numbers. An Oscar might be a nice memento for CEO Reed Hastings’s corner office, but the company’s ability to turn a lacking film into a hit via strategic marketing is far more valuable. In addition to the unprecedented announcement of Bird Box’s first-week viewership, Netflix also recently bragged about its ability to turn young actors into Instagram influencers via its most recent earning’s call. It’s all part of the company’s efforts to position itself as a digital-first driver of culture rather than a decorated movie studio.
Even if Netflix’s numbers are impressive, flipping mediocre movies into digestible memes can have its setbacks. Amid the height of the Bird Box fervor, one suspicious Twitter user hatched a theory that the company was using bots to spread memes about the movie online, citing a large amount of engagement from recently started Twitter accounts that had very few followers and tweets. The claim went viral, spurring a handful of articles explaining why such a mediocre movie had become so popular. Netflix denied these claims in a direct message with The Daily Dot, but the lack of clarity has nevertheless sown confusion and, in some cases, even discouraged subscribers from watching the movie.
“I feel like I’m being conned into watching it by some unseen force that’s funneling Bird Box memes onto my timeline,” Nora Hastings (no relation), a 25-year-old graphic designer, told me via direct message. Despite feeling left out of the online conversation, she has yet to watch the movie. “I want to see Bird Box and understand the memes fully but I also really, really, really don’t want to give Netflix the satisfaction, despite the very obvious fact that they don’t know who I am or even care about what I watch.”
Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor who recently published a study on the presence of fake Russian accounts during the 2016 presidential election, ran a quick survey of the Bird Box Twitter hashtag using proprietary university software and found no evidence of bot activity. (Though he did find some odd activity in which 9,000 separate accounts tweeted a Bird Box meme with same typo: “Dr.Lapham” with no space.) Beyond identifying automated activity on social media, however, he says it’s hard to parse whether a PR company is running an astroturfing campaign—a communication strategy in which a corporation hires people to pose as concerned citizens and push its preferred message—or people are simply stealing each other’s tweets.
Dr.Lapham when she found out
Malorie names the kids Boy and Girl.#BirdBox pic.twitter.com/O1zwZ3qSPR — insta;ihatemaka (@ihatemakaa) December 27, 2018
“Bird Box is great for funny memes and that seems to have driven lots of attention starting when it first came out on the 21st,” Linvill told me via email. “To what degree this spike is organic and what degree it is created by a PR company would take a lot of effort to figure out.”
Along with a general suspicion that Netflix appears to have manipulated the public, the meme has now taken on a second life as a challenge on YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. (In typical viral-grab fashion, Good Morning America news anchors recently offered their own interpretation of the trend.) On Wednesday, Netflix tweeted a warning to its followers to be careful: “PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We don’t know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes,” the company wrote.
“It’s almost like they made it even more viral,” said Nina Amjadi, a managing director at the digital marketing firm North Kingdom. “They didn’t say stop doing that, they didn’t even really really shut it down. It was more like a, ‘Hey, be careful, but continue doing that, because it’s marketing our movie really well.’”
Not all brands are comfortable having their movies and TV shows connected to an unwieldy news cycle; last year, for instance, Disney surreptitiously deleted a meme that joked that Pinocchio was dead inside. But even if it’s not clear whether Bird Box meme makers and challenge participants enjoyed its film, Netflix appears to be right at home in the world of memes and challenges. Amjadi says that kind of active participation is the new holy grail of digital meme marketing.
“The question is really: How do you rate the success of the film Bird Box?” she said. “Is it the amount of people who saw it, or is it the amount of people who discussed it? After the holidays, people come back to work on January 2. How many people were saying: ‘Oh, did you see Bird Box?’ Did they say: ‘Have you done the Bird Box challenge?’ In any case, it’s mentioning a movie that Netflix is behind, and Sandra Bullock is getting that exposure.” For Netflix, the creation of a massive online movement is worth far more than a few positive reviews.
This piece has been updated to reflect new Nielsen data. |
---
author:
- |
Andrey G. Grozin$^{a,b}$, Maik Höschele$^b$, Jens Hoff$^b$ and Matthias Steinhauser$^b$\
$^a$ Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia\
$^b$ Institut für Theoretische Teilchenphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie,\
D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany\
E-mail: , , and
title: Simultaneous decoupling of bottom and charm quarks
---
Introduction {#S:Intro}
============
QCD where all six quark flavours are treated as active degrees of freedom is rarely used in practical applications. If the characteristic energy scale is below some heavy-flavour masses, it is appropriate to construct a low-energy effective theory without those heavy flavours. The Lagrangian of this theory has the same form as the one of QCD plus corrections suppressed by powers of heavy-quark masses. Usually, heavy flavours are decoupled one at a time which results in a tower of effective theories, each of them differ from the previous one by integrating out a single heavy flavour. The parameters of the Lagrangian of such an effective low-energy QCD ($\alpha_s(\mu)$, the gauge fixing parameter $a(\mu)$, light-quark masses $m_i(\mu)$) are related to the parameters of the underlying theory (including the heavy flavour) by so-called decoupling relations. The same holds for the light fields (gluon, ghost, light quarks) which exist in both theories. QCD decoupling constants are known at two- [@Bernreuther:1981sg; @Larin:1994va; @Chetyrkin:1997un], three- [@Chetyrkin:1997un] and even four-loop order [@Schroder:2005hy; @Chetyrkin:2005ia].
The conventional approach just described ignores power corrections in ratios of heavy-quark masses. Let us, e.g., consider the relation between $\alpha_s^{(3)}$ and $\alpha_s^{(5)}$ (the superscript denotes the number of active flavours). Starting from three loops, there are diagrams containing both $b$- and $c$-quark loops which depend on $m_c/m_b$. The power correction $\sim(\alpha_s/\pi)^3\,(m_c/m_b)^2$ is not taken into account in the standard approach, although, it might be comparable with the four-loop corrections of order $(\alpha_s/\pi)^4$. In the present paper, we consider $(m_c/m_b)^n$ power corrections at three loops by decoupling $b$ and $c$ quarks in a single step.
Of course, the results presented in this paper are generic and apply to any two flavours which are decoupled simultaneously from the QCD Lagrangian. Our full theory is QCD with $n_l$ light flavours, $n_c$ flavours with mass $m_c$, and $n_b$ flavours with mass $m_b$ (in the real world $n_c=n_b=1$). Furthermore we introduce the total number of quarks $n_f=n_l+n_c+n_b$. We study the relation of full QCD to the low-energy effective theory containing neither $b$ nor $c$.
The bare gluon, ghost and light-quark fields in the effective theory are related to the bare fields in the full theory by $$A_0^{(n_l)} = \left(\zeta_A^0\right)^{1/2} A_0^{(n_f)}\,,\quad
c_0^{(n_l)} = \left(\zeta_c^0\right)^{1/2} c_0^{(n_f)}\,,\quad
q_0^{(n_l)} = \left(\zeta_q^0\right)^{1/2} q_0^{(n_f)}\,,
\label{Intro:fields0}$$ where the bare decoupling constants are computed in the full theory via [@Chetyrkin:1997un] $$\begin{aligned}
\zeta_A^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)}) &=& 1 + \Pi_A(0)
= \left[Z_A^{\rm os}\right]^{-1}\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_c^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)}) &=& 1 + \Pi_c(0)
= \left[Z_c^{\rm os}\right]^{-1}\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_q^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)}) &=& 1 + \Sigma_V(0)
= \left[Z_q^{\rm os}\right]^{-1}\,,
\label{Intro:zetafields0}\end{aligned}$$ with $\alpha_{s0}=g_0^2/(4\pi)^{1-\varepsilon}$; $\Pi_A(q^2)$, $\Pi_c(q^2)$ and $\Sigma(q) = \rlap/q \Sigma_V(q^2)+m_{q0} \Sigma_S(q^2)$ are the (bare) gluon, ghost and light-quark self-energies (we may set all light-quark masses to 0 in $\Sigma_V$ and $\Sigma_S$). The fields renormalized in the on-shell scheme coincide in both theories; therefore, the bare decoupling coefficients (\[Intro:zetafields0\]) are the ratio of the on-shell renormalization constants of the fields. In the effective theory all the self-energies vanish at $q=0$ (they contain no scale), and the on-shell $Z$ factors are exactly 1. In the full theory, only diagrams with at least one heavy-quark loop survive.[^1]
Next to the fields also the parameters of the full and effective QCD Lagrangian are related by decoupling constants $$\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)} = \zeta_{\alpha_s}^0 \alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}\,,\quad
a_0^{(n_l)} = \zeta_A^0 a_0^{(n_f)}\,,\quad
m_{q0}^{(n_l)} = \zeta_m^0 m_{q0}^{(n_f)}\,,
\label{Intro:params0}$$ where $a$ is the gauge parameter defined through the gluon propagator $$D_{\mu\nu}(k) = -\frac{i}{k^2}\, \left( g_{\mu\nu} - (1-a)\,
\frac{k_\mu k_\nu}{k^2} \right)\,.
\label{eq::gluon_prop}$$ The bare decoupling constants in Eq. (\[Intro:params0\]) are computed with the help of [@Chetyrkin:1997un] $$\begin{aligned}
\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}) &=&
\left(1+\Gamma_{A\bar{c}c}\right)^2 \left(Z_c^{\rm os}\right)^2 Z_A^{\rm os} =
\left(1+\Gamma_{A\bar{q}q}\right)^2\left(Z_q^{\rm os}\right)^2 Z_A^{\rm os} =
\left(1+\Gamma_{AAA}\right)^2
\left(Z_A^{\rm os}\right)^3\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_m^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}) &=& Z_q^{\rm os} \left[1 - \Sigma_S(0)\right]\,.
\label{Intro:zetaparams0}\end{aligned}$$ The $A\bar{c}c$, $A\bar{q}q$ and $AAA$ proper vertex functions are expanded in their external momenta, and only the leading non-vanishing terms are retained. In the low-energy theory they get no loop corrections, and are given by the tree-level vertices of dimension-4 operators in the Lagrangian. In full QCD (with the heavy flavours) they have just one colour and tensor (and Dirac) structure, namely, that of the tree-level vertices (if this were not the case, the Lagrangian of the low-energy theory would not have the usual QCD form[^2]). Therefore, we have the tree-level vertices times $(1+\Gamma_i)$, where loop corrections $\Gamma_i$ contain at least one heavy-quark loop. The various versions in the first line of Eq. (\[Intro:zetaparams0\]) are obtained with the help of the QCD Ward identities involving three-particle vertices. In our calculation we restrict ourselves for convenience to the ghost–gluon vertex. Note that the gauge parameter dependence cancels in $\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0$ and $\zeta_m^0$ whereas the individual building blocks in Eq. (\[Intro:zetaparams0\]) still depend on $a$. This serves as a check of our calculation.
The $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$ renormalized parameters and fields in the two theories are related by $$\begin{aligned}
\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu') &=& \zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu',\mu) \alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,\quad
a^{(n_l)}(\mu') = \zeta_A(\mu',\mu) a^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,
\nonumber\\
m_q^{(n_l)}(\mu') &=& \zeta_m(\mu',\mu) m_q^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,\quad
A^{(n_l)}(\mu') = \zeta_A^{1/2}(\mu',\mu) A^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,
\nonumber\\
c^{(n_l)}(\mu') &=& \zeta_c^{1/2}(\mu',\mu) c^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,\quad
q^{(n_l)}(\mu') = \zeta_q^{1/2}(\mu',\mu) q^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,
\label{Intro:ren}\end{aligned}$$ where we allow for two different renormalization scales in the full and effective theory. The finite decoupling constants are obtained by renormalizing the fields and parameters in Eqs. (\[Intro:zetafields0\]) and (\[Intro:params0\]) which leads to $$\begin{aligned}
\zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu',\mu) &=&
\left(\frac{\mu}{\mu'}\right)^{2\varepsilon}
\frac{Z_{\alpha}^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right)}{Z_{\alpha}^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right)}
\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}\right)\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_m(\mu',\mu) &=&
\frac{Z_m^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right)}{Z_m^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right)}
\zeta_m^0\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}\right)\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_A(\mu',\mu) &=&
\frac{Z_A^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu),a^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right)}{Z_A^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu'),a^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right)}
\zeta_A^0\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)}\right)\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_q(\mu',\mu) &=&
\frac{Z_q^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu),a^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right)}{Z_q^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu'),a^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right)}
\zeta_q^0\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)}\right)\,,
\nonumber\\
\zeta_c(\mu',\mu) &=&
\frac{Z_c^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu),a^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right)}{Z_c^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu'),a^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right)}
\zeta_c^0\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)}\right)\,,
\label{Intro:zetaren}\end{aligned}$$ where $Z_i^{(n_f)}$ are the $\overline{\rm MS}$ renormalization constants in $n_f$-flavour QCD which we need up to three-loop order.
Calculation {#S:Calc}
===========
Our calculation is automated to a large degree. In a first step we generate all Feynman diagrams with [QGRAF]{} [@Nogueira:1991ex]. The various diagram topologies are identified and transformed to [FORM]{} [@Vermaseren:2000nd] with the help of [q2e]{} and [exp]{} [@Harlander:1997zb; @Seidensticker:1999bb] (these topologies have been investigated in [@Bekavac:2007tk]). Afterwards we use the program [FIRE]{} [@Smirnov:2008iw] to reduce the two-scale three-loop integrals to four master integrals which can be found in analytic form in Ref. [@Bekavac:2009gz].
As a cross check we apply the asymptotic expansion (see, e.g., Ref. [@Smirnov:2002pj]) in the limit $m_c\ll m_b$ and evaluate five expansion terms in $(m_c/m_b)^2$. The asymptotic expansion is automated in the program [exp]{} which provides output that is passed to the package [MATAD]{} [@Steinhauser:2000ry] performing the actual calculation.
In the following we present explicit results for the two-point functions and $\Gamma_{A\bar{c}c}$ needed for the construction of the decoupling constants. Other vertex functions can be easily reconstructed from the bare decoupling coefficient $\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0$ in Section \[S:as\] (see Eq. (\[Intro:zetaparams0\])).
Gluon self-energy
-----------------
The bare gluon self-energy at $q^2=0$ in the full theory can be cast in the following form[^3] $$\begin{aligned}
\Pi_A(0) &=& \frac{1}{3}
\left( n_b m_{b0}^{-2\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-2\varepsilon} \right)
T_F \frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)
\nonumber\\
&&{} + P_h \left( n_b m_{b0}^{-4\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-4\varepsilon} \right)
T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[ \left(P_{hg} + P_{hl} T_F n_l\right)
\left( n_b m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
+ P_{hh} T_F
\left( n_b^2 m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c^2 m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ P_{bc}\left(\frac{m_{c0}}{m_{b0}}\right)
T_F n_b n_c \left(m_{b0} m_{c0}\right)^{-3\varepsilon} \biggr]
T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^3
+ \cdots
\label{Calc:Pi0}\end{aligned}$$ where the exact dependence on $\varepsilon=(4-d)/2$ ($d$ is the space-time dimension) of the bare two-loop result is given by $$P_h = \frac{1}{4 (2-\varepsilon) (1+2\varepsilon)} \left[
- C_F \frac{\varepsilon}{3} (9+7\varepsilon-10\varepsilon^2)
+ C_A \frac{3+11\varepsilon-\varepsilon^2-15\varepsilon^3+4\varepsilon^5}{2 (1-\varepsilon) (3+2\varepsilon)} \right]
\label{Calc:Ph}$$ ($C_F=(N_C^2-1)/(2N_C)$ and $C_A=N_C$ are the eigenvalues of the quadratic Casimir operators of the fundamental and adjoint representation of $SU(N_C)$, respectively, and $T_F=1/2$ is the index of the fundamental representation). The three-loop quantities $P_{hg}$, $P_{hl}$ and $P_{hh}$ are only available as an expansion in $\varepsilon$. The analytic results read $$\begin{aligned}
P_{hg} &=& C_F^2 \frac{\varepsilon^2}{24} \left[ 17
- \frac{1}{8} \left( 95 \zeta_3 + \frac{274}{3} \right) \varepsilon + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} - C_F C_A \frac{\varepsilon}{288} \left[ 89
- \left( 36 \zeta_3 - \frac{785}{6} \right) \varepsilon
- 9 \left( 4 B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{5} + \frac{1957}{24} \zeta_3 - \frac{10633}{162} \right)
\varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \frac{C_A^2}{1152} \Biggl[ 3 \xi + 41
- \frac{1}{2} \left( 21 \xi - \frac{781}{3} \right) \varepsilon
- \left( 108 \zeta_3 - \frac{137}{4} \xi - \frac{3181}{12} \right) \varepsilon^2
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\frac{C_A^2}{1152}\Biggl[\Biggr.}
\!- \left( 72 B_4 - \frac{27}{5} \pi^4 - \left( 24 \xi - \frac{1805}{4} \right) \zeta_3
+ \frac{1}{24} \left( 3577 \xi + \frac{42799}{9} \right) \right) \varepsilon^3
+ \cdots \Biggr]\,,
\nonumber\\
P_{hl} &=& \frac{5}{72} C_F \varepsilon \left[ 1 - \frac{31}{30} \varepsilon
+ \frac{971}{180} \varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} - \frac{C_A}{72} \left[ 1 + \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon + \frac{101}{12} \varepsilon^2
+ \left( 8 \zeta_3 - \frac{3203}{216} \right) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,,
\nonumber\\
P_{hh} &=& C_F \frac{\varepsilon}{18} \left[ 1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon
+ \frac{1}{32} \left( 63 \zeta_3 + \frac{218}{9} \right) \varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} - \frac{C_A}{144} \left[ 1 + \frac{35}{6} \varepsilon + \frac{37}{12} \varepsilon^2
- \frac{1}{8} \left( 287 \zeta_3 - \frac{6361}{27} \right) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,,
\label{Calc:P3}\end{aligned}$$ where $\xi=1-a_0^{(n_f)}$, and [@Broadhurst:1991fi] $$B_4 = 16 {\mathop{\mathrm{Li}}\nolimits_{4}}\left(\frac{1}{2}\right) + \frac{2}{3} \log^2 2 (\log^2 2 - \pi^2)
- \frac{13}{180} \pi^4\,.$$
A new result obtained in this paper is the analytic expression for $P_{bc}(x)$ which arises from diagrams where $b$ and $c$ quarks are simultaneously present in the loops (see Fig. \[F:Glue\] for typical diagrams). The analytic expression is given by $$\begin{aligned}
P_{bc}(x) &=& C_F \frac{\varepsilon}{9} \left[ 1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon
+ p_F(x) \varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} - \frac{C_A}{72} \left[ 1 + \frac{35}{6} \varepsilon
+ \left( \frac{9}{2} L^2 + \frac{37}{12} \right) \varepsilon^2
+ p_A(x) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,,
\label{Calc:Pbc}\end{aligned}$$ with $L=\log x$, $$\begin{aligned}
p_F(x) &=& \frac{9}{128} \Biggl[
\frac{(1+x^2)(5-2x^2+5x^4)}{x^3} L_-(x)\\
&&{} - \frac{5-38x^2+5x^4}{x^2} L^2
+ 10 \frac{1-x^4}{x^2} L
- 10 \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2} \Biggr]
+ \frac{109}{144}\,,\\
p_A(x) &=& 24 L_+(x)
- \frac{3}{4} \frac{(1+x^2)(4+11x^2+4x^4)}{x^3} L_-(x)\\
&&{} + \frac{(1+6x^2)(6+x^2)}{2x^2} L^2
- 6 \frac{1-x^4}{x^2} L
+ 6 \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2}
+ 8 \zeta_3 + \frac{6361}{216}\,,\end{aligned}$$ where the functions $L_\pm(x)$ are defined in (\[Ix:L\]). The function $P_{bc}(x)$ satisfies the properties $$P_{bc}(x^{-1}) = P_{bc}(x)\,,\quad
P_{bc}(1) = 2 P_{hh}\,,
\label{Calc:testPi}$$ which are a check of our result. For $x\to0$, the hard contribution to $P_{bc}(x) x^{-3\varepsilon}$ is given by $P_{hl}$. However, there is also a soft contribution, and it is not possible to obtain a relation between $P_{bc}(x\to0)$ and $P_{hl}$ if they are expanded in $\varepsilon$ (this would be possible for a non-zero $\varepsilon<0$, cf. (\[Ix:0\])).
Ghost self-energy
-----------------
The bare ghost self-energy at $q^2=0$ can be cast in the form $$\begin{aligned}
\Pi_c(0) &=&
C_h \left(n_b m_{b0}^{-4\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-4\varepsilon}\right)
C_A T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[ \left(C_{hg} + C_{hl}T_F n_l\right)
\left( n_b m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
+ C_{hh}T_F
\left( n_b^2 m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c^2 m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ C_{bc}\left(\frac{m_{c0}}{m_{b0}}\right)
T_F n_b n_c \left(m_{b0} m_{c0}\right)^{-3\varepsilon} \biggr]
C_A T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^3
+ \cdots\,,
\label{Calc:Ghost}\end{aligned}$$ where the two-loop term is given by $$C_h = - \frac{(1+\varepsilon) (3-2\varepsilon)}{16 (1-\varepsilon) (2-\varepsilon) (1+2\varepsilon) (3+2\varepsilon)}\,,
\label{Calc:Ch}$$ and the $\varepsilon$ expansions of the single-scale three-loop coefficients read $$\begin{aligned}
C_{hg} &=& C_F \frac{\varepsilon}{64} \left[ 5
- \left( 4 \zeta_3 + \frac{9}{2} \right) \varepsilon
- \left( 4 B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{5} + \frac{57}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{157}{4} \right)
\varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \frac{C_A}{2304} \Biggl[ 3 \xi - 47
- \frac{1}{2} \left( 9 \xi + \frac{83}{3} \right) \varepsilon
+ \left( 108 \zeta_3 + \frac{131}{4} \xi - \frac{9083}{36} \right) \varepsilon^2
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\frac{C_A}{2304}\Biggl[\Biggr.}
+ \left( 72 B_4 - \frac{27}{5} \pi^4 + (24 \xi + 407) \zeta_3
- \frac{1}{24} \left( 2239 \xi - \frac{49795}{9} \right) \right)
\varepsilon^3 + \cdots \Biggr]\,,
\nonumber\\
C_{hl} &=& \frac{1}{144} \left[ 1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon + \frac{337}{36} \varepsilon^2
+ \left( 8 \zeta_3 - \frac{5261}{216} \right) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,,
\nonumber\\
C_{hh} &=& \frac{1}{72} \left[ 1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon + \frac{151}{36} \varepsilon^2
- \left( 7 \zeta_3 + \frac{461}{216} \right) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,.
\label{Calc:C3}\end{aligned}$$
The function $C_{bc}(x)$ is obtained from the diagram of Fig. \[F:Ghost\] and can be written as $$C_{bc}(x) = - \frac{3-2\varepsilon}{64(2-\varepsilon)} I(x)\,,
\label{Calc:Cbc}$$ with $$\int \frac{\Pi_b(k^2) \Pi_c(k^2)}{(k^2)^2} d^d k =
i T_F^2 \frac{\alpha_{s0}^2}{16 \pi^\varepsilon} \Gamma^3(\varepsilon)
(m_{b0} m_{c0})^{-3\varepsilon} I\left(\frac{m_{c0}}{m_{b0}}\right)\,,
\label{Calc:Idef}$$ where $\Pi_{b}(k^2)$ and $\Pi_{c}(k^2)$ are the $b$- and $c$-loop contributions to the gluon self-energy. The integral $I(x)$ is discussed in Appendix \[S:Ix\] where an analytic result is presented. In analogy to Eq. (\[Calc:testPi\]), we have $$C_{bc}(x^{-1}) = C_{bc}(x)\,,\quad
C_{bc}(1) = 2 C_{hh}\,.$$ For a non-zero $\varepsilon<0$, $C_{bc}(x\to0)\to C_{hl} x^{3\varepsilon}$ (only the hard part survives in (\[Ix:0\])).
Light-quark self-energy
-----------------------
The parts of the light-quark self-energy $\Sigma_V(0)$ and $\Sigma_S(0)$ (with vanishing light-quark masses) are conveniently written in the form $$\begin{aligned}
\Sigma_V(0) &=&
V_h \left(n_b m_{b0}^{-4\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-4\varepsilon}\right)
C_F T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[ \left(V_{hg} + V_{hl} T_F n_l\right)
\left( n_b m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
+ V_{hh} T_F
\left( n_b^2 m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c^2 m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ V_{bc}\left(\frac{m_{c0}}{m_{b0}}\right)
T_F n_b n_c \left(m_{b0} m_{c0}\right)^{-3\varepsilon} \biggr]
C_F T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^3
+ \cdots\,,
\nonumber\\
\Sigma_S(0) &=&
S_h \left(n_b m_{b0}^{-4\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-4\varepsilon}\right)
C_F T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[ \left(S_{hg} + S_{hl} T_F n_l\right)
\left( n_b m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
+ S_{hh} T_F
\left( n_b^2 m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c^2 m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ S_{bc}\left(\frac{m_{c0}}{m_{b0}}\right)
T_F n_b n_c \left(m_{b0} m_{c0}\right)^{-3\varepsilon} \biggr]
C_F T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^3
+ \cdots\,,
\label{Calc:Sigma}\end{aligned}$$ where $$V_h = - \frac{\varepsilon (1+\varepsilon) (3-2\varepsilon)}{8 (1-\varepsilon) (2-\varepsilon) (1+2\varepsilon) (3+2\varepsilon)}\,,\quad
S_h = - \frac{(1+\varepsilon) (3-2\varepsilon)}{8 (1-\varepsilon) (1+2\varepsilon) (3+2\varepsilon)}\,,
\label{Calc:VSh}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
V_{hg} &=& - C_F \frac{\varepsilon}{96} \left[ 1 - \frac{39}{2} \varepsilon
+ \left( 12 \zeta_3 + \frac{335}{12} \right) \varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \frac{C_A}{192} \Biggl[ \xi - 1
- \left( 3 \xi + \frac{10}{3} \right) \varepsilon
+ \frac{1}{3} \left( 35 \xi - \frac{227}{3} \right) \varepsilon^2
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\frac{C_A}{192}\Biggl[\Biggr.}
+ \left( 8 (\xi + 2) \zeta_3
- \frac{1}{9} \left( 407 \xi - \frac{1879}{6} \right)
\right) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \Biggr]\,,
\nonumber\\
V_{hl} &=& \frac{\varepsilon}{72} \left[ 1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon
+ \frac{337}{36} \varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]\,,
\nonumber\\
V_{hh} &=& \frac{\varepsilon}{36} \left[ 1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon
+ \frac{151}{36} \varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]\,,
\nonumber\\
S_{hg} &=& C_F \frac{\varepsilon}{16} \left[ 5
- \left( 4 \zeta_3 + \frac{23}{3} \right) \varepsilon
- \left( 4 B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{5} + \frac{53}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{257}{6} \right)
\varepsilon^2 + \cdots \right]
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \frac{C_A}{576} \Biggl[ - 3 \xi - 41
+ \left( 9 \xi - \frac{124}{3} \right) \varepsilon
+ \left( 144 \zeta_3 - 35 \xi - \frac{836}{9} \right) \varepsilon^2
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\frac{C_A}{576}\Biggl[\Biggl.}
+ \left( 72 B_4 - \frac{36}{5} \pi^4 - (24 \xi - 581) \zeta_3
+ \frac{1}{3} \left( 407 \xi - \frac{9751}{9} \right) \right) \varepsilon^3
+ \cdots \Biggr]\,,
\nonumber\\
S_{hl} &=& \frac{1}{36} \left[ 1 - \frac{4}{3} \varepsilon
+ \frac{88}{9} \varepsilon^2
+ 8 \left( \zeta_3 - \frac{98}{27} \right) \varepsilon^3
+ \cdots \right]\,,
\nonumber\\
S_{hh} &=& \frac{1}{18} \left[ 1 - \frac{4}{3} \varepsilon
+ \frac{83}{18} \varepsilon^2
- \left( 7 \zeta_3 + \frac{457}{108} \right) \varepsilon^3
+ \cdots \right]\,.
\label{Calc:V3}\end{aligned}$$ Exact $d$-dimensional expressions for these coefficients have been obtained in [@Grozin:2006xm].
The quantities $V_{bc}(x)$ and $S_{bc}(x)$ arise from diagrams similar to Fig. \[F:Ghost\] and can be expressed in terms of $I(x)$: $$V_{bc}(x) = - \frac{\varepsilon(3-2\varepsilon)}{32(2-\varepsilon)} I(x)\,,\quad
S_{bc}(x) = - \frac{3-2\varepsilon}{32} I(x)\,.
\label{Calc:VSbc}$$ They satisfy the relations analogous to Eq. (\[Calc:testPi\]) which again serves as a welcome check of our calculation. Retaining only the hard part of (\[Ix:0\]) for $x\to0$, we reproduce $V_{hl}$, $S_{hl}$. $V_{bc}$ has been calculated up to $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^3)$ in Ref. [@Bekavac:2009zc].
Ghost–gluon vertex
------------------
The two-loop correction vanishes in the arbitrary covariant gauge exactly in $\varepsilon$, see Appendix \[S:Ghost\]. For the same reasons, the three-loop correction contains only diagrams with a single quark loop (bottom or charm), and vanishes in Landau gauge: $$\begin{aligned}
&&\Gamma_{A\bar{c}c} = 1 + \Gamma_3 (1-\xi)
(n_b m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon}) C_A^2 T_F
\left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^3 + \cdots\,,
\label{Calc:GAcc}\\
&&\Gamma_3 = - \frac{1}{384} \left[ 1
- \frac{5}{2} \varepsilon
+ \frac{67}{6} \varepsilon^2
+ \left(8 \zeta_3 - \frac{727}{18}\right) \varepsilon^3
+ \cdots \right]\,.
\nonumber\end{aligned}$$
Decoupling for $\alpha_s$ {#S:as}
=========================
The gauge parameter dependence cancels in the bare decoupling constant (\[Intro:zetaparams0\]) (which relates $\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)}$ to $\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}$, see Eq. (\[Intro:params0\])). Since the result is more compact we present analytical expressions for $\left(\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0\right)^{-1}$ which reads $$\begin{aligned}
\left(\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0\right)^{-1} &=& 1
+ \frac{1}{3} \left(n_b m_{b0}^{-2\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-2\varepsilon}\right)
T_F \frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)
\nonumber\\
&&{} + Z_h \varepsilon T_F
(n_b m_{b0}^{-4\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-4\varepsilon})
\left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[ \left(Z_{hg} + Z_{hl} T_F n_l\right)
\left( n_b m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
+ Z_{hh} T_F
\left( n_b^2 m_{b0}^{-6\varepsilon} + n_c^2 m_{c0}^{-6\varepsilon} \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ Z_{bc}\left(\frac{m_{c0}}{m_{b0}}\right)
T_F n_b n_c \left(m_{b0} m_{c0}\right)^{-3\varepsilon} \biggr] \varepsilon
T_F \left(\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon)\right)^3
+ \cdots\,,
\label{as:bare}\end{aligned}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
Z_h &=& \frac{1}{4 (2-\varepsilon) (1+2\varepsilon)} \left[
- \frac{1}{3} C_F (9+7\varepsilon-10\varepsilon^2)
+ \frac{1}{2} C_A
\frac{10+11\varepsilon-4\varepsilon^2-4\varepsilon^3}{3+2\varepsilon}
\right]\,,\\
Z_{hg} &=& \frac{C_F^2 \varepsilon}{24}
\left[17 - \frac{1}{4} \left(\frac{95}{2} \zeta_3 + \frac{137}{3}\right) \varepsilon
+ \cdots\right]\\
&&{} - \frac{C_F C_A}{72}
\left[11 + \frac{257}{6} \varepsilon
- \frac{1}{16} \left(\frac{3819}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{8549}{9}\right) \varepsilon^2
+ \cdots\right]\\
&&{} + \frac{C_A^2}{216}
\left[19 + \frac{359}{24} \varepsilon
+ \frac{1}{32} \left(\frac{45}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{3779}{3}\right) \varepsilon^2
+ \cdots\right]\,,\\
Z_{hl} &=& \frac{C_F}{72}
\left[5 - \frac{31}{6} \varepsilon + \frac{971}{36} \varepsilon^2 + \cdots\right]
- \frac{C_A}{216}
\left[5 - \frac{17}{6} \varepsilon + \frac{343}{12} \varepsilon^2 + \cdots\right]\,,\\
Z_{hh} &=& \frac{C_F}{18}
\left[1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon
+ \frac{1}{16} \left(\frac{63}{2} \zeta_3 + \frac{109}{9}\right) \varepsilon^2
+ \cdots\right]\\
&&{} - \frac{C_A}{108}
\left[5 - \frac{113}{24} \varepsilon
- \frac{1}{16} \left(\frac{189}{2} \zeta_3 - 311\right) \varepsilon^2
+ \cdots\right]\,,\\
Z_{bc}(x) &=& \frac{C_F}{9} \left[1 - \frac{5}{6} \varepsilon
+ z_F(x) \varepsilon^2 + \cdots\right]
- \frac{C_A}{54} \left[5 - \frac{113}{24} \varepsilon
+ z_A(x) \varepsilon^2 + \cdots\right]\,,\\
z_F(x) &=& \frac{9}{64} \Biggl[
\frac{(1+x^2) (5-2x^2+5x^4)}{2 x^3} L_-(x)\\
&&{} - \frac{5-38x^2+5x^4}{2 x^2} L^2
+ 5 \frac{1-x^4}{x^2} L
- 5 \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2} \Biggr]
+ \frac{109}{144}\,,\\
z_A(x) &=& \frac{3}{16} \Biggl[
- 9 \frac{(1+x^2) (1+x^4)}{2 x^3} L_-(x)\\
&&{} + \frac{9+92x^2+9x^4}{2 x^2} L^2
- 9 \frac{1-x^4}{x^2} L
+ 9 \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2} \Biggr]
+ \frac{311}{16}\,.\end{aligned}$$ Note that $Z_{bc}(x^{-1})=Z_{bc}(x)$, $Z_{bc}(1)=2Z_{hh}$. If desired, the vertices $\Gamma_{A\bar{q}q}$ and $\Gamma_{AAA}$ can be reconstructed using Eq. (\[Intro:zetaparams0\]).
In order to relate the renormalized couplings $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)$ and $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu)$, we first express all bare quantities in the right-hand side of the equation $$\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)} = \zeta_{\alpha_s}^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},m_{b0},m_{c0}) \alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}$$ via the $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$ renormalized ones [@vanRitbergen:1997va; @Czakon:2004bu; @Chetyrkin:1997dh; @Vermaseren:1997fq] $$\begin{aligned}
&&\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon) =
\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)}{\pi \varepsilon}
Z_\alpha^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right)
e^{\gamma_E \varepsilon} \Gamma(1+\varepsilon)
\mu^{2\varepsilon}\,,
\label{as:MSbar}\\
&&m_{b0} = Z_m^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right) m_b(\mu)
\label{as:massren}\end{aligned}$$ (and similarly for $m_{c0}$). This leads to an equation where $\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)}$ is expressed via the $n_f$-flavour $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$ renormalized quantities[^4] $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)$, $m_c(\mu)$ and $m_b(\mu)$. In a next step we invert the series $$\frac{\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)}}{\pi} \Gamma(\varepsilon) =
\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu')}{\pi \varepsilon}
Z_\alpha^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right)
e^{\gamma_E \varepsilon} \Gamma(1+\varepsilon)
\left(\mu^\prime\right)^{2\varepsilon}$$ to express $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu')$ via $\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)}$, and substitute the series for $\alpha_{s0}^{(n_l)}$ derived above.
In order to obtain compact formulae it is convenient to set $\mu=\bar{m}_b$ where $\bar{m}_b$ is defined as the root of the equation $m_b(\bar{m}_b) = \bar{m}_b$. Furthermore, we choose $\mu'=m_c(\bar{m}_b)$ and thus obtain $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(m_c(\bar{m}_b))$ as a series in $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)$ with coefficients depending on $$x = \frac{m_c(\bar{m}_b)}{\bar{m}_b}\,.
\label{as:x}$$ We obtain ($L=\log x$) $$\zeta_{\alpha_s}(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b)\!=\!
e^{-2L\varepsilon} \left[ 1
+ d_1 \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
+ d_2 \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
+ d_3 \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3\!\! + \cdots
\right],
\label{as:renorm}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
d_1 &=& - \left[ 11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L}{6}
+ \left\{ \left[ 11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] L^2
- T_F (n_b + n_c) \frac{\pi^2}{6} \right\} \frac{\varepsilon}{6}\\
&&{} - \left\{ \left[ 11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] L^3
- T_F n_c \frac{\pi^2}{2} L - T_F (n_b + n_c) \zeta_3 \right\} \frac{\varepsilon^2}{9}
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^3)\,,\\
d_2 &=& \left[11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l+n_c) \right]^2 \frac{L^2}{36}
- \left[ 17 C_A^2 - 6 C_F T_F (n_l - n_c) - 10 C_A T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L}{12}\\
&&{} - \frac{(39 C_F - 32 C_A) T_F (n_b+n_c)}{144}\\
&&{} + \biggl\{
- \left[11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l+n_c) \right]^2 \frac{L^3}{18}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
+ \left[ 17 C_A^2 - 6 C_F T_F (n_l - 2 n_c) - 10 C_A T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L^2}{6}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
+ T_F \left[ \frac{13}{12} C_F n_c
+ \frac{C_A}{9} \left( \frac{11}{12} \pi^2 (n_b + n_c) - 8 n_c \right)
- T_F \frac{\pi^2}{27} (n_b + n_c)(n_l + n_c)
\right] L\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
+ \left[ \frac{C_F}{4} \left( \pi^2 + \frac{35}{2} \right)
- \frac{C_A}{3} \left( \frac{5}{4} \pi^2 + \frac{43}{3} \right) \right]
\frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{12}
\biggr\} \varepsilon + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^2)\,,\\
d_3 &=& - \frac{\left[11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l+n_c) \right]^3}{216} L^3\\
&&{} + \biggl[ \frac{935}{24} C_A^3
- \frac{55}{4} C_F C_A T_F (n_l-n_c)
- \frac{445}{12} C_A^2 T_F (n_l+n_c)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ 5 C_F T_F^2 (n_l^2 - n_c^2)
+ \frac{25}{3} C_A T_F^2 (n_l+n_c)^2
\biggr] \frac{L^2}{6}\\
&&{} + \biggl[ - \frac{2857}{1728} C_A^3
- C_F^2 T_F \frac{n_l - 9 n_c}{16}
+ \frac{C_F C_A T_F}{48} \left( \frac{205}{6} n_l - 19 n_c + \frac{143}{3} n_b \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A^2 T_F}{27} \left( \frac{1415}{32} n_l + \frac{359}{32} n_c - 22 n_b \right)
- C_F T_F^2 \frac{(n_l + n_c) (11 n_l + 30 n_c) + 26 n_l n_b}{72}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- C_A T_F^2 \frac{(n_l + n_c) (79 n_l - 113 n_c) - 128 n_l n_b}{432}
\biggr] L\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{C_F^2}{96} \left( \frac{95}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{97}{3} \right)
- \frac{C_F C_A}{96} \left( \frac{1273}{8} \zeta_3 - \frac{2999}{27} \right)
- \frac{C_A^2}{768} \left( \frac{5}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{11347}{27} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{41}{162} C_F T_F n_l
- \frac{C_F T_F (n_b+n_c)}{16} \left( \frac{7}{4} \zeta_3 - \frac{103}{81} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_A T_F n_l}{2592}
- \frac{7}{64} C_A T_F (n_b+n_c) \left( \frac{1}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{35}{81} \right)
\biggr] T_F (n_b+n_c)\\
&&{} + T_F^2 n_b n_c \left( C_F d_F(x) + C_A d_A(x) \right)
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon)\,.\end{aligned}$$ The functions $$\begin{aligned}
d_F(x) &=& - \frac{(1 + x^2) (5 - 2 x^2 + 5 x^4)}{128 x^3} L_-(x)
+ \frac{7}{32} \zeta_3\\
&&{} + \left[ \frac{5}{4} \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2} + \frac{11}{3} \right] \frac{L^2}{32}
- \frac{5}{4} \left[ \frac{1-x^4}{16 x^2} + \frac{1}{3} \right] L
+ \frac{5}{64} \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2}\,,\\
d_A(x) &=& - \frac{(1+x^2) (1+x^4)}{64 x^3} L_-(x)
+ \frac{7}{64} \zeta_3\\
&&{} + \left[ \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{2 x^2} + \frac{5}{3} \right] \frac{L^2}{32}
- \left[ \frac{1-x^4}{2 x^2} - \frac{113}{27} \right] \frac{L}{16}
+ \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{32 x^2}\end{aligned}$$ are defined in such a way that $d_{F,A}(1)=0$. Thus for $x=1$ Eq. (\[as:renorm\]) reduces to the ordinary decoupling of $n_b+n_c$ flavours with the same mass [@Chetyrkin:1997un]. For $x\ll1$ the functions $d_{F}(x)$ and $d_{A}(x)$ become $$\begin{aligned}
d_F(x) &=& - \frac{1}{36} \left( 13 L - \frac{89}{12} \right) + \frac{7}{32} \zeta_3
+ \left( 2 L + \frac{13}{30} \right) \frac{x^2}{15} + \cdots
\nonumber\\
d_A(x) &=& \frac{1}{27} \left( 8 L - \frac{41}{16} \right) + \frac{7}{64} \zeta_3
- \left( \frac{1}{2} L^2 - \frac{121}{30} L + \frac{19}{225} \right)
\frac{x^2}{60} + \cdots\,.
\label{as:x0}\end{aligned}$$
An expression for $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)$ via $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(m_c(\bar{m}_b))$ can be obtained by inverting the series (\[as:renorm\]). If one wants to express $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu_c)$ as a truncated series in $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu_b)$ (without resummation) for some other choice of $\mu_b\sim m_b$ and $\mu_c\sim m_c$, this can be easily done in three steps: $(i)$ run from $\mu_b$ to $\bar{m}_b$ in the $n_f$-flavour theory (without resummation); $(ii)$ use Eq. (\[as:renorm\]) for the decoupling; and $(iii)$ run from $m_c(\bar{m}_b)$ to $\mu_c$ in the $n_l$-flavour theory (without resummation). After that, relating $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu')$ and $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu)$ for any values of $\mu$ and $\mu'$ (possibly widely separated from $m_b$ and $m_c$) can be done in a similar way: $(i)$ run from $\mu$ to $\mu_b$ in the $n_f$-flavour theory (with resummation); $(ii)$ use the decoupling relation derived above; and $(iii)$ run from $\mu_c$ to $\mu'$ in the $n_l$-flavour theory (with resummation). The steps $(i)$ and $(iii)$ can conveniently be performed using the program [RunDec]{} [@Chetyrkin:2000yt].
In the case of QCD ($T_F=1/2$, $C_A=3$, $C_F=4/3$, $n_b=n_c=1$) the decoupling constant in Eq. (\[as:renorm\]) reduces to (for $\varepsilon=0$) $$\begin{aligned}
&&\zeta_{\alpha_s}(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b) = 1
+ \frac{2 n_l - 31}{6} L \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \left[
\frac{(2 n_l - 31)^2}{36} L^2
+ \frac{19 n_l - 142}{12} L
+ \frac{11}{36} \right]
\left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{(2 n_l - 31)^3}{216} L^3
+ \left( \frac{95}{9} n_l^2 - \frac{485}{2} n_l
+ \frac{58723}{48} \right) \frac{L^2}{8}
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
- \left( \frac{325}{6} n_l^2 - \frac{15049}{6} n_l + 12853 \right) \frac{L}{288}
- \frac{(1+x^2) (19 - 4 x^2 + 19 x^4)}{768 x^3} L_-(x)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
+ \frac{19}{768} \left( \frac{(1 - x^2)^2}{x^2} (L^2 + 2) - 2 \frac{1 - x^4}{x^2} L \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
- \frac{1}{1728} \left( \frac{82043}{8} \zeta_3 + \frac{2633}{9} n_l
- \frac{572437}{36} \right) \biggr]
\left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3 + \cdots\,.
\label{as:su3}\end{aligned}$$ For $x\ll1$ the coefficient of $(\alpha_s/\pi)^3$ becomes $$\begin{aligned}
&&\frac{(2 n_l - 31)^3}{216} L^3
+ \frac{5 (2 n_l - 31) (19 n_l - 142)}{144} L^2
- \frac{325 n_l^2 - 15049 n_l + 77041}{1728} L\\
&&{} - \frac{1}{1728} \left( \frac{82043}{8} \zeta_3 + \frac{2633}{9} n_l
- \frac{563737}{36} \right)
- \left( L^2 - \frac{683}{45} L - \frac{926}{675} \right) \frac{x^2}{160}
+ \mathcal{O}(x^4)\,.\end{aligned}$$
Decoupling for the light-quark masses {#S:m}
=====================================
The bare quark mass decoupling coefficient $\zeta_m^0$ of Eq. (\[Intro:zetafields0\]) is determined by $\Sigma_{V}(0)$ and $\Sigma_{S}(0)$, see Eq. (\[Calc:Sigma\]); it is gauge parameter independent. The renormalized decoupling constant $\zeta_m$ in Eq. (\[Intro:zetaren\]) (see [@Chetyrkin:1997dh; @Vermaseren:1997fq] for the mass renormalization constants) can be obtained by re-expressing $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}$ in the denominator via $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}$ (cf. Sect. \[S:as\]; note that in $\zeta_{\alpha_s}$ positive powers of $\varepsilon$ should be kept). Our result reads $$\zeta_m(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b) = 1
+ d^m_1 C_F \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
+ d^m_2 C_F \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
+ d^m_3 C_F \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3
+ \cdots
\,,
\label{m:ren}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
d^m_1 &=& - \frac{3}{2} L
\left( 1 - L \varepsilon + \frac{2}{3} L^2 \varepsilon^2
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^3) \right)\,,\\
d^m_2 &=&
\left[ 9 C_F + 11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L^2}{8}
- \left[ 9 C_F + 97 C_A - 20 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L}{48}\\
&&{} + \frac{89}{288} T_F (n_b + n_c)\\
&&{} + \biggl\{
- \left[9 C_F + 11 C_A - 4 T_F (n_l + n_c)\right] \frac{L^3}{4}
+\left[9 C_F + 97 C_A - 20 T_F (n_l + n_c)\right] \frac{L^2}{24}
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
+ \frac{3 \pi^2 n_b - 89 n_c}{72} T_F L
- \left( 5 \pi^2 + \frac{869}{6} \right) T_F\frac{n_b + n_c}{288}
\biggr\} \varepsilon
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^2)
\,,\\
d^m_3 &=&
\biggl[
- \frac{(9 C_F + 11 C_A) (9 C_F + 22 C_A)}{16}
+ \frac{27 C_F + 44 C_A}{4} T_F (n_l + n_c)\\
&&\hphantom{\biggl[\biggr.}
- T_F^2 \bigl( 2 (n_l + n_c)^2 - n_b n_c \bigr)
\biggr] \frac{L^3}{9}\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{9}{4} C_F^2 + 27 C_F C_A + \frac{1373}{36} C_A^2
- \left( 9 C_F + \frac{197}{9} C_A \right) T_F (n_l + n_c)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ T_F^2 \frac{20 (n_l + n_c)^2 - 29 n_b n_c}{9}
\biggr] \frac{L^2}{8}\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- 129 C_F \left( C_F - \frac{C_A}{2} \right) - \frac{11413}{54} C_A^2
- 96 (C_F - C_A)T_F (n_l + n_c) \zeta_3\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ 4 C_F T_F \left( 23 n_l + \frac{67}{12} n_c - \frac{11}{12} n_b \right)
+ \frac{8}{3} C_A T_F \left( \frac{139}{9} n_l - \frac{47}{4} n_c - 8 n_b \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{8}{27} T_F^2 \left( (n_l + n_c) (35 n_l + 124 n_c) + 124 n_b n_c \right)
\biggr] \frac{L}{64}\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{C_F}{4}
\left( B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{20} + \frac{57}{8} \zeta_3 - \frac{683}{144} \right)
- \frac{C_A}{8}
\left( B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{10} + \frac{629}{72} \zeta_3 - \frac{16627}{1944} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{T_F}{18} \left( - \bigl( 4 n_l - 7 (n_b + n_c) \bigr) \zeta_3
+ \frac{2654 n_l - 1685 (n_b + n_c)}{432}
\right)
\biggr] T_F (n_b + n_c)\\
&&{} + \biggl[ - 64 L_+(x) + \frac{(1 + x^2) (5 + 22 x^2 + 5 x^4)}{x^3} L_-(x)
- 96 \zeta_3\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- 5 \left( \frac{(1 - x^2)^2}{x^2} (L^2 + 2) - 2 \frac{1 - x^4}{x^2} L \right)
\biggr] \frac{T_F^2 n_b n_c}{96}
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon)\,.\end{aligned}$$ At $x=1$ this result reduces to the ordinary decoupling of $n_b+n_c$ flavours with the same mass [@Chetyrkin:1997un].
Specifying to QCD leads to (for $\varepsilon=0$) $$\begin{aligned}
&&\zeta_m(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b) = 1
- 2 L \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \left[
- \left( n_l - \frac{43}{2} \right) \frac{L^2}{3}
+ \left( 5 n_l - \frac{293}{2} \right) \frac{L}{18}
+ \frac{89}{216}
\right] \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- 2 \left( n_l^2 - 40 n_l + \frac{1589}{4} \right) \frac{L^3}{27}
+ \left( \frac{5}{3} n_l^2 - \frac{679}{6} n_l + \frac{2497}{2} \right) \frac{L^2}{18}
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \left( 5 \zeta_3 (n_l + 1)
+ \frac{1}{72} \left( \frac{35}{3} n_l^2 + 607 n_l - \frac{103771}{12} \right)
\right) \frac{L}{3}
- \frac{2}{9} L_+(x)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{(1 + x^2) (5 + 22 x^2 + 5 x^4)}{288 x^3} L_-(x)
- \frac{5}{288} \left( \frac{(1 - x^2)^2}{x^2} (L^2 + 2) - 2 \frac{1 - x^4}{x^2} L \right)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{1}{18} \biggl( B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{2} + \frac{8}{3} \zeta_3 n_l - \frac{439}{24} \zeta_3
- \frac{1327}{324} n_l - \frac{21923}{648} \biggr)
\biggr] \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3
+ \cdots\,,
\nonumber\\
\label{m:su3}\end{aligned}$$ where for $x\ll1$ the coefficient of $(\alpha_s/\pi)^3$ takes the form $$\begin{aligned}
&&- 2 \left( n_l^2 - 40 n_l + \frac{1591}{4} \right) \frac{L^3}{27}
+ \left( 5 n_l^2 - \frac{679}{2} n_l + \frac{15011}{4} \right) \frac{L^2}{54}\\
&&{} \left[ 5 \zeta_3 (n_l + 1)
+ \frac{1}{72} \left( \frac{35}{3} n_l^2 + 607 n_l - \frac{104267}{12} \right)
\right] \frac{L}{3}\\
&&{} - \frac{1}{18} \left( B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{2}
+ \frac{8}{3} \zeta_3 n_l + \frac{439}{24} \zeta_3
- \frac{1327}{324} n_l - \frac{24935}{648} \right)\\
&&{} - \left( 2 L - \frac{47}{30} \right) \frac{x^2}{15}
+ \mathcal{O}(x^4)\,.\end{aligned}$$
Decoupling for the fields {#S:fields}
=========================
Gluon field and the gauge parameter {#S:a}
-----------------------------------
Decoupling of the gluon field and the gauge fixing parameter are given by the same quantity $\zeta_A^0$ (cf. (\[Intro:zetafields0\])): $$a_0^{(n_l)} = a_0^{(n_f)} \zeta_A^0(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)},a_0^{(n_f)},m_{b0},m_{c0})\,.
\label{a:bare}$$ In a first step we replace the bare quantities in the right-hand side via the renormalized ones using Eqs. (\[as:MSbar\]), (\[as:massren\]), and [@Larin:1993tp; @Chetyrkin:2004mf; @Czakon:2004bu] $$a_0^{(n_f)} = Z_A^{(n_f)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\mu),a^{(n_f)}(\mu)\right) a^{(n_f)}(\mu)\,,
\label{a:rena}$$ and thus we express $a_0^{(n_l)}$ via the $n_f$-flavour renormalized quantities. In a next step we can find $a^{(n_l)}(\mu')$ in terms of $a_0^{(n_l)}$ by solving the equation $$a_0^{(n_l)} = Z_A^{(n_l)}\left(\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(\mu'),a^{(n_l)}(\mu')\right) a^{(n_l)}(\mu')
\label{a:renl}$$ iteratively. The result reads $$\zeta_A(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b) = 1
+ d^A_1 \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
+ d^A_2 \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
+ d^A_3 \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3 + \cdots
\,,
\label{s:renorm}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
d^A_1 &=& - \frac{C_A (3 a - 13) + 8 T_F (n_l + n_c)}{12} L\\
&&{} + \left\{
\left[ C_A (3 a - 13) + 8 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] L^2
+ T_F (n_b + n_c) \frac{\pi^2}{3}
\right\} \frac{\varepsilon}{12}\\
&&{} - \left\{
\left[ C_A (3 a - 13) + 8 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] L^3
+ T_F n_c \pi^2 L
+ 2 T_F (n_b + n_c) \zeta_3
\right\} \frac{\varepsilon^2}{18} + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^3)\,,\\
d^A_2 &=& C_A \frac{2 a + 3}{96}
\left[ C_A (3 a - 13) + 8 T_F (n_l+n_c) \right] L^2\\
&&{} - \left[ C_A^2 \frac{2 a^2 + 11 a - 59}{64}
+ C_F T_F \frac{n_l-n_c}{2} + \frac{5}{8} C_A T_F (n_l+n_c)\right] L\\
&&{} + \frac{13}{192} (4 C_F - C_A) T_F (n_b+n_c)\\
&&{} + \biggl\{
- C_A \frac{2 a + 3}{48} \left[ C_A (3 a - 13) + 8 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] L^3\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
+ \left[ C_A^2 \frac{2 a^2 + 11 a - 59}{32} + C_F T_F (n_l - 2 n_c)
+ \frac{5}{4} C_A T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] L^2\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
- T_F \left[ 13 C_F n_c
+ C_A \frac{\pi^2 \bigl( n_c (a + 3) + n_b a \bigr) - 39 n_c}{12} \right]
\frac{L}{12}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
- \left[C_F (2 \pi^2 + 35) - \frac{C_A}{2} \left( 5 \pi^2 + \frac{169}{6} \right) \right]
\frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{96}
\biggr\} \varepsilon + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^2)\,,\\
d^A_3 &=& \frac{C_A}{18} \biggl[
- C_A^2 \frac{(3 a - 13) (6 a^2 + 18 a + 31)}{64}
- C_A T_F (n_l + n_c) \frac{6 a^2 + 15 a + 44}{8}\\
&&\hphantom{C_A\biggl[\biggr.}
+ T_F^2 \bigl( (n_l + n_c)^2 + n_b n_c \bigr)
\biggr] L^3\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{C_A^3}{128} \left( \frac{5}{2} a^3 + \frac{29}{3} a^2 - 17 a - \frac{3361}{18} \right)
+ C_F C_A T_F \frac{6 a (n_l - n_c) + 31 n_l - 49 n_c}{48}\\
&&\hphantom{C_A\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A^2 T_F (n_l + n_c)}{16} \left( \frac{a^2}{3} + 3 a + \frac{401}{18} \right)
- \frac{C_F T_F^2}{6} \left( n_l^2 - n_c^2 + \frac{11}{16} n_b n_c \right)\\
&&\hphantom{C_A\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_A T_F^2}{18} \left( 5 (n_l + n_c)^2 + \frac{73}{16} n_b n_c \right)
\biggr] L^2\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- \frac{C_A^3}{1024} \left( 6 \zeta_3 (a+1) (a+3)
+ 7 a^3 + 33 a^2 + 167 a - \frac{9965}{9} \right)
+ C_F^2 T_F \frac{n_l - 9 n_c}{16}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_F C_A T_F}{4} \left( 3 \zeta_3 (n_l + n_c) + \frac{13}{48} a (n_b + n_c)
+ \frac{1}{36} \left( \frac{5}{4} n_l - 227 n_c \right) \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A^2 T_F}{16} \biggl( 9 \zeta_3 (n_l + n_c)
+ a \left( n_l + \frac{61}{48} n_c - \frac{25}{72} n_b \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[{}+\frac{C_A^2T_F}{16}\biggl(\biggr.\biggr.}
- \frac{1}{36} \left( 911 n_l + \frac{3241}{4} n_c - \frac{1157}{12} n_b \right)
\biggr)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ C_F T_F^2 \frac{(n_l + n_c) (11 n_l + 4 n_c) + 4 n_b n_c}{72}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A T_F^2}{32}
\left( \frac{(n_l + n_c) (76 n_l + 63 n_c)}{9}
+ n_b \left( 7 n_c - \frac{178}{54} n_l \right) \right)
\biggr] L\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- \frac{C_F^2}{12} \left( \frac{95}{2} \zeta_3 - \frac{97}{3} \right)
+ C_F C_A \left( B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{20} + \frac{1957}{96} \zeta_3 - \frac{36979}{2592} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_A^2}{2}
\left( B_4 - \frac{3 \pi^4}{40} + \frac{\zeta_3 a}{3} + \frac{1709}{288} \zeta_3
- \frac{677}{432} a + \frac{22063}{3888} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{164}{81} C_F T_F n_l
+ C_F T_F (n_b + n_c) \left( \frac{7}{8} \zeta_3 - \frac{103}{162} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_A T_F n_l}{9} \left( 8 \zeta_3 - \frac{665}{54} \right)
+ \frac{C_A T_F (n_b + n_c)}{18} \left( \frac{287}{8} \zeta_3 - \frac{605}{27} \right)
\biggr] \frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{8}\\
&&{} + T_F^2 n_b n_c \biggl[ - \frac{C_A}{3} L_+(x)
+ \frac{1+x^2}{32 x^3} \left( C_F \frac{5 - 2 x^2 + 5 x^4}{4}
+ C_A \frac{4 + 11 x^2 + 4 x^4}{3} \right) L_-(x)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+T_F^2n_bn_c\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{14 C_F + 39 C_A}{64} \zeta_3\\
&&\hphantom{{}+T_F^2n_bn_c\biggl[\biggr.}
- \left( \frac{5}{16} C_F + \frac{C_A}{3} \right)
\left( \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{8 x^2} \left( L^2 + 2 \right)
- \frac{1-x^4}{4 x^2} L \right) \biggr]
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon)\,,\end{aligned}$$ with $a\equiv a^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)$. The easiest way to express $a^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)$ via $a^{(n_l)}(m_c(\bar{m}_b))$ is to re-express $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)$ via $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(m_c(\bar{m}_b))$ in the right-hand side of the equation $a^{(n_l)}(m_c(\bar{m}_b)) = a^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b) \zeta_A(\bar{m}_b,m_c(\bar{m}_b))$ and then solve it for $a^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)$ iteratively.
Light-quark fields {#S:q}
------------------
The bare decoupling coefficient $\zeta_q^0$ of Eq. (\[Intro:zetafields0\]) is determined by $\Sigma_V(0)$ (cf. Eq. (\[Calc:Sigma\])). The renormalized version $\zeta_q$ (\[Intro:zetaren\]) can be obtained (see Refs. [@Larin:1993tp; @Chetyrkin:1999pq; @Czakon:2004bu] for the three-loop wave function renormalization constant) by re-expressing $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}$ and $a^{(n_l)}$ in the denominator via the $n_f$-flavour quantities (see Sects. \[S:as\] and \[S:a\]; note that positive powers of $\varepsilon$ should be kept). The result can be cast in the form $$\zeta_q(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b) = 1
+ d^q_1 C_F \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
+ d^q_2 C_F \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
+ d^q_3 C_F \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3 + \cdots
\,,
\label{q:renorm}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
d^q_1 &=& - \frac{a}{2} L \left( 1 - L \varepsilon + \frac{2}{3} L^2 \varepsilon^2
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^3) \right)\,,\\
d^q_2 &=& \frac{a}{16} \left[ 2 C_F a + C_A (a + 3) \right] L^2
+ \left( 6 C_F - C_A (a^2 + 8 a + 25) + 8 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right) \frac{L}{32}\\
&&{} + \frac{5}{96} T_F (n_b + n_c)\\
&&{} - \biggl[ a \left[ 2 C_F a + C_A (a + 3) \right] L^3
+ \left( 6 C_F - C_A (a^2 + 8 a + 25) + 8 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right) \frac{L^2}{2}\\
&&\hphantom{{}-\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{5}{3} T_F n_c L
+ \frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{12} \left( \pi^2 + \frac{89}{6} \right)
\biggr] \frac{\varepsilon}{8} + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^2)\,,\\
d^q_3 &=& \frac{a}{8} \biggl[
- C_F^2 \frac{a^2}{6} - C_F C_A \frac{a (a+3)}{4} - C_A^2 \frac{2 a^2 + 9 a + 31}{24}
+ C_A T_F \frac{n_l + n_c}{3} \biggr] L^3\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- \frac{3}{32} C_F^2 a
+ C_F C_A \frac{a^3 + 8 a^2 + 25 a - 22}{64}
+ \frac{C_A^2}{64}
\left( a^3 + \frac{25}{4} a^2 + \frac{343}{12} a + \frac{275}{3} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- T_F \frac{n_l + n_c}{8} \left( C_F (a-1) + C_A \frac{13 a + 94}{12} \right)
+ T_F^2 \frac{(n_l + n_c)^2}{6}
\biggr] L^2\\
&&{} + \biggl[ - \frac{3}{64} C_F^2
- \frac{C_F C_A}{8} \left( 3 \zeta_3 -\frac{143}{16} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_A^2}{512} \left( 6 \zeta_3 (a^2 + 2 a - 23)
+ 5 a^3 + \frac{39}{2} a^2 + \frac{263}{2} a + \frac{9155}{9} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{C_F T_F}{32} \left( \frac{5}{6} (n_b + n_c) a - 3 (n_l + 5 n_c) \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A T_F}{288} \left( \frac{153 (n_l+n_c) - 89 n_b}{4} a + 287 n_l + 232 n_c \right)
- \frac{5}{72} T_F^2 n_l (n_l + n_c)
\biggr] L\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- C_F \left( 3 \zeta_3 + \frac{155}{48} \right)
- C_A \left( \zeta_3 (a-3)
- \frac{1}{72} \left( \frac{2387}{8} a + \frac{1187}{3} \right) \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{35}{2592} T_F (2 n_l + n_b + n_c)
\biggr] \frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{24} + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon)\,.\end{aligned}$$ Note that the power corrections in $x$ drop out in the sum of all diagrams. For $x=1$ this result reduces to the ordinary decoupling of $n_b+n_c$ flavours with the same mass [@Chetyrkin:1997un] (see Ref. [@Grozin:2006xm] for an expression in terms of $C_A$ and $C_F$).
Ghost field {#S:c}
-----------
The bare decoupling coefficient $\zeta_c^0$ in Eq. (\[Intro:zetafields0\]) is determined by $\Pi_c(0)$ as given in Eq. (\[Calc:Ghost\]). The renormalized decoupling constant $\zeta_c$ of Eq. (\[Intro:zetaren\]) is given by (see Refs. [@Chetyrkin:2004mf; @Czakon:2004bu] for the corresponding renormalization constant) $$\zeta_c(m_c(\bar{m}_b),\bar{m}_b) = 1
+ d^c_1 C_A \frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}
+ d^c_2 C_A \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^2
+ d^c_3 C_A \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(\bar{m}_b)}{\pi}\right)^3 + \cdots
\,,
\label{c:renorm}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
d^c_1 &=& - \frac{a-3}{8} L
\left( 1 - L \varepsilon + \frac{2}{3} L^2 \varepsilon^2
+ \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^3) \right)\,,\\
d^c_2 &=&
\left[ C_A \frac{3 a^2 - 35}{16} + T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L^2}{8}
+ \left[ C_A \frac{3 a + 95}{8} - 5 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L}{48}\\
&&{} - \frac{89}{1152} T_F (n_b + n_c)\\
&&{} + \biggl\{
- \left[ C_A \frac{3 a^2 - 35}{16} + T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L^3}{4}
- \left[ C_A \frac{3 a + 95}{8} - 5 T_F (n_l + n_c) \right] \frac{L^2}{24}\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl\{\biggr.}
- T_F \frac{3 \pi^2 n_b - 89 n_c}{288} L
+ \frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{1152} \left( 5 \pi^2 + \frac{869}{6} \right)
\biggr\} \varepsilon + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^2)\,,\\
d^c_3 &=& \biggl[
- \frac{C_A^2}{256} \left( 5 a^3 + 9 a^2 - \frac{35}{3} a - \frac{2765}{9} \right)
- C_A T_F (n_l + n_c) \frac{3 a + 149}{144}\\
&&\hphantom{\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{T_F^2}{9} \bigl( 2 (n_l + n_c)^2 - n_b n_c \bigr)
\biggr] \frac{L^3}{4}\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{C_A^2}{16} \left( a^3 + \frac{9}{2} a^2 - \frac{11}{3} a - \frac{5773}{18} \right)
+ \left( 3 C_F + C_A \frac{3 a + 545}{36} \right) T_F (n_l + n_c)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{T_F^2}{9} \bigl( 20 (n_l + n_c)^2 - 29 n_b n_c \bigr)
\biggr] \frac{L^2}{32}\\
&&{} + \biggl[
\frac{C_A^2}{128} \left( 3 \zeta_3 (a+1) (a+3)
- \frac{3}{2} a^3 - 3 a^2 - 17 a + \frac{15817}{54} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ C_F T_F \left( 3 \zeta_3 (n_l + n_c)
- \frac{45 n_l + 25 n_c + 13 n_b}{16} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A T_F}{32} \left( - 72 \zeta_3 (n_l + n_c)
+ \frac{252 n_l + 341 n_c - 89 n_b}{36} a
- \frac{194}{27} n_l + \frac{695 n_c + 167 n_b}{12}
\right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{T_F^2}{27} \left( \frac{(n_l + n_c) (35 n_l + 124 n_c)}{4} + 31 n_b n_c \right)
\biggr] \frac{L}{8}\\
&&{} + \biggl[
- \frac{C_F}{2} \left( B_4 - \frac{\pi^4}{20} + \frac{57}{8} \zeta_3 - \frac{481}{96} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{C_A}{4} \left( B_4 - \frac{3 \pi^4}{40} - \frac{\zeta_3 a}{3} + \frac{431}{72} \zeta_3
+ \frac{685}{864} a - \frac{5989}{1944} \right)\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{4}{9} T_F n_l \left( \zeta_3 - \frac{1327}{864} \right)
- \frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{9} \left( 7 \zeta_3 - \frac{1685}{432} \right)
\biggr] \frac{T_F (n_b + n_c)}{8}\\
&&{} + \frac{T_F^2 n_b n_c}{6} \biggl[ L_+
- \frac{(1 + x^2) (5 + 22 x^2 + 5 x^4)}{64 x^3} L_-
+ \frac{3}{2} \zeta_3\\
&&\hphantom{{}+\frac{T_F^2n_bn_c\biggl[\biggr.}{}}
+ \frac{5}{64} \left( \frac{(1 - x^2)^2}{x^2} (L^2 + 2) - 2 \frac{1 - x^4}{x^2} L \right)
\biggr] + \mathcal{O}(\varepsilon)\,.\end{aligned}$$
Phenomenological applications {#S:Phen}
=============================
In this section we study the numerical consequences of the decoupling relations computed in the previous sections. For convenience we use in this Section the decoupling relations in terms of on-shell heavy quark masses (see Appendix \[S:OS\] and the [Mathematica]{} file which can be downloaded from [@progdata]) which we denote by $M_c$ and $M_b$.
$\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ from $\alpha_s^{(3)}(M_\tau)$
---------------------------------------------------
Let us in a first step check the dependence on the decoupling scales which should become weaker after including higher order perturbative corrections. We consider the relation between $\alpha_s^{(3)}(M_\tau)$ and $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$. $\alpha_s^{(3)}(M_\tau)$ has been extracted from experimental data using perturbative results up to order $\alpha_s^4$ [@Baikov:2008jh]. Thus it is mandatory to perform the transition from the low to the high scale with the highest possible precision. In the following we compare the conventional approach with the single-step decoupling up to three-loop order.
For our analysis we use for convenience the decoupling constants expressed in terms of on-shell quark masses. In this way the mass values are fixed and they are not affected by the running from $M_\tau$ to $M_Z$. In our analysis we use $M_c=1.65$ GeV and $M_b=4.7$ GeV. Furthermore, $\alpha_s^{(3)}(M_\tau) = 0.332$ [@Baikov:2008jh] is used as starting value of our analysis.
In Fig. \[fig::asMz\](a) we show $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ as a function of $\mu_{\rm dec}$, the scale where the $c$ and $b$ quarks are simultaneously integrated out. In a first step $\alpha_s^{(3)}(M_\tau)$ is evolved to $\alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_{\rm dec})$ using the $N$-loop renormalization group equations. Afterwards the $(N-1)$-loop decoupling relation is applied and finally $N$-loop running is employed in order to arrive at $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$. One observes a strong dependence on $\mu_{\rm dec}$ for $N=1$ (short-dashed line) which becomes rapidly weaker when increasing $N$ leading to a reasonably flat curve for $N=4$ (longer dashes correspond to larger values of $N$).
Comparison of one- and two-step decoupling approach
---------------------------------------------------
In the step-by-step decoupling approach we have two decoupling scales $\mu_{{\rm dec},c}$ and $\mu_{{\rm dec},b}$ which can be chosen independently. First we choose[^5] $\mu_{{\rm dec},c}=3$ GeV and identify $\mu_{{\rm dec},b}$ with $\mu_{{\rm dec}}$. The result for $N=4$ is shown in Fig. \[fig::asMz\](b) together with the four-loop curve from Fig. \[fig::asMz\](a) as dash-dotted line (long dashes). One observes a significantly flatter behaviour as for the one-step decoupling which can be explained by the occurrence of $\log(\mu^2/M_c^2)$ terms in the one-step formula which might become large for large values of $\mu=\mu_{{\rm dec}}$. Alternatively it is also possible to study the dependence on $\mu_{{\rm dec},c}$, i.e., identify $\mu_{{\rm dec},c}$ with $\mu_{{\rm
dec}}$, set $\mu_{{\rm dec},b}=10$ GeV and compare to the one-step decoupling. The results are also shown in Fig. \[fig::asMz\](b) as dash-dotted line (short dashes) where only values $\mu_{{\rm dec}}\le 10$ are considered.
For comparison we show in Fig. \[fig::asMz\](b) also the result of the two-step five-loop analysis as dotted line where the four-loop decoupling relation is taken from Refs. [@Schroder:2005hy; @Chetyrkin:2005ia]. The (unknown) five-loop coefficient of the $\beta$ function, $\beta_4$, is set to zero.[^6] If one restricts to scales $\mu_{\rm dec}$ between 2 GeV and 10 GeV it seems that the four-loop decoupling constant is numerically more relevant than the power-suppressed terms included by construction in the one-step decoupling procedure. Thus, from these considerations one tends to prefer the two-step decoupling over the one-step approach as it seems that the resummation of $\log(\mu^2/M_{c,b}^2)$ is more important than the inclusion of power-suppressed corrections.
Let us in a next step restrict ourselves to decoupling scales which are of the order of the respective quark masses. In Tab. \[tab::mub\] we compare the value for $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ as obtained from the one- and two-step decoupling where two variants of the former are used: $\zeta_{\alpha_s}$ which directly relates $\alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_c)$ and $\alpha_s^{(5)}(\mu_b)$ as given in Eq. (\[Intro:zetaren\]) with $\mu^\prime=\mu_c$ and $\mu=\mu_b$ ($\zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu_c,\mu_b)$; see also [@progdata]) and the version with only one decoupling scale where $\mu^\prime=\mu$ has been set ($\zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu)$). We thus define two deviations $$\begin{aligned}
\delta\alpha_s^{(a)} &=&
\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)\Big|_{\zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu_c,\mu_b)}
- \alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)\Big|_{\mbox{\scriptsize 2-step}}
\,,\nonumber\\
\delta\alpha_s^{(b)} &=&
\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)\Big|_{\zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu)}
- \alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)\Big|_{\mbox{\scriptsize 2-step}}
\,,
\label{eq::deltaalpha}\end{aligned}$$ where the scale $\mu$ in the second equation is either identified with $\mu_c$ (right part of Tab. \[tab::mub\]) or $\mu_b$ (left part), respectively.
[cc]{}
--------- ----------------------- ------------------------ ------------------------
$\mu_b$ $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ $\delta\alpha_s^{(a)}$ $\delta\alpha_s^{(b)}$
(GeV) $\times10^3$ $\times10^3$
$(\mu=\mu_b)$
2 0.11985 $-0.28$ 0.18
5 0.11977 0.23 $-0.16$
7 0.11974 0.36 $-0.26$
10 0.11970 0.19 $-0.36$
--------- ----------------------- ------------------------ ------------------------
: \[tab::mub\] Decoupling scale $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ as obtained from the four-loop analysis of the two-step approach, and the deviations as defined in the text. In the left table $\mu_c=3$ GeV and in the right one $\mu_b=10$ GeV has been chosen.
&
--------- ----------------------- ------------------------ ------------------------
$\mu_c$ $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ $\delta\alpha_s^{(a)}$ $\delta\alpha_s^{(b)}$
(GeV) $\times10^3$ $\times10^3$
$(\mu=\mu_c)$
2 0.11984 $-4.02$ $0.20$
3 0.11970 0.19 $0.14$
4 0.11961 0.33 $0.10$
5 0.11955 0.26 $0.06$
--------- ----------------------- ------------------------ ------------------------
: \[tab::mub\] Decoupling scale $\alpha_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ as obtained from the four-loop analysis of the two-step approach, and the deviations as defined in the text. In the left table $\mu_c=3$ GeV and in the right one $\mu_b=10$ GeV has been chosen.
It is interesting to note that (except for the choice $\mu_c=2$ GeV and $\mu_b=10$ GeV) the deviations presented in Tab. \[tab::mub\] amount to about 30% to 50% of the uncertainty of the world average for $\alpha_s(M_Z)$ which is given by $\delta\alpha_s=0.7\cdot 10^{-3}$ [@Nakamura:2010zzi].
Improving the two-step approach by power-suppressed terms
---------------------------------------------------------
From the previous considerations it is evident that the resummation of logarithms of the form $[\alpha_s \log(\mu_c/\mu_b)]^k$, which is automatically incorporated in the two-step approach, is numerically more important than power-suppressed terms in $M_c/M_b$. Thus it is natural to use the two-step approach as default method and add the power-corrections afterwards. This is achieved in the following way: In a first step we invert $\zeta_{\alpha_s}(\mu_c,\mu_b)$ (cf. Eq. (\[Intro:zetaren\])) and express it in terms of $\alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_c)$ in order to arrive at the equation $\alpha_s^{(5)}(\mu_b)=\zeta^{-1}_{\alpha_s}(\mu_c,\mu_b)
\alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_c)$. Now an expansion is performed for $M_c/M_b\to 0$ to obtain the leading term which is then subtracted from $\zeta^{-1}_{\alpha_s}(\mu_c,\mu_b)$ since it is part of the two-step decoupling procedure. The result is independent of $\mu_c$ and $\mu_b$ and has following series expansion $$\begin{aligned}
\delta\zeta_{\alpha_s}^{-1} &=& \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_c)}{\pi}\right)^3
\left[
\frac{\pi^2}{18}x
+ \left(-\frac{6661}{18000} - \frac{1409}{21600}L +
\frac{1}{160}L^2 \right) x^2
+ {\cal O}(x^3)
\right]
\nonumber\\
&\approx& 0.170 \left(\frac{\alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_c)}{\pi}\right)^3
\,,
\label{eq::deltazeta}\end{aligned}$$ where the numerical value in the second line has been obtained with the help of the exact dependence on $x$. Note that the linear term in $x$ arises from the $\overline{\rm MS}$–on-shell quark mass relation. The quantity $\delta\zeta_{\alpha_s}^{-1}$ is used in order to compute an additional contribution to $\alpha_s^{(5)}(\mu_b)$ as obtained from the two-step method: $$\begin{aligned}
\delta\alpha_s^{(5)}(\mu_b) &=& \delta\zeta_{\alpha_s}^{-1} \alpha_s^{(3)}(\mu_c)
\,.\end{aligned}$$ Inserting numerical values leads to shifts which are at most a few times $10^{-5}$ and are thus beyond the current level of accuracy. It is in particular more than an order of magnitude smaller than the four-loop decoupling term which is shown as dotted curve in Fig. \[fig::asMz\](b).
Note that as far as the strong coupling in Eq. (\[eq::deltazeta\]) is concerned both the number of flavours and the renormalization scale of $\alpha_s$ are not fixed since power-suppressed terms appear for the first time at this order. However, the smallness of the contribution is not affected by the choices made in Eq. (\[eq::deltazeta\]).
One-step decoupling of the bottom quark with finite charm quark mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------
An alternative approach to implement power-suppressed corrections in $m_c/m_b$ in the decoupling procedure is as follows: We consider the step-by-step decoupling and use at the scale $\mu_{\rm dec,c}$ the standard formalism for the decoupling of the charm quark as implemented in [RunDec]{} [@Chetyrkin:2000yt]. At the scale $\mu_{\rm dec,b}$, however, we consider the matching of five- to four-flavour QCD where we keep the charm quark massive. This requires a modification of the formulae in Eqs. (\[Intro:zetafields0\]) and (\[Intro:zetaparams0\]) to ($n_f^\prime=n_f-1$) $$\begin{aligned}
&&\zeta_A^0 = \frac{1 + \Pi_A^{(n_f)} (0)}{1 + \Pi_A^{(n_f^\prime)}
(0)}\,, \quad
\zeta_c^0 = \frac{1 + \Pi_c^{(n_f)} (0)}{1 + \Pi_c^{(n_f^\prime)}
(0)}\,, \quad
\zeta_q^0 = \frac{1 + \Pi_q^{(n_f)} (0)}{1 + \Pi_q^{(n_f^\prime)}
(0)}\,, \nonumber\\
&&\zeta_m^0 = (\zeta_q^0)^{-1} \frac{1 - \Sigma_S^{(n_f)} (0)}{1
- \Sigma_S^{(n_f^\prime)} (0)}\,, \quad
\zeta_{\alpha_s}^0 = (\zeta_c^0)^{-2} (\zeta_A^0)^{-1} \frac{\left(1 +
\Gamma_{A \bar{c} c}^{(n_f)} \right)^2}{\left(1 + \Gamma_{A
\bar{c} c}^{(n_f^\prime)} \right)^2}\,,
\label{eq::2step_mv_c}\end{aligned}$$ where the $n_f$-flavour quantities contain contributions form massive charm and bottom quarks. They are identical to the one-step decoupling procedure described above. In the $n_f^\prime$-flavour quantities appearing in the denominators those diagrams have to be considered which contain a charm quark. Note that they depend on the bare parameters of the effective theory ($\alpha_{s 0}^{(n_f^\prime)}$, $a_0^{(n_f^\prime)}$, $m_{c 0}^{(n_f^\prime)}$) and thus they have to be decoupled iteratively in order to express all quantities on the r.h.s. of the above equations by the same parameters ($\alpha_{s 0}^{(n_f)}$, $a_0^{(n_f)}$, $m_{c 0}^{(n_f)}$). In the standard approach the $n_f^\prime$-flavour quantities vanish since only scale-less integrals are involved.
As a cross check we have verified that we reobtain the analytical result for the single-step decoupling if we apply the formalism of Eq. (\[eq::2step\_mv\_c\]) and the subsequent decoupling of the charm quark at the same scale.
We have incorporated the finite charm quark mass effects in the two-step decoupling approach (cf. Fig. \[fig::asMz\]) and observe small numerical effects. A minor deviation from the $m_c=0$ curve can only be seen for decoupling scales of the order of 1 GeV which confirms the conclusions reached above that the power-suppressed terms are numerically negligible. Thus we both refrain from explicitly presenting numerical results and analytical formulae for the renormalized decoupling coefficients as obtained from Eqs. (\[eq::2step\_mv\_c\]).
Decoupling effects in the strange quark mass
--------------------------------------------
In analogy to the strong coupling we study in the following the relation of the strange quark mass $m_s(\mu)$ defined with three and five active quark flavours, respectively. The numerical analysis follows closely the one for $\alpha_s$: $N$-loop running is accompanied by $(N-1)$-loop decoupling relations. It is, however, slightly more involved since besides $m_s(\mu)$ also $\alpha_s(\mu)$ has to be known for the respective renormalization scale and number of active flavours. We organized the calculation in such a way that we simultaneously solve the renormalization group equations for $m_s(\mu)$ and $\alpha_s(\mu)$ (truncated to the considered order) using [Mathematica]{}.
In Fig. \[fig::mqMz\] we show $m_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ as a function of $\mu_{\rm dec}$ and again compare the single-step (dashed lines) to the two-step (dash-dotted lines) approach. For our numerical analysis we use in addition to the parameters specified above $m_s(2~\mbox{GeV})=100$ MeV. The same conclusion as for $\alpha_s$ can be drawn: The difference between the two approaches becomes smaller with increasing loop order. At the same time the prediction for $m_s^{(5)}(M_Z)$ becomes more and more independent of $\mu_{\rm dec}$. The results again suggest that the power-corrections $M_c/M_b$ are small justifying the application of the two-step decoupling.
Effective coupling of the Higgs boson to gluons {#S:Higgs}
===============================================
The production and decay of an intermediate-mass Higgs boson can be described to good accuracy by an effective Lagrange density where the top quark is integrated out. It contains an effective coupling of the Higgs boson to gluons given by $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal L}_{\rm eff} &=& -\frac{\phi}{v} C_1 {\cal O}_1
\,,
\label{eq::leff}\end{aligned}$$ with ${\cal O}_1 = G_{\mu\nu} G^{\mu\nu}$. $C_1$ is the coefficient function containing the remnant contributions of the top quark, $G^{\mu\nu}$ is the gluon field strength tensor, $\phi$ denotes the CP-even Higgs boson field and $v$ is the vacuum expectation value.
The effective Lagrange density in Eq. (\[eq::leff\]) can also be used for theories beyond the Standard Model like supersymmetric models or extensions with further generations of heavy quarks. In all cases the effect of the heavy particles is contained in the coefficient function $C_1$.
In Ref. [@Chetyrkin:1997un] a low-energy theorem has been derived which relates the effective Higgs-gluon coupling $C_1$ to the decoupling constant for $\alpha_s$. In this Section we apply this theorem to an extension of the Standard Model containing additional heavy quarks which couple to the Higgs boson via a top quark-like Yukawa coupling. Restating Eq. (39) of Ref. [@Chetyrkin:1997un] in our notation and for the case of several heavy quarks leads to $$\begin{aligned}
C_1 &=& -\frac{1}{2} \sum_{i=1}^{N_h} M_i^2 \frac{{\rm d}}{{\rm d} M_i^2}
\log\zeta_{\alpha_s}
\,,\end{aligned}$$ where $N_h$ is the number of heavy quarks with on-shell masses $M_i$. Using $\zeta_{\alpha_s}$ from Eq. (\[Intro:zetaren\]) (see also [@progdata]) we obtain for $C_1$ the following result[^7] $$\begin{aligned}
C_1 &=& \frac{\alpha_s^{\rm (full)}(\mu)}{\pi} \left( - T_F \frac{N_h}{6} \right)
+ \left( \frac{\alpha_s^{\rm (full)}(\mu)}{\pi} \right)^2 \left( \frac{C_F T_F}{8}
- C_A T_F \frac{5}{24} + T_F^2 \frac{\Sigma_h}{18} \right) N_h \nonumber\\
&&{} + \left( \frac{\alpha_s^{\rm (full)}(\mu)}{\pi} \right)^3
\left\{ - C_F^2 T_F \frac{9}{64} N_h
+ C_F C_A T_F \left[ \frac{25}{72} N_h
+ \frac{11}{96} \Sigma_h \right] \right. \nonumber\\
&&{} + C_F T_F^2 \left[ \frac{5}{96} N_h n_l + \frac{17}{288} N_h^2
- \Sigma_h \left( \frac{N_h}{8} + \frac{n_l}{12} \right) \right]
- C_A^2 T_F \left[ \frac{1063}{3456} N_h
+ \frac{7}{96} \Sigma_h \right] \nonumber\\
&&{} \left. + C_A T_F^2 \left[ \frac{47}{864} n_l - \frac{49}{1728} N_h
+ \frac{5}{24} \Sigma_h \right] N_h
- T_F^3 \Sigma_h^2 \frac{N_h}{54} \right\}
\,,\end{aligned}$$ where $\alpha_s^{\rm (full)}$ is the strong coupling in the full theory with $n_l+N_h$ active quark flavours and $\Sigma_h = \sum_{i=1}^{N_h} \log(\mu^2/M_i^2)$. After expressing $\alpha_s^{\rm (full)}$ in terms of $\alpha_s^{(5)}$ and specifying the colour factors to SU(3) we reproduce the result of Ref. [@Anastasiou:2010bt] which has been obtained by an explicit calculation of the Higgs-gluon vertex corrections. For $N_h=1$ the result obtained in Ref. [@Chetyrkin:1997un] is reproduced. It is remarkable that although $\zeta_{\alpha_s}$ contains di- and tri-logarithms there are only linear logarithms present in $C_1$.
Conclusion {#S:Conc}
==========
The main result of this paper is the computation of a decoupling constant relating the strong coupling defined with three active flavours to the one in the five-flavour theory. At three-loop order Feynman diagrams with two mass scales, the charm and the bottom quark mass, have to be considered. The corresponding integrals have been evaluated exactly and analytical results have been presented. The new results can be used in order to study the effect of power-suppressed terms in $M_c/M_b$ which are neglected in the conventional approach [@Chetyrkin:1997un]. Various analyses are performed which indicate that the mass corrections present in the one-step approach are small as compared to $\log(\mu^2/M_{c,b}^2)$ which are resummed using the conventional two-step procedure.
Using a well-known low-energy theorem [@Chetyrkin:1997un] we can use our result for the decoupling constant in order to obtain the effective gluon-Higgs boson coupling for models containing several heavy quarks which couple to the Higgs boson via the same mechanism as the top quark. This constitutes a first independent check of the result presented in Ref. [@Anastasiou:2010bt] where the matching coefficient has been obtained by a direct evaluation of the Higgs-gluon-gluon vertex diagrams.
Acknowledgments {#acknowledgments .unnumbered}
===============
This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the SFB/TR-9 “Computational Particle Physics”. We are grateful to K.G. Chetyrkin for useful discussions.
Integral $I(x)$ {#S:Ix}
===============
With the help of `FIRE` [@Smirnov:2008iw] we can express the integral $I(x)$ as defined in Eq. (\[Calc:Idef\]) as a linear combination of master integrals $$\begin{aligned}
&&I(x) = I(x^{-1}) =
\frac{1}{(d-1) (d-4) (d-6) (d-8) (d-10)}
\label{Ix:I}\\
&&{}\times\biggl[ \frac{1}{4} \left( c_{10} + c_{11} (x^{-2}+x^2) + c_{12} (x^{-4}+x^4) \right) I_1(x)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}\times\biggl[\biggr.}
+ \frac{3}{16} (d-2) (x^{-1}+x) \left( c_{20} + c_{21} (x^{-2}+x^2) \right) I_2(x)
\nonumber\\
&&\hphantom{{}\times\biggl[\biggr.}
- \frac{c_{-1} (x^{2+\varepsilon} + x^{-2-\varepsilon})
+ c_0 (x^\varepsilon + x^{-\varepsilon})
+ c_1 (x^{-2+\varepsilon} + x^{2-\varepsilon})
+ c_2 (x^{-4+\varepsilon} + x^{4-\varepsilon})}{(d-2)^2 (d-3) (d-5) (d-7)} \biggr]\,.
\nonumber\end{aligned}$$ $I_1$ and $I_2$ are master integrals with four massive lines (see Fig. \[F:Master\]) which are given by $$\begin{aligned}
&&I_1(x) = I_1(x^{-1}) =
\frac{(m_b m_c)^{-2+3\varepsilon}}{(i \pi^{d/2})^3 \Gamma^3(\varepsilon)}
\int \frac{d^d k_1\,d^d k_2\,d^d k_3}{D_1 D_2 D_3 D_4}\,,
\nonumber\\
&&I_2(x) = I_2(x^{-1}) =
\frac{(m_b m_c)^{-3+3\varepsilon}}{(i \pi^{d/2})^3 \Gamma^3(\varepsilon)}
\int \frac{N\,d^d k_1\,d^d k_2\,d^d k_3}{D_1 D_2 D_3 D_4}\,,
\nonumber\\
&&D_1 = m_b^2 - k_1^2\,,\quad
D_2 = m_b^2 - k_2^2\,,\quad
D_3 = m_c^2 - k_3^2\,,
\nonumber\\
&&D_4 = m_c^2 - (k_1-k_2+k_3)^2\,,\quad
N = - (k_1-k_2)^2\,,
\label{Ix:I12}\end{aligned}$$ and $c_i$ and $c_{ij}$ are coefficients depending on $d=4-2\varepsilon$ $$\begin{aligned}
&&c_{10} = (d-1) (5 d^4 - 104 d^3 + 73 d^2 - 2116 d + 2086)\,,\\
&&c_{11} = (d-1) (2d-7) (2 d^3 - 35 d^2 + 180 d - 256)\,,\\
&&c_{12} = (d-9) (2d-5) (2d-7) (2d-9)\,,\\
&&c_{20} = 2 (d^4 - 22 d^3 + 165 d^2 - 491 d + 487)\,,\\
&&c_{21} = (d-9) (2d-7) (2d-9)\,,\\
&&c_{-1} = (d-3) (d-5) (d-7) (d-9) (2d-5) (2d-7) (2d-9)\,,\\
&&c_0 = (d-1) (d-3) (4 d^5 - 108 d^4 + 1090 d^3 - 5009 d^2 + 9838 d - 5335)\,,\\
&&c_1 = (d-1) (d-7) (2 d^5 - 46 d^4 + 384 d^3 - 1423 d^2 + 2158 d - 739)\,,\\
&&c_2 = (d-1) (d-5) (d-7) (d-9) (2d-7) (2d-9)\,.\end{aligned}$$
The master integrals used in Ref. [@Bekavac:2009gz] are related to $I_{1,2}$ by $$\begin{aligned}
I_{4.3} &=& (m_b m_c)^{2-3\varepsilon} \Gamma^3(\varepsilon) I_1(x)\,,
\nonumber\\
I_{4.3a} &=& (m_b m_c)^{1-3\varepsilon} \Gamma^3(\varepsilon) \frac{x}{1-x^2}
\nonumber\\
&&{}\times\left[ - \frac{1}{4} \left(d-3 - (2d-5) x^2\right) I_1(x)
+ \frac{3}{16} (d-2) x I_2(x)
+ \frac{x^\varepsilon + x^{2-\varepsilon}}{(d-2)^2} \right]\,.
\label{Ix:4.3}\end{aligned}$$ Using their expansions in $\varepsilon$ [@Bekavac:2009gz] we obtain $$I(x) = - \frac{32}{27} \left[ 1 - \frac{2}{3} \varepsilon
+ \frac{1}{2} \left( \frac{25}{3} + 3 L^2 \right) \varepsilon^2
+ B \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,,
\label{Ix:e}$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
&&\frac{32}{3} B = 64 L_+(x)
- \frac{(1+x^2)(5+22x^2+5x^4)}{x^3} L_-(x)
\nonumber\\
&&{} + \frac{5+18x^2+5x^4}{x^2} L^2
- 10 \frac{1-x^4}{x^2} L
+ 10 \frac{(1-x^2)^2}{x^2} + \frac{64}{3} \zeta_3 - \frac{1256}{81}\,,
\label{Ix:B}\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
L_\pm(x) &=& L_\pm(x^{-1}) =
{\mathop{\mathrm{Li}}\nolimits_{3}}(x) - L {\mathop{\mathrm{Li}}\nolimits_{2}}(x) - \frac{L^2}{2} \log(1-x) + \frac{L^3}{12}
\nonumber\\
&&{} \pm \left[ {\mathop{\mathrm{Li}}\nolimits_{3}}(-x) - L {\mathop{\mathrm{Li}}\nolimits_{2}}(-x) - \frac{L^2}{2} \log(1+x) + \frac{L^3}{12} \right]\,,
\label{Ix:L}\end{aligned}$$ with $L=\log x$. Note that the functions $L_\pm(x)$ are analytical from 0 to $+\infty$.
For $x=1$, $I_2(1)$ is not independent [@Broadhurst:1991fi]: $$I_2(1) = - \frac{4}{3} \left( I_1(1) + \frac{8}{(d-2)^3} \right)\,.
\label{Ix:1}$$ The expansion of $I_1(1)$ in $\varepsilon$ has been studied in Refs. [@Broadhurst:1991fi; @Broadhurst:1996az]. Using the explicit formulas (3.2) and (2.3) from [@Bekavac:2009gz], it is easy to get $$I(1) = - \frac{32}{27} \left[ 1 - \frac{2}{3} \varepsilon + \frac{25}{6} \varepsilon^2
- \left( 7 \zeta_3 + \frac{157}{108} \right) \varepsilon^3 + \cdots \right]\,,
\label{Ix:1a}$$ in agreement with (\[Ix:e\]).
For $x\to0$, two regions [@Smirnov:2002pj] contribute to $I(x)$ (see Eq. (\[Calc:Idef\])), the hard ($k\sim m_b$) and and the soft ($k\sim m_c$) one. The result for the leading term is given by $$\begin{aligned}
I(x) &=& I_h x^{3\varepsilon} \left[1 + \mathcal{O}(x^2)\right]
+ I_s x^{-\varepsilon} \left[1 + \mathcal{O}(x^2)\right]\,,
\label{Ix:0}\\
I_h &=& \frac{8}{3}
\frac{d-5}{(d-1) (d-3) (2d-9) (2d-11)}
\frac{\Gamma(1-\varepsilon) \Gamma^2(1+2\varepsilon) \Gamma(1+3\varepsilon)}{\Gamma^2(1+\varepsilon) \Gamma(1+4\varepsilon)}\,,
\nonumber\\
I_s &=& \frac{8}{3}
\frac{d-6}{(d-2) (d-5) (d-7)}\,.
\nonumber\end{aligned}$$ Expanding this formula in $\varepsilon$ we reproduce Eq. (\[Ix:e\]) for $x\to0$.
Ghost–gluon vertex at two loops {#S:Ghost}
===============================
We need this vertex expanded in the external momenta up to the linear terms. Let us consider the right-most vertex on the ghost line: $$\raisebox{-7mm}{\begin{picture}(27,18)
\put(13.5,9.5){\makebox(0,0){\includegraphics{figs/ghr.eps}}}
\put(23.5,0){\makebox(0,0)[b]{$p$}}
\put(12.5,18){\makebox(0,0)[tl]{$\mu$}}
\put(22,4.5){\makebox(0,0)[bl]{$\nu$}}
\end{picture}}
= A^{\mu\nu} p_\nu\,.$$ The tensor $A^{\mu\nu}$ may be calculated at zero external momenta, hence $A^{\mu\nu}=Ag^{\mu\nu}$. Therefore all loop diagrams have the Lorentz structure of the tree vertex, as expected.
Now let us consider the left-most vertex: $$\raisebox{-7mm}{\begin{picture}(27,18)
\put(13.5,9.5){\makebox(0,0){\includegraphics{figs/ghl.eps}}}
\put(3.5,0){\makebox(0,0)[b]{$0$}}
\put(8.5,0){\makebox(0,0)[b]{$k$}}
\put(5,10){\makebox(0,0){$k$}}
\end{picture}}\,.$$ It gives $k^\lambda$, thus singling out the longitudinal part of the gluon propagator. Therefore, all loop corrections vanish in Landau gauge. Furthermore, diagrams with self-energy insertions into the left-most gluon propagator vanish in any covariant gauge: $$\raisebox{-9mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gh0.eps}} =
\raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gh3.eps}} = 0\,.$$
In the diagrams including a quark triangle, the contraction of $k^\lambda$ transfers the gluon propagator to a spin 0 propagator and a factor $k^\rho$ which contracts the quark-gluon vertex. After decomposing $k\!\!\!/$ into a difference of the involved fermion denominators one obtains in graphical form $$\begin{aligned}
&&\raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gh1.eps}}
= a_0 \left[ \raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gha.eps}}
- \raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/ghb.eps}} \right]\,,\\
&&\raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gh2.eps}}
= a_0 \left[ \raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/ghb.eps}}
- \raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gha.eps}} \right]\,.\end{aligned}$$ The diagrams with a massless triangle vanish. The non-vanishing diagrams contain the same Feynman integral, but differ by the order of the colour matrices along the quark line, thus leading to a commutator of two Gell-Mann matrices.
The remaining diagram contains a three-gluon vertex with a self energy inserted in the right-most gluon propagator. The contraction of $k^\lambda$ with the three-gluon vertex cancels the gluon propagator to the right of the three-gluon vertex: $$\raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gh4.eps}}
= a_0 \raisebox{-7mm}{\includegraphics{figs/gha.eps}}\,.$$ The colour structure of the three-gluon vertex is identical to the commutator above, however with opposite sign. Therefore, after summing all contributions the result is zero.
Decoupling at on-shell masses {#S:OS}
=============================
For some applications it is convenient to parametrize the decoupling constants in terms of the on-shell instead of $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$ quark masses. The corresponding counterterm relation reads $$m_{b0} = Z_{m_b}^{{\rm os}(n_f)}\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}\right) M_b\,,\quad
m_{c0} = Z_{m_c}^{{\rm os}(n_f)}\left(\alpha_{s0}^{(n_f)}\right) M_c\,,
\label{OS:mass}$$ where in our application $Z_{m_b}^{{\rm os}(n_f)}$ and $Z_{m_c}^{{\rm os}(n_f)}$ are needed to two-loop accuracy. They have been calculated in Ref. [@Gray:1990yh] (see also [@Davydychev:1998si; @Bekavac:2007tk]). Note that the two-loop coefficients of $Z_{m_b}^{{\rm os}(n_f)}$ and $Z_{m_c}^{{\rm os}(n_f)}$ are non-trivial functions of $m_c/m_b$; a compact expression can be found in Ref. [@Bekavac:2007tk].
The advantage of using on-shell masses is that they are identical in all theories (with any number of flavours). Furthermore their numerical value does not depend on the renormalization scale. However, it is well known that usually the coefficients of perturbative series for physical quantities grow fast when expressed via on-shell quark masses and hence the ambiguities of the mass values (extracted from those observable quantities) are quite large. Nevertheless, using on-shell masses in intermediate theoretical formulae (at any finite order of perturbation theory) can be convenient.
The decoupling relations are particularly compact if $\alpha_s^{(n_l)}(M_c)$ is expressed as a series in $\alpha_s^{(n_f)}(M_b)$ since then the coefficients only depend on $x_{\rm os} = M_c/M_b$ (see results in [@progdata]).
[99]{}
W. Bernreuther and W. Wetzel, *Decoupling of heavy quarks in the minimal subtraction scheme*, ; Erratum: . S.A. Larin, T. van Ritbergen and J.A.M. Vermaseren, *The Large quark mass expansion of $\Gamma(Z^0\to\mbox{hadrons})$ and $\Gamma(\tau^-\to\nu_\tau+\mbox{hadrons})$ in the order $\alpha_s^3$*, \[arXiv:\]. K.G. Chetyrkin, B.A. Kniehl and M. Steinhauser, *Decoupling relations to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^3)$ and their connection to low-energy theorems*, \[arXiv:\]. Y. Schröder and M. Steinhauser, *Four-loop decoupling relations for the strong coupling*, \[arXiv:\]. K.G. Chetyrkin, J.H. Kühn and C. Sturm, *QCD decoupling at four loops*, \[arXiv:\]. V.A. Smirnov, *Applied asymptotic expansions in momenta and masses*, Springer Tracts Mod. Phys. [**177**]{} (2002) 1. P. Pascual, R. Tarrach, *Qcd: Renormalization for the practitioner*, Lecture notes in physics **194**, Springer (1984).
P. Nogueira, *Automatic Feynman graph generation*, . J.A.M. Vermaseren, *New features of `FORM`*, [[math-ph/0010025](http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/math-ph/0010025)]{}. R. Harlander, T. Seidensticker, M. Steinhauser, *Complete corrections of $\mathcal{O}(\alpha\alpha_s)$ to the decay of the $Z$ boson into bottom quarks*, \[arXiv:\]. T. Seidensticker, *Automatic application of successive asymptotic expansions of Feynman diagrams*, arXiv:. S. Bekavac, A.G. Grozin, D. Seidel, M. Steinhauser, *Light quark mass effects in the on-shell renormalization constants*, \[ \[hep-ph\]\]. A.V. Smirnov, *Algorithm `FIRE` — Feynman Integral REduction*, \[ \[hep-ph\]\]. S. Bekavac, A.G. Grozin, D. Seidel, V.A. Smirnov, *Three-loop on-shell Feynman integrals with two masses*, \[ \[hep-ph\]\]. M. Steinhauser, *`MATAD`: A program package for the computation of massive tadpoles*, \[arXiv:\]. D.J. Broadhurst, *Three loop on-shell charge renormalization without integration: $\Lambda_{\overline{\rm MS}}^{\rm QED}$ to four loops*, . A.G. Grozin, A.V. Smirnov, V.A. Smirnov, *Decoupling of heavy quarks in HQET*, \[arXiv:\].
S. Bekavac, A.G. Grozin, P. Marquard, J.H. Piclum, D. Seidel, M. Steinhauser, *Matching QCD and HQET heavy-light currents at three loops*, \[ \[hep-ph\]\]. T. van Ritbergen, J.A.M. Vermaseren, S. A. Larin, *The four-loop $\beta$-function in quantum chromodynamics*, \[arXiv:\].
M. Czakon, *The four-loop QCD $\beta$-function and anomalous dimensions*, \[arXiv:\].
K.G. Chetyrkin, *Quark mass anomalous dimension to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^4)$*, \[arXiv:\].
J.A.M. Vermaseren, S. A. Larin, T. van Ritbergen, *The 4-loop quark mass anomalous dimension and the invariant quark mass*, \[arXiv:\].
K.G. Chetyrkin, J.H. Kühn, M. Steinhauser, *`RunDec`: A `Mathematica` package for running and decoupling of the strong coupling and quark masses*, \[arXiv:\]. S.A. Larin, J.A.M. Vermaseren, *The three-loop QCD $\beta$-function and anomalous dimensions*, \[arXiv:\].
K.G. Chetyrkin, *Four-loop renormalization of QCD: Full set of renormalization constants and anomalous dimensions*, \[arXiv:\]. K.G. Chetyrkin, A. Rétey, *Renormalization and running of quark mass and field in the regularization invariant and $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$ schemes at three loops and four loops*, \[arXiv:\].
`http://www-ttp.particle.uni-karlsruhe.de/Progdata/ttp11/ttp11-07/`
P.A. Baikov, K.G. Chetyrkin, J.H. Kühn, *Order $\alpha^4_s$ QCD corrections to $Z$ and $\tau$ decays*, \[ \[hep-ph\]\]. J.H. Kühn, M. Steinhauser, C. Sturm, *Heavy quark masses from sum rules in four-loop approximation*, \[arXiv:\]. K. Nakamura [*et al.*]{} \[Particle Data Group\], *Review of particle physics*, . C. Anastasiou, R. Boughezal, E. Furlan, *The NNLO gluon fusion Higgs production cross-section with many heavy quarks*, \[ \[hep-ph\]\]. D.J. Broadhurst, *On the enumeration of irreducible $k$-fold Euler sums and their roles in knot theory and field theory*, arXiv:. N. Gray, D.J. Broadhurst, W. Grafe, K. Schilcher, *Three loop relation of quark $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$ and pole masses*, . A.I. Davydychev, A.G. Grozin, *Effect of $m_c$ on $b$ quark chromomagnetic interaction and on-shell two-loop integrals with two masses*, \[arXiv:\].
[^1]: At low $q\ne0$, the self-energies in the full theory are given by sums of contributions from various integration regions, see, e.g., [@Smirnov:2002pj]; the contribution we need comes from the completely hard region, where all loop momenta are of order of heavy-quark masses.
[^2]: The $A\bar{q}q$ vertex at 0-th order in its external momenta obviously has only the tree-level structure. For the $A\bar{c}c$ vertex at the linear order in external momenta, this statement is proven in Appendix \[S:Ghost\]. The $AAA$ vertex at the linear order in its external momenta can have, in addition to the tree-level structure, one more structure: $d^{a_1 a_2 a_3}(g^{\mu_1 \mu_2}k_3^{\mu_3}+\mbox{cycle})$; however, the Slavnov–Taylor identity ${\langle}T\{\partial^\mu A_\mu(x),\partial^\nu A_\nu(y),\partial^\lambda A_\lambda(z)\}{\rangle}=0$ leads to $\Gamma^{a_1 a_2 a_3}_{\mu_1 \mu_2 \mu_3} k_1^{\mu_1} k_2^{\mu_2} k_3^{\mu_3} = 0$ (see Ref. [@Pascual:1984zb]), thus excluding this second structure.
[^3]: Note that $\Gamma(\varepsilon)=1/\varepsilon + {\cal
O}(1)$.
[^4]: Note that the masses $m_c(\mu)$ and $m_b(\mu)$ (and $m_{c0}$, $m_{b0}$) are those in the full $n_f$-flavour QCD. They do not exist in the low-energy $n_l$-flavour QCD, and therefore we do not assign a superscript $n_f$ to these masses.
[^5]: It has been argumented in Refs. [@Kuhn:2007vp] that in the case of charm the scale $\mu=m_c$ is too small leading to a value of $\alpha_s$ which is too large. Thus $m_c(3~\mbox{GeV})$ has been proposed as reference value.
[^6]: For $\beta_4>0$ the dotted curve in Fig. \[fig::asMz\](b) moves towards the four-loop curve.
[^7]: Note that up to three-loop order there are only diagrams with at most two different quark flavours. Thus it is possible to obtain the result for $C_1$ for $N_h$ heavy quarks.
|
#
# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
# contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
# this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
# The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
# (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
# the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.
#
BEGIN {
$ENV{"CUSTOM_HMAC_AUTH"} = "true"
}
use t::APISIX 'no_plan';
repeat_each(2);
no_long_string();
no_root_location();
no_shuffle();
run_tests;
__DATA__
=== TEST 1: add consumer with username and plugins
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local t = require("lib.test_admin").test
local code, body = t('/apisix/admin/consumers',
ngx.HTTP_PUT,
[[{
"username": "jack",
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {
"access_key": "my-access-key",
"secret_key": "my-secret-key",
"clock_skew": 10
}
}
}]],
[[{
"node": {
"value": {
"username": "jack",
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {
"access_key": "my-access-key",
"secret_key": "my-secret-key",
"algorithm": "hmac-sha256",
"clock_skew": 10
}
}
}
},
"action": "set"
}]]
)
ngx.status = code
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- response_body
passed
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 2: add consumer with plugin hmac-auth - missing secret key
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local t = require("lib.test_admin").test
local code, body = t('/apisix/admin/consumers',
ngx.HTTP_PUT,
[[{
"username": "jack",
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {
"access_key": "user-key"
}
}
}]])
ngx.status = code
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- error_code: 400
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 3: add consumer with plugin hmac-auth - missing access key
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local t = require("lib.test_admin").test
local code, body = t('/apisix/admin/consumers',
ngx.HTTP_PUT,
[[{
"username": "jack",
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {
"secret_key": "skey"
}
}
}]])
ngx.status = code
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- error_code: 400
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 4: enable hmac auth plugin using admin api
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local t = require("lib.test_admin").test
local code, body = t('/apisix/admin/routes/1',
ngx.HTTP_PUT,
[[{
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {}
},
"upstream": {
"nodes": {
"127.0.0.1:1980": 1
},
"type": "roundrobin"
},
"uri": "/hello"
}]]
)
if code >= 300 then
ngx.status = code
end
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- response_body
passed
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 5: verify, missing signature
--- request
GET /hello
--- error_code: 401
--- response_body
{"message":"access key or signature missing"}
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 6: verify: invalid access key
--- request
GET /hello
--- more_headers
X-APISIX-HMAC-SIGNATURE: asdf
X-APISIX-HMAC-ALGORITHM: hmac-sha256
X-APISIX-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2020 06:39:52 GMT
X-APISIX-HMAC-ACCESS-KEY: sdf
--- error_code: 401
--- response_body
{"message":"Invalid access key"}
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 7: verify: invalid algorithm
--- request
GET /hello
--- more_headers
X-APISIX-HMAC-SIGNATURE: asdf
X-APISIX-HMAC-ALGORITHM: ljlj
X-APISIX-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2020 06:39:52 GMT
X-APISIX-HMAC-ACCESS-KEY: sdf
--- error_code: 401
--- response_body
{"message":"Invalid access key"}
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 8: verify: Invalid GMT format time
--- request
GET /hello
--- more_headers
X-APISIX-HMAC-SIGNATURE: asdf
X-APISIX-HMAC-ALGORITHM: hmac-sha256
X-APISIX-Date: adfa
X-APISIX-HMAC-ACCESS-KEY: my-access-key
--- error_code: 401
--- response_body
{"message":"Invalid GMT format time"}
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 9: verify: ok
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local ngx_time = ngx.time
local ngx_http_time = ngx.http_time
local core = require("apisix.core")
local t = require("lib.test_admin")
local hmac = require("resty.hmac")
local ngx_encode_base64 = ngx.encode_base64
local secret_key = "my-secret-key"
local time = ngx_time()
local gmt = ngx_http_time(time)
local access_key = "my-access-key"
local custom_header_a = "asld$%dfasf"
local custom_header_b = "23879fmsldfk"
local signing_string = "GET" .. "/hello" .. "" ..
access_key .. gmt .. custom_header_a .. custom_header_b
local signature = hmac:new(secret_key, hmac.ALGOS.SHA256):final(signing_string)
core.log.info("signature:", ngx_encode_base64(signature))
local headers = {}
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-SIGNATURE"] = ngx_encode_base64(signature)
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-ALGORITHM"] = "hmac-sha256"
headers["X-APISIX-DATE"] = gmt
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-ACCESS-KEY"] = access_key
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-SIGNED-HEADERS"] = "x-custom-header-a;x-custom-header-b"
headers["x-custom-header-a"] = custom_header_a
headers["x-custom-header-b"] = custom_header_b
local code, body = t.test('/hello',
ngx.HTTP_GET,
"",
nil,
headers
)
ngx.status = code
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- response_body
passed
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 10: update consumer with clock skew
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local t = require("lib.test_admin").test
local code, body = t('/apisix/admin/consumers',
ngx.HTTP_PUT,
[[{
"username": "pony",
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {
"access_key": "my-access-key2",
"secret_key": "my-secret-key2",
"clock_skew": 1
}
}
}]],
[[{
"node": {
"value": {
"username": "pony",
"plugins": {
"hmac-auth": {
"access_key": "my-access-key2",
"secret_key": "my-secret-key2",
"algorithm": "hmac-sha256",
"clock_skew": 1
}
}
}
},
"action": "set"
}]]
)
ngx.status = code
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- response_body
passed
--- no_error_log
[error]
=== TEST 11: verify: Clock skew exceeded
--- config
location /t {
content_by_lua_block {
local ngx_time = ngx.time
local ngx_http_time = ngx.http_time
local core = require("apisix.core")
local t = require("lib.test_admin")
local hmac = require("resty.hmac")
local ngx_encode_base64 = ngx.encode_base64
local secret_key = "my-secret-key2"
local time = ngx_time()
local gmt = ngx_http_time(time)
local access_key = "my-access-key2"
local custom_header_a = "asld$%dfasf"
local custom_header_b = "23879fmsldfk"
local signing_string = "GET" .. "/hello" .. "" ..
access_key .. gmt .. custom_header_a .. custom_header_b
ngx.sleep(2)
local signature = hmac:new(secret_key, hmac.ALGOS.SHA256):final(signing_string)
core.log.info("signature:", ngx_encode_base64(signature))
local headers = {}
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-SIGNATURE"] = ngx_encode_base64(signature)
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-ALGORITHM"] = "hmac-sha256"
headers["X-APISIX-DATE"] = gmt
headers["X-APISIX-HMAC-ACCESS-KEY"] = access_key
local code, body = t.test('/hello',
ngx.HTTP_GET,
core.json.encode(data),
nil,
headers
)
ngx.status = code
ngx.say(body)
}
}
--- request
GET /t
--- error_code: 401
--- response_body eval
qr/\{"message":"Clock skew exceeded"\}/
--- no_error_log
[error]
|
/*
* Copyright (c) 2011 The WebRTC project authors. All Rights Reserved.
*
* Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license
* that can be found in the LICENSE file in the root of the source
* tree. An additional intellectual property rights grant can be found
* in the file PATENTS. All contributing project authors may
* be found in the AUTHORS file in the root of the source tree.
*/
/*
* This file contains the Q14 radix-8 tables used in ARM9e optimizations.
*
*/
extern const int s_Q14S_8;
const int s_Q14S_8 = 1024;
extern const unsigned short t_Q14S_8[2032];
const unsigned short t_Q14S_8[2032] = {
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,
0x22a3,0x187e ,0x3249,0x0c7c ,0x11a8,0x238e ,
0x0000,0x2d41 ,0x22a3,0x187e ,0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,
0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0x11a8,0x238e ,0xb4be,0x3ec5 ,
0xc000,0x4000 ,0x0000,0x2d41 ,0xa57e,0x2d41 ,
0xac61,0x3b21 ,0xee58,0x3537 ,0xb4be,0x0c7c ,
0xa57e,0x2d41 ,0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0xdd5d,0xe782 ,
0xac61,0x187e ,0xcdb7,0x3ec5 ,0x11a8,0xcac9 ,
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,
0x396b,0x0646 ,0x3cc8,0x0324 ,0x35eb,0x0964 ,
0x3249,0x0c7c ,0x396b,0x0646 ,0x2aaa,0x1294 ,
0x2aaa,0x1294 ,0x35eb,0x0964 ,0x1e7e,0x1b5d ,
0x22a3,0x187e ,0x3249,0x0c7c ,0x11a8,0x238e ,
0x1a46,0x1e2b ,0x2e88,0x0f8d ,0x0471,0x2afb ,
0x11a8,0x238e ,0x2aaa,0x1294 ,0xf721,0x3179 ,
0x08df,0x289a ,0x26b3,0x1590 ,0xea02,0x36e5 ,
0x0000,0x2d41 ,0x22a3,0x187e ,0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,
0xf721,0x3179 ,0x1e7e,0x1b5d ,0xd178,0x3e15 ,
0xee58,0x3537 ,0x1a46,0x1e2b ,0xc695,0x3fb1 ,
0xe5ba,0x3871 ,0x15fe,0x20e7 ,0xbcf0,0x3fec ,
0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0x11a8,0x238e ,0xb4be,0x3ec5 ,
0xd556,0x3d3f ,0x0d48,0x2620 ,0xae2e,0x3c42 ,
0xcdb7,0x3ec5 ,0x08df,0x289a ,0xa963,0x3871 ,
0xc695,0x3fb1 ,0x0471,0x2afb ,0xa678,0x3368 ,
0xc000,0x4000 ,0x0000,0x2d41 ,0xa57e,0x2d41 ,
0xba09,0x3fb1 ,0xfb8f,0x2f6c ,0xa678,0x2620 ,
0xb4be,0x3ec5 ,0xf721,0x3179 ,0xa963,0x1e2b ,
0xb02d,0x3d3f ,0xf2b8,0x3368 ,0xae2e,0x1590 ,
0xac61,0x3b21 ,0xee58,0x3537 ,0xb4be,0x0c7c ,
0xa963,0x3871 ,0xea02,0x36e5 ,0xbcf0,0x0324 ,
0xa73b,0x3537 ,0xe5ba,0x3871 ,0xc695,0xf9ba ,
0xa5ed,0x3179 ,0xe182,0x39db ,0xd178,0xf073 ,
0xa57e,0x2d41 ,0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0xdd5d,0xe782 ,
0xa5ed,0x289a ,0xd94d,0x3c42 ,0xea02,0xdf19 ,
0xa73b,0x238e ,0xd556,0x3d3f ,0xf721,0xd766 ,
0xa963,0x1e2b ,0xd178,0x3e15 ,0x0471,0xd094 ,
0xac61,0x187e ,0xcdb7,0x3ec5 ,0x11a8,0xcac9 ,
0xb02d,0x1294 ,0xca15,0x3f4f ,0x1e7e,0xc625 ,
0xb4be,0x0c7c ,0xc695,0x3fb1 ,0x2aaa,0xc2c1 ,
0xba09,0x0646 ,0xc338,0x3fec ,0x35eb,0xc0b1 ,
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,
0x3e69,0x0192 ,0x3f36,0x00c9 ,0x3d9a,0x025b ,
0x3cc8,0x0324 ,0x3e69,0x0192 ,0x3b1e,0x04b5 ,
0x3b1e,0x04b5 ,0x3d9a,0x025b ,0x388e,0x070e ,
0x396b,0x0646 ,0x3cc8,0x0324 ,0x35eb,0x0964 ,
0x37af,0x07d6 ,0x3bf4,0x03ed ,0x3334,0x0bb7 ,
0x35eb,0x0964 ,0x3b1e,0x04b5 ,0x306c,0x0e06 ,
0x341e,0x0af1 ,0x3a46,0x057e ,0x2d93,0x1050 ,
0x3249,0x0c7c ,0x396b,0x0646 ,0x2aaa,0x1294 ,
0x306c,0x0e06 ,0x388e,0x070e ,0x27b3,0x14d2 ,
0x2e88,0x0f8d ,0x37af,0x07d6 ,0x24ae,0x1709 ,
0x2c9d,0x1112 ,0x36ce,0x089d ,0x219c,0x1937 ,
0x2aaa,0x1294 ,0x35eb,0x0964 ,0x1e7e,0x1b5d ,
0x28b2,0x1413 ,0x3505,0x0a2b ,0x1b56,0x1d79 ,
0x26b3,0x1590 ,0x341e,0x0af1 ,0x1824,0x1f8c ,
0x24ae,0x1709 ,0x3334,0x0bb7 ,0x14ea,0x2193 ,
0x22a3,0x187e ,0x3249,0x0c7c ,0x11a8,0x238e ,
0x2093,0x19ef ,0x315b,0x0d41 ,0x0e61,0x257e ,
0x1e7e,0x1b5d ,0x306c,0x0e06 ,0x0b14,0x2760 ,
0x1c64,0x1cc6 ,0x2f7b,0x0eca ,0x07c4,0x2935 ,
0x1a46,0x1e2b ,0x2e88,0x0f8d ,0x0471,0x2afb ,
0x1824,0x1f8c ,0x2d93,0x1050 ,0x011c,0x2cb2 ,
0x15fe,0x20e7 ,0x2c9d,0x1112 ,0xfdc7,0x2e5a ,
0x13d5,0x223d ,0x2ba4,0x11d3 ,0xfa73,0x2ff2 ,
0x11a8,0x238e ,0x2aaa,0x1294 ,0xf721,0x3179 ,
0x0f79,0x24da ,0x29af,0x1354 ,0xf3d2,0x32ef ,
0x0d48,0x2620 ,0x28b2,0x1413 ,0xf087,0x3453 ,
0x0b14,0x2760 ,0x27b3,0x14d2 ,0xed41,0x35a5 ,
0x08df,0x289a ,0x26b3,0x1590 ,0xea02,0x36e5 ,
0x06a9,0x29ce ,0x25b1,0x164c ,0xe6cb,0x3812 ,
0x0471,0x2afb ,0x24ae,0x1709 ,0xe39c,0x392b ,
0x0239,0x2c21 ,0x23a9,0x17c4 ,0xe077,0x3a30 ,
0x0000,0x2d41 ,0x22a3,0x187e ,0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,
0xfdc7,0x2e5a ,0x219c,0x1937 ,0xda4f,0x3bfd ,
0xfb8f,0x2f6c ,0x2093,0x19ef ,0xd74e,0x3cc5 ,
0xf957,0x3076 ,0x1f89,0x1aa7 ,0xd45c,0x3d78 ,
0xf721,0x3179 ,0x1e7e,0x1b5d ,0xd178,0x3e15 ,
0xf4ec,0x3274 ,0x1d72,0x1c12 ,0xcea5,0x3e9d ,
0xf2b8,0x3368 ,0x1c64,0x1cc6 ,0xcbe2,0x3f0f ,
0xf087,0x3453 ,0x1b56,0x1d79 ,0xc932,0x3f6b ,
0xee58,0x3537 ,0x1a46,0x1e2b ,0xc695,0x3fb1 ,
0xec2b,0x3612 ,0x1935,0x1edc ,0xc40c,0x3fe1 ,
0xea02,0x36e5 ,0x1824,0x1f8c ,0xc197,0x3ffb ,
0xe7dc,0x37b0 ,0x1711,0x203a ,0xbf38,0x3fff ,
0xe5ba,0x3871 ,0x15fe,0x20e7 ,0xbcf0,0x3fec ,
0xe39c,0x392b ,0x14ea,0x2193 ,0xbabf,0x3fc4 ,
0xe182,0x39db ,0x13d5,0x223d ,0xb8a6,0x3f85 ,
0xdf6d,0x3a82 ,0x12bf,0x22e7 ,0xb6a5,0x3f30 ,
0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0x11a8,0x238e ,0xb4be,0x3ec5 ,
0xdb52,0x3bb6 ,0x1091,0x2435 ,0xb2f2,0x3e45 ,
0xd94d,0x3c42 ,0x0f79,0x24da ,0xb140,0x3daf ,
0xd74e,0x3cc5 ,0x0e61,0x257e ,0xafa9,0x3d03 ,
0xd556,0x3d3f ,0x0d48,0x2620 ,0xae2e,0x3c42 ,
0xd363,0x3daf ,0x0c2e,0x26c1 ,0xacd0,0x3b6d ,
0xd178,0x3e15 ,0x0b14,0x2760 ,0xab8e,0x3a82 ,
0xcf94,0x3e72 ,0x09fa,0x27fe ,0xaa6a,0x3984 ,
0xcdb7,0x3ec5 ,0x08df,0x289a ,0xa963,0x3871 ,
0xcbe2,0x3f0f ,0x07c4,0x2935 ,0xa87b,0x374b ,
0xca15,0x3f4f ,0x06a9,0x29ce ,0xa7b1,0x3612 ,
0xc851,0x3f85 ,0x058d,0x2a65 ,0xa705,0x34c6 ,
0xc695,0x3fb1 ,0x0471,0x2afb ,0xa678,0x3368 ,
0xc4e2,0x3fd4 ,0x0355,0x2b8f ,0xa60b,0x31f8 ,
0xc338,0x3fec ,0x0239,0x2c21 ,0xa5bc,0x3076 ,
0xc197,0x3ffb ,0x011c,0x2cb2 ,0xa58d,0x2ee4 ,
0xc000,0x4000 ,0x0000,0x2d41 ,0xa57e,0x2d41 ,
0xbe73,0x3ffb ,0xfee4,0x2dcf ,0xa58d,0x2b8f ,
0xbcf0,0x3fec ,0xfdc7,0x2e5a ,0xa5bc,0x29ce ,
0xbb77,0x3fd4 ,0xfcab,0x2ee4 ,0xa60b,0x27fe ,
0xba09,0x3fb1 ,0xfb8f,0x2f6c ,0xa678,0x2620 ,
0xb8a6,0x3f85 ,0xfa73,0x2ff2 ,0xa705,0x2435 ,
0xb74d,0x3f4f ,0xf957,0x3076 ,0xa7b1,0x223d ,
0xb600,0x3f0f ,0xf83c,0x30f9 ,0xa87b,0x203a ,
0xb4be,0x3ec5 ,0xf721,0x3179 ,0xa963,0x1e2b ,
0xb388,0x3e72 ,0xf606,0x31f8 ,0xaa6a,0x1c12 ,
0xb25e,0x3e15 ,0xf4ec,0x3274 ,0xab8e,0x19ef ,
0xb140,0x3daf ,0xf3d2,0x32ef ,0xacd0,0x17c4 ,
0xb02d,0x3d3f ,0xf2b8,0x3368 ,0xae2e,0x1590 ,
0xaf28,0x3cc5 ,0xf19f,0x33df ,0xafa9,0x1354 ,
0xae2e,0x3c42 ,0xf087,0x3453 ,0xb140,0x1112 ,
0xad41,0x3bb6 ,0xef6f,0x34c6 ,0xb2f2,0x0eca ,
0xac61,0x3b21 ,0xee58,0x3537 ,0xb4be,0x0c7c ,
0xab8e,0x3a82 ,0xed41,0x35a5 ,0xb6a5,0x0a2b ,
0xaac8,0x39db ,0xec2b,0x3612 ,0xb8a6,0x07d6 ,
0xaa0f,0x392b ,0xeb16,0x367d ,0xbabf,0x057e ,
0xa963,0x3871 ,0xea02,0x36e5 ,0xbcf0,0x0324 ,
0xa8c5,0x37b0 ,0xe8ef,0x374b ,0xbf38,0x00c9 ,
0xa834,0x36e5 ,0xe7dc,0x37b0 ,0xc197,0xfe6e ,
0xa7b1,0x3612 ,0xe6cb,0x3812 ,0xc40c,0xfc13 ,
0xa73b,0x3537 ,0xe5ba,0x3871 ,0xc695,0xf9ba ,
0xa6d3,0x3453 ,0xe4aa,0x38cf ,0xc932,0xf763 ,
0xa678,0x3368 ,0xe39c,0x392b ,0xcbe2,0xf50f ,
0xa62c,0x3274 ,0xe28e,0x3984 ,0xcea5,0xf2bf ,
0xa5ed,0x3179 ,0xe182,0x39db ,0xd178,0xf073 ,
0xa5bc,0x3076 ,0xe077,0x3a30 ,0xd45c,0xee2d ,
0xa599,0x2f6c ,0xdf6d,0x3a82 ,0xd74e,0xebed ,
0xa585,0x2e5a ,0xde64,0x3ad3 ,0xda4f,0xe9b4 ,
0xa57e,0x2d41 ,0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0xdd5d,0xe782 ,
0xa585,0x2c21 ,0xdc57,0x3b6d ,0xe077,0xe559 ,
0xa599,0x2afb ,0xdb52,0x3bb6 ,0xe39c,0xe33a ,
0xa5bc,0x29ce ,0xda4f,0x3bfd ,0xe6cb,0xe124 ,
0xa5ed,0x289a ,0xd94d,0x3c42 ,0xea02,0xdf19 ,
0xa62c,0x2760 ,0xd84d,0x3c85 ,0xed41,0xdd19 ,
0xa678,0x2620 ,0xd74e,0x3cc5 ,0xf087,0xdb26 ,
0xa6d3,0x24da ,0xd651,0x3d03 ,0xf3d2,0xd93f ,
0xa73b,0x238e ,0xd556,0x3d3f ,0xf721,0xd766 ,
0xa7b1,0x223d ,0xd45c,0x3d78 ,0xfa73,0xd59b ,
0xa834,0x20e7 ,0xd363,0x3daf ,0xfdc7,0xd3df ,
0xa8c5,0x1f8c ,0xd26d,0x3de3 ,0x011c,0xd231 ,
0xa963,0x1e2b ,0xd178,0x3e15 ,0x0471,0xd094 ,
0xaa0f,0x1cc6 ,0xd085,0x3e45 ,0x07c4,0xcf07 ,
0xaac8,0x1b5d ,0xcf94,0x3e72 ,0x0b14,0xcd8c ,
0xab8e,0x19ef ,0xcea5,0x3e9d ,0x0e61,0xcc21 ,
0xac61,0x187e ,0xcdb7,0x3ec5 ,0x11a8,0xcac9 ,
0xad41,0x1709 ,0xcccc,0x3eeb ,0x14ea,0xc983 ,
0xae2e,0x1590 ,0xcbe2,0x3f0f ,0x1824,0xc850 ,
0xaf28,0x1413 ,0xcafb,0x3f30 ,0x1b56,0xc731 ,
0xb02d,0x1294 ,0xca15,0x3f4f ,0x1e7e,0xc625 ,
0xb140,0x1112 ,0xc932,0x3f6b ,0x219c,0xc52d ,
0xb25e,0x0f8d ,0xc851,0x3f85 ,0x24ae,0xc44a ,
0xb388,0x0e06 ,0xc772,0x3f9c ,0x27b3,0xc37b ,
0xb4be,0x0c7c ,0xc695,0x3fb1 ,0x2aaa,0xc2c1 ,
0xb600,0x0af1 ,0xc5ba,0x3fc4 ,0x2d93,0xc21d ,
0xb74d,0x0964 ,0xc4e2,0x3fd4 ,0x306c,0xc18e ,
0xb8a6,0x07d6 ,0xc40c,0x3fe1 ,0x3334,0xc115 ,
0xba09,0x0646 ,0xc338,0x3fec ,0x35eb,0xc0b1 ,
0xbb77,0x04b5 ,0xc266,0x3ff5 ,0x388e,0xc064 ,
0xbcf0,0x0324 ,0xc197,0x3ffb ,0x3b1e,0xc02c ,
0xbe73,0x0192 ,0xc0ca,0x3fff ,0x3d9a,0xc00b ,
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x3f9b,0x0065 ,0x3f36,0x00c9 ,
0x3ed0,0x012e ,0x3e69,0x0192 ,0x3e02,0x01f7 ,
0x3d9a,0x025b ,0x3d31,0x02c0 ,0x3cc8,0x0324 ,
0x3c5f,0x0388 ,0x3bf4,0x03ed ,0x3b8a,0x0451 ,
0x3b1e,0x04b5 ,0x3ab2,0x051a ,0x3a46,0x057e ,
0x39d9,0x05e2 ,0x396b,0x0646 ,0x38fd,0x06aa ,
0x388e,0x070e ,0x381f,0x0772 ,0x37af,0x07d6 ,
0x373f,0x0839 ,0x36ce,0x089d ,0x365d,0x0901 ,
0x35eb,0x0964 ,0x3578,0x09c7 ,0x3505,0x0a2b ,
0x3492,0x0a8e ,0x341e,0x0af1 ,0x33a9,0x0b54 ,
0x3334,0x0bb7 ,0x32bf,0x0c1a ,0x3249,0x0c7c ,
0x31d2,0x0cdf ,0x315b,0x0d41 ,0x30e4,0x0da4 ,
0x306c,0x0e06 ,0x2ff4,0x0e68 ,0x2f7b,0x0eca ,
0x2f02,0x0f2b ,0x2e88,0x0f8d ,0x2e0e,0x0fee ,
0x2d93,0x1050 ,0x2d18,0x10b1 ,0x2c9d,0x1112 ,
0x2c21,0x1173 ,0x2ba4,0x11d3 ,0x2b28,0x1234 ,
0x2aaa,0x1294 ,0x2a2d,0x12f4 ,0x29af,0x1354 ,
0x2931,0x13b4 ,0x28b2,0x1413 ,0x2833,0x1473 ,
0x27b3,0x14d2 ,0x2733,0x1531 ,0x26b3,0x1590 ,
0x2632,0x15ee ,0x25b1,0x164c ,0x252f,0x16ab ,
0x24ae,0x1709 ,0x242b,0x1766 ,0x23a9,0x17c4 ,
0x2326,0x1821 ,0x22a3,0x187e ,0x221f,0x18db ,
0x219c,0x1937 ,0x2117,0x1993 ,0x2093,0x19ef ,
0x200e,0x1a4b ,0x1f89,0x1aa7 ,0x1f04,0x1b02 ,
0x1e7e,0x1b5d ,0x1df8,0x1bb8 ,0x1d72,0x1c12 ,
0x1ceb,0x1c6c ,0x1c64,0x1cc6 ,0x1bdd,0x1d20 ,
0x1b56,0x1d79 ,0x1ace,0x1dd3 ,0x1a46,0x1e2b ,
0x19be,0x1e84 ,0x1935,0x1edc ,0x18ad,0x1f34 ,
0x1824,0x1f8c ,0x179b,0x1fe3 ,0x1711,0x203a ,
0x1688,0x2091 ,0x15fe,0x20e7 ,0x1574,0x213d ,
0x14ea,0x2193 ,0x145f,0x21e8 ,0x13d5,0x223d ,
0x134a,0x2292 ,0x12bf,0x22e7 ,0x1234,0x233b ,
0x11a8,0x238e ,0x111d,0x23e2 ,0x1091,0x2435 ,
0x1005,0x2488 ,0x0f79,0x24da ,0x0eed,0x252c ,
0x0e61,0x257e ,0x0dd4,0x25cf ,0x0d48,0x2620 ,
0x0cbb,0x2671 ,0x0c2e,0x26c1 ,0x0ba1,0x2711 ,
0x0b14,0x2760 ,0x0a87,0x27af ,0x09fa,0x27fe ,
0x096d,0x284c ,0x08df,0x289a ,0x0852,0x28e7 ,
0x07c4,0x2935 ,0x0736,0x2981 ,0x06a9,0x29ce ,
0x061b,0x2a1a ,0x058d,0x2a65 ,0x04ff,0x2ab0 ,
0x0471,0x2afb ,0x03e3,0x2b45 ,0x0355,0x2b8f ,
0x02c7,0x2bd8 ,0x0239,0x2c21 ,0x01aa,0x2c6a ,
0x011c,0x2cb2 ,0x008e,0x2cfa ,0x0000,0x2d41 ,
0xff72,0x2d88 ,0xfee4,0x2dcf ,0xfe56,0x2e15 ,
0xfdc7,0x2e5a ,0xfd39,0x2e9f ,0xfcab,0x2ee4 ,
0xfc1d,0x2f28 ,0xfb8f,0x2f6c ,0xfb01,0x2faf ,
0xfa73,0x2ff2 ,0xf9e5,0x3034 ,0xf957,0x3076 ,
0xf8ca,0x30b8 ,0xf83c,0x30f9 ,0xf7ae,0x3139 ,
0xf721,0x3179 ,0xf693,0x31b9 ,0xf606,0x31f8 ,
0xf579,0x3236 ,0xf4ec,0x3274 ,0xf45f,0x32b2 ,
0xf3d2,0x32ef ,0xf345,0x332c ,0xf2b8,0x3368 ,
0xf22c,0x33a3 ,0xf19f,0x33df ,0xf113,0x3419 ,
0xf087,0x3453 ,0xeffb,0x348d ,0xef6f,0x34c6 ,
0xeee3,0x34ff ,0xee58,0x3537 ,0xedcc,0x356e ,
0xed41,0x35a5 ,0xecb6,0x35dc ,0xec2b,0x3612 ,
0xeba1,0x3648 ,0xeb16,0x367d ,0xea8c,0x36b1 ,
0xea02,0x36e5 ,0xe978,0x3718 ,0xe8ef,0x374b ,
0xe865,0x377e ,0xe7dc,0x37b0 ,0xe753,0x37e1 ,
0xe6cb,0x3812 ,0xe642,0x3842 ,0xe5ba,0x3871 ,
0xe532,0x38a1 ,0xe4aa,0x38cf ,0xe423,0x38fd ,
0xe39c,0x392b ,0xe315,0x3958 ,0xe28e,0x3984 ,
0xe208,0x39b0 ,0xe182,0x39db ,0xe0fc,0x3a06 ,
0xe077,0x3a30 ,0xdff2,0x3a59 ,0xdf6d,0x3a82 ,
0xdee9,0x3aab ,0xde64,0x3ad3 ,0xdde1,0x3afa ,
0xdd5d,0x3b21 ,0xdcda,0x3b47 ,0xdc57,0x3b6d ,
0xdbd5,0x3b92 ,0xdb52,0x3bb6 ,0xdad1,0x3bda ,
0xda4f,0x3bfd ,0xd9ce,0x3c20 ,0xd94d,0x3c42 ,
0xd8cd,0x3c64 ,0xd84d,0x3c85 ,0xd7cd,0x3ca5 ,
0xd74e,0x3cc5 ,0xd6cf,0x3ce4 ,0xd651,0x3d03 ,
0xd5d3,0x3d21 ,0xd556,0x3d3f ,0xd4d8,0x3d5b ,
0xd45c,0x3d78 ,0xd3df,0x3d93 ,0xd363,0x3daf ,
0xd2e8,0x3dc9 ,0xd26d,0x3de3 ,0xd1f2,0x3dfc ,
0xd178,0x3e15 ,0xd0fe,0x3e2d ,0xd085,0x3e45 ,
0xd00c,0x3e5c ,0xcf94,0x3e72 ,0xcf1c,0x3e88 ,
0xcea5,0x3e9d ,0xce2e,0x3eb1 ,0xcdb7,0x3ec5 ,
0xcd41,0x3ed8 ,0xcccc,0x3eeb ,0xcc57,0x3efd ,
0xcbe2,0x3f0f ,0xcb6e,0x3f20 ,0xcafb,0x3f30 ,
0xca88,0x3f40 ,0xca15,0x3f4f ,0xc9a3,0x3f5d ,
0xc932,0x3f6b ,0xc8c1,0x3f78 ,0xc851,0x3f85 ,
0xc7e1,0x3f91 ,0xc772,0x3f9c ,0xc703,0x3fa7 ,
0xc695,0x3fb1 ,0xc627,0x3fbb ,0xc5ba,0x3fc4 ,
0xc54e,0x3fcc ,0xc4e2,0x3fd4 ,0xc476,0x3fdb ,
0xc40c,0x3fe1 ,0xc3a1,0x3fe7 ,0xc338,0x3fec ,
0xc2cf,0x3ff1 ,0xc266,0x3ff5 ,0xc1fe,0x3ff8 ,
0xc197,0x3ffb ,0xc130,0x3ffd ,0xc0ca,0x3fff ,
0xc065,0x4000 ,0xc000,0x4000 ,0xbf9c,0x4000 ,
0xbf38,0x3fff ,0xbed5,0x3ffd ,0xbe73,0x3ffb ,
0xbe11,0x3ff8 ,0xbdb0,0x3ff5 ,0xbd50,0x3ff1 ,
0xbcf0,0x3fec ,0xbc91,0x3fe7 ,0xbc32,0x3fe1 ,
0xbbd4,0x3fdb ,0xbb77,0x3fd4 ,0xbb1b,0x3fcc ,
0xbabf,0x3fc4 ,0xba64,0x3fbb ,0xba09,0x3fb1 ,
0xb9af,0x3fa7 ,0xb956,0x3f9c ,0xb8fd,0x3f91 ,
0xb8a6,0x3f85 ,0xb84f,0x3f78 ,0xb7f8,0x3f6b ,
0xb7a2,0x3f5d ,0xb74d,0x3f4f ,0xb6f9,0x3f40 ,
0xb6a5,0x3f30 ,0xb652,0x3f20 ,0xb600,0x3f0f ,
0xb5af,0x3efd ,0xb55e,0x3eeb ,0xb50e,0x3ed8 ,
0xb4be,0x3ec5 ,0xb470,0x3eb1 ,0xb422,0x3e9d ,
0xb3d5,0x3e88 ,0xb388,0x3e72 ,0xb33d,0x3e5c ,
0xb2f2,0x3e45 ,0xb2a7,0x3e2d ,0xb25e,0x3e15 ,
0xb215,0x3dfc ,0xb1cd,0x3de3 ,0xb186,0x3dc9 ,
0xb140,0x3daf ,0xb0fa,0x3d93 ,0xb0b5,0x3d78 ,
0xb071,0x3d5b ,0xb02d,0x3d3f ,0xafeb,0x3d21 ,
0xafa9,0x3d03 ,0xaf68,0x3ce4 ,0xaf28,0x3cc5 ,
0xaee8,0x3ca5 ,0xaea9,0x3c85 ,0xae6b,0x3c64 ,
0xae2e,0x3c42 ,0xadf2,0x3c20 ,0xadb6,0x3bfd ,
0xad7b,0x3bda ,0xad41,0x3bb6 ,0xad08,0x3b92 ,
0xacd0,0x3b6d ,0xac98,0x3b47 ,0xac61,0x3b21 ,
0xac2b,0x3afa ,0xabf6,0x3ad3 ,0xabc2,0x3aab ,
0xab8e,0x3a82 ,0xab5b,0x3a59 ,0xab29,0x3a30 ,
0xaaf8,0x3a06 ,0xaac8,0x39db ,0xaa98,0x39b0 ,
0xaa6a,0x3984 ,0xaa3c,0x3958 ,0xaa0f,0x392b ,
0xa9e3,0x38fd ,0xa9b7,0x38cf ,0xa98d,0x38a1 ,
0xa963,0x3871 ,0xa93a,0x3842 ,0xa912,0x3812 ,
0xa8eb,0x37e1 ,0xa8c5,0x37b0 ,0xa89f,0x377e ,
0xa87b,0x374b ,0xa857,0x3718 ,0xa834,0x36e5 ,
0xa812,0x36b1 ,0xa7f1,0x367d ,0xa7d0,0x3648 ,
0xa7b1,0x3612 ,0xa792,0x35dc ,0xa774,0x35a5 ,
0xa757,0x356e ,0xa73b,0x3537 ,0xa71f,0x34ff ,
0xa705,0x34c6 ,0xa6eb,0x348d ,0xa6d3,0x3453 ,
0xa6bb,0x3419 ,0xa6a4,0x33df ,0xa68e,0x33a3 ,
0xa678,0x3368 ,0xa664,0x332c ,0xa650,0x32ef ,
0xa63e,0x32b2 ,0xa62c,0x3274 ,0xa61b,0x3236 ,
0xa60b,0x31f8 ,0xa5fb,0x31b9 ,0xa5ed,0x3179 ,
0xa5e0,0x3139 ,0xa5d3,0x30f9 ,0xa5c7,0x30b8 ,
0xa5bc,0x3076 ,0xa5b2,0x3034 ,0xa5a9,0x2ff2 ,
0xa5a1,0x2faf ,0xa599,0x2f6c ,0xa593,0x2f28 ,
0xa58d,0x2ee4 ,0xa588,0x2e9f ,0xa585,0x2e5a ,
0xa581,0x2e15 ,0xa57f,0x2dcf ,0xa57e,0x2d88 ,
0xa57e,0x2d41 ,0xa57e,0x2cfa ,0xa57f,0x2cb2 ,
0xa581,0x2c6a ,0xa585,0x2c21 ,0xa588,0x2bd8 ,
0xa58d,0x2b8f ,0xa593,0x2b45 ,0xa599,0x2afb ,
0xa5a1,0x2ab0 ,0xa5a9,0x2a65 ,0xa5b2,0x2a1a ,
0xa5bc,0x29ce ,0xa5c7,0x2981 ,0xa5d3,0x2935 ,
0xa5e0,0x28e7 ,0xa5ed,0x289a ,0xa5fb,0x284c ,
0xa60b,0x27fe ,0xa61b,0x27af ,0xa62c,0x2760 ,
0xa63e,0x2711 ,0xa650,0x26c1 ,0xa664,0x2671 ,
0xa678,0x2620 ,0xa68e,0x25cf ,0xa6a4,0x257e ,
0xa6bb,0x252c ,0xa6d3,0x24da ,0xa6eb,0x2488 ,
0xa705,0x2435 ,0xa71f,0x23e2 ,0xa73b,0x238e ,
0xa757,0x233b ,0xa774,0x22e7 ,0xa792,0x2292 ,
0xa7b1,0x223d ,0xa7d0,0x21e8 ,0xa7f1,0x2193 ,
0xa812,0x213d ,0xa834,0x20e7 ,0xa857,0x2091 ,
0xa87b,0x203a ,0xa89f,0x1fe3 ,0xa8c5,0x1f8c ,
0xa8eb,0x1f34 ,0xa912,0x1edc ,0xa93a,0x1e84 ,
0xa963,0x1e2b ,0xa98d,0x1dd3 ,0xa9b7,0x1d79 ,
0xa9e3,0x1d20 ,0xaa0f,0x1cc6 ,0xaa3c,0x1c6c ,
0xaa6a,0x1c12 ,0xaa98,0x1bb8 ,0xaac8,0x1b5d ,
0xaaf8,0x1b02 ,0xab29,0x1aa7 ,0xab5b,0x1a4b ,
0xab8e,0x19ef ,0xabc2,0x1993 ,0xabf6,0x1937 ,
0xac2b,0x18db ,0xac61,0x187e ,0xac98,0x1821 ,
0xacd0,0x17c4 ,0xad08,0x1766 ,0xad41,0x1709 ,
0xad7b,0x16ab ,0xadb6,0x164c ,0xadf2,0x15ee ,
0xae2e,0x1590 ,0xae6b,0x1531 ,0xaea9,0x14d2 ,
0xaee8,0x1473 ,0xaf28,0x1413 ,0xaf68,0x13b4 ,
0xafa9,0x1354 ,0xafeb,0x12f4 ,0xb02d,0x1294 ,
0xb071,0x1234 ,0xb0b5,0x11d3 ,0xb0fa,0x1173 ,
0xb140,0x1112 ,0xb186,0x10b1 ,0xb1cd,0x1050 ,
0xb215,0x0fee ,0xb25e,0x0f8d ,0xb2a7,0x0f2b ,
0xb2f2,0x0eca ,0xb33d,0x0e68 ,0xb388,0x0e06 ,
0xb3d5,0x0da4 ,0xb422,0x0d41 ,0xb470,0x0cdf ,
0xb4be,0x0c7c ,0xb50e,0x0c1a ,0xb55e,0x0bb7 ,
0xb5af,0x0b54 ,0xb600,0x0af1 ,0xb652,0x0a8e ,
0xb6a5,0x0a2b ,0xb6f9,0x09c7 ,0xb74d,0x0964 ,
0xb7a2,0x0901 ,0xb7f8,0x089d ,0xb84f,0x0839 ,
0xb8a6,0x07d6 ,0xb8fd,0x0772 ,0xb956,0x070e ,
0xb9af,0x06aa ,0xba09,0x0646 ,0xba64,0x05e2 ,
0xbabf,0x057e ,0xbb1b,0x051a ,0xbb77,0x04b5 ,
0xbbd4,0x0451 ,0xbc32,0x03ed ,0xbc91,0x0388 ,
0xbcf0,0x0324 ,0xbd50,0x02c0 ,0xbdb0,0x025b ,
0xbe11,0x01f7 ,0xbe73,0x0192 ,0xbed5,0x012e ,
0xbf38,0x00c9 ,0xbf9c,0x0065 };
extern const int s_Q14R_8;
const int s_Q14R_8 = 1024;
extern const unsigned short t_Q14R_8[2032];
const unsigned short t_Q14R_8[2032] = {
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,
0x3b21,0x187e ,0x3ec5,0x0c7c ,0x3537,0x238e ,
0x2d41,0x2d41 ,0x3b21,0x187e ,0x187e,0x3b21 ,
0x187e,0x3b21 ,0x3537,0x238e ,0xf384,0x3ec5 ,
0x0000,0x4000 ,0x2d41,0x2d41 ,0xd2bf,0x2d41 ,
0xe782,0x3b21 ,0x238e,0x3537 ,0xc13b,0x0c7c ,
0xd2bf,0x2d41 ,0x187e,0x3b21 ,0xc4df,0xe782 ,
0xc4df,0x187e ,0x0c7c,0x3ec5 ,0xdc72,0xcac9 ,
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,
0x3fb1,0x0646 ,0x3fec,0x0324 ,0x3f4f,0x0964 ,
0x3ec5,0x0c7c ,0x3fb1,0x0646 ,0x3d3f,0x1294 ,
0x3d3f,0x1294 ,0x3f4f,0x0964 ,0x39db,0x1b5d ,
0x3b21,0x187e ,0x3ec5,0x0c7c ,0x3537,0x238e ,
0x3871,0x1e2b ,0x3e15,0x0f8d ,0x2f6c,0x2afb ,
0x3537,0x238e ,0x3d3f,0x1294 ,0x289a,0x3179 ,
0x3179,0x289a ,0x3c42,0x1590 ,0x20e7,0x36e5 ,
0x2d41,0x2d41 ,0x3b21,0x187e ,0x187e,0x3b21 ,
0x289a,0x3179 ,0x39db,0x1b5d ,0x0f8d,0x3e15 ,
0x238e,0x3537 ,0x3871,0x1e2b ,0x0646,0x3fb1 ,
0x1e2b,0x3871 ,0x36e5,0x20e7 ,0xfcdc,0x3fec ,
0x187e,0x3b21 ,0x3537,0x238e ,0xf384,0x3ec5 ,
0x1294,0x3d3f ,0x3368,0x2620 ,0xea70,0x3c42 ,
0x0c7c,0x3ec5 ,0x3179,0x289a ,0xe1d5,0x3871 ,
0x0646,0x3fb1 ,0x2f6c,0x2afb ,0xd9e0,0x3368 ,
0x0000,0x4000 ,0x2d41,0x2d41 ,0xd2bf,0x2d41 ,
0xf9ba,0x3fb1 ,0x2afb,0x2f6c ,0xcc98,0x2620 ,
0xf384,0x3ec5 ,0x289a,0x3179 ,0xc78f,0x1e2b ,
0xed6c,0x3d3f ,0x2620,0x3368 ,0xc3be,0x1590 ,
0xe782,0x3b21 ,0x238e,0x3537 ,0xc13b,0x0c7c ,
0xe1d5,0x3871 ,0x20e7,0x36e5 ,0xc014,0x0324 ,
0xdc72,0x3537 ,0x1e2b,0x3871 ,0xc04f,0xf9ba ,
0xd766,0x3179 ,0x1b5d,0x39db ,0xc1eb,0xf073 ,
0xd2bf,0x2d41 ,0x187e,0x3b21 ,0xc4df,0xe782 ,
0xce87,0x289a ,0x1590,0x3c42 ,0xc91b,0xdf19 ,
0xcac9,0x238e ,0x1294,0x3d3f ,0xce87,0xd766 ,
0xc78f,0x1e2b ,0x0f8d,0x3e15 ,0xd505,0xd094 ,
0xc4df,0x187e ,0x0c7c,0x3ec5 ,0xdc72,0xcac9 ,
0xc2c1,0x1294 ,0x0964,0x3f4f ,0xe4a3,0xc625 ,
0xc13b,0x0c7c ,0x0646,0x3fb1 ,0xed6c,0xc2c1 ,
0xc04f,0x0646 ,0x0324,0x3fec ,0xf69c,0xc0b1 ,
0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,0x4000,0x0000 ,
0x3ffb,0x0192 ,0x3fff,0x00c9 ,0x3ff5,0x025b ,
0x3fec,0x0324 ,0x3ffb,0x0192 ,0x3fd4,0x04b5 ,
0x3fd4,0x04b5 ,0x3ff5,0x025b ,0x3f9c,0x070e ,
0x3fb1,0x0646 ,0x3fec,0x0324 ,0x3f4f,0x0964 ,
0x3f85,0x07d6 ,0x3fe1,0x03ed ,0x3eeb,0x0bb7 ,
0x3f4f,0x0964 ,0x3fd4,0x04b5 ,0x3e72,0x0e06 ,
0x3f0f,0x0af1 ,0x3fc4,0x057e ,0x3de3,0x1050 ,
0x3ec5,0x0c7c ,0x3fb1,0x0646 ,0x3d3f,0x1294 ,
0x3e72,0x0e06 ,0x3f9c,0x070e ,0x3c85,0x14d2 ,
0x3e15,0x0f8d ,0x3f85,0x07d6 ,0x3bb6,0x1709 ,
0x3daf,0x1112 ,0x3f6b,0x089d ,0x3ad3,0x1937 ,
0x3d3f,0x1294 ,0x3f4f,0x0964 ,0x39db,0x1b5d ,
0x3cc5,0x1413 ,0x3f30,0x0a2b ,0x38cf,0x1d79 ,
0x3c42,0x1590 ,0x3f0f,0x0af1 ,0x37b0,0x1f8c ,
0x3bb6,0x1709 ,0x3eeb,0x0bb7 ,0x367d,0x2193 ,
0x3b21,0x187e ,0x3ec5,0x0c7c ,0x3537,0x238e ,
0x3a82,0x19ef ,0x3e9d,0x0d41 ,0x33df,0x257e ,
0x39db,0x1b5d ,0x3e72,0x0e06 ,0x3274,0x2760 ,
0x392b,0x1cc6 ,0x3e45,0x0eca ,0x30f9,0x2935 ,
0x3871,0x1e2b ,0x3e15,0x0f8d ,0x2f6c,0x2afb ,
0x37b0,0x1f8c ,0x3de3,0x1050 ,0x2dcf,0x2cb2 ,
0x36e5,0x20e7 ,0x3daf,0x1112 ,0x2c21,0x2e5a ,
0x3612,0x223d ,0x3d78,0x11d3 ,0x2a65,0x2ff2 ,
0x3537,0x238e ,0x3d3f,0x1294 ,0x289a,0x3179 ,
0x3453,0x24da ,0x3d03,0x1354 ,0x26c1,0x32ef ,
0x3368,0x2620 ,0x3cc5,0x1413 ,0x24da,0x3453 ,
0x3274,0x2760 ,0x3c85,0x14d2 ,0x22e7,0x35a5 ,
0x3179,0x289a ,0x3c42,0x1590 ,0x20e7,0x36e5 ,
0x3076,0x29ce ,0x3bfd,0x164c ,0x1edc,0x3812 ,
0x2f6c,0x2afb ,0x3bb6,0x1709 ,0x1cc6,0x392b ,
0x2e5a,0x2c21 ,0x3b6d,0x17c4 ,0x1aa7,0x3a30 ,
0x2d41,0x2d41 ,0x3b21,0x187e ,0x187e,0x3b21 ,
0x2c21,0x2e5a ,0x3ad3,0x1937 ,0x164c,0x3bfd ,
0x2afb,0x2f6c ,0x3a82,0x19ef ,0x1413,0x3cc5 ,
0x29ce,0x3076 ,0x3a30,0x1aa7 ,0x11d3,0x3d78 ,
0x289a,0x3179 ,0x39db,0x1b5d ,0x0f8d,0x3e15 ,
0x2760,0x3274 ,0x3984,0x1c12 ,0x0d41,0x3e9d ,
0x2620,0x3368 ,0x392b,0x1cc6 ,0x0af1,0x3f0f ,
0x24da,0x3453 ,0x38cf,0x1d79 ,0x089d,0x3f6b ,
0x238e,0x3537 ,0x3871,0x1e2b ,0x0646,0x3fb1 ,
0x223d,0x3612 ,0x3812,0x1edc ,0x03ed,0x3fe1 ,
0x20e7,0x36e5 ,0x37b0,0x1f8c ,0x0192,0x3ffb ,
0x1f8c,0x37b0 ,0x374b,0x203a ,0xff37,0x3fff ,
0x1e2b,0x3871 ,0x36e5,0x20e7 ,0xfcdc,0x3fec ,
0x1cc6,0x392b ,0x367d,0x2193 ,0xfa82,0x3fc4 ,
0x1b5d,0x39db ,0x3612,0x223d ,0xf82a,0x3f85 ,
0x19ef,0x3a82 ,0x35a5,0x22e7 ,0xf5d5,0x3f30 ,
0x187e,0x3b21 ,0x3537,0x238e ,0xf384,0x3ec5 ,
0x1709,0x3bb6 ,0x34c6,0x2435 ,0xf136,0x3e45 ,
0x1590,0x3c42 ,0x3453,0x24da ,0xeeee,0x3daf ,
0x1413,0x3cc5 ,0x33df,0x257e ,0xecac,0x3d03 ,
0x1294,0x3d3f ,0x3368,0x2620 ,0xea70,0x3c42 ,
0x1112,0x3daf ,0x32ef,0x26c1 ,0xe83c,0x3b6d ,
0x0f8d,0x3e15 ,0x3274,0x2760 ,0xe611,0x3a82 ,
0x0e06,0x3e72 ,0x31f8,0x27fe ,0xe3ee,0x3984 ,
0x0c7c,0x3ec5 ,0x3179,0x289a ,0xe1d5,0x3871 ,
0x0af1,0x3f0f ,0x30f9,0x2935 ,0xdfc6,0x374b ,
0x0964,0x3f4f ,0x3076,0x29ce ,0xddc3,0x3612 ,
0x07d6,0x3f85 ,0x2ff2,0x2a65 ,0xdbcb,0x34c6 ,
0x0646,0x3fb1 ,0x2f6c,0x2afb ,0xd9e0,0x3368 ,
0x04b5,0x3fd4 ,0x2ee4,0x2b8f ,0xd802,0x31f8 ,
0x0324,0x3fec ,0x2e5a,0x2c21 ,0xd632,0x3076 ,
0x0192,0x3ffb ,0x2dcf,0x2cb2 ,0xd471,0x2ee4 ,
0x0000,0x4000 ,0x2d41,0x2d41 ,0xd2bf,0x2d41 ,
0xfe6e,0x3ffb ,0x2cb2,0x2dcf ,0xd11c,0x2b8f ,
0xfcdc,0x3fec ,0x2c21,0x2e5a ,0xcf8a,0x29ce ,
0xfb4b,0x3fd4 ,0x2b8f,0x2ee4 ,0xce08,0x27fe ,
0xf9ba,0x3fb1 ,0x2afb,0x2f6c ,0xcc98,0x2620 ,
0xf82a,0x3f85 ,0x2a65,0x2ff2 ,0xcb3a,0x2435 ,
0xf69c,0x3f4f ,0x29ce,0x3076 ,0xc9ee,0x223d ,
0xf50f,0x3f0f ,0x2935,0x30f9 ,0xc8b5,0x203a ,
0xf384,0x3ec5 ,0x289a,0x3179 ,0xc78f,0x1e2b ,
0xf1fa,0x3e72 ,0x27fe,0x31f8 ,0xc67c,0x1c12 ,
0xf073,0x3e15 ,0x2760,0x3274 ,0xc57e,0x19ef ,
0xeeee,0x3daf ,0x26c1,0x32ef ,0xc493,0x17c4 ,
0xed6c,0x3d3f ,0x2620,0x3368 ,0xc3be,0x1590 ,
0xebed,0x3cc5 ,0x257e,0x33df ,0xc2fd,0x1354 ,
0xea70,0x3c42 ,0x24da,0x3453 ,0xc251,0x1112 ,
0xe8f7,0x3bb6 ,0x2435,0x34c6 ,0xc1bb,0x0eca ,
0xe782,0x3b21 ,0x238e,0x3537 ,0xc13b,0x0c7c ,
0xe611,0x3a82 ,0x22e7,0x35a5 ,0xc0d0,0x0a2b ,
0xe4a3,0x39db ,0x223d,0x3612 ,0xc07b,0x07d6 ,
0xe33a,0x392b ,0x2193,0x367d ,0xc03c,0x057e ,
0xe1d5,0x3871 ,0x20e7,0x36e5 ,0xc014,0x0324 ,
0xe074,0x37b0 ,0x203a,0x374b ,0xc001,0x00c9 ,
0xdf19,0x36e5 ,0x1f8c,0x37b0 ,0xc005,0xfe6e ,
0xddc3,0x3612 ,0x1edc,0x3812 ,0xc01f,0xfc13 ,
0xdc72,0x3537 ,0x1e2b,0x3871 ,0xc04f,0xf9ba ,
0xdb26,0x3453 ,0x1d79,0x38cf ,0xc095,0xf763 ,
0xd9e0,0x3368 ,0x1cc6,0x392b ,0xc0f1,0xf50f ,
0xd8a0,0x3274 ,0x1c12,0x3984 ,0xc163,0xf2bf ,
0xd766,0x3179 ,0x1b5d,0x39db ,0xc1eb,0xf073 ,
0xd632,0x3076 ,0x1aa7,0x3a30 ,0xc288,0xee2d ,
0xd505,0x2f6c ,0x19ef,0x3a82 ,0xc33b,0xebed ,
0xd3df,0x2e5a ,0x1937,0x3ad3 ,0xc403,0xe9b4 ,
0xd2bf,0x2d41 ,0x187e,0x3b21 ,0xc4df,0xe782 ,
0xd1a6,0x2c21 ,0x17c4,0x3b6d ,0xc5d0,0xe559 ,
0xd094,0x2afb ,0x1709,0x3bb6 ,0xc6d5,0xe33a ,
0xcf8a,0x29ce ,0x164c,0x3bfd ,0xc7ee,0xe124 ,
0xce87,0x289a ,0x1590,0x3c42 ,0xc91b,0xdf19 ,
0xcd8c,0x2760 ,0x14d2,0x3c85 ,0xca5b,0xdd19 ,
0xcc98,0x2620 ,0x1413,0x3cc5 ,0xcbad,0xdb26 ,
0xcbad,0x24da ,0x1354,0x3d03 ,0xcd11,0xd93f ,
0xcac9,0x238e ,0x1294,0x3d3f ,0xce87,0xd766 ,
0xc9ee,0x223d ,0x11d3,0x3d78 ,0xd00e,0xd59b ,
0xc91b,0x20e7 ,0x1112,0x3daf ,0xd1a6,0xd3df ,
0xc850,0x1f8c ,0x1050,0x3de3 ,0xd34e,0xd231 ,
0xc78f,0x1e2b ,0x0f8d,0x3e15 ,0xd505,0xd094 ,
0xc6d5,0x1cc6 ,0x0eca,0x3e45 ,0xd6cb,0xcf07 ,
0xc625,0x1b5d ,0x0e06,0x3e72 ,0xd8a0,0xcd8c ,
0xc57e,0x19ef ,0x0d41,0x3e9d ,0xda82,0xcc21 ,
0xc4df,0x187e ,0x0c7c,0x3ec5 ,0xdc72,0xcac9 ,
0xc44a,0x1709 ,0x0bb7,0x3eeb ,0xde6d,0xc983 ,
0xc3be,0x1590 ,0x0af1,0x3f0f ,0xe074,0xc850 ,
0xc33b,0x1413 ,0x0a2b,0x3f30 ,0xe287,0xc731 ,
0xc2c1,0x1294 ,0x0964,0x3f4f ,0xe4a3,0xc625 ,
0xc251,0x1112 ,0x089d,0x3f6b ,0xe6c9,0xc52d ,
0xc1eb,0x0f8d ,0x07d6,0x3f85 ,0xe8f7,0xc44a ,
0xc18e,0x0e06 ,0x070e,0x3f9c ,0xeb2e,0xc37b ,
0xc13b,0x0c7c ,0x0646,0x3fb1 ,0xed6c,0xc2c1 ,
0xc0f1,0x0af1 ,0x057e,0x3fc4 ,0xefb0,0xc21d ,
0xc0b1,0x0964 ,0x04b5,0x3fd4 ,0xf1fa,0xc18e ,
0xc07b,0x07d6 ,0x03ed,0x3fe1 ,0xf449,0xc115 ,
0xc04f,0x0646 ,0x0324,0x3fec ,0xf69c,0xc0b1 ,
0xc02c,0x04b5 ,0x025b,0x3ff5 ,0xf8f2,0xc064 ,
0xc014,0x0324 ,0x0192,0x3ffb ,0xfb4b,0xc02c ,
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|
---
abstract: 'In a companion paper [@RiniEnergyPartI13], we present a general approach to evaluate the impact of cognition in a downlink cellular system in which multiple relays assist the transmission of the base station. This approach is based on a novel theoretical tool which produces transmission schemes involving rate-splitting, superposition coding and interference decoding for a network with any number of relays and receivers. This second part focuses on a practical design example for a network in which a base station transmits to three receivers with the aid of two relay nodes. For this simple network, we explicitly evaluate the impact of relay cognition and precisely characterize the trade offs between the total energy consumption and the rate improvements provided by relay cooperation. These closed-form expressions provide important insights on the role of cognition in larger networks and highlights interesting interference management strategies. We also present a numerical simulation setup in which we fully automate the derivation of achievable rate region for a general relay-assisted downlink cellular network. Our simulations clearly show the great advantages provided by cooperative strategies at the relays as compared to the uncoordinated scenario under varying channel conditions and target rates. These results are obtained by considering a large number of transmission strategies for different levels of relay cognition and numerically determining one that is the most energy efficient. The limited computational complexity of the numerical evaluations makes this approach suitable for the optimization of transmission strategies for larger networks.'
author:
- '\'
bibliography:
- 'literature.bib'
- 'steBib1.bib'
title: |
Energy Efficient Cooperative Strategies for Relay-Assisted Downlink Cellular Systems\
Part II: Practical Design
---
Introduction {#chap:introduction}
============
Wireless relay nodes hold the promise of drastically increasing both the energy and spectral efficiency of future cellular systems [@pabst2004relay]. The demand of transmission rates has increased tremendously between the third and fourth generations of mobile networks due to new functionalities and services provided by handset devices. Rate gains of this order cannot be achieved without increasing bandwidth or the density of the network and relay nodes represent a low-cost way of achieving such increase. Despite the relevance of relays in practical systems, it is not yet clear what system architecture is the most energy efficient and what advantages are provided by cognition in this scenario.
The architecture of relay-assisted downlink cellular system in LTE-A in presented in Fig. \[fig:caseexample\](a) : the system is comprised of a base station which is interested in communicating to multiple receivers with the aid of the relay nodes. The set of communications between the base station and the relay nodes is termed a *relay link* while the set between relay nodes and receives is termed an *access link*. We consider the case where no direct link between the base station and receivers exists: this case can be easily obtained by considering an additional relay which is connected to the base station with an infinity capacity channel. In the relay link, transmissions take place over frequency separated channels and are thus non interfering. In the access link, instead, transmissions take place over the same frequency band and therefore are self interfering. When relays cooperate, the access link is analogous to a multi-terminal cognitive channel in which transmitting node are able to partially coordinate their transmissions.
The difficulty in designing efficient communication strategies for this system lies in the intrinsic complexity of the communication strategies that can be implemented with even a moderately small number of relays and receivers. Possible ways to circumvent this obstacle is to either consider simple communication protocols for each relay or to assume that relays operate in a uniform manner which does not depend on the network conditions. Two such examples are the so called *relay selection* strategy [@LueLinkFailure05; @LinCooperativeRegions04; @LiRelaySearch05] and a generalization of the amplify-and-forward or decode-and-forward strategies for the relay channel [@zhao2006improving].
In [@RiniEnergyPartI13] we propose a different approach: we generalize the information theoretical derivation of achievable schemes to a network with any number of relays and receivers and obtain the achievable rate region from the analysis of the error probability for this general scenario. This approach is fundamentally different from the previous approaches as it considers all possible ways in which the base station can distribute messages to the relay nodes through cognition and as well as all possible cooperation strategies that can be implemented at the relay. In particular we focus on the role of partial, or unidirectional, cooperation at the relay which allows for coordinated transmission strategies which have been studied in the context of cognitive channels such as the Cognitive InterFerence Channel (CIFC) [@devroye2005cognitive] and the Interference Channel with a Cognitive Relay (IFC-CR) [@Sahin_2007_1].
As a result, the number and the complexity of the scheme considered by this approach has no comparison with other approaches. Moreover, the generation and the evaluation of the schemes has a low computational complexity and it is thus possible to analyze large networks and determine the optimal level of relay cooperation and the most energy efficient transmission strategy.
Literature Overview {#sec:motivation}
-------------------
In the literature, different relay-assisted downlink systems have been proposed and studied. A conceptually simple and yet powerful approach is *relay selection* [@LueLinkFailure05; @LinCooperativeRegions04; @LiRelaySearch05], i.e. selecting the relay which allows for the fastest data transmission between the base station and receivers. Perhaps surprisingly, this scheme provides the same cooperative diversity as more complicated strategies [@BletsasSimpleCooperativeDiversityMethod06]. Space-time coding for relay-assisted transmissions has been considered in [@stefanov2005cooperative] and it has been shown to achieve full cooperation diversity at the cost of an increased complexity. The sum rate optimization for amplify-and-forward multi-antenna relay networks is considered in [@lee2008achievable], where the “power iterative algorithm” for achieving optimal beamforming is proposed. Achievable rate regions in two-way relay communications is discussed in [@rankov2006achievable]. Combined strategies using amplify-and-forward, decode-and-forward, compress-and-forward with superposition coding and other encoding and decoding techniques are compared for different scenarios.
In the context of energy efficiency, virtual MIMO systems have been considered to exploit the broadcast nature of the medium and distribute messages from the base station to the relay nodes. In this case it is possible to analyze the performance of a system where relay nodes opportunistically decode the transmissions that can be overheard over the network. When multiple relays are able to decode multiple transmissions, they are then able to act as a virtual MIMO system in the next hop. This can be incorporated into multi-hop transmission schemes to study the energy efficiency as in [@WenqingVirtualMIMOprotocol05] and [@CosoVirtualMIMO06]. Energy efficiency for relay-assisted LTE-A networks is studied in [@FantiniE3F11; @FantiniEnergyEfficiency11] where it is shown that a multi-cast cooperative scheme in relay networks results in more efficient energy consumption compared to a conventional two-hop approach. This approach does not consider the cooperation among multiple relays and considers only limited transmission strategies, but it is a first approach to this problem. Another approach to energy efficiency analysis of cooperative relaying is considered in [@Energy:Xiao]-[@Energy:Madan]: here an opportunistic scheme is proposed, which relies on the channel state information (CSI) knowledge to decide which subset of the relay nodes cooperate.
Contributions
-------------
Previous literature focuses on the case of either no relay cooperation or full relay cooperation. We focus here the intermediate case of partial and unidirectional transmitter cooperation. In information theory, these forms of cooperation are referred to as cognition as in the CIFC [@devroye2005cognitive] and the IFC-CR [@Sahin_2007_2]. The two channels idealize the ability of some transmitter to learn the message of the other user thanks to the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. In a companion paper [@RiniEnergyPartI13], we propose a new theoretical framework to design optimal transmission strategies for the case where each relay has knowledge of multiple messages. We are able to derive the achievable rate region of any scheme transmission scheme at the relay involving rate-splitting, superposition coding and interference decoding. The schemes to be considered on the access link depend on the message decoded at the relay nodes, which we refer to as *level of cognition*. Although very powerful, this approach is too general to provide much insight on the important features of energy efficient transmission schemes. In the following we specialize the approach of [@RiniEnergyPartI13] to the network where a base station communicates to three receivers with the aid of two relay nodes. For this specific network we provide closed-form expression for the achievable rate regions which provide significant insights on the tarde off between cooperation and interference management at the relays. We also present a simulation setup which shows how the theoretical results in [@RiniEnergyPartI13] can be efficiently implemented. This shows that the proposed approach can indeed be used to analyze larger networks.
The contributions in the paper can be summarized as follow: **Explicit Characterization for Power Consumptions:** Using the results in [@RiniEnergyPartI13], we derive explicit characterizations for the power consumption of several transmission strategies and provide insights on the tradeoff between power consumption at the base station and cooperation at the relays. By comparing the performance of different schemes, we show that cooperation is not only useful in increasing the power efficiency relative to the uncoordinated case but indeed is necessary to attain high data rates.
**Numerically Determine Optimal Strategies** We automate the derivation of achievable rate regions in [@RiniEnergyPartI13] and through computer simulation we determine the most energy efficient transmission strategies for a number of channel realizations. In each case, we consider a number of possible achievable strategies in the order of the thousands for the channel model under consideration. The minimization of the power consumption necessary to achieve a target rate for each scheme can be performed with almost linear complexity. Indeed the fact that our approach is able to consider a large number of transmission schemes and optimize each scheme with reasonable complexity makes it very suitable for larger networks.
Paper Organization
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Section \[sec:model\] introduces the network model under consideration: the relay-assisted downlink cellular system in with two relays and three receivers. The problem of energy minimization this network is introduced in Sec. \[sec:Problem Description and an Illustrative Example\]. Lower bounds to the energy efficiency are provided in Sec. \[sec:Lower Bounds to the Energy Efficiency\]. Explicit characterizations for the network topology under consideration are provided in Section \[Sec:Considerations on a Simple Example\]. The results of the numerical optimization are provided in Section \[sec:Numerical Evaluations\]. Finally, Section \[sec:Conclusion\] concludes the paper.
Notation
--------
In the remainder of the paper we adopt the following notation:
- variables related to the Base Station (BS) are indicated with the superscript $\rm BS$, moreover $i$ is the index related to BS,
- variables related to the Relay Nodes (RN) are indicated with the superscript $\rm RN$, moreover $j$ is the index related to RNs,
- variables related to the Receivers (RX) are indicated with the superscript $\rm RX$, moreover $z$ is the index related to RXs,
- $\Ccal(\Sigma)=1 / 2 \log \lb | \Sigma \Sigma^H +\Iv|\rb$ where $X$ is a vector of length $k$ of jointly Gaussian random variables and $|A|$ indicates the determinant of $A$,
- $A_{ij}$ element of the matrix $A$ in row $i$ and column $j$,
Channel Model {#sec:model}
=============
In the following we consider a relay-assisted downlink cellular system with two relays and three receivers. In this model, also depicted in Fig. \[fig:channel\_model\_2X3\], the Base Station (BS) is interested in communicating to three receivers (RXs) with the aid of two Relay Nodes (RNs). This model is a special case of the general model in [@RiniEnergyPartI13] in which $N_{\rm RN}=2$ and $N_{\rm RX}=3$, in particular each RX $z\in \{1,2,3\}$ is interested in the message $W_z$ at rate $R_z$ which is known at the BS and is to be transmitted reliably and efficiently to RXs through the RNs 1 and 2. The channel inputs at the Base Station (BS) are $X^{\rm BS}_1$ and $X^{\rm BS}_2$ each subject to the power constraint is $E[|X^{\rm BS}_1 |]+E[|X^{\rm BS}_2 |] \leq P^{\rm BS}$. The channel outputs at Relay Node(RN) one and two In a similar fashion, the channel input at the RNs are $X^{\rm RN}_1$ and $X^{\rm RN}_2$ subject to the power constraints $E[|X^{\rm RN}_1 |]\leq P^{\rm RN}_1$ and $E[|X^{\rm RN}_2 |]\leq P^{\rm RN}_2$. The channel outputs at the RXs are Each noise term $Z$ has variance one and the channel coefficient can take any complex value. A graphical representation of the channel is provided in Fig. \[fig:channel\_model\_2X3\].
![ The relay-assisted downlink cellular system in with two relays and three receivers. []{data-label="fig:channel_model_2X3"}](channel_model_2X3){width="75.00000%"}
The transmission between the BS and the RNs as well as the transmission between the RNs and the RXs takes place over $N$ channel transmissions. Each message $W_z$ is uniformly distributed in the interval $[1 \ldots 2^{N R_z}]$. Let $W$ indicate the vector containing all the messages to be transmitted, i.e. $W=[W_1 \ W_2 \ W_3]$ and $R$ the vector containing the rate of each message, i.e. $R=[R_1 \ R_2 \ R_3]$. Additionally let $W_j^{\rm RN}$ be the set of messages decoded at relay node $j \in \{1,2\}$ and define $W^{\rm RN}=[W_1^{\rm RN} \ W_2^{\rm RN}]$. A transmission on the relay link is successful if there exists an encoding function at the BS and a decoding function at each RN such that each relay can successfully decode the message in $W_j^{\rm RN}$ with high probability. Similarly, a transmission on the access link is successful if there exists an encoding function at each RN and a decoding function at each RX such that each receiver $z \in \{1,2,3\}$ can decode the message $W_z$ reliably. More formally, let $\Wh_{z}^{RN_j} $ be the estimate of $W_z$ at relay $j$ and $\Wh_{z}$ the estimate of $W_z$ at receiver $z$ over $N$ channel transmissions, then a communication error occurs when there exist $\Wh_{z}^{RN_j} \neq W_z$ or $\Wh_{z} \neq W_z$ for some noise realization over the relay link or the access link.
A rate vector $R$ is said to be achievable if, for any $\epsilon > 0$, there is an $N$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
\max_z \max_{W^{\rm RN}_j} \ \Pr \lsb \Wh_{z}^{RN_j} \neq \Wh_{z} \neq W_{z} , \rsb \leq \epsilon.\end{aligned}$$ Capacity is the closure of the union of the sets of achievable rates.
In the following we consider the problem of minimizing $E_{\rm TOT}$, the total energy required to achieve a rate vector $R=[R_1 \ R_2 \ R_3]$ defined as
Problem Description {#sec:Problem Description and an Illustrative Example}
===================
In this section we provide some initial insight on the role of cooperation for the network model in Sec. \[sec:model\]. We are interested in characterizing the energy advantages provided by cooperation and cognition when employing superposition coding, interference decoding and rate-splitting. When the base station distributes the same message to multiple RNs, the access link becomes cognitive channel in the sense of the Cognitive InterFerence Channel (CIFC) and the InterFerence Channel with a Cognitive Relay (CIFC-CR), that is, transmitting nodes have partial or unidirectional knowledged of each others’ messages and can thus perform partially coordinated transmissions. Transmitter cooperation has been shown to provide substantial improvement on the rate performance [@rini2012inner] as well as suggesting new and surprising cooperative transmission schemes [@rini2010new]. In order to obtain the performances of cognitive channels though, it is necessary to distribute the same message to multiple RNs which consumes more power in the relay link. Indeed we are interested in characterizing the tension between increase of energy in the relay link and the benefits provided by cognition in the access link . In general, there exists an optimal level of cognition at the relay nodes for which the additional energy consumption at the relay link allows for the most beneficial performance improvements in the access link. Our aim is to quantify the amount of RN cooperation that is needed to attain the largest energy efficiency and determine what coding choices attain it. Let us consider the scenario in which the BS distributes each message to only one RN, as illustrated in Fig. \[fig:caseexample\].A. In this case, the power utilization at the BS is minimal but no cooperation between the relays is possible as no message is known at both. The lack of cooperation among RNs corresponds, in general, to a higher power consumption on the access link as there is no diversity gain at the receivers: when multiple RNs send the same signal, we obtain a combining gain at the receiver. Cooperation provides some additional advantages beyond combining: by knowing the same message, RNs can each superimpose the codewords of other users over the codeword of the common message. This, in general, achieves larger energy savings than sending each codeword separately. Consider now the message allocation at the RNs in Fig. \[fig:caseexample\].B: since message $W_1$ and $W_2$ are distributed to both RNs, it is possible for the RNs to cooperate in transmitting these messages and the codeword to transmit $W_3$ can be superimposed over the common codewords. The transmission of a message to multiple RNs, however, utilizes more power on the relay link and the advantages attained on the access link must be weighted against this additional power consumption. The aim of the paper is to investigate the tradeoff between cooperation and power consumption when considering classical information theoretical achievable strategies. We attempt to identify the message allocation at the relay nodes and the relay cooperation strategy which allows for the lowest overall power consumption.
In the network of Sec. \[sec:model\], the possible levels of relay cognition are:
[**$\bullet$ No cooperation: each message is known only at one RN.**]{} The RNs code independently and the RN that knows both message can apply superposition coding among these codewords.
This scenario minimizes the power consumption at the relay link but no gain from cooperation is possible in the access link.
[**$\bullet$ Partial Cooperation I: a message is known at both RN.** ]{}
The codeword of the common message acts as a base codewords on top of which the other two codewords can be superimposed. When superposition coding is applied, the RXs decoding the top codewords must also decode the bottom one: this imposes additional rate constraint on the bottom codeword but improves the energy efficiency in sending the top codewords.
[**$\bullet$ Partial Cooperation II: two messages are known at both RN.**]{}
The codeword of the two common messages can be superimposed one on top of the other and act as base codewords for the message known only at one RN.
This improves on the energy gains offered by superposition coding with respect to the previous scenario but consumes additional power on the relay link.
[**$\bullet$ Full Cooperation: all messages are known at all RNs.**]{} In this case the power consumption at the base station is maximal but the RNs can cooperate on the transmission of every codeword.
The different transmission strategies corresponding to the different level of cooperation are depicted in Fig. \[fig:schemesdesc\]. Each hatched box represents the codeword of a message: codewords are not labeled to account for the symmetry of the possible $W_j^{\rm RN}$. The boxes encircled by the solid blue line are known at one RN while the boxes encircled by a dotted red line by the other RN (no labeling is used to account for symmetry).
Since the different cases are listed with increasing number of shared messages, at each step the transmission strategies of the previous cases are also viable.
Arrows connecting boxes represent the superposition coding: the orientation is from the bottom codewords toward the top one.
The decoding of the top codeword requires also the decoding of the bottom codewords. For this reason, superposition coding restricts the rate of the base codeword to the highest rate that can be reliably decoded by all the receivers which must decode this codeword. Consequently applying superposition coding does not always result in a rate advantage: this is the case only when the decoding of the base codeword at a non-intended receiver does not limit the achievable rates at the intended one. To distinguish among possible application of superposition coding, we can classify the possible encoding strategies depending on the number of superposition coding steps they involve: one, two or three. The possible encoding strategies in each case are depicted on Fig. \[fig:superdesc\].
Different schemes require at least a certain level of cooperation among relays and the same scheme can be implemented for different levels of cooperation. This classification uniquely identifies the number of interfering codeword that a receiver is required to decode.
Lower Bounds to the Energy Efficiency {#sec:Lower Bounds to the Energy Efficiency}
=====================================
In this section we specialize the results in [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. V.1.], [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. V. 2.] and [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Lem. V. 3.] to the channel model in Sec. \[sec:model\]. Although simple, this example provides the reader with the basic intuition on the structure and role of these bounds.
[**Relay Link Capacity for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case**]{} \[lem:Relay Link Capacity for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case\] For a given message allocation $W^{\rm RN}$ the capacity of the relay link for the channel model in Sec. \[sec:model\] is for any $P_1^{\rm BS}$ and $P_2^{\rm BS}$ such that $P_1^{\rm BS}+P_2^{\rm BS}=P^{\rm BS}$.
Now for the access link outer bounds we have
[**Access Link Outer Bound for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case**]{} \[lem:Access Link Outer Bound for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case\]
Given a message allocation $W^{\rm RN}$, an outer bound to the achievable rates on the access link for the channel in Sec. \[sec:model\] is union over all the possible matrices $A$ as defined in [@RiniEnergyPartI13 eq. (27)].
From Lem. \[lem:Relay Link Capacity for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case\] and Lem. \[lem:Access Link Outer Bound for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case\] we obtain a lower bound on the energy consumption by using the fact that determining capacity is the dual problem of determining power efficiency.
[**Energy Consumption Lower Bound**]{} \[lem:Energy Efficiency Lower Bound for the Two Relays and Three Receivers Case\]
A lower bound to energy required for achieving the rate vector $R$ in the channel model in Sec. \[sec:model\] is obtained as the minimum over $W^{\rm RN}$ defined as of $P^{\rm BS}$ and $[P_1^{\rm RN} \ldots P_{N_{\rm RN}}^{\rm RN}]$ such that $R$ is on the boundary of and respectively.
Achievable Schemes {#Sec:Considerations on a Simple Example}
==================
In this section we provide some closed-form expressions of achievable rate region which provide concrete examples of the tradeoffs between cooperation and power consumption that emerge in the set up we consider. This section also sets the stage for the numerical simulations is Sec. \[sec:Numerical Evaluations\] where some of the schemes presented here are simulated numerically. In particular we consider four schemes
- **Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays:** this scheme minimizes the power consumption on the relay link by distributing the one message to one relay and two messages to the other.
- **Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding:** even when non cooperative schemes are implemented, interference decoding can be used to boost the energy efficiency
- **Partially cooperative scheme:** in which the relays cooperate in transmitting at least one message
- **Partially cooperative scheme with interference decoding:** which combines both cooperative gains and interference decoding gains.
The schemes above are taken without rate-splitting, so that $\Gamma$ is a binary matrix. In the following, to avoid having to specify the rate-splitting matrix in each different scenario, we adopt the notation $U_{\iv \sgoes \jv}( W_z)$ to indicate that the message $W_z$ is embedded is the codeword $U_{\iv \sgoes \jv}^N$.
We again focus on the simple channel model in Sec. \[sec:model\] and additionally focus on the symmetric case in which for $a,b \in \Rbb^+$ and With this specific choice of channel parameters, we have that
- by fixing $a=0$, the access channel reduces to an interference channel,
- by fixing $b=0$, no communication is possible between RN 1 and RX 3 and between RN 2 and RX 1,
- when one of the relay has knowledge of all messages and the other none, the channel reduces to a degraded Gaussian Broadcast Channel (BC),
- when $a=0$ and RNs know independent messages, the access channel reduces to an interference channel,
- when $a=0$ and a relay node knows the message of the other, the access channel reduces to a cognitive interference channel,
A graphical representation of the channel under consideration is provided in Fig. \[fig:simsetup\_a\_b\].
![The symmetric channel model considered in Sec. \[Sec:Considerations on a Simple Example\]. []{data-label="fig:simsetup_a_b"}](simsetup_a_b){width="80.00000%"}
We also focus on the symmetric rate problem, that is we fix $R_{\rm sym}=R_1=R_2=R_3$. By choosing a highly symmetric model and symmetric rates, we make it possible to derive simple explicit characterizations which lend themselves to intuitive interpretations and a very simple graphical representation.
![ The four CGRAS presented in Sec. \[Sec:Considerations on a Simple Example\]. []{data-label="fig:Schemes"}](Schemes){width="\textwidth"}
Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays {#sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays}
---------------------------------------------
The power consumption at the BS is minimized when transmitting one message to a RN and two messages to the other RN, in which case $P^{\rm BS}= 16^{R_{\rm sym}}+4^{R_{\rm sym}}-2$. In this case, superposition coding can be applied at the relay node that knows two messages: the order of superposition of the codeword is chosen according to the SINR toward the two RXs for which the messages are intended. This scheme is in general efficient also on the access link but it is interference limited at the decoders which treat the interference as noise. For this reason, it may not be possible to find a power allocation which achieves a given target rate. Let’s consider the case in which RN 1 has knowledge of $W_1$ and RN 2 has knowledge of $W_2$ and $W_3$ (other message combinations are easily obtained in a similar manner and also considering the symmetry of the channel). This assignment is advantageous in the case $a < 1$ and $b <1$ in which case it is more convenient to send $W_1$ through RN 1 instead of RN 2 and $W_3$ through RN 2. Also, since $a < 1$, RN 2 it is advantageous to superimpose the codeword for $W_3$ over the one for $W_3$. This corresponds to the CGRAS number 1 in Fig. \[fig:Schemes\] (same as CGRAS number 3 in Fig. \[fig:rate01\]). With this coding choice the following rate region is achievable with the assignment which has a total power consumption at the access link of
When $a\geq 1 \geq b$, the sum rate bound is never redundant which means that the region in has two Pareto optimal corner points. With the assumption, $R_{\rm sym}=R_1=R_2=R_3$, the required transmit power can then be calculated as: for $\Ccal^{-1}(x)=4^x-1$. When combining equations and we obtain A necessary condition for $P_{11}$ to be positive is for parameter $b$ to satisfy similarly, by combining , and we obtain that a necessary condition for $P_{11}$ to be positive is It can be verified that $P_{22}$ and $P_{23}$ can always be determined when $P_{11}$ is feasible. This consideration is not surprising: since RX 1 and RX 3 treat the interference as noise, large rates can be achieved only when the level of the interference, which is controlled by $b$ in both cases, is small. For $b$ to be small it is necessary for $R_{\rm sym}$ to be small as prescribed by . Other cases of parameter values can be similarly analyzed with similar conclusions: this scheme employs no cooperation among the relay and it is thus power efficient on the relay link but does not achieve arbitrarily large rates as it is interference limited.
Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding {#sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The achievable scheme in Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays\] can be improved upon by allowing some receivers to decode an interfering codeword. Consider again : in this case the rate $R_2$ is limited by the power of the codeword for $W_1$: a possible solution for this problem is to allow interference decoding at RX 2.
To show the advantages provided by interference decoding consider the case where $a>1>b$: in this case a well performing achievable scheme that does not consider cooperation is the scheme where RN 2 transmits $W_1$ and RN 1 transmits $W_3$. $W_2$ can be sent to RN 1 and, since $a>b$, superimposed over the codeword for $W_3$ (in this, the scheme considered here differs from the scheme in Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays\], in which $W_3$ is superimposed over $W_2$. ). Since $a>b$, the transmission from RN 2 toward RX 1 interfere with the transmission from RN 1 to RX 2: in this case it is convenient to have RX 2 decode $W_1$. With this choice, while RX 1 and RX 3 only decode their intended message, RX 2 decodes all the messages.
This corresponds to the CGRAS number 2 in \[fig:Schemes\] (same as the CGRAS number 3 in Fig. \[fig:rate01\]) with achievable rate region: with the assignment which has a total power consumption at the access link of
In this case the rate bounds and are still interference limited as in the scheme in but the remaining bounds are not. On the other hand though, the additional bounds of , and are not present in . By increasing the number of messages decoded at a terminal, we impose additional constraints on the achievable rate region, since the correct decoding of the interfering codewords has to be possible. The additional rate constrains might be loose in a subset of the parameter region and thus interference decoding can provide a rate advantage in some class of channels. Since and are still interference limited, it is possible that no power allocation exists to achieve a given target rate vector.
Partially cooperative scheme {#sec:Partially cooperative scheme}
----------------------------
We now consider the case it which the relay nodes cooperate in transmitting in transmitting one message. This corresponds to the smallest level of cooperation which corresponds to a base station power consumption of $P^{\rm BS}=2 \cdot 16^{R_{\rm sym}}-2$.
Consider the scenario for $b>1>a$: since $a$ is small it is necessary to for the two RNs to cooperate in transmitting $W_2$ and take advantage of the combining gain. Since $b>a$ it is more convenient to send $W_3$ through RN 1 and $W_1$ through RN 2 and to superimpose both codewords over the codeword for $W_2$.
The resulting CGRAS is CGRAS number 3 in Fig. \[fig:Schemes\] (same as CGRAS number 15 Fig. \[fig:cgras\_legend\]) with achievable rate region: with the assignment which has a total power consumption at the access link of Note that we have chosen the scaling of $U_2$ in $X_1$ and $X_2$ that provides the maximal ratio combining at RX 2. Cooperation among the RNs in transmitting $W_2$ provides a combining gain at all the RXs. For RX 1 and RX 3 this combining gain is $(b+1)^2 P_2$ while for RX 2 is $4 a^2 P_2$, which is the largest combining gain that can be attained when fixing the total transmission power for $W_2$ at the RNs.
Note that, since $W_2$ is the base codeword, it is also decoded at RX 1 and RX 3 and thus this combining does not result in further interference for the non-intended decoders.
Partially cooperative scheme with interference decoding {#sec:Partially cooperative scheme with interference decoding}
-------------------------------------------------------
The rate bounds in are all reduced by the power of the interference experienced at each decoder. We seek to improve on this scheme by including interference decoding: we do so by allowing RX 1 and RX 3 to decode every codeword. The resulting CGRAS number 4 in Fig. \[fig:Schemes\] ( same as CGRAS number 18 in Fig. \[fig:cgras\_legend\]) which achieves the rate region: with the assignment As for the scheme is Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding\], interference decoding improves the SINR at RX 1 and RX 3 but it does impose additional constraint on the rate of the interfering codewords being decoded.
In particular, for $b>1>a$, the rate of $R_1$ ($R_3$) is reduced to $\Ccal(P_{21})$ ($\Ccal(P_{13})$) from $\Ccal(b^2 P_{21})$ ($\Ccal(b^2 P_{13})$) since correct decoding must take place at RN 3 (RN 1) as well.
Simulation Setup {#sec:Numerical Evaluations}
================
Through numerical simulation, we can consider a large number of schemes and select the scheme corresponding to the smallest power consumption. The number of achievable transmission strategies which can be generated using [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. IV.2.] is on the order of hundreds without rate-splitting and thousands with rate-splitting. The power optimization for each scheme can be efficiently performed using linear optimization tools under some mild restrictions on the power allocation for the cooperative schemes. Indeed the number of schemes considered and the low computational complexity make it possible to identify a very detailed transmission strategy with reasonable resources.
In the following we consider the following numerical optimization problems:
- [**No rate-splitting Scenario:**]{} When no rate-splitting is considered, the number of possible achievable rate regions is limited and it is possible to graphically present the results of the energy efficiency optimization for varying $a$ and $b$ parameters. We also connect the numerical results with the schemes in Sec. \[Sec:Considerations on a Simple Example\] to provide further intuitions.
- [**Rate-Splitting Scenario:**]{} when considering both superposition coding and rate-splitting there are simply too many schemes to be efficiently presented graphically. In this case we group the schemes according to their features in terms of the cognition level, number of superposition coding steps and amount of interference decoding. This description is less detailed than the previous scenario, but still insightful on a higher level perspective as in Sec. \[sec:Problem Description and an Illustrative Example\].
- [**Comparison between Inner and Outer Bounds:**]{} we compare the results of the numerical optimization with the lower bound on the energy consumption in Sec. \[sec:Lower Bounds to the Energy Efficiency\] and the case of relay selection and uncoordinated transmissions. For this scenario we consider the throughput comparison among different strategies for fixed channel parameters.
No Rate-Splitting Scenario {#sec:No rate-splitting Scenario}
--------------------------
We begin by considering the achievable schemes that can by generated from [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. IV.2.] which do not involve rate-splitting. By restricting our attention to this class of schemes, the optimization results are limited to eighteen schemes (after accounting for symmetry). Given the limited set of schemes, we can provide various intuitions on the important features of the optimal solution for varying $a$ and $b$.
The solution of the optimal energy efficiency problem are represented using the corresponding CGRAS as in Fig. \[fig:cgras\_legend\].
![ A graphical representation of the best performing CGRASs for the scenario in Sec. \[sec:No rate-splitting Scenario\]. []{data-label="fig:cgras_legend"}](legend){width="100.00000%"}
Each CGRAS is contained in a different partition of the figure with an associated number and color: The schemes are arranged by increasing level cooperation and increasing interference decoding:
- [**blue tones, numbers 1–8:**]{} no cooperation and minimum or no interference decoding schemes,
- [**green and yellow tones, numbers 9–13:**]{} no cooperation and interference decoding schemes,
- [**red tones, numbers 14–18:**]{} partial cooperation schemes with some interference decoding.
In each box, two rectangles represents the two RNs: the rectangle with a red, dotted edge is associated with RN 1 while the one with a blue, solid edge to RN 2. Each rectangle contains the CGRAS nodes known at the associated RN. If a codeword is known at both, in is placed in the intersection of the two rectangles. Each node of the CGRAS is represented by a box labeled as $U_{\iv \sgoes \jv} (W_z)$. As in [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Def. 1], $U_{\iv \sgoes \jv}$ is the RV associated with the codeword transmitted from the set of transmitter $\iv$ toward of the set of receiver $\jv$ while $W_z$ indicates that this codeword embeds the message $W_z$ as in Sec. \[Sec:Considerations on a Simple Example\]. Superposition coding is indicated as a directed arrow, from the base codewords to the top one. Due to the symmetry in the channel model and in the target rate vector, more than one scheme achieves the same achievable rate region. In particular, given any scheme, swapping the labeling of RN 1 and RN 3 and swapping 2 to 1 in $\iv$ and 1 and 3 in $\jv$ for all the codewords $U_{\iv \sgoes \jv}$ will result in a scheme with the same achievable rate region. We refer to these schemes as equivalent and equivalent schemes are placed in the same partition of the figure.
The optimization is performed as follows: for each possible message allocation among the RNs, all possible combinations of superposition coding and interference decoding are considered. With each such choice, a CGRAS is obtained along with the corresponding achievable rate region through [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. IV.2.]. The achievable rates are evaluated for the choice of auxiliary RV in [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Lem. IV.3.], additionally the scaling of the cooperative codewords is chosen so as to provide the largest combining gain at the intended receiver. With this choice of distribution of $U_{\iv \sgoes \jv}$, the power consumption is a linear function of the matrix $A$ in [@RiniEnergyPartI13 eq. (27)] and therefore the minimum power consumption on the access link for which the target symmetric rate is achievable can be determined using standard linear programming algorithms. The total power consumption is obtained by adding the power consumption at the access link with the power consumption on the relay link which is obtained through [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. V.1.] for each message allocation at the RNs. This optimization is repeated over multiple channel parameters $(a,b)$. For each channel, the optimal schemes are selected with a 5% tolerance and when more than one scheme is within the prescribed tolerance, we choose the scheme which is optimal for values of similar of $(a,b)$. In the following, we consider the four symmetric rates: $R_{\rm sym} \in [0.1 , 0.5 , 1 , 2]$ and the range of channel parameters $a \times b= [0 \ldots 2]^2$.
Let’s start by considering the case of $R_{\rm sym}=0.1$: the optimization results are provided in Fig. \[fig:rate01\]. Since the achievable rate is relatively low, we expect the scheme of Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays\] to be both feasible and efficient in achieving $R_{\rm sym}$. Indeed scheme 1 and 2, which correspond to the encoding choice of Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays\], are optimal around the region $b>a>1$ and the region $b<1=a$. In these two regions the level of the interference at each receiver is limited and treating the interference as noise is optimal. Also, there is no need for cooperation as the advantages provided by the combining gains do no outweigh the additional costs of cooperation on the relay link. A detailed explanation of scheme 1 is provided in Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays\]. For the region $b>a>1$, we notice that RN 1/ (RN 2) can communicate to RX 3/ (RX 1) through a link with gain $b$ at high SNR. RX 2 can be served by either RN 1 or RN 2 also through the link $a$: the presence of simultaneous transmission on this link create excessive interference to the rate $R_2$ since a large $b$ guarantees that the power of this transmission is low.
For larger values of the parameter $a$, it is more advantageous for RX 2 to decode part of the interference and thus schemes similar to the one in Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding\] perform better. Indeed schemes 3 and 5, having the same coding strategy of the scheme in Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding\], are optimal around the region $a>1>b$ and $a>b>1$. The scheme 3 is presented in Sec. \[sec:Non-cooperative scheme with two active relays and interference decoding\], scheme 5 is a simple variation of scheme 3 where RN 1 (RN 2) serves RX 3 (RX 1).
When $a$ is small, then coherent combining in necessary to attain $R_2=R_{\rm sym}$ and the RNs need to cooperate in transmitting message RX 2. The remaining two messages are superimposed over the codeword for $W_2$ and we thus obtain the cooperative scheme of Sec. \[sec:Partially cooperative scheme\] and of scheme 14 and scheme 15. Note that the value of $b$ only determines which RN serves which RX and no interference decoding is required at RX 1 and RX 2 apart for the case $b \approx 1$.
Let’s consider now the case $R_{\rm sym}=0.5$ presented in Fig. \[fig:rate05\]. Since the symmetric rate is higher that the case depicted in Fig. \[fig:rate01\], it no longer optimal to treat the interference as noise and thus the region in which scheme 1 and scheme 2 are optimal are smaller than in Fig. \[fig:rate01\]. Schemes involving various possible interference decoding, such as scheme 4, 7, 8 and 12 emerge as optimal. Also Scheme 18, which is detailed in Sec. \[sec:Partially cooperative scheme with interference decoding\] and which involves cooperation and interference decoding, becomes optimal in a larger region around $b \approx 1$.
As the rate $R_{\rm sym}$ is further increased to $R_{\rm sym}=1$ and $R_{\rm sym}=2$ in Fig. \[fig:rate1\] and \[fig:rate2\] we see that cooperation becomes more and more advantageous as it allows the RNs to apply superposition coding in order to manage the interference from simultaneous transmissions. When applying superposition coding, the receiver of the top codeword also decodes the bottom codewords. In doing so, this receiver also performs interference decoding and can thus partially remove the effect of the interference. Although costly on the access link, cooperation makes it possible to perform two superposition coding steps instead of one, and this is the key of the efficiency of schemes 14, 16, 17 and 18.
Fig. \[fig:subfigureExample\] plots the overall power consumption for the optimization results in Fig. \[fig:rate01\], \[fig:rate05\], \[fig:rate1\] and \[fig:rate2\].
In all cases the largest power consumption is attained at small values of $a$: since both RNs have a link of gain $a$ toward RX 2, it is not possible to obtain a better SNR toward this node. Since the communication toward RX 2 is arduous for both receiver in this regime, cooperation is important to provide combining gains which indeed greatly reduces the power consumption form moderate values of $a$. Another regime with high power consumption for large symmetric rates is for small $a$ and around $ 0.2 < b < 0.8$: by referring to the optimization results we see that this is a transition point between scheme 14 and scheme 18. In both schemes the two relays cooperate in transmitting the codeword for $W_2$ and superimpose the messages for RX 1 and RX 3 over this codeword. The two schemes differ in that scheme 14 does not employ interference decoding at RX 1 and RX 3 while scheme 18 does. Since $b$ is relatively small, the power at which the codewords for RX 3 is received at RX 1 is not sufficiently strong to be decoded and yet too strong to be treated as noise. The same occurs at RX 3 for the interfering codeword for RX 1. The solution to this impasse is for both decoders to increase their transmitted power, so as to eventually increase the received SNR. From a high level perspective, and given the symmetry in the channel and the target rate, the SNR at both RX 1 and RX 3 scales as $P/(1+b^2 P)$ when decoding $W_2$ but treating the remaining interference as noise. Clearly an increase in $P$ increases the SNR, although very slowly. For this reason the power consumption in this region is relatively high: a high power $P$ is required to attain the SNR which grants reliable communication at rate $R_{\rm sym}$.
The power consumption corresponding to the numerical optimization in Fig. \[fig:rate01\], \[fig:rate05\], \[fig:rate1\] and \[fig:rate2\] are shown in Fig. \[fig:power01\], \[fig:power05\], \[fig:power1\] and \[fig:power2\] respectively. From these figures is clear that, as the symmetric rate increases, the largest power consumption corresponds to the region $a \in [0,1]$ and $b \in [0.2 , 1]$: which corresponds to the region where the numerical optimal scheme changes from 14 to 18. In scheme 14 the codeword for $W_3$ ($W_1$) is treated as noise RX 1 (RX 3) while in scheme 18 this codeword is decoded. In this region, therefore, the large power consumption corresponds to the tension between treating the interference as noise or decoding the interference which increases as the symmetric rate increases. As we shall see, rate-splitting makes it possible to reduce the power consumption in this region by allowing partial interference cancelation.
Rate-Splitting Scenario
-----------------------
In this section we analyze the effect of rate-splitting on the power consumption. Since the number of schemes that can be generated using [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Th. IV.2.] in this case is quite high, it is not longer possible to analyze each scheme separately as in Sec. \[sec:No rate-splitting Scenario\]. Instead we focus on higher-level features of the transmission schemes and overall power consumption.
The solution of the power minimization with rate-splitting for the case $R_{\rm sym}= 2$ is presented in Fig. \[fig:rs\_rate2\] while the legend of this figure is in Fig. \[fig:rs\_legend\]. The optimal schemes are numbered and color coded according to the level of cooperation among the RNs, in particular:
- [**blue tones, numbers 1 and 2:**]{} no cooperation with either with or without rate-splitting,
- [**red tones, numbers 3–5:**]{} partial cooperation schemes with some interference decoding.
- [**yellow tones, numbers 6 and 7:**]{} no cooperation and interference decoding schemes.
From Fig. \[fig:rs\_rate2\] it is clear that rate-splitting always provide an advantage: the schemes which do not employ rate-splitting, scheme 1 and scheme 2, are optimal mostly in the regime where $b$ is close to zero, which corresponds to the case where no interference is created at RX 1 and RX 2. As $b$ increases, rate-splitting allows for the receiver to decode part of the interfering codeword and strip it from the received signal. For value of $a<1$, the optimal scheme often involve cooperation over $W_2$: since the link toward RX 2 is relatively weak, the RNs need not cooperate in the transmission of the codeword associated to this message. As the power use to transmit this codeword combines coherently at all the RXs, it is more advantageous for all RXs to decode it, as in scheme 14 and 18 in Fig. \[fig:rate2\], and no rate-splitting is necessary. rate-splitting is instead useful in the transmission of $W_1$ and $W_3$ as it allows a RX to decode part of the interfering codeword. For the case $a>1$, cooperation is no longer necessary to transmit $W_2$ and is instead useful when sending $W_1$ or $W_3$: as for scheme 16 and 17 in Fig. \[fig:rate2\] the codeword for either message is decoded at all the receivers and acts as a base codeword to transmit the other messages while, again, rate-splitting is useful in allowing for partial cancelation of interfering codewords.
The power consumption associated with the numerical optimization in Fig. \[fig:rate2\] is presented in Fig. \[fig:power2rs\] and can be compared to the non rate-splitting power consumption in Fig. \[fig:power2\]. As for Fig. \[fig:power2\], the largest power consumption is in the range $a \in [0,1]$ and $b \in [0.2 , 1]$. The difference is the two figures is the regime $a \approx 0.3$: without rate-splitting, this regime has the largest power consumption, whether with rate-splitting the power consumption in this regime is greatly reduced.
Fig. \[fig:rs\_diff\] plots the power efficiency improvement of rate-splitting case with respect to the non rate-splitting case. The power improvement are relatively small for the class of channel in which a low power consumption can already be attained without rate-splitting. In the cases in which the performance of the system are more severely limited by the interference, rate-splitting attains substantial power efficiency gains.
Comparison between Inner and Outer Bounds
-----------------------------------------
In this section we compare the lower bound in Sec. \[sec:Lower Bounds to the Energy Efficiency\] with the upper bound in [@RiniEnergyPartI13 Sec. IV.B.]. The upper bound is evaluated through numerical optimization while the lower bound is evaluated through Monte-Carlo simulations. A plot of the upper and lower bound on the energy consumption for the channel model in Fig. \[fig:simsetup\_a\_b\] for $a=b=1$ and increasing symmetric rate $R_{\rm sym}$ is presented in Fig. \[fig:outerbound\]. This figure shows that transmission schemes involving rate-splitting provides clear energy saving over the schemes without rate-splitting, especially at high symmetric rates. Unfortunately, the gap between the best upper bound and the lower bound increases as the symmetric rate increases: the lower bound in Sec. \[sec:Lower Bounds to the Energy Efficiency\] is know to be loose for the general channel model, so the divergence between upper and lower bounds is expected.
![ Performance comparison of rate-splitting and no rate-splitting scenarios with outer bound for $R_{\rm sym} \in [1,3]$, $a = 0.7$ and $b = 0.4$. []{data-label="fig:outerbound"}](ob){width="50.00000%"}
Relevance of the Results for Practical Networks
-----------------------------------------------
We conclude the section by drawing insight from the numerical simulation on practical communication scenarios. The network in Fig. \[fig:simsetup\_a\_b\] well models a practical, LTE-style cellular networks in which RX 2 is a receiver located at the coverage edge among relay nodes while RX 1 and RX 3 are users served in a good network coverage area. Since RX 2 is at the edge of two cells, a reasonable scenarios would be to assume $a$ small. Also, since RX 1 and RX 3 are within the cell boundary, we expect $b$ to be small.
End users operating at the edge of coverage area of two or more nodes are a common and problematic scenario in cellular networks, especially in LTE-A networks. While in GSM networks this issue was addressed by frequency reuse planning, in the predecessor of LTE-A, UMTS networks, such cases were dealt by so-called soft handovers, where the cell edge users were served by more than one cell simultaneously and selection combining was compensating for poor coverage and interference, decreasing the power consumption at each cell as well as the interference toward the users with good network coverage [@schinnenburg2003realization]. Due to architectural changes and faster scheduling demands, which limits the cooperation among the base stations, soft handover is no more an available feature in LTE [@racz2007handover], leaving the issue of users on the coverage borders an open problem. The research needed to address this problem is ongoing for future LTE releases and several possible solutions were described in this work. Solutions like fractional frequency reuse [@stolyar2008self; @lei2007novel] are being considered but are not efficient as they limit the frequency spectrum allocation and,consequently, user throughputs (although making the frequency allocation more flexible).
Cooperative strategies, such as CoMP, represent the most promising way of optimizing the performance of coverage edge users. Cooperation among serving nodes is becoming feasible for the next generation of wireless networks. The new decentralized network architecture of LTE poses difficulties in cooperation taking place among multiple base stations, due to delay issues. On the other hand, the cooperation among the nodes served by a single base station is a more feasible and promising solution [@sawahashi2010coordinated].
Considering these trends, the scenario under our consideration is indeed very relevant for practical applications. From the numerical simulation of the CGRAS without rate-splitting in Sec. \[sec:No rate-splitting Scenario\], we conclude that cooperation among RNs toward the cell edge user RX 2 is optimal. In fact, regardless of the symmetric rate, in the region for small $a$ and small $b$ the optimal schemes are 14, 15 and 18 , all of which consider cooperation over $W_2$.
The drawback of cooperation is the tradeoff between relay link and access link power consumption and the resource allocation. In particular, spectrum availability at the relay link may become a bottleneck in practical systems, assuming the base station also serves some end users directly. However, the common target in network planning is to minimize the coverage edge areas and for the coverage overlap among two and three cells not to exceed 30% and 10% respectively of the total covered area, making the cooperation for edge users less resource consuming from the relay link point of view.
Moreover, the simulation results show it is optimal set the codeword of the edge user as a bottom codeword for superposition, which implies that it is optimal for the users in a better coverage of both relay nodes to decode the message transmitted to the edge user.
Similar conclusions can be drawn from the simulation with rate-splitting: key areas where cooperation is optimal are the areas with lower parameter $a$ values in which again the codeword for RX 2 acts as a bottom codeword for superposition and is therefore decoded by the other receivers.
Conclusion {#sec:Conclusion}
==========
The relationship between cooperation and energy efficiency in relay-assisted downlink cellular system is studied through an information theoretical approach. We consider in particular the case in which a base station communicates to the three receivers through the aid of two relays. We allow for the base station to transmit the message of one receiver to multiple relay nodes which makes it possible for the relay nodes to partially coordinate their transmission. This scenario idealizes LTE-style cellular networks in which relay nodes are used to improve the energy efficiency of the network. We present upper and lower bounds to the overall energy consumption in this network which provide important insight on energy efficient transmission schemes for larger networks. Our results clearly show that relay cooperation is necessary in attaining a higher power efficiency along with high overall network throughput. In particular cooperation is necessary when transmitting toward users on the cell edge and which have low gain toward multiple relays. We also present a new numerical simulation tool which generates a large number of achievable rate regions based on superposition coding, rate splitting and interference decoding. With this tool we can consider a large number of transmission strategies and choose the most power efficient. The power optimization of each achievable rate region can be performed in with low complexity and thus this approach can be easily extended to larger networks.
Acknowledgments {#acknowledgments .unnumbered}
===============
The authors would like to thank Prof. Gerhard Kramer for the stimulating conversations and useful comments.
|
Troubleshooting Second Life
A note from Catherine:
Because there wasn't a proper place for this at the time, it ended up here on the LSLwiki. The LSL wiki deals with how to script. The current troubleshooting resource is the SL Wiki.
Most technical problems with SL can be fixed or at least explained by corrupt cache, bad drivers, overheating, bad power, or a bad network connection--usually in that order. These suggestions are intended to help you track down the specific issue you're having and hopefully resolve it. Note: most of these solutions are intended for Windows users. Most of the problems Windows users have aren't issues the Mac client has to deal with.
A) My SL client is crashing!
Assuming that you've rebooted your computer, try the following suggestions:
Wipe your cache. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to simply delete the "cache" directory. Un-/reinstalling SL is a more drastic, and usually unnecessary, option.
Check your drivers. Are you using the newest version of your video drivers, motherboard chipset drivers, BIOS, and DirectX? When you start SL, it should give you an error message if you're not up-to-date. Follow the links the error dialog box gives you.
When installing a new video card driver, the best thing to do is to first download the new driver, then uninstall the old one, reboot, then install the new one and reboot again.
Make sure you're using the official drivers from your video card's chipset manufacturer (usually either nVidia or ATI). OEM (original equipment manufacturer) drivers produced by the company that manufactured the card itself (Chaintech, Asus, etc.) will usually suck, as will those available from major OEMs like Dell or IBM.
If you're running a desktop system with ATI video and you're using third-party drivers, such as the Omega or DNA drivers, switch back to the official ATI Catalyst ones if you can.
If you're running a laptop with ATI graphics, you should first try to see if you can install ATI's official Catalyst drivers. Failing that, try either the Omega or DNA drivers. Update: This site seems to have modified Catalyst drivers that may work on your ATI-based laptop. It's my understanding that they work in the same way that Phil Metalhead's suggestion does.
Are you sure you're actually running the driver you think you are? Windows can be really uncooperative at times. Check out this thread for more information on how to properly remove the Microsoft driver and install the correct nVidia or ATI one.
Your connection is too slow and low-capacity for you to run SL properly. SL is intended for use with a broadband connection. You're probably crashing or freezing at the "Accept Licence Agreement" screen, right? If you used a broadband connection to get past the licence agreement, you could theoretically connect to SL, but I wouldn't expect to do things like move around or necessarily even talk to people.
broadband (DSL or cable)
This is good. You should check your ping times to the SL server. (Alt-1 in SL, or type "ping www.secondlife.com" at your OS's command prompt.)
broadband (wireless)
If you have a wireless LAN, try plugging your computer directly into the router and seeing if that helps. Some wireless networks are subject to interference. You should also check your ping times. A good Windows-based tool for determining whether or not you're getting wireless interference is NetStumbler, (try MacStumbler if you have a Mac) which allows you to see how many wireless networks are nearby. If you find that all your neighbours are on the same channel as you, try switching to a different channel. If your wireless card supports it, NetStumbler allows you to see the signal:noise ratio as well. Remember, if you have an 802.11b or 802.11g network, everything from cordless phones, to microwave ovens to Bluetooth can interfere with your LAN.
"wireless dual T1"
This doesn't exist. You need to find out what you're actually using. Check your bandwidth capacity and ping time.
satellite (bidirectional or satellite downstream/modem upstream)
Wow, that sucks. Too bad for you. It's quite possible to play SL, at least on a bidirectional connection, but the extreme latency of such a connection will make it really painful.
Do other computers work on the same internet connection you're using? On the same cables and everything?
Are you trying to run SL on two computers on the same internet connection? If so, what kind of hub or router are you using? Some brands are exceptionally bad at it.
Does SL crash or give errors when it's the only thing running, or just when you're running other software? If so, what are they?
file-sharing apps like Gnutella or BitTorrent: These are especially notorious for SL. Keep them turned off.
Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya and 3DS Max, all at the same time: These are heavy-duty applications. It's unrealistic to expect that you can run them all and SL at the same time.
Are you running Windows 95/98/ME? Try upgrading to Windows XP. If your computer's fast enough to run SL, it's fast enough to run XP.
If you can't get XP, but you can get 98, consider upgrading to Windows 98 over either 95 or ME. They're horrible. Yes, 98 is better than ME, even though ME came out later. Note however that SL isn't officially supported on 95/98/ME.
What combination of RAM are you using in your PC? If you know what you're doing inside a computer, try removing all but one memory module and seeing if that helps. (Assuming you have SDRAM or DDR SDRAM, that is. If you have RAMBUS, you likely aren't crashing in the first place.)
if it turns out that one of your memory modules is causing SL or computer to crash, try running memtest86 with only that module. It may be bad RAM.
Is your computer adequately cooled? Download a CPU temperature monitor like Motherboard Monitor. Also, make sure that your CPU isn't radically overclocked. Get WCPUID to check. If your computer's only crashing when it's been turned on and running SL or a similarly video/CPU/memory-intensive application or game, it's possible that it's overheating. If your computer room is very hot, try waiting until it cools down before you connect.
Is your computer's power good? Check the voltages Motherboard Monitor gives you. What capacity is your power supply, and how old is it? How many devices do you have hooked up to it? A 300W power supply with four hard drives and a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is not going to work very well.
When did your problem start happening? If the answer is, "when a new version of SL was released" or "when I got my new video card", that can be helpful in tracking down the problem.
How much free disk space do you have? You should ideally have a couple gigabytes on the disk your pagefile's on, as well as the C: drive if your pagefile's on another drive. (Second Life doesn't let you specify the location of the cache files yet.) If you don't have enough disk space, it can cause SL to give you errors when trying to create or access the cache.
It's unlikely, but possible that your computer has a virus or trojan that's contributing to an existing problem, or even causing your problems with SL in the first place. I recommend Trend Micro's free virus scanner and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware for dealing with viruses and spyware, respectively. Some spyware apps are notorious for affecting system stability and performance.
Are you using any third-party desktop extensions or multi-monitor stuff? Stop it.
If you have local lighting or bump mapping turned on in Preferences, turn them off. You don't need that stuff anyway. Note that this is more a performance tip, but there are still potentially crash issues related to them.
B) Why is everything black? I can only see a few things.
You're probably using a very old graphics card, or a new card with very old drivers (especially ATI users).
In Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Display -> Settings, make sure you're using 32-bit colour depth. SL won't work in 16-bit. If you've been able to get into SL before and now it's suddenly all black, this is what's likely causing it.
Make sure you are using the latest graphics card and mainboard (AGP) drivers (see "Check your drivers" above).
If you can see the menus and controls, but not the world, it's possible that it's "night" in SL and your computer's brightness settings are set incorrectly. You can change SL's brightness in Edit -> Preferences -> Display -> Gamma.
C) SL runs really slowly! What gives?
SL is a very CPU-intensive program. If you don't have a really fast CPU, it won't run very quickly. Even the very fastest CPUs available run SL slower than you might think. Because SL is CPU-bound, your CPU and memory bandwidth tend to be the most important parts. Having a good video card is less important than having a really fast CPU.
If you have local lighting or bump mapping turned on in Preferences, turn them off. You don't need that stuff anyway. Note that this is more a performance tip, but there are still potentially crash issues related to them.
Switching off ripple water also helps, as well as reducing the terrain detail.
If you're running other software, turn it off. Did that help?
If it was an application like Photoshop, how much RAM do you have? If it's less than 1GB, you may find that you don't want to run it and SL with less than 1GB of system RAM.
If it was a filesharing application like Bittorrent, Emule, or Gnutella, it's possible you don't have enough bandwidth to use SL at the same time. If your filesharing software supports it, use a bandwidth limiter while running SL.
In Preferences, turn down your draw distance. Default is 128m, which works best for most people.
Also in Preferences, reduce the bandwith used for SL. Things will load more slowly, but as the client won't be as busy with processing all the incoming data, it will have more time for other tasks like rendering.
D) I can't connect!
Reboot your computer.
Does Sl say it can't resolve the userserver? It's possible you have a minor problem with your DNS. Try connecting again.
Does SL say you need a valid Certificate Authority File? That means your computer's clock is likely off by a couple years. Set it to the proper time and SL will be able to connect. Other applications may also be affected by this problem, so it's good to keep current.
Make sure you can actually connect to the SL website in your web browser.
What time is it? If it's nighttime, PST, check the New in Second Life" forum. If there's a bunch of messages along the lines of "Is the grid down?", "SL is down", "I can't connect", etc., it usually means that something has failed. The Lindens will have been paged, but as they generally prefer to sleep at night, they may not respond as quickly as you might prefer.
Are you having trouble connecting to other websites? The problem is likely with your entire network connection.
Open a console prompt. (Use your OS's Help files to find out how to do that.) Can you ping login.agni.lindenlab.com? If not, there's something wrong with your network.
Assuming everything has checked out fine so far, you may need to open some ports on your firewall. If you've previously been able to connect, but now can't, and you haven't changed anything in your network configuration or setup, you can generally disregard this suggetion. If not, read on: SL currently uses the IP ranges of 66.150.244.0/23 (all IP addresses from 66.150.244.0 to 66.150.245.255), 69.25.104.0/23, and 72.5.12.0 - 72.5.15.255, on ports 12020 - 13050. If that port range is too large, you can safely limit it to ports 12020 - 12050 and 13000 - 13050. In practice, just opening all ports on the SL IP range is probably the best idea.
E) General advice
Run Windows Update. Yes it's annoying, slow, painful, you might have to reboot your computer several times and it sends your pirated Windows serial number to Microsoft. Do it anyways, it will ensure that your Windows has the latest security fixes, drivers and will also offer you the most recent version of DirectX. Install everything in Critical Updates and Service Packs and also everything in Drivers, with the exception of the graphics driver, which you should get from the chip manufacturer, as described above. In the Windows section you should download DirectX, if a newer version is offered. Repeat this about once per month.
Use a virus scanner. There are several free ones available, for example AntiVir. Make sure you run it's auto-update about once a week, so it can find the latest uninvited guests. Strange things and unexplained crashes can often be caused by a virus/worm infection. If you don't want to have a permanently running virus scanner, you should at least use an emergency tool like Stinger once in a while. It only scans for the most recent cases though. |
24 January, 2017
Yet, it has taken me a very long time. And, I got there by a very unusual route...
I had been interested, from the first contact with it as a University student, and slowly built up an extensive library of Marxist works, ever since my first involvement, and have since spent my whole adult life in professedly Marxist-committed parties, or at the very least as an active and trenchant supporter - but I didn't get either educated, or even trained, in any one of those organisations.
I come from a working class family, resident in a major industrial city - Manchester, in the North of England, in which my dad was an unskilled labourer, and my mam a sewing-machinist: but, somehow, I got an education, and ended up as a physicist and teacher.
I did, briefly, make a real difference, politically, when still a very young man, as I worked almost exclusively among working class youth, on the same kind of Council House Estates, on which I had lived and grown up, but, very soon I was outnumbered-and-outargued in the parties to which I belonged, by middle class "intellectuals".
From being a leader I was soon relegated to being the always-available working class activist, to send in, where the middle class certainly could not productively venture, and indeed, feared to tread!
And, my commitment to becoming a Marxist, though undiminished, never found any teachers either willing, or even able, to take me forward - and, I don't just mean in my chosen discipline - Physics. Indeed, though I met fairly able Marxist Economists, I never met a single Marxist Philosopher, any Marxist Mathematicians, or Marxist Scientists whatsoever.
Now, I had first got into revolutionary politics for a very unusual reason. I had been totally disgusted in my very first term at University, when presented with the Copenhagenist drivel (that was then, and still is, the current-received-wisdom) being dispensed by my professors and lecturers. My puzzled questions only elicited ridicule, both from both my tutors, and even my fellow students. But I was, certainly in the right place, and made lifelong friends - one of whom recommended me to read Lenin's Materialism and Empirio Criticism. (He was, by the way, a fellow student, studying, of all things, English Literature).
And on reading this, my first Marxist book, I immediately realised that Lenin had the answer to the decline in Physics. His chosen opponents in the book were the famous physicists Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, who were the immediate theoretical predecessors of the Copenhagenists who later came to totally dominate Physics.
So, I began to read Marx, and then Engels, but I clearly needed help.
The politics was easy to understand coming from my background, but the philosophy, most certainly was not! Indeed, it was clear that Marx was preoccupied with using the newly established Dialectical Materialism in tackling Capitalist Economics, and it was left to his colleague Engels, to "describe" that stance's detailed Nature and Methodology. And, though he did a great job upon materialist Holism, he was by no means, the dialectician that Marx certainly was. Indeed, Engels "found" Dialectics everywhere in Nature, but NOT as its driving fornce, but rather as a kind of set of properties.
It wasn't enough!
Nevertheless, pamphlets like "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man", were indeed brilliant.
I discussed Lenin's book with my colleagues, in my then Party, but they were absolutely no help, and they even began to get annoyed. "Pack in this Physics stuff! It's an excuse - a diversion from the real work!"
But, they were wrong.
I had no trouble relating to working class youth: after all, I was one of them! In fact, I was pretty successful working with such people. Any new target area that was decided upon, in my branch, would always involve sending me into the fray.
Clearly, my concerns with Physics Theory could play no role there, it never got addressed - ever!
So, my working life as a Mathematics and Science teacher, was separated from my work in political activities, to the real detriment of both.
I began to make real gains as a teacher, and had a successful career, which took me from a Middle school, teaching 11 year olds, by stages and changes of job and disciplines, until I finally got a series of posts in Universities. The separation was remarkable, as when working in Glasgow, I would spend my daytime assisting post-graduate researchers, by writing tailor-made computer programs to aid in their researches: while in the evenings, I'd be teaching unemployed working class youth Computing in a converted warehouse.
But, crucially, it was in my professional daytime work that I, all by myself, made significant progress, philosophically, when designing multimedia aids along with a dance expert colleague, to crack an important problem in using film and video footage in the teaching of Dance Performance and Choreography.
The old Paradoxes of Zeno, in addressing Movement, were finally integrated via Hegel's Dialectics, and, I began to put together my interpretation of what Marx had been implictly using, throughout, in creating Das Kapital.
And, my original problem with the ill-famed Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, could now, potentionally at least, be tackled and resolved!
I returned to Hegel - to review his vital criticisms of Formal Logic, his identification of Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts - occurring frequently at non-transcendable rational impasses, and his recourse to holist, "dialectical" means to correct mistaken premises and begin to establish his Dialectical Logic.
And, as an "aspirant-and-intended" Marxist, AND a competent physicist, I began to tackle the key 20th century developments in Physics, which had led to Copenhagen. The first requirement was obvious: it had to be the addressing of the crucially important Double Slit Experiments. Using the very methods I had unearthed in cracking Movement Studies, I addressed the assumed premises of the Double Slit Experiments, and realised, not so much a flaw, as a crucial omission.
The inclusion of some kind of Universal Substrate, theoretically, at least, resolved every-single-one of the anomalies of these Experiments.
The Wave/Particle Duality resolved-itself into a classic Dichotomous Pair, and was explained away by a dialectical, recursive relationship between moving particles and an affect-able and affecting Substrate.
Initially, of course, it was, indeed, a purely theoretical solution!
But, the same approach led to further theoretical successes, in defining the concrete nature of such a substrate, endowing it, not only with the necessary properties to deliver all required functionalities: but also explaining its undetectability.
NOTE: Also full experimental credit must be given to the French physicist, Yves Couder, whose "Walker" Expedriments - using only a silicone-oil-substrate and energy, enabled him to create his Walker entities, and even show how they could be made to move in "quantized orbits" - far from the confines of Sub Atomic Copenhagenism.
After decades incorrectly claiming to be a Marxist, I had finally made the grade. But, notice, in that important process, I didn't even mention political activities. What I had achieved was purely philosophical! Marxism is after all a Philosophy.
So, instead of deciding political activities by means of precedent, which is what all the professed Marxists I knew did, the practising Marxist, as I now appeared to be, was able to use Marx's methods, and NOT only his past experiences and solutions, to analyse situations afresh, as they are now, and also in every possible field.
To be a Marxist, you have to be a practising Marxist Philosopher!
Understanding, and then using, Marx's Philosophy was absolutely vital. Without it, you had to depend upon the past experiences of others: and that just isn't good enough. Having made these conclusions I returned to accessing all the usual supposed sources of Marxist analysis currently available, and their uniform lack of a Full Dialectical Materialist Method was immediately evident.
The supposed "Use of Dialectics" boiled down to the usual tenets of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis, Extremes Meet, and the Driving of Change by the interaction of opposites - employed by the activists, OR, the "Back-to-Hegel Dialectics" of theorists like Žižek.
The inadequacies, of them all, have been tragically exposed by events like the Brexit result in the UK Referendum and the Trump victory in the US Presidential Election.
"A plague on both their houses", is not Marxism.
When the Left fails utterly, Populism tragically triumphs! We need the philosophy of dialectical materialism now more than ever.
So, the answer to the question posed in this article's title:- "What is left of "Marxism?" has to be Marxism! And the time to start using it is now...
11 January, 2017
This issue presents a collection of papers on Slavoj Žižek’s The Limits of Hegel from his book Less Than Nothing.
The introductory papers are important here, because without them the different stances of both Žižek and this critic would not be understood.
Jim Schofield, the author, feels that the various philosophic stances of both Holism and Plurality, and Hegelian Dialectics versus Marx’s Dialectical Materialism, would simply be confused by Žižek’s Limits of Hegel piece, either taken alone, or with a comprehensive criticism by Schofield.
The deterioration of Marxism has proceeded long- and-variously over the last century, to have left literally no-one with the wherewithal to “do a Marx” upon this “professed” Marxist, who casts a long Hegelian shadow over Dialectical Materialism.
A reasonable amount of ground must be attempted to be established, and a “quote-all-with-commentary” method of dealing with Žižek’s offering, along with three preparatory papers, constitute his attempt to deliver as much as possible.
“Why”, you may justifiably ask, “is this amount of effort necessary?”
It is because the World Working Class are entering the most dangerous period in almost a century, and are doing so without the real Marxist leadership it needs.
09 January, 2017
As we move into the 10th miserable year of this global slump, we must reject the suffering imposed upon ordinary workingpeople, and the LIES of those who caused it, those who now expect US to pay for their greed, while they continue to extend the gap between their increasing Wealth and our ever-growing Poverty.
We didn't spend centuries fighting for and
winning adequate Social Provision across the State for all the services that it should provide for its
People, only to see them now vastly reduced, and even successively dismantled into yet another Privatisationwhile the perpetrators, themselves, talk out of the other side of their lying mouths about concern and increased provision plans.
About Me
I am a retired lecturer and full-time writer. As the truth of Science has been my major concern throughout my life, I cannot conceive of teaching it in an uncritical, passive way. It's truth or error is THE question, and its improvement must be my main purpose. Teaching for me is Philosophy, and that means taking a stand on all sorts of issues, not sitting on the fence! |
Learned Healthfulness
4 years ago
9 min read
Modeling a Food Conscious Lifestyle for Children to Follow
As a child, Desiree Williams did what many children do—follow their parents’ example when it comes to eating and exercise. The healthy habits that she developed early on stuck with her and helped her survive the challenges of the Miss Virginia pageant, which she won in 2013.
“My mom used to get up each and every morning and do a Jazzercise VHS” she says, “and I would get up and do that VHS, as well. So even at the age of three, I had already fallen in love with exercise.”
Still, like many children today who are inundated with advertisements for high-sugar and high-fat junk foods, Williams ate a typical American diet when she was younger—something that changed as she became more aware of the importance of healthy food.
“I didn’t grow up eating all that healthfully,” she says. “Both my parents worked full time and so we ate fast food most days of the week. As I got older, I realized how harmful that was for our bodies and for our health…so something that I’ve changed over the years is incorporating more fruits and vegetables.”
As reigning Miss Virginia, she hopes to share her passion for healthy living with others—especially children—choosing as her platform “Fighting Childhood Obesity—Let’s Move.”
“The obesity epidemic is running rampant in our society,” she says, “so it’s my goal to educate children, as well as their families, on eating healthy and being active—because as much as we focus on children, no change will be made if we don’t focus their parents and educate them on making better choices as well.”
Childhood Obesity Epidemic
Childhood obesity is often described as an epidemic, but is the rise in the number of overweight and obese children severe enough to warrant that term?
“I would say absolutely it is,” says Dr. Trey Wickham, an endocrinologist and pediatrician at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Va. “Based on our most current data, on average over 30 percent of children and adolescents in the United States would meet the classification for overweight or obese. Those rates are even higher in certain racial and ethnic groups, such as African American and Hispanic families.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of obese children and teenagers has tripled since 1980. As a result, 17 percent—or 12.5 million—children between the ages of two and 19 are carrying excess weight that puts their health at risk, both now and in the future.
“Although we certainly know that obesity in childhood is associated with increased risk of health problems later in life,” says Wickham, “the unfortunate reality is that we already can see health problems such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure in the pediatric population because of weight gain and obesity.”
The increased health problems later in life stem from the fact that children who are overweight and obese are more likely to be obese as adults.
Researchers are also finding that the scales can tip toward obesity very early in life. A 2014 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that children who are overweight by the start of kindergarten are four times more likely to be obese by eighth grade. There’s even some evidence that children who are heavier at birth may be more at risk of developing obesity later in life.
Obesity Blame Game
At its foundation, childhood obesity is simply a matter of balance—children (or adults) who eat more calories than they burn off through the body’s metabolism and physical activity will gain weight. In reality, though, obesity depends on multiple factors interacting in a complex fashion.
“The way that I really think about the obesity epidemic,” says Wickham, “and particularly in the pediatric population—it sounds like a cliché—but it really is the result of a perfect storm.”
Then, the obesity epidemic is a hurricane fueled by many factors. Beneath it lies our genes—including those that affect the hormones that control appetite and fullness.
“The genes that helped us survive eons ago,” says Dr. Caroline Apovian, a professor of medicine and pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine, “when we had to forage for food, we had to go and kill an animal to get protein, and then we found berries and plants—those genes helped us survive by arranging fat oxidation so we could store as much fat as possible.”
In our current environment, we no longer need to hunt or gather food. We simply drive to the nearest fast food restaurant, or order a pizza without moving from our sofa. And much of the food that we do eat is leading us slowly toward obesity.
“We have created very highly palatable foods made of a lot of sugar and a lot of fat,” says Apovian, “and they taste so good that we altered our pathways to appetite and satiety. So, we’ve got this highly palatable food readily available all around us that is devoid of nutrients, and we’ve created a situation where we’re storing too much fat.”
On top of that, our communities and families are structured to not only allow easy access to high-caloric foods, but also to limit our physical activity—creating what scientists call an obesogenic environment, or one that promotes obesity.
Targeting Lifestyle Habits
As pointed out in the New England Journal of Medicine study, some of the seeds of obesity are planted by age five. This implies that earlier interventions may be needed to give kids the best chance to lead healthy lives.
One of the challenges, though, is that so many factors contribute to childhood obesity. Still, health professionals tend to agree on part of the solution.
“One of the key messages, and one of the things that we’re finding,” says Wickham, “is the importance of prevention. There’s a lot of data supporting the benefits of a healthy diet and regular physical activity. And I would emphasize that those are important regardless of what someone’s body weight or body habitus [shape] is.”
Most parents realize that eating better and exercising more are good for them and their children— reducing the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer— but convincing children to make changes can often be difficult.
One thing, however, that’s often overlooked is that what parents do has a big impact on their children.
“Kids learn from role modeling,” says Kristi King, a registered dietitian at Texas Children’s Hospital, “so if they don’t have that role model to look up to, the chances of them developing that healthy behavior is going to diminish.”
King illustrates this with a story of a father who asked her to convince his child to eat more vegetables. When the father admitted that he doesn’t eat vegetables himself, she told him, “You know, the chance of your child eating them if he’s not seeing you eat them is going to be slim to none.”
That’s why many interventions for obese children also involve the parents and siblings, because the family that eats healthier and exercises more together, succeeds together.
“Most of our programs revolve around the whole family,” says King. “That’s because their rate of compliance is going to be better when everybody is involved, versus just one person.”
It Takes a Village
If children never left their house, parents could easily control their environment. But the truth is that the home is only one small corner of the greater village that influences the behaviors of children.
“Kids spend a significant amount of time at school,” says Wickham. “I think that there’s opportunities there for promoting healthy changes.”
Many schools, he adds, are already making those changes—from improving school snacks and meals, to promoting physical activity, to starting after-school programs and community gardens.
“I think all of those things play important roles,” he says. “One of the things that I think is really important as we look at the obesity epidemic…is that, although there are lots of great ideas out there, that we are actively tracking what works and doesn’t work.”
One program that is showing some success with these types of changes is APPLE Schools—which stands for the Alberta Project Promoting active Living and healthy Eating—an initiative in Canada that hopes to create healthy schools by connecting the pieces that form the larger school community. This type of comprehensive school health project includes students, teachers, principals, parents and local community members.
To ensure success, the APPLE Schools program added a feature that was absent from similar efforts in other school systems.
“We had a full-time person in the school,” says Kerry Vander Ploeg, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, where the APPLE Schools program was developed, “where this was their job, to work with the school community to promote healthy eating and active living.”
The results of the program, some of which were published in a 2014 article in the journal Pediatrics, are promising. Students attending APPLE Schools increased their physical activity, which was recorded using pedometers worn by the students. While the number of steps taken increased throughout the week, the improvement was even more drastic on non-school days—when students tended to be more inactive. This shows that the health behaviors students were learning and practicing during school hours stuck with them outside of school.
According to Vander Ploeg, diet quality also improved in the APPLE Schools, while the number of overweight and obese children decreased, both of which are impressive changes.
“Being able to show that we changed behaviors is really positive,” says Vander Ploeg, “and hopefully those behaviors will continue and carry with them throughout their lifetime.”
Inspiring Healthy Changes
In addition to promoting a healthier lifestyle, doctors can sometime use medications and drugs to treat childhood obesity. Given the sheer size of the epidemic, others favor a broader approach along the lines of the successful anti-smoking and seatbelt campaigns.
“That has to be a public health effort,” says Apovian, “with government, with the media, with industry all gathering together with academia to make a change.”
Those changes, though, may take several years. In the meantime, health professionals continue to promote healthier living through diet and physical activity. For kids, it helps that they have role models like Williams to show them the way. In the end, what they pick up from her just might nudge them toward a better life.
“Seeing one person turn their life around and get active,” says Williams, “really does inspire a change for other people as well.” |
Introduction {#s1}
============
The fatal outcome from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is attributed to terminal respiratory failure secondary to bilateral pneumonia from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection ([@B1]--[@B3]). However, a subset of younger patients with severe COVID-19 suffer from uncontrolled hyperinflammation and succumb to acute organ failure and cardiac arrest while still being adequately oxygenated ([@B4]--[@B7]). The "cytokine storm" or "cytokine release syndrome" (CRS) has been implicated in adverse patient outcomes, with interleukin-6 (IL-6) representing a key inflammatory mediator and surrogate marker of CRS ([@B8], [@B9]). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the expanded access to a recombinant monoclonal antibody against human IL-6 receptors (tocilizumab), and a randomized controlled phase 3 clinical trial on tocilizumab in adult patients suffering from severe COVID-19 is currently ongoing ([@B10]--[@B13]). The available empirical treatment modalities include a wide spectrum of off-label indications for antirheumatic agents, including cytokine inhibitors, corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, and other novel anti-inflammatory molecules ([@B13]--[@B15]). However, the exact mechanisms of hyperinflammation and hypercoagulation in COVID-19 patients remain enigmatic and poorly understood.
Role of Complement in COVID-19? {#s2}
===============================
The complement system serves as a "first line of defense" against invading viruses and as a bridge between innate and adaptive immune responses ([@B16], [@B17]). Interestingly, complement has received limited attention in the quest for effective anti-inflammatory treatment strategies in spite of multiple intuitive targets in COVID-19, and most of the prevalent anti-inflammatory agents currently under investigation do not include a consideration for complement inhibitors ([@B8], [@B13], [@B14]). Complement activation has been previously implicated in the pathophysiology of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which are severe infectious diseases mediated by coronaviruses that are similar to the pathogen responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic (SARS-CoV-2). Experimental studies revealed that complement activation occurs in response to SARS-CoV infection, and mice deficient in genes for the central complement component C3 were shown to be protected from pulmonary inflammation and respiratory failure ([@B18]). Furthermore, the complement activation fragment anaphylatoxin C5a is a potent mediator of acute lung injury in highly pathogenic viral infections, including MERS and SARS ([@B19]). The pharmacological blockade of the C5a receptor (C5aR, CD88) attenuated pulmonary inflammation in a mouse model of MERS-CoV infection, and C5aR blockade led to decreased viral replication in infected lungs ([@B20]). In addition, there is an established crosstalk between the coagulation cascade and the immune proteolytic system through thrombin- and plasmin-mediated complement activation, and complement activation was recently postulated to induce thrombotic microangiopathy in COVID-19 ([@B21], [@B22]). In light of these presumed "key" pathophysiological features mediated by complement activation in response to coronavirus infections, it appears intuitive to consider the pharmacological complement inhibition as part of the "expanded access" paradigm to off-label indications for anti-inflammatory treatment strategies in COVID-19.
Pharmacological Complement Inhibition {#s3}
=====================================
There are currently multiple pharmacological complement inhibitors available for the treatment of rare inflammatory and autoimmune disorders in humans ([@B17], [@B23], [@B24]). Preliminary case reports from "hot zones" in Italy outlined the anecdotal success by compassionate use of the complement C3 inhibitor AMY-101 (Amyndas Pharmaceuticals, Glyfada, Greece) and by administration of the anti-C5 monoclonal antibody eculizumab (Soliris; Alexion, Boston, MA) in the rescue of critically ill COVID-19 patients ([@B25], [@B26]). From a mechanistic perspective, AMY-101 inhibits cleavage of C3, the central component in the complement cascade, and thus prevents the formation of the C3 and C5 convertases and the subsequent release of the inflammatory mediators C3a and C5a and formation of the tissue-damaging membrane attack complex (MAC; C5b-9). Further downstream, eculizumab prevents cleavage of C5 and the formation of the inflammatory anaphylatoxin C5a and of the MAC/C5b-9 ([@B27]). Indeed, a recent study from Milan, Italy, reported elevated levels of the C5 activation fragment C5a and soluble MAC (sC5b-9) in plasma samples of patients with severe COVID-19, confirming the notion that C5 blockade represents a potentially relevant therapeutic consideration ([@B28]). A prospective randomized controlled trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of eculizumab in patients with COVID-19 infection is currently under way ("CORIMUNO-19" trial). Several additional complement inhibitors are under consideration for compassionate use in COVID-19 ([Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). Of these, avdoralimab (Innate Pharma, Marseille, France) is an anti-C5aR monoclonal antibody that prevents binding of C5a to its receptor (C5aR, CD88), while IFX-1 (InflaRX; Martinsried, Germany) is a monoclonal antibody that targets C5a, preventing it from interacting with the C5aR. In addition, the recombinant human C1 esterase inhibitor conestat alfa (Ruconest; Pharming Group & Salix Pharmaceuticals, Bridgewater, NJ) is a specific inhibitor of the classical complement activation pathway which is currently approved for treatment of hereditary angioedema. This C1 inhibitor (C1-INH) is under consideration as an open-label, multicenter pilot trial in adult patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia ("PROTECT-COVID-19" trial).
{#F1}
In addition to the classical and alternative complement activation pathways, the lectin pathway provides another new promising avenue for pharmacological targeting in COVID-19. The complement lectin pathway is activated when a pattern recognition receptor, such as mannose binding lectin (MBL), binds to pathogen-associated molecular patterns expressed on the surface of invading microorganisms ([@B29]). The complement cascade is then initiated by MBL forming complexes with MBL-associated serine proteases 1 and 2 (MASP-1 and MASP-2, respectively) in a similar fashion that C1 is activated through the classical pathway, leading to C4 and C2 cleavage and assembly of the C3 convertase ([@B30]). A historic case-control study on 569 SARS patients demonstrated a role of MBL gene polymorphisms in contributing to the susceptibility of viral invasion, and implied that the complement lectin pathway represents the "first line of defense" against SARS-CoV infection ([@B31], [@B32]). This notion is supported by recent histopathological findings in patients with severe COVID-19, demonstrating the deposition of complement lectin pathway components MBL and MASP-2, as well as complement activation fragments C4d and C5b-9, in the microvasculature of human lung tissue specimens with SARS-CoV-2 infection ([@B21]). Narsoplimab (OMS721; Omeros Corporation, Seattle, WA) is a novel human monoclonal antibody that targets MASP-2 and prevents lectin pathway-mediated inflammation and endothelial damage in a variety of autoimmune disorders ([@B33]). The safety and efficacy of narsoplimab is currently being investigated in a phase 2 dose-escalation cohort study in patients with complement-mediated hyperinflammatory conditions, including hematopoietic stem cell transplantation-associated thrombotic microangiopathy, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome ([@B33]). Several other human complement inhibitors are currently in phase 2 or phase 3 clinical trials for different indications, raising the possibility that FDA-approved complement inhibitors will quickly join the developing arsenal of therapeutics for treatment of COVID-19 patients beyond compassionate use ([@B34]--[@B36]).
Summary {#s4}
=======
In summary, the complex immune dysregulation observed in patients with severe COVID-19 remains poorly understood. The pharmacological targeting of complement activation in severe COVID-19 may attenuate the increased mortality observed in a younger cohort of patients with persistent hyperinflammation, thromboembolic complications, and cardiac arrest beyond terminal respiratory failure associated with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. Moving forward, it will be important to carefully monitor for beneficial and adverse effects associated with therapeutic complement inhibition ([@B36]). In addition, well-designed clinical studies are needed to determine patient outcomes by inhibiting complement in isolation vs. a combination therapy by targeting other key mediators responsible for the "cytokine storm" ([@B37]). Finally, from a patient safety perspective, we will have to determine the extent of retained innate immunity required for viral clearance and prevention of secondary bacterial infections.
Author Contributions {#s5}
====================
Both authors conceived the concept of this article and wrote the manuscript together.
Conflict of Interest {#s6}
====================
PS has a United States Patent No. 11,441,828 entitled: "Inhibition of the alternative complement pathway for treatment of traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and related conditions." PS is employed by HCA Healthcare as the chief medical officer at the Medical Center of Aurora. SB has a United States Patent \# 10,535,004 "Methods and compositions for diagnosis and treatment of meningitis." SB is employed by CNine Biosolutions LLC, a company involved in developing complement diagnostic assays. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any other commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Specifically, there is no conflict of interest whatsoever by either of the two authors related to the pharmacological agents and companies cited in this manuscript.
[^1]: Edited by: Yolande Richard, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), France
[^2]: Reviewed by: Cecilia Garlanda, Humanitas University, Italy; Ka Man Law, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
[^3]: This article was submitted to Inflammation, a section of the journal Frontiers in Immunology
|
529 F.Supp. 1056 (1981)
Nannie L. DODSON, Administratrix of the Estate of Jerry Banks, Deceased,
v.
Tommy FLOYD, et al.
Civ. A. No. C81-1035A.
United States District Court, N. D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.
December 18, 1981.
*1057 *1058 *1059 Bobby Lee Cook, Cook & Palmour, Summerville, Ga., Wade M. Crumbley, Stephen P. Harrison, McDonough, Ga., for plaintiff.
Harvey S. Gray, Smith, Cohen, Ringel, Kohler & Martin, Atlanta, Ga., for defendants.
MOYE, Chief Judge.
ORDER
The Court examines the above-styled case in its preliminary stage in order to consider defendants' motion to disqualify Wade M. Crumbley, Stephen P. Harrison, and Bobby Lee Cook from serving further as counsel for plaintiff Nannie L. Dodson.
I.
This is a civil action for compensatory and punitive damages brought by Nannie L. Dodson, Administratrix of the Estate of Jerry Banks, deceased, against Henry County, Georgia, Jimmy H. Glass, Sheriff of Henry County, Georgia, and five additional law enforcement officials of said county. The detailed complaint, brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(2) and (3), 1986 and 1988, bases jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(1)-(4). It is alleged within the complaint that the acts and omissions of defendants caused Jerry Banks to be convicted of two counts of murder, sentenced to death, and incarcerated for over six years for a crime which he did not commit. Specifically, the complaint alleges the defendants:
(1) Deprived Plaintiff's decedent of his Fourteenth Amendment due process right to have disclosed to him exculpatory evidence known to the State;
(2) Deprived him of his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to have compulsory process of obtaining witnesses in his favor, to be confronted with witnesses against him and to effective assistance of counsel;
(3) Deprived him of his Fourteenth Amendment due process right not to have false and perjured testimony used against him;
(4) Deprived him of his Fourteenth Amendment due process right to have access to exculpatory physical evidence; and
(5) Deprived him of his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the law, and not to be prosecuted because of his race.
All of the above conduct was allegedly intentional, reckless, wanton, wilful, and grossly negligent, and was maliciously, wantonly, and oppressively done.
The above allegations are based upon thirty-eight lengthy paragraphs of factual averments which, in summary, indicate the following: Plaintiff's deceased Jerry Banks was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to death in Henry Superior Court on January 31, 1975, but the conviction was overturned and a new trial granted by the Georgia Supreme Court on direct appeal. Banks v. State, 235 Ga. 121, 218 S.E.2d 851 (1975). On retrial on November 17 and 18, 1975, Banks was again convicted on two counts of murder and sentenced to death, following which he was transferred from the Henry County Jail, where he had been continuously incarcerated since December 11, 1974, to Death Row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center in Butts County, Georgia. Banks' direct appeal of his second conviction was without success, Banks v. State, 237 Ga. 325, 227 S.E.2d 380 (1976), as was his subsequent habeas petition, Banks v. Glass, 242 Ga. 518, 250 S.E.2d 431 (1978). In 1980, however, Banks' extraordinary motion for a new trial, based upon six paragraphs of newly discovered evidence, was ordered granted by the Supreme Court. Banks v. State, 246 Ga. 1, 268 S.E.2d 630 (1980). The District Attorney of the Flint Judicial Circuit filed a motion *1060 seeking the trial judge's consent in the entry of a nolle prossequi on December 22, 1980, and said motion being granted, Banks was released. The complaint alleges that from and after June 10, 1979, Banks discovered a large body of theretofore undisclosed, exculpatory evidence. All of this evidence was allegedly known to the defendants Floyd, Robbins, Howard, Barnes, and Glass, and had never been disclosed to Banks or his counsel, or to the District Attorney and his assistants. None of the exculpatory evidence described was ever voluntarily disclosed by the defendants, according to the complaint, but was discovered from third parties and by judicial process. None of the exculpatory evidence was presented at Banks' two trials.
II.
Having outlined the civil action before the Court, a matter necessary for the reader to understand fully the defendants' motion for disqualification of plaintiff's counsel, the Court now focuses upon the pending motion.
Defendants' motion for disqualification asserts that Mr. Crumbley's representation of Henry County, Georgia, in the capacity of assistant county attorney and county attorney from the summer of 1979 through January 1981, and his association with the law firm of Smith, Welch, and Meadows for the period from the summer of 1980 until immediately prior to the filing of the present action violates Canons 4 and 9 of the Code of Professional Responsibility, made applicable to members of the State Bar of Georgia, as reprinted at 241 Ga. 643, 651-721 (1978). Said motion further asserts that Mr. Crumbley's association with Mr. Harrison and the law firm of Cook & Palmour as co-counsel for plaintiff in the preparation of this action requires their similar disqualification.
The relevant test in disqualification matters is clearly settled in this Circuit and others: where an attorney represents a party in a matter in which the adverse party is that attorney's former client, the attorney will be disqualified if the subject matter of the two representations are "substantially related." See Duncan v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, 646 F.2d 1020 (5th Cir. 1981); Brennan's, Inc. v. Brennan's Restaurants, Inc., 590 F.2d 168 (5th Cir. 1979); Wilson P. Abraham Construction Corp. v. Armco Steel Corp., 559 F.2d 250 (5th Cir. 1977); In Re Yarn Processing Patent Validity Litigation, 530 F.2d 83 (5th Cir. 1976) (decisions of controlling authority adopting rule) and Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 588 F.2d 221 (7th Cir. 1978); Government of India v. Cook Industries, Inc., 569 F.2d 737 (2d Cir. 1978) (decisions of other Circuits adopting rule); T. C. Theatre Corp. v. Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., 113 F.Supp. 265 (S.D.N.Y. 1953) (genesis of substantial relationship test). The rule embodies the substance of Canons 4 and 9 of the A.B.A. Code of Professional Responsibility. Canon 4 provides that a "lawyer should preserve the confidences and secrets of a client," and Canon 9 provides that "a lawyer should avoid even the appearance of professional impropriety." As a result, it is clear that the determination of whether there is a substantial relationship turns on the possibility, or appearance thereof, that confidential information might have been given to the attorney in relation to the subsequent matter in which disqualification is sought. The effect of the Canons is to restrict the inquiry to the possibility of disclosure; it is not appropriate for the Court to inquire into whether actual confidences were disclosed. Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 588 F.2d 221, 224 (7th Cir. 1978); In Re Yarn Processing Patent Validity Litigation, 530 F.2d 83, 89 (5th Cir. 1976).
The Court must presume that confidences potentially damaging to the client have been disclosed to the attorney during the former period of representation because such a presumption is necessary to aid the frank exchange between attorney and client by helping to preclude even a possibility that information given in confidence by the former client will be used without the client's consent. Id. Were an attorney permitted to represent a client whose cause is *1061 related and adverse to that of his former client he would be called upon to decide what is confidential and what is not, and, perhaps, unintentionally to make use of confidential information received from the former client while espousing his cause. T. C. Theatre Corp. v. Warner Bros. Pictures, 113 F.Supp. 265, 269 (S.D.N.Y.1953). Doubts as to the existence of an asserted conflict of interest should be resolved in favor of disqualification. 588 F.2d at 225; International Business Machines Corp. v. Levin, 579 F.2d 271, 283 (3d Cir. 1978); Hull v. Celanese Corp., 513 F.2d 568, 571 (2d Cir. 1975); Chugach Electric Association v. United States District Court, 370 F.2d 441, 444 (9th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 820, 88 S.Ct. 40, 19 L.Ed.2d 71 (1967).
In view of the above, disqualification questions require three levels of inquiry. Initially, the Court must make a factual reconstruction of the scope of the prior legal representation. Second, it must be determined whether it is reasonable to infer that the confidential information allegedly given would have been given to a lawyer representing a client in those matters. Finally, it must be determined whether that information is relevant to the issues raised in the litigation pending against the former client. The Court must place the burden of proving that the present and prior representations are substantially related on the party seeking disqualification and the focus of the Court's inquiry must be on the precise nature of the relationship between the present and former representations. Duncan v. Merrill Lynch, 646 F.2d 1020, 1028-29 (5th Cir. 1981). Having established the appropriate legal framework, the Court examines the case at bar.
III.
A. The Scope of the Prior Legal Representation
Initially, the Court must examine the facts which reveal the scope of the prior legal representation of defendants by plaintiff's counsel. It is not argued that Mr. Harrison or Mr. Cook ever represented defendants, so the focus is upon Mr. Crumbley.
Mr. Crumbley became an assistant county attorney for Henry County on March 23, 1979, and was elevated to county attorney on May 21, 1979, Deposition of Crumbley at 20-21, a position he held until January 1981, Exhibit B to defendants' brief. As county attorney, Mr. Crumbley was called upon to represent the county Board of Commissioners, Clerk of Court, Probate Judge, Tax Assessors, and Sheriff. Deposition of Crumbley at 23-24. During this period Mr. Crumbley, in association with Mr. Harrison, represented Jerry Banks, plaintiff's deceased, against the State in his efforts to be freed from prison. Between 750 and 1000 hours were devoted by Mr. Crumbley to Banks' case. Affidavit of Crumbley at ¶ 3.
The bulk of Mr. Crumbley's county work was done for the Board of Commissioners. Mr. Crumbley's fee statements to the Board, which are attached to defendants' brief as Exhibit A, indicate that Mr. Crumbley attended approximately fifty (50) general and special meetings of the Board and defended approximately eleven different suits against the county or county officials. These cases are discussed in Crumbley's Deposition at 70-76.
Mr. Crumbley's work for Sheriff Glass, a defendant herein, was limited to 36.25 hours during his tenure as county attorney, an amount which represents only 3.45% of the time he spent on county matters. Affidavit of Crumbley at ¶ 5. The first matter that arose concerning the sheriff for County Attorney Crumbley was the case of Duffy v. Goins et al., No. C78-2208A (N.D.Ga.), a civil rights action against Sheriff Glass, the City of McDonough, Georgia, certain of its officers, and Deputy Sheriff Ernest Wise. Henry County was not a named defendant. The complaint in Duffy with respect to defendant Glass alleged that Sheriff Glass, acting under color of state law, subjected plaintiff to cruel and unusual punishment and deprived plaintiff of his liberty and the security of his person without due process of law, in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(2), and 1985(3), and contrary to *1062 the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The alleged actions were allegedly motivated by racial prejudice and an intent to deprive plaintiff of equal protection of the law. Duffy v. Goins, No. C78-2208A (N.D.Ga.), Complaint at ¶ 33, filed December 27, 1978. Defendant Glass was further alleged to be liable to plaintiff (1) for his failure to adequately train, supervise, discipline, and control defendants Wise and Doe, who were deputy sheriffs of Henry County, id. at ¶ 38, and (2) for malicious arrest and false imprisonment in violation of Ga.Code Ann. §§ 26-1308 and 1309.
Mr. Crumbley's involvement with the Duffy case was limited to assisting defendants Glass and Wise in answering interrogatories which were served upon them in 1979. Deposition of Crumbley at 26-28. Defendant Glass' first answers were filed on June 29, 1979, and consisted of denials of any involvement with the arrest of Duffy. Mr. Crumbley's signature appears on the answers as "attorney for the defendant Jimmy Glass." Mr. Crumbley's signature appears only on the second interrogatories to defendant Wise, which asked only three questions, all relative to Wise's arrest of Duffy. See Wise's answers, filed June 29, 1979. A second set of interrogatories was served on defendant Glass on August 24, 1979. This set of questions asked defendant Glass about the conduct of his office inasmuch as it sought to determine whether the sheriff regularly ascertained whether persons were being held in the county jail without legal justification, whether he told Deputy Wise or his jail employee that Duffy could not be arrested for failure to appear in court unless a warrant for his arrest had been issued, and whether the sheriff ever inquired as to whether such a warrant had been issued. Mr. Crumbley signed defendant Glass' answers to these interrogatories, which were filed September 25, 1979, as well as a pleading entitled "Defendant Glass' Response to Plaintiff's Request for Production of Documents" filed the same date. The remaining pleadings in the matter were all signed by either Lowell S. Fine or Robert L. Goldstucker as attorneys for defendants Wise, Doe, and Glass.
Mr. Crumbley's fee statement dated July 5, 1979, indicates that during June 1979 he spent the following time on the Duffy matter: (1) On June 7, ¼ hour with Amy Totenberg, plaintiff's counsel; (2) June 11, ½ hour with Sheriff Glass; (4) June 26, one hour conference with defendants Glass and Wise; (5) June 26, two hours on Duffy case, specific work not recorded. During September 1979, with respect to Duffy, Mr. Crumbley spent (1) two hours in conference with Sheriff Glass on September 11 discussing "jail policies Duffy v. Goins"; (2) two hours on September 11 preparing answers to interrogatories; (3) one hour on September 14 preparing interrogatories, and (4) two hours on September 17 preparing interrogatories. The final appearances of the Duffy case in Mr. Crumbley's billings show a conference with Mr. Goldstucker on October 23, 1979, and a one-hour review of proposed stipulations on November 14, 1979. In total, of the 36.25 hours Mr. Crumbley states he spent on matters for Sheriff Glass during his tenure as county attorney, 12 of those hours were spent in defense of Sheriff Glass and a deputy sheriff on a claim that the sheriff improperly supervised his office and jail.
Because Mr. Crumbley saw a theoretical possibility of a future civil lawsuit by his client Jerry Banks against his client Jimmy Glass, he decided in April 1980 that it would be best to discontinue his representation of Sheriff Glass. Affidavit of Crumbley at ¶ 6. He discussed the matter with the Board of Commissioners, informing them that occasions might arise when their legal position would conflict with the sheriff's position, the Banks case being a case in point. Deposition of Crumbley at 50-55. Sheriff Glass was authorized to acquire his own attorney at county expense, and he hired Rod Meadows in April 1980. Deposition of Crumbley at 57-59. Mr. Crumbley later shared office facilities with Mr. Meadows during the period of time he represented Banks and Henry County and Mr. Meadows represented Sheriff Glass, although Mr. Crumbley insists he and Mr. Meadows never *1063 discussed Mr. Meadow's representation of the sheriff. Affidavit of Crumbley at ¶ 7.
Having summarized the past activities of Mr. Crumbley in his representation of Sheriff Glass and Henry County, Georgia, the Court turns to the second question presented by the substantial relationship test.
B. Reasonable Inferences the Court May Draw As to Whether the Confidential Information Allegedly Given Mr. Crumbley by Sheriff Glass or Henry County Would Have Been Given to Any Lawyer Representing Henry County.
The defendants contend that because Mr. Crumbley's prior representation of Henry County and Sheriff Glass included his involvement in Duffy v. Goins, supra, a section 1983 action brought pursuant to Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), which statute forms the basis of the potential liability of Sheriff Glass and Henry County in the instant suit, the Court must reasonably infer that confidential information was obtained by Mr. Crumbley that could bear directly on the issues of this case. Defendants contend that due to Monell's limitation of local government liability to "constitutional deprivations visited pursuant to governmental `custom' even though such a custom has not received formal approval through the body's official decision-making channels," 436 U.S. at 690-91, 98 S.Ct. at 2035-36, Mr. Crumbley's prior representation of Sheriff Glass and Henry County specially equips him for proving the policies and customs of Henry County in an unfair manner.
Plaintiff's response to this contention by defendants is (1) the Board of Commissioners does not establish policy for the Sheriff's Department; (2) the Sheriff acknowledges that he never sought Mr. Crumbley's advice concerning any policy at issue herein, and the Sheriff does not oppose Mr. Crumbley remaining as counsel for plaintiff; (3) Plaintiff's cause of action accrued prior to Mr. Crumbley's association with the county; (4) The "policy" of Henry County and Sheriff Glass is publicly disseminated and therefore could not be the subject of a privilege; and (5) Defendants have shown no connection between Mr. Crumbley's prior representation of Sheriff Glass and Henry County and the present case.
Keeping in mind that the Court's narrow focus is upon the reasonable inferences it may draw as to whether the confidential information concerning policy allegedly given Mr. Crumbley by his former clients would have been given any attorney in his position, the Court addresses plaintiff's five contentions seriatim. It is not the Court's purpose to examine the actual disclosures Mr. Crumbley's prior clients made to him concerning policy, for the reason for the irrebuttable presumption that such disclosures have been made when the subject of the present adverse representation is related to the former is to protect the lawyer-client relationship. T. C. Theatre Corp. v. Warner Bros. Pictures, 113 F.Supp. 265, 269 (S.D.N.Y.1953).
The plaintiff's contention that the Board of Commissioners does not establish policy for the Sheriff is of no moment since the facts as outlined above clearly indicate that Mr. Crumbley was also counsel for the Sheriff for a substantial period of time. The Board of Commissioners is not a defendant in this case, which focuses the Court's attention on Mr. Crumbley's prior representation of Sheriff Glass and the policy he set for the county in his elected position.
Plaintiff's second contention concerning his prior lawyer-client relationship with Sheriff Glass urges the Court to examine that prior relationship, a process that is prohibited by the "substantial relationship" rule. The "substantial relationship" rule "rests upon the presumption that confidences potentially damaging to the client have been disclosed to the attorney during the former period of representation. The court may not even inquire as to whether such disclosures were in fact made or whether the attorney in fact is likely to use the damaging disclosures to the detriment of *1064 his former client." In Re Yarn Processing Patent Validity Litigation, 530 F.2d 83, 89 (5th Cir. 1976). Plaintiff's contention that Sheriff Glass does not oppose Mr. Crumbley remaining as counsel for plaintiff merits the Court's consideration, however, for consent by a former client to the employment of an attorney by an adverse party prevents disqualification. Id; Consolidated Theatres v. Warner Bros. Circuit Management Corp., 216 F.2d 920, 926 (2d Cir. 1954).
Plaintiff argues that in his deposition Sheriff Glass consented to Mr. Crumbley's representation of plaintiff when, in response to Mr. Crumbley's question as to whether he had objections to Mr. Crumbley's participation in this case as counsel for plaintiff, Sheriff Glass stated: "I really don't know how to answer your question, because I'm not that legally oriented and I don't know that much about the law, but in my professional opinion I don't have a professional opinion, rather; but in my opinion, a lawyer can represent whoever he desires and whatever client that chooses his services, he certainly has a right to represent him in his way." Deposition of Glass at 5-6. As to Mr. Crumbley's question as to whether the motion to disqualify was brought at the sheriff's request, the sheriff refused to answer pursuant to his counsel's advice. Id. at 6.
The Court finds the statement made by Sheriff Glass indicates a total lack of understanding by the sheriff of the Code of Professional Responsibility. The sheriff's "consent" to Mr. Crumbley's representation of plaintiff exists, if at all, without any knowledge by Sheriff Glass of his right not to consent. Such a "consent" is no consent at all.
In any event, the Court is persuaded that because counsel for all defendants, including Henry County, has made the motion to dismiss, the current members of the Board of Commissioners, none of whose consent is on record, support the bringing of the motion. Those commissioners must appropriate the monies for insurance premiums on any policy which might pay plaintiff if her suit is ultimately successful in her claim against the county or must appropriate the monies to pay actual damages should her recovery exceed policy limits. Ga.Code Ann. § 23-1603 (1971). Their opposition to Mr. Crumbley's representation of plaintiff, through counsel, defeats plaintiff's second contention listed above.
Plaintiff's third contention is that Mr. Crumbley was not county attorney when Sheriff Glass hired the defendant deputy sheriff who committed the alleged constitutional tort, a fact which plaintiff argues should defeat defendants' motion. This argument fails to convince the Court of Mr. Crumbley's isolation from the Sheriff's Department policies since the alleged constitutional violations of concealing relevant exculpatory evidence concerning the murders with which Banks was charged were continual. See Complaint at ¶ 31. The alleged facts on which plaintiff bases her claim in this action have yet to be publicly disclosed by the defendant government officials which is allegedly due, in part, to defendant Glass' failure to discipline the defendant deputy sheriffs. See Complaint at ¶ 31(c). Thus, plaintiff's third argument is without merit.
Next, plaintiff contends Mr. Crumbley could not have learned the "policy" of Henry County and Sheriff Glass by way of confidential communications because "policy" of a governmental entity is publicly disseminated pursuant to Ga.Code Ann. §§ 23-802 and 40-2701 et seq. While those provisions of the Code of Georgia require public meetings of the governing bodies of all municipalities and counties with the exception of executive sessions held before or after said public meetings (Ga.Code Ann. § 23-802) and require open governmental records (Ga.Code Ann. § 40-2701), they do not provide for the open and affirmative disclosure of a county official's communications with his attorney or for the disclosure by a county sheriff of his policies with respect to training his deputies. The plaintiff's argument that "open government" negates the existence of the attorney-client privilege as to matters discussed between county officials and county attorney *1065 is meritless. See Ga.Code Ann. §§ 38-1605 and 38-419 (1981) (establishing attorney-client privilege with no such exception).
Finally, the Court considers plaintiff's contention that defendants have failed to show any connection between the many discussions, meetings, and lawsuits participated in by Crumbley during his representation of Sheriff Glass and Henry County and the present case. This contention speaks not to the second task for the Court outlined above, but to the third, i.e., whether the confidential information allegedly given is relevant to the issues raised in the litigation pending against the former client.
C. Whether the Confidential Information Allegedly Given Is Relevant to the Issues Raised in the Litigation Pending Against the Former Client.
The Court's third inquiry is fairly straightforward. That which must be determined is whether the information Mr. Crumbley might have received from Sheriff Glass during his representation of him is relevant to the plaintiff's present suit against Sheriff Glass and Henry County. Crumbley was involved in the defense of a section 1983 suit against Sheriff Glass, see Duffy v. Goins et al., supra, in 1979 for constitutional error in the operation of the Sheriff's Department. The plaintiff's instant suit is based upon section 1983 and Monell, inter alia, alleging similar grounds for recovery. It is clear, therefore, that the confidential information that Mr. Crumbley might have received in the prior representation of the sheriff and county is relevant to the issues raised in the litigation pending against the sheriff and county.
The Court's three-pronged inquiry being concluded, it appears to the Court that under the analysis employed above Canons 4 and 9 of the A.B.A. Code of Professional Responsibility prevent Mr. Crumbley from representing the plaintiff in this matter. Accordingly, defendants' motion to disqualify Mr. Wade M. Crumbley as counsel for plaintiff in the above-styled matter is hereby GRANTED.
IV.
Defendants' challenge to the continued representation of plaintiff by Mr. Harrison rests upon the following facts: (1) Mr. Crumbley and Mr. Harrison began to jointly represent Jerry Banks in 1978 (Deposition of Crumbley at 40-41); (2) Mr. Crumbley and Mr. Harrison shared office space, expenses, and a secretary from April 1979 until April 1980 (Deposition of Crumbley at 6-8); (3) Mr. Crumbley and Mr. Harrison presently share an office for the practice of law (Crumbley's deposition at 15-16).
The challenge of defendants rests principally on the third fact above and is based on Disciplinary Rule (DR) 5-105(D) which states:
If a lawyer is required to decline employment or to withdraw from employment under DR 5-105, no partner or associate of his or his firm may accept or continue such employment.
241 Ga. at 694. DR 5-105(D) as approved by the Georgia Supreme Court differs from DR 5-105(D) as proposed by the A.B.A. in that the A.B.A.'s rule disallows a partner or associate when his partner or associate is required to withdraw under any disciplinary rule, rather than just DR 5-105. The A.B. A.'s broader rule is not applicable to Mr. Harrison, and since the Court's disqualification of Mr. Crumbley rests upon Canons 4 and 9 and not DR 5-105, DR 5-105(D) is not grounds for the disqualification of Mr. Harrison even if he could be considered an associate of Mr. Crumbley's.[1]
*1066 Plaintiff is correct that the courts have abjured a per se approach to the disqualification of co-counsel of disqualified counsel and should not presume disclosures of confidences by the disqualified former counsel where no attorney-client relationship has ever existed between the moving party and co-counsel to the disqualified attorney. Brennan's, Inc. v. Brennan's Restaurants, Inc., 590 F.2d 168, 174 (5th Cir. 1979). Consequently, Mr. Harrison should not be disqualified unless the movant has proved that he learned from Mr. Crumbley information the defendants had intended not be disclosed to the plaintiff. Id.; see also Duncan v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, 646 F.2d 1020, 1028 (5th Cir. 1981) (burden of proof in disqualification matter is on movant). The Court's focus, therefore, turns to what information defendants have shown Mr. Harrison learned from Mr. Crumbley during their association as co-counsel in this matter.
Defendants' brief explains that Mr. Crumbley and Mr. Harrison were principally responsible for drafting the complaint in this action and formulating the legal theories and causes of action set forth therein. Deposition of Crumbley at 65-66. In their joint representation of Jerry Banks since 1978, Mr. Crumbley confirms that he and Mr. Harrison have discussed this case a great deal and that they have withheld no information concerning the case from one another. Deposition of Crumbley at 68-69. On the basis of these statements defendants contend that any confidential information available to Mr. Crumbley has undoubtedly been shared with or will be shared with Mr. Harrison.
The Court cannot find that the defendants have met their burden of proof as outlined in Brennan's. The Court may not presume disclosures of confidences to co-counsel and the statements made by Mr. Crumbley in his deposition point to no such specific disclosures. In addition, Mr. Harrison states, by affidavit filed August 31, 1981, that he has never received any information from Mr. Crumbley concerning any issue in the above-styled case which carried the slightest indicia of its having been obtained by him in an attorney-client relationship with any of the defendants herein or with any official of Henry County. Affidavit of Harrison at ¶ 4. Defendants having failed to meet their burden as to Mr. Harrison, their motion for disqualification with respect to him is hereby DENIED.
V.
Finally, the Court examines the motion to disqualify Mr. Bobby Lee Cook as co-counsel for plaintiff. The legal tests applicable to Mr. Harrison are likewise applicable to Mr. Cook, as it is not alleged that he ever represented any of the defendants herein.
Mr. Cook was not involved in this case as counsel for plaintiff until approximately a week to ten days prior to the filing of the complaint. On that day Mr. Crumbley and Mr. Harrison traveled to Mr. Cook's office in Summerville, Georgia, and spent about three hours summarizing the facts of the case for Mr. Cook. The discussion was general and did not include a review of the files of Messrs. Crumbley and Harrison by Mr. Cook. A few days later, after Messrs. Crumbley and Harrison drew the complaint for plaintiff, they returned to Summerville at which time Mr. Cook read and signed the complaint. Deposition of Crumbley at 67.
On the basis of the above, defendants contend they have met their burden of proving that Mr. Cook learned from Mr. Crumbley information the defendants had intended not be disclosed to the plaintiff. To the contrary, plaintiff contends that the three hour discussion referenced above does not establish that confidences were actually communicated, an argument with which the Court is inclined to agree. Defendants have clearly failed to point to any specific information Mr. Crumbley disclosed to Mr. Cook which they had intended not be disclosed *1067 as a result of their previous attorney-client relationship with Mr. Crumbley. As a result, defendants' motion to disqualify Mr. Cook is DENIED.
CONCLUSION
The Court has conducted a sifting analysis of the facts, the law, and the questions presented by defendants' motion to disqualify all three of plaintiff's attorneys. The result is that Mr. Crumbley is disqualified and Messrs. Harrison and Cook are not. The Court has made these holdings with consciousness of its responsibility to preserve a reasonable balance between the need to ensure ethical conduct on the part of lawyers appearing before it and other social interests, which include the litigant's right to freely chosen counsel.
NOTES
[1] While Fifth Circuit decisions have relied upon the A.B.A. Code of Professional Responsibility in reviewing motions for disqualification of counsel, the court's references to the A.B.A. Code have not precluded this Court's reliance on the Code as adopted by the Supreme Court of Georgia and made applicable to members of the State Bar of Georgia, an integrated bar. See Woods v. Covington County Bank, 537 F.2d 804 (5th Cir. 1976) (Code carries great weight). Because the Code as adopted by the Supreme Court of Georgia is the general guide of ethical standards by which Georgia lawyers must conduct themselves, 242 Ga. at 651, for this Court to impose upon Georgia lawyers the standards of the A.B.A. Code when inconsistencies arise would place Georgia attorneys in a delicate situation. Consequently, the Code of Professional Conduct as adopted by the Supreme Court of Georgia governs the conduct of members of the State Bar of Georgia practicing before this Court.
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All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Introduction {#sec009}
============
For the past decades, with the rapid development of instruments and optic technique, percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) has been increasingly applied around the world with the advantages of a small incision, local anesthesia, no neuromuscular retraction, rapid recovery, short operation time and low postoperative expenses\[[@pone.0144939.ref001]--[@pone.0144939.ref004]\]. Similar to other minimally invasive spinal surgeries, PELD in transforaminal approach (PTED) also requires numerous punctures under X-ray fluoroscopy. Puncture may be repeated for inexperienced surgeons when accurate locating was not achieved, which induces increased injuries of surrounding tissue, more operation time and much more radiation exposure to patients and medical workers.
To improve the accuracy of location and reduce potential radiation exposure, we designed a surface locator and applied it in all kinds of spine surgery, which could accurately locate and mark the target point on the body surface \[[@pone.0144939.ref005]--[@pone.0144939.ref008]\]. Our previous studies have demonstrated that our surface locator induced less radiation exposure, shorter preoperative time and less frequency for fluoroscopy\[[@pone.0144939.ref007]\]. However, decreasing the radiation during preoperative location is not enough for PTED, because most repeated fluoroscopy is conducted during the puncture procedure, which usually results in highly cumulative radiation and longer operation time. Therefore, we designed a novel puncture locator combined with surface locator as HE's Lumbar LOcation (HELLO) system for PTED and performed a preliminary cadaveric study to investigate its efficacy of puncture reduction.
Materials and Methods {#sec010}
=====================
Specimens {#sec011}
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The study was approved by the local Institutional Review Board of Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital (ethical approval: 2015-RES-127). From July 8^th^ to 26^th^ 2015, all cadavers were donated by the Department of Anatomy, Tongji University School of Medicine and the Second Military Medical University. The Institutional Review Board waived the need for consent from the donors or their kin. All cadaveric specimens had no obvious lumbar vertebra deformity, trauma defects induced by lumbar fracture under fluoroscopy and no previous lumbar surgery. All operating processes and procedures followed the local cadaveric management standards, and the manuscript also followed the reporting guideline ([S1 Table](#pone.0144939.s002){ref-type="supplementary-material"}).
HELLO system {#sec012}
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HELLO system consists of surface locator and puncture locator ([Fig 1](#pone.0144939.g001){ref-type="fig"}). Surface locator is made up of radiopaque material, which consists of 19 horizontal rods and 4 longitudinal rods\[[@pone.0144939.ref007]\]. Each horizontal rod is about 9 cm, whereas each longitudinal rod is about 18 cm. There is about 1-cm gap between each horizontal rod, and different small shape-markers are made on the rods. The stamping die technology and the 1-step forming technology were applied to manufacture the locator. As demonstrated in [Fig 1A](#pone.0144939.g001){ref-type="fig"}, the location principle of surface locator is to identify the target with the surrounding rod and shape-markers. The puncture locator is a three-dimensional structure, mainly composed of a vertical beam, a cross beam and two horizontal beams. The location theory of puncture locator is that the target point form a fixed rectangle with the vertical beam and cross beam, and the puncture trajectory go through the target ([Fig 1B](#pone.0144939.g001){ref-type="fig"}). The surface locator of HELLO system was used to accurately position the puncture target, and the puncture locator was used to keep the puncture in tract.
{#pone.0144939.g001}
The procedure of puncture with HELLO system was as follows ([Fig 2](#pone.0144939.g002){ref-type="fig"}): Firstly, we used surface locator to determine vertical projection of target point on the cadaveric back under anteroposterior fluoroscopy, and the vertical projection of target point on the lateral cadaveric specimens was also confirmed under lateral fluoroscopy. Then, we marked A and B on the skin of the target projection. Next, we fixed the puncture locator on the horizontal operation table, and vertical beam and cross beam were placed to coincide with A and B. At this time, the target point with the vertical beam and cross beam formed a fixed rectangle, and the two probes and two skin markers were on the long side of the rectangle. Next, the puncture locator in fixed rectangular shape was removed away from the operation table for convenient installation of horizontal beams. According to anatomic structures of puncture segment, the horizontal beams and puncture cannula were adjusted to make two puncture cannulas and target at the same line. Then, we kept the position of horizontal beams and cannula. Finally, locator was fixed on the horizontal operation table, and the vertical beam and cross beam were placed to coincide with A or B. Since the puncture target was accurately located and the puncture could be kept in tract, the appropriate trajectory was finally determined by the entry point. Generally, the distance between the puncture point and the midline of the spinous process was 11--14 centimeters at L4-L5 level, and 12--16 centimeters at L5-S1 level. At that moment, the specific Kirschner was inserted directly to reach target point along the puncture cannula.
{#pone.0144939.g002}
Grouping and puncture procedure {#sec013}
-------------------------------
The target puncture segment was L4/L5 and L5/S1 of both sides of each cadaveric specimen. In Group A, the senior surgeon performed the puncture of left L4/L5 and L5/S1 with the assistance of HELLO system. In Group B, the senior surgeon performed the puncture procedure on the right L4/L5 and L5/S1 of cadavers with conventional methods. In Group C, the junior surgeon without PELD experience performed the puncture on the left L4/L5 and L5/S1 of cadavers.
The cadavers were placed on operation table in prone position, and the C-arm X-ray machine (ARCADIS Varic, Siemens) was used for intraoperative fluoroscopy with fluoroscopy time 1 second each time. The surface locator was used for preoperative location, with which the position of lumbar spinous process, pedicle, intervertebral space, target point and articular process were confirmed and marked ([Fig 3A and 3B](#pone.0144939.g003){ref-type="fig"}). Intervertebral foreman and intervertebral space were also marked on the body surface laterally. Group A and Group C underwent locator-assisted puncture by the senior and junior surgeons respectively until kirschner wire was located on the medial pedicle margin in the anteroposterior view and at upper articular process of lower vertebrae on the lateral view ([Fig 3C--3F](#pone.0144939.g003){ref-type="fig"}). Group B underwent conventional puncture procedure by senior surgeon with 18G needle inserted into intervertebral foreman of L4/5 and L5/S1 until 18G needle was located on the medial pedicle margin in the anteroposterior view and at upper articular process of lower vertebrae in the lateral view.
{#pone.0144939.g003}
Observational parameters {#sec014}
------------------------
Puncture times, anteroposterior and lateral fluoroscopy frequency of each segment, the time of locating puncture and accumulated radiation dose were recorded and analyzed. JB4020X-γ personal radiation alarm apparatus (Shanghai Jing Bo Industry & Trade Co., LTD) was used to detect the accumulated radiation dose for each segment.
Statistical analysis {#sec015}
--------------------
The software package SPSS 12.0 (USA, SPSS Corporation) was used for statistical analysis. The statistic was demonstrated as Mean±SD. ANOVA test was used to compare the difference among the three groups. P \<0.05 was regarded as statistical significance.
Results {#sec016}
=======
There were 6 cadaveric specimens donated from Tongji University School of Medicine and 14 from the Second Military Medical University. The basic characteristics of included cadavers were demonstrated in [Table 1](#pone.0144939.t001){ref-type="table"}. All three groups completed the puncture procedure at L4/L5 level on 20 cadavers. Only 18 cadavers received L5/S1 punctures, because one had extremely high iliac crest with large transverse process and another had L5 sacralization.
10.1371/journal.pone.0144939.t001
###### Basic characteristics of included cadavers.
{#pone.0144939.t001g}
Variables Values
----------------- -------------
Gender
Male 10
Female 10
Year 52.44±10.05
Condition
Integrity 9
No upper limbs 2
No lower limbs 5
No extremities 1
In Group A, the fluoroscopy time was 2.70±0.66s for anteroposterior fluoroscopy and 2.75±0.55s for lateral fluoroscopy at L4/L5 level ([Table 2](#pone.0144939.t002){ref-type="table"}). In Group B, the fluoroscopy time was 4.90±1.07s for anteroposterior fluoroscopy and 5.05±1.23s for lateral fluoroscopy at L4/L5 level. In Group C, the fluoroscopy time was 2.90±0.64s for anteroposterior fluoroscopy and 3.05±0.51s for lateral fluoroscopy at L4/L5 level. There was significant difference in fluoroscopy time between Group A and Group B (P = 0.000), but no significant difference was observed in fluoroscopy time between Group B and Group C (P = 0.290). At L5/S1 level, the fluoroscopy time was 3.17±0.71s for anteroposterior fluoroscopy and 3.17±0.71s for lateral fluoroscopy in Group A. In Group B, the fluoroscopy time was 5.56±1.42s for anteroposterior fluoroscopy and 5.61±1.24s for lateral fluoroscopy at L5/S1 level. In Group C, the fluoroscopy time was 3.33±0.77s for anteroposterior fluoroscopy and 3.38±0.85s for lateral fluoroscopy at L5/S1 level. Similarly at L5/S1 level, there was significant difference in fluoroscopy time between Group A and Group B (P = 0.000), but no significant difference was observed in fluoroscopy time between Group B and Group C (P = 0.523).
10.1371/journal.pone.0144939.t002
###### Fluoroscopy time of puncture procedure in different groups.
{#pone.0144939.t002g}
Fluoroscopy time (Mean±SD) Puncture levels Anteroposterior fluoroscopy (s) Lateral fluoroscopy (s) P value
---------------------------- ----------------- --------------------------------- ------------------------- ---------
Group A L4/L5 2.70±0.66 2.75±0.55 \-
Group B 4.90±1.07 5.05±1.23 0.000
Group C 2.90±0.64 3.05±0.51 0.290
Group A L5/S1 3.17±0.71 3.17±0.71 \-
Group B 5.56±1.42 5.61±1.24 0.000
Group C 3.33±0.77 3.38±0.85 0.523
At L4/L5 level, there was significant difference in puncture times between Group A and Group B (P\<0.001), but no significant difference was observed between Group A and Group C (P = 0.811) ([Table 3](#pone.0144939.t003){ref-type="table"}). Similarly at L5/S1 level, there was significant difference in puncture times between Group A and Group B (P\<0.001), but no significant difference was observed between Group A and Group C (P = 0.981). The location time was 4.39±0.52min in Group A, 4.21±0.65min in Group B, and 4.42±0.38min in Group C at L4/L5 level ([Table 4](#pone.0144939.t004){ref-type="table"}). At L5/S1 level, the location time was 5.26±0.80min in Group A, 4.65±1.19min in Group B, and 5.61±0.77min in Group C. There were no significant differences between Group A and Group B or Group C either at L4/L5 or L5/S1 level (P\<0.05). The radiation dosage was 3.48±0.70uSv in Group A, 6.33±1.33uSv in Group B and 3.83±0.58uSv in Group C at L4/L5 level ([Table 5](#pone.0144939.t005){ref-type="table"}). At L5/S1 level, the radiation dosage was 3.99±0.80uSv in Group A, 6.99±1.55uSv in Group B and 4.25±0.89uSv in Group C. In general, HELLO system reduced 42%-45% radiation dosage when comparing Group A and Group B, but there was no significant difference in radiation exposure between Group B and Group C whatever at L4/L5 level or L5/S1 level (P\>0.05).
10.1371/journal.pone.0144939.t003
###### Puncture times of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy in different groups.
{#pone.0144939.t003g}
Puncture levels Groups Puncture time (Mean±SD) P value
----------------- --------- ------------------------- ---------
L4/L5 Group A 1.55±0.60 \-
Group B 3.65±1.09 \<0.001
Group C 1.70±0.47 0.811
L5/S1 Group A 2.00±0.59 \-
Group B 4.22±1.22 \<0.001
Group C 2.06±0.73 0.981
10.1371/journal.pone.0144939.t004
###### Location time of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy in different groups.
{#pone.0144939.t004g}
Groups Group A Group B Group C
------------------------------ ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Location time (Mean±SD)(min) 4.39±0.52 5.26±0.80 4.21±0.65 4.65±1.19 4.42±0.38 5.61±0.77
P value \- \- 0.283 0.057 0.857 0.277
10.1371/journal.pone.0144939.t005
###### Radiation exposure of puncture procedure in different groups.
{#pone.0144939.t005g}
Groups Group A Group B Group C
--------------------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Radiation dosage (Mean±SD)(uSv) 3.48±0.70 3.99±0.80 6.33±1.33 6.99±1.55 3.83±0.58 4.25±0.89
P value \- \- 0.000 0.000 0.230 0.494
Discussion {#sec017}
==========
This study demonstrated that HELLO system could significantly reduce puncture times, fluoroscopy time of L4/L5 and L5/S1 and effectively reduce 39%-45% of the radiation dose. Meantime, there was no difference between experienced spine surgeon and inexperienced spine surgeon for puncture with HELLO system whatever in puncture times, fluoroscopy time, radiation dosage or location time, either at L4/L5 level or L5/S1 level.
The damage of radiation exposure induced by repeated fluoroscopy in transforaminal endoscopic surgery to patients and surgeons could not be ignored in clinics. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) had recommended radiation limits per year for professionals specialized body tissues and organs\[[@pone.0144939.ref009]\]. Ahn et.al \[[@pone.0144939.ref010]\] detected the radiation dose for neck, chest, arm and hands of spine surgeons in 30 cases of transforaminal endoscopic surgery, which showed the radiation dose of neck, chest, arm and hands (left and right) were 0.0863 mSv, 0.1890 mSv, 0.0506 mSv, 0.8050 mSv and 0.7363 mSv respectively. The radiation dose of each sensitive organs of spine surgeons in locating puncture procedure was not detected in this study, but overall cumulative radiation dose of the different groups was detected. As the study simulated the puncture part of transforaminal endoscopic surgery, overall cumulative radiation dose of different groups was sufficient to verify the validity of novel puncture locator. We are quantifying the impact of puncture locator on radiation dose of sensitive organs in a registered clinical study (ChiCTR-ICR-15006730) ([Fig 4A](#pone.0144939.g004){ref-type="fig"}).
{#pone.0144939.g004}
There were various strategies of radiation protection, such as minimizing fluoroscopy frequency and time, keeping away from tube, using low-dose mode and shielding protection\[[@pone.0144939.ref011]\]. Wearing lead clothes, lead thyroid shield, lead glasses were the most effective methods to reduce the radiation exposure\[[@pone.0144939.ref012]\]. The surgeon's position and distance from the tube was considered as the second important method to effectively reduce the radiation exposure. Maintaining three feet away from the tube could greatly reduce the radiation exposure\[[@pone.0144939.ref013]\]. Different fluoroscopy equipment could lead to different degree of radiation dose\[[@pone.0144939.ref014]\]. Novel navigation position equipment also reduced the radiation exposure, such as more accuracy and effective O-arm fluoroscopy\[[@pone.0144939.ref015], [@pone.0144939.ref016]\], intraoperative MRI navigation\[[@pone.0144939.ref017]\] and ultrasonic position technique\[[@pone.0144939.ref010]\]. However, it must be noted that O-arm fluoroscopy had not been wide applied while intraoperative MRI navigation was also extremely expensive, and ultrasound technology was not well developed. Therefore, HELLO system could be a potential option with the advantages of cheap price, relative portable, reliable practice and well application prospect.
The learning curve for PTED was very steep, because the puncture procedure was very difficult, especially for beginners\[[@pone.0144939.ref018]\]. Experienced spine surgeons may have a clear understanding of puncture angle required by horizontal beams, and was familiar with the use of C-arm fluoroscopy machine to have a faster switch between lateral fluoroscopy and anteroposterior fluoroscopy. Junior surgeons may perform the puncture procedure more carefully and needs more fluoroscopy on the first 10 cadavers due to lack of PTED experience. Thus, repeated fluoroscopy may lead to more fluoroscopy time, location time and radiation dose. However, our study did not observe significant difference of puncture times, fluoroscopy time, location time and radiation dose between experienced spine surgeons and inexperienced spine surgeons performing puncture with the assistance of HELLO system. In general, HELLO system may reduce the difficulty of PTED for junior surgeons.
When using HELLO system for PTED, the following issues should be noted: 1) The patient should be positioned horizontally in order to improve the accuracy of localization; 2) The image intensifier plane should be paralleled with ground when anteroposterior fluoroscopy was taken; 3) The image intensifier plane should be vertical with ground and paralleled with the long axis of operation table when lateral fluoroscopy was taken. 4) The patients needed to be paralleled with the long axis of operation table to reduce bias induced by surface projection of puncture point; 5) The surface locator need to be fixed on the body surface tightly with adhesive tape. To improve the puncture accuracy and usage convenience, we have updated the design of puncture locator and applied it in clinics ([Fig 4B](#pone.0144939.g004){ref-type="fig"}). The second version of puncture locator is based on a fixed 1/4 cyclometer, and the target remains on the sphere center as the puncture trajectory remains on the radius of the cyclometer ([Fig 4C](#pone.0144939.g004){ref-type="fig"}). The introduction of HELLO system did not bring additional time to PTED, but it significantly reduced the operation time in our preliminary analysis. This was mainly because HELLO system significantly reduced the puncture times and fluoroscopy.
Conclusions {#sec018}
===========
HELLO system is effective in reducing puncture times, fluoroscopy time and radiation exposure, as well as the difficulty of learning PTED. A prospective clinical controlled study is ongoing to further confirm the accuracy and efficacy of HELLO system.
Supporting Information {#sec019}
======================
###### This is the supporting information for data statement.
(ZIP)
######
Click here for additional data file.
###### This is the reporting guideline.
(PDF)
######
Click here for additional data file.
We thanks the academic club SHEPHERD for providing language help.
[^1]: **Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
[^2]: Conceived and designed the experiments: GF SH. Performed the experiments: GF XG YZ AH. Analyzed the data: XG QS GG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HZ SH. Wrote the paper: GF QS.
|
974 So.2d 72 (2007)
KIMPTON HOTEL & RESTAURANT GROUP, INC. and First Orleans Hotel Associates, L.P.
v.
LIBERTY MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.
Nos. 2007-CA-1118, 2007-CA-1209, 2007-C-1310.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
December 19, 2007.
*73 Campbell E. Wallace, Jonathan C. McCall; Douglas L. Grundmeyer, Chaffe McCall, L.L.P., New Orleans, LA, for Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, L.P. and First Orleans Hotel Associates, L.P.
Judy Y. Barrasso, H. Minor Pipes, III, Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman & Sarver, LLC., New Orleans, LA, and Christopher S. Finazzo, Rachel R. Hager, Budd Lanier, PC, Short Hills, NJ, for Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company.
(Court composed of Judge CHARLES R. JONES, Judge DENNIS R. BAGNERIS, SR., Judge TERRI F. LOVE, Judge EDWIN A. LOMBARD, Judge ROLAND L. BELSOME).
TERRI F. LOVE, Judge.
This appeal arises from flood damage to the Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant were insured for flood damage by Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company. The business entities representing Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant asserted, in a motion *74 for partial summary judgment, that the flood insurance limit was $10 million. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company claimed that the limit was $2.5 million. The trial court held that the insurance contract's "clear and plain meaning" insured the Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant for $10 million in flood damages. We find that the insurance contract unambiguously limits flood damage to $10 million and affirm.
A writ was consolidated with the appeal regarding a memorandum that Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company received from an insurance broker during discovery. The trial court held that the memorandum was not privileged and did not constitute work-product. We find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion and deny the writ.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant (collectively "the Hotel"), located at 333 Saint Charles Avenue, suffered flood damages as a result of Hurricane Katrina. First Orleans Hotel Association, L.P., the owner of the Hotel, and Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, L.P., the manager of the Hotel (collectively "Kimpton"), insured the Hotel with a multiple property insurance policy ("Policy") from Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company ("Liberty"). The Policy covered property damage and business interruption insurance. The basement level of the Hotel, which housed the Hotel's electrical vault, flooded. Kimpton sought $10 million from Liberty to repair the damage. Kimpton's first written proof of loss, totaling $10,708,613, was submitted on October 25, 2005. The second proof of loss, submitted on February 24, 2006, added an additional $6,257,044 in damages. Liberty refused to tender $10 million stating that the Policy only covered $2.5 million in flood damages.
Kimpton filed a petition for declaratory judgment and damages against Liberty. Liberty then filed a notice of removal. However, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana remanded the case to the Civil District Court because Liberty did not show that the parties were diverse at the time of removal. Kimpton later added the Sewerage and Water Board ("S & WB") and AEGIS, Limited ("AEGIS"), the liability insurer of Entergy New Orleans, Inc., as defendants alleging their negligence contributed to the flood damage.
Liberty filed an exception of forum non conveniens, which the trial court denied. The S & WB filed a motion for summary judgment, which the trial court granted dismissing the S & WB with prejudice, predicated upon the fact that nothing in the S & WB's custody interfered with Kimpton's electrical vault.
Kimpton filed a motion for partial summary judgment alleging that according to the four corners of the Policy, the Policy covered $10 million in flood damages. The trial court granted Kimpton's motion for summary judgment. The trial court also granted Kimpton's motion to strike extrinsic evidence, Kimpton's motion to strike scandalous language, and Liberty's motion to compel a second deposition of John Tastor ("Mr. Tastor"). The trial court denied Kimpton's motion to strike and exclude inadvertently produced documents.
Kimpton then sought writs to this Court regarding the motion to strike and exclude inadvertently produced documents. Kimpton and Liberty sought to certify the trial court's ruling on the motion for partial summary judgment as final and appealable. Once designated as final and appealable, Liberty appealed the trial court's *75 granting of Kimpton's motion for partial summary judgment. Kimpton's writ was consolidated with this devolutive appeal.
MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT
Appellate courts review partial summary judgments using the de novo standard of review. Wingrave v. Hebert, 06-1240, p. 5 (La.App. 4 Cir. 5/9/07), 964 So.2d 385, 389. Summary judgments are favored and "designed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination" of actions. La. C.C.P. art. 966(A)(2). "[I]f the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to material fact, and that mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law," then summary judgment will be granted. La. C.C.P. art. 966(B). The mover bears the burden of proof. La. C.C.P. art. 966(C)(2). "[I]f the movant will not bear the burden of proof at trial on the matter that is before the court . . . the movant's burden on the motion does not require him to negate all essential elements of the adverse party's claim, action, or defense." La. C.C.P. art. 966(C)(2). In that case, the movant must "point out to the court that there is an absence of factual support for one or more elements essential to the adverse party's claim, action, or defense." La. C.C.P. art. 966(C)(2). "Thereafter, if the adverse party fails to produce factual support sufficient to establish that he will be able to satisfy his evidentiary burden of proof at trial, there is no genuine issue of material fact." La. C.C.P. art. 966(C)(2).
Liberty asserts that the trial court erred in granting Kimpton's motion for partial summary judgment. Liberty avers that endorsement RM1132 does not change the liability limits contained in endorsement RM1109. Instead, Liberty avers that RM1132 only changed the policy to reflect that the Hotel was located in zone B or X, which was insured for flood damage, as opposed to zone A.
The Policy does not cover flood losses according' to the exclusions listed on RM1003. However, endorsement RM1109 "changes" and/or "modifies" the Policy to include flood coverage on particular properties. RM1109 states, in part: "[w]e will pay for direct physical loss to covered property caused by flood at or within the states and locations shown on the Schedule of this endorsement." Further, RM1109 contains a schedule of liability as follows, in pertinent part:
Limit of Limit of
Liability Liability
Per In any one
State or Location Occurrence policy year
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Any covered property situated in zone B or X shaded as defined in item
4.(B) of this endorsement. $10,000,000 $10,000,000
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
New Orleans Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant $ 2,500,000 $ 2,500,000
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Any Covered Property at a New Location $ 1,000,000 $ 1,000,000
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Any Covered Property at an Unscheduled Location $ 100,000 $ 100,000
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Any covered property at a covered location not situated in the areas
defined on the schedule of states and locations or indicated in item 4 of
this endorsement. $50,000,000 $50,000,000
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
*76 Endorsement RM1132 then states that it also "changes" and/or "modifies" Kimpton's insurance coverage regarding flood damage. RM1132 reads, in pertinent part:
2. The location(s) shown in Schedule B of this endorsement
have been identified as being situated in zone B or X
shaded which is the area defined by the Federal Emergency
Management agency (FEMA) as being subject to inundation by a
one-hundred (100) to five-hundred (500) year flood
event. (One-hundred (100) to five-hundred (500) year
flood plain).
Schedule B
No. Location Address
26 1095 Rollins Road, Burlingame, CA 94010
36 333 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130
37 10500 S. De Anza Blvd., Cupertino, CA 95014
An insurance policy is a contract.[1] The Louisiana Civil Code dictates how contracts should be interpreted. Determining the common intent of the parties is the first step for interpreting a contract. La. C.C. art. 2045. "When the words of a contract are clear and explicit and lead to no absurd consequences, no further interpretation may be made in search of the parties' intent." La. C.C. art. 2046. When a provision in a contract is susceptible of different meanings, an interpretation that renders the provision effective and not ineffective must be utilized. La. C.C. art. 2049. Additionally, "[e]ach provision in a contract must be interpreted in light of the other provisions so that each is given the meaning suggested by the contract as a whole." La. C.C. art. 2050. Insurance contracts "shall be construed according to the entirety of its terms and conditions . . . and as amplified, extended, or modified by any rider, endorsement, or application attached to or made a part of the policy." La. R.S. 22:654. However, "[i]n case of doubt that cannot be otherwise resolved, a provision in a contract must be interpreted against the party who furnished its text." La. C.C. art. 2056.
RM1109 provides that the Hotel is insured for flood damage up to $2.5 million. However, RM1132 provides that it "changes" and/or "modifies" the Policy and that the Hotel should be included in the "zone B or X" category. We find that the words of the Policy are clear and explicit. The Hotel was always physically located in the "zone B or X" category. Therefore, the only interpretation of RM1132's provision would be to increase the flood damage liability for the Hotel to $10 million. Otherwise, RM1132 would have no purpose as it related to the Hotel.
The use of extrinsic evidence to determine the amount of flood coverage is not warranted as we find that the words of the Policy are "clear and explicit." Therefore, we need not consult other documents to search for the intent of the parties. Accordingly, we find that the Policy insured the Hotel for up to $10 million in flood damages and affirm the trial court's granting of Kimpton's motion for summary judgment.
WRIT APPLICATION
Kimpton filed a supervisory writ *77 application[2] with this Court on September 5, 2007, seeking review of the trial court's denial of Kimpton's motion to strike and exclude inadvertently produced documents.
Kimpton alleges that it inadvertently produced a September 1, 2005 memorandum ("Tastor Memo") from Mr. Tastor, the Arthur J. Gallagher & Company of California[3] representative heading the Kimpton account team, to Melinda Tisch, Kimpton's assistant general counsel/Vice President. The. Tastor Memo discussed Mr. Tastor's interpretation of the Hotel's flood coverage. Kimpton alleges that the Tastor Memo is subject to either the attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine.
As the reviewing court, this Court must determine if the trial court abused its discretion in denying Kimpton's motion to strike and exclude inadvertently produced documents. Dixon v. WinnDixie Louisiana, Inc., 93-1627 (La.App. 4 Cir. 5/17/94), 638 So.2d 306, 312. Inadvertent disclosure of a document protected by the attorney-client privilege or work-product doctrine does not waive the protections. La. C.C.P. art. 1424(D).
The work-product doctrine provides that the "court shall not order the production or inspection of any writing, or electronically stored information, obtained or prepared by the adverse party, his attorney, surety, indemnitor, or agent in anticipation of litigation or in preparation for trial. . . ." La. C.C.P. art. 1424(A). Additionally, "the court shall not order the production or inspection of any part of the writing, or electronically stored information, that reflects the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or theories of an attorney." La. C.C.P. art. 1424(A).
The attorney-client privilege allows the client to refuse to disclose communication:
(1) Between the client or a representative of the client and the client's lawyer or a representative of the lawyer.
(2) Between the lawyer and a representative of the lawyer.
(3) By the client or his lawyer, or a representative of either, to a lawyer, or representative of a lawyer, who represents another party concerning a matter of common interest.
(4) Between representatives of the client or between the client and a representative of the client.
(5) Among lawyers and their representatives representing the same client.
(6) Between representatives of the client's lawyer.
La. C.E. art. 506(B). The Louisiana Code of Evidence defines a client's representative as:
(a) A person having authority to obtain professional legal services, or to act on advice so obtained, on behalf of the client.
(b) Any other person who makes or receives a confidential communication for the purpose of effectuating legal representation for the client, while acting in the scope of employment for the client.
La. C.E. art. 506(A)(2). Further, a representative of the lawyer, "is a person engaged by the lawyer to assist the lawyer in the lawyer's rendition of professional legal services." La. C.E. art. 506(A)(4).
In order for a document to be protected by the work-product doctrine, the document must be prepared in "anticipation of litigation or in preparation for trial." The Tastor Memo was not prepared in anticipation *78 of litigation or in preparation for trial as Mr. Tastor typed the Tastor Memo on September 1, 2005, prior to Kimpton making a claim for flood damages. Additionally, the Tastor Memo is not covered by the attorney-client privilege as Mr. Tastor prepared the Tastor Memo in the ordinary scope of his business duties as an insurance consultant and he was not a representative of the client. Therefore, we do not find that the trial court abused its discretion and deny the writ.
DECREE
For the above mentioned reasons, we find that the Policy unambiguously provided Kimpton with $10 million in coverage for flood damage to the Hotel. Additionally, we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the Tastor Memo was not privileged or a work product. Therefore, we affirm the granting of the motion for summary judgment and deny the writ.
AFFIRMED; WRIT DENIED.
BELSOME, J., concurs in the result with reasons.
BELSOME, J., concurs in the result with reasons.
I concur with result of the majority opinion but not with its analysis. More specifically, I disagree that a clear unambiguous reading of the policy provides for $10 million dollars of flood coverage for Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant. It is undisputable that endorsement RM1109 makes a distinction between "[a]ny covered property situated in zone B or X shaded as defined in item 4.(B) of this endorsement" and "New Orleans Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant" setting forth flood damage liability coverage at $10 million and $2.5 million respectively.
However, a reading of endorsement RM1132 under the Flood Zone Designation Schedule, which is identified as modifying RM1109, specifically lists Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant as a location that falls into the category of property situated in zone B or X. I find that endorsements RM1109 and RM1132 create two equally reasonable interpretations of what limit of liability for flood applies to Hotel Monaco and Cobalt Restaurant. Accordingly I find the policy language to be ambiguous. See Elmer v. Washington Nat'l Ins. Co., 308 So.2d 312, 314 (La.App. 3 Cir. 2/12/1975)
Due to the ambiguity within the contract the Court must look to the parties' intent. Succession of Fannaly v. Lafayette Insurance Co., 01-1144, p. 2 (La.01/15/02), 805 So.2d 1134, 1137. Under the general rules of contract the Court should not look beyond the four corners of the insurance contract to ascertain the intent of the parties. See Ashire v. Vermilion Parish School Board, 02-2881, p. 5 (La.6/27/03), 848 So.2d 552, 555 citing Ortego v. State, Dept. of Transp. and Dev., 689 So.2d 1358 (La.2/25/97). However if a question remains, the unclear language is construed in favor of the insured. La. C.C. art. 2056 and Succession of Fannaly, 01-1144, p. 4, 805 So.2d at 1138. Because the language of the two provisions prevent a clear unambiguous determination of the policy flood limit, La. C.C. article 2056 directs us to find in favor of the insured, thus this Court must interpret the provisions as providing $10 million of flood coverage. For these reasons I concur in the result reached by the majority.
NOTES
[1] "A contract is an agreement by two or more parties whereby obligations are created. modified, or extinguished." La. C.C. art. 1906.
[2] The supervisory writ application was consolidated with the appeal sub judice.
[3] An international insurance broker.
|
J-S39042-19
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
ADDAN PAYNE :
:
Appellant : No. 2675 EDA 2018
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered August 16, 2018
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-51-CR-0006665-2015
BEFORE: GANTMAN, P.J.E., STABILE, J., and STEVENS*, P.J.E.
MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED AUGUST 19, 2019
Appellant, Addan Payne, appealed from a March 9, 2016, judgment of
sentence entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County
following his conviction at a bench trial on the charges of possession with the
intent to deliver a controlled substance (“PWID”), conspiracy (to commit
PWID), and possession of a controlled substance (“possession”).1 On May 8,
2018, a three-judge panel of this Court affirmed Appellant’s convictions, but
vacated the judgment of sentence and remanded for resentencing.
Specifically, this Court concluded the trial court failed to properly merge
Appellant’s convictions for PWID and possession for sentencing purposes.
____________________________________________
1 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(30), 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 903, and 35 P.S. § 780-
113(a)(16), respectively.
____________________________________
* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S39042-19
On August 16, 2018, the trial court imposed a new judgment of
sentence, and Appellant filed the instant appeal. Additionally, Appellant’s
counsel has filed a petition seeking to withdraw her representation, as well as
a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396 (1967),
and Commonwealth v. Santiago, 602 Pa. 159, 978 A.2d 349 (2009)
(hereinafter “Anders brief”). After a careful review, we grant counsel’s
petition to withdraw and affirm Appellant’s judgment of sentence.
The relevant facts and procedural history have been set forth previously
by this Court, in part, as follows:
On December 16, 2015, the Honorable Vincent Melchiorre
presided over Appellant’s bench trial. During the trial, the
Commonwealth called Officer Keya Mason to testify. Officer
Mason testified that she has nineteen years of experience in drug
cases and the last two of those years she has been with the
Narcotics Enforcement Team (NET Team). N.T., 12/16/15, at 10.
She testified that on the evening of April 3, 2015, she was part of
the NET Team conducting surveillance in the area of the 4200
block of Odgen Street. Id. at 9-10. Officer Mason stated that she
observed Appellant wearing a gray-hooded jacket, red pants, and
red sneakers. Id. at 11. Officer Mason continued that Appellant
was accompanied by a female, later identified as Shirley Stevens,
who was wearing a blue jean jacket, green cargo pants, and a
white scarf. Id.
Officer Mason testified that she was located approximately
one city block away, had a clear and unobstructed view, and was
using binoculars. Id. at 12, 21. She further testified that
streetlights illuminated the area where Appellant was located. Id.
at 44-45. During her surveillance, Officer Mason observed a black
male, later identified as Albert Tomlin, riding a motorized scooter.
Id. at 14. Tomlin rode up to the middle of the street where
Stevens approached him, they had a brief conversation, and
Tomlin gave Stevens an unknown amount of U.S. currency. Id.
Stevens then walked over to Appellant and gave him the money.
Id. at 15. Appellant proceeded to walk into an alleyway for
approximately thirty seconds and when he returned, he handed
-2-
J-S39042-19
small items to Stevens. Id. Stevens then went back to Tomlin
and gave him the small items. Id. at 16. Tomlin then left. Id.
Officer Mason relayed this information to backup officers who
stopped Tomlin and recovered two green-tinted heat-sealed Ziploc
packets of crack cocaine. Id. at 16-17.
Officer Mason continued her surveillance and observed a
white pick-up truck arrive at the location where Appellant and
Stevens were. Id. at 17. Officer Mason testified that, this time,
Appellant approached the passenger in the pick-up truck, later
identified as Patrick Kim. Id. Kim extended his hand out the
window and gave Appellant U.S. currency. Id. Appellant walked
into the same alleyway and upon returning, handed small items
to Kim. Id. at 19. Officer Mason relayed this information to her
backup officers, who stopped the vehicle and recovered from the
driver, Kelly Wilson, three clear heat-sealed Ziploc packets
containing crack cocaine. Id.
Officer Mason testified that after these two transactions, she
notified her backup officers to arrest Appellant. Id. at 20. Officer
Nicholas Martella arrested Appellant and recovered $348 from
different pockets. Id. The backup officers also searched the
alleyway where Appellant had twice entered but could not find
anything. Id. No narcotics were recovered from Appellant. Id.
at 43.
The Commonwealth also called Officer Daniel Mammola and
Officer Patrick DiDomenico to testify. Officer Mammola testified
that he was that officer that stopped Tomlin and retrieved from
him two green-tined heat-sealed Ziploc packets of crack cocaine.
Id. at 50. Officer DiDomenico testified that he arrested Wilson
and Kim. Id. at 54. He testified that, from Wilson’s hand, he
recovered three clear heat-sealed Ziploc packets containing crack
cocaine. Id. The officer did not testify that he recovered drugs
from Kim. Officer Martella, who was also called to testify, stated
that he conducted field testing, a NIK-G test, on the drugs. Id.
at 61.
Judge Melchiorre convicted Appellant as charged. On March
9, 2016, the trial court[2] sentenced Appellant to two to four years’
incarceration for PWID and a concurrent two to four years’
incarceration for conspiracy to commit PWID. The trial court
____________________________________________
2 Since Judge Melchiorre was absent from the bench at the time of sentencing,
the Honorable Mia Perez presided over Appellant’s March 9, 2016, sentencing
hearing.
-3-
J-S39042-19
further imposed a consecutive two years’ probation for Appellant’s
conviction for possession of a controlled substance.
On March 16, 2016, Appellant filed his post-sentence motion
for reconsideration, claiming that his sentence was excessive.
See Motion for Reconsideration, 3/16/16. The docket indicates
that Appellant filed a motion to withdraw his post-sentence motion
for reconsideration, which the trial court granted on April 18,
2016. See Docket at 8.
On April 27, 2016, Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.
Commonwealth v. Payne, No. 1347 EDA 2016, *2-4 (filed 5/8/18)
(unpublished memorandum) (footnote omitted) (footnote added).
On appeal, a panel of this Court rejected Appellant’s challenges to his
convictions; however, the panel sua sponte determined the trial court failed
to merge the convictions for PWID and possession for sentencing purposes.
Thus, this Court vacated the March 9, 2016, judgment of sentence and
remanded for resentencing.
On August 16, 2018, Appellant proceeded to a new sentencing hearing
at which Judge Perez acknowledged this Court had vacated the previous
sentence and remanded for resentencing. N.T., 8/16/18, at 4. The trial court
indicated it had the original presentence investigation report. Id. at 5.
Appellant’s counsel indicated she wished to elaborate on the presentence
investigation report as it related to Appellant’s experience when he was a
minor in the foster care system. Id. She noted Appellant was sexually abused
by one of his foster mothers. Id.
Appellant’s counsel also noted that, at some point during Appellant’s
incarceration, Appellant was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and
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post-traumatic stress with dissociative symptoms, and accordingly, prison
physicians placed Appellant on various treatment medications. Id. at 5-6.
Appellant’s counsel noted that, aside from medications, Appellant was not
receiving necessary mental health treatment from prison officials. Id. at 6.
Appellant’s counsel requested an aggregate sentence of 11.5 months to 23
months in prison, plus three years of reporting probation. Id. at 10.
The trial court provided Appellant with his right to allocution, and
Appellant stated the following (verbatim):
Your Honor, one thing, one thing I want to say, you know,
since I’ve been here, it’s like I’ve had to fight for survival, you
know? I been seen people die here since I’ve been here. I been
heard people at nighttime screaming because they’ve been
getting raped at nighttime.
And every day is like a struggle for me. Every day is another
fight for survival. And it’s like, it’s hard for me because I’m—it’s
hard for me because the Dr. Cena (sp) requested me to be on a
mental health unit and they got me in regular general population
without being in the mental health unit. Where as they have
officers that are trained to work for me and help me out to regular
as—officers that don’t know what they’re doing with me.
And it’s like it’s hard. Sometimes I get—I think about being
suicidal. I’m not suicidal now but at the time when I was at
Camphill I was suicidal because I got so many things that are
doing it and so many things that remind me of what is actually
going on. So I go through the most, you know? And it really is
hard. It would have been better to have some type of relief, you
know what I mean?
I understand that I did something wrong and I understand
that I’m—I did something wrong, that I needed to serve the
punishment to know what is right. I understand that but it’s hard
for me, it really is. Like I cry every night because I’m away from
my family. I pray all the time that it’ll be soon. And like, I’m a
changed person, I’ve been—with getting my GED, I’ve got my
social security card, you know what I mean? I’ve been to all my
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programs. It’s like I’m doing everything to prepare myself to get
out of here, you know?
While I’m doing that, it’s still a struggle for me. And I want
you to know I’m fighting through this, not only fighting through
this because I want to do right but I’m fighting through this
because I have two kids, two daughters that needs me home, that
need me to be there for them. Because I am their protector, I’m
the one that is supposed to help them and guide them when they
need to be taught, you know? I’m not that type of person that
don’t make kids and don’t care about their kids and their children.
I love my family. I love my family to death and I wouldn’t trade
them for no one else.
And I want to let people know that if they’re sitting in the
courtroom, that at that time if they, when that time comes, don’t
choose the wrong choice. Try to fight through it, you know. And
that’s what I’m still learning to do and I’m going to keep on
fighting. And that’s what I wanted to say here today. I just
wanted ya’ll to hear me out.
Id. at 12-14.
The trial court then imposed a sentence of two years to four years in
prison for PWID and a concurrent sentence of two years to four years in prison
for conspiracy. The trial court imposed no further sentence for possession.
Despite being provided with his post-sentence rights, Appellant did not file a
post-sentence motion; however, he filed a timely notice of appeal. The trial
court directed Appellant to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement, and in
response, counsel filed notice of her intent to file an Anders/McClendon brief
pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(c)(4). The trial court then filed a brief Pa.R.A.P.
1925(a) statement. On January 22, 2019, counsel filed in this Court a petition
seeking to withdraw her representation, as well as an Anders brief. Appellant
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J-S39042-19
filed no further submissions either pro se or through privately-retained
counsel.
Prior to addressing any issue raised on appeal, we must first resolve
counsel’s petition to withdraw. Commonwealth v. Goodwin, 928 A.2d 287,
290 (Pa.Super. 2007) (en banc). There are procedural and briefing
requirements imposed upon an attorney who seeks to withdraw on appeal
pursuant to which counsel must:
1) petition the court for leave to withdraw stating that, after
making a conscientious examination of the record, counsel has
determined that the appeal would be frivolous; 2) furnish a copy
of the brief to the [appellant]; and 3) advise the [appellant] that
he or she has the right to retain private counsel or raise additional
arguments that the [appellant] deems worthy of the court’s
attention.
Commonwealth v. Cartrette, 83 A.3d 1030, 1032 (Pa.Super. 2013) (en
banc) (citation omitted). In addition, our Supreme Court in Santiago stated
that an Anders brief must:
(1) provide a summary of the procedural history and facts, with
citations to the record; (2) refer to anything in the record that
counsel believes arguably supports the appeal; (3) set forth
counsel’s conclusion that the appeal is frivolous; and (4) state
counsel’s reasons for concluding that the appeal is frivolous.
Counsel should articulate the relevant facts of record, controlling
case law, and/or statutes on point that have led to the conclusion
that the appeal is frivolous.
Santiago, 602 Pa. at 178-79, 978 A.2d at 361. Counsel also must provide
the appellant with a copy of the Anders brief, together with a letter that
advises the appellant of his or her right to “(1) retain new counsel to pursue
the appeal; (2) proceed pro se on appeal; or (3) raise any points that the
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J-S39042-19
appellant deems worthy of the court’s attention in addition to the points raised
by counsel in the Anders brief.” Commonwealth v. Nischan, 928 A.2d 349,
353 (Pa.Super. 2007) (citation omitted). Substantial compliance with these
requirements is sufficient. Commonwealth v. Wrecks, 934 A.2d 1287, 1290
(Pa.Super. 2007).
Herein, counsel contemporaneously filed her petition to withdraw as
counsel and Anders brief. In her petition, counsel indicates that after a
thorough and conscientious examination of the record she has determined
that an appeal herein is wholly frivolous. Additionally, in accordance with
Nischan, counsel has mailed Appellant a copy of the Anders brief and a letter
informing him that: (1) he has the right to retain new counsel; (2) he may
proceed further with his case pro se; and (3) he may raise any points that he
deems worthy of the this Court’s attention. Counsel has provided this Court
with a copy of the conforming letter.
In the Anders brief, counsel provides a summary of the facts and
procedural history of the case, refers to evidence of record that might arguably
support the issues raised on appeal, provides citations to relevant case law,
and states her reasoning and conclusion that the appeal is wholly frivolous.
Accordingly, counsel has substantially complied with all of the technical
requirements of Anders and Santiago. Therefore, we proceed to examine
the issues counsel identified in the Anders brief and then conduct “a full
examination of all the proceedings, to decide whether the case is wholly
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frivolous.” Commonwealth v. Yorgey, 188 A.3d 1190, 1195 (Pa.Super.
2018) (en banc) (quotation omitted).
In the Anders brief, counsel raises the following issues (verbatim):
1. Was the sentence imposed a legal sentence?
2. Was the sentence imposed an excessive sentence?
Anders Brief at 3.
In his first issue, Appellant contends his new sentence is illegal.
Specifically, Appellant suggests his sentence for PWID (crack cocaine) is
beyond the statutory limits.
Initially, we agree with Appellant that he has raised a challenge to the
legality of his sentence. See Commonwealth v. Dixon, 161 A.3d 949, 951
(Pa.Super. 2017) (“If no statutory authorization exists for a particular
sentence, that sentence is illegal and subject to correction.”) (citation
omitted)). “Issues relating to the legality of a sentence are questions of law.
Our standard of review over such questions is de novo and our scope of review
is plenary.” Commonwealth v. Cardwell, 105 A.3d 748, 750 (Pa.Super.
2014).
With regard to Appellant’s conviction for PWID (crack cocaine), 35 P.S.
§ 780-113(a)(30), the relevant statutory authority provides the following:
§ 780-113. Prohibited acts; penalties
***
(f) Any person who violates clause (12), (14) or (30) of
subsection (a) with respect to:
***
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J-S39042-19
(1.1) Phencyclidine; methamphetamine, including its
salts, isomers and salts of isomers; coca leaves and any salt,
compound, derivative or preparation of coca leaves; any salt,
compound, derivative or preparation of the preceding which is
chemically equivalent or identical with any of these substances,
except decocanized coca leaves or extracts of coca leaves, which
extracts do not contain cocaine or ecgonine; and marihuana in a
quantity in excess of one thousand (1,000) pounds, is guilty of
a felony and upon conviction thereof shall be sentenced to
imprisonment not exceeding ten years, or to pay a fine not
exceeding one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), or both, or
such larger amount as is sufficient to exhaust the assets utilized
in and the profits obtained from the illegal manufacture or
distribution of these substances.
35 P.S. § 780-113(f)(1.1) (bold added).
By its express terms, the relevant statute permits a maximum sentence
of ten years in prison for PWID (crack cocaine). See Commonwealth v.
Young, 922 A.2d 913 (Pa.Super. 2007) (holding it is well settled that criminal
statutes are to be strictly construed). Upon remand, the trial court imposed
a sentence of two years to four years in prison for PWID, and therefore, the
sentence was well within the statutory limits. Consequently, we reject
Appellant’s challenge to the legality of his sentence as to PWID.
In his final issue, Appellant contends the trial court abused its discretion
in imposing Appellant’s new sentence. Specifically, Appellant suggests his
sentence upon remand was “unduly excessive,” as well as the result of judicial
vindictiveness. These claims present a challenge to the discretionary aspects
of Appellant’s sentence. See Commonwealth v. Barnes, 167 A.3d 110
(Pa.Super. 2017) (en banc); Commonwealth v. Clarke, 70 A.3d 1281, 1287
(Pa.Super. 2013).
- 10 -
J-S39042-19
We have long held that “[t]he right to appeal a discretionary aspect of
sentence is not absolute.” Id. at 122 (citation omitted). Instead, such
challenges are considered petitions for allowance of appeal. Id. Generally,
an appellant who wishes to challenge the discretionary aspects of his sentence
must satisfy a four-part test to invoke this Court’s jurisdiction:
(1) whether appellant has filed a timely notice of appeal; (2)
whether the issue was properly preserved at sentencing or in a
motion to reconsider and modify sentence; (3) whether
appellant’s brief has a fatal defect pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 2119(f);
and (4) whether there is a substantial question that the sentence
appeal from is not appropriate under the Sentencing Code.
Id. (citation omitted). Finally, “[w]hether a particular issue constitutes a
substantial question about the appropriateness of sentence is a question to be
evaluated on a case-by-case basis.” Id. (citation omitted).
Here, Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal, but he did not present
his discretionary aspects of sentencing issues during the sentencing hearing
or in a post-sentence motion. Accordingly, the issues are waived. See id.
In any event, and assuming, arguendo, Appellant’s claims present a
substantial question, we note:
Sentencing is a matter vested in the sound discretion of the
sentencing judge, and a sentence will not be disturbed on appeal
absent a manifest abuse of discretion. In this context, an abuse
of discretion is not shown merely by an error in judgment. Rather,
the appellant must establish, by reference to the record, that the
sentencing court ignored or misapplied the law, exercised its
judgment for reasons of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will, or
arrived at a manifestly unreasonable decision.
- 11 -
J-S39042-19
Commonwealth v. Zirkle, 107 A.3d 127, 132 (Pa.Super. 2014) (quotation
omitted).
With regard to Appellant’s claim that his sentence is “unduly excessive,”
we note “the sentence imposed should call for confinement that is consistent
with the protection of the public, the gravity of the offense as it relates to the
impact on the life of the victim and on the community, and the rehabilitative
needs of the defendant.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9721(b). “[W]here the sentencing
judge had the benefit of a presentence investigation report, it will be presumed
that he or she was aware of the relevant information regarding the defendant’s
character and weighed those considerations along with mitigating statutory
factors.” Clarke, 70 A.3d at 1287.
Here, the record reveals the trial court judge, who was the same judge
that sat for Appellant’s original sentencing hearing, was well aware of
Appellant’s crimes and had the benefit of a presentence investigation report.
The trial court permitted Appellant’s counsel to expand upon the information
contained in the presentence investigation report, including providing the trial
court with information pertaining to Appellant’s experiences as a minor in the
foster care system. Moreover, Appellant’s counsel provided the trial court with
information pertaining to Appellant’s time spent in prison, including the status
of Appellant’s mental health. Finally, the trial court considered Appellant’s
statement to the court in which Appellant sought leniency. Based on the
aforementioned, the trial court imposed individual sentences, which
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J-S39042-19
Appellant’s counsel admits were “standard-range minimum” sentences under
the Sentencing Guidelines, in a concurrent manner. Anders Brief at 9.
Accordingly, we find no merit to Appellant’s claim that his sentence was
“unduly excessive.”
With regard to Appellant’s suggestion of vindictiveness, generally, a
presumption of vindictiveness arises if the court imposes a harsher sentence
upon resentencing. Commonwealth v. Robinson, 931 A.2d 15, 22
(Pa.Super. 2007) (en banc). “Absent evidence [that] a sentencing increase is
justified due to objective information concerning a defendant’s case, the
presumption of vindictiveness cannot be rebutted.” Barnes, 167 A.3d at 124.
Without a presumption of vindictiveness, the defendant must affirmatively
prove actual vindictiveness. Id.
Here, Appellant did not receive a greater sentence upon remand than
that which was originally ordered. Specifically, Appellant was originally
sentenced to two years to four years in prison for PWID, a concurrent two
years to four years in prison for conspiracy, and a consecutive two years’
probation for possession. However, upon remand, Appellant was sentenced
to two years to four years in prison for PWID, a concurrent two years to four
years in prison for conspiracy, and no further penalty for possession.
Accordingly, there is no presumption of vindictiveness. See Robinson,
supra. Moreover, there is no evidence of actual vindictiveness on the part of
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J-S39042-19
the sentencing judge. Accordingly, Appellant is not entitled to relief on this
claim.
After examining the issues contained in the Anders brief, we concur
with counsel’s assessment that the appeal is wholly frivolous. “Furthermore,
after conducting a full examination of all the proceedings as required pursuant
to Anders, we discern no non-frivolous issues to be raised on appeal.”
Yorgey, 188 A.3d at 1195. Thus, we grant counsel’s petition to withdraw and
affirm Appellant’s judgment of sentence.
Petition to withdraw as counsel granted. Judgment of sentence
affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 8/19/19
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|
There are a couple of different versions of Puppy 4.20 with the most visual difference being the "blinky" icon -- yours looks like a small television screen located in the lower right bar of your screen. I believe that tells me that you are using the "official" 4.20 release. I was using a derivative that has a few differences in it, but that's nothing we need to worry about yet. I also tried the official 4.20 on my buddy's machine and -- sound worked out of the box (until I ran the Alsa Sound Wizard, anyway).
The Alsa Sound Wizard changes your /etc/modprobe.conf file and I believe that is what caused our sound to "break" on these two Gateway machines. Of course, we still have to prove that to ourselves!
Before we do anything drastic, though, I want you to do a few more things for me. Boot from your LIVE CD, but as soon as you see the boot screen with this
Code:
Puppy will boot automatically in 8 seconds...
boot:
I want you to type
Code:
puppy pfix=ram
and hit your keyboard's Enter key.
This causes Puppy to ignore your hard drive save file and acts like a fresh installation. After you see the desktop and calendar appear, I want you to reset (maximize) the sound levels -- using only sGmixer from the Menu and Alsamixer from the Console. Please, DO NOT RUN ALSA SOUND WIZARD this time.
Empty the trash, try you tube, play a CD -- test your out-of-the-box sound. Open the desktop Play icon and maximize sound there, too. Do you have sound?
If the answer is yes, I want you to copy the /etc/modprobe.conf file to a USB stick or another place on your computer's hard drive -- in sda2, perhaps? Shutdown Puppy 4.2 in the normal way but -- when it asks
Code:
<SAVE TO FILE> <SAVE TO CD> <DO NOT SAVE>
select <DO NOT SAVE>
If you do not have sound... well, either way, post back to me.
In my earlier days, I would simply start fresh from this point -- but I see you have Bon Echo added and we will try to keep those things when we fix this....
Patriot, I am inclined to agree. Upgrading Alsa via your .pet might be the best solution. BTW, your .pet was another successful solution to the sound issues I have experienced with my Dell Mini-9, eliminating the need to add anything to Boxpup 413's /etc/modprobe.conf.
I have been experimenting with the 4.20-variations of Puppy on my buddy's Gateway 7305 laptop and have found sound to work out-of-the box; even bringing up the ALSA WIZARD screen breaks the sound output, requiring the deletion of that frugal pup_save file or the possible replacement of the corrupted /etc/modprobe.conf file.
Turk Nailik, what is the model number of your particular laptop? I am not sure why sound would work on my end, but not on yours... but then, Gateway is sorta' famous for outsourcing and building with whatever parts were available at the time of order. Sounds like I am rambling, here. Sorry, but I am running out of ideas.
If my buddy's Gateway and yours do have the same hardware, the best advice I can come up with to date is:
I tried to download the .pet files by clicking of Patriot's files. They seemed to download, but during the install the computer froze. I waited about 5 to 10 minutes then hard booted. I then tried the settings on sgmixer and alsamixer - and alas no sound...
Alsa pet install notes:
1. Please note your kernel version.
2. Do not install from a fat32/ntfs partition. Download/copy to /tmp or any ext2 partition before installing.
3. A quick way to test would be using pfix=ram if you have enough ram.
I also have a Gateway .Puppy 4.2 live cd.NO sound.I did all the things that were suggested.I stumbled upon this solution ,why it works I don't know,maybe someone else does.When powering up wait for the Gateway screen,press F2 to enter Bios setup.You don't have to do anything just press F10 and exit saving changes.Puppy will boot up and you should have sound. I tried this afew times and everything works woof woof on delete,cd audio,and video sound.Thanks for all the info!
You might be on to something! When I was helping my buddy out with a frugal install of Puppy on his Gateway, I did open his laptop's BIOS to change his boot order, save, and exit. Hmmm...
I have learned a bit while trying to help these guys with their Gateway laptops, and will try to summarize it from memory here:
These particular Gateway laptops are using AC97 sound that **should** be picked up by Puppy's defaults.
Code:
INTEL 18X0 8086:24C5 (REV3)
Running the Sound Wizard -- or even selecting the Sound Wizard without actually using it -- broke the sound on my buddy's Gateway. I strongly recommend you do this only when running as a Live CD (no save file) to see what hardware is detected before any installation begins.
The last part of Turk Nailik's modprobe.conf file looks like this:
165 alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0m
166 alias sound-slot-0 snd-intel8x0m
My buddy's modprobe.conf file did not have the m's until after I had selected the sound wizard and broken his sound. Then his modprobe.conf file looked exactly like Turk Nailik's and the machine was silent.
I **think** this is showing what Puppy **believes** you have for your sound chipset(s) / sound modem / whatever (don't know the correct terminology). Since Turk Nailik had run his sound wizard, thus modifying his modprobe.conf file and breaking any chance of sound, was Puppy showing the actual chipset in his machine or a different (incorrectly set by the Sound Wizard) one?
Patriot's .pet does fix the sound issue on my Dell Mini-9, without requiring me to manually modify my own modprobe.conf file, but I did not use it on my buddy's Gateway, so that remains unconfirmed in this particular case with these Gateways. I will say that I do not believe that running Patriot's .pet has any real downside to it; I doubt it will break anything and know it will fix some sound issues, as it did on my Dell machine.
And yes, Ricky, it may be that opening and saving the BIOS might set or reset something important -- although I am much too new to understand what or why. Both of us opened and saved our BIOS files and both of these machines have sound. Thank you very much for pointing that out!
My buddy has since re-claimed his Gateway laptop, so I have nothing further to test with.
I have been trying to get sound working on the new wife's Gateway 7326GZ with similar Intel hardware and having the same problems.
I might have a few more bits of info to try and track down the problem.
Sound worked longer ago using 4.0.3 (found old cd, booted and sound works)
No sound under 4.3 full (or Tuxx's 4.31.1)
BUT I do get sound using 4.3 small!!!
It seems it may have some thing to do not just with the sound but also the modem which seems to use the same hardware.
In full it loads the hfs modem module, but small loads intel8x0m (same in 4.0.3)
I tried blacklisting all the hfs modules, still no sound.
Added intel8x0m. No sound.
Added other modules that were different between 4.0.3 and 4.3 : slamr and slusb. No sound.
Checked modem. Still showed ttyhfs0. Erased, rebooted and re-probed and found ttysl0?? Modem seems to work, but no Sound.
For grins I re-ran ALSA config. I hear the speakers click when module installs, but no sound.
Took out the slamr and slub modules I added earlier, and ran ALSA config again, same result.
Does anything here make sense??
What is different between 4.0.3 and 4.3?? The "zdrv" file? Why does having extra drivers cause the wrong one(s) to load? Are the extra drivers broken?
Is it something else all together? I have came to the limit of my knowledge, can anyone give a hand?
Side note - may be important - Sound worked in and earlier version of Fedora (F8?) but is also broken in F10 and F11 as well. Is there a common problem here? ALSA broken?
I might dig up my old F8 disks and give it a spin as well to see what is different and report back.
I'll never get her to drop M$ if I can't crack this. And 4.3 (and 4.31.1) are so slick!!
No sound under 4.3 full (or Tuxx's 4.31.1)
BUT I do get sound using 4.3 small!!!
That report is KEY. Anyone care to put a, ahem ... bug in Barry's ear about this?_________________hangout: ##b0rked on irc.freenode.net
diversion:http://alienjeff.net - visit The Fringe
quote: "The foundation of authority is based upon the consent of the people." - Thomas Hooker
BUT cannot find a modem. This doesn't bother me too much since I never use it, but would be nice if it worked in an emergency.
Apparently the reason sound worked in small was because the hfs modem modules were not included, so they were not installed. The sound card seems to need snd_intel9x0m loaded and it conflicts with some of the hfs modules and will not load. (I found this error when I tried modprobe -v snd_intel8x0)
Now, I am sure there is a better / more permanent way doing this (give preference to one module over another??) but I am not familiar enough with how all of the drivers interact to find a better way on my own.
Maybe some one could suggest a better solution to Barry for the next release??
Thanks to all of you in this thread for your perseverance on this complex issue. As instigator of the Conexant modem support, I feel a responsibility to join in. Your information gives me a lot to work with.
I would like to take this up in the 4.3 Bugs thread, since the problems may be aggravated by the 4.3 addition of those drivers, as well as the patching of the ALSA driver to accommodate Conexant HDA modems.
I am concerned that there is an apparent conflict in Puppy's choice of modem drivers. But I see only the ID of the sound card here and need to know the ID of the modem. That ID triggers the driver selection. It could be that the same ID is accociated with both the Intel and HSF drivers. Could someone post (in 4.3 Bugs) what PupScan (in 4.3, with the zp430305.sfs file included) shows for the PCI interfaces for sound and modems? Also please note which sound and modem drivers are actually loaded (lsmod) in the various cases.
I am also interested in attempting to automate handling of situations requiring special "model =" updates to modprobe.conf. But that appears to be of lower priority, if I understand the conclusions you all have come to. Thank you for any further help you can provide to work this out for everyone.
Richard
lwill,
You imply that the MODDULESCONFIG edit is needed. I am not currently submitting that technique for 4.3.1, so am curious whether it is really necessary. Will your ALSA fix alone solve the problem?
My take from your experience with that mod (reported via PM to me) is that intel8x0m got loaded first and the HSF modules (mysteriously) came later. Although I can't explain why the HSFs were loaded, since we were overriding their use, the result suggests there is a requirement for the modules to load in that sequence. There may be a better way to do that. What happens without that mod? And (with the mod) does it still work after a reboot? Since HSF disables intel8x0m, that might prevent its loading after the first time.
To help me understand this more, could you post the lsmod output from the successful Fedora run, as well as that from the good puppy run? I remain concerned about getting this HSF-and-sound thing right. Thanks.
Richard
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======
boulem
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgcgBRAdQBNQE2AZf/AAAB4wEAAW...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAMAhwBUQJzAkT/AAACIAFWAb...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAMAhwBUQJzAkT/AAACIAFWAb0BVv8AAAG8AVcBWwJB/wAAAVsBbwCdAXH/AAABVwFzAU0Bs/8AAAJaAWUDVgFs/wAAAl0BbQJdAbr/AAADPwDKAlsA0f8AAAJdAMgCZQBk/wAAAioAyAGiAMb/AAABYADBAF8AtP8AAAFYALcBWQCK/wAA)
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwBBAowA7ALwAML/AAACjwDrAo...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
~~~
dpcx
The first of those was enough to crash Chrome. Caution!
~~~
boulem
it crashed many times when i was making it lol ^^
~~~
D9u
None crashed chromium on #! ... Which OS are you using?
------
mistercow
Sierpinski!
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgXgB8AaYA2wJdANlWUlUCXgDZAg...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
Welp, that was way better than being productive. Shame it doesn't save the
exposure level in the share link.
~~~
scanlime
It's supposed to save the exposure in that link, and when I click the link it
does open with a non-default exposure value. Hmm!
------
rickyconnolly
You either die a hero...
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAzAgIBhwHtAV7/AAAB7QFeAc...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAzAgIBhwHtAV7/AAAB7QFeAcQBRf8AAAHEAUUBhwEy/wAAAYcBMgFCAS3/AAABQgEtAPYBMP8AAAD2ATAAqQE5/wAAAKoBOQC2ART/AAAAtgETALcA6/8AAAC2AOsAqQDI/wAAAKkAyACLAK7/AAAAiwCuAF4Anf8AAABeAJwBaQCf/wAAAWkAnwFrALD/AAABawCwAXMAw/8AAAFzAMUBiQDS/wAAAYkA0gGrANn/AAABqwDZAckA4P8AAAHJAOAB0gDn/wAAAdIA5wHXANL/AAAB1wDSAdsAyP8AAAHbAMgB1wCv/wAAAdcArwHkAL3/AAAB5AC9AewAuf8AAAHsALkB/AC4/wAAAfwAuAIHALz/AAACBwC8AhEArP8AAAIRAK0CEwC//wAAAhMAvwIZAMz/AAACGQDMAhwA1f8AAAIcANUCIADg/wAAAgABiAIRAV3/AAACEQFdAiQBSv8AAAIkAUoCOwE7/wAAAjsBOwJiAS3/AAACYgEtAqABJv8AAAKgASYC5QEm/wAAAuUBJgMTAS7/AAADEwEuAwwBG/8AAAMMARsDCQEH/wAAAwkBBwMLAOv/AAADCwDrAxYA2P8AAAMWANgDJgC5/wAAAyYAuQM4AKf/AAADOACnA04Amf8AAANOAJkCgQCd/wAAAoEAnQJyALr/AAACcgC6AmUAyv8AAAJlAMoCRADc/wAAAkQA3AIvAOH/AAACLwDhAiMA6f8AAAIjAOkCHgDc/wAA)
~~~
Recoil42
Or live long enough to become the villain…
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAyAiQBFQHsAQAA/wACCQEDAd...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
------
araes
Piecewise, type-1, Wolter optics. From a useability perspective, I'd love the
ability to either draw freehand lines, or splines. Also, a button / key to
constantly keep the drawn lines visible would be nice. Amazingly cool little
project though.
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgdwEuACQA+wBdAPsA/wAAXQD7AK...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
~~~
araes
Past the edit time, but one other one. The end of all things. Takes a few
million rays to look reasonable.
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgiwCfAAMBuAAoAaeCAHwAKwGnAE...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
~~~
bentcorner
That's beautiful.
------
gciii
'Through the open door...'
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgYwAJAZgAUgF/AaH/AAABmgBSAl...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgYwAJAZgAUgF/AaH/AAABmgBSAlAAX/8AAAJQAF8CNQGr/wAAAZYAUQFIACj/AAABRAAnASsB7v8AAAErAe4BfwGf/wAAAUYAJwFMACv/AAABRQAnAUYAJv8AAAFFACcBQwAn/wAA)
------
eru
The user interface could perhaps benefit from re-using the same pseudo-random
seed when you are moving the mouse pointer to draw your line.
Edit: I'll try hacking up the code.
~~~
eru
Done. See
[https://github.com/scanlime/zenphoton/pull/4](https://github.com/scanlime/zenphoton/pull/4)
------
ambiate
Spider web hoorah. Runs surprisingly well on my ~2003 processor in Ubuntu with
Firefox 14. In comparison, Gmail with hangouts is slower than this display.
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwBhAY0ArQE4AUz/AAACIwG0Ah...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
------
scanlime
Somewhat relatedly, after zenphoton.com I made a tool called High Quality Zen
(HQZ) which uses a similar algorithm to do high quality off-line rendering. I
made this video with it:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obbew_7_Xo8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obbew_7_Xo8)
------
martindale
I was unfortunately not able to reproduce the double-slit experiment.
~~~
darkarmani
I tried as well. It appears that these photons don't exhibit wavelike
properties.
------
bajsejohannes
Failed to make a laser:
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAFABkBCwAZATgA/wAADwErAy...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAFABkBCwAZATgA/wAADwErAyoBMQD/AAANARcDKwEUAP8AAysA9AMqASAA/wADKAFCAyoBIgD/AA==)
~~~
luminiferous
Not a laser, but I did make a parabolic reflector:
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAPAc4BCwHOATEA/wABygEQAd...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAPAc4BCwHOATEA/wABygEQAdgA5gD/AAHKAS4B2wFbAP8AAc4BHwHKATsA/wAB0ADtAh0AnQD/AAHWAVUCCwGPAP8AAf0BhwJVAcQA/wACDgClAnMAYgD/AAJHAb4C1wH6AP8AAmEAZwMMACMA/wACxwH1A2wCLAD/AAL4ACcDfwACAP8AA2gCKgNTAicA/wADUwInAYIAwgD/AAGCAML/4wAlAP8A)
EDIT: this is broken. Here is fixed:
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEghQANAekBFwHqAS4A/wAB5wEbAf...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEghQANAekBFwHqAS4A/wAB5wEbAfMA/gD/AAHoAS4B8gFHAP8AAe0BAwIpAMoA/wAB7AFBAhIBbgD/AAIHAWQCSQGWAP8AAg4A2QJ7AJgA/wACOQGNArMByAD/AAJqAJwDBwBYAP8AAqgByAM6Af0A/wAC9gBbA3kAKQD/AAMvAfoDuAIjAP8AAeMBGwHnAT4A/wA=)
~~~
tim_hutton
Two parabolic mirrors, to refocus the beam:
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgXAAkAbIBEwGxASYA/wABsQEoAb...](http://zenphoton.com/#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)
------
TallboyOne
how dreamy. I love it
Reminds me of Zdzislaw Beksinski
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAWAaQA5AI+AYL/AAACLwC4Aa...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAWAaQA5AI+AYL/AAACLwC4AagBxv8AAAHeAJECRAH8/wAAAtMAvQJcAfX/AAACXAH1APQBlf8AAAD0AZUBxwBf/wAAAccAXwLUALL/AAACwwC0AikBHv8AAAMJAIsDSv/9/wAAAw0AjQQDANT/AAAC6QDLAnMCBP8AAAJJAgYA1AGz/wAAANkBhgGtAFX/AAAB2wBNAuUAoP8AAAGRAEwAuQGI/wAAAvcAkgHOAD3/AAADCQC+AoECHf8AAAJZAh4AtgHI/wAAAX4APACcAYj/AAADCAB9Ac8AKv8AAAMsALoClAIx/wAAAkcCOwCXAd7/AAA=)
~~~
tankbot
Love this one! My mind sees a cave with light at the end but I'm not skilled
enough to bring it to life.
------
btipling
Pretty cool app to be creative with too:
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAEAAYBUAQAAT7/AAAAAwDiBA...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAEAAYBUAQAAT7/AAAAAwDiBAUA3P8AAAADAPoEDADx/wAAAAABOAQTASj/AAA=)
------
ximeng
I thought about doing this but adding prisms to split the light and add
colour, amazing that almost anything you can think of gets done somewhere on
the internet if you wait long enough.
------
drunken_thor
I made blocks
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAVAckBIAIYAd//AAABxgEfAU...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgfwAVAckBIAIYAd//AAABxgEfAUEBCf8AAAE+AQ4BuQIO/wAAAb0CDQIYAd7/AAABOwEMALQBZf8AAAC6AWYBJQJC/wAAAbkCEAFBAkz/AAACtwCUAnsBIv8AAAJ7ASICzQEp/wAAAroAlALMASX/AAACvACVAxkBCf8AAALOASgDFwEJ/wAAAcUANgIaAA9eIzUBxwA2AZgAC14jNQGYAAwB5P/xXiM1AhsAEQHq/+5eIzUByAA2AdgArV4jNQIbABMCIACQXiM1AdkAqQIfAI5eIzUB2QCpAbMAeV4jNQGZAA8BtQB7XiM1)
------
aeontech
I love this thing... coolest art toy I've seen in months.
[http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgggAPAgsBJQJgAKb/AAACmQCAAi...](http://zenphoton.com/#AAQAAkACAAEgggAPAgsBJQJgAKb/AAACmQCAAi8AY/8AAAHWAEIB7wCc/wAAAsUARwMYASf/AAACWwDlAjkAxv8AAAHqASgCAAEu/wAAAdYBEwHVARr/AAACDwFAAhMBQP8AAAIYAToCGgE6/wAAAiYBRwImAUX/AAACfgGrAu8Bd5RqAAHmAWkCmwG3lGoAAR0A/gEjAR0A6gAA8ADYAQAArx1BoAGnAP4BsADGHUGg)
------
rasur
Amazed and Impressed that it worked in TenFourFox (17.0.7) on a G5 Mac.. and
much less CPU intensive than I was expecting. Good work!
------
elorant
Talking about CPU intensive. Just opening the page consumes 50% of my CPU.
While drawing it reached 70%.
~~~
anonymous
On my machine - firefox 21 running on linux - it completely obliterates my RAM
and the machine starts swapping.
Edit: tried it with a separate profile with no extensions installed. Same
story. Just drawing ten walls and letting it sit there not doing anything,
it's actively leaking memory. Right now, with just that page open, the firefox
process has RSIZE of 450MB and VSIZE of 1.4GB.
Edit²: tried with chrome Version 29.0.1521.3 dev. Same thing.
------
deckiedan
Wow - beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
------
andyjohnson0
Previous thread from April:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5594351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5594351)
------
inv
[http://bit.ly/17JXnWm](http://bit.ly/17JXnWm)
------
touristtam
thanks for sharing. :)
"Quelques grammes de finesse dans un monde de brutes"
------
londont
This is beautiful!
------
blahbl4hblah
It would be great if people actually checked the version of IE that you are
using instead of just punting to an "oh noes!" screen.
~~~
ygra
It's checking for features, not the version and browser. And as for features,
UInt8ClampedArray is missing from IE (it was seemingly a late addition to
Typed Arrays and might not have been picked up in time).
That being said, it appears that there is a slower alternative that works just
as well, but someone would have to code up a workaround for IE in this case. I
would have done it if I knew any JS (or CoffeeScript in this case).
------
bliker
prism?
|
payment issues
It's my second year in business and just found this site this year. I'm currently serviceing 60 to 70 yards a week with one helper. Business is growing quickly but i'm starting to have some customer collection issues. I will try to resolve this next season with contract only customers but I'm not sure that will fix the problem completely. 99% are good and look out for me but I'm really gettin soured by that 1%. Somehow it eased my mind a bit after reading a ton of similiar posts by people having the same issues. I thought it was just me. I had a customer come out this week and slam me and my service and it looks like now it may turn in to a no pay. Property was seviced a 100% and on time. Then I learned she was not currently working. Why don't they just be upfront and honest. I did nothing wrong she just does'nt want to pay. Still it really got under my skin.
It's my second year in business and just found this site this year. I'm currently serviceing 60 to 70 yards a week with one helper. Business is growing quickly but i'm starting to have some customer collection issues. I will try to resolve this next season with contract only customers but I'm not sure that will fix the problem completely. 99% are good and look out for me but I'm really gettin soured by that 1%. Somehow it eased my mind a bit after reading a ton of similiar posts by people having the same issues. I thought it was just me. I had a customer come out this week and slam me and my service and it looks like now it may turn in to a no pay. Property was seviced a 100% and on time. Then I learned she was not currently working. Why don't they just be upfront and honest. I did nothing wrong she just does'nt want to pay. Still it really got under my skin.
Click to expand...
I had the same problem when I started... but it was more than 1%. More like 30 to 40%. Solved that with service agreements. If you don't come off as a legit business then you get no respect. Not saying you. If you just show up give a price and then start servicing then they have no incentive to pay. No fear of retribution so to speak.
The agreements for me have been a scumbag reducer. Scumbags won't sign an agreement because they know you have a legal document to go after them...even if you never do it still puts the fear in them that you can. I found that if you eliminate the bi-weekly and have an agreement you eliminate most if not all scumbags and no payers.
Not the customers I want. Slower growth but better growth and more profitable in the long run.
It's my second year in business and just found this site this year. I'm currently serviceing 60 to 70 yards a week with one helper. Business is growing quickly but i'm starting to have some customer collection issues. I will try to resolve this next season with contract only customers but I'm not sure that will fix the problem completely. 99% are good and look out for me but I'm really getting soured by that 1%. Somehow it eased my mind a bit after reading a ton of similar posts by people having the same issues. I thought it was just me. I had a customer come out this week and slam me and my service and it looks like now it may turn in to a no pay. Property was serviced a 100% and on time. Then I learned she was not currently working. Why don't they just be upfront and honest. I did nothing wrong she just does'nt want to pay. Still it really got under my skin.
Click to expand...
That is human nature. Hard to face up to the fact you can not afford something.
You will also catch people that upset you. I am only so good with these types of people for so long before I say something.
You should go visit with one of your better clients after such an event to help you remain focused. There is nothing you can do to avoid these people as long as you are in a client relationship. Just be thankful you are not in a cubicle sitting next to them everyday
I would not see contracts service agreements (SA) as the cure all either. I have very few frankly and they do not mean much IMHO. The benifit of SA is if they are a good client, they want lots of service and you are willing to give a flat monthly rate to them.
Having said that, this year I have noticed more and more people are right out sayin, we can not afford more than bi-weekly service. Mowing lawns is something they could do themselves, it is a luxury. Many People have not had a raise in 4 years and prices are going up. The squeeze is on.
That is human nature. Hard to face up to the fact you can not afford something.
You will also catch people that upset you. I am only so good with these types of people for so long before I say something.
You should go visit with one of your better clients after such an event to help you remain focused. There is nothing you can do to avoid these people as long as you are in a client relationship. Just be thankful you are not in a cubicle sitting next to them everyday
I would not see contracts service agreements (SA) as the cure all either. I have very few frankly and they do not mean much IMHO. The benifit of SA is if they are a good client, they want lots of service and you are willing to give a flat monthly rate to them.
Having said that, this year I have noticed more and more people are right out sayin, we can not afford more than bi-weekly service. So basically they are saying hey look... I don't have the money to care for my lawn but I'm too lazy to do it myself....so I will pay you to do it for half the money for double the work. Mowing lawns is something they could do themselves, it is a luxury. Many People have not had a raise in 4 years and prices are going up. The squeeze is on. The squeeze is on for everyone. My local fuel prices went up significantly in the past few months. Food prices are on the rise. Point is if you can't afford the service don't expect me to do the service for half of what it should be because you are too lazy to do it yourself.
Some People are just A-Holes and want to cheat everyone.
Click to expand...
Not arguing with you...just my point of view. I also find that when you bundle everything in a service agreement you sell more services and you get the most out of each customer.
So for me a service agreement is very valuable in that it for the most part eliminates the scumbags while also increasing revenue per customer acquisition. Plus it puts me in control of time of services such as bush trimming weeding, fert applications etc. I don't have to show up and see the fert guy there spraying when I'm there to mow.
I don't have to wait for the customer to decide to clean up the bushes when they are now out of control. I don't have to wait for the customer to decide the leaves need cleaning up when they reach the bottom of the window sills.
More control for me, better scheduling, more profit per customer.... steady monthly income...better budgeting of money and time and on and on....yeah I see no benefit with service agreements.
To the point of people admitting they do not have money. Most people will do not say that directly, they complain or moan about service or something. I was just noting that it seems more and more people have just come right out and stated it.
I am not saying that SA's do not have value, I have them too. I just do not push them on people right off the bat. Not everyone wants a bundle and I do not push the issue.
To the point of people admitting they do not have money. Most people will do not say that directly, they complain or moan about service or something. I was just noting that it seems more and more people have just come right out and stated it.
I am not saying that SA's do not have value, I have them too. I just do not push them on people right off the bat. Not everyone wants a bundle and I do not push the issue.
Click to expand...
Quote: I would not see contracts service agreements (SA) as the cure all either. I have very few frankly and they do not mean much IMHO. End Quote.
Ok..maybe I mistook what you said.
I try to do more pre-qualifying over the phone. I ask some questions and then I tell them basically how it works and most times that tells me whether we are going to be a fit for each other.
Eliminates the wasted time and running on estimates for a price shopper or cheap @SS. My service agreements are flexible on what services you want. If they don't want fert because they are happy with their fert guy then so be it. Its not a deal breaker for me.
If they like to take care of their own landscaping....no problem. Prices go up and down...monthly cost depends on the services they choose. That way everyone is on the same page. I will also state again that most think an agreement is assurance you are going to get paid..not really and unless its for a large amount of money I'm not going to wast the time going to court.
Plus I don't let a customer get to the point of owing me money that the amount would justify taking them to court.
Quote: I would not see contracts service agreements (SA) as the cure all either. I have very few frankly and they do not mean much IMHO. End Quote.
Ok..maybe I mistook what you said.
I try to do more pre-qualifying over the phone. I ask some questions and then I tell them basically how it works and most times that tells me whether we are going to be a fit for each other.
Eliminates the wasted time and running on estimates for a price shopper or cheap @SS. My service agreements are flexible on what services you want. If they don't want fert because they are happy with their fert guy then so be it. Its not a deal breaker for me.
If they like to take care of their own landscaping....no problem. Prices go up and down...monthly cost depends on the services they choose. That way everyone is on the same page. I will also state again that most think an agreement is assurance you are going to get paid..not really and unless its for a large amount of money I'm not going to wast the time going to court.
Plus I don't let a customer get to the point of owing me money that the amount would justify taking them to court.
Dave...
Click to expand...
Here is my thinking. First thing I want to do is get them as a paying client. If they have over grown beds, shrubs and lot of work to do. There are many reasons for this but I try not to judge. I want to get paid to clean them up at a fair price.
Additional services often generate more profit than mowing for sure. If I bundle those the price seems higher to the client. If I do it seperately then they are not as bothered. I then can go back to them and present a bundle after the site is up to standard. They are comfortable with us, we are comfortable with them ( paying) and I have not had to scramble or invest a lot up front on a contract.
I then will offer a maintenance price but typically in the second or third season. I also like to get then rolling in mid summer.
On the otherhand, I go to an estate house or ranch and the place is well cared for, little neglected and there is only maintenance.... then I will propose a service agreement.
I have residential units that gross more than small commecial clients. We are pushing 6 to 10K a year. |
Introduction {#S1}
============
The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) protein kinase integrates signal transduction networks coordinating cell growth, nutrient status, protein synthesis and autophagy ^[@R1]^. mTOR exists in two functionally distinct complexes, mTORC1 and mTORC2 ^[@R2]^. The mTORC1 and mTORC2 kinase complexes both share mTOR, mLST8 (GβL), Deptor and Tti1/Tel2, however mTORC1 also specifically contains Raptor and PRAS40, while mTORC2 contains the subunits Rictor, mSIN1 and Protor1/2 ^[@R3]^. The regulatory signals impinging on mTORC1 activity have been the focus of many studies, however by contrast, the mechanisms of mTORC2 regulation are not well understood. mTORC2 is activated by growth factor receptors and PI3K signaling ^[@R4]^. Association with the ribosome itself has additionally been demonstrated to result in mTORC2 activation ^[@R5],\ [@R6]^. mTORC2 has been shown to activate several downstream substrates, however its most well characterized function is the phosphorylation of serine 473 of AKT within the hydrophobic turn motif resulting in full activation of AKT ^[@R7]^. In GBM, the mutated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) variant, EGFRvIII is known to activate mTORC2, in addition to PTEN loss ^[@R8]-[@R10]^. In an EGFR-PI3K driven *Drosophila* glial tumor model mTORC2 activity was required for GBM formation, and Rictor overexpression in a GEMM was sufficient to induce gliomagenesis ^[@R11],\ [@R12]^.
Rictor is a 200 kD protein initially identified as the defining component of mTORC2 and lacks any significant sequence homology between yeast and mammals ^[@R4],\ [@R13]^. Moreover, Rictor lacks any structural domains of known function but contains a C-terminus which is conserved among vertebrates. The degree of Rictor association with mTOR appears to be inversely correlated to Raptor expression and varies in different cell types ^[@R7],\ [@R13]^. Rictor is overexpressed in several cancers leading to hyperactive mTORC2 and has been shown to play a causal role in glioma formation ^[@R12],\ [@R14]-[@R17]^. Rictor expression has been demonstrated to be regulated transcriptionally and via protein degradation ^[@R18],\ [@R19]^, however recent studies have suggested that Rictor expression may also be regulated post-transcriptionally ^[@R20]^.
Here we describe a feed-forward cascade involving activation of AKT/HSF1 resulting in HSF1-induced HuR expression. Rictor is demonstrated to be a target of HuR leading to enhancement of Rictor mRNA translation and elevated mTORC2 activity. Rictor mRNA is demonstrated to be subject to translational control and shown that HuR binds to the Rictor 3′ UTR enhancing translational efficiency. Data is shown which demonstrate that HuR is a direct target of HSF1. Knockdown of AKT, HSF1 or HuR results in down-regulation of Rictor expression and impedes GBM growth, migration and invasive properties. Uncoupling HuR expression from its native promoter via viral expression maintained Rictor expression under conditions of AKT or HSF1 loss. Furthermore, an examination of clinical GBM specimens supports the proposed signaling relationships.
Results {#S2}
=======
Rictor is regulated at the level of mRNA translation {#S3}
----------------------------------------------------
To begin investigating the mechanism(s) of Rictor expression in GBM we examined steady-state mRNA and protein levels in U138 GBM cells following stimulation. This line expresses low levels of Rictor and we reasoned that signaling which induces expression would be readily discernable. We treated cells with epidermal growth factor (EGF) and monitored mRNA and protein levels at time points following stimulation. As shown in [figure 1A](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, EGF treatment did not alter the steady-state levels of Rictor mRNA, suggesting enhanced transcription or effects on mRNA stability do not regulate Rictor expression, however we did observe a marked increase in protein levels ([Fig. 1B](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, *top left panel*). mTORC2 formation ([Fig. 1B](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, *lower left panel*) and activity (p-S^473^-AKT levels, *top left panel*) were markedly induced concomitant with Rictor induction following EGF exposure. mSin1 levels appeared unaffected by EGF treatment. To examine the possibility that degradation of Rictor was inhibited by EGF exposure, we monitored the turnover of Rictor in the absence and presence of EGF. As shown in [figure 1C](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, EGF treatment did not alter Rictor degradation. We also performed polysome analysis on the Rictor mRNA following EGF stimulation and as shown in [figure 1D](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, Rictor mRNA displayed a marked shift to polysome-containing sucrose density gradient fractions consistent with an increase in the translational efficiency of this transcript and the accumulation of Rictor protein following EGF exposure. We then examined new Rictor protein synthesis in ^[@R35]^S-metabolically labeled U138 cells following EGF treatment. As shown in [figure 1 E](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, Rictor protein synthesis increased ∼4-fold in EGF-treated cells by 4 hours relative to control non-treated cells. These data demonstrate that the Rictor mRNA is subject to translational regulation following EGF treatment.
HuR binds to the 3′ UTR of Rictor mRNA and promotes translation {#S4}
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To understand the mechanism by which Rictor mRNA translation is regulated we examined the structure of the Rictor transcript. In a computational survey of RNA-binding protein motifs, we identified four consensus HuR binding sites located within the 3′ UTR of the Rictor mRNA which were conserved in human and mouse transcripts ([Fig. 2A](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). These sites were found to be significantly more U-rich than AU-rich and adhered to the consensus sequences derived from studies by López de Silanes *et al* ^[@R21]^ and separately by Tenenbaum and coworkers ^[@R22]^ ([Fig. 2B](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). As HuR is known to enhance mRNA stability and translation ^[@R23]^ we determined whether HuR would bind to these sequences. In an RNA pull-down assay, extracts from U138 cells treated without or with EGF, were mixed with biotinylated HuR binding site motif(s) RNA sequences as shown in [Figure 2B](#F2){ref-type="fig"}. HuR was preferentially precipitated by each of the HuR binding site motifs (1-4) in a manner dependent on EGF stimulation. HuR was not detected in samples which were precipitated by a nonspecific control RNA. Similarly, in HuR immunoprecipitates we were able to detect Rictor 3′ UTR sequences by rt-PCR, which was enhanced in extracts treated with EGF ([Figure 2C](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). To investigate whether these Rictor 3′ UTR HuR binding motifs were involved in regulating translational efficiency, we generated heterologous reporter mRNA transcripts in which the full-length Rictor 3′ UTR was fused to luciferase and the HuR binding motifs mutated ([Figure 2D](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). The effects of these mutations on mRNA translation were subsequently assessed. As shown in [figure 2D](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, the full-length Rictor 3′ UTR containing mRNAs were shifted to polysomal fractions by EGF stimulation consistent with enhanced HuR binding. However, mutating motifs 1 and 2 reduced the amount of reporter mRNA which was polysome associated and mutating all four HuR binding motifs completely abolished EGF-stimulated mRNA reporter polysome association. Taken together these data demonstrate that HuR binds to the Rictor 3′ UTR to stimulate translational efficiency.
mTORC2/AKT/HSF1 signaling stimulates HuR transcription in GBM {#S5}
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Overexpression of Rictor in glioblastoma cells has been demonstrated to increase the nucleation of mTORC2 resulting in elevated kinase activity ^[@R12],\ [@R16]^. We sought to identify a signaling mechanism linking the mTORC2/AKT axis to the regulation of HuR. AKT has been shown to directly activate HSF1 via phosphorylation of serine 326 ^[@R24]^. Additionally, Chou *et al* have recently demonstrated that HSF1 appears to regulate *β*-catenin expression via effects on HuR in breast cancer cells ^[@R25]^. These relationships suggested that mTORC2/AKT signaling may activate HSF1/HuR leading to enhanced translation of Rictor which in turn, would enhance mTORC2 activity in a feed-forward loop promoting GBM proliferation and motility. We examined these cascades in three GBM cell line models of elevated mTORC2 activity. mTORC2 is known to be activated by EGF or IGF stimulation, overexpression of the mutated constitutively active EGFRvIII allele, as well as, by overexpression of Rictor ^[@R8],\ [@R12],\ [@R16],\ [@R26]^. As shown in [Figure 3A](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, in U138 cells stimulated with EGF or IGF, phospho-S^473^-AKT, phospho-S^326^-HSF1, HuR and Rictor levels were enhanced following stimulation (see also [Supplemental Figure S1A](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). In H4 cells in which Rictor is overexpressed ^[@R16]^, phospho-S^473^-AKT, phospho-S^326^-HSF1 and HuR expression was enhanced relative to the levels of these proteins in parental H4 cells. Similarly, in U87 cells overexpressing the mutant EGFRvIII allele, phospho-S^473^-AKT, phospho-S^326^-HSF1, HuR and Rictor levels were elevated compared to parental U87 cells. We confirmed that knockdown of another obligate component of mTORC2, mSin1, blocked AKT activity and the proposed downstream loop signaling following EGF exposure ([Supplemental figure. S1B](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). While these data supported the notion of an mTORC2/phospho-S^473^-AKT/phospho-S^326^-HSF1/HuR/Rictor feed-forward cascade, the mechanism by which activated HSF1 leads to increases in HuR expression was unclear in GBM cells. To examine whether HuR was a direct transcriptional target of HSF1 we searched the HuR promoter for canonical or noncanonical heat shock elements (HSEs) ^[@R27]^. We identified tandem noncanonical HSEs beginning at position -475 within the HuR promoter and these sequences were conserved in the mouse HuR promoter ([Figure 3B](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). Interestingly, Mendilo *et al* identified this region of the HuR promoter as a binding target of HSF1 in a ChIP-Seq study ^[@R28]^. To determine whether these HSEs were capable of mediating transcriptional responses directed by HSF1, we determined both RNA *Pol* II and HSF1 occupancy via ChIP assays followed by quantitative PCR. As shown in [Figure 3C](#F3){ref-type="fig"} (*left panel*), *Pol* II content within the HuR promoter containing the tandem HSEs was increased in U138 cells following EGF or IGF stimulation. There was marked enhancement of *Pol* II content within the HuR promoter in H4~Rictor~ - or U87EGFRvIII-overexpressing cells relative to parental cells. Similar results were obtained analyzing HSF1 occupancy of the HuR promoter as EGF or IGF stimulation, Rictor- or EGFRvIII-overexpression all resulted in increases in HSF1 occupancy ([Figure 3C](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, *right panel*). The phosphorylation state of functionally bound HSF1 was assessed in a series of *in vitro* DNA-pull down assays ([Figure 3D](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). Consistent with the chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments, EGF or IGF stimulation, Rictor- or EGFRvIII-overexpression resulted in higher levels of bound phospho-S^326^-HSF1 and total HSF1 compared to unstimulated U138 cells or parental H4 and U87 cells.
AKT, HSF1 and HuR are required for Rictor expression and their loss inhibits GBM cell line growth, motility and invasiveness {#S6}
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We next investigated whether loss of AKT, HSF1 or HuR altered Rictor and mTORC2 activity. DBTRG-05MG cells, which harbor elevated mTORC2 activity (B. Holmes and J. Gera, unpublished results), were stably transduced with lentiviral vectors expressing shRNAs targeting AKT, HSF1, HuR, Rictor or a control scrambled sequence non-targeting control. Cells expressing the shRNAs were immunoblotted for the signaling constituents predicted in the feed-forward loop. As shown in [Figure 4A](#F4){ref-type="fig"} (see also [Supplemental Figure S2](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}), knockdown of AKT resulted in a decline of phospho-S^326^-HSF1, HuR and Rictor consistent with a pathway involving a concerted AKT/phospho-S^326^-HSF1/HuR/Rictor cascade. Knockdown of HSF1 resulted in down-regulation of HuR, Rictor and phospho-S^473^-AKT levels, while knockdown of HuR led to reduced expression of Rictor, phospho-S^473^-AKT and phospho-S^326^-HSF1. Knockdown of Rictor abrogated mTORC2 activity and resulted in reduced phospho-S^473^-AKT levels, consistent with previous results ^[@R16]^, but also reduced phospho-S^326^-HSF1 and HuR expression. We additionally determined the effects of knockdown of each of these signaling components on growth, migration and invasive characteristics in the lines. As shown in [Figure 4B](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, growth of AKT, HSF1, HuR and Rictor shRNA-expressing lines was markedly reduced compared to control non-targeting shRNA-expressing cells. The migratory capacity ([Figure 4C](#F4){ref-type="fig"}) was also significantly reduced in these knockdown lines as loss of AKT, HSF1, HuR and Rictor impeded the ability of cells to migrate on either vitronectin or fibronectin in Boyden chambers. The ability of AKT, HSF1, HuR or Rictor knockdown cells to migrate was reduced by ∼ 60-70% relative to control scrambled non-targeting shRNA expressing cells. As shown in [Figure 4D](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, AKT, HSF1, HuR and Rictor knockdown cells were also inhibited in their ability to invade Matrigel relative to control cells.
Effects of modulating AKT or HSF1 activity on HuR/Rictor signaling in GBM {#S7}
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We next sought to investigate the effects of modulating the activities of AKT and HSF1 via genetic approaches on the proposed feed-forward signaling loop. A constitutively active allele of AKT was stably expressed in U138 (AKT-E40K), while a dominant negative AKT-KD (AKT-K179M) was expressed in DBTRG-05MG and U87EGFRvIII cells. As shown in [figure 5A](#F5){ref-type="fig"}, expression of the constitutively active AKT resulted in a marked increase in phospho-S^326^ HSF1, HuR and Rictor levels as compared to control cells containing the empty vector. Conversely, in DBTRG-05MG and U87EGFRvIII expressing the dominant negative AKT, substantially reduced levels of phospho-S^326^ HSF1, HuR and Rictor were observed. We also examined the effects of a constitutively active HSF1 mutant (HSF1-CA) when ectopically expressed in U138 cells. As shown in [figure 5B](#F5){ref-type="fig"}, cells expressing this HSF1 mutant demonstrated elevated levels of HuR and Rictor (*upper panel*). Moreover, when U138 expressing the constitutively active HSF1 allele were subjected to AKT knockdown via siRNA treatment, these cells maintained elevated levels of phospho-S326 HSF1, HuR and Rictor relative to control cell expressing vector alone. We further examined the translational state of Rictor mRNAs via polysome analyses from control (vector only) and HSF1-CA expressing cells treated with AKT siRNAs, and as shown in [figure 5B](#F5){ref-type="fig"} (*lower panel*), a majority of the Rictor mRNA was associated non-ribosomal/monosomal material from control cells, whereas, in HSF1-CA expressing cells a marked shift in Rictor mRNA translational state was observed with most of the transcripts associated with polysomes.
Constitutive HuR expression prevents loss of Rictor under conditions of AKT or HSF1 knockdown {#S8}
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To gain further insight as to whether an mTORC2/phospho-S^473^-AKT/phospho-S^326^-HSF1/HuR/Rictor signaling cascade was operative in GBM, we investigated whether HuR expression driven from a viral vector would prevent Rictor loss under conditions of AKT or HSF1 knockdown. DBTRG-05MG cells were stably transduced with a lentiviral construct which expresses HuR and cells treated with siRNAs targeting AKT, HSF1 or control scrambled non-targeting siRNAs. As shown in [figure 6A](#F6){ref-type="fig"}, viral driven expression of HuR (Lv-HuR) maintained Rictor abundance under conditions of AKT or HSF1 loss. Treatment of cells constitutively expressing viral driven HuR with siRNAs targeting AKT, abolished phospho-S^473^-AKT and total AKT levels, as well as, phospho-S^326^-HSF1 levels, but did not result in reduced Rictor expression (see [Figure 6B](#F6){ref-type="fig"}). Similarly, knockdown of HSF1 in cells expressing viral driven HuR resulted in inhibition of phospho-S^326^-HSF1 and total HSF1, however Rictor expression was maintained. Taken together these data are consistent with a feed-forward loop in which mTORC2 activity leads to signaling through an AKT/HSF1/HuR/Rictor cascade in GBM cells.
Alterations in mTORC2/AKT/HSF1/HuR signaling affect tumor xenograft growth and Rictor mRNA translation {#S9}
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To determine if shRNA mediated knockdown of AKT, HSF1, or HuR would affect the *in vivo* growth rates of murine xenografts, we subcutaneously implanted DBTRG-05MG cells expressing these shRNAs into SCID mice and monitored tumor growth. As shown in [figure 7A](#F7){ref-type="fig"}, cells expressing non-targeting shRNAs exhibited rapid growth with a latency period of 14 days. Conversely, tumors expressing shRNAs targeting AKT, HSF1, or HuR grew significantly slower and with longer latency periods (\*, *P* \< 0.05; latency periods; shRNA-AKT, 28 days; shRNA-HSF1, 30 days; shRNA-HuR, 23 days). We also expressed shRNAs targeting Rictor in DBTRG-05MG cells and knockdown resulted in significantly slower growth and longer latency period (shRNA-Rictor, 23 days), confirming our previous results in other GBM cell lines ^[@R16]^. Tumors from mice at autopsy were subjected to polysome analyses to determine the relative translational state of the Rictor mRNA. As shown in [Figure 7B](#F7){ref-type="fig"}, in tumors expressing the non-targeting control shRNA 80% of Rictor mRNA was polysome associated and well translated, however in tumors expressing AKT, HSF1 or HuR shRNAs, Rictor mRNA shifted markedly to non-ribosomal/monosomal fractions indicating reduced translational efficiency and consistent with the reduced growth rates of these tumors.
mTORC2/AKT/HSF1/HuR/Rictor signaling in GBM patients {#S10}
----------------------------------------------------
To assess whether these signaling relationships were valid in clinical GBM samples we analyzed an independent set of 34 flash-frozen GBM and 5 normal brain samples. Each tumor sample was confirmed histologically, tumor extracts prepared, and the total relative abundance of phospho-S^473^-AKT, phospho-S^326^-HSF1, HuR and Rictor determined by Western analyses. These data are summarized in [table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"} and [supplemental figure S5](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. As shown, elevated mTORC2 activity, as determined by immunoblotting for phospho-S^473^-AKT levels, was observed in 22 of 34 tumor samples (65%, *P* \< 0.05) consistent with the degree of hyperactivity previously observed ^[@R8],\ [@R16]^. Phospho-S^326^-HSF1, HuR and Rictor expression was elevated in 74% (25 of 34, *P* \< 0.05), 62% (21 of 34, *P* \< 0.05) and 74 % (25 of 34, *P* \< 0.05) of samples, respectively. Significant direct correlations were observed between samples harboring elevated phospho-S^473^-AKT and increased phospho-S^326^-HSF1, and those containing elevated phospho-S^326^-HSF1 and increased HuR levels (*P* values less then 0.05 for both correlations). A highly significant direct correlation was found between elevated HuR containing samples and those tumors expressing high levels of Rictor (*P* \< 0.01). These data strongly support the feed-forward signaling pathway observed in the GBM cell line experiments and provide evidence of these signaling relationships in patient samples.
Discussion {#S11}
==========
Our current understanding suggests that mTORC2 can be regulated by RTKs, ribosomes, TSC1-TSC2, Rac1, and the expression levels of Rictor ^[@R2],\ [@R4]^. Very recent data suggests that the polyubiquitination status of GβL may additionally regulate the homeostasis of mTORC2 formation and activation ^[@R29]^. Our data suggest that mTORC2 is also subject to autoregulation via feed-forward signaling through an AKT/HSF1/HuR/Rictor cascade in GBM (see [Figure 7C](#F7){ref-type="fig"}).
Although Rictor is necessary for the stability and activity of mTORC2 and reports have described the role of phosphorylation and acetylation events in these processes, little is known regarding control of Rictor expression via post-transcriptional control mechanisms ^[@R4],\ [@R30]^. The 3′ UTR of Rictor is relatively long suggesting that it contains post-transcriptional regulatory sequences. Furthermore, the 3′ UTR contains several segments of AU-or U rich *cis*-regulatory sequences implicated in mRNA turnover and translational control ^[@R31],\ [@R32]^. Our analysis identified several HuR binding sites (see [figure 2A](#F2){ref-type="fig"}) and additional regulatory domains are likely to be present in such a large 3′ UTR, possibly controlling mRNA stability under particular conditions. Our data supporting the ability of the Rictor transcript to be subject to translational control is reinforced by recent data from Yasuda and colleagues, who investigated the role of Mdm20 in actin remodeling via Rictor-mediated mTORC2 activity ^[@R20]^. Mdm20 was suggested to regulate the expression of Rictor at the level of *de novo* protein synthesis.
Our study implicates HSF1/HuR signaling in the regulation of Rictor expression and mTORC2 activity. Recent data support an HSF1/HuR cascade in the regulation of β-catenin levels in breast cancers ^[@R25]^. Gabai *et al*, also observed that HSF1 controls the expression of HIF-1α via effects on HuR ^[@R33]^. HSF1\'s affects on HuR were determined to be at the level of transcription. We identified tandem non-canonical HSEs within the promoter of HuR and showed that these sites were capable of association with activated HSF1 and promoted HuR expression as determined by increased *Pol* II occupancy (see [Figure 3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). These sequences were also identified as HSF1 binding sites in a high-resolution survey of HSF1 genome occupancy in breast cancer cells ^[@R28]^. These data support the notion that HuR is a direct target of activated HSF1 in GBM.
One prediction of the model presented here is that modulation of a single pathway component should similarly affect other components of the signaling loop. In agreement with this notion, the genetic inhibition of mSin1, AKT, HSF1, HuR or Rictor expression individually, resulted in the down-regulation of all other components within the signaling loop (see [Supplemental figure S1B](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"} and [Figures 4A](#F4){ref-type="fig"} and [5A](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). Similarly, enhancement of an individual components activity resulted in a concomitant increase in downstream signaling loop components activity or expression. Growth factor-stimulated mTORC2, ectopic expression of Rictor or constitutively activated alleles of AKT or HSF1 led to marked increases in downstream components activity or expression (see [Figure 3A](#F3){ref-type="fig"} and [Figures 5A](#F5){ref-type="fig"} & B). The capacity of a single genetic ablation of a pathway component to influence the entire signaling cascade suggests that targeting a single component may yield enhanced therapeutic effectiveness.
All of the components of the signaling cascade we have delineated have established roles in GBM growth and migration. Rictor/mTORC2 have important roles regulating these functions and additionally regulate the metabolic reprograming of these tumors ^[@R2],\ [@R16]^. AKT and HSF1 have been shown to mediate glioma growth and survival ^[@R34],\ [@R35]^, while HuR appears to be overexpressed in GBM and its dysregulation results in the enhanced translation of mRNAs promoting growth, motility and drug resistance ^[@R36]^. Feed-forward signaling loops are well represented in cell signaling networks and provide a positive mechanism for reinforcing and stimulating network activity. Many of the downstream effectors of the feed-forward loop components described here have overlapping targets and the coordinated activation of this loop may serve to stimulate the expression of common targets at multiple levels of gene regulation. These results contribute to a better understanding of the signaling mechanisms regulating Rictor expression and mTORC2 activity in GBM.
Materials & Methods {#S12}
===================
Cell Lines, GBM samples, Transfections and Viral Transductions {#S13}
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All GBM cell lines were obtained from ATCC except U87EGFRvIII, which was kindly provided by Dr. Paul Mischel (LICR-UCSD). Lines were routinely tested to confirm the absence of mycoplasma and authenticated by STR profiling (ATCC). Flash-frozen normal brain and glioblastoma samples were obtained from the Cooperative Human Tissue Network under an approved Institutional Review Board protocol and informed consent obtained from each individual. Each sample was histopathologically reviewed and those containing greater than 95% tumor were utilized. Samples were homogenized in RIPA buffer using a Polytron homogenizer (Fisher, Pittsburgh, PA) followed by sonication to generate extracts for protein and RNA analysis. DNA transfections were performed using Effectene transfection reagent according to the manufacturer (Qiagen). For siRNA knockdowns, DBTRG-05MG, U87 or U87EGFRvIII cells were transfected with 10 nmol/L siRNA pools targeting AKT1, HSF1, HuR, Rictor, mSIN1 or a non-targeting scrambled control sequence. ON-TARGETplusSMARTpool siRNAs were obtained from GE Dharmacon and transfected using Lipofectamine RNAimax (Life Technologies). Lentiviral shRNA production and infection was performed as described ^[@R16]^.
Constructs and Reagents {#S14}
-----------------------
The luciferase-human Rictor 3′ UTR constructs were generated by insertion of the full-length human Rictor 3′ UTR into the *Xba*I site of pGL3-promoter (Promega). Mutagenesis was performed using the QuikChange Lightning Multi Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit (Agilent Technologies) with the appropriate mutagenic primers. TRC pLKO.1 library constructs expressing multiple shRNA-targeting AKT1, HSF1, HuR, Rictor or non-targeting controls were from GE Dharmacon. The constructs utilized had the following TRC designations: shAKT-1, TRCN0000010162; shAKT-2, TRCN0000010163; shHSF1-1, TRCN0000007480; shHSF1-2, TRCN0000007481; shHuR-1, TRCN0000017273; shHuR-2, TRCN0000017274; shRictor-1, TRCN0000074288; shRictor-2, TRCN0000074289; shmSin1, TRCN0000003150. The constitutively active AKT-E40K and dominant negative AKT-KD (AKT-K179M) constructs have been previously described ^[@R37],\ [@R38]^. The constitutively active HSF1 construct (HSF1-CA) was originally described by Voellmy and co-workers ^[@R39]^ and was kindly provided by Dr. Eugene Kandel (Roswell Park Cancer Institute). The HuR overexpression construct contained the full-length human HuR ORF cloned into pLenti-C-Myc-DDK-P2A-Puro (Lv-HuR) and was from Origene. Antibodies to the following proteins were used: phospho-S^473^-AKT (\#9271, CST), AKT (\#9272, CST), Rictor (\#A300-459A, Bethyl Laboratories), actin (\#ab3280, Abcam), phospho-Y^1068^-EGFR (\#2234, CST), *β*-tubulin (\#2146, CST), phospho-S^326^-HSF1 (ADI-SPA-902-D, Enzo Life Sciences), HSF1 (ADI-SPA-901-D, Enzo Life Sciences), HuR (07-468, EMD Millipore), RNA Pol II (\#39097, Active Motif) and mSin1 (\#07-2276, EMD Millipore). AG1478 was obtained from Selleckchem. EGF was from Life Technologies and all other reagents were from Sigma.
Polysome Analysis {#S15}
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Separation of polysomes was performed as described ^[@R40]^. Briefly, cell extracts were prepared and layered onto 15% to 50% sucrose gradients and spun at 38,000 rpm for 2 h at 4°C in a SW40 rotor (Beckman Instruments). Gradients were fractionated using a gradient fractionator system (Brandel Instruments) using a flow rate of 3 mL/min. The polysome profile of the gradients was monitored via UV absorbance at 260 nm. RNA was isolated and pooled into nonribosomal/monosomal and polysomal fractions. RNAs (100 ng) were subsequently used in quantitative reverse transcriptase-PCR analyses.
Metabolic labeling, Immunoblotting and Quantitative real time PCR {#S16}
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U138 cells were pulsed-labeled with \[^[@R35]^S\]methionine/cysteine at a final concentration of 100 μCi/ml. Cells were harvested following the indicated treatments and lysates prepared in RIPA buffer. Rictor protein was immunoprecipitated overnight with α-Rictor antibody and collected with protein G-Sepharose (GE Healthcare). The immunoprecipitate was washed four times and resuspended in SDS sample buffer and separated by SDS-PAGE. Gels were dried and visualized using a phosphorimager. Collectively, immunoprecipitation controls included equal numbers of cells plated per flask and equal amounts of quantitated total protein lysate per sample with equivalent amounts of antibody. Western blotting and quantitative real time PCR was performed as described ^[@R38]^.
Co-immunoprecipitations, Chromatin immunoprecipitations, RNA and DNA *in vitro* pull-down assays {#S17}
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mTOR-Rictor co-immunoprecipitations were performed as described utilizing 0.3% CHAPS-buffer to maintain mTORC2 complex integrity during lysis ^[@R7]^. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays were performed as previously described ^[@R41]^. For RNA-pull down assays ^[@R38]^, extracts were prepared and biotinylated RNA oligonucleotides containing HuR binding site motif(s) added. The protein and biotinylated RNA complexes were recovered and the complexes were washed five times and resolved by gel electrophoresis. *In vitro* DNA-pull down assays were performed as described ^[@R41]^ using a double-stranded oligonucleotide containing the human HuR noncanonical HSE attached to streptavidin-Sepharose beads via a 5′ biotinylated plus strand according to the manufacture\'s recommendation (Invitrogen). Beads with bound proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE followed by immunoblotting.
Cell proliferation and migration assays {#S18}
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Cells growth was determined via XTT assays (Roche). Cell migration assays were performed using modified Boyden chambers (Chemicon) as previously described ^[@R42]^. For invasion assays through Matrigel, 2 × 10^[@R4]^ cells were placed into the top well of Boyden chambers containing growth factor-reduced Matrigel extracellular basement membrane over a polyethylene terephthalate membrane (8-mm pores; BD Biosciences). Following 24 h culture, Matrigel was removed and invaded cells were fixed and stained. Cells adhering to the bottom of the membrane were counted.
Xenograft studies {#S19}
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All experiments were performed under an approved Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee protocol. Xenografts of shRNA-expressing cell lines were injected s.c. into the flanks of 4-6 week old female C.B.-17-scid (Taconic) mice as previously described ^[@R16]^. Two shAKT-1 and one shHuR-1 mice were excluded as they did not establish tumors. Sample sizes were chosen based on similar well-characterized experiments to ensure adequate power to detect a pre-specified effect size. Mice were randomly assigned to groups and the investigator blinded to assignments until final tumor analyses. Tumors were measured every 3-4 days and volumes calculated using the formula length × width × height × 0.5236. Tumors were harvested at autopsy for polysome analyses.
Statistical analysis {#S20}
--------------------
Statistical analyses were performed using unpaired Student\'s *t* tests and ANOVA models using Systat 13 (Systat Software, Chicago, IL). *P* values of less the 0.05 were considered significant. Significance in group comparisons was determined using a one-way analysis of variance and data generated showed normal distribution with similar variances, and analysis was completed assuming equal variances. To assess correlations of molecular markers in glioblastomas Spearman\'s rank correlation was used.
Supplementary Material {#S21}
======================
We thank Drs. Eugene Kandel, Jacob Fleischmann, Norimoto Yanagawa, Sanjai Sharma and Paul Mischel for cell lines and reagents. We also thank Dr. Alan Lichtenstein for comments on the manuscript and Jheralyn Martin and Janine Masri for technical assistance. This work was supported, in whole or in part, by VA MERIT I01BX002665 and NIH R01CA109312 grants.
Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing financial interests
Author Contributions: Conceived and designed the experiments: BH, RNN, JG. Performed the experiments: BH, ABS, RSF, KAL, TB. Analyzed the data: BH, RNN, JG. Wrote the paper: BH, RNN, JG.
[Supplementary Information](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"} accompanies the paper on the *Oncogene* website (<http://www.nature.com/onc>)
![Rictor mRNA is regulated at the level of translation\
(**A**) Steady-state Rictor mRNA levels in U138 cells in the absence or presence of EGF (100 ng/ml) for the indicated time points (h) (*left panel*). U138 cells were treated as indicated with EGF or in combination with the EGFR inhibitor AG1478 (5 μM; negative control). Mean + S.D. are shown, n = 3. **(B)** Rictor protein accumulation in U138 stimulated with EGF or both AG1478 treatment as indicated (*top panel)*. Cell lysates were subjected to immunoblot analyses for the indicated proteins and blots were quantified by densitometry and results depicted in the *right panel*. Mean + S.D. are shown, n = 3. mTORC2 formation is enhanced by EGF stimulation (*lower panel*). U138 cells were treated with EGF and lysates immunoprecipitated with α-mTOR antibodies. Immunoprecipitates were immunoblotted for the indicated proteins. Experiments were repeated three times with similar results. (**C**) Rictor protein stability is not affected by EGF stimulation. U138 cells were subjected to cycloheximide (CHX)-chase experiments and Rictor protein levels examined at the indicated time points in the absence or presence of EGF (100 ng/ml) (*left panel*). Band intensities were quantified by densitometry and displayed graphically (*right panel*). (**D**) Polysome distribution of Rictor and actin mRNAs. U138 cells were treated with EGF (100 ng/ml, 8 h) and extracts subjected to sucrose density gradient centrifugation and divided into 11 1-ml fractions which were pooled into nonribosomal, monosomal fraction (N, white bars) and a polysomal fraction (P, black bars). Purified RNAs were used in real time quantitative rt-PCR analyses to determine the distributions of Rictor and actin mRNAs across the gradients. Polysome tracings are shown above values obtained from the rt-PCR analyses which are displayed graphically below. rt-PCR measurements were performed in quadruplicate and the mean and + S.D. are shown. **(E)** New Rictor protein synthesis in U138 following EGF stimulation (100 ng/ml). Cells were pulsed with ^[@R35]^S-methionine/cysteine for 1 h and chased with cold amino acids for the indicated time points. Rictor immunoprecipitates were analyzed by autoradiography and the fold increase new Rictor synthesis following stimulation relative to controls without EGF is shown. Mean +S.D. are shown, n =3.](nihms902937f1){#F1}
{ref-type="fig"}, asterisks), were treated with EGF (100 ng/ml, 8 h) and lysates subjected to polysome analyses as in [Fig. 1C](#F1){ref-type="fig"}. Purified RNAs were used in real time quantitative rt-PCR analyses to determine the distributions of Luc-Rictor and actin mRNAs across the gradients. Values obtained from the rt-PCR analyses are displayed graphically below. rt-PCR measurements were performed in quadruplicate and the mean and + S.D. are shown.](nihms902937f2){#F2}
![mTORC2 activation leads to HSF1-stimulated HuR transcription\
(**A**) Signaling effects of mTORC2 stimulation by EGF, IGF, Rictor or EGFRvIII overexpression. The GBM lines were treated with EGF (100 ng/ml, 8 h) or (IGF 100 nM, 8 h) as shown and lysates immunoblotted for the indicated proteins. Asterisk corresponds to the truncated phosphorylated Y^1068^ mutant EGFRvIII. **(B)** Sequence and alignment of tandem noncanonical heat-shock elements (HSEs) identified within the promoter region of HuR (-475 to -441). Previously identified noncanonical HSE (ncHSE) are shown below the human and mouse sequences. Underlined nucleotides differ from those noncanonical HSEs which have been described ^[@R28]^. (**C**) ChIP analyses of HuR promoter activity and HSF1 association in the indicated GBM cell lines. RNA polymerase II (*Pol* II) association with HuR promoter (*left panel*) and HSF1 association with HuR promoter (*right panel*) were determined and ChIP-quantitative PCR data are expressed as a ratio of HuR to tubulin. Mean and + S.D. are shown, n = 3. (**D**) Sepharose beads were conjugated with the ncHSEs HuR DNA (HuR-beads) or beads without linked DNA and incubated with nuclear extracts from the indicated cell lines. Following recovery by centrifugation and washing of the beads, bound material was analyzed by immunoblot for phospho-S^326^-HSF1 and total-HSF1. These experiments were performed twice with similar results.](nihms902937f3){#F3}
{#F4}
{#F5}
{#F6}
{ref-type="fig"}) for the cells expressing the indicated shRNAs. The distribution of Rictor and actin mRNAs across the gradients was determined and quantified via rt-PCR as before (\*, *P* \< 0.05). (**C**) Proposed model of feed-forward regulation of Rictor expression and mTORC2 activity via AKT/HSF1/HuR signaling.](nihms902937f7){#F7}
######
Relative protein levels of phospho-S^473^AKT, phospho-S^326^-HSF1, HuR, and Rictor in normal and glioblastoma samples.
*Samples* *pS473-AKT expression* [§](#TFN2){ref-type="table-fn"} *pS326-HSF1 expression* [\#](#TFN4){ref-type="table-fn"} *HuR expression*[¥](#TFN7){ref-type="table-fn"} *Rictor expression*[≠](#TFN10){ref-type="table-fn"}
----------- -------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------
Normal
1 1.1 1.6 1.9 1.5
2 1.7 2.1 1.3 1.1
3 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.4
4 1.6 1.4 1.8 1.9
5 1.5 1.8 1.7 1.2
GBM
1 54.3[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 26.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 37.5[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 65.9[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
2 15.7[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 19.7[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 8.1 10.2[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^
3 26.9[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 17.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ \-[‡](#TFN9){ref-type="table-fn"} 49.4[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
4 36.2[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 43.8[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 9.62 54.1[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
5 48.4[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 34.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 42.7[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 26.8[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
6 3.5 0.7 2.7 1.8
7 26.9[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 16.4[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 53.1[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 29.3[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
8 5.5 2.4 3.9 6.9
9 32.4[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 45.9[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 57.3[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 48.2[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
10 23.6[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 29.7[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 42.8[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 37.4[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
11 17.6[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 11.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 13.1[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 9.7[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^
12 39.1[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 56.2[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 64.5[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 25.8[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
13 4.3 13.5[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 8.2 3.4
14 32.7[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 26.9[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 29.2[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 41.9[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
15 56.8[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 32.8[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 46.9[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 41.0[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
16 3.8 \-[†](#TFN6){ref-type="table-fn"} 4.2 2.1
17 7.8 10.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 11.3[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 7.5
18 42.7[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 38.6[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 52.6[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 31.1[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
19 27.9[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 29.4[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 24.8[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 30.4[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
20 43.6[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 48.1[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 39.7[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 37.9[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
21 6.7 5.3 4.6 3.6
22 46.1[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 26.7[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 38.6[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 42.8[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
23 7.2 5.4 \-[‡](#TFN9){ref-type="table-fn"} 2.4
24 78.4[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 69.4[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 52.8[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 34.8[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
25 53.2[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 66.8[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 29.8[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 53.1[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
26 69.2[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 13.4[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 42.5[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 16.4[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^
27 7.2 5.2 3.7 2.6
28 76.3[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 84.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 63.8[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 58.4[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
29 7.0 2.4 6.4 5.8
30 16.2[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 14.7[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^ 9.1 12.5[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^+^
31 43.8[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 38.6[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 5.5 49.2[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
32 62.5[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 39.4[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 46.4[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 58.6[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
33 28.4[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 51.3[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 33.5[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 32.9[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
34 48.1[\*](#TFN3){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 50.7[ˆ](#TFN5){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 43.7[″](#TFN8){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^ 29.6[«](#TFN11){ref-type="table-fn"}^++^
Note: Five normal brain and 34 independent quick-frozen GBM samples were assessed for phosphorylated AKT, phosphorylated HSF1, HuR and Rictor levels by Western analyses as described in Experimental Procedures and quantified by densitometry. 22 of 34 tumor samples (65%) had markedly higher mTORC2 activity as determined by monitoring expression levels of phospho-S^473^-AKT relative to normal brain. HSF1 activity was determined by monitoring phospho-Ser^326^-HSF1.
phospho-S^473^-AKT expression \> 2-fold above mean of normal brain.
Markedly increased mTORC2 activity; ++ \> 20-fold increase above mean of normal brain (dark gray shaded row); + \> 10-fold increase above mean of normal brain (light gray shaded row).
phospho-S^326^-HSF1 expression \> 2-fold above mean of normal brain.
Markedly increased phospho-S^326^-HSF1 expression; ++ \> 20-fold increase above mean of normal brain + \> 10-fold increase above mean of normal brain
Undetectable phospho-Ser^326^-HSF1.
HuR expression \> 2-fold above mean of normal brain
Markedly increased HuR expression; ++ \> 20-fold increase above mean of normal brain + \> 10-fold increase above mean of normal brain
Undetectable HuR expression.
Rictor expression \> 2-fold above mean of normal brain
Markedly increased Rictor expression; ++ \> 20-fold increase above mean of normal brain + \> 10-fold increase above mean of normal brain.
|
---
abstract: |
As object recognition becomes an increasingly common task in machine learning, recent research demonstrating neural networks’ vulnerability to attacks and small image perturbations show a need to fully understand the foundations of object recognition in order to build more robust models. Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms behind how neural networks generalize to spatial transformations of complex objects. While humans excel at discriminating between objects shown at new positions, orientations, and scales, past results demonstrate that this may be limited to familiar objects - humans demonstrate low tolerance of spatial-variances for purposefully constructed novel objects. Because training artificial neural networks from scratch is similar to showing novel objects to humans, we seek to understand the factors influencing the tolerance of artificial neural networks to spatial transformations.
We conduct a thorough empirical examination of seven Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures. By training on a controlled face image dataset, we measure changes in accuracy of the model across different degrees of 5 transformations: position, size, rotation, resolution transformation due to Gaussian blur, and resolution transformation due to resample. We also examine how learning strategy affects generalizability by examining the effect different amounts of pre-training have on model robustness. Overall, we find that the most significant contributor to transformation invariance is pre-training on a large, diverse image dataset. Moreover, while AlexNet tends to be the least robust network, VGG and ResNet architectures demonstrate higher robustness for different transformations. Along with kernel visualizations and qualitative analyses, we examine differences between learning strategy and inherent architectural properties in contributing to invariance of transformations, providing valuable information towards understanding how to achieve greater robustness to transformations in CNNs.
author:
- |
Megha Srivastava\
Stanford\
Computer Science Department\
[meghas@stanford.edu]{}
- |
Kalanit Grill-Spector\
Stanford\
Psychology Department\
[kgs@stanford.edu]{}
bibliography:
- 'egpaper\_final.bib'
title: The Effect of Learning Strategy versus Inherent Architecture Properties on the Ability of Convolutional Neural Networks to Develop Transformation Invariance
---
Introduction
============
Biologically-inspired networks, such as deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs), have demonstrated success in many image classification and recognition tasks. However, recent works such as the development of adversarial inputs that fool the networks have demonstrated weaknesses in CNNs, necessitating the need to better measure and improve the robustness and generalizability of artificial neural networks. Although researchers have shown similarities between the architectures and learned features of CNNs with certain properties of human and primates’ visual systems, it is not clear to what degree the biologically-inspired artificial neural networks derive their success from large training datasets versus intrinsic network properties.
We focus on how neural networks for object recognition and discrimination perform when seeing complex objects that have undergone spatial transformations. The human visual system is typically adept at this task independent of spatial transformation - we can recognize and discriminate complex objects that are presented at previously unseen positions, orientations, and resolutions.
However, CNNs’ robustness to spatial transformations is not well understood. The shift-equivariance properties of the convolution layers, together with the dimensionality reduction of pooling layers removing spatial information, provide these networks invariance to small amounts of shifts. However, other architecture properties such as depth and learning strategies of these networks may also affect the tolerance of CNNs to spatial transformations when performing object recognition. Because data collected for computer vision tasks may not always span different spatial variations, it is important to understand how learning strategy and inherent architecture properties affect CNN spatial transformation invariance.
Our goal is to empirically study the role of learning strategy and CNN architecture properties on the performance of CNNs in complex object recognition over previously unseen spatial transformations. Specifically, the input to our models consists of images of human faces - a representative complex object. We study CNN architectures of varying depth and complexity, including recent networks that are commonly used in the Computer Vision community, and examine how the ability to generalize recognition of human faces to new positions, size, rotations, and resolutions is affected by the CNN architecture and learning strategy.
Our approach consists of (i) selecting a subset of CNN model architectures to implement, (ii) use *transfer learning* [@TLTutorial] to realize various learning strategies ranging from training the network on a set of faces from scratch to fine-tuning a pre-trained network, and (iii) study CNN performance when generalizing to new positions, sizes, rotation, and resolutions of faces not seen previously. With our results, we demonstrate how different CNN models vary in their ability to learn spatial transform generalizability as an intrinsic architecture property versus training exposure and learning strategy.
Related Work
============
Our research provides a comprehensive and empirical examination of spatial invariance properties of CNNs. Although there exist recent works on improving CNN transformation robustness, none have thoroughly examined the degree to which CNNs are capable of generalizing to different types of spatial transformations, nor comment on generalizability gained from intrinsic network property versus training exposure and learning strategy. Broadly speaking, past research can divided into 1. Small-scale investigations on transformation invariance over large, standard computer vision datasets containing images with varied transformations, and 2. The development of CNNs with improved spatially transformation generalizability. These works complement recent psychology research on human spatial generalizability to novel objects.
The closest work to our research is by Bunne, et. al. [@bunne2018studying], which analyzed how two pre-trained CNN architectures, AlexNet [@krizhevsky2012imagenet] and ResNet [@he2016deep], behave under a series of 9 transformations by studying the softmax outputs of a network for specific classes. They found that the two networks were able to learn a small degree of invariance, but large changes in transformations, such as a large rotation of picture of a broom, resulted in higher *softmax* outputs for images such as a brush. However, the authors use pre-trained networks trained on large datasets such as images from the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge, which contain millions of images containing multiple objects in a variety of positions and sizes. This results in decreased clarity on whether the source of any invariance is simply due to pre-training, versus an actual CNN model architecture property. For example, is the higher likelihood of a brush over a broom after significant rotation simply due to ImageNet containing more images of brushes that are rotated than brooms in different rotations? Therefore, for our work, we focus on understanding the effect of different degrees of pre-training, including training the different models from scratch.
Similarly, Jaderberg et. al. [@jaderberg2015spatial] introduced the Spatial Transformer, which provides existing CNNs the capability to spatially transform feature maps over individual data items. The module allows input images to be transformed into canonical class examples, on which prediction is then run across. However, no claim is made regarding the success of Spatial Transformation Network when the dataset itself does not contain images at a variety of spatial transformations, as they train over an MNIST dataset containing digits in a variety of positions, sizes, and rotations. They demonstrate success over distorted versions of MNIST datasets, but do not measure how much exposure during training time to new transformations is required. Our work, which seeks to empirically determine the amount of transformation perturbation required for a significant drop in performance, can possibly help inform the amount of transformation within input data needed for generalizability. Furthermore, our approach can help us understand the degree at which pre-processing methods such as random cropping aid in spatial transformation generalizability.
Other computational research in this area includes, Lenc et. al. [@lenc2015understanding], which examined equivarience properties in AlexNet and found that deeper layer representations were more tuned to specific transformations, and Kauderer-Abrams et.al. [@kauderer2017quantifying], which determined data augmentation had the most significant effect on translation invariance for small models up to only four layers. Recent research has proposed separating transformation values from object representation, so that deep networks learn invariant features separately. For example, Cohen et. al. [@cohen2014transformation] proposed the use of G-Convolutions that exploit symmetry to achieve spatial invariance, Cohen et. al. [@cohen2016group] used group representation theory to represent objects independent of spatial pose, Anselmi et. al. [@anselmi2016unsupervised] proved the ability to create invariant signatures for image patches in classification, and Hinton et. al., proposed the use of capsules to more learn high-information vector outputs that more efficiently enable spatial invariance than the scalar-value inputs of high-layer neurons in CNNs. Sabour et. al. [@sabour2017dynamic] built upon the success of these capsule networks for invariance by proposing a dynamic routing strategy between capsules, while Shen et. al. [@shen2017patch] proposed the use of patch before feeding features to the next layer in a CNN as a way to learn location invariance. Finally, both Simonyan et. al. and Szegedy et. al. [@szegedy2016rethinking] focused on very deep networks, with more than 20 layers, and how the added computational complexity aids in learning invariant properties.
Interestingly, recent psychology research has demonstrated that humans have difficulty generalizing to new spatial transformations when recognizing foreign objects that hold no social or semantic significance. Remus et. al. [@Remus] found that while exposing foreign objects at a single position is not enough for humans to develop position-invariance when discriminating between objects, showing two positions improves generalizability significantly. We believe there are many useful links between understanding how object recognition and spatial invariance develops in both the human visual system and artificial networks, and therefore want to similarly examine the thresholds for generalizability to different spatial transforms in CNNs.
Thus, none of the described past research provides a thorough understanding of the difference between training strategy and network properties in developing invariance, and the precise degree of tolerance towards spatial transformation variations the network has. By running experiments on networks trained from scratch, we better understand the effect of not only model architecture, but also training strategy. In the effort to properly understand how object recognition is learned, it is important to understand the exact degree different architectures can tolerate transformations and what training strategy is most effective.
Methods
=======
Using a dataset of human faces under different spatial transformations (translation, size, resolution, rotation, and pose), our research studies how the performance of convolutional neural networks at generalizing to new spatial transformations that were not present among the faces in the training set is affected by the structural complexity of the network and the training method. We approach our task with the following steps, which we proceed to describe in more details later in this section:
1. Vary CNN structural complexity by implementing 7 widely-used CNN architectures: [AlexNet, ResNet18, ResNet50, SqueezeNet, VGG11, VGG19, and AlexNet with a Spatial Transformer module]{}.
2. Utilize transfer learning on a large, standard image dataset like ImageNet by adopting three different learning strategies: [training network from scratch with random initializations, training network after initializing with pre-trained model, and pre-trained model with last layer re-trained from scratch and all other layers frozen]{}
3. Train on a fixed [position/size/rotation/resolution]{} and, after hyperparameter tuning, measure network accuracy on images at parametrically increasing shifts of [position/size/rotation/resolution]{}, thereby examining generalizability. For each experiment, only one transformation among [position/size/rotation/resolution]{} changes between training and testing.
4. Run experiments across our 7 model implementations, 3 training strategies, and 5 different transformations (two different resolutions), resulting in a total of 90 experiment runs
We detail our method and choices for each of the above four steps below.
We chose 7 CNN architectures to implement, which vary not only in depth but also in architecture design. Our goal was to choose networks that are popularly used, as the impact of our work is most relevant to those using state-of-the-art networks who seek to understand the causes of spatial transformation invariance in their vision task. We first chose AlexNet [@krizhevsky2012imagenet], a popular 8-layer network with solid performance on the ImageNet Challenge. We then chose two variants of the VGG network, VGG-11 and VGG-1, which differ from AlexNet by being deeper, allowing us to understand whether architecture depth impacts spatial transformation invariance [@simonyan2014very]. We furthermore chose two implementations of ResNet, which for several years have achieved state of the art accuracy metrics, and thus important to examine. The goal of ResNet is for the CNN to learn a residual value by skipping connections across layers, thus making deeper networks to perform better [@he2016deep]. We seek to determine whether the skipped connections allow the network to be more invariant to spatial transformations. Finally, we choose to implement SqueezeNet, which achieves high accuracy comparably to AlexNet with significantly fewer parameters, in order to understand whether the decrease in number of parameters allows the remaining network parameters to develop a greater amount of spatial invariance [@iandola2016squeezenet].
Next, we developed three different learning strategies to adopt in our training:
1. training from scratch with all layers randomly initialized,
2. train after initialization with pre-trained model, and
3. pre-trained model with all but the last layer frozen and the last layer trained from scratch after random initialization.
All pre-training occured over an ImageNet data subset, which contains a large amount of natural image scenes in a variety of spatial transformations, unlike out fixed face dataset as described below. The three different learning strategies allow us to understand the necessity of pre-training on a large image dataset with natural scene images containing a variety of spatial transformations to achieve spatial invariance. By including a network trained from scratch, we differ from past research because we seek to answer whether spatial invariance can be achieved even when the training data consists of only one fixed transformation value.
Given a chosen CNN implementation and the three different learning strategies, we measure network accuracy and generalizability to one of 5 transformations: position (or translation) invariance, size (or scale) invariance, rotation invariance, resolution invariance from Gaussian blur, and resolution invariance from resampling. First, we train our model on fixed values of the 5 transformations. Then, given our fixed dataset of 101 faces described in the dataset section below, we generate modified images at fixed, staggered degrees of transformations for each of the 5 transformations. For translation invariance, we generate new positions up to a maximum of 140 pixel shift in any direction, defined by a circle with radius equal to the amount of shift, with steps of 10 pixels. At each step of 10 pixels shift up to 140 pixels, we measure the network accuracy on these new positions given the original trained model. Therefore, we are able to visualize how increase in position shift by pixels affects network accuracy, providing comprehensive information on translation invariance of the different models.
For conducting size invariance experiments, we generated new sizes from scales of 0.4 to 2.4 of the given original size, allowing us to measure invariance for both increased and decreased sizes. For rotation invariance, we generated new rotations of the faces by rotating them by steps of 15 degrees, from 15 degrees to 345 degrees. Lastly, for the two resolution invariances, we generated new images by either applying a Gaussian blur with 5 kernel amounts, or resampling at 5 different amounts.
Finally, we run our experiments to measure generalizability for each of the 5 possible transformations across models and training types. During training the set of images, with fixed transformation values (i.e. center position, original size, no decrease in resolution), for each of the 101 faces is randomly divided in a 80:20 ratio with 12 images being put into training set and 3 into validation set. Therefore, there is class balance for all faces in the training and validation set. The validation set is then replicated for the different transformations for the corresponding images that we previously generated. This ensures that the only difference between the different validation sets for a given transformation is the degree of transformation, as the face images and orientations are consistent across the validation set.
During training, we did not adopt any cross-validation since out set of faces is fairly uniform and we ensured a balanced training and validation split on a per-face basis. Furthermore, we aimed to determine good values of hyper-parameters, including Adam vs. SGD with momentum optimization, learning rate, momentum, step size, gamma, and batch size, and discuss results of the hyper-parameter tuning in the Experiments section. After training, we plot how accuracy is affected by staggered shifts of all 5 different transformations, and analyze these plots in the Experiments section. Finally, we visualize the network kernels at the early convolutional layers in order to determine whether transformation invariance might be due to the presence of “edge detectors” as lower layer kernel features, as suggested about the human visual system [@hubel].
Dataset and Features
====================
The specific data set we used was collected in our lab, the Vision and Perception Neuroscience Laboratory in Stanford’s Psychology Department. With a fixed camera configuration and gray background, photos were taken of 101 subject with faces rotated at 15 degree increments from -105 to +105 along the vertical axis. The subjects used were college-aged students at Stanford University, and each face, regardless of rotation, is centered with the image frame and surrounded by a gray background. All images are in grayscale with original size 2272 px by 1704 px, and resolution 72 pixels/inch. Depending on the network we use, we crop the images to fit the input image size - in all cases, the original image is larger than the input size and therefore no loss of image information is incurred. A sample from our dataset is shown in the figure below:
![Images of faces at different orientations corresponding to the same subject[]{data-label="fig:datasetfaces"}](figures/datasetfaces.png){width="0.8\linewidth"}
In order to measure invariance towards different spatial transformations, we perturb the images to achieve the desired transformations as described in the previous section. All transformations of our data are made with standard Python image libraries.
Experiments, Results and Discussion
===================================
Model Training with Hyper-parameter Tuning {#Exp:MT}
------------------------------------------
The first step in our experiments involved training the various models for later use in evaluating the impact of spatial transformations. As noted earlier, we considered seven network models (AlexNet [@krizhevsky2012imagenet], SqueezeNet 1.1 [@iandola2016squeezenet], VGGNet-11, VGGNet-19 [@simonyan2014very], ResNet-18, ResNet-50 [@he2016deep], and AlexNet with a Spatial Transformer module [@jaderberg2015spatial; @STNTutorial] which we refer to as [*AlexSTNet*]{}. We trained models for various architecture on images of faces using our dataset which consisted of 15 poses for each of the 101 faces with poses ranging from -105 degree to 105 degree in steps of 15 degrees.
For all but the AlexSTNet architecture we learnt three different models depending on the level of pre-training on ImageNet. In each case the final fully connected layer was replaced with a new randomly initialized one with 101 outputs, and the three learnt models differed in how the other layers were handled. In Experiment 1, all the other layers were pre-initialized on ImageNet but then finetuned on the face imaget. In Experiment 2, all the other layers were pre-trained on ImageNet but then their weights were frozen and thus unaffected by training on face data set. In Experiment 3, there was no pre-training and new weights were learnt starting from random initialization. For AlexSTNet we were unable to successfully pre-train the network on ImageNet and so only conducted an Experiment 4 which like Experiment 3 involves no pre-training.
During training we aimed to find good values of following hyper-parameters: optimization algorithm (SGD with momentum vs Adam), learning rate, momentum (in case of SGD), step size, gamma, and batch size. To do so, we plotted the progression of both accuracy and loss vs. epoch number, and modified the hyperparameters based on visual assessment of the shape and gap between the curves for training vs. validation data.
Table \[tab:hp\] shows the values of hyperparameters that were found to yield good results, while Figure \[fig:vn11\] show the resulting accuracy and loss vs. epoch number curves for VGGNet-11. For reasons of space we have shown here the curves only for VGGNet-11 but all the plots are included in Figures \[apfig:astn\] through \[apfig:rn50\] in the Appendices. Generally we see that in almost all cases the training resulted in generally good validation accuracy, in most cases above 90%.
Expt. \# Model Final Hyperparameters
---------- -------------- ------------------------------
1 All SGD, lr=0.001, momentum=0.1,
step\_size=7, gamma=0.1,
batch\_size=4
2 AlexNet Adam, lr=0.000075,
SqueezeNet step\_size=10, gamma=0.9,
batch\_size=8
2 ResNet-18 Adam, lr=0.0001,
ResNet-50 step\_size=10, gamma=0.9,
VGGNet-11 batch\_size=8
2 VGGNet-19 Adam, lr=0.0002,
step\_size=10, gamma=0.9,
batch\_size=8
3 AlexNet Adam, lr=0.0001,
SqueezeNet step\_size=20, gamma=0.9,
batch\_size=8
3 ResNet-18 Adam, lr=0.00001,
ResNet-50 step\_size=20, gamma=0.9,
VGGNet-19 batch\_size=8
3 VGGNet-11 Adam, lr=0.0001,
step\_size=20, gamma=0.9,
batch\_size=8
4 AlexNet Adam, lr=0.00003,
with Spatial step\_size=20, gamma=0.9,
Transformer batch\_size=8
: Hyperparameters found for different experiments and network architectures.[]{data-label="tab:hp"}
Testing with Diverse Spatial Transforms
---------------------------------------
The second part of our experimental work focused on studying how the models trained as described in the previous subsection perform when tested against images of the faces that have been subjected to various spatial transformation. Recall, our models were trained using face images only at one position, size, resolution, and rotation. Note also that the face images in our dataset are not present in ImageNet, and the set of labels (corresponding to the identity of faces) has no correspondence to ImageNet labels. So the experiments described here show the invariance to various spatial transformations on complex objects that were previously not seen except under one spatial transformation.
We studied the following five spatial transformations, and the metric we used was accuracy which is an appropriate metric considering the goal of this namely, namely the invariance exhibited by the models to spatial transformations.
### Translation
Here we subjected the original images to translations in random directions with the amount of shift selected randonly between 0 and the maximum possible such that the face still stayed within the original image boundaries. Form \[fig:translate\] we make several key observations. Firstly, models trained under Experiment 1, where layers pre-trained on ImageNet were finetuned, did the best while those from Experiments 2 (pre-trained layers were frozen) and Experiment 3 (no pre-training) did increasingly worse. Secondly, accuracy falls with amount of translation. Thirdly, in Experiment 3, SqueezeNet, ResNet-18, and ResNet-50 performed much better than AlexNet, VGGNet-11, VGGNet-18, and even AlexNet with the Spatial Transformation module [@jaderberg2015spatial]. These observations lead to the following conclusions. Firstly, preetraining on ImageNet helped quite a lot in attaining translation invariance, suggesting that exposure to objects under different translations as in ImageNet heloped. Second, certain network architectures, specifically SqueezeNet, ResNet-18, and ResNet-50, have structural properties that give them translation invariance to larger amounts of shift. Note that one would expect all convolution networks to exhibit invariances to small amounts of shift due to the combined effects of convolutional layers and pooling. It is also surprising that the AlexNet with a Spatial Transformation module did not perform as well, suggesting that Spatial Transformation module does not provide any intrinsic invariance due to its structure and its primary advantage may be that it learns invariances faster or more easily as suggested in [@jaderberg2015spatial].
### Resizing
Here we resized the faces while keeping them centered in the image, resizing them both up and down by various amounts. Specifically we scaled them by factors of 2.25 (which is the maximum possible), 1.717, 1.31, 1, 0.763, and 0.582. As seen in \[fig:resize\], the more the face is resized, the worse off is the accuracy, and this occurs irrespective or pre-traing. So unlike translation, pre-training does not appear to help that much, and there are no systematic trends due to network architecture. However, a noteworthy observation is the asymmetry, i.e. there is a steeper degradation when scaling down by a factor than when scaling up by the same factor, possibly because of the loss of resolution that happens when image is made smaller.
### Rotation
Here we rotated the faces to various angles in the 0 to 360 degree range while keeping them centered in the image. Specifically we scaled them by 15, 30, 60, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, 300, 330, and 345 degrees counter-clockwise. While the general trend of larger deviation from the original resulting in worse performance holds here as well \[fig:rotation\], two observations stand out. Firstly, after a steep fall off in the first 50 degrees or so of rotation on either side, the performance then plateaus. Secondly, the two ResNets seem to perform distinctly better than the other architectures in the case when all layers are trained from scratch, suggesting that they have some degree of structural advantage for rotational invariance.
### Resolution Reduction
In this test we reduced the resolution of the original images by varying amount by discarding pixels. This was accomplished by rescaling the faces to smaller sizes and then scaling them back to the original size, in the process causing loss of resolution. Specifically we reduced resolution by factors of 2, 4, 8, and 16. Interestingly, as seen in \[fig:resample\] the performance was distinctly better in Experiment 3 as compared to Experiments 1 and 2, suggesting that pre-training om ImageNet hurt invariance to this transformation. Moreover in Experiment 3, AlexNet, AlexNet with Spatial Transformation module, and VGG-19 performed significantly better that the others.
### Gaussian Smoothing
In this test we subjected the image to Gaussuan smoothing with standard deviations of 2, 4, 8, and 16. As seen in \[fig:gaussian\], the performance degrades with smoothing in all cases, but in Experiment 3 AlexNet, AlexNet with Spatial Transformation module, VGG-11, and VGG-19 did distinctly better than the others, which is a trend we saw in Resolution Reduction as well above. These observation further suggests that pre-training hurt invariance to resolution loss, and that AlexNet and VGG family of architectures appears to have some strucutral advantage.
Visualization
-------------
Finally, we examined kernel visualizations in order to see if there is a more interpretable understanding to explain the differences between learning strategies’ effects on robustness to transformation. Due to time constraints, we were unable to examine techniques to visualize more complex layers, such as those in SqueezeNet or the higher layers of AlexNet, and so we present visualizations of the 1st Convolutional Layer Kernels in AlexNet. Figure 7 visualizes the kernels when the layers pre-trained on ImageNet are fine-tuned, Figure 8 visualizes the kernels when the layer pre-trained on ImageNet are frozen, and finally Figure 9 visualizes the kernels when the entire network is trained from random initialization.
Our visualizations show that in both pre-training strategies, the first layer kernels show strong edges at different orientations, corresponding to V1 layer neurons in the human visual system. The high similarity between Figures 7 and 8 suggest that fine-tuning the pre-trained layers does not effect the 1st-layer kernels, and weight changes must be occurring at higher layers. However, Figure 9 shows kernels with a high degree of noise, with faint orientations perceived only in some of the kernels. These visualizations suggest that unless the network is exposed to a dataset of objects in a variety of spatial transformations, the network is not incentivized to learn kernels such as “edge detectors” over more local features specific to the fixed transformation value of the training set. This highlights the possible dependence of spatial transformation invariance on 1st layer features of artificial networks.
![ Visualization of 1st Convolutional Layer Kernels for AlexNet when Fine-Tuning pre-trained Layers []{data-label="fig:kernel_ftalex"}](figures/kernel_ftalex.png){width="0.8\linewidth"}
![Visualization of 1st Convolutional Layer Kernels for AlexNet when pre-trained Layers are Frozen[]{data-label="fig:kernel_ffalex"}](figures/kernel_ffealex.png){width="0.8\linewidth"}
![Visualization of 1st Convolutional Layer Kernels for AlexNet when all layers trained from random initialization[]{data-label="fig:kernel_newalex"}](figures/kernel_newalex.png){width="0.8\linewidth"}
Conclusions
===========
Overall, our results demonstrate several interesting trends described earlier relating to the impact of pre-training, which in some cases appears to be beneficial (e.g. invariance to translation) but in others cases detrimental (e.g. invariance to resolution), as well as the differences across the various architectures in their intrinsic invariance to various spatial transformation (e.g. our observation that ResNet performs better than others under rotation).
Although we attempted to implement the Spatial Transformer Network module for architectures other than AlexNet, we ran into software issues and were unable to find implementations to build upon, suggesting a high degree of complexity for the design. However, as discussed previously, it is not clear whether Spatial Transformer Networks still rely on pre-training, and understanding whether the amount of pre-training needed is reduced is future work.
Furthermore, human experimental results demonstrate that exposure to only one fixed position is not sufficient for transformation invariance on a foreign object [@Remus]. This agrees with our conclusion of the importance of pre-training - which we can liken to visual experience or evolution for humans. However, the results do show that two or more positions are sufficient in improving human visual invariance. We ran preliminary experiments in which the models are trained on two positions and sizes rather than one, but robustness in the non pre-trained setting was still low. More analysis of this multiple transformation value exposure strategy will be useful in drawing a link between artificial neural network and human visual generalizabiltiy.
As CNNs become increasingly widespread in society, it is important to understand whether they solve object recognition tasks in a similar way as humans do, and whether a deeper understanding of the human visual system can improve biologically-inspired neural networks’ robustness. We examine spatial invariances, an important property in how we visually understand our world, and demonstrate the importance of consider the effect of training strategy, and not just inherent architecture properties, on the invariance abilities of different commonly-used CNN architectures.
Appendices
==========
Loss and Accuracy vs. Epoch \# Plots for Different Network Architectures and Experiments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Figures \[apfig:astn\] through \[apfig:rn50\] are the complete set of the accuracy and loss vs. epoch number curves for various network architectures under different training scenarios as discussed in Section \[Exp:MT\].
![Loss and Accuracy vs. Epoch \# plots for AlexNet with Spatial Transformation module while training from scratch.[]{data-label="apfig:astn"}](figures/exp4_stnalexnet.png){width="0.7\linewidth"}
Contributions & Acknowledgements
================================
The psychological research on human invariance to spatial transformations that motivated this research was conducted in the Vision & Perception Neuroscience Lab at Stanofrd University. The research used PyTorch software [@PyTorch] and drew upon code from samples in PyTorch tutorials [@STNTutorial; @TLTutorial] and PyTorch Vision models [@PyTorchVision] that were pre-trained on ImageNet.
References/Bibliography
=======================
|
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634 N.W.2d 486 (2001)
262 Neb. 696
Lyle WILCOX and Jean Wilcox, Appellants,
v.
CITY OF McCOOK, Nebraska, a municipal corporation, and Southwest Nebraska Youth Services, Inc., a Nebraska nonprofit corporation, Appellees.
No. S-00-481.
Supreme Court of Nebraska.
October 19, 2001.
*487 J. Bryant Brooks, of Brooks Law Offices, P.C., McCook, for appellants.
G. Peter Burger, of Burger & Bennett, P.C., McCook, for appellee City of McCook.
John A. Gale, of McCarthy, Gale, Moore, Bacon & Hall, North Platte, for appellee Southwest Nebraska Youth Services, Inc.
HENDRY, C.J., WRIGHT, CONNOLLY, GERRARD, STEPHAN, McCORMACK, and MILLER-LERMAN, JJ.
HENDRY, C.J.
INTRODUCTION
Lyle Wilcox and Jean Wilcox appeal from the district court's decision dismissing their petition in error. In their petition, the Wilcoxes requested that the district court reverse the McCook City Council's decision of May 17, 1999, approving a special exception application.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
In 1999, Southwest Nebraska Youth Services, Inc. (Southwest), submitted an application for a special use exception. This application concerned a building located in McCook, Nebraska, within an area zoned residential medium density. Southwest intended to use the building as a multiple-family dwelling, medical-health facility, and school for state wards and other youths. The McCook zoning ordinances list multiple-family dwellings, medical-health facilities, and schools as special exceptions in residential medium density zones.
Previously, in 1998, the McCook City Council denied a separate special use exception application by Southwest concerning the same building. The 1998 application proposed to use the building as an "intermediate school ... multiple family dwelling" and provide "governmental services" for state wards and other youths, including services for domestic and sexual abuse victims. The city council denied the 1998 application by a vote of two in favor, two against, and one abstaining.
Southwest's second application was submitted to the city council in 1999. The city sent out notices to all adjoining landowners concerning Southwest's 1999 special exception application. Some of the landowners initiated a petition drive against Southwest's application. The record indicates they collected approximately 108 signatures against Southwest's proposal. On May 17, 1999, after public notice and public hearings, the city council met and considered Southwest's second application. The council voted three in favor, one against, and one abstaining. Immediately after the vote, a question was raised as to *488 whether a simple majority was sufficient to pass the application pursuant to Neb.Rev. Stat. § 19-905 (Reissue 1997). Notwithstanding this concern, the mayor announced the application had passed.
On June 3, 1999, the city council published notice in the McCook Daily Gazette newspaper that the next council meeting would be held on June 7, 1999. Listed on the agenda for the meeting was a motion by a council member to reconsider "the special exception request for Southwest Nebraska Youth Services, Inc." This council member had voted "no" on Southwest's application at the May 17 meeting. Also included on the agenda for the June 7 meeting was a proposal that the city council consider "additional restrictions" on Southwest's use of the property.
At the June 7, 1999, meeting, the city council reconsidered Southwest's application. After including some additional restrictions concerning hours of operation and other related matters, the city council approved the application with four votes in favor of the proposal and one against.
On June 10, 1999, 3 days after the special exception request had been reconsidered and approved, the Wilcoxes filed a petition in error under Neb.Rev.Stat. § 25-1901 (Cum.Supp.2000). The Wilcoxes are adjoining landowners to the proposed youth center.
In their petition, the Wilcoxes asked the district court to reverse the city council's May 17, 1999, decision. The petition alleged four grounds in support of the requested relief. First, the Wilcoxes asserted that the 1999 application was barred by the previous 1998 application under a theory of res judicata. Second, they contended that Southwest's proposed use did not comply with the permitted special exception uses listed in the McCook zoning ordinances. Third, they argued that the application failed to receive a three-fourths majority vote at the May 17 meeting as required by § 19-905. Finally, the Wilcoxes argued they were not provided due process by the city council. The petition did not ask for any relief from the city council's decision of June 7.
The appellees, Southwest and the City of McCook, filed answers in which the city asserted the issues raised by the Wilcoxes were "rendered moot by the vote in favor of the application by three-fourths (3/4ths) of the City Council on June 7, 1999." No amendments to the Wilcoxes' petition were requested or made.
The court rendered its decision on the Wilcoxes' petition in error on April 3, 2000. The court made various findings of fact, determined the matter in the appellees' favor, and dismissed the petition.
The Wilcoxes appealed. We moved the case to our docket pursuant to our authority to regulate the caseloads of this court and the Nebraska Court of Appeals. See Neb.Rev.Stat. § 24-1106(3) (Reissue 1995).
ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
The Wilcoxes assert the district court erred in (1) failing to find that Southwest's 1999 application for a special exception was barred by res judicata, (2) failing to find that the Wilcoxes' right to due process was violated, and (3) failing to address whether the intended use of the property by Southwest was a permitted special exception.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
A jurisdictional question which does not involve a factual dispute is determined by an appellate court as a matter of law, which requires the appellate court to reach a conclusion independent of the lower court's decision. Prucha v. Kahlandt, 260 Neb. 366, 618 N.W.2d 399 (2000).
*489 ANALYSIS
Before reaching the legal issues presented for review, it is the duty of an appellate court to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the matter before it. Nebraska Dept. of Health & Human Servs. v. Struss, 261 Neb. 435, 623 N.W.2d 308 (2001). While it is not a constitutional prerequisite for jurisdiction, the existence of an actual case or controversy is necessary for the exercise of judicial power. Hron v. Donlan, 259 Neb. 259, 609 N.W.2d 379 (2000).
The appellees argue that the Wilcoxes' appeal from the city council's decision on May 17, 1999, is moot. "A moot case is one which seeks to determine a question which does not rest upon existing facts or rights, in which the issues presented are no longer alive." Hron, 259 Neb. at 263, 609 N.W.2d at 383. See, also, Eastroads v. Omaha Zoning Bd. of Appeals, 261 Neb. 969, 628 N.W.2d 677 (2001).
The appellees contend that because of the subsequent actions taken by the city council on June 7, 1999, the issues presented by the May 17 decision are no longer alive. See Hron, supra. The record shows that the Wilcoxes' petition in error only challenges the May 17 decision by the city council. "[T]he issues in a given case will be limited to those which are pled." Alegent Health Bergan Mercy Med. Ctr. v. Haworth, 260 Neb. 63, 73, 615 N.W.2d 460, 468 (2000). Accord Sherrets, Smith v. MJ Optical, Inc., 259 Neb. 424, 610 N.W.2d 413 (2000). The record further shows that on June 7, the May 17 decision by the city council was reconsidered and the city council approved Southwest's application, with some additional restrictions.
Accordingly, any determination regarding the May 17, 1999, decision would be purely advisory. "In the absence of an actual case or controversy requiring judicial resolution, it is not the function of the courts to render a judgment that is merely advisory." US Ecology v. State, 258 Neb. 10, 18, 601 N.W.2d 775, 780 (1999) (citing Putnam v. Fortenberry, 256 Neb. 266, 589 N.W.2d 838 (1999)). We therefore determine that the Wilcoxes' appeal is moot.
We recognize that the court may choose to review an otherwise moot case under the public interest exception if it involves a matter affecting the public interest or when other rights or liabilities may be affected by its determination. Hron v. Donlan, supra. This exception requires a consideration of the public or private nature of the question presented, the desirability of an authoritative adjudication for future guidance of public officials, and the likelihood of future recurrence of the same or a similar problem. State ex rel. Lamm v. Nebraska Bd. of Pardons, 260 Neb. 1000, 620 N.W.2d 763 (2001); Hauser v. Hauser, 259 Neb. 653, 611 N.W.2d 840 (2000).
While the questions presented in this case are of a public nature, we find that application of the public interest exception would not be appropriate. The issues presented in this appeal do not inherently evade appellate review. See Putnam, 256 Neb. at 274, 589 N.W.2d at 844 ("[i]t is generally inappropriate for an appellate court to review a moot case that does not evade review as a result of a transitory setting"). Thus, we decline to apply the public interest exception to reach the merits of this case.
CONCLUSION
The Wilcoxes' petition in error did not raise any issue involving an actual case or controversy necessary for the district court to exercise judicial power. Accordingly, the decision of the district court *490 is vacated, and the appeal is dismissed as moot.
ORDER VACATED, AND APPEAL DISMISSED.
|
Lisa Barlow, whose name I have changed to protect her privacy, is at her kitchen table in Washington DC when she realizes that each Sunday, fifteen passenger trains depart for New Haven, CT. She’s a successful copy editor and has a meeting in New Haven early Monday morning. She has no plans Sunday, so doesn’t care when she arrives or how long it takes. She travels coach so has thirty tickets to choose from: fifteen departures each with two price options.
Should she choose the more-expensive flexible ticket over the locked-in value ticket? Does she want to leave earlier or later? Brunch in DC or lunch in New Haven? She can’t decide.
She scrolls the screen up and down, up and down, faster and faster. Her eyes dart about the webpage. She feels a rising tension in her chest. Her breathing shortens. Her thoughts race in and out of her mind like the breath in her lungs. She touches her face and notices the telltale sign: it’s numb. She reaches into her pocket, where she safeguards a small pill for moments like these. A pharmacologic reset button.
Barlow has had panic attacks since High School—the first over a social drama, the second after her science teacher told her that if she refused to dissect a pig, she’d amount to nothing. She suspects her attacks have something to do with her parents, whose difficult marriage often forced her to choose between them. This, a therapist explained, was an “impossible choice,” one with permanent consequences yet no clear answer. Now as an adult, when faced with a decision that has no clear answer—even something as simple as booking a train ticket—her brain is programmed to panic.
Barlow is a capable and confident professional whose job it is to make hundreds of decisions each day. Why couldn’t she see the difference between which parent to be with and what train to take? There must have been something else going on.
Anxiety as a Learning Problem
Michael Browning is a practicing psychiatrist who directs Oxford’s Computational Psychiatry laboratory. I met Browning as a fourth year medical student. I’d taken a break from Yale to work for six months at Warneford Hospital, a beautiful limestone building from 1826. Browning’s latest paper, Anxious individuals have difficulty learning the causal statistics of aversive environments, had been published in Nature Neuroscience just months before I arrived and I was excited to learn cutting-edge neuroscience in the city of dreaming spires.
Browning is a pleasant-looking fellow—normal height, normal build, balding (which I personally hope is normal). My first day, Browning walked me around the lab, introducing me to the other graduate students and post-docs. “This is Daniel Barron, he’s come here from some university in the U.S. to work on some sort of project,” he would say in his Scottish accent with a flat expression. He showed me where the “bog” (bathroom) was, where we had tea, where I could put my cowboy boots and hat if, as a Texan, I felt inclined to wear them on a rainy day.
Although Browning enjoyed cardiology and nephrology as a medical student, he became a computational psychiatrist because he found mental illnesses more compelling. Cardiologists treat the heart like a pump and they measure and calculate how well the pump is working. Nephrologists treat the kidney like a filter and measure and calculate how well the filter is working. Psychiatrists don’t really know how to view the brain. And we don’t know how to measure or calculate how well the brain is working. This is what Browning wants to do.
After his psychiatry residency, Browning began treating patients with major depression and bipolar disorder and noticed how extremely common anxiety is in these patients. Knowing someone has a cognitive symptom—like a panic attack when booking a train ticket—is clinically useful because it suggests a treatment goal (i.e. book tickets without panicking), something to target with clinical interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
CBT helps patients learn to look at anxiety-provoking situations in a new, less threating way. That you can successfully treat anxiety with CBT indicates that CBT is helpful. But on a more fundamental level, it also indicates that patients can learn how to not be anxious. Browning also noted that, reversing this logic, it also means that anxiety involves a learning process gone awry.
Learning on the (Coffee) Run
Measuring how we learn is hard. Experimentally, we can observe people’s behavior; e.g. did someone answer a question correctly? or did they complete a task as they were taught? This treats the brain like a black box, wherein cognitive “stuff” happens and decisions magically appear.
Learning theory provides a way to peer into this black box with mathematics. Learning theory describes how the brain builds models of the world, with the goal of understanding how to behave. According to learning theory, people develop models about the world based on the outcomes of their actions (“I did X and Y happened, so X gives me Y”).
Imagine that one afternoon, you want a really good cup of coffee. To get it, you need to walk to one of two nearby coffee shops: one is an international chain, the other is run by some local hipsters. The chain coffee shop has a lot going for it: there’s a standard menu; the coffee is made nearly the same way every time; the same music plays at corporate-specified volume; the wifi always works. The last time you went, you left with a fairly good cup of coffee and so, in learning theory terms, we’d say this coffee run ended with only a small prediction error, meaning what you expected is roughly what you got. If someone asked you how often this happens, you’d give a ballpark 75% of the time because you feel that overall the chain store is a pretty stable, safe bet even if you don’t always leave with a really good cup of coffee.
Now consider the hipster coffee shop: the seasonal menu is locally sourced so your favorite made-from-scratch pastry may or may not be available; rotating “coffee artists” put their own spin on every drink; sometimes there’s jazz, sometimes heavy metal; sometimes the wifi works, often it doesn’t. When the stars align, you have the absolute best coffee experience. But because every few weeks the hipsters change things up, you often leave with no pastry and whatever Lars felt like making you. This leads to a large prediction error and, crucially, you’re never quite sure what to expect. From a learning theory perspective the hipster coffee shop is a volatile environment.
Now imagine that you have three consecutive bad experiences at both places: where do you go next? Because the chain store has a 75% overall likelihood of being pretty good, those three strikes don’t affect your belief in the chain store that much and you’re likely to go back. But the hipster coffee shop is more volatile, so after three strikes, you could decide that the place has gone to shit and ne’er return.
In both cases there was a prediction error (although you expected a good cup of coffee, you got a bad one three times), but because the hipster coffee shop is a more volatile place, you weighed the new information more heavily and learned from it more in terms of your overall belief. How much prediction errors sculpt your belief is called the learning rate. Your learning rate for each coffee shop depends on the volatility.
The Brain as a Learning Machine
When he started at Oxford, Browning was keen to measure how people learn. Timothy Behrens and several colleagues had recently designed a reward game wherein participants tried to win a pot of money. To get this money, they had to click on a green or blue rectangle, which would inch them closer (or not) to that money. Because it was unclear which rectangle (blue or green) they needed to choose, players learned which was more likely to lead to a reward by trial and error, while playing the game. Like learning which coffee shop to go to by frequenting different coffee shops multiple times.
Also similar to the coffee shop analogy, Behrens developed two versions of the game: a stable version where blue rectangles led to a reward 75% of the time and a volatile version wherein the reward sometimes followed blue, sometimes green. Everyone played both versions of the game, allowing Behrens to see how quickly they could learn each version.
To win, people would have to mentally model how volatile the game was at any point in time. Behrens wanted to see how well the human brain stacked up to an “ideal learner”, or a computer trained to make the winning decision at every step. That seemed like a lot of computational heavy-lifting.
But Behrens discovered—quite surprisingly—that people performed quite well, on par with the ideal learner. Behrens also discovered that he could measure how people played the game differently, depending on how volatile the task was. As the game switched from the steady, 75% version to the more volatile version, people adjusted their learning rate in a mathematically-rigorous way. Human brains could actually compute how chain coffee shops differed from hipster coffee shops.
Behrens had created a scenario that allowed him to treat the brain as a decision-making machine. By measuring how someone played his game, Behrens could tell whether someone’s brain was working ideally.
Of course, Browning’s patient’s brains weren’t working ideally. They were anxious. Since he suspected that anxiety was related to learning, he wondered whether he could use Behren’s game to measure where and how his patient’s decision-making machine had broken down.
Measuring is Complex
Browning wanted a measure of how people learn; something tidy that he could discuss with a patient: “Mrs. Robinson, we’re concerned about your learning rate.”
During my medicine rotations, I remember screening patients for known causes of pump malfunction, risk factors of heart disease like hypertension, cholesterol and smoking. There was something deeply triumphant about telling a patient, “you have a low risk of heart disease”, as if we had together avoided catastrophe. This idea of whittling down heart disease to three risk factors is a classic reductionist overture. And it is, by design, a deceit.
Heart disease is complex and, of course, can’t be completely explained by hypertension, cholesterol, and smoking. In fact, we don’t (and might never) understand everything about everyone’s heart disease—genes, exercise, stress from work or love, something in the water, and so on could each play some crucial yet-undefined role. Without question, looking at only three risk factors misrepresents the complexity of heart disease—but, studies have shown that it is a useful simplification.
Clinicians seem comfortable reducing heart disease to three risk factors—we are, after all, only talking about a pump. But we tend to cringe when we consider our inner lives, our own emotions and mental states through the same reductionist lens.
Imagine that you’re Barlow’s psychiatrist. She comes to your office not long after refusing to dissect the pig. She’s shaken and buries her face in her hands crying, “what if I amount to nothing!” You learn about her childhood, her impossible choice between parents. You connect with her, you empathize with her, you want to help.
Now consider your next step: are you going to ask her to sit in front of a computer and click on blue and green rectangles to win a pot of fake money? How much confidence would you have in such a clinical measure? Do you think you could persuade Barlow that her learning rate as measured by the box game has much bearing on her anxiety?
I’d question my devotion to reductionism here too. The box game seems too abstract and too removed from the raw, clinical realities of panic.
But recall that cardiologists once felt this way—the connection between heart attacks, blood pressure and cholesterol isn’t obvious. The very existence of blood pressure wasn’t obvious—even though people had seen blood spurting out of people’s veins for millennia, no one thought to measure blood pressure until the 18th century.
Three hundred years ago, people would have occasional chest pain and then, one day, just drop dead. I wonder what it was like going to a doctor three hundred years ago, worried about this weird, occasional pain you have in your chest. I imagine the doctor would have traced your history: “Tell me more about your pain.” Maybe during this conversation, the doctor would place leeches on your arm to “clean” your blood, maybe he would even cut your arm to get rid of “extra” blood. Without other tools or interventions, your visit was primarily a conversation; a good clinician was probably a good conversationalist. The advent of the stethoscope and sphygmomanometer—both of which require the patient and clinician to be silent—nudged this relationship from dialogue towards data. Perhaps we lost something in that silence: that subtle and artful conversation that took place while the doctor was attaching leeches to your forearm.
Cardiologists didn’t become useful because they thought of cleverer questions to ask their patients, but because they developed tools to reduce complex diseases to things they could measure and study and treat.
Simply figuring out that death had causes—that it wasn’t simply the Fates or Wheel of Fortune—was itself a monumental intellectual leap. Careful investigation reduced death to specific causes like heart attacks caused by heart disease. And it was only decades-long studies of thousands of patients (e.g the Framingham Heart Study) that helped us reduce heart disease from vague, subjective symptoms to specific, measurable risk factors. Data made us comfortable with reductionism because data led us to solutions that matter.
So Browning wants to gather data because he wants to reduce anxiety to a useful measure. Yet reductionism comes at a price. In Barlow’s case, the price might be losing a lot of what is real: her stories. To measure anxiety, we might jettison the richness and complexity of Barlow’s interaction with her mother. But maybe this richness isn’t as important we’d like to believe. No one seems to long for the golden age of “leeching conversation.”
An Anxious Machine
While Behren’s experiment was underway, Browning had begun to work with Sonia Bishop, a computational neuroscientist also at Oxford. Bishop was keen to measure how anxiety affects learning, specifically how anxious people think about future negative events.
Together, they modified Behrens’s reward game—instead of winning money for choosing the correct rectangle, you’d get an electric zap if you choose incorrectly. To see how volatility affected learning rate, they occasionally changed the likelihood of getting shocked. They called this an “aversive learning task” and used it to measure how people with varying levels of anxiety navigate unsavory situations.
They discovered that, like Behren’s original study, non-anxious people could sense when the game was more volatile and adapt their strategy like an “ideal learner”—the more stable the task, the less an unexpected zap affected their beliefs about future events. But the more anxious a person was, the less they recognized and adapted their learning rate during the volatile game. Anxious people, it seemed, were unable to recognize and learn from volatility (which makes me wonder whether hipster coffee shops collect anxious customers).
In their Nature Neuroscience paper, Browning and his colleagues wondered whether being cognitively blind to volatility could make the world seem less predictable and negative outcomes less avoidable—perhaps like seeing every unclear decision as one of Barlow’s impossible choices? This in turn might further reinforce someone’s overall level of anxiety, creating a spiral into deepening anxiety and other mental illnesses like depression.
While Browning’s study needs to be extended and replicated, the proposed relationship between volatility and learning rate has clear clinical implications. It reduces clinical focus from cognitive symptoms (e.g. to dissect or not dissect a pig?), to a specific, measurable process that has gone awry. And instead of treating someone’s fear of pig dissection (which is simply one instantiation of an underlying “impossible choice” problem), clinicians could measure how well people perceive and learn from volatility and how this changes with treatment.
The Fire
“So I had a house fire two weeks ago,” Barlow told me when I asked whether previous therapists had measured her anxiety, maybe with clinical symptom scales. Two days before the end of a four month kitchen remodel, her contractor had left a couple of oily rags on the floor. Overnight, some varnish cured and the rags burst into flames. “I lost a bunch of stuff—I probably have those scales, but they might have been ruined.”
“Wait. I’m sorry, what?” I said, taken aback that, after speaking for nearly an hour about her emotional highs and lows, Barlow somehow forgot to tell me that her house had recently caught fire. The same person who was paralyzed by the prospect of buying a train ticket was taking an apartment fire in stride.
“The real damage was from the water and smoke,” she mentioned coolly, “the fire department kind of power washed my apartment.” As she talked, I thought of my own kitchen remodel last year—choosing from the seemingly infinite types of cabinets, knobs, and light fixtures, etc. An impossible number of choices. I mentioned this mountain of decisions and she laughed, “I had a hard time picking out the paint color for the walls and now, I might have to choose where the walls go. But really, no I don’t think I have those measures,” she said, shifting seamlessly back from catastrophe to clinical scales.
Barlow said her therapists typically just ask whether she was feeling better, a question that I often ask my own patients. Every time I do, I’m a bit annoyed with myself—someone with heart disease might walk up a steep flight of stairs and feel a dull pain in their chest, but they certainly wouldn’t feel how much cholesterol was in their blood or how narrow their coronary arteries had become. Clinical tests exist because symptoms rarely reflect the underlying disease process, which is often invisible to us.
Like cholesterol or blood pressure, Browning reminded me that learning rate presents a potential therapeutic target. One could imagine a CBT intervention aimed at helping anxious people better understand volatility in a shifting environment. Or perhaps a medication could modify the brain’s inherent learning rate, allowing someone to better separate “impossible choices” from simple errands. But also like cholesterol or blood pressure, learning rate captures something invisible and unintuitive, something that we’d never see or include in our clinical decision without a tool to measure it.
Perhaps Browning is on to something. Perhaps measuring learning rate could benefit clinical practice. I’m hopeful, but if the history of measuring and treating heart disease is any indication, finding tidy measures of anxiety will take large, collaborative efforts over many years. Measurements of learning are still in the experimental stage, so it’s best to maintain a healthy skepticism, to have a healthy learning rate. “There’s a lot of promise,” Browning cautioned, “What there isn’t is a lot of data.” Hopefully, we’ll have a better answer in a few years. |
Month: May 2013
Now for those commencement addresses.I’ve picked a few that I thought had some good messages. Hope you enjoy them. Nih Nai, valedictorian, Moore (Okla.) High School(Nai delivered his address Saturday night, five days after the tornado destroyed much of his town, to the 412-person Moore Class of 2013.) “We’re damaged, but we survived. We’re hurt, but we are resilient. We’re graduating, but we are not done with our successes.” John Green, author, Butler University“You are probably going to be a nobody for a while. You are going to make that journey from strength to weakness, and while it won’t be an easy trip, it is a heroic one. For in learning how to be a nobody, you will learn how not to be a jerk. And for the rest of your life, if you are able to remember your hero’s journey from college grad to underling, you will be less of a jerk. You will tip well. You will empathize. You will be a mentor, and a generous one. “Let me submit to you that this is the actual definition of a good life. You want to be the kind of person who other people — people who may not even be born yet — will think about … at their own commencements. I am going to hazard a guess that relatively few of us thought of all the work and love that Selena Gomez or Justin Bieber put into making this moment possible for us. We may be taught that the people to admire and emulate are actors and musicians and sports heroes and professionally famous people, but when we look at the people who have helped us, the people who actually change actual lives, relatively few of them are publicly celebrated. We do not think of the money they had, but of their generosity. We do not think of how beautiful or powerful they were, but how willing they were to sacrifice for us — so willing, at times, that we might not have even noticed that they were making sacrifices.” Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve System chairman, Bard College“Innovation, almost by definition, involves ideas that no one has yet had, which means that forecasts of future technological change can be, and often are, wildly wrong. A safe prediction, I think, is that human innovation and creativity will continue; it is part of our very nature. Another prediction, just as safe, is that people will nevertheless continue to forecast the end of innovation. The history of technological innovation and economic development teaches us that change is the only constant. During your working lives, you will have to reinvent yourselves many times. Success and satisfaction will not come from mastering a fixed body of knowledge but from constant adaptation and creativity in a rapidly changing world.” Cal Ripken, baseball player, University of Maryland“When my dad was in his development role in the minor leagues with the Orioles, he coined a phrase that said, ‘We try to put 40-year-old heads on 20-year-old bodies. It just doesn’t work.’ What that meant was that dad and the other coaches tried to implant all the years of their own playing experiences into the young players’ heads. But that wisdom can’t be simply transferred; it also has to be experienced and earned by each individual. Sorry, folks: there are no shortcuts on this one. “Now let me turn to what I consider the key to taking talent and skill to the highest level. It’s attitude. Are you positive or negative as you approach life’s challenges? When I first started playing professional baseball, I quickly dismissed all this attitude talk. I thought it was a waste of time. All that mattered to me was getting my reps in practice and how I did in the games. The games were not contests between two teams — they were my individual exams. If I got three hits and we lost, I was happy. If we won and I went oh-for, I was mad. I was obsessed with my stats. They were my ticket to the show. I couldn’t stand the umpires, because from my view, every mistake they made would cost me. I had problems with the official scorekeepers because their decisions cost me hits and added errors to my record. “But even with this attitude, I was moving up in the organization. Then it hit me — in fact, quite literally. I got hit with a 94 mile per hour pitch in the side of my helmet in Baltimore. I was struggling mightily in the early part of my rookie season, and I was miserable. That shot to the head knocked some sense into me. Earlier in the week, my veteran teammate and All-Star Ken Singleton had pulled me aside and showed me a tape of me throwing a helmet and just said, ‘We don’t do that here. That’s not what it’s all about. That’s the wrong attitude.’ So after getting beaned and while laying on the X-ray table, I started to think more about what Ken said. The conclusion I came to was that it wasn’t all about me, and the world certainly was not my enemy. I realized that I was affected with a negative attitude. That ball striking me helped flip the switch, and I made a choice to have a positive attitude. My talent and skill had supported me to that point. My change in attitude helped me achieve being named Rookie of the Year that year and MVP the next. As I continued playing the game I loved, I stopped blaming. I was accountable. I was more in control. My rational mind started working instead of my reactive mind. I started finding solutions before they became issues. “When you truly have a positive attitude, you capture that energy of what can be accomplished as opposed to why it can’t be done. Your failures even become valuable experiences. Where would the world be without Thomas Edison’s failures and his positive attitude in dealing with them? He himself said, ‘I failed my way to success.’ ”
Michelle Obama, First Lady, Bowie State (Md.) University“When it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can’t be bothered. Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper. Right now, one in three African American students are dropping out of high school. Only one in five African Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 has gotten a college degree. One in five. We need to once again fight to educate ourselves and our children like our lives depend on it, because they do. “When it comes to your own kids, if you don’t like what they’re watching on TV, turn it off. If you don’t like the video games they’re playing, take them away. Take a stand against the media that elevates today’s celebrity gossip instead of the serious issues of our time. Take a stand against the culture that glorifies instant gratification instead of hard work and lasting success. And as my husband has said often, please stand up and reject the slander that says a black child with a book is trying to act white. Reject that.” Julie Andrews, actor/author, Colorado University“I’ve been thinking about today, and what I could say to you. It suddenly occurred to me that one of the last speeches you will hear in college will be this one. That scared me half to death. I mean, what can I tell you? I never finished high school. I never, sadly, attended college. As a youngster, I was traveling the length and breadth of the British Isles, singing my head off in the Music Halls — a theater brat, with a freaky four-and-a-half-octave range. You might assume that after a life in theater and film, I wouldn’t be nervous in a situation like this, but I can assure you that I am or was, before your very warm welcome. Today is about celebration, but despite that, you might just also be feeling a little nervous — and, perhaps even fearful. Believe me, feeling nervous is par for the course. “I remember saying once to my husband, Blake, on the eve of my return to Broadway after a 35-year absence, ‘You know, I’m really feeling VERY frightened about this,’ and I began to tear up. He simply replied, ‘Darling, did you actually expect to feel anything else?’ I remembered — yet again — that fear is a part of life. The trick is to recognize it and then press on anyway. In fact, the real trick is to stop focusing on oneself and start focusing on others. There was a time in my late 20s when I worried all the time what audiences thought. Will they like me? Am I up to par? And it suddenly dawned on to me that everyone in the audience had paid good money to come see a show they really wanted to see, and possibly, they were there after a day of dealing with a lot of stress. Maybe it was tax time, perhaps someone had a family member who was ill, or had a fight with a loved one — I could think of a hundred scenarios. I realized that I was in a position to brighten their day, to make a difference, to give them three hours of surcease, of transcendence, and hopefully, joy. From that moment on, I began to develop a mindset of giving. I stopped looking inward, I began to grow up and I started looking outward, with an eye toward making a difference wherever and whenever I could. “Today, I invite you to start looking at life the same way. “There are so many opportunities for giving in this world. Don’t engage in random acts of kindness; engage in planned acts of kindness. Use your knowledge and your heart to stand up for those who can’t stand. Speak for those who can’t speak.” Jon Lovett, former presidential speech writer, Pitzer (Calif.) College“The problem I am going to describe involves a bad word. Not the worst word, but a bad word, though I’ve made sure that I only have to say it now and then one more time at the end. So if you want to distract any little kids for a second, please do so. One of the greatest threats we face is, simply put, bulls–t. We are drowning in it. We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media’s imitation of human connection; in legalese and corporate double-speak. It infects every facet of public life, corrupting our discourse, wrecking our trust in major institutions, lowering our standards for the truth, making it harder to achieve anything. And it wends its way into our private lives as well, changing even how we interact with one another: the way casual acquaintances will say, ‘I love you;’ the way we describe whatever thing as ‘the best thing ever;’ the way we are blurring the lines between friends and strangers. … Life tests our willingness, in ways large and small, to tell the truth. And I believe that so much of your future and our collective future depends on your doing so. So I’m going to give you three honest, practical lessons about cutting the BS. “Number one: Don’t cover for your inexperience. You are smart, talented, educated, conscientious, untainted by the mistakes and conventional wisdom of the past. But you are also very annoying. Because there is a lot that you don’t know that you don’t know. Your parents are nodding. You’ve been annoying them for years. Why do you think they paid for college? So that you might finally, at long last, annoy someone else. “You have to be confident in your potential, and aware of your inexperience. And that’s really tough. There are moments when you’ll have a different point of view because you’re a fresh set of eyes, because you don’t care how it’s been done before, because you’re sharp and creative, because there is another way, a better way. But there will also be moments when you have a different point of view because you’re wrong, because you’re 23 and you should shut up and listen to somebody who’s been around the block. It’s hard to tell the difference. Me, I love getting this one wrong. I got it wrong a ton when I started out as a speechwriter to Hillary Clinton. I got it wrong again when I became a presidential speechwriter. “But there is another side to this coin, which brings me to lesson number two: Sometimes you’re going to be inexperienced, naïve, untested and totally right. And then, in those moments, you have to make a choice: is this a time to speak up, or hang back? I worked for then-Senator Clinton during her campaign for president — and I believed in her, still do. But I vividly remember feeling like things weren’t right in that campaign; a lot of the young staffers felt that way. It wasn’t a secret that there were problems in how the campaign was run. The campaign pollster for example, rolled out so many slogans it was impossible to keep track. Here’s a sample: Let the Conversation BeginReady for Change, Ready to LeadWorking for Change, Working for You“… And then, my favorite: Big Challenges, Real Solutions: Time to Pick a President. Which he had printed on the side of a bus, but it was basically too small to read. “So, I’m putting these slogans into speeches and I look over at an Obama campaign rally on cable news and they have one slogan. It’s just the word CHANGE in big letters. That seemed better. But I was timid; and a lot of us just assumed, or wanted to assume, that more experienced people must know what they’re doing. But that wasn’t true. So the campaign ended, my candidate lost, and I ended up as a presidential speechwriter anyway, which was cool. But the lesson I drew from that campaign, other than the fact that it’s always a mistake to run against Barack Obama, is the subway rule: ‘If you see something, say something.’ And I’ve tried to honor that ever since.” Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball, St. Norbert (Wisc.) College“The Braves moved to Atlanta after the 1965 season, leaving many heartbroken fans in Milwaukee behind. I shared the sadness that swept our community. But I have never been one to sit back and wallow instead of searching for a solution, and the disappointment I once felt gave way to a sense of determination. While I was only 30 years old and the odds were tremendously stacked against us, I decided to do what I could to bring a big league club back to my hometown. My dream was to make Milwaukee and Wisconsin feel Major League once again. Trying and failing was one thing; quitting, however, was unacceptable. There were many disappointments along the way, but there was never defeat. All of our efforts became worthwhile on the night of March 31, 1970, when the American League’s Milwaukee Brewers were born. One of my most prized mementos that crystallized this long effort came from a man who made his name right here, the great Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi. He sent the first telegram I received on the morning of April 1st, 1970, that to this day is framed and hanging in my office, which said, ‘Congratulations on finally obtaining the team after so many years. I wish you great success.’ With this example in mind, I urge each of you to chase your dreams. … You have the ability to be a force for change.” Brian Williams, anchor/managing editor, NBC Nightly News, Elon University“Break the cycle of entitlement and expectations. [Applause.] Hear that applause? Those are older people. And here’s this generational shift that led to this groundswell of applause. All the people that applauded, we were basically under the assumption we were losers unless proven otherwise in this country. It was just a grinding existence as we were coming up. You guys came along a little different. ‘Hey Mom and Dad, I breathed today!’ And we would order the ice cream cake. That’s just a generational mindset shift. It wasn’t your fault. We did it because we just felt, ‘We can’t let them fail at anything.’ So our educational system and the self-esteem and self-celebration created by a generation not your own, let’s just check it and be aware of it as we go forth into the social realm and jobs. Same with the use of first person. I know it is the basis of social media. My worst fear is that selflessness is perhaps what made us better in the past. I’m genuinely sorry that the focus on self has meant haters in your life that we’ve all had to deal with, with no barrier to entry. You are the first generation for which hate via a send button is assumed, it’s ubiquitous, it’s expected and its corrosive effects are baked into you. That’s not fair. “You are the first generation with the kind of routine obsession of pouring over imagery, pictures of yourself. Hundreds perhaps. Thousands of them that you feel best represent you to the outside world. Where do you look the best? Where do you look even better? What’s any of that going to mean long term? We have changed. We have gone off on our own with our devices. In just the course of one generation, and we haven’t put our arms around what this change means yet. We call our online world a community, but that just makes us feel better. It’s not. This is: people to your left and right with hopes and dreams and fears. You may enter into a family with anyone here. You may fight a war with anyone here. That is a definition of a community. So, stop yourself before you say something to your followers. Consider being a leader instead.”
Dalai Lama, Tibetan promoter of world peace, Tulane University“I’ve had no modern education, so my knowledge compared to yours amounts to zero, but I have observed that many of the problems we face today are of our own creation. Because we created them, we must also have the ability to reduce or overcome them. You young people are educated, fresh and bright; you have the future in front of you. My generation belongs to the 20th century and our century is over, we are almost ready to say goodbye. The 20th century saw many great achievements, but it was also an era of bloodshed. The world did not become a better place as a result of that violence. Those of you who are less than 30 years old, who truly belong to the 21st century, please think on a more global level. Try to create a more peaceful, more compassionate world by taking into account the welfare of others.” Enda Kenny, prime minister of Ireland, Boston College.“Graduates, this is your time. Be not afraid. Today, then, you have reached what we call in Irish Ceann Scríbe. Turas amháin déanta, turas eile ás bhúr gcomhair amach. One journey completed, another directly ahead. “Today then: Let go, let fly, forget. You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.” |
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You will serve as a in the DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY.
THIS IS AN EXPEDITED HIRING AUTHORITY ANNOUNCEMENT. The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) FY 2009 provides that the Secretary of Defense can designate acquisition positions as shortage positions and recruit and appoint highly qualified persons to these positions.
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Requirements
Conditions of Employment
Must be a US Citizen.
Must be determined suitable for federal employment.
Must participate in the direct deposit pay program.
New employees to the Department of the Navy will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit www.dhs.gov/E-Verify/.
Within the Department of Defense (DoD), the appointment of retired military members within 180 days immediately following retirement date to a civilian position is subject to the provisions of 5 United States Code 3326.
You may be required to successfully complete a pre-appointment physical examination.
You may be required to obtain and maintain an interim and/or final security clearance prior to entrance on duty. Failure to obtain and maintain the required level of clearance may result in the withdrawal of a job offer or removal.
This position may be covered under the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) and requires additional education, training and experience. Positions may be in any DAWIA Career Field at Level I, II, or III.
This position may be designated Critical Acquisition Position (CAP). You must be a member of the Acquisition Corps, become a member, or obtain a waiver at the time of selection and sign a three-year tenure agreement prior to assuming the position.
Successful completion of a pre-employment drug test (including marijuana) may be required. A tentative offer of employment will be rescinded if you fail to report to the drug test appointment or pass the test. You may be subject to random testing.
You may be required to complete ethics orientation within three months of appointment and submit a Confidential Financial Disclosure Report, OGE-450, within 30 days of appointment.
Supervisors in the executive branch have a heightened personal responsibility for advancing government ethics. Those selected for a supervisory position will be required to review the 14 General Principles of Ethical Conduct at 5 CFR 2635.101.
Position selected for may or may not be under a bargaining unit.
Positions may require a Financial Management Level I, II, or III certification per the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2012, Section 1599d. The certification level must be achieved within prescribed timelines.
Warrant authority above the small purchase threshold may be required .
Positions may be subject to work an uncommon tour, including nights, weekends, and holidays to meet mission requirements. Overtime or night differential pay and/or unusual duty hours may be required.
Positions may be eligible for part time, full time or ad-hoc telework at the discretion of management
Qualifications
In addition to the basic education requirements, applicants must meet the following minimum qualifications:
GS-07 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-05 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector applying basic architectural techniques, procedures, and methods to complete limited architectural designs and projects.
GS-09 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-07 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector as a professional Architect interpreting preliminary design drawings and data from site visits to create architectural plans and designs.
GS-11 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-09 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector prescribing standard practices, techniques, and equipment in establishing design parameters for in-house or contracted work for developing and designing to preserve historic buildings.
GS-12 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-11 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector inspecting completed construction projects to ensure architectural components are built and installed in compliance with contract provisions, specifications, and approved shop drawings.
GS-13 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-12 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector conducting investigations and studies to recommend and implement appropriate action to correct undesirable conditions involving structure, finished materials, mechanical and electrical systems, safety and security provisions, and accessibility for those with disabilities.
GS-14 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-13 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector planning, executing, and overseeing a variety of project management and architectural activities.
GS-15 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must also demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the GS-14 grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector directing, managing, and resolving controversial engineering, scientific, environmental, and/or socio-economic issues involving architecture, building and construction activities, design standards and criteria, and/or contractual arrangements.
Education
Applicants must meet the following basic education requirements of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualifications Standards Manual:
Successful completion of a bachelor's or higher degree in architecture
OR
Bachelor's or higher degree from an accredited college or university in architecture; or related field which includes 60 semester hours of course work in architecture or related disciplines of which at least (1) 30 semester hours were in architectural design and (2) 6 semester hours were in each of the following: structural technology, properties of materials and methods of construction, and environmental control systems
OR a combination of college-level education, training, and/or technical experience that furnished (1) a thorough knowledge of the arts and sciences underlying professional architecture, and (2) a good understanding, both theoretical and practical, of the architectural principles, methods, and techniques and their applications to the design and construction or improvement of buildings. The adequacy of your background is demonstrated by at least one of the following: (I) Related Curriculum- Degree from an accredited college or university in architectural engineering may be accepted as satisfying in full the basic requirements, provided the completed course work in architectural engineering provided knowledge, skills, and abilities substantially equivalent to those provided in the courses specified in response A. (II) Experience- An applicant lacking a degree in architecture must have at least 1 year of experience in an architect's office or in architectural work for each year short of graduation from a program of study in architecture. In the absence of college courses, 5 years of such experience is required. This experience must have demonstrated that the applicant has acquired a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles and theories of professional architecture.
Applicants who meet the basic education requirement above are automatically qualified for the GS-05 grade.
Applicants may substitute education for experience in the following situations:
GS-07 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must demonstrate that you have successfully completed a 5-year program of study of at least 160 semester hours leading to a Bachelor of Architecture (or architectural engineering curricula) or higher degree in an accredited college or university OR have a bachelor's or higher degree in architecture (or architectural engineering curriculam) and one year of appropriate experience as a technician equivalent to the GS-05 grade level or higher OR demonstrate that you have successfully completed one full year of graduate level education OR you have successfully completed a bachelor's degree with superior academic achievement.
GS-09 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must demonstrate that you have successfully completed a master's or equivalent graduate degree OR have successfully completed two full years of progressively higher graduate level education leading to a master's degree
GS-11 (or equivalent pay band): Your resume must demonstrate you are registered to practice architecture by one of the State registration boards, using standards in compliance with the basic minimum provisions recommended by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards OR you have successfully completed a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree OR you have successfully completed three full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. or equivalent degree.
NOTE: Education and experience may be combined for all grade levels for which both education and experience are acceptable.
Applications will be accepted from students who expect to complete qualifying education within 9 months from the date of application. If you expect to complete your education within 9 months, please respond to the questionnaire items as if you had already completed your education. We are required to verify that the education has been completed successfully before any applicant can be appointed (report to work).
Additional information
This position is covered by the Department of Defense Priority Placement Program.
Referral Lists may be issued on an as needed basis as vacancies occur. Multiple vacancies may be filled by this announcement
A tentative offer of employment will be rescinded if the selectee fails to meet the pre-employment requirements, including failure to report to any of the scheduled appointments.
If you are unable to apply online and request information about the Alternate Application process, please contact the Department of Navy's Employment Information Center.
In addition to meeting all minimum qualification and eligibility requirements, ICTAP applicants must be well qualified for the position to receive consideration for special priority selection. A well-qualified ICTAP applicant is one who possesses the competencies and experience to perform the duties of the position successfully with orientation to learn/understand the activities, procedures, policies and processes. Demonstrated work experience in the occupation is typically qualifying for placement. This criterion cannot be met by education and training.
For more information about ICTAP eligibility please review the following link: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/working-in-government/unique-hiring-paths/federal-employees/ictap/
Recruitment incentives may be authorized to eligible new hires.
This public notice announcement is for anticipated vacancies to be filled under the Expedited Hiring Authority (EHA) for acquisition positions located at Department of Navy installations identified in this public notice. Positions may be filled as permanent, term or temporary with a full-time or part-time work schedule. Pay will vary by geographic location. There may or may not be actual/projected vacancies at the time you submit your application. Please read this Public Notice in its entirety prior to submitting your application for consideration.
There may or may not be actual vacancies filled from this register. As such, Notices of Results (NORs) may or may not be sent to applicants who apply to this announcement.
Applicants rated ineligible on this vacancy announcement need to reapply and update their application package to be considered on future vacancies filled through this announcement.
Applicants selected and hired on this vacancy announcement need to reapply to be considered on future vacancies filled through this announcement.
How You Will Be Evaluated
You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.
In order to qualify for this position, your resume must provide sufficient experience and/or education, knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the duties of the specific position for which you are being considered. Your resume is the key means we have for evaluating your skills, knowledge, and abilities as they relate to this position. Therefore, we encourage you to be clear and specific when describing your experience.
When the application process is complete, we will review your resume to ensure you meet the hiring eligibility and qualification requirements listed in this announcement. You will be rated based on the information provided in your resume and responses to the Occupational Questionnaire, along with your supporting documentation to determine your ability to demonstrate the following competencies:
If selected, you may be required to provide supporting documentation.
If after reviewing your resume and supporting documentation, a determination is made that you inflated your qualifications and/or experience, your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your abilities or you may be found ineligible/not qualified.
Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating or consideration for employment.
All qualifications requirements must be met by the referral cut-off date.
Vacancies filled from this announcement may be filled at any grade level listed and in equivalent pay systems (e.g., NH, NJ, NK, etc.). Selectees may be appointed to a position with promotion potential (e.g. selected at the GS-5 grade with potential to the GS-11). If selected below the full performance level, incumbent may be noncompetitively promoted to the next higher grade level after meeting all regulatory requirements, and upon the recommendation of management. Promotion is neither implied nor guaranteed.
Term appointments may be extended up to 8 years at the discretion of management and in accordance with applicable regulations. Additionally, you may be noncompetitively converted to a permanent career-conditional or career appointment under specific conditions.
Temporary appointments may be extended up to 3 years at the discretion of management and in accordance with applicable regulations.
Temporary actions taken under this announcement may be made permanent without further competition.
Temporary actions taken under this announcement may be terminated at any time before the established not-to-exceed date.
Background checks and security clearance
Security clearance
Drug test required
Required Documents
A COMPLETE RESUME IS REQUIRED. Your resume must show relevant experience (cover letter optional) where you worked, job title, duties and accomplishments, employer's name and address, supervisor's name and phone number, starting and end dates (Mo/Yr), hours per week & salary. If you are a current Federal employee or previous Federal employee, provide your pay plan, series and grade level i.e. GS-0201-09. Note: Only the last resume received will be reviewed.
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO DOCUMENT IN YOUR APPLICATION PACKAGE EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTS YOUR ELIGIBILITY AND QUALIFICATION CLAIMS. You are required to upload the applicable documents with your application package. These documents will assist the staffing specialist in determining your eligibility and qualifications.
DOES THIS POSITION REQUIRE A LICENSE OR CERTIFICATE?
You must submit a copy of your license or certificate in your application package.
ARE YOU QUALIFYING BASED ON EDUCATION or A COMBINATION OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE?
You must submit a copy of your college transcript or an appropriate course listing. Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Applicants can verify accreditation at the following website: http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html. All education claimed by applicants will be verified by the appointing agency accordingly. If selected, an official/sealed transcript will be required prior to appointment.
ARE YOU A VETERAN CLAIMING SOLE SURVIVORSHIP PREFERENCE OR 5-POINT VETERANS' PREFERENCE?
You must provide legible copy/copies of the following: DD-214 (member 4 copy), "Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty," showing all dates of service, as well as character of service (Honorable, General, etc.) or Statement of Service/Proof of Service (in lieu of a DD-214) from your command or local Personnel Support Detachment (PSD). The Statement of Service/Proof of Service must provide all dates of service, the expected date of discharge and anticipated character of service (Honorable, General, etc.). Veterans should upload their DD-214 once they receive it upon separation.
ARE YOU A DISABLED VETERAN or CLAIMING 10-POINT VETERANS' PREFERENCE?
Disabled veterans, veterans, widows, spouses or the mother of a veteran who are eligible for 10-point veterans' preference must provide legible copies of the following: Applicable supporting documents as noted on Standard Form-15 (SF-15). To obtain a copy of SF-15, go to http://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/SF15.pdf.
ARE YOU AN ACTIVE DUTY SERVICE MEMBER? Active Duty Service Members are required to submit a statement of service printed on command letterhead and signed by the command. The statement of service must provide the branch of service, rate/rank, all dates of service, the expected date of discharge and anticipated character of service (Honorable, General, etc.).
Documents submitted as part of the application package, to include supplemental documents, may be shared beyond the Human Resources Office. Some supplemental documents contain personal information such as SSN and DOB and some documents such as military orders and marriage certificates may contain personal information for someone other than you. You may sanitize these documents to remove said personal information before you submit your application. You may be asked to provide an un-sanitized version of the documents if you are selected to confirm your eligibility.
If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:
Benefits
A career with the U.S. Government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Learn more about federal benefits.
Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time, or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.
How to Apply
Click the Apply Online button to create an account or log in to your existing USAJOBS account.
To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package which includes:
1. Complete resume with relevant experience where you worked, job title, duties and accomplishments, employer's name and address, supervisor's name and phone number, starting and end dates (Mo/Yr), hours per week and salary. If you are a current or previous federal employee, provide your pay plan, series and grade level (e.g. GS-0201-09).
2. Complete assessment questionnaire. For a quick preview of the assessment questionnaire click here: https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/10340519
3. Supporting documentation
Failure to submit a complete application package will result in an ineligible rating and loss of consideration.
Your complete application (resume, assessment questionnaire, and all supporting documents) must be received by 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 11/01/2019. Applications received after 11/01/2019 may result in an ineligible rating and loss of consideration. If more than one resume is received, only the last resume received and processed will be reviewed.
NOTE: To check the status of your application or return to a previous or incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account: https://mydon.usajobs.gov/Account/Login select Application Status, and click on the more information link under the application status for this position. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process so please plan appropriately.
You are encouraged to apply online. Applying online will allow you to review and track the status of your application.
Do not email or send hard copy resumes/applications to the Contact Information or Agency Information listed in this vacancy announcement. All resumes/applications received at the addresses listed in the Contact Information or Agency Information will be destroyed and will not be considered for this vacancy announcement.
It is the applicant's responsibility to verify that all information in their resume and documents are legible and accurate. HR will not modify answers/documents submitted by an applicant.
Agency contact information
Department of Navy EIC
Phone
Email
Address
Next steps
When the application process is complete, your application will be reviewed to determine if you meet the hiring eligibility and qualification requirements for which you requested consideration. You will be rated based on the information provided in your resume and responses to the questionnaire, along with your supporting documentation to determine your level of knowledge, skill, and ability related to the job requirements.
Qualified applicants will be referred to the hiring manager. The selecting official may choose to conduct interviews, and once the selection is made, you will receive a notification of the decision.
Eligible DoD career or career conditional employees shall be granted statutory return rights to their former position for a period of 5 years if continuously employed in a foreign or non-foreign area provided by Executive Order 10895 and DoDI 1400.25, v 1230.
Fair & Transparent
The Federal hiring process is setup to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.
Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
The United States Government does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.
Reasonable Accommodation Policy
Federal agencies must provide reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities where appropriate. Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process should follow the instructions in the job opportunity announcement. For any part of the remaining hiring process, applicants should contact the hiring agency directly. Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.
A reasonable accommodation is any change to a job, the work environment, or the way things are usually done that enables an individual with a disability to apply for a job, perform job duties or receive equal access to job benefits.
Under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, federal agencies must provide reasonable accommodations when:
An applicant with a disability needs an accommodation to have an equal opportunity to apply for a job.
An employee with a disability needs an accommodation to perform the essential job duties or to gain access to the workplace.
An employee with a disability needs an accommodation to receive equal access to benefits, such as details, training, and office-sponsored events.
You can request a reasonable accommodation at any time during the application or hiring process or while on the job. Requests are considered on a case-by-case basis.
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711 F.2d 279
229 U.S.App.D.C. 1
CARTER/MONDALE PRESIDENTIAL COMMITTEE, INC., Petitioner,v.FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, Respondent.
No. 82-1754.
United States Court of Appeals,District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued March 17, 1983.Decided June 24, 1983.
Petition for Review of an Order of the Federal Election commission.
Douglas B. Huron, Washington, D.C., for petitioner. Eileen M. Stein, Washington, D.C., also entered an appearance for petitioner.
Richard B. Bader, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Federal Election Com'n, Washington, D.C., with whom Charles N. Steele, Gen. Counsel, Miriam Aguiar and Anne A. Weissenborn, Attys., Federal Election Com'n, Washington, D.C., were on the brief for respondent. Kim L. Bright, Atty., Federal Election Com'n, Washington, D.C., also entered an appearance for respondent.
Before WALD and MIKVA, Circuit Judges, and SWYGERT,* Senior Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALD.
WALD, Circuit Judge:
1
The Carter-Mondale Presidential Committee, Inc. ("the Committee") appeals a final determination by the Federal Election Commission ("FEC") that the Committee must repay $104,300.78 to the United States Treasury to cover primary campaign expenses [229 U.S.App.D.C. 2] that do not qualify under the Presidential Primary Matching Payment Account Act ("the Act"), 26 U.S.C. §§ 9031-9042. We find that we do not have jurisdiction to review the FEC's final repayment determination because the Committee failed to file its petition for review "within 30 days after the agency action by the [FEC] for which review is sought." Id. § 9041(a). Therefore, we do not reach the issue of statutory interpretation raised by the Committee: whether the FEC properly interpreted id. § 9038(b)(2) to require the Committee to repay federal matching funds in an amount equal to the total of all funds, federal plus nonfederal, spent for nonqualified expenses, or whether the Committee need return only the proportion of nonqualified expenses that were paid for with federal funds.1
I. BACKGROUND
2
It should not normally be difficult to decide whether a litigant has filed its petition for review within the 30-day jurisdictional time limit of 26 U.S.C. § 9041(a). Unfortunately, in this case the FEC's communications with the Committee failed to identify explicitly the point at which the time to appeal from the final decision began to run. Considerable confusion could be avoided in the future if the FEC would follow common agency practice and inform affected parties--by regulation or in the letter communicating its final determination--when the 30-day period for a petition for review begins to run. Because the FEC gave no such notice here, we find it necessary to outline the administrative proceedings in some detail to explain why we conclude that the Committee petitioned too late.
3
The sequence of events began on November 20, 1979, when the FEC decided that President Carter was eligible to receive matching federal payments for his campaign for the Democratic Party's 1980 presidential nomination.2 Subsequently, his Committee received $5,117,854.00 in federal funds for the primary campaign. After President Carter received the Democratic Party's nomination, the FEC commenced its audit of the Committee as required by id. § 9038(a).
4
On November 7, 1980, the FEC's Audit Division sent the Committee an interim audit report and notified the Committee that it had 30 days in which to respond. The Committee submitted a response to the interim audit report on December 1, 1980, see Supplemental Appendix ("S.A.") at 1-7, and provided additional information on December 10. See S.A. at 8-21. In these letters, the Committee took issue with the Audit Division's allocation of expenses against state spending limits, which resulted in the Division's calculation that some expenditures were not "qualified campaign expenses" because they were over state limits. The Committee did not, however, contest the issue of the percentage of nonqualified expenses that it must repay even though the interim audit recommended that the amount of nonqualified expenses be "repaid in full," see Interim Report at 14, [229 U.S.App.D.C. 3] record item 1; the Committee only noted that the interim audit report recommendations, if adopted, "would represent in effect a 100% penalty for alleged overspending" on the order of $150,000.00, see S.A. at 20.
5
On January 19, 1981, the FEC sent the Committee the "Report of the Audit Division." The FEC's cover letter noted that the FEC had approved the audit report and had made a determination, pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 9038(b), that the Committee had to repay $129,443.70 within 90 days. See Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 4. The letter further explained that under 11 C.F.R. § 9038.2(b) (1981) the Committee had 30 days to submit legal or factual materials in opposition to the FEC's repayment determination, and that the FEC would consider such materials in making a "final determination," the term used in id. § 9038.2 to describe the last step in the FEC's repayment evaluation process. See J.A. at 4 (emphasis added).
6
On February 18, 1981, the Committee sent the FEC a "request for reconsideration" of the repayment determination. The Committee's submission included a detailed section-by-section analysis that contested a number of findings in the FEC Audit Report. See J.A. at 23-36. The Committee also requested an extension of time in which to submit more materials3 and "reiterate[d] its request for a hearing."4 See J.A. at 34. Again, the Committee did not take issue with the FEC's statement that the Committee would have to repay the full amount of nonqualified campaign expenses.
7
On June 9, 1981, the FEC voted unanimously to deny the Committee's requests "for an oral hearing on the issue of repayment of matching funds" and for an extension of time to supplement its response to the "Final Audit Report." J.A. at 37. An FEC letter of June 12 communicated these denials to the Committee and explained that the Committee's challenge to the repayment determination brought into play 11 C.F.R. § 9038.2(e), which gave a protesting candidate 20 days to repay after receipt of the FEC's "final repayment determination," with the possibility of a 90-day extension upon application. See J.A. at 38-39.
8
On July 7, 1981, the FEC sent the Committee its "final determination that the Committee's repayment obligation [for exceeding state limits], pursuant to 11 C.F.R. § 9038.2(c), totals $117,826.15." J.A. at 40 (emphasis added). The FEC also included a statement of reasons as required by id. § 9038.2(d). The FEC had revised its previous calculation of the amount owed slightly downward because it had accepted two of the Committee's arguments about not applying certain expenses against state expenditure [229 U.S.App.D.C. 4] limits. In addition, the FEC explained that the Committee could further reduce this sum by documenting the amount paid for long distance telephone calls made from Iowa, New Hampshire, and Maine to national headquarters. Finally, the FEC reminded the Committee that according to id. § 9038.2(e), the Committee must repay the $117,826.15, subject to the documented phone call adjustment, within 20 days, although it could seek a 90-day extension of the repayment period. See J.A. at 40, 49.
9
On July 29, 1981, the Committee requested the 90-day extension for repayment as well as an extension of time to produce its long distance telephone records. See J.A. at 50. In a letter dated August 18, the FEC granted both requests. It gave the Committee until August 27 to produce the telephone records, after which "[a] final calculation of the Committee's repayment obligation will be made," J.A. at 51 (emphasis added). Repayment of that obligation would be "due no later than November 6, 1981." Id.
10
In a letter dated August 19, and therefore probably sent before the Committee received the FEC's letter granting the two requests for extensions, the Committee outlined its own view of the repayment timetable. First, the Committee pointed out that although the FEC's July 7, 1981 letter claimed to be a "final determination" pursuant to 11 C.F.R. § 9038.2(c), it could not be final until the interstate telephone expense data, which had been sent recently to the FEC, were "confirmed and subtracted from the interim repayment total ... of July 7th." J.A. at 52. Second, the Committee asserted that the 90-day repayment period should begin only after "all pending matters in connection with the underlying Report are resolved." J.A. at 53. The Committee explained that pending matters included not only the deduction of the long distance telephone charges, but also the Committee's appeal of its FOIA request for the FEC General Counsel's report on audit issues. Third, the Committee stated that it intended to make another filing with the FEC for reconsideration of the "proposed audit findings," including "the Committee's purported repayment liability." Id.
11
There is no evidence in the record that the FEC replied to the Committee's declaration of procedural independence. However, on October 27, 1981, the FEC notified the Committee that its long distance telephone documentation had been accepted and that the total repayment amount due was $104,300.78--the amount that the Committee now challenges. See J.A. at 55-56.
12
On December 10, 1981, the Committee sent a letter to the FEC concerning repayment terms. The letter noted that the Committee had already tendered $75,000.00 to the FEC, but that it "seriously dispute[d]" any additional amount. Then, and for the first time in any materials in the record, the Committee made the core assertion of this appeal:
13
[E]ven if it is assumed that a certain amount ... was improperly spent, we believe that the proper repayment obligation should reflect only that portion of the amount in question which is attributable to Federal matching funds. See 26 U.S.C. 9038(b)(2).
14
J.A. at 60. The next paragraph of the letter "offers" the FEC the Committee's repayment plan:
15
[W]e are prepared to tender to the [FEC] the balance in dispute ..., provided that the [FEC] agrees that we retain the right to continue to contest issues arising out of the audit determination, and provided further that the [FEC] agrees to certify for payment to our Committee any amounts which are finally determined not to have been owed by us in connection with the audit.
16
Id.
17
On February 4, 1982, the FEC provided an ambiguous reply. The FEC "agree[d] that repayment by the Committee of the full amount determined by the [FEC] to be repayable will not substantively moot any disputed issues involved in the [FEC's] repayment determination." J.A. at 61. But the FEC stated that it did "not waive any substantive or procedural rights with regard [229 U.S.App.D.C. 5] to any action which may be taken later by the Committee concerning repayment." Id. Finally, however, the FEC stated that it "also agrees that pending final administrative or judicial resolution of the issues in dispute the Committee may make repayment with the understanding that any amount of that repayment later deemed in excess of the requirements of Section 9038(b) will be paid to the Committee." Id. (emphasis added).
18
On February 25, the Committee tendered $15,000.00 to the FEC (raising the total paid to $90,000.00). It wrote that "in accordance with the agreement embodied in our exchange of correspondence," repayment would "not substantively moot any disputed issues," and that the Committee could repay " 'pending final administrative or judicial resolution of the issues in dispute' " without waiving a right to a refund of excess payments. See J.A. at 62.
19
The next communication from the FEC to the Committee in the record is dated June 10, 1982. It recounts that in January 1982, the Committee "presented to the [FEC] ... a package of twelve letters and report amendments which, according to the [FEC's] Audit Division, represented a proposal by the [Committee] to reduce its outstanding [repayment] obligations." J.A. at 65.5 The FEC letter then explains that this submission was "out of time," and that FEC regulations do not provide for accepting "additional documentation after a final repayment determination." Id. at 66. In the course of this explanation, the FEC notes the procedural framework for agency review that was noticeably absent from its February 4 letter. It reminds that: the FEC made its "final determination" on repayment in July 1981; the notification was accompanied by the required written statement of reasons; the Committee sought and received a 90-day extension for repayment, making it due by November 6, 1981; and the Committee received notification on November 2, 1981 [presumably the Oct. 27, 1981 letter], that the repayment amount had been reduced because the Committee had documented specific telephone charges as identified in the FEC's final determination. See id. at 65-66. In closing, the FEC added that it had not altered its previous decision to deny the Committee an oral hearing. See id. at 66.
20
On June 22, the Committee wrote the FEC that it understood that "all agency action with respect to the [FEC's] audit ... is now complete," and asked to be informed if this assumption was incorrect. J.A. at 67. On July 6, 1982, the Committee filed this petition for review of the FEC's action.
II. ANALYSIS
21
The first issue is whether we have jurisdiction. According to 26 U.S.C. § 9041(a),6 a party must file a petition for review in this court "within 30 days after the agency action by the [FEC] for which review is sought." This statutory time limit is "jurisdictional and unalterable." Cities of Batavia, Naperville v. FERC, 672 F.2d 64, 72-73 (D.C.Cir.1982) (footnote omitted) (60-day time limit to petition for review of an order under the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. § 825l (b), is jurisdictional). See also Fed. [229 U.S.App.D.C. 6] R.App.P. 26(b) (a court may not enlarge the time prescribed by law for filing a petition from an order of an agency except as specifically authorized by law); Pennsylvania v. ICC, 590 F.2d 1187, 1192-93 (D.C.Cir.1978) (60-day time limit to petition for review of a final order under the Hobbs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2344, is jurisdictional).7
22
To determine which FEC actions may be "subject to review" (and thus trigger the jurisdictional time limit), we look to 26 U.S.C. § 9041(b). First, that subsection incorporates the definition of "agency action" in 5 U.S.C. § 551(13), to "include[ ] the whole or a part of an agency rule, order, license, sanction, relief, or the equivalent or denial thereof, or a failure to act." Certainly the FEC action challenged by the Committee--the calculation of the Committee's repayment obligation--qualifies under that definition.8 Second, § 9041(b) also instructs that 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706 establish the procedures for judicial review of FEC "agency action." Under that chapter, judicial review is limited to "final agency action" unless the preliminary action has been made "directly reviewable." 5 U.S.C. § 704;9 see FTC v. Standard Oil Co., 449 [229 U.S.App.D.C. 7] U.S. 232, 238, 101 S.Ct. 488, 492, 66 L.Ed.2d 416 (1980). Therefore, the crucial question in this case is: When did this agency action become final so as to trigger the 30-day period in which the Committee had to petition for review?
23
The FEC contends that its July 7, 1981 letter--which informed the Committee of the FEC's "final determination" of the Committee's repayment obligation, subject only to subtractions for certain documented phone calls--was final agency action for purposes of judicial review. The FEC argues that the finality of its July action was not undermined by the Committee's opportunity to reduce minimally the amount owed through "mechanical[ly]" documenting some phone calls. Government's Brief at 13 n. 14. The FEC also points out that even this adjustment was completed in October 1981.10 The Committee responds that the repayment determination was not final for purposes of judicial review until June 10, 1982--the date of the FEC letter that rejected additional documents from the Committee and denied again the Committee's request for an oral hearing.
24
The Supreme Court recently discussed "final agency action" in some detail in FTC v. Standard Oil Co., 449 U.S. 232, 101 S.Ct. 488, 66 L.Ed.2d 416 (1980) (relying heavily on Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967)). First, the Court in Standard Oil noted that " '[t]he cases dealing with judicial review of administrative actions have interpreted the 'finality' element in a pragmatic way' " and taken a " 'flexible view' " of the matter. 449 U.S. at 239-40, 101 S.Ct. at 493 (quoting 387 U.S. at 149-50, 87 S.Ct. at 1515-16).11 [229 U.S.App.D.C. 8] The Court then noted the indicia of finality on which it had relied in Abbott Laboratories: the administrative action challenged should be a " 'definitive' statement[ ]" of an agency's position; the action should have a " 'direct and immediate ... effect on the day-to-day business' of the complaining parties"; the action should have " 'the status of law' "; " 'immediate compliance with the[ ] terms [should be] expected' "; and the question should be a legal one " 'fit for judicial resolution.' " 449 U.S. at 239-40, 101 S.Ct. at 493 (quoting 387 U.S. at 151-54, 87 S.Ct. at 1516-19).12
25
Although less detailed than Standard Oil, the Supreme Court's explanation of the finality doctrine in Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass'n v. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U.S. 62, 91 S.Ct. 203, 27 L.Ed.2d 203 (1970), is significant because, like the case before us, it involved the application of a jurisdictional time limit for petitions for review. In Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, a shipper attempted to attack collaterally a Federal Maritime Commission ("FMC") order that it had not appealed; one of the shipper's arguments was that the FMC order was not final because "it had no independent effect on anyone." Id. at 70-71, 91 S.Ct. at 209-10. The Court, however, found that the FMC's order was indeed final, and that the shipper had missed its opportunity to seek review in the court of appeals within the statutory 60-day time limit. Id. at 71-72, 91 S.Ct. at 209-10. It explained that:
26
[T]he relevant considerations in determining finality are whether the process of administrative decision-making has reached a stage where judicial review will not disrupt the orderly process of adjudication and whether rights or obligations have been determined or legal consequences will flow from the agency action.
27
Id. at 71, 91 S.Ct. at 209. (emphasis added) (citations omitted).13
28
If we are to interpret finality in a "pragmatic" fashion, however, we need to consider whether finality should be analyzed differently when the determination forecloses review altogether rather than merely delays the appeal. In most finality cases the question is whether a party can appeal an agency action now or must wait until some subsequent agency action occurs. Thus, in Abbott Laboratories, the Court introduced its analysis of ripeness--of which its discussion of finality was a part--by explaining that it had "to evaluate both the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration." 387 U.S. at 149, 87 S.Ct. at 1515 (emphasis added). Here, on the other hand, we must balance the FEC's interest in prompt review of a final repayment obligation against the hardship to the Committee from foreclosing its right to judicial review of that final obligation. The Committee claims that it was only trying to [229 U.S.App.D.C. 9] exhaust the administrative process, to avoid rushing to court, and that by cutting off its right to review altogether we ill-serve the interests underlying the finality doctrine because we create an incentive to petition prematurely.
29
Yet, so far as we can tell, the different consequences of finality determinations in these two situations have not led courts to devise different criteria for assessing when agency action is final. Cf. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U.S. at 70-72, 91 S.Ct. at 209-10. This seems reasonable: Insofar as a finality determination establishes a point on the time line of an administrative process, that point should signal if an appeal is too late as well as if one is too early. It is logical that when Congress created time limits in which to appeal, such as the 30-day period here, it wanted the time to run from the first day a party is presumed to know it may file a petition for review. If we instead found that there was some interlude between the earliest date a petition may be filed and the date from which to start counting the 30-day period, we would undermine the very purpose of Congress' statutory time limit. Moreover, the criteria for evaluating the finality of agency action should be suitable for providing notice both to parties who are eager and waiting to appeal, and to parties who want to continue discussions with an agency up to the last minute.
30
We now apply the Court's guidance on finality to the FEC's calculation of the Committee's repayment obligation. We conclude, as explained below, that the repayment obligation became final for purposes of judicial review no later than October 27, 1981. Indeed, the FEC has a cogent argument that its repayment determination of July 7, 1981, started the 30-day period running, even though the final dollar figure was dependent on the documentation and subtraction of certain telephone calls.14 We need not select between July 7 and October 27 (when the adjustment for phone calls was completed), however, because the date the Committee eventually filed its petition (July 6, 1982) was long past the 30-day period triggered by either time.
31
Our evaluation of when the repayment determination became final is based on an examination of how the audit process was performed and whether it produced a result that satisfies the Court's tests for finality. We believe that the FEC regulations outline a clear process for determining a definitive repayment obligation that has the status of law, and that the FEC took pains to explain each step as it moved toward final administrative resolution of the issues on which the Committee might seek judicial review.15
32
[229 U.S.App.D.C. 10] Under the regulations in effect at the time, see 11 C.F.R. § 9038.1 (1982), the administrative review process began with an audit of a committee's campaign expenses. The FEC divided the audit process into interim and final audit reports to give committees an opportunity to respond before any repayment determination was made and released to the public.16 The FEC sent the Committee the interim report on November 7, 1980, and the Committee submitted responses on December 1 and 10.
33
The next step was the FEC's release of its formal "Report of the Audit Division" on January 19, 1981. At that time the FEC explained to the Committee where it stood in the regulatory process: The FEC's audit had resulted in a repayment determination under 26 U.S.C. § 9038(b) and 11 C.F.R. § 9038.2, but under id. § 9038.2(b) the Committee had 30 more days for another reply before the FEC would make a final determination. Again, the Committee responded with detailed comments. The Committee also wanted more time and an oral hearing, which had once been but was no longer available under FEC regulations. When the FEC communicated its denial of these requests on June 12, 1981, it again delineated the Committee's progress through the process: Under id. § 9038.2(e) the Committee would have 20 days to pay (with a possible 90-day extension) after the FEC's "final determination."
34
About a month later (July 7) and eight months after the FEC gave the Committee its interim audit report, the FEC made its final repayment determination. An agency's characterization of finality is not necessarily decisive.17 But in this case the characterization fits neatly a pattern of agency action indicating the FEC had completed its process and imposed a formal repayment obligation on the Committee. The FEC's July 7 letter pointed out that the determination was pursuant to id. § 9038.2(c), included the FEC's reasons as required by id. § 9038.2(d), and noted that the timetable for repayment was set by id. § 9038.2(e). The only way a reduction in the sum owed could be achieved was through the ministerial task of providing documentation for a select set of phone calls. This one avenue for adjustment was left open because in the final negotiations the FEC accepted an argument as to the status of these calls. There was no indication that this minor concession in any way represented a reopening of full-scale discussions about what were "qualified campaign expenses." At this point the FEC clearly expected the Committee to repay matching funds equal in amount to the nonqualified expenses--all the repayment figures produced by the FEC were calculated this way. Nothing in the record over the eight month audit period suggests that the Committee [229 U.S.App.D.C. 11] contested the FEC's interpretation of 26 U.S.C. § 9038(b)(2) or advocated the different type of repayment calculation that it now advances.
35
In sum, we conclude that the FEC's process was designed to arrive at exactly the type of final action that is ready for judicial review. Application of the Standard Oil-Abbott Laboratories criteria and the Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic principles reaffirms that the process in fact produced a final agency action. The repayment amount, including a reasoned explanation about how the FEC arrived at it, is indeed a "definitive statement" of obligation that the FEC is directed to make by statute. Because the administrative review process was complete, judicial review of the determination of obligation certainly could not disrupt the FEC's decisionmaking. The fact that money was supposed to be repaid to the U.S. Treasury within 20 days (with a possible 90-day extension) certainly created a "direct and immediate effect" and the expectation of "immediate compliance." Since this calculation is mandated by 26 U.S.C. § 9038, it also has "the status of law." Moreover, the legal question the Committee wants us to answer--how much of the nonqualified expenses must it repay under id. § 9038--was "fit for judicial resolution" after the FEC's final determination.18 Finally, Congress has expressed a strong interest in resolving federal matching fund audits expeditiously.19
36
The Committee seeks to dissuade us from this conclusion by arguing that this case is similar to those where courts have preserved an appeal right by concluding that agency action is not final because the "agency [left] room for genuine and reasonable doubt as to the applicability of its orders or regulations." Recreation Vehicle Industry Ass'n v. EPA, 653 F.2d 562, 569 (D.C.Cir.1981). In Recreation Vehicle, EPA "left unclear the applicability of its truck regulations to the motor home industry." Id. at 568. This court would not permit EPA to "take advantage of the obscurity of intentions in order to defeat rights statutorily conferred," where the party claiming jurisdiction made a prompt request for clarification that lent credence to its claim that it was confused about the applicability of the regulations. Id.
37
Sam Rayburn Dam Electric Cooperative v. FPC, 515 F.2d 998 (D.C.Cir.1975), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 907, 96 S.Ct. 2229, 48 L.Ed.2d 832 (1976), involved a similar problem. In Sam Rayburn Dam, the first of two FPC orders was unclear about whether petitioner's rates would be materially affected, and therefore the petitioner did not move for reconsideration until the second order revealed it would in fact be "aggrieved." [229 U.S.App.D.C. 12] The court recognized that petitioner's claim of confusion was reasonable, it had nothing to gain from delaying its protest, and its "speedy filing of an application for rehearing" after it knew it was aggrieved was significant evidence of good faith. 515 F.2d at 1007. The court did not want to:
38
permit an administrative agency to enter an ambiguous or obscure order, wilfully or otherwise, wait out the required time, then enter an "explanatory" order that would extinguish the review rights of parties prejudicially affected.
39
Id.
40
The Committee urges that there is analogous confusion here that undermines any finding of final action before June 1982. It contends that the FEC's "final repayment determination" (of either July or October, 1981) could not have been final agency action because the FEC itself did not seem to treat it as such. In particular, the Committee points to the ambiguous letter of February 4, 1982, sent in response to the Committee's proposal for repayment terms. This letter sought both to preserve the FEC's "substantive or procedural rights" and to reassure the Committee that it could get its money back after "final administrative or judicial resolution of the issues in dispute." J.A. at 61. It is, of course, possible to read the FEC's reference to judicial review (even though under the FEC's argument the 30-day period for petitioning for review had already run) as simply a recognition that the Committee had a right to seek judicial review--even if it only culminated in a decision that the court did not have jurisdiction. The FEC has never satisfactorily explained what it had in mind when it referred to final administrative resolution.
41
Nonetheless, we conclude for a number of reasons that the FEC's actions here, and its February 4, 1982 letter in particular, do not warrant any adjustment in our finding that the repayment obligation was final for purposes of review by October 1981. First, the February 4 letter could not possibly have influenced the Committee's decision to appeal within 30 days of the FEC's "final determination" in July 1981 or its final calculation in October 1981 because it was sent long afterwards. Second, the FEC's actions prior to the February 4 letter (and after it, too) followed closely the FEC's audit and repayment assessment process, as set out in its regulations; there was no reason for the Committee to be confused about what was happening during the eight month administrative review of 1980-81 that culminated in the FEC's statement about the Committee's "final" repayment obligation. Third, the FEC's final repayment determination, unlike the agency actions in Recreation Vehicle and Sam Rayburn Dam, made it crystal clear that the FEC had imposed an obligation and that the Committee was supposed to pay it; this was not a situation where the scope of regulations was unclear or the application of an order was ambiguous. Fourth, while we can only speculate on whether the Committee was trying to reorder the audit and repayment process to its own end, the Committee's actions surely did not approximate the prompt request for clarification in Recreation Vehicle or the speedy action to remedy the late filing in Sam Rayburn Dam. The Committee did not even raise the legal question about the portion of nonqualified expenses it must repay until December 1981, and its communications regarding the repayment process read more like pronouncements than inquiries. Fifth, we note that even the FEC's February 4 letter warned that the agency was not forfeiting any procedural or substantive rights.
42
True, the FEC's enigmatic statements in the February 4 letter were an ill-concocted blend of boilerplate and courtesy in the face of the Committee's insistent efforts to establish its own audit and repayment process through unilateral declarations. If Congress' time limits on petitions for review are to have any jurisdictional bite, however, petitioners should not be allowed to overrun them by barraging an agency with missives on its own theories of how the administrative process should operate. The FEC's faltering response, made after the time for appeal had run, does not by itself provide a sufficient justification to stop the statutory [229 U.S.App.D.C. 13] clock. See Boston Gas Co. v. FERC, 575 F.2d 975, 978-79 (1st Cir.1978).
III. CONCLUSION
43
We have no jurisdiction to review the FEC's final repayment determination because the Committee failed to file its petition for review "within 30 days after the agency action by the [FEC] for which review is sought," 26 U.S.C. § 9041(a); therefore, the Committee's petition is
44
Dismissed.
*
Sitting by designation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 294(d)
1
The Committee proposes that the FEC calculate the amount of federal funds spent on nonqualified expenses by computing the ratio of federal matching funds to total campaign funds and then applying that ratio to the amount of nonqualified expenses. (E.g., if 25% of a committee's funds were from federal matching payments and the committee had $2000 of nonqualified campaign expenses, then the committee would repay $500 to the government.) This is the repayment approach Congress designed for a committee that has a surplus. 26 U.S.C. § 9038(b)(3)
2
The Presidential Primary Matching Payment Account Act ("the Act"), enacted in 1974, provides matching funds for some contributions to presidential primary election campaigns. Candidates who meet the eligibility requirements of 26 U.S.C. § 9033 are entitled to matching funds to help pay for "qualified campaign expenses," see id. § 9032(9). Under id. § 9035, campaign expenditures are not "qualified" if they exceed certain spending limits, which include both an overall campaign spending ceiling as well as limits on campaign expenditures in each state. Campaign expenditures over these limits create a repayment obligation under id. § 9038(b)(2). Most of the disagreements between the FEC and the Committee during the audit and repayment calculation process involved the assignment of expenses against state limits
3
The Committee sought an extension of time in which to reply to the FEC's final audit report (which formed the basis for the initial repayment determination) because it wanted to comment further after examining the FEC General Counsel's memorandum on the audit report. After being denied access to the General Counsel's paper, the Committee had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for it on February 13, 1981. See J.A. at 24, 34
4
It is not clear from the record when the Committee first requested an oral hearing. In the Committee's February 18, 1981 response, it complained that the FEC's regulations used to contain a provision for a hearing on the repayment determination and asserted that such a hearing was justified now even though the "new" regulations no longer contained an "explicit hearing right." See J.A. at 34-35 (citing 11 C.F.R. § 134.2(b) (1979), superseded on May 7, 1979)
On April 30, 1981, counsel for the various presidential candidate committees sent a joint letter to the FEC urging it to change a number of its policies, including its denial of opportunity for oral hearings. See J.A. at 74-80. The FEC treated this joint letter as a general comment on its procedures, not as a filing in any one case, and sent a general response on May 14. See J.A. at 71-73.
As noted in the text, the FEC notified the Committee by letter of June 12, 1981, that it had denied the Committee's request for an oral hearing. This notice was sent almost a month before the FEC's "final determination" of the Committee's repayment obligation. Thus, there was no reason for the Committee to believe it need not file a petition for review of the "final determination" because of the possibility of a future oral hearing. The FEC's decision two years later to provide an opportunity for an oral presentation in its regulations does not excuse the Committee's delay here. See 48 Fed.Reg. 5224, 5249, 14347, 16237 (1983) (effective Apr. 4, 1983) (to be codified at 11 C.F.R. § 9038.2(c)(3)).
5
The Committee apparently proposed to convert payments it owed former Committee personnel into in-kind contributions or exempt travel expenses. It then hoped to convince the FEC that these amounts should be subtracted from the expenditure totals for Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire because the amounts would no longer represent payments by the Committee. By reducing the totals spent in these three states, the Committee thought it could decrease the sum it spent over state expenditure limits by about $2,600 and thereby reduce its repayment obligation. See J.A. at 65
6
26 U.S.C. § 9041 states:
(a) Review of agency action by the Commission.--Any agency action by the Commission made under the provisions of this chapter shall be subject to review by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upon petition filed in such court within 30 days after the agency action by the Commission for which review is sought.
(b) Review procedures.--The provisions of chapter 7 of title 5, United States Code, apply to judicial review of any agency action, as defined in section 551(13) of title 5, United States Code, by the Commission.
7
The "Committee does not dispute that the 30-day filing period set forth in [s] 9041 is jurisdictional in nature." Committee's Reply Brief at 10. However, because we have an independent responsibility to examine jurisdictional issues, we also note why we believe the time limit in this case is distinguishable from a nonjurisdictional filing requirement like the one involved in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e). See Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, 455 U.S. 385, 392-98, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 1132-35, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982). In determining whether the filing requirement in Zipes was jurisdictional, the Court analyzed "[t]he structure of Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964], the congressional policy underlying it, and the reasoning of our cases." Id. at 393, 102 S.Ct. at 1132. The statutory structure is the key element here because we do not have any useful legislative history or case law with which to supplement it. Section 9041 includes both the grant of jurisdiction to this court and the time period for filing in this court; in contrast, Zipes points out that Title VII contains separate provisions that grant jurisdiction in the district courts and that specify the time for filing charges with the EEOC. 455 U.S. at 393-94, 102 S.Ct. at 1132-33. As this difference in statutory structure suggests, the statutes reflect different congressional policies. Title VII integrates the efforts of laymen who may be victims of discrimination, the EEOC, and the courts. The laymen initiate the process and the EEOC is available in part to provide support for meritorious claims. In contrast, § 9041, like the other jurisdictional time limits cited in text, prescribes judicial review procedures that follow a detailed administrative review process between two legally sophisticated parties (a campaign committee and the FEC)
8
The term order is further defined as "the whole or a part of a final disposition, whether affirmative, negative, injunctive, or declaratory in form, of an agency in a matter other than rule making but including licensing." 5 U.S.C. § 551(6)
The Supreme Court's notation in FTC v. Standard Oil Co., 449 U.S. 232, 238 n. 7, 101 S.Ct. 488, 492 n. 7, 66 L.Ed.2d 416 (1980), on the legislative history of the term "agency action," underscores our conclusion that the FEC's final repayment determination qualifies:
"The term 'agency action' brings together previously defined terms in order to simplify the language of the judicial-review provisions ... and to assure the complete coverage of every form of agency power, proceeding, action, or inaction. In that respect the term includes the supporting procedures, findings, conclusions, or statements or reasons or basis for the action or inaction."
Id. (quoting S.Doc. No. 248, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 255 (1946)).
9
5 U.S.C. § 704 makes judicial review available for two categories of agency action: "[a]gency action made reviewable by statute" and "final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court." While only the second category contains a reference to finality, we conclude, as explained below, that Congress also assumed that "[a]gency action made reviewable by statute" would be final action
The legislative history of § 704 reveals that Congress intended to codify existing law on judicial review of agency actions. See, e.g., Senate Judiciary Comm., Committee Print on the Administrative Procedure Act 27 (1945) ("1945 Sen. Print"), reprinted in Senate Judiciary Comm., 79th Cong., 2d Sess., Administrative Procedure Act: Legislative History 11, 37 (Comm. Print 1946) ("APA Leg.Hist."); S.Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 43 (1945) (Appendix B, Attorney General's Statement), APA Leg.Hist. at 185, 230; Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act 101 (1947) (Since the Department of Justice played a significant role in drafting the APA, its contemporaneous interpretation deserves "some deference," Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 546, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 1213, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978).). The existing law at that time included a court-imposed finality requirement as a prerequisite for judicial review. See Final Report of the Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure, Administrative Procedure in Government Agencies, S.Doc. No. 8, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. 85 (1941) ("Legislation which limits judicial review to 'final' orders merely enacts the self-imposed policy of the courts."); Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act 101, 102 (1947) ("Moreover, many regulatory statutes, either expressly or as they are interpreted, have provided for review of (and only of) 'final' agency orders, with the result that the judicial construction of such provisions will carry over ....") (emphasis added) (citation omitted).
We recognize that the finality mandate in § 704 is tempered with a caveat that Congress may decide to make a "preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action" "directly reviewable." We conclude, however, that Congress did not craft 26 U.S.C. § 9041 to fit that exception. The statutory language merely states that judicial review is available; it does not delineate a set of "directly reviewable" actions or include any language that might raise doubts about maintaining the finality requirement. Nothing in the legislative history of the APA suggests that a statute that simply states, as does § 9041(a), that any agency action is reviewable, has displaced the finality test. On the contrary, the Senate Judiciary Committee explained that one purpose of § 704 was "to negative any intention to make reviewable merely preliminary or procedural orders where there is a subsequent and adequate remedy at law available, as is presently the rule." 1945 Sen. Print 27, APA Leg.Hist. 37 (citations omitted). Moreover, the incorporation of the judicial review procedures of chapter 7 of title 5 through 26 U.S.C. § 9041(b) raises the inference that Congress expected the finality limitation of 5 U.S.C. § 704 to apply. Finally, we note that even if § 9041(b) did not refer to the judicial review procedures of the APA, courts commonly impose a finality requirement where statutes simply provide for judicial review of agency actions. See, e.g., Association of National Advertisers, Inc. v. FTC, 627 F.2d 1151, 1178 (D.C.Cir.1979) (Leventhal, J., concurring), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 921, 100 S.Ct. 3011, 65 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1980); Rombough v. FAA, 594 F.2d 893, 895 n. 4 (2d Cir.1979); Greene County Planning Bd. v. FPC, 455 F.2d 412, 425-26 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 849, 93 S.Ct. 56, 34 L.Ed.2d 90 (1972).
10
The FEC adjusted the amount the Committee was to repay on October 22, 1981, and notified the Committee of the reduction on October 27
11
In Abbott Laboratories, the Court found that "the publication of certain regulations by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs was ... final agency action subject to judicial review in an action for declaratory judgment brought prior to any Government action for enforcement." FTC v. Standard Oil Co., 449 U.S. at 239, 101 S.Ct. at 493. Abbott Laboratories relied in turn on United States v. Storer Broadcasting Co., 351 U.S. 192, 76 S.Ct. 763, 100 L.Ed. 1081 (1956) (FCC regulation stating that an applicant already owning five television licenses could not acquire another was final action; a specific license application need not be before the FCC); Frozen Food Express v. United States, 351 U.S. 40, 76 S.Ct. 569, 100 L.Ed. 910 (1956) (ICC order that specified commodities not within a statutory exemption was final action; carrier of nonexempt commodities who believed they should be exempt need not wait until the ICC took action against him); Columbia Broadcasting Sys. v. United States, 316 U.S. 407, 62 S.Ct. 1194, 86 L.Ed. 1563 (1942) (FCC regulation asserting that the agency would not license stations that maintained certain contracts was final action although no license had been denied or revoked)
12
After applying these indicia, the Court in Standard Oil concluded that the FTC's "issuance of a complaint averring reason to believe that [Standard Oil] has violated the [FTC] Act" was not "final agency action." 449 U.S. at 243-46, 101 S.Ct. at 494-96. Rather, the Court explained, the FTC's action was only a "threshold determination that further inquiry is warranted and that a complaint should initiate proceedings." Id. at 241, 101 S.Ct. at 493
13
The Court's consideration of whether an "obligation [has] been determined," certainly an important test for finality in this case, appears to be of long standing. See Chicago & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 112-13, 68 S.Ct. 431, 436-37, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948) ("[A]dministrative orders are not reviewable unless and until they impose an obligation, deny a right or fix some legal relationship as a consummation of the administrative process.") (citations omitted). Accord Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 680 F.2d 810, 815 (D.C.Cir.1982); Fidelity Television, Inc. v. FCC, 502 F.2d 443, 448 (D.C.Cir.1974) (per curiam); Air Calif. v. United States Dep't of Transp., 654 F.2d 616, 619-22 (9th Cir.1981)
14
Compare American Dairy of Evansville, Inc. v. Bergland, 627 F.2d 1252, 1260-61 (D.C.Cir.1980) (Administrative Law Judge's order denying requests for advance notice and termination of a retroactive notice provision was final even though he retained jurisdiction to allow the Secretary of Agriculture to take "corrective action" if desired) and Hattersley v. Bollt, 512 F.2d 209, 213-15 (3d Cir.1975) (district court's judgment that a party is a joint tortfeasor and liable in contribution to another is a final, appealable order even though the judgment does not assess the precise monetary amount owed; the judgment establishes parameters of liability and only a later ministerial act is required to implement the judgment) with Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. Benefits Review Bd., 535 F.2d 758, 760-61 (3d Cir.1976) (per curiam) ("well-established rule [for appeals from district courts] ... that where liability has been decided but the extent of damage remains undetermined, there is no final order" applies to administrative proceedings where the board remanded for nonministerial redetermination of amount of workers' hearing loss and amount of damages) (footnote omitted) and Wrist-Rocket Mfg. Co. v. Saunders Archery Co., 516 F.2d 846, 848-49 (8th Cir.) (court lacked jurisdiction to review the district court's determination of liability until the district court determined amount of damages), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 870, 96 S.Ct. 134, 46 L.Ed.2d 100 (1975)
15
We do not suggest that an agency's exhaustion of its administrative review process necessarily produces a final agency action fit for judicial review. See FTC v. Standard Oil Co., 449 U.S. at 243-45, 101 S.Ct. at 494-95 (exhaustion should not be mistaken for finality; an agency's refusal to reconsider action does not render it "definitive"). Rather, we emphasize the FEC's administrative process because it is clearly designed to produce a definitive obligation in accordance with 26 U.S.C. § 9038. The FEC's regulations, as well as the FEC's continual references to them throughout its repayment review, gave the Committee ample notice that the FEC intended to and did produce a final, reviewable action
16
Cf. Reagan Bush Comm. v. FEC, 525 F.Supp. 1330, 1334-35, 1338 (D.D.C.1981) (explaining the FEC's informal practice of using interim audits in its review of expenditures under the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act, 26 U.S.C. §§ 9001-9013, which provides for the financing of general election campaigns). The interim audit is now formally included in the regulations on the FEC's audit and repayment process. See 48 Fed.Reg. 5224, 5247-48, 14347, 16237 (1983) (effective Apr. 4, 1983) (to be codified at 11 C.F.R. § 9038.1)
17
See, e.g., Fidelity Television, Inc. v. FCC, 502 F.2d 443, 448 (D.C.Cir.1974) (per curiam) ("principle of finality in administrative law is not ... governed by the administrative agency's characterization of its action, but rather by a realistic assessment of the nature and effect of the order") (footnote and citations omitted); Isbrandtsen Co. v. United States, 211 F.2d 51, 55 (D.C.Cir.) (requirements of finality are not satisfied by agency's label), cert. denied, 347 U.S. 990, 74 S.Ct. 852, 98 L.Ed. 1124 (1954)
However, the fact that an agency's label for its action is not necessarily conclusive does not mean that the label is devoid of significance for a court. See Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. FPC, 506 F.2d 33, 39 & n. 20, (D.C.Cir.1974) ("Often the agency's own characterization of a particular order provides some indication of the nature of the announcement.") (citing Columbia Broadcasting Sys. v. United States, 316 U.S. 407, 416, 62 S.Ct. 1194, 1199, 86 L.Ed. 1563 (1942), which relied in part on the form of regulations in determining that they were subject to review); Pennzoil Co. v. FERC, 645 F.2d 394, 399 (5th Cir.1981) (FERC statement that an opinion is interlocutory and that it would be clarified later influences court's determination of finality).
18
Our conclusion that the FEC's determination of the Committee's repayment obligation was final agency action is buttressed in two respects by Reagan Bush Comm. v. FEC, 525 F.Supp. 1330 (D.D.C.1981). Reagan Bush Committee noted that under the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act, 26 U.S.C. §§ 9001-9013, the final repayment determination, which is the analogue to the FEC's July 1981 final repayment determination here, may be appealed to this court. Id. at 1335. We see no reason why the point of finality should differ for final repayment determinations under the primary and general election funding acts. Second, the district court issued its decision in Reagan Bush Committee on November 17, 1981--within 30 days of the FEC's notice of its final calculation of the repayment amount (October 27). The availability of this judicial statement on when a party may appeal an FEC final repayment decision tends to undermine any argument the Committee might make that it was unaware of the need to appeal
19
"Congress was troubled by the inability of the FEC to make prompt disclosure of the audit reports it prepared following the 1976 election, and it was this concern that ultimately prompted the [FEC] ... to streamline the audit process." Reagan Bush Comm. v. FEC, 525 F.Supp. 1330, 1341 (D.D.C.1981). Chairman Pell of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration expressed his frustration with the delays during hearings in 1978:
"[I]f [the audit report] is delayed this year and goes on another six months, another year, we are into another campaign before we are through with the ... campaign, so there is no purpose in the whole operation, because nobody is interested in history. And this will become history before we are through."
Id. (quoting Transcript of Proceedings, Senate Comm. on Rules and Administration, Mar. 15, 1978, at 14, 16).
|
Introduction {#sec1_1}
============
Hypertension (HT) is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and is closely related to adverse events such as stroke, myocardial infarction and cardiac failure \[[@B1]\]. Despite modern antihypertensive therapies, in 10-35% of HT patients, blood pressure (BP) remains high or is barely controlled with combination therapy \[[@B2]\]. These patients are classified as having resistant hypertension (RH) and have a higher risk of complications. Hyperactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) has been suggested as the major mechanism of RH \[[@B3]\].
Recent studies \[[@B4],[@B5],[@B6],[@B7]\] have revealed the correlation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D deficiency with various diseases such as coronary artery disease, heart failure, contrast-induced nephropathy and diabetes mellitus. Vitamin D receptors are broadly expressed by cardiovascular tissues such as endothelial cells, cardiomyocytes and vascular smooth muscle cells and play a role in renin gene expression \[[@B8],[@B9]\]. Although a few studies \[[@B10],[@B11]\] investigated 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in the HT population, the correlation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in patients with RH has not been studied before. Hence the objective of this study was to investigate the possible correlation between 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and RH.
Subjects and Methods {#sec1_2}
====================
Study Population {#sec2_1}
----------------
This is a cross-sectional prospective trial conducted at the Hypertension Outpatient Clinic of Okmeydanı Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey, from September 2013 to April 2014. In total, 150 subjects were included in the study. The participants were allocated to three groups: an RH group (n = 50), a controlled hypertension (CHT, n = 50) group and a normotensive (NT, n = 50) group.
The following data were collected: socio-demographic details, medical history, risk factors, family history, antihypertensive drugs and accompanying therapies (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, steroids and oral contraceptive pills). Non-compliance with therapy was assessed for each patient by pill count, patient self-report and also their relatives. Height (in metres) and body weight (in kilograms) were measured to calculate body mass index (BMI, kg/m^2^). A semiquantitative questionnaire adapted from the Cross-Cultural Activity Participation Study was used to classify the physical activity status of the subjects \[[@B12]\].
Exclusion criteria were secondary HT, any disease of bone metabolism, primary hyperparathyroidism, abnormal liver function (an elevation of transaminase level of more than 3 times the upper limit of normal), chronic kidney disease (estimated glomerular filtration rate, eGFR \<60 ml/min/1.73 m^2^), gastrectomy, intestinal malabsorption and cancer or vitamin D supplementation. The Institutional Ethics Committee approved the study according to the Declaration of Helsinki and written informed consent was obtained from all the participants.
Measurement of Office and Ambulatory BP {#sec2_2}
---------------------------------------
BP was measured in a quiet environment with a mercury sphygmomanometer with the patient in a sitting position after 5 min of rest. Systolic and diastolic BP were defined with Korotkoff phase I and V sounds, respectively. The mean of three different readings measured at 5-min intervals was recorded. For each patient, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM) were performed with a Contec PM50 device. ABPM were performed at 15-min intervals between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. and at 30-min intervals between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Subjects who had suboptimal BP control (\>140/90 mm Hg for office BP or \>135/85 mm Hg for mean ambulatory daytime BP) despite using 3 antihypertensive agents including a diuretic or need for 4 or more drugs to control BP were allocated to the RH group \[[@B2]\]. Patients who had office or mean ambulatory daytime BP below these values with 3 or less antihypertensive drugs were allocated to the CHT group. Patients who did not use any kind of anti-hypertensive drug and whose office BP and ambulatory BP were normal constituted the NT group. White-coat HT was defined as the occurrence of BP values higher than normal when measured in the medical environment, but within the normal range during daily life. Masked HT was defined as a clinical condition in which a patient\'s office BP level is \<140/90 mm Hg but ambulatory or home BP readings are in the hypertensive range. To exclude white-coat and masked HT, ABPM and office measurements were evaluated together.
Laboratory Evaluation {#sec2_3}
---------------------
For routine biochemical measurements, venous blood samples were obtained after 12-hour fasting. Serum vitamin D levels were measured using the high-performance liquid chromatography method and a Zivak ONH 100 A device. Values \<20 ng/ml (\<50 nmol/l) were considered very low, values between 21 and 29 ng/ml (51-74 nmol/l) were considered low, and values \>30 ng/ml (\>75 nmol/l) were considered normal \[[@B13]\]. Serum parathormone (PTH) levels were measured using radioimmunoassay technique and a level of 10-65 pg/ml was considered normal. The study was conducted during the winter season to minimize the effect of seasonal variation in 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels.
Statistical Analysis {#sec2_4}
--------------------
The continuous variables were expressed as means ± standard deviation for parameters with normal distribution and medians (interquartile range) for parameters without normal distribution, and categorical variables were expressed as numbers and percentages. Analysis of normality was performed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. ANOVA tests were used for the comparison of continuous variables between the three groups followed by Tukey\'s test. The χ^2^ test was used to compare categorical variables between the groups. Pearson\'s correlation was used to analyse the relationship between continuous variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the independent correlates of RH. A power analysis (GPower program) \[[@B14]\] was conducted with an effect size set to 0.25 (medium effect size), and the α level set to p \< 0.05. A total number of 146 subjects should be recruited to the study to reach an acceptable statistical power of 0.80. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to show the sensitivity and specificity of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and the optimal cut-off value for predicting RH. The SPSS 17.0 for Windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Ill., USA) software package was used in all analyses, and a two-sided p value \<0.05 was considered significant.
Results {#sec1_3}
=======
The demographic characteristics, BP measurements and medications used are summarized in table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}. The frequency of gender differences, age and BMI were not different between the study groups. The office systolic and diastolic BP, the ambulatory systolic and diastolic BP measurements were higher in the RH group (office: 137.7 ± 10.8/88.5 ± 14.1 mm Hg, ABPM: 132.3 ± 11.4/83.6 ± 12.1 mm Hg) than in CHT (office: 126.5 ± 6.8/72.5 ± 9.5 mm Hg, ABPM: 124.3 ± 5.2/74.3 ± 8.1 mm Hg) and NT groups (office: 125.8 ± 6.2/71.6 ± 8.2 mm Hg, ABPM: 118.2 ± 5.4/70.8 ± 6.3 mm Hg; p \< 0.001, p \< 0.001, p = 0.021 and p = 0.013, respectively). The mean number of anti-hypertensive drugs used was significantly higher in the RH group (3.9 ± 0.4) compared to the CHT group (1.72 ± 0.7, p \< 0.01). The use of an angiotensin receptor blocker, beta-blocker and diuretics in the RH group was significantly higher when compared to the CHT group \[angiotensin receptor blocker: 28 (56%) vs. 16 (32%), p = 0.013; beta-blocker: 30 (60%) vs. 18 (36%), p = 0.014; diuretic: 50 (100%) vs. 17 (34%), p \< 0.001, respectively; table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}\]. There was no statistical difference between RH and CHT groups regarding the frequency of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, calcium channel blocker, alpha-blocker, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and statin use. Patients in both RH and CHT groups were highly compliant with the medical therapy without a significant difference (98 vs. 96%, respectively, p = 0.55).
The biochemical parameters of the study groups are given in table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"}. The 25-hydroxyvitamin D level was significantly lower in the RH group compared to CHT and NT groups (17.02 ± 5.4, 24.9 ± 4.8, and 28.0 ± 5.7 ng/ml, respectively, p \< 0.001). PTH level was not statistically different between RH, CHT and NT groups (39.2 ± 9.8, 37.7 ± 8.1, and 38.8 ± 7.8 pg/ml, respectively, p = 0.652).
Univariate correlation analysis showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were negatively correlated with office systolic BP (r = −0.329, p \< 0.001), office diastolic BP (r = −0.395, p \< 0.001), systolic ambulatory BP (r = −0.844, p = 0.004), and diastolic ambulatory BP (r = −0.567, p = 0.005; table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}). However, 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were not significantly correlated with PTH levels (for RH, r = −0.268, p = 0.06; for CHT, r = −0.175, p = 0.195; for NT, r = −0.124, p = 0.319). Multivariate regression analysis showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels remained as the only independent correlate of RH in the study population (β 0.660, 95% CI 0.572-0.760, p \< 0.001; table [4](#T4){ref-type="table"}).
The ROC curve analysis performed to assess the predictive value of 25-hydroxyvitamin D for RH and using 21.50 ng/ml optimal cut-off value of 25-hydroxyvitamin D for RH gave a sensitivity of 78% and a specificity of 79% (AUC = 0.89, 95% CI 0.83-0.94; fig. [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}).
Discussion {#sec1_4}
==========
In this study, 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were significantly lower in patients with RH than in CHT and NT patients. In addition, patients with CHT had lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels than NT subjects. This relationship was observed regardless of age, BMI, PTH and calcium levels.
In this study, there was no significant correlation between PTH levels and RH but previous studies revealed that there was a relationship between either high serum PTH levels and/or elevated BP \[[@B15]\] and HT development \[[@B16],[@B17]\]. Therefore, our study is not in line with the studies which show secondary hyperparathyroidism as one of the reasons why vitamin D deficiency causes BP to increase. Our finding that lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are associated with RH independent of PTH levels confirmed those of previous studies \[[@B18],[@B19]\]. He and Scragg \[[@B18]\] reported an inverse correlation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and a positive correlation of PTH levels with systolic and diastolic BP. However, in multivariate regression analysis only PTH levels were found to be independently correlated with BP. He and Scragg \[[@B18]\] concluded that PTH may mediate most of the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and increase in BP. However, Zhao et al. \[[@B19]\] determined that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are associated with BP and incidence of HT and pre-HT independent of PTH measurements. In addition, an independent association of vitamin D levels with carotid intima media thickness has been shown, which was not present with PTH levels \[[@B20]\]. There are also some factors that influence PTH levels such as daily intake of calcium, phosphate and sodium. However, it is hard to investigate the effect of these parameters on PTH levels and BP \[[@B21],[@B22]\].
RH worsens the prognosis of hypertensive patients, leading to higher rates of end organ damage such as left ventricular hypertrophy, microalbuminuria, kidney failure, endothelial dysfunction, carotid artery stiffness, and atherosclerosis \[[@B23]\]. Pathophysiology and precipitating factors of RH have not been clearly established \[[@B24]\], but it is believed that the pathophysiology is multifactorial and RAS plays a major role. Overactivation of the RAS and aldosterone production is generally recognized in severe HT and in the accelerated phase of HT \[[@B25]\]. Salt- and volume-independent RAS up-regulation (detected as increased levels of renin and angiotensin II levels) and cardiac hypertrophy were determined in vitamin D receptor-null mice \[[@B26]\]. However, in the same study, a stimulation of renin expression in cells either treated with PTH or transfected with the PTH receptor was not observed. Similarly, the independent effect of vitamin D on RAS in humans has been shown by Forman et al. \[[@B27]\]: lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were associated with increased levels of angiotensin II and inadequate response of renal blood flow to angiotensin II in a population of NT subjects with strictly controlled dietary conditions. In several cross-sectional studies, a negative correlation between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and BP has been shown \[[@B11]\]. In some prospective trials, lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were found to be an independent predictor of HT after adjustment for the confounding factors such as demographic properties and PTH levels \[[@B10],[@B28]\]. This association could partially explain the pathophysiology of the association of lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and RH.
Despite broad epidemiological data that describe the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and arterial HT \[[@B29]\], it is still not clear whether or not vitamin D status has an influence on the therapeutic reduction of BP. Beneficial effects of vitamin D supplementation on vascular health especially in diabetic patients have been reported.
In a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, a single large dose of vitamin D (100,000 IU vitamin D~2~) significantly decreased systolic BP by 14 mm Hg compared with placebo \[[@B30]\]. Witham et al. \[[@B31]\] have shown that a higher dose of vitamin D~3~ (200,000 IU) is associated with better lowering of systolic BP when compared with a lower dose of vitamin D~3~ (100,000 IU) and placebo in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, it is not clear whether vitamin D supplementation is beneficial in the general population for the treatment of HT.
The limitations of our study include its cross-sectional design with a relatively small sample size and the fact that data regarding the therapeutic use of vitamin D supplementation in HT patients could not be obtained. Also, the daily intake of calcium and phosphate, which may influence vitamin D and PTH levels, was not investigated.
Conclusion {#sec1_5}
==========
In this study, there was an independent correlation between lower levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and the presence of RH. Although it is hard to explain the pathophysiological mechanism of RH and 25-hydroxyvitamin D deficiency, our findings support previous studies about the possible clinical use of vitamin D deficiency and development of HT. Further studies are warranted to investigate the therapeutic use of vitamin D supplementation in patients with RH.
Disclosure Statement {#sec1_6}
====================
None.
{#F1}
######
General characteristics of RH, CHT and NT groups
RH (n = 50) CHT (n = 50) NT (n = 50) p
---------------------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- ---------
Age, years 60.8 ± 8 62.06 ± 8 61.2 ± 7 0.744
Female/male, n (%) 28 (56)/22 (44) 30 (60)/20 (40) 27 (54)/23 (46) 0.827
BMI 27.01 ± 2.9 27.4 ± 2.6 26.8 ± 2.8 0.524
Systolic BP (office), mm Hg 137.7 ± 10.8 126.5 ± 6.8 125.8 ± 6.2 \<0.001
Diastolic BP (office), mm Hg 88.5 ± 14.1 72.5 ± 9.5 71.6 ± 8.2 \<0.001
Systolic BP (ABPM), mm Hg 132.3 ± 11.4 124.3 ± 5.2 118.2 ± 5.4 0.021
Diastolic BP (ABPM), mm Hg 83.6 ± 12.1 74.3 ± 8.1 70.8 ± 6.3 0.013
Physical activity (MET-min/week) 7.1 ± 2.5 7.7 ± 2.6 7.4 ± 2.4 0.528
Medications, n (%)
ACEI 39 (78) 34 (68) 0.184
ARB 28 (56) 16 (32) 0.013
Beta-blocker 30 (60) 18 (36) 0.014
CCB 29 (58) 20 (40) 0.191
Alpha-blocker 13 (26) 6 (12) 0.062
Diuretic 50 (100) 17 (34) \<0.001
Statin 7 (14) 9 (18) 0.393
NSAID 16 (32) 15 (30) 0.5
Values are presented as means ± SD unless specified otherwise. ACEI = Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor; ARB = angiotensin receptor blocker; CCB = calcium channel blocker; MET = metabolic equivalent of task; NSAID = non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
######
Biochemical parameters of RH, CHT and NT groups
RH (n = 50) CHT (n = 50) NT (n = 50) p
---------------------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- ---------
Glucose, mg/dl 80.3 ± 10 83.1 ± 11.4 82.2 ± 11.3 0.456
Creatinine, mg/dl 0.84 ± 0.09 0.85 ± 0.12 0.85 ± 0.11 0.777
eGFR, ml/min/1.73 m^2^ 89.3 ± 6.6 85.6 ± 5.7 87.5 ± 7.2 0.951
Phosphate, mg/dl 3.4 ± 0.6 3.3 ± 0.7 3.5 ± 0.6 0.412
Calcium, mg/dl 8.6 ± 0.7 8.4 ± 0.6 8.7 ± 0.7 0.096
Triglycerides, mg/dl 139 ± 38 151 ± 41 142 ± 34 0.432
HDL-C, mg/dl 49.7 ± 10.5 45.3 ± 11.6 46.5 ± 9 0.387
LDL-C, mg/dl 122 ± 24 127 ± 28 120 ± 29 0.491
Cholesterol, mg/dl 193.8 ± 31.2 207.8 ± 43.4 203.7 ± 50.3 0.673
PTH, pg/ml 39.2 ± 9.8 37.7 ± 8.1 38.8 ± 7.8 0.652
25-Hydroxyvitamin D, ng/ml 17.02 ± 5.4 24.9 ± 4.8 28.0 ± 5.7 \<0.001
\<20 ng/ml, n (%) 17 (34) 5 (10) 2 (4)
21--29 ng/ml, n (%) 28 (56) 29 (58) 26 (52)
\>30 ng/ml, n (%) 5 (10) 16 (32) 22 (44)
HDL-C = High-density lipoprotein cholesterol; LDL-C = low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.
######
Univariate correlates of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the study population
Variable r p
------------------------------- --------- ---------
Age (years) --0.053 0.519
BMI 0.151 0.65
Systolic BP (office) (mm Hg) --0.329 \<0.001
Diastolic BP (office) (mm Hg) --0.395 \<0.001
Systolic BP (ABPM) (mm Hg) --0.844 0.004
Diastolic BP (ABPM) (mm Hg) --0.567 0.005
eGFR (ml/min/1.73 m^2^) 0.2 0.425
Glucose (mg/dl) --0.084 0.305
Creatinine (mg/dl) 0.130 0.112
Calcium (mg/dl) 0.160 0.160
Phosphate (mg/dl) --0.124 0.131
PTH (pg/ml) --0.143 0.81
######
Independent predictors of RH in multivariate logistic regression analysis
Variable β 95% CI p
---------------------------------- ------- -------------- ---------
Age (years) 0.963 0.903--1.028 0.258
Sex 1.413 0.437--4.570 0.564
BMI 1.178 0.970--1.431 0.9
eGFR (ml/min/1.73 m^2^) 0.920 0.834--1.151 0.705
PTH (pg/ml) 0.985 0.923--1.051 0.646
25-Hydroxyvitamin D (ng/ml) 0.660 0.572--0.760 \<0.001
LDL-C (mg/dl) 1 0.978--1.023 0.985
Physical activity (MET-min/week) 0.871 0.688--1.102 0.249
Calcium (mg/dl) 1.367 0.806--2.318 0.246
Phosphate (mg/dl) 0.855 0.372--1.965 0.712
LDL-C = Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; MET = metabolic equivalent of task.
|
---
title: 'RECOGNITION OF MULTIPLE FOOD ITEMS IN A SINGLE PHOTO FOR USE IN A BUFFET-STYLE RESTAURANT'
---
We investigate image recognition of multiple food items in a single photo, focusing on a buffet restaurant application, where menu changes at every meal, and only a few images per class are available. After detecting food areas, we perform hierarchical recognition. We evaluate our results, comparing to two baseline methods.
image recognition, food recognition, food recording tool
Introduction {#sec:intro}
============
Nutrition management is very important in the health care industry [@Kim2016]. Nutritional intake is generally gauged via food records to help prevent lifestyle diseases (e.g., obesity and diabetes). A nutritionist, for example, promotes an individual’s health by providing specific advice based on the person’s lifestyle information. Manually recording food intake is, however, a burden over the long term. In this paper, we focus on the application in a buffet-style restaurant. We investigate food recognition of multiple food items in a single photo, and we integrate food localization and hierarchical recognition. An example of recognition of a photo with its multiple food items is shown in Fig. \[img:concept\].
In a standard image recognition task, detectors are generally used with classifiers trained by large quantities of fixed-class datasets. It is difficult, however, to apply conventional strategies to a buffet-style restaurant. First, the menu changes every meal, and only one or a few template images per dish are available. Then, the amount of data is insufficient to fine-tune food classifiers. Second, buffet users freely take dishes on a tray, and some foods, such as vegetables, are mixed in a single dish.
This paper first localizes dishes and performs hierarchical recognition, during which, food is first recognized as a single class. Then, specific food classes are selected and detailed for localization and recognition. We obtain food images for our experiments from the Japan Institute of Sports Sciences (JISS). We evaluate accuracy results per tray and the error of the amounts of nutritional value.
Our contributions are summarized below.
- We create a processing pipeline consisting of food-region detection and recognition of multiple food items in a single photo, focusing on buffet use, where most food items change at every meal. The buffet restaurant data consists of one or a few close-up pictures of each food item.
- We propose a hierarchical fine-grained recognition for specific categories of dishes, such as salads, to detect multiple items mixed on a plate.
- We collect photos from a real buffet restaurant over 10 days. Compared to baseline methods, which rely on single-class and multi-class recognition, the proposed method significantly improves performance.
- We evaluate the recognition performance from the perspective of nutritional values (e.g., energy, protein, lipid, and carbohydrates) and verify that the error is significantly reduced by our method, compared to the baselines.
![An example of the result of the food recognition[]{data-label="img:concept"}](concept.jpg){width="48.00000%"}
{width="95.00000%"}
Related Work
============
Food-image recognition using a fixed-class dataset has been very well studied [@Chen2009; @Matsuda2012; @Kawano2014; @Bossard2014; @kagaya2014; @Bolanos2016; @Martinel2016; @He2016]. Many studies trained food classifiers in a convolutional neural network using a fixed-class large food image dataset. Martinel et al. [@Martinel2016] used a Wide-Slice ResNet and achieved 89.6% for a 100-class dataset. Food image recognition accuracy in experimental environments is sufficiently high. However, it is not suitably high enough for our task, because the buffet restaurant menu changes at every meal, and only one or a few template images per dish are available.
Food image recognition using personal diet history has also been studied [@Aizawa2013; @Aizawa2015]. Aizawa et al.[@Aizawa2015] proposed a food retrieval system that searched input foods from the individual diet history using the nearest-neighbor (NN) search of image-feature vectors. Horiguchi et al. [@Horiguchi2018] investigated personalized food recognition using weighted NN recognition of common and personal food items. Yu et al. [@Yu2018] further extended personalized classifiers with weights optimized for food items and temporal changes. Whereas we do not consider the individuality of users in this paper, the NN classifier-based methodology, using a small number of templates, is similar.
Food recognition almost always uses datasets, but each photo contains only a single food item. For easier use of food recognition in daily life, it is desirable to recognize multiple food items in a single photo, where both food-region detection and food-item recognition can be applied.
The applicability of food-image recognition to restaurants has been well-studied [@Bettadapura2015] [@Beijbom2015] [@Herranz2017] [@Meyers2015]. These methods used location information, such as Global Positioning System, to identify a target restaurant from a list of multiple restaurants. Then, they used food classifiers corresponding to the target restaurant. Consequently, their conditions were different from those of our task.
![Examples of JISS-22 template images. The top is taken from a diagonal perspective and the other two are taken from directly above. Three photos exist for each food item.[]{data-label="img:template"}](template_image.jpg){width="48.00000%"}
Category Classes (food items)
--------------------- -----------------------------------------------------
Staple food Beef bowl, Cold udon, Rice ball, Carbonara
Rice and toppings Rice, Salted plum, Chili oil, Kelp tsukudani
Main dish Scrambled egg, Chicken Yawata roll
Mackerel of mirin marinated grilled
Side Dish Seasoned komatsuna, Boiled chiken, Oyaki
Salad Cabbage, Lettuce, Tomato, Broccoli, Paprika
Shredded radish, Macaroni salad, Edamame
Seaweed konjak salad
Soup stock Miso soup, Chinese corn soup
Fruits Pine, Pink grapefruit
Dessert Green tea roll cake, Salt lemon mousse cake
Others Coffee, Iced coffee, Barley tea, Green tea,
Processed soy milk, Natto, Egg, 6P cheese, Milk
Low-fat milk, Plain yogurt, Honey, Grapefruit juice
Orange juice, Tofu, Packaged furikake
: A list of food items for one meal used in our experiments. Food items except “others” change at every meal. We exclude seasonings and dressings (e.g., vinegar, sesame oil), because they are not well-visible.
\[meal\_example\]
Dataset {#sec:athlete_dataset}
=======
In this paper, we use two datasets: JISS for experiments and FoodLog App for training the detector and classifier.
JISS Dataset {#sub:athlete_dataset_jiss}
------------
We use real data obtained from the restaurant in JISS[^1]. We refer to this dataset as JISS-22. It shows 22 meal-data provided from August 1st through 10th, 2017 (i.e., 8 breakfasts, 7 lunches, and 7 dinners). About 50 items (dishes and foods) are provided at each meal. Most of items change at every meal. A list of dishes for one meal is shown in Table \[meal\_example\].
An item’s name is a class ($y$) to be recognized. A category is a set of related classes (e.g., salad category ($c$)) that contain classes of lettuce, tomato, etc. Each food item is associated with nutritional information, and nutrition taken by an individual per meal is computable by estimating its classes. In this paper, we use energy and three major nutrients (e.g., protein, lipids, carbohydrates). Three template images for each class are available. Examples of template images are shown in Fig. \[img:template\].
A user places various dishes on a tray from approximately 50 available items, and multiple dishes appear in each test image. Additionally, a salad dish often contains multiple classes, such as lettuce and tomato. The number of total test images is 195. Examples of JISS-22 test images are shown in Fig. \[img:concept\], where multiple dishes are placed on a tray.
JISS-22 only has annotations of food items for each photo and does not have bounding boxes of dishes. The average number of food items per photo is 11.0 and the standard deviation is 2.3. The frequency of the number of food items per photo of JISS-22 is shown in Fig. \[JISS22-freq\]. The number of food items does not equal to the number of dish plates because multiple food items are mixed in one plate such as salad.
![Frequency of number of food items per photo of JISS-22.[]{data-label="JISS22-freq"}](histogram-JISS22.jpg){width="48.00000%"}
Additionally, we use a different set of photos of the JISS buffet restaurant data taken during non-overlapping period of time to fine-tune the dish area detector (i.e., JISS-DET). JISS-DET consists of 304 images with bounding box annotations of dish areas. The average number of bounding boxes of dish areas is 6.7 and its standard deviation is 1.41. The frequency of number of bounding boxes per image of JISS-DET is shown in Fig. \[JISS-DET-freq\].
![Frequency of number of dish bounding boxes per photo of JISS-DET. []{data-label="JISS-DET-freq"}](histogram-JISS-DET.jpg){width="48.00000%"}
FoodLog Dataset {#sub:athlete_dataset_fl}
---------------
The JISS dataset is not large enough to train the detectors and classifiers. Therefore, we use the FoodLog Dataset (FLD), built with FoodLog App [@Aizawa2015] for training. We use data consisting of 450,066 images with rectangular annotation to train the dish area detector (i.e., FLD-DET).
We also use FLD-469, consisting of 234,500 images from FLD, representing 469 classes, each having 500 images for the classifier training. All images are resized to 256 x 256. We train the network with 469 classes, and we use deep features obtained from the last pooling layer.
Proposed Method
===============
We propose a framework of automatic food recognition for multiple food items in a single photo. We first localize dishes. Then, we perform hierarchical recognition, during which, food is recognized as a single class. Then, specific food classes are selected, and further detailed localization and recognition are performed. The entire processing pipeline is shown in Fig. \[img:athlete\_hierarchical\_flow\].
Because the menu changes at every meal, the template images are updated at each meal. Instead of training classifiers for every meal, we use deep features and apply NN searches on the template and target features. We take deep features, $x_{i}$, from the output of the last average pooling layer of ResNet 50, to which we apply L2-normalization. The NN of deep features works well for classification tasks when enough data is used for training the network [@Horiguchi2018; @Horiguchi2017].
The template images, $V_{m}$, are denoted by $$\label{eq:athlete_v}
V_{m}=\{(x_{i}, y_{i})|1 \leq i \leq N_{m}\},$$ where $y_ {i}$ and $x_{i}$ represent the class and feature vectors, respectively. $N_{m}$ is the total number of template images contained in the meal.
As shown in Fig. \[img:athlete\_hierarchical\_flow\], we input the test image and obtain dish-area candidates, $B_{i}(1\leq i \leq N_{B})$, by the dish area detector, where $N_{B}$ is the total number of dish-area candidates. Then, we extract deep features, $x_{Bi}$, for $ B_{i}$. The class, $y_{B_{i}}^{\ast}$, is estimated by the NN search, denoted by $$\label{eq:athlete_ybi}
y_{B_{i}}^{\ast} = \operatorname*{arg\,max}_{y \in Y} \{s(y, x_{B_{i}}, V_{m}) \},$$ where $Y$ is a set of classes included in $V_ {m}$. The similarity, $s(\cdot)$, an inner product, is denoted by $$\label{eq:athlete_s}
s(y, x_{B_{i}}, V_{m}) = \underset{x \in V_{y}}{\max} x^{T}x_{B_{i}},$$ where $V_ {y}$ represents vectors of the class, $y$. In our case, $V_ {y}$ contains at most three template vectors for each class, $y$.
The NN-based classification of features works for the condition of a small number of template images. We use it for a single-class recognition method. If the dish area contains only one food item, this single-class recognition is satisfactory. However, a food item, such as a vegetable, is almost always accompanied by several others in a salad dish.
We choose food items corresponding to specific categories (e.g., “salad”, “fruits”, “rice and toppings”) for the fine-detailed recognition in the dish area. Example of the three categories are shown in Table \[meal\_example\]. When the result of the single class recognition is in these specific categories - e.g. if the result of the single class recognition of a region is tomato, which is in salad category, the region is performed fine-grained recognition. Regions classified to food items included the three categories are further analyzed by fine-grained recognition.
The fine-detailed recognition is performed as follows. We generate object candidates, $B_ {i, j}$, within the area of $ B_ {i}$. In the experiments, we simply apply a sliding window to produce candidates. Then, we perform single-class recognition on each object candidate region, $B_ {i, j}$, and estimate the class, $y_{B_{i,j}} ^ {\ast}$. The estimation, $Y_{B_{i,j}} ^ {\ast}$, is accepted if the category of the class is the same as that of $B_ {i}$.
$$\label{eq:athlete_Ybi_detail}
Y_{B_{i}}^{\ast} = \{y_{B_{i,j}}^{\ast} \operatorname*{only\,if}c_{B_{i,j}}^{\ast} = c_{B_{i}}^{\ast},1 \leq j \leq N_{B'} \}.$$
In other words, in fine-grained recognition, we exclude classes whose categories are different from that estimated in the single-class recognition.
----------------------- --------------- -------------- ------------------
Single-class Multi-class **Hierarchical**
recognition recognition **recognition**
Precision **0.881** 0.741 0.821
Recall 0.591 0.722 **0.755**
F-measure 0.708 0.731 **0.787**
MAE Energy (kcal) 106 (13.8%) 152 (20.2%) **74 (9.4%)**
MAE Protein (g) 4.93 (11. 9%) 8.76 (21.0%) **4.04 (9.6%)**
MAE Lipid (g) 4.27 (16.3%) 6.77 (24.8%) **3.72 (14.3%)**
MAE Carbonhydrate (g) 14.0 (16.2%) 18.1 (22.6%) **8.98 (9.9%)**
----------------------- --------------- -------------- ------------------
: The results of food image recognition and nutrient estimation for JISS-22.
\[tab:athlete\_result\]
Experiment {#sec:athlete_exp}
==========
Implementation and Evaluation Metric {#sub:athlete_expe_eval}
------------------------------------
Regarding dish-area detection, we utilized SSD300[@Liu2016], trained using FLD-DET and fine-tuned with JISS-DET. Regarding feature extraction, we utilized pre-trained ResNet50 [@ResNet], which we fine-tuned with FLD-469.
To evaluate of the proposed method, we compared ours with two other baseline methods. One used single-class recognition, which is equivalent to the estimations of the first step of hierarchical recognition. The other was multi-class recognition, for which we calculated the similarity of classes in a dish area and estimated multiple classes by thresholding their similarity. The dish area detection method (i.e., SSD300) was the same for the proposal and the comparison methods.
Test data was JISS-22. For multi-class recognition, JISS-22 was divided into 1/3 and 2/3. We used 1/3 for optimization of threshold and 2/3 for testing. We experimented with cross validation.
The metrics used for evaluation were precision, recall, and F-measure of recognition and the mean absolute error (MAE) of nutritional information.
All the buffet dishes have their nutrition information. Assuming the amount of the dish is one serving size and summing all the dishes on a tray, we computed the total nutrition of the tray. We compared energy (kcal) between those of the recognized dishes and GT dishes. It shows influence of recognition accuracy from the point of view of energy (kcal) without considering variation of the amount. It may change when the serving size is changed - some of food items such as rise are self-served, and the real value can change.
![Distribution of GT values and estimated values of energy (kcal) in hierarchical recognition (sliding window).[]{data-label="img:athlete_calorie"}](calorie.jpg){width="45.00000%"}
![Examples of results by hierarchical recognition. Blue letters with check marks correspond to correct answers, and red letters with star marks correspond to incorrect answers. Black letters with parentheses are missing. The rectangles is the region of detailed recognition. []{data-label="img:athlete_hierarchical_example"}](examples-v3.jpg){width="48.00000%"}
Result {#sub:athlete_expe_result}
------
Table \[tab:athlete\_result\] shows the results of food-image recognition and nutrient estimation for JISS-22. Experimental results show that our approach achieved 0.79 as an F-measure and 74 kcal (9.4%) error in energy: significantly better than baseline methods without the hierarchical scheme.
Figure \[img:athlete\_calorie\] shows the distribution of GT values and the estimated values of energy (kcal) via hierarchical recognition. The correlation coefficient between the GT values and the estimated values was 0.92, which is sufficiently high.
Finally, we show the examples of results by hierarchical recognition in Fig. \[img:athlete\_hierarchical\_example\]. In Example 1, we see that multiple classes within the “salad” category on one dish were correctly estimated except “tomato” which is not very visible . We can see similar results with “fruit.”Example 2 shows a failure case, where detailed recognition of the salad dish did not work, because vegetable was not estimated by single-class recognition.
Conclusion
==========
In this paper, we proposed a framework of automatic food recognition, with a focus on a buffet-style restaurant. In our processing pipeline, we first localized dishes and performed hierarchical recognition, during which, food was recognized as a single class. Then, specific food classes were selected and further detailed. Additionally, localization and recognition were performed. We obtained food images from the JISS dataset for our experiments. We evaluated accuracy results per tray and the error in the amount of nutritional value. Experimental results using real data showed that our approach can achieve 0.79 in F-measure and 9.4% error in energy, significantly better than the baseline methods without the hierarchical scheme.
### ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS {#acknowledgements .unnumbered}
This work was partially supported by JST CREST JPMJCR1686 and JSPS KAKENHI 18H03254.
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[^1]: https://www.jpnsport.go.jp/jiss/
|
---
abstract: 'We consider the Schrödinger operator $H$ with a periodic potential $p$ plus a compactly supported potential $q$ on the half-line. We prove the following results: 1) a forbidden domain for the resonances is specified, 2) asymptotics of the resonance-counting function is determined, 3) in each nondegenerate gap $\g_n$ for $n$ large enough there is exactly an eigenvalue or an antibound state, 4) the asymptotics of eigenvalues and antibound states are determined at high energy, 5) the number of eigenvalues plus antibound states is odd $\ge 1$ in each gap, 6) between any two eigenvalues there is an odd number $\ge 1$ of antibound states, 7) for any potential $q$ and for any sequences $(\s_n)_{1}^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,1\}$ and $(\vk_n)_1^\iy\in \ell^2, \vk_n\ge 0$, there exists a potential $p$ such that each gap length $|\g_n|=\vk_n, n\ge 1$ and $H$ has exactly $\s_n$ eigenvalues and $1-\s_n$ antibound state in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough, 8) if unperturbed operator (at $q=0$) has infinitely many virtual states, then for any sequence $(\s)_1^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,1\}$, there exists a potential $q$ such that $H$ has $\s_n$ bound states and $1-\s_n$ antibound states in each gap open $\g_n$ for $n$ large enough.'
address: 'School of Math., Cardiff University. Senghennydd Road, CF24 4AG Cardiff, Wales, UK. email: KorotyaevE@cf.ac.uk'
author:
- Evgeny Korotyaev
title: 'Schrödinger operator with periodic plus compactly supported potentials on the half-line'
---
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Introduction and main results
=============================
Consider the Schrödinger operator $H$ acting in the Hilbert space $L^2(\R_+ )$ and given by $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{0}
H=H_0+q,\qqq
H_0f=-f''+p(x)f, \qq f(0)=0,\\
p\in L_{real}^1(\R/\Z),\qqq q\in \cQ_t=\{q: \ q\in L_{real}^2(\R_+), \ \sup ( \supp (q))=t\},\ t>0.\end{gathered}$$ The spectrum of $H_0$ consists of an absolutely continuous part $\s_{ac}(H_0)=
\cup_{n\ge 1} {\mathfrak{S}}_n$ plus at most one eigenvalue in each gap $\g_n\ne \es, n\ge 1$ ([@CL], [@E], [@Zh3]), where the bands ${\mathfrak{S}}_n$ and gaps $\g_n$ are given by (see Fig. 1) $${\mathfrak{S}}_n=[E^+_{n-1},E^-_n],\ \ \qq \g_{n}=(E^-_{n},E^+_n),\qqq n\ge 1,\qq
E_0^+<..\le E^+_{n-1}< E^-_n \le E^+_{n}<...$$ Let below $E_0^+=0$. The sequence $E_0^+<E_1^-\le E_1^+\ <\dots$ is the spectrum of the equation $$\lb{1}
-y''+p(x)y=\l y, \ \ \ \ \l\in \C ,$$ with the 2-periodic boundary conditions, i.e. $y(x+2)=y(x), x\in \R$. The bands ${\mathfrak{S}}_n, {\mathfrak{S}}_{n+1}$ are separated by a gap $\g_{n}$ and let $\g_0=(-\iy,E_0^+)$. If a gap degenerates, that is $\g_n=\es $, then the corresponding bands ${\mathfrak{S}}_{n} $ and ${\mathfrak{S}}_{n+1}$ merge. If $E_n^-=E_n^+$ for some $n$, then this number $E_n^{\pm}$ is the double eigenvalue of equation with the 2-periodic boundary conditions. The lowest eigenvalue $E_0^+=0$ is always simple and the corresponding eigenfunction is 1-periodic. The eigenfunctions, corresponding to the eigenvalue $E_{2n}^{\pm}$, are 1-periodic, and for the case $E_{2n+1}^{\pm}$ they are anti-periodic, i.e., $y(x+1)=-y(x),\ \ x\in\R$.
We describe properties the operator $\mH y=-f''+(p+q)y$ on the real line, where $p$ is periodic and and $q$ is compactly supported. The spectrum of $\mH$ consists of an absolutely continuous part $\s_{ac}(\mH)=\s_{ac}(H_0)$ plus a finite number of simple eigenvalues in each gap $\g_n\ne \es, n\geq 0$, see [@Rb], [@F1] and at most two eigenvalue [@Rb] in every open gap $\g_n$ for $n$ large enough. If $q_0=\int_\R q(x)dx\ne 0$, then $\mH$ has precisely one eigenvalue (see [@Zh1], [@F2], [@GS]) and one antibound state [@K4] in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough. If $q_0=0$, then roughly speaking there are two eigenvalues and zero antibound state or zero eigenvalues and two antibound states [@K4] in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough.
The spectrum of $H$ acting in $L^2(\R_+)$ consists of an absolutely continuous part $\s_{ac}(H)=\s_{ac}(H_0)$ plus a finite number of simple eigenvalues in each gap $\g_n\ne \es, n\geq 0$. Note that the last fact follows from the same result for $\mH$ and the splitting principle.
=1.00mm
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Let $\vp(x,z), \vt(x,z)$ be the solutions of the equation $-y''+py=z^2y$ satisfying $\vp'(0,z)=\vt(0,z)=1$ and $\vp(0,z)=\vt'(0,z)=0$, where $y'=\pa_x y$. The Lyapunov function is defined by $\D(z)={1\/2}(\vp'(1,z)+\vt(1,z))$. The function $\D^2(\sqrt \l)$ is entire, where $\sqrt \l$ is defined by $\sqrt 1=1$. Introduce the function $(1-\D^2(\sqrt \l))^{1\/2}, \l\in \ol\C_+$ and we fix the branch by the condition $(1-\D^2(\sqrt {\l+i0}))^{1\/2}>0$ for $\l\in {\mathfrak{S}}_1=[E^+_{0},E^-_1]$. Introduce the two-sheeted Riemann surface $\L$ of $(1-\D^2(\sqrt \l))^{1\/2}$ obtained by joining the upper and lower rims of two copies of the cut plane $\C\sm\s_{ac}(H_0)$ in the usual (crosswise) way. The n-th gap on the first physical sheet $\L_1$ we will denote by $\g_n^{(1)}$ and the same gap but on the second nonphysical sheet $\L_2$ we will denote by $\g_n^{(2)}$ and let $\g_n^c$ be the union of $\ol\g_n^{(1)}$ and $\ol\g_n^{(2)}$: $$\lb{sL}
\g_n^c=\ol\g_n^{(1)}\cup \ol\g_n^{(2)}.$$
It is well known that the function $f(\l)=((H-\l)^{-1}h,h)$ has meromorphic extension from the physical sheet $\L_1$ into the Riemann surface $\L$ for each $h\in C_0^\iy(\R_+), h\ne 0$. Moreover, if $f$ has a pole at some $\l_0\in \L_1$ and some $h$, then $\l_0$ is an eigenvalue of $H$ and $\l_0\in\cup \g_n^{(1)}$.
As a good example we consider the states of the operator $H_0$ for the case $p\ne \const , q=0$, see [@Zh3], [@HKS]. Let $f_0(\l)=((H_0-\l)^{-1}h,h)$ for some $h\in C_0^\iy(\R_+)$. It is well known that the function $f_0$ is meromorphic on the physical sheet $\L_1$ and has a meromorphic extension into $\L$. For each $\g_n^c\ne \es, n\ge 1$ there is exactly one state $\l_n^0\in \g_n^c$ of $H_0$ and its projection on the complex plane coincides with the Dirichlet eigenvalues $\m_n^2$. Moreover, there is one case from three ones:
1\) $\l_n^0\in \g_n^{(1)}$ is an eigenvalues,
2\) $\l_n^0\in \g_n^{(2)}$ is an antibound state,
3\) $\l_n^0=E_n^+$ or $\l_n^0=E_n^-$ is a virtual states.
There are no other states of $H_0$. Thus $H_0$ has only eigenvalues, virtual states and antibound states. If there are exactly $N\ge 1$ nondegenerate gaps in the spectrum of $\s_{ac}(H_0)$, then operator $H_0$ has exactly $N$ states. The gaps $\g_n=\es$ do not give contribution to the states. In particular, if all $\g_n=\es, n\ge 1$, then $p=0$, see [@MO] or [@K4] and $H_0$ has not states. The states $\l_n^0$ are described in Lemma \[Tm\].
We need the results about the inverse spectral theory for the unperturbed operator $H_0$: define the mapping $p\to \x=(\x_n)_1^\iy$, where the components $\x_n=(\x_{1n},\x_{2n})\in \R^2$ are given by $$\x_{1n}={E_n^-+E_n^+\/2}-\m_n^2,\qqq
\x_{2n}=\rt|{|\g_n|^2\/4}-\x_{1n}^2\rt|^{1\/2}a_n,\
\qq
a_n={\begin{cases}}+1 & if \ \ \l_n^0\ {\rm is \ an \ eigenvalues} \\
-1 & if \ \ \l_n^0 \ \ \ {\rm is \ a \ resonance} \\
0 & if \ \ \l_n^0 \ \ {\rm is \ a \ virtual \ state} {\end{cases}}.$$ Recall the results from [@K5]: [*The mapping $\x: \cH\to \ell^2\os \ell^2$ is a real analytic isomorphism between real Hilbert spaces $\cH=\{p\in L^2(0,1): \int_0^1p(x)dx=0\}$ and $\ell^2\os \ell^2$ and the estimates hold true $$\lb{esg}
\|p\|\le 4\|\x\| (1+ \|\x\|^{1\/3}),\qqq
\|\x\|\le \|p\|(1+\|p\|)^{1\/3},$$ where $\|p\|^2=\int_0^1p^2(x)dx$ and $\|\x\|^2={1\/4}\sum |\g_n|^2$.*]{} Estimates were proved in [@K7]. Moreover, for any sequence $\vk=(\vk_n)_1^\iy\in \ell^2, \vk_n\ge 0$ there are unique 2 -periodic eigenvalues $E_n^\pm, n\ge 0$ for some $p\in \cH$ such that each $\vk_n=E_n^+-E_n^-, n\ge 1$. Thus if we know gap lengths $(|\g_n|)_1^\iy$, then we can recover the Riemann surface $\L$ uniquely plus the points $E_n^-=E_n^+$, if $\vk_n=0$. Furthermore, for any sequence $\wt\l_n^0\in \g_n^c, n\ge 1$, there is an unique potential $p\in \cH$, such that each state $\l_n^0$ (corresponding to $p$) coincides with $\wt\l_n^0, n\ge 1$. Remark that results of [@K5] were generalized in [@K6] for periodic distributions $p=w'$, where $w\in\cH$.
Define the function $$D(\l)=\det (I+q(H_0-\l)^{-1}), \qqq \l \in \C_+.$$ It is well known that the function $D(\l)$ is analytic in $\l \in \C_+$ and has a meromorphic extension into $\L$. Each zero of $D(\l)$ in $\L_1$ is an eigenvalue of $H$ and belongs to the union of physical gaps $\cup_{n\ge 0} \g_n^{(1)}$. Until now only some particular results are known about the zeros on the nonphysical sheet $\L_2$. Remark that the set of zeros of $D$ on $\L_2$ is symmetric with respect to the real line, since $D$ is real on $\g_0^{(2)}$.
Let $\F (x,z)$ be the fundamental solution of the equation $$\lb{bcF}
-\F''+(p+q)\F=z^2 \F, x\ge 0,\qqq \F (0,z)=0, \ \ \ \F'(0,z)=1, \qq z\in\C.$$
i\) Let $\ve >0$. The function $D$ satisfies $$\lb{T1-1}
D(\l)=1+{\wh q(z)-\wh q(0)\/2iz}+{O(e^{t (|\Im z|-\Im z)})\/z^{2}}\
\ \ as \ \ |z|\to\iy, z=\sqrt \l, \ \sqrt 1=1,$$ where $|\l-E_n^\pm|\ge n\ve $ for all $n\ge 1$ and $ \wh q(z)=\int_0^tq(x)e^{2izx}dx$ and $$\lb{st1}
{\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H)\sm {\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H_0)=\{ \l\in \L\sm{\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H_0):\ D(\l)=0\}
\ss \L_2\cup \bigcup_{n\ge 0}\g_n^{(1)},$$ $$\lb{st2}
{\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H)\cap {\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H_0)={\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H_0)\cap \{ z\in\s_{st}(H_0):\ \F(n_t,z)=0 \},\qq n_t=\inf_{n\in \N, n\ge t} n.$$
ii\) If $\l_n^0\in {\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H)\cap {\mathfrak{S}}_{st}(H_0)$, then $\l_n^0\in \ol\g_n^{(j)}\ne \es$ for some $j=1,2,n\ge1$ and $$\lb{ajf}
D(\l)\to D(\l_n^0)\ne 0\qq as \qq \l\to \l_n^0.$$ iii) (The logarithmic low.) Each resonance $\l\in \L_2$ of $H$ satisfies $$\lb{T1-2}
|\sqrt \l\sin \sqrt \l|\le C_Fe^{(2t+1)|\Im \sqrt \l|},\qqq
\ \ C_F=3(\|p\|_1+\|p+q\|_t)e^{2\|p+q\|_t+\|p\|_1},$$ and there are no resonaces in the domain $\mD_{forb}=\{\l\in \L_2\sm \cup \ol\g_n^{(2)}: 4C_Fe^{2|\Im \sqrt \l|}<|\l|^{1\/2}\}$.
1\) Let $\l_n^0\in \g_n^{(1)}$ be a eigenvalue of $H_0$ for some $n\ge 1$. If $\F(n_t,\m_n)=0$, then $\m_n^2$ is a Dirichlet eigenvalue of the problem $-y''+(p+q)y=\m_n^2 y, y(0)=y(n_t)=0$. Then by , $\l_n^0$ is a bound state of $H$ and yields $D(\l_n^0)\ne 0$. Thus $\l_n^0$ [**is a pole of a resolvent, but $\l_n^0$ is neither a zero of $D$ nor a pole** ]{} of the S-matrix for $H,H_0$ given by $$\lb{sm}
\cS_M(z)={\ol {D(\l)\/ D(\l)}},\ \ \ \l \in \s_{ac}(H_0).$$
2\) If $D(\l)=0$ for some $\l=E_n^\pm\ne \m_n^2, n\ge 0$, then by , $\l$ is a virtual state.
3\) If $\m_n^2=E_n^\pm$ for some $n\ge 1$, then by , $\m_n^2$ is a virtual state iff $\F(n_t,\m_n)=0$.
4\) If $p=0$, then it is well known that each zero of $D(\cdot )$ is a state, see e.g., [@K1], [@S]. Moreover, each resonance lies below a logarithmic curve (depending only in $q$ see e.g. [@K1], [@Z]). The forbidden domain $\mD_{forb}\cap \C_-$ is similar to the case $p=0$, see [@K1].
Let $\#(H,r, A)$ be the total number of state of $H$ in the set $A\subseteq \L$ having modulus $\le r$, each state being counted according to its multiplicity.
Define the Fourier coefficients $p_{sn}, \wh q_{cn}$ and the Fourier transform $\wh q$ by $$q_0=\!\int_0^1\!q(x)dx,\ \ p_{sn}=\!\int_0^1\!p(x)\sin 2\pi nxdx,\ \
\wh q(z)=\!\int_0^t\!q(x)e^{2izx}dx, \qq \wh q_{cn}=\Re \wh q(\pi n).$$
i\) $H$ has an odd number $\ge 1$ of states on each set $\g_n^c\ne \es,n\ge 1$, where $\g_n^c$ is a union of the physical $\ol \g_n^{(1)}\ss \L_1$ and non-physical gap $\ol \g_n^{(2)}\ss\L_2$ and $H$ has exactly one simple state $\l_n\in \g_n^c$ for all $n\ge 1+4C_Fe^{t{\pi\/2}}$ with asymptotics $$\lb{T2-1}
\sqrt{\l_n}=\m_n-{(q_{0}-\wh q_{cn})p_{sn}+O({1\/n})\/2(\pi n)^2} \qqq \as \qq n\to \iy.$$ Moreover, the following asymptotics hold true as $r\to \iy$: $$\lb{T2-2}
\#(H,r, \L_2\sm \cup \g_n^{(2)})=r{2t+o(1)\/\pi},$$ $$\lb{T2-3}
\#(H,r, \R)=\#(H_0,r, \R)+2N_q \qqq for\ some\ integer \ N_q\ge 0, \qq r\notin \cup \ol\g_n.$$ ii) Let $\l$ be an eigenvalue of $H$ and let $\l^{(2)}\in \L_2$ be the same number but on the second sheet $\L_2$. Then $\l^{(2)}$ is not an anti-bound state.
iii\) Let $\l_1<\l_2$ and let $\l_1,\l_2\in \g_n^{(1)}$ be some eigenvalues of $H$ for some $n\ge 0$ and assume that there are no other eigenvalues on the interval $\O=(\l_1,\l_2)\ss \g_n^{(1)}$. Let $\O^{(2)}\ss \g_n^{(2)}\ss \L_2$ be the same interval but on the second sheet. Then there exists an odd number $\ge 1$ of antibound states on $\O^{(2)}$.
1\) Results (iii) at $p=0$ were obtained independently in [@K1], [@S].
2\) First term in the asymptotics does not depend on the periodic potential $p$. Recall that asymptotics for the case $p=0$ was obtained by Zworski [@Z].
2\) The main difference between the distribution of the resonances for the case $p\ne \const$ and $p=\const$ is the bound states and antibound states in high energy gaps, see .
3\) In the proof of we use the Paley Wiener type Theorem from [@Fr], the Levinson Theorem (see Sect. 4) and analysis of the function $D$ near $\l_n^0$.
4\) For even potentials $p\in L_{even}^2(0,1)=\{p\in L^2(0,1),
p(x)=p(1-x), x\in (0,1)\}$ all coefficients $p_{sn}=0$ and asymptotics are not sharp. This case is described in Theorem \[T4\].
5\) Assume that a potential $u\in L^2(\R_+)$ is compactly supported, $\supp u\ss (0,t)$ and satisfies $|\wh u_{n}|=o(n^{-\a})$ as $n\to \iy$. Then in the case (ii) the operator $H+u$ has the same number of bound states in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough.
We consider a stability of real states $\l_n$. Recall that $\l_n^0\in \g_n^c$ is a state of $H_0$.
Let $b_n=q_0-\wh q_{cn}$. Assume that $|p_{sn}|>n^{-\a}$ and $|b_n|>n^{-(1-\a)}$ for some $\a\in (0,1)$ and for all $n\in \N_0$, where $ \N_0\ss \N$ is some infinite subset such that each $|\g_n|>0, n\in \N_0$. Let $b_n>0$ (or $b_n<0$). Then the real state $\l_n\in\g_n^c$ for $n\in \N_0$ large enough satisfies:
If $\l_n^0$ is an eigenvalue of $H_0$, then $\l_n$ is a an eigenvalue of $H$ and $\l_n^0<\l_n$ (or $\l_n^0>\l_n$).
If $\l_n^0$ is an antibound state of $H_0$, then $\l_n$ is an antibound state of $H$ and $\l_n<\l_n^0$ (or $\l_n^0<\l_n$).
[**Remark.**]{} 1) Let $q> 0$. It is well known that if the coupling constant $\t>0$ is increasing, then eigenvalues of $H_0+\t q$ are increasing too. Roughly speaking, in our case the antibound states in the gap move in opposite direction.
2\) We explain roughly transformations: resonances $\to $ antibound states $\to $ bound states. Consider the operator $H_\t=H_0+\t q$, where $\t\in \R$ is the coupling constant. If $\t=0$, then $H_0$ has only states $\l_n^0, n\ge 1$ (eigenvalues, antibound states and virtual states). Consider the first gap $\g_1^c\ne \es$. If $\t$ is increasing, then the state $\l_1^0$ moves and there are no other states on $\g_1^c$. If $\t$ is increasing again, then $\l_1^0$ removes on the physical gap $\g_1^{(1)}$ and becomes an eigenvalue; there are no new eigenvalues but some two complex resonances ($\l\in \C_+\ss\L_2$ and $\ol \l\in \C_-\ss\L_2$) reach non physical gap $\g_1^{(2)}$ and transform into new antibound states. If $\t$ is increasing again, then some new antibound states will be virtual states, and then later they will be bound states. Thus if $\t$ runs through $\R_+$, then there is a following transformation: resonances $\to $ antibound states $\to $ virtual states $\to $ bound states $\to $ virtual states...
Recall that $p\in L_{even}^2(0,1)$ iff $\m_n^2=E_n^-$ or $\m_n^2=E_n^+$ for all $n\ge 1$, see [@GT], [@KK1].
i\) Let unperturbed states $\l_n^0\in \{E_n^-, E_n^+\}$ for all $n\in \N_0$ large enough, where $ \N_0\ss \N$ is some infinite subset such that each $|\g_n|>0, n\in \N_0$. Then $$\lb{T4-1}
\sqrt{\l_n}=\m_n+s_n|\g_n|{(q_0-\wh q_{cn}+O({1\/n}))^2\/(2\pi n)^2}, \qqq
\qqq s_n={\begin{cases}}+ & if \ \ \m_n^2=E_n^- \\
- & if \ \ \m_n^2=E_n^+ {\end{cases}},\qq n\in \N_0$$ as $n\to \iy$. Moreover, if $\a\in ({1\/2},1)$, then for $n\in\N_0$ large enough the following holds true:
if $\l_n^0=E_n^-,\ q_0-\wh q_{cn}>n^{-\a}$ or $\l_n^0=E_n^+, \ q_0-\wh q_{cn}<-n^{-\a}$, then $\l_n$ is an eigenvalue,
if $\l_n^0=E_n^-, \ q_0-\wh q_{cn}<-n^{-\a}$ or $\l_n^0=E_n^+, \
q_0-\wh q_{cn}>n^{-\a}$, then $\l_n$ is an antibound state.
ii\) Let $q\in \cQ_t$ satisfy $|q_{0}-\wh q_{cn}|>n^{-\a}$ for $n$ large enough and for some $\a\in ({1\/2},1)$. Then for any sequences $(\s_n)_{1}^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,1\}$ and $(\vk_n)_1^\iy\in\ell^2, \vk_n\ge 0$ there exists a potential $p\in L^2(0,1)$ such that each gap length $|\g_n|=\vk_n, n\ge 1$ and $H$ has exactly $\s_n$ eigenvalues and $1-\s_n$ antibound states in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough.
iii\) Let $p\in L^1(0,1)$ and let unperturbed states $\l_n^0\in \{E_n^-, E_n^+\}$ for all $n\in \N_0$ large enough, where $ \N_0\ss \N$ is some infinite subset such that each $|\g_n|>0, n\in \N_0$. Then for any sequence $(\s_n)_{1}^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,1\}$ there exists a potential $q\in \cQ_t$ such that $H$ has exactly $\s_n$ eigenvalues and $1-\s_n$ antibound states in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n\in \N_0$ large enough.
[**Remark.**]{} Roughly speaking is asymptotics for even potentials $p\in L^1(0,1)$.
Let $\#_{bs}(H,\O)$ (or $\#_{abs}(H,\O)$) be the total number of bound states (or anti bound states) of $H$ on the segment $\O\ss \ol\g_n^{(1)}\ss\L_1$ (or $\O\ss \ol\g_n^{(2)}\ss\L_2$) for some $n\ge 0$ (each antibound state being counted according to its multiplicity).
Introduce the integrated density of states $\r(\l),\l\in \R$ (a continuous function on $\R$) by $$\lb{ids}
\r(\l)|_{\g_n}=n, \qqq \r({\mathfrak{S}}_{n+1})=[n,n+1] \qqq
\cos \pi \r(\l)=\D(\sqrt \l), \ \l\in {\mathfrak{S}}_{n+1}, \ \ n\ge 0.$$ The real function $\r$ is strongly increasing on each spectral band ${\mathfrak{S}}_n$. It is well known that $\r(\l)={1\/\pi}\Re k(\sqrt {\l+i0}), \l\in \R$, where $k$ is the quasimomentum defined in Section 2.
Let $H_\t=H_0+q_\t$ where $q_\t=q({x\/\t}), \t\ge 1$. Let $\O=[E_1,E_2]\ss \ol\g_n^{(1)}\ne \es$ be some interval on the physical sheet $\L_1$ for some $n\ge 0$ and let $\O^{(2)}\ss \ol\g_n^{(2)}$ be the same interval, but on the non- physical sheet $\L_2$. Then $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{T5-1}
\#_{abs}(H_\t,\O^{(2)})\ge 1+\#_{bs}(H_\t,\O)=
\\
\t \int_0^\iy \rt(\r(E_2-q(x))-\r(E_1-q(x))\rt)dx+o(\t)\qq
\as \qqq \t\to \iy.\end{gathered}$$
1\) In the proof of we use the Sobolev’s results [@So] about asymptotics of $\#_{bs}(H_\t,\O)$ with needed modifications of Schmidt [@Sc]. Sobolev considered the case $H_\t=H_0+\t V$, where $V(x)={c+o(1)\/x^\a}$ as $x\to\iy$, for some $c\ne 0,\a>0$. We can not apply this results to our case, since this potential $V$ is not compactly supported. We use the modification of Schmidt for the perturbation of the periodic Dirac operator, where the decreasing potential can be compactly supported.
A lot of papers are devoted to the resonances for the Schrödinger operator with $p=0$, see [@Fr], [@H], [@K1], [@K2], [@S], [@Z] and references therein. Although resonances have been studied in many settings, but there are relatively few cases where the asymptotics of the resonance counting function are known, mainly one dimensional case [@Fr], [@K1], [@K2], [@S], and [@Z]. We recall that Zworski \[Z\] obtained the first results about the distribution of resonances for the Schrödinger operator with compactly supported potentials on the real line. The author obtained the characterization (plus uniqueness and recovering) of $S$-matrix for the Schrödinger operator with a compactly supported potential on the real line [@K2] and the half-line [@K1], see also [@Z1], [@BKW] about uniqueness.
The author [@K3] obtained the stability results for the Schrödinger operator on the half line:
\(i) If $\vk=(\vk)_1^\iy$ is a sequence of poles (eigenvalues and resonances) of the S-matrix for some real compactly supported potential $q$ and $\wt\vk-\vk\in\ell_\ve^2$ for some $\ve>1$, then $\wt\vk$ is the sequence of poles of the S-matrix for some unique real compactly supported potential $\wt q$.
\(ii) The measure associated with the poles of the S-matrix is the Carleson measure, the sum $\sum (1+|\vk_n|)^{-\a}, \a>1$ is estimated in terms of the $L^1$-norm of the potential $q$.
Brown and Weikard [@BW] considered the Schrödinger operator $-y''+(p_A+q)y$ on the half-line, where $p_A$ is an algebro-geometric potentials and $q$ is a compactly supported potential. They proved that the zeros of the Jost function determine $q$ uniquely.
Christiansen [@Ch] considered resonances associated to the Schrödinger operator $-y''+(p_{S}+q)y$ on the real line, where $p_S$ is a step potential. She determined asymptotics of the resonance-counting function. Moreover, she obtained that the resonances determine $q$ uniquely.
Describer recent author’s results [@K4] about the operator $\mH
=\mH_0+q$, $\mH_0=-{d^2\/dx^2}+p$ on the real line, where $p$ is periodic and and $q$ is compactly supported: 1) asymptotics of the resonance-counting function is determined, 2) a forbidden domain for the resonances is specified, 3) the asymptotics of eigenvalues and antibound states are determined, 4) for any sequence $(\s)_1^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,2\}$, there exists a compactly supported potential $q$ such that $\mH$ has $\s_n$ bound states and $2-\s_n$ antibound states in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough, 5) for any $q$ (with $q_0=0$) and for any sequences $(\s_n)_{1}^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,2\}$ and $(\vk_n)_1^\iy\in \ell^2, \vk_n\ge 0$ there exists a potential $p\in L^2(0,1)$ such that each gap length $|\g_n|=\vk_n, n\ge 1$ and $\mH$ has exactly $\s_n$ eigenvalues and $2-\s_n$ antibound states in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough.
We compare the results for $\mH$ on $\R$ and $H$ on $\R_+$: 1) their properties are close for even potentials $p\in L_{even}^2(0,1)$, since in this case unperturbed operators $H_0$ have only virtual states, 2) if $p$ is not even, then the unperturbed operator $H_0$ (in general) has eigenvalues, virtual states and antibound states, but the operator $\mH_0$ has exactly two virtual states in each open gap. This leads to the different properties of $H, \mH$ and roughly speaking the case of $H$ is more complicated, since the unperturbed operator $H_0$ is more comlicated.
The plan of the paper is as follows. In Section 2 we define the Riemann surface associated the momentum variable $z=\sqrt \l, \l\in \L$, and describe the preliminary results about fundamental solutions. In Sections 3 we study states of $H$. In Sections 4 we prove the main Theorem \[T1\]-\[T4\]. In the proof of theorems we use properties of the quasimomentum, a priori estimates from [@KK], [@MO], and results from the inverse theory for the Hill operator from [@K5]. In the proof the analysis of the function $F(z)=\vp(1,z)D(z)\ol D(z), z^2\in \s_{ac}(H) $ is important, since we obtain the relationship between zeros of $F$ (which is entire) and the states. Thus we reduce the spectral problems of $H$ to the problem of entire function theory.
Preliminaries
==============
We will work with the momentum $z=\sqrt \l$, where $\l$ is an energy and recall that $\sqrt 1=1$. Introduce the cut domain (see Fig.2) $$\lb{2}
\cZ=\C\sm \cup \ol g_n,\qqq where \qq
g_n=(e_n^-,e_n^+)=-g_{-n},\qq e_n^\pm=\sqrt{E_n^\pm}>0,\qq
n\ge 1.$$ Note that $\D(e_{n}^{\pm})=(-1)^n$. If $\l\in \g_n, n\ge 1$, then $z\in g_{\pm n}$ and if $\l\in \g_0=(-\iy,0)$, then $z\in g_0^\pm=i\R_\pm$. Below we will use the momentum variable $z=\sqrt \l$ and the corresponding Riemann surface $\cM$, which is more convenient for us, than the Riemann surface $\L$. Slitting the n-th momentum gap $g_n$ (suppose it is nontrivial) we obtain a cut $g_n^c$ with an upper $g_n^+$ and lower rim $g_n^-$. Below we will identify this cut $g_n^c$ and the union of of the upper rim (gap) $\ol g_{n}^+$ and the lower rim (gap) $\ol g_{n}^{\ -}$, i.e., $$g_n^c=\ol g_{n}^+\cup \ol g_{n}^-,\ \ where \ \ g_{n}^\pm =g_n\pm i0;
\qq and \ \ if \ z\in g_n \Rightarrow z\pm i0\in g_n^\pm.$$
(120.67,34.33) (20.33,21.33)[(1,0)[100.33]{}]{} (70.33,10.00)[(0,1)[24.33]{}]{} (69.00,19.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$0$]{}]{} (120.33,19.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$\Re z$]{}]{} (67.00,33.67)[(0,0)\[cc\][$\Im z$]{}]{} (81.33,21.33)[(1,0)[9.67]{}]{} (100.33,21.33)[(1,0)[4.67]{}]{} (116.67,21.33)[(1,0)[2.67]{}]{} (60.00,21.33)[(-1,0)[9.33]{}]{} (40.00,21.33)[(-1,0)[4.67]{}]{} (24.33,21.33)[(-1,0)[2.33]{}]{} (81.67,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$e_1^-$]{}]{} (91.00,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$e_1^+$]{}]{} (100.33,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$e_2^-$]{}]{} (105.00,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$e_2^+$]{}]{} (115.33,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$e_3^-$]{}]{} (120.00,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$e_3^+$]{}]{} (59.33,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-e_1^-$]{}]{} (50.67,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-e_1^+$]{}]{} (40.33,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-e_2^-$]{}]{} (34.67,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-e_2^+$]{}]{} (26.00,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-e_3^-$]{}]{} (19.50,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-e_3^+$]{}]{}
In order to construct the Riemann surface $\cM$ we take the cut domain $\cZ=\C\sm \cup \ol g_n$ and identify (we glue) the upper rim $g_{n}^+$ of the slit $g_n^c$ with the upper rim $g_{-n}^+$ of the slit $g_n^c$ and correspondingly the lower rim $g_{n}^-$ of the slit $g_{-n}^c$ with the lower rim $g_{-n}^-$ of the slit $g_{-n}^c$ for all nontrivial gaps. The mapping $z=\sqrt \l$ from $\L$ onto $\cM$ is one-to-one and onto. The gap $\g_n^{(1)}\ss \L_1$ is mapped onto $g_n^+\ss \cM_1$ and the gap $\g_n^{(2)}\ss \L_2$ is mapped onto $g_n^-\ss \cM_2$. From a physical point of view, the upper rim $g_{n}^+$ is a physical gap and the lower rim $g_{n}^-$ is a non physical gap. Moreover, $\cM\cap\C _+=\cZ\cap\C _+$ plus all physical gaps $g_{n}^+$ is a so-called physical “sheet” $\cM_1$ and $\cM\cap\C _-=\cZ\cap\C _-$ plus all non physical gaps $g_{n}^-$ is a so-called non physical “sheet” $\cM_2$. The set (the spectrum) $\R\sm \cup g_n$ joints the first $\cM_1$ and second sheets $\cM_2$.
(120.67,34.33) (20.33,20.00)[(1,0)[102.33]{}]{} (71.00,7.00)[(0,1)[27.00]{}]{} (70.00,18.67)[(0,0)\[cc\][$0$]{}]{} (124.00,18.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$\Re k$]{}]{} (67.00,33.67)[(0,0)\[cc\][$\Im k$]{}]{} (87.00,15.00)[(0,1)[10.]{}]{} (103.00,17.00)[(0,1)[6.]{}]{} (119.00,18.00)[(0,1)[4.]{}]{} (56.00,15.00)[(0,1)[10.]{}]{} (39.00,17.00)[(0,1)[6.]{}]{} (23.00,18.00)[(0,1)[4.]{}]{} (85.50,18.50)[(0,0)\[cc\][$\pi$]{}]{} (54.00,18.50)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-\pi$]{}]{} (101.00,18.50)[(0,0)\[cc\][$2\pi$]{}]{} (36.00,18.50)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-2\pi$]{}]{} (117.00,18.50)[(0,0)\[cc\][$3\pi$]{}]{} (20.00,18.50)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-3\pi$]{}]{} (87.00,26.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$\pi+ih_1$]{}]{} (56.00,26.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-\pi+ih_1$]{}]{} (103.00,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$2\pi+ih_2$]{}]{} (39.00,24.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-2\pi+ih_2$]{}]{} (119.00,23.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$3\pi+ih_3$]{}]{} (23.00,23.00)[(0,0)\[cc\][$-3\pi+ih_3$]{}]{}
We introduce the quasimomentum $k(\cdot )$ for $H_0$ by $k(z)=\arccos \D(z),\ z \in \cZ$. The function $k(z)$ is analytic in $z\in\cZ$ and satisfies: $$\lb{pk}
(i)\qq k(z)=z+O(1/z)\qq as \ \ |z|\to \iy, \qq \qq (ii)\qq \Re k(z\pm i0) |_{[e_n^-,e_n^+]}=\pi n,\qq \ n\in \Z,$$ and $\pm \Im k(z)>0$ for any $z\in \C_\pm$, see [@MO], [@KK]. The function $k(\cdot)$ is analytic on $\cM$ and satisfies $\sin k(z)=(1-\D^2(z))^{1\/2}, z\in \cM$. Moreover, the quasimomentum $k(\cdot)$ is a conformal mapping from $\cZ$ onto the quasimomentum domain $\cK=\C\sm \cup \G_n$, see Fig. 2 and 3. Here $\G_n=(\pi n-ih_n,\pi n+ih_n)$ is a vertical slit with the height $h_n\ge 0, h_0=0$. The height $h_n$ is defined by the equation $\cosh h_n=(-1)^n\D(e_n)\ge 1$, where $e_n\in [e_n^-,e_n^+]$ and $\D'(e_n)=0$. The function $k(\cdot)$ maps the slit $g_n^c$ on the slit $\G_n,$ and $k(-z)=-k(z)$ for all $z\in \cZ$.
In order to describe the spectral properties of the operator $H_0$ we need the properties of $\vt, \vp$. Recall that $\vt,\vp$ are the solutions of the equation $-y''+py=z^2y$ with the conditions $\vp'(0,z)=\vt(0,z)=1$ and $\vp(0,z)=\vt'(0,z)=0$. The solutions $\vt,\vp$ satisfy the equations $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{fs}
\vt(x,z)=\cos zx+\int_0^x{\sin z(x-s)\/z}p(s)\vt(s,z)ds,\qqq \\
\vp(x,z)={\sin zx\/z}+\int_0^x{\sin z(x-s)\/z}p(s)\vp(s,z)ds.\end{gathered}$$ For each $x\in \R$ the functions $\vt(x,z), \vp(x,z)$ are entire in $z\in\C$ and satisfy $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{efs1}
\max \rt\{|z|_1|\vp(x,z)|, \ |\vp'(x,z)| , |\vt(x,z)|,
{1\/|z|_1}|\vt'(x,z)| \rt\} \le X=e^{|\Im z|x+\|p\|_x},\\
\rt|\vp(x,z)-{\sin zx\/z}\rt|\le {X\/|z|^2}\|p\|_x,
\qq |\vt(x,z)-{\cos zx}|\le {X\/|z|}\|p\|_x,\qqq |z|_1=\max\{1, |z|\},\end{gathered}$$ where $\|p\|_t=\int_0^t|p(s)|ds$ and $(x,z)\in \R\ts \C$, see \[PT\]. These estimates yield $$\lb{asb} \b(z)={\vp'(1,z)-\vt(1,z)\/2}=\int_0^1{\sin z(2x-1)\/z}p(x)dx+{O(e^{|\Im z|})\/z^2}\qqq \as \qqq |z|\to \iy.$$ Moreover, if $z=\pi n+O(1/n)$, then we obtain $$\lb{abn}
\b(z)=(-1)^n{p_{sn}+O(n^{-1})\/2\pi n},\qq
p_{sn}=\int_0^1p(x)\sin 2\pi nxdx.$$
The Floquet solutions $\p^{\pm}(x,z), z \in \cZ$ of the equation $-y''+py=z^2y$ are given by $$\lb{3}
\p^\pm(x,z)=\vt(x,z)+m_\pm(z)\vp(x,z),\qqq \ m_\pm={\b\pm i\sin k\/ \vp(1,\cdot)},$$ where $\vp(1,z)\p^+(\cdot,z)\in L^2(\R_+)$ for all $z\in\C_+\cup\cup_{} g_n$. If $p=0$, then $k=z$ and $\p^\pm(x,z)=e^{\pm izx}$.
Let $\cD_r(z_0)=\{|z-z_0|<r\}$ be a disk for some $r>0, z_0\in \L$. It is well known that if $g_n=\es$ for some $n\in \Z$, then the functions $\sin k(\cdot)$ and $ m_\pm$ [**are analytic in some disk**]{} $\cD_\ve(\m_n)\ss\cZ, \ve>0$ and the functions $\sin k(z)$ and $\vp(1,z)$ have the simple zero at $\m_n$, see [@F1]. Moreover, $m_\pm$ satisfies $$\lb{Tm-2}
m_\pm (\m_n)={\b'(\m_n)\pm i(-1)^nk'(\m_n)\/\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)},
\qq \Im m_\pm (\m_n)\ne 0.$$ Furthermore, $\Im m^+ (z)>0$ for all $(z,n)\in (z_{n-1}^+,z_{n}^-)\ts \N$ and the asymptotics hold true: $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{Tm-1}
m_\pm (z)=\pm iz+O(1) \qq as \qq |z|\to \iy, \qq z\in \cZ_\ve
\\
\where \qqq \cZ_\ve =\{z\in \cZ: \dist \{z,g_n\}>\ve, g_n\ne \es, n\in \Z\},\ \ve>0.\end{gathered}$$ The function $\sin k$ and each function $\vp(1,\cdot)\p^{\pm}(x,\cdot), x\in \R$ are analytic on the Riemann surface $\cM$. Recall that the Floquet solutions $\p_\pm(x,z), (x,z)\in \R\ts \cM$ satisfy (see [@T]) $$\lb{f1}
\p_\pm(0,z)=1, \qq \p^\pm(0,z)'=m_\pm(z),
\qq \p^\pm(1,z)=e^{\pm ik(z)}, \qq \p^\pm(1,z)'=e^{\pm ik(z)}m_\pm(z),$$ $$\lb{f2}
\p^\pm(x,z)=e^{\pm ik(z)x}(1+O(1/z)) \qq .$$ as $|z|\to \iy \ z\in \cZ_\ve$, uniformly in $x\in \R$. Below we need the simple identities $$\lb{LD0}
\b^2+1-\D^2=1-\vp'(1,\cdot)\vt(1,\cdot)= -\vp(1,\cdot)\vt'(1,\cdot).$$
Introduce the fundamental solutions $\P^\pm (x,z)$ of the equation $$\lb{bcf}
-{\P^\pm}''+(p+q)\P^\pm=z^2 \P^\pm, x\ge 0,\qq
\P^\pm(x,z)=\p^\pm(x,z),\ \ x\ge t , \qq z\in\cZ\sm \{0\}.$$ Each function $\vp(1,z)\P^\pm(x,z),x\ge 0$ is analytic in $\cM$, since each $\vp(1,z)\p^{\pm}(x,z), x\ge 0$ is analytic in $\cM$. We define [**the modified Jost function**]{} $\P_0^\pm=\P^\pm(0,z)$, which is meromorphic in $\cM$ and has branch points $e_n^\pm, g_n\ne \es$. The kernel of the resolvent $R=(H-z^2)^{-1}, z\in \C_+,$ has the form $$\lb{R}
R(x,x',z)={\F (x,z )\P^+(x',z)\/\P_0^+(z)},\ \ \ x<x',\ \ and \ \
R(x,x',z )=R(x',x,z ),\ x>x'.$$ Recall that $\F (x,z)$ is the solution of the equation $-\F''+(p+q)\F=z^2 \F, x\ge 0,\ \F (0,z)=0, \ \F'(0,z)=1, \ z\in\C.$ Each function $R(x,x',z), x,x'\in \R$ is meromorphic in $\cM$. Remark that if $z_0\in g_n^\pm\sm \{\m_n\pm i0\}$ and $\P_0^+(z_0)\ne 0$ for some $n$, then the resolvent of $H$ is analytic at $z_0$. The function $\P_0^+(z)$ has finite number of simple zeros on each $g_n^+, n\ne 0$ and on $i\R_+$ (no zeros on $\C_+\sm i\R_+$), where the squared zero is an eigenvalue. A pole of $\mR(x,z)=\P^+(x,z)/\P_0^+(z)$ on $g_n^+$ is called a bound state. Of course, $z^2$ is really the energy, but since the momentum $z$ is the natural parameter, we will abuse the terminology. Moreover, $\P_0^+(z)$ has infinite number of zeros in $\C_-$, see . We rewrite Definition $\L$ about the resonances on the Riemann surface $\L$ in the equivalent form in terms of the resonances on the Riemann surface $\cM$.
Let $\s_{bs}(H)$ (or $\s_{rs}(H)$ or $\s_{vs}(H)$ ) be the set of all bound states in the momentum variable $z=\sqrt \l\in \cM$ (or resonances or virtual states) of $H$ and let $\s_{st}(H)=\s_{vs}(H)\cup \s_{rs}(H)\cup\s_{bs}(H)$.
The kernel of the resolvent $R_0(z)=(H_0-z^2)^{-1}, z\in \C_+$ has the form $$\lb{R0}
R_0(x,x',z)=\vp(x,z)\p^+(x',z),\qq x<x',\ \
{\rm and} \qq R_0(x,x',z)=R_0(x',x,z),\ x>x'.$$ Consider the states $z_n^0=\sqrt{\l_n^0}\in g_n^c$ of $H_0$. Due to , the function $\P_0^+=\p_0^+(0,\cdot)=1$ and $\mR(x,\cdot)=\vt(x,\cdot)+m_+\vp(x,\cdot)$. Recall that $\vp(1,\cdot)m_+$ and $\sin k(z)$ are analytic in $\cM$. Thus the resolvent $R_0(z)$ has singularities only at $\m_n\pm i0$, where $g_n\ne \es$, and in order to describe the states of $H_0$ we need to study $m_+$ on $g_n^c$ only. Let $\mA(z_0), z_0\in \cM$ be the set of analytic functions in some disk $\cD_r(z_0)=\{|z-z_0|<r\}, r>0$. We need the following result (see [@Zh3])
All states of $H$ are given by $\m_n\pm i0\in g_n^c, n\ne 0$, where $g_n\ne \es$. Let the momentum gap $g_n=(e_n^-,e_n^+)\ne \es$ for some $n\ge 1$. Then
i\) $z_n^0=\m_n+i0\in g_n^+$ is a bound state of $H_0$ iff one condition from (1)-(3) holds true $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{Tm-31}
(1) \qq m_-\in \mA(\m_n+i0),\\
(2)\ \ \b(\m_n)=i\sin k(\m_n+i0)= -(-1)^n\sinh h_{sn}, \qq k(\m_n+i0)=\pi n+ih_{sn}\qq h_{sn}>0 \hspace{1.2cm} \\
(3)\qqq m_+(z_n^0+z)={c_n+O(z)\/z} \qq as \ z\to 0, \ z\in \C_+,\
c_n={-2\sinh |h_{sn}|\/(-1)^n\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)}<0.\qq\end{gathered}$$ ii) $z_n^0=\m_n-i0\in g_n^-$ is an antibound state of $H_0$ iff one condition from (1)-(3) holds true $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{Tm-32}
(1) \qqq m_-\in \mA(\m_n-i0),\\
(2)\qqq
\b(\m_n)=i\sin k(\m_n-i0)= -(-1)^n\sinh h_{sn}, \qq k(\m_n-i0)=\pi n+ih_{sn},\qq h_{sn}<0, \hspace{0.3cm} \\
(3)\qqq \qq m_+(z_n^0+z)={-c_n+O(z)\/z} \qq as \ z\to 0, \ \ z\in \C_-. \hspace{4.5cm}\end{gathered}$$
iii\) $z_n^0=\m_n$ is a virtual state of $H_0$ iff one condition from (1)-(2) holds true $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{Tm-33}
(1) \qqq z_n^0=\m_n=e_n^-\qqq or \qqq z_n^0=\m_n=e_n^+,\\
(2) \qqq m_+(z_n^0+z)={c_n^0+O(z)\/\sqrt z}\qq as \ z\to 0, \ z\in \C_+,\qq
c_n^0\ne 0. \hspace{3.7cm}\end{gathered}$$
These simple facts are well known in the inverse spectral theory, see [@N-Z], [@MO] or [@K5]. Remark that detail analysis of $H_0$ was done in [@Zh3].
If $\m_n\in g_n\ne \es$, then the function $m_+$ has a pole at $z_n^0=\m_n+i0\in g_n^+$ (a bound state) or at $z_n^0=\m_n-i0\in g_n^-$ (an antibound state). If $\m_n=e_n^+$ (or $\m_n=e_n^-$), then $z_n^0=\m_n$ is a virtual state. Note that if some $g_n=\es, n\ne 0$, then each $\p^\pm(x,\cdot)\in \mA(\m_n), x\ge 0$. Moreover, the resolvent $R_0(z)$ has a pole at $z_0$ iff the function $m_+(\cdot)$ has a pole at $z_0$.
The following asymptotics from [@MO] hold true as $n\to \iy$: $$\lb{sde}
\m_n=\pi n+\ve_n(p_{0}-p_{cn}+O(\ve_n)),\qqq p_{cn}=\int_0^1p(x)\cos 2\pi nxdx,
\qqq
\qq \ve_n={1\/2\pi n},$$ $$\lb{anc}
h_{sn}=-\ve_n(p_{sn}+O(\ve_n)),$$ $$\lb{ape}
e_n^\pm=\pi n+\ve_n(p_0\pm |p_n|+O(\ve_n)), \qq \qq
p_n=\int_0^1p(x)e^{-i2\pi nx}dx=p_{cn}-ip_{sn}.$$
Let $\vp(x,z,\t), \ (z,\t)\in \C\ts \R$ be the solutions of the equation $$\lb{x+t}
-\vp''+p(x+\t)\vp=z^2 \vp, \qq \ \vp(0,z,\t)=0,\qq \vp'(0,z,\t)=1.$$ Let $ y_1, y_2$ be the solutions of the equations $-y''+(p+q)y=z^2y, z\in \C$ and satisfying $$\lb{wtc}
y_2'(t,z)=y_1(t,z)=1,\qqq y_2(t,z)=y_1'(t,z)=0.$$ Thus, they satisfy the integral equation $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{efy}
y_1(x,z)=\cos z(x-t)-\int_x^t{\sin z(x-\t)\/z}(p(\t)+q(\t))y_1(\t,z)d\t,\qqq \\
y_2(x,z)={\sin z(x-t)\/z}-\int_x^t{\sin z(x-\t)\/z}(p(\t)+q(\t))y_2(\t,z)d\t.\end{gathered}$$ For each $x\in \R$ the functions $ y_1(x,z), y_2(x,z)$ are entire in $z\in\C$ and satisfy $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{efs}
\max \{||z|_1 y_2(x,z)|, \ | y_2'(x,z)| , | y_1(x,z)|,
{1\/|z|_1}| y_1'(x,z)| \} \le X_1=e^{|\Im z||t-x|+\int_x^t|p+q|ds},\\
| y_1(x,z)-\cos z(x-t)|\le {X_1\/|z|}\|q\|_t,\qq
\rt| y_2(x,z)-{\sin z(x-t)\/z}\rt|\le {X_1\/|z|^2}\|q\|_t,\end{gathered}$$ and recall that $|z|_1=\max\{1, |z|\}$ and $\|p\|_t=\int_0^t|p(s)|ds$.
The equation $-y''+(p-z^2)y=f, y(0)=y'(0)=0$ has an unique solution given by $
y=\int_0^x\vp(x-\t,z,\t)f(\t)d\t.
$ Hence the solutions $\F$ and $\P_\pm$ of the $-y''+(p+q)y=z^2y$ satisfy $$\lb{eF}
\F(x,z)=\vp(x,z)+\int_0^x\vp(x-s,z,s)q(s)\F (s,z)ds,$$ $$\lb{ep}
\P^\pm (x,z)=\p^\pm(x,z)-\int_x^t\vp(x-s,z,s)q(s)\P^\pm(s,z)ds.$$ Below we need the well known fact for scattering theory $$\lb{DP}
\P^+(0,z)=D(z^2)=\det (I+q(H_0-z^2)^{-1}),\qqq z\in \cM.$$ It is similar to the case $p=0$, see [@J]. The case on the real with $p\ne \const$ was considered in [@F4]. The functions $\P^\pm, m_\pm, ,...$ are meromorphic in $\cM$ and real on $i\R$. Then the following identities hold true: $$\P^\pm(-z)=\ol \P^\pm(\ol z), \qq m_\pm(-z)=\ol m_\pm(\ol z), \qq ...,\qq z\in \cZ.$$
i\) The following identities and asymptotics hold true: $$\lb{T21-1}
\P^\pm =\p^{\pm}(t,\cdot)y_1+\dot\p^{\pm}(t,\cdot)y_2,\qqq \where \qq \dot u=\pa_t u,$$ $$\lb{T21-2}
\P^\pm(0,z)=1+\int_0^t\vp(x,z)q(x)\P^\pm(x,z)dx,$$ $$\lb{T21-3}
\P^\pm(x,z)=e^{\pm ik(z)x}(1+e^{\pm (t-x)(|v|-v)}O(1/z)),\qq
v=\Im z,\qq \qq$$ as $|z|\to \iy, z\in \cZ_\ve, \ve>0$ uniformly in $x\in [0,t]$. Moreover, hold true.
ii\) The function $\P^\pm(0,\cdot)$ has exponential type $2t$ in the half plane $\C_\mp$.
i\) Using , we obtain .
The identity $\vp(x,\cdot,\t)=\vt(\t,z)\vp(x+\t,z)-\vp(\t,z)\vt(x+\t,z)$ gives $\vp(-x,\cdot,x)=-\vp(x,z)$ and yield .
Substituting into we obtain . In particular, substitution of , into yields , since $D(z^2)=\P^+(0,z)$.
ii\) We give the proof for the case $\P^+(0,z)$, the proof for $\P^-(0,z)$ is similar. Due to , $\P^+(0,z)$ has exponential type $\le 2t$ in the half plane $\C_-$. The decompositions $f(x,z)\ev e^{-ixk(z)}\P^+(x,z)=1+\ve f_1(x,z)$ and $\vp(x,z)e^{ixk(z)}\ev \ve (e^{i2xz}-1 +\ve \e(x,z)), \ \ve={1\/2iz}$ give $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{esff}
\P^+(0,z)-1=\int_0^t\vp(x,z)e^{ixk}q(x)f(x,z)dx\\
=
\ve \int_0^te^{i2xz}q(x)f(x,z)(1+\ve e^{-i2xz}\e(x,z))dx-\ve \int_0^tq(x)f(x,z)dx=\ve K(z)-\ve \int_0^tq(x)dx,\\
K=\ve \int_0^te^{i2xz}q(x)(1+G(x,z))dx,
\qqq G=\ve f_1+\ve e^{-i2xz}(\e f-f_1), \qq \ z\in \cZ_\ve.\end{gathered}$$
Asymptotics , and $k(z)=z+O(1/z)$ as $z\to \iy$ (see [@KK]) yield $$\lb{esff1}
\e(x,z)=
e^{2x|\Im z|}O(1),\qq
\qqq f_1(x,z)=e^{2(t-x)|\Im z|}O(1)\qq as \ |z|\to \iy, z\in \cZ_\ve.$$
We need the following variant of the Paley Wiener Theorem from [@Fr]:
We can not apply this result to the function $K(z), z\in\C_-$, since $\p^+(x,z)$ has a singularity at $z_n^0$ if $g_n\ne \es$. But we can use this result for the function $K(z-i), z\in\C_-$, since , imply $\sup _{x\in [0,1]}|G(x,-i+\t)|=O(1/\t)$ as $\t\to \pm\iy$. Then the function $\P^+(0,z)$ has exponential type $2t$ in the half plane $\C_-$.
Spectral properties of $H$
==========================
Recall that an entire function $f(z)$ is said to be of $exponential$ $ type$ if there is a constant $A$ such that $|f(z)|\le $ const. $e^{A|z|}$ everywhere (see \[Koo\]). The infimum over the set of $A$ for which such an inequality holds is called the type of $f$. [*The function $f$ is said to belong to the Cartwright class $Cart_\o$ if $f(z)$ is entire, of exponential type, $\o_\pm(f)=\o>0$, where $
\o_{\pm}(f)=\lim \sup_{y\to \iy} {\log |f(\pm iy)|\/y}$ and $\int
_{\R}{\log ^+|f(x)|dx\/ 1+x^2}<\iy$.*]{}
Let for shortness $$\vp_1=\vp(1,z ),\ \ \ \vp_1'=\vp'(1,z ), \ \ \ \vt_1=\vt(1,z ),....,
\F_1=\F(1,z),\ \ \ \F_1'=\F'(1,z).$$
$$F(z)=\vp(1,z)\P^-(0,z)\P^+(0,z), \qq z\in \cZ,$$ which is real on $\R$, since $\P^-(0,z)=\ol\P^+(0,\ol z)$ for all $z\in \cZ$, see also .
i\) The following identities and estimates hold true: $$\lb{T22-1}
F=\vp(1,\cdot,t)y_1^2(0,\cdot)+\dot\vp(1,\cdot,t)y_1(0,\cdot)y_2(0,\cdot)-\vt'(1,\cdot,t)y_2^2(0,\cdot)\in Cart_{1+2t},$$ $$\lb{T22-2}
\vp_1\dot\p_t^+\dot\p_t^-=-\vt'(1,\cdot,t),\qqq
\vp_1(\dot\p_t^+\p_t^-+\p_t^+\dot\p_t^-)=\dot\vp(1,\cdot,t)=
\vp'(1,\cdot,t)-\vt(1,\cdot,t),$$ $$\lb{T22-3}
|F(z)-{\sin z\/z}|\le {C_F e^{(1+2t)|\Im z|}\/|z|^2},
\qq C_F=3(\|p\|_1+\|p+q\|_t)e^{2\|p+q\|_t+\|p\|_1}.
$$ ii) The set of zeros of $F$ is symmetric with respect to the real line and the imaginary line. In each disk $\{z: |z-\pi n|<{\pi\/ 4}\}, |n|\ge 1+4C_Fe^{t{\pi\/2}}$ there exists exactly one simple real zero $z_n$ of $F$ and $F$ has not zeros in the domain $\mD_F\cap\C_-$, where $\mD_F=\{z\in \C: 4C_Fe^{2|\Im z|}<|z|\}$.
iii\) For all $z \in \cZ$ the following identity holds true: $$\lb{T31-1}
\P_0^\pm(z)=e^{\pm ik(z)n_t}w_\pm(z),\ \ \ w_\pm(z)=\F'(n_t,z)-m_\pm(z)\F(n_t,z), \qqq n_t=\inf_{n\in \N, n\ge t} n.$$
i\) The function $\vp(1,z,t)$ for all $(t,z)\in R\ts \C$ satisfies the following identity $$\lb{ipv}
\vp(1,\cdot,t)=-\vt_1'\vp_t^2+\vp_1\vt_t^2+
2\b\vp_t\vt_t=\vp_1\p_t^+\p_t^-,$$ see [@Tr]. Recall that $\vp(1,z,t), \vt(1,z,t)$ are define in . Using we obtain $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{2is}
\dot \vp(1,\cdot,t)=\vp_1(\dot \p_t^+\p_t^-+\p_t^+\dot\p_t^-),\\
\ddot \vp(1,\cdot,t)=\vp_1(\ddot \p_t^+\p_t^-+\p_t^+\ddot\p_t^-
+2\dot \p_t^+\dot \p_t^-)=2\vp_1(p(t)-z^2)\p_t^+\p_t^-+
2\vp_1\dot \p_t^+\dot \p_t^-.\end{gathered}$$ Identity gives $$\lb{e12}
F=\vp_1(\p_t^+\p_t^-y_1^2(0,\cdot)+\dot\p_t^+\dot\p_t^-y_2^2(0,\cdot)+
(\p_t^+\dot\p_t^-+\dot\p_t^+\p_t^-)y_1(0,\cdot)y_2(0,\cdot).$$ Then using the following identities from [@IM] $$\lb{im1}
\dot \vp(1,z,t)=\vp'(1,z,t)-\vt(1,z,t),\qq
\ddot \vp(1,z,t)=2(p(t)-z^2)\vp(1,z,t)-2\vt'(1,z,t),
$$ and , we obtain ,, since Lemma \[T21\], ii) and yields $F\in Cart_{1+2t}$.
We will show . We have $$y_1(0,\cdot)=\cos t z+\wt y_1,\qqq \wt y_1=\int_0^t
{\sin z s\/z}(p(s)+q(s))y_1(s,\cdot)ds,$$ $$y_2(0,\cdot)=-{\sin t z\/z}+\wt y_2,\qqq \wt y_2=\int_0^t
{\sin z s\/z}(p(s)+q(s))y_2(s,\cdot)ds,$$ $$\vt(1,t)=\cos z+\vt_{1t},\qq \vt_{1t}=\int_0^1
{\sin z(1-s)\/z}p(s+\t)\vt(s,\t)ds,$$ $$\vt'(1,t)=-z\sin z+\vt_{1t}',\qq \vt_{1t}'=\int_0^1
\cos z(1-s)p(s+t)\vt(s,t)ds,$$ $$\vp(1,t)={\sin z\/z}+\vp_{1t},\qq \vp_{1t}=\int_0^1
{\sin z(1-s)\/z}p(s+t)\vp(s,t)ds,$$ Then imply $$F=(\cos tz+\wt y_1)^2({\sin z\/z}+\vp_{1t})+({\sin tz\/z}-\wt y_2)^2(z\sin z-\vt_{1t}')
+(\cos tz+\wt y_1)(-{\sin tz\/z}+\wt y_2)\dot \vp(1,z,t)$$ $$={\sin t z\/z}+f_1+f_2+f_3,$$ where $$f_1=y_1(0,\cdot)^2\vp_{1t}+{\sin tz\/z}(\cos tz+y_1(0,\cdot) )\wt y_1,$$$$f_2=-y_2(0,\cdot)^2\vt_{1t}'+z\sin z(y_{2}(0,\cdot)-{\sin tz\/z})\wt y_2,
\qqq f_3=y_1(0,\cdot)y_2(0,\cdot)\dot \vp(1,z,t),$$ $$\qq
|f_3|\le {C_t\/|z|^2}\|p\|_1,\qq
|f_j|\le {C_t\/|z|^2}(\|p\|_1+2\|p+q\|_t),\qq j=1,2,$$ which yields , where $\|q\|_t=\int_0^t|q(x)|dx$ and $C_t=e^{(2t+1)|\Im z|+2\|p+q\|_t+\|p\|_1}$.
ii\) Using we obtain for $|n|\ge 1+4C_Fe^{t{\pi\/2}}$ $$|F(z)-{\sin z\/z}|\le {C_F\/|z|^2}e^{|\Im z|+t{\pi\/2}|}
\le {4C_F\/|z|}e^{t{\pi\/2}|}{|\sin z|\/|z|}<{|\sin z|\/|z|}
\qq all \ |z-\pi n|={\pi\/4},$$ since $e^{|{\Im}z|}\le 4|\sin z|$ for all $|z-\pi n|\ge \pi /4, n\in \Z$, (see \[PT\]). Hence, by Rouche’s theorem, $F$ has as many roots, counted with multiplicities, as $\sin z$ in each disk $\cD_{\pi\/4}(\pi n)$. Since $\sin z$ has only the roots $\pi n, n\ge 1,$ and i) of the lemma follows. This zero in $\cD_{\pi\/4}(\pi n)$ is real since $F$ is real on the real line.
Using and $e^{|{\Im}z|}\le 4|\sin z|$ for all $|z-\pi n|\ge \pi /4, n\in \Z$, we obtain $$|F(z)|\ge |{\sin z\/z}|-\rt|F(z)-{\sin z\/z}\rt|\ge {e^{|\Im z|}\/4|z|^2}
\rt(|z|-4C_F e^{2t|\Im z|} \rt)>0,$$ for all $z\in \mD_1=\{z\in \mD_F: |z-\pi n|\ge \pi /4, n\in \Z \}$. This yields $|F|>0$ in $\mD_1$. But the function $F$ has exactly one real zero $z_n$ in $\cD_{\pi\/4}(\pi n), n\ge n_0$. Then $F$ has not zeros in the domain $\mD_F$. The function $F$ is real on the real line and the imaginary line. Hence the set of zeros of $F$ is symmetric with respect to the real line and the imaginary line.
iii\) Using $\P^\pm(0,z)=\{\P^\pm(x,z ),\F (x,z)\}, \ z \in \cZ$ at $x=n_t$, and we obtain , where $\{y,u\}=yu'-y'u$ is the Wronskian.
Let $\wt\vt, \wt\vp$ be the solutions of the equations $-y''+(p+q)y=z^2y, z\in \C$ and satisfying $$\wt\vt(x,z)=\vt(x,z),\qqq \wt\vp(x,z)=\vp(x,z),\qq \all \qq x\ge t.$$ Hence the solutions $\wt\vt, \wt\vp$ satisfy the equations $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{eqfwt}
\wt\vt(x,z)=\vt(x,z)-\int_x^t\vp(x-s,z,s)q(s)\wt\vt(s,z)ds,\\ \wt\vp(x,z)=\vp(x,z)-\int_x^t\vp(x-s,z,s)q(s)\wt\vp(s,z)ds.\end{gathered}$$ For each $x\ge 0$ the functions $\wt\vt(x,z), \wt\vp(x,z)$ are entire and real for $z^2\in \R$. The identities and give $$\lb{Ptp}
\P^\pm(x,z)=\wt\vt(x,z)+m_\pm(z)\wt\vp(x,z),\qqq \all \qq (x,z)\in \R_+\ts \cZ.$$
Recall that $g_n^c={\ol g_n^-}\cup {\ol g_n^+}$ and we define the sets $$\mZ=i\R\cup \C_-\cup \cup_{n\in \Z}g_n^c,\qqq \qq \mZ_0=\mZ\sm \{0, e_n^\pm,\m_n\pm i0, g_n\ne \es, n\in \Z\}.$$
i\) If $g_n=(e_n^-,e_n^+)= \es$ for some $n\ne 0$, then each $\P^\pm(x,\cdot )\in \mA(\m_n), x\ge 0$ and $\Im \P^\pm(0,\m_n)\ne 0$. Moreover, $\m_n=e_n^\pm$ is a simple zero of $F$ and $\m_n\notin\s_{st}(H)$.
ii\) $\P^\pm(0,z)\ne 0$ for all $z\in (e_{n-1}^+,e_{n}^-), n\in\Z$. Moreover, states of $H$ and zeros of $\P^+(0,z)$ belong to the set $\mZ=\{i\R\}\cup\C_-\cup\bigcup g_n^c\ss \cZ$.
iii\) A point $z\in\mZ_0$ is a zero of $\P_0^+$ iff $z\in\mZ_0\cap \s_{st}(H)$. In particular,
1\) $z\in \ol\C_+\cap \cZ$ is a bound state of $H$,
2\) $z\in \ol\C_-\cap \cZ$ is a resonance of $H$.
i\) Lemma \[Tm\] and identity yield that each $\P^\pm(x,\cdot )\in \mA(\m_n), x\ge 0$.
Using we deduce that $\P_0^\pm(\m_n)\ne 0$, then the functions $\P^\pm(x,\cdot), 1/\P_0^\pm\in \mA(\m_n)$. Thus $\m_n$ is not a state of $H$ and $\m_n$ is a simple zero of $F$.
ii\) The conformal mapping $k(\cdot)$ maps each interval $(e_{n-1}^+,e_{n}^-),
n\ge 1$ onto $(\pi (n-1), \pi n)$. Recall that $\m_n\in [e_{n}^-,e_{n}^+]$. Then the function $m_\pm$ is analytic on $(e_{n-1}^+,e_{n}^-)$ and $\Im m_\pm(z)\ne 0$ for all $z\in (e_{n-1}^+,e_{n}^-)$. Then the identity gives $\P^\pm(0,z)\ne $ for all $z\in (e_{n-1}^+,e_{n}^-)$.
Then the identity $\P^+(0,z)=D(z^2)$ and standard arguments (similar to the case $p=0$, see [@K1]) imply that states of $H$ and zeros of $\P^+(0,z)$ belong to the set $\mZ=\{i\R\}\cup\C_-\cup\bigcup g_n^c\ss \cZ$.
iii\) The statement iii) follows from the identities , . $\BBox$
We consider the properties of the states of $H$ which coincide with unperturbed states $z_n^0$.
Let $\z=\m_n+i0\in g_n^+$ or $\z=\m_n-i0\in g_n^-$ for some $n\ge 1$, where $g_n\ne \es$. Then
i\) $\wt \vp(0,\m_n)=0$ iff $\F(n_t,\m_n)=0$, where $n_t=\inf_{n\in \N, n\ge t} n$.
ii\) Let in addition $\z=z_n^0\in \s_{st}(H_0)$. Then $\P_0^-\in \mA(\z)$ and each $\P^+(x,\cdot), x>0$ has a simple pole at $\z$ and there are two cases:
1\) if $\wt\vp(0,\m_n)=0$, then $\P_0^+\in\mA(\z), \ \P_0^-(\z)\ne 0$ and $\z\in \s_{st}(H)$. In particular, $$\lb{T32-0}
if \qq \z=\m_n+i0\in g_n^+ \qq \Rightarrow \qq \P_0^+(\z)\ne 0,\qq
F(\m_n)=0,\qqq (-1)^nF'(\m_n)>0;$$ 2) if $\wt\vp(0,\m_n)\ne 0$, then $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{T32-1}
{\P^+(x,\cdot)\/\P_0^+}\in \mA(\z),x\ge 0, \ , \ \ \P_0^-(\z)\ne 0, \ \
\P_0^+(z)={c_n+O(\ve)\/\ve}\wt\vp(0),\\ \z\notin \s_{st}(H),\qqq
F(\m_n)\ne 0.\end{gathered}$$
iii\) $\z\in \s_{bs}(H) $ (or $\z\in \s_{vs}(H) $ ) iff $\z\in \s_{bs}(H_0) $ (or $z_1\in \s_{vs}(H_0)$ and $\F(n_t,\m_n)=0$.
iv\) Let $\z\in \s_{st}(H_0)\cap \s_{st}(H)$, then the same number but on another sheet is not a state of $H$.
v\) Let $\z\in \s_{st}(H_0)$ and let the same number $\z_1=\ol\z$ but on another sheet is a state of $H$. Then $\z\notin \s_{st}(H)$.
i\) Comparing and we deduce that $\wt \vp(0,\m_n)=0$ iff $\F(0,\m_n)=0$.
ii\) Lemma \[Tm\] yields $m_-\in \mA(\z)$ and each $\P^+(x,\cdot), x>0$ has a simple pole at $\z$ and $m_+(z)={\pm c_n\/\ve}+O(1)$ as $\ve\to 0,\ \ve \in \C_\pm$ and $c_n<0$.
1\) If $\wt\vp(0,\m_n)=0$, then yields $\P_0^+\in\mA(\z), \ \P_0^-(\z)\ne 0$. Thus $\z\in \s_{st}(H)$, since each $\P^+(x,\cdot), x>0$ has a simple pole at $\z$.
Consider the case $\z=\m_n+i0\in g_n^+$. Recall that gives $$\P^\pm(0,z)=e^{\pm ik(z)n_t}w_\pm(z),\ \ \ w_\pm(z)=\F'(n_t,z)-m_\pm(z)\F(n_t,z),
\qqq n_t=\inf_{n\in \N, n\ge t} n,\ z\in \cZ,$$ which yields $$w_-(\z)=\F'(n_t,\m_n)\ne 0,\qq
w_+(z_1)=\F'(n_t,\m_n)(1-c_n{\pa_z\F(n_t,\m_n)\/\F'(n_t,\m_n)})\ne 0,$$ since $\F'(n_t,\m_n)\ne 0, \F(n_t,\m_n)=0$ and $\F'(n_t,\m_n)\pa_z\F(n_t,\m_n)>0$ (see [@PT]). This yields , since $(-1)^n\pa_z \vp(1,\m_n)>0$ (see [@PT]).
2\) Lemma \[Tm\] yields $m_+(z)={c_n+O(\ve)\/\ve}$ as $\ve=z-\z\to 0$. Using , we obtain $$\P_0^+(z)={c_n+O(\ve)\/\ve}\wt\vp(0),\qq
{\P^+(x,z)\/\P_0^+(z)}={\ve \wt\vt(x)-c_n\wt\vp(x)+O(\ve)\/\ve \wt\vt(0)-c_n\wt\vp(0)+O(\ve)}=
{\wt\vp(x)\/\wt\vp(0)}+O(\ve)\qq \as \ \ve\to 0,$$ since $c_n\wt\vp(0,\m_n)\ne 0$, where $\wt\vp(x)=\wt\vp(x,z),..$. This yields $\vp(1,z)\P_0^+(z)=\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)c_n+o(1)$ and $m_-\in \mA(\z)$ gives $\P_0^+(\z)=\wt\vt(0)\ne 0$, which yields $F(\m_n)\ne 0$ and .
Using i) and ii) we obtain iii).
iv\) $\P_0^+\in \mA(\z_1)$ and each $\P^+(x,\cdot)\in \mA(\z_1), x>0$. Due to ii) $\wt\vp(0,\m_m)=0$, then we obtain $\P_0^+(\z_1)\ne 0$. Thus $\z_1\notin \s_{st}(H)$.
v\) Assume that $\z\in \s_{st}(H)$. Then iv) gives contradiction. Thus $\z\notin \s_{st}(H)$.
Consider virtual states, which coincide with the points $e_n^\pm$.
Let $\z=e_n^-$ or $\z=e_n^+$ for some $n\ge 1$, where $e_n^-<e_n^+$ and let $\ve=z-\z$.
i\) Let $\z\ne \m_n$ and let $\P_0^+(\z)=0$. Then $\z$ is a simple zero of $F$, $\z\in \s_{vs}(H)$ and $$\lb{T33-1}
\P_0^+(z)=\wt\vp(0,\z)c\sqrt \ve+O(\ve),\qq
\mR(x,z)={\P^+(x,z)+O(\ve)\/\wt\vp(0,\z)c\sqrt \ve},\qq c\wt\vp(0,\z)\ne 0.$$ ii) Let $\z=\m_n$ and $\wt\vp(0,\z)\ne 0$. Then $F(\z)\ne 0$ and each $\mR(x,\cdot), x>0$ has not singularity at $\z$, and $\z\notin \s_{vs}(H)$.
iii\) Let $\z=\m_n$ and $\wt\vp(0,\z)=0$. Then $\z\in \s_{vs}(H)$, $\P_0^\pm(\z)\ne 0$ and $\z$ is a simple zero of $F$ and each $\mR^2(x,\cdot), x>0$ has a pole at $\z$.
i\) Lemma \[Tm\] gives $m_\pm(z)=m_\pm(\z)+c\sqrt \ve+O(\ve)$ as $\ve=z-\z\to 0, c\ne 0$. We have two cases: 1) Firstly, let $\wt\vp(0,\z)\ne 0$. Then identity implies .
2\) Secondly, if $\wt\vp(0,\z)=0$, then implies $\P_0^+(\z)=\wt\vt(0,\z)\ne 0$, which gives contradictions.
ii\) If $\z=\m_n$, then Lemma \[Tm\] gives $m_\pm(z)=\pm {c\/\sqrt \ve}+O(1), \ve\to 0, c\ne 0$. Then implies $$\P_0^\pm(z)=\pm{\wt\vp(0,\z)c\/\sqrt \ve}+O(1),\qq
{\P^+(x,z)\/\P_0^+(z)}={\wt\vt(x,z)+({c\/\sqrt \ve}+O(1)) \wt\vp(x,z)\/{\wt\vp(0,\z)c\/\sqrt \ve}+O(1)}={1+O(\sqrt \ve)\/\wt\vp(0,\z)}.$$ Thus the function $\mR(x,\cdot), x>0$ has not singularity at $\z$ and $\z\notin \s_{vs}(H)$, $F(\z)\ne 0$.
iii\) If $\wt\vp(0,\z)=0$, then gives $\P_0^+(\z)=\wt\vt(0,\z)\ne 0$, since $\wt\vt(0,\z)\ne 0$ and $\b(\z)=0$. Moreover, we obtain $
\P^+(x,z)=\wt\vt(x,z)+({c\/\sqrt \ve}+O(1)) \wt\vp(x,z),
$ and the function $\mR^2(x,\cdot), x>0$ has a pole at $\z$, $\z\in \s_{vs}(H)$ and $F(\z)=0$. $\BBox$
Let $\l\in \g_n, \l\ne \m_n^2$ be an eigenvalue of $H$ for some $n\ge 0$ and let $z=\sqrt \l\in i\R_+\cup \cup_{n\ge 1} g_n^+$. Then $$\lb{T34-1}
C_\l=\int_0^\iy |\P^+(x,z)|^2dx=-{{\P^+}'(0,z)\/2z} \pa_z\P^+(0,z)>0,$$ $$\lb{T34-2}
{i2\sin k(z)\/\vp(1,z)}=\P^-(0,z_1){\P^+}'(0,z)\ne 0,\qqq
i\sin k(z)=-(-1)^n\sinh h,\ \ h>0,$$ $$\lb{T34-3}
C_\l={(-1)^nF'(z)\sinh h\/ z\vp^2(1,z)\P^-(0,z)^2}>0,
\qqq {(-1)^nF'(z)\/z}>0.$$
Using the identity $\{{\pa\/\pa z} \P^+,\P^+\}'=2z(\P^+)^2$ we obtain .
Using the Wronskian for the functions $\P^+, \P^-$ and we obtain $\P^-(0,z){\P^+}'(0,z)=m_+(z)-m_-(z)$, which yields , since $k(z)=\pi n+ih$ for some $h>0$, see the definition of $k(\cdot)$ before . Then identities , imply . $\BBox$
Proof of main Theorems
======================
[**Proof of Theorem \[T1\]**]{}. i) Asymptotics were proved in Lemma \[T21\].
ii\) and iii) of Lemma \[T32\] give for the case of non-virtual states, i.e., $\ne e_n^\pm$.
Lemma \[T33\] implies for the case of virtual states.
Lemma \[T311\] gives for the case of non-virtual states. Lemma \[T33\] implies for the case of virtual states.
ii\) Using ii) and iii) of Lemma \[T32\] we obtain .
iii\) Due to i) $\z$ is a zero of $F$, then yields . Lemma \[T22\] (ii) completes the proof of iii).
. i) Let $g_n\ne \es$. The entire function $F=\vp(1,\cdot)\P_0^+\P_0^-$ has different sign on $\s_n$ and $\s_{n+1}$, since $\P_0^+(z)\P_0^-(z)=|\P_0^+(z)|^2>0$ for $z$ inside $\s_n\cup \s_{n+1}$ (see ) and $\vp(1,\cdot)$ has one simple zero in each interval $[e_n^-,e_n^+]$. Then $F$ has an odd number of zeros on $[e_n^-,e_n^+]$.
By Lemma \[T311\]-\[T33\], $\z\in g_n^c$ is a state of $H$ iff $\z\in \ol g_n$ is a zero of $F$ (according to the multiplicity). Then the number of states on $g_n^c$ is odd.
Using Lemma \[T22\] and \[T311\] we deduce that there exists an exactly one simple state $z_n$ in each interval $[e_n^-,e_n^+]$ for $g_n\ne \es$ and for $n\ge 1$ large enough. Moreover, asymptotics $e_n^\pm=\pi n+{p_0+o(1)\/2\pi n}$, see give $$\lb{rae}
z_n=\pi n+{p_0+o(1)\/2\pi n}.$$ Using arguments proving we obtain the identities $$\lb{T21-20}
\wt \vt(0,z)=1+\int_0^t\vp(x,z)q(x)\wt \vt(x,z)dx,\qqq \wt \vp(0,z)=\int_0^t\vp(x,z)q(x)\wt \vp(x,z)dx,$$ The standard iteration procedure and give the asymptotics $$\lb{asvt1}
\wt \vt(0,z_n)=1+O(1/n),\qqq ,$$ $$\lb{asvp1}
\wt\vp(0,z_n)=\int_0^t{\sin^2 z_nx\/z_n^2}q(x)dx+O(1/n^3)={q_0-\wh q_{cn}+O({1\/n})\/2(\pi n)^2},$$ where $\wh q_{cn}=\int_0^tq(x)\cos 2\pi nxdx$. Using and $\P^\pm=\wt\vt+m_\pm\wt\vp$, see , we obtain $$\lb{idF1}
F=F_1+F_2+F_3,\qqq F_1=\vp(1,\cdot)\wt\vt_0^2,\qq F_2=2\b\wt\vt_0\wt\vp_0,\qqq F_3=-\vt'(1,\cdot)\wt\vp_0^2,$$ where for shortness $\wt\vt_0=\wt\vt(0,z),\ \wt\vp_0=\wt\vp(0,z)$. Using estimates , , we obtain $$\begin{gathered}
\lb{T31-4}
F_1(z_n)=\vp(1,z_n)(1+O(n^{-1})),\qqq \qqq F_3(z_n)=O(n^{-4})
\\
F_2(z_n)=(-1)^n{(p_{sn}+O({1\/n}))\/\pi n} {(q_0-\wh q_{cn}+O({1\/n}))\/2(\pi n)^2}=f_n+O(n^{-4})\qq \as \ n\to \iy,\end{gathered}$$ where $f_n=(-1)^n{p_{sn}(q_0-\wh q_{cn})\/2(\pi n)^3}$. Combine these asymptotics and the identity $F(z_n)=0$ we get $$\vp(1,z_n)=-F_2(z_n)+O(n^{-4})=-f_n+O(n^{-4}).$$ Then, using $\vp(1,z_n)=\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)\d_n+O(n^{-4})$, where $z_n=\m_n+\d_n$, we obtain $$\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)\d_n=-f_n+O(n^{-4})$$ and the asymptotics $\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)={(-1)^n+O({1\/n})\/(\pi n)}$ give $$\d_n=-{f_n\/\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)}+O(n^{-3})=-{(\wh q_0-\wh q_{cn})p_{sn}+O({1\/n})\/2(\pi n)^2},$$ which yields .
Denote by $\cN^+(r,f)$ the number of zeros of $f$ with real part $\geq 0$ having modulus $\leq r$, and by $\cN^-(r,f)$ the number of its zeros with real part $< 0$ having modulus $\leq r$, each zero being counted according to its multiplicity. We recall the well known result (see \[Koo\]).
Let $\cN (r,f)$ be the total number of zeros of $f$ with modulus $\le r$. Denote by $\cN_+(r,f)$ (or $\cN_-(r,f)$) the number of zeros of $f$ with imaginary part $>0$ (or $<0$) having modulus $\le r$, each zero being counted according to its multiplicity.
Let $s_0=0$ and $\pm s_n>0, n\in \N$ be all real zeros of $F$ and let $n_0$ be the multiplicity of the zero $s_0=0$. Define the entire function $F_1=z^{n_0}\lim_{r\to \iy}\prod_{0<s_n\le r}(1-{z^2\/ s_n^2})$. The Levinson Theorem and Lemma \[T21\] imply $$\cN(r,F)=\cN(r,F_1)+\cN(r,F/F_1)=2r{1+2t+o(1)\/\pi},\qq
\cN(r,F_1)=2r{1+o(1)\/\pi},$$ $$\cN_-(r,F)=\cN_+(r,F)=\cN_-(r,\P_0^+)-N_0,$$ as $r\to\iy$, where $N_0$ is the number of non-positive eigenvalues of $H$. Thus $$2\cN_-(r,F)=2r{2t+o(1)\/\pi},$$ which yields .
ii\) Using Lemma \[T34\] we obtain the statements ii) and iii).
[**Proof of Theorem \[T3\].**]{} Let $z=e_n^\pm$. Identity and $k(e_n^\pm)=\pi n$ yield $$\lb{Jep}
\P_0^-(z)=\P_0^+(z)=(-1)^Nw_+(z),\ \ \ w_+(z)=\F'(n_t,z)-{\b(z)\/\vp(1,z)}\F(n_t,z),\qq
N=n_tn.$$ Estimates and $e_n^\pm=\pi n+\ve_n(p_0\pm |p_n|+O(\ve_n)), \ \ve_n={1\/2\pi n}$ (see ) give $$\F'(n_t,z)=(-1)^N+{O(1)\/n},\qq \F(n_t,z)={\sin n_tz\/\pi n}+{O(1)\/n^2}={O(1)\/n^2}.$$ Using , we obtain $$\sin e_n^\pm=(-1)^n\sin { \pm |p_n|+O({1\/n})\/2\pi n}=(-1)^n{ \pm|p_n|+O({1\/n})\/2\pi n},$$$$\vp(1,e_n^\pm)={\sin e_n^\pm\/\pi n}+{(-1)^np_{cn}\/2\pi^2n^2} +{O(1)\/n^3}=
(-1)^n{\pm|p_n|+p_{cn}+O({1\/n})\/2\pi^2n^2}.$$ Then the estimate $\sqrt{x^2+y^2}-y\ge x$ for $y,x\ge 0$ gives $|p_n|\pm p_{cn}\ge |p_{sn}|$, which yields $$\lb{bdvp}
{\b(e_n^+)\/\vp(1,e_n^+)}=\pi n{p_{sn}+O({1\/n})\/\pm|p_n|+p_{cn}+O({1\/n})}=
O(\pi n),$$ since $|p_{sn}|\ge {1\/n^\a}$. Combining - and , we obtain $\P_0^+(e_n^\pm)=1+o(1)$. The function $\P_0^+(z)$ is analytic on $g_n^-$ and $\P_0^+(e_n^\pm)=1+o(1)$. Thus $\P_0^+(z)$ has not zeros on $g_n^-$, since by Theorem \[T2\], the function $F$ has exactly 1 zero on each $\ol g_n\ne \es$ at large $n>1$.
Let $\m_n+i0\in g_n^+$ be a bound state of $H_0$ for some $n$ large enough. Then Lemma \[Tm\] implies $h_{sn}>0$. Moreover, gives $h_{sn}=-{p_{sn}+O({1\/n})\/2\pi n}$ as $n\to \iy$. Thus $p_{sn}<-{1\/n^\a}$ at large $n>1$ and asymptotics gives that the bound state $z_n>\m_n$ if $q_0>0$ and $z_n<\m_n$ if $q_0<0$. The proof of other cases is similar.
[**Proof of Theorem \[T4\].**]{} i) Using the identities and we obtain $$\lb{iii}
\P_0^+=Y_1+{i\sin k\/\vp_1}\wt \vp(z_n),\qq Y_1=\wt \vt(z_n)+{\b\/\vp_1}\wt \vp(z_n).$$ Note that gives $\b(\m_n)=0$. Then asymptotics , , imply $${\b(z_n)\/\vp(1,z_n)}={\b'(\m_n)+O({\ve_n^3})\/\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)+O({\ve_n^3})}
=o(1)\qqq \as \qq n\to \iy,\qqq \ve_n={1\/2\pi n}$$ where we used asymptotics $\pa_z\vp(1,\m_n)={(-1)^n+O({\ve_n})\/(\pi n)}$ and $\b'(\m_n)={o(1)\/n}$. Thus , give $$Y_1=1+O(\ve_n), \qqq \wt\vp(0,z_n)=2\ve_n^2(b_n+O(\ve_n)), \qqq b_n=q_0-\wh q_{cn} $$
Below we need the identities and the asymptotics as $n\to \iy$ from [@KK]: $$\lb{35} (-1)^{n+1}i\sin k(z)=\sinh v(z)=\pm |\D^2(z)-1|^{1\/2}>0\qq
\ all \qq z\in g_n^\pm,$$ $$\lb{pav}
v(z)=\pm |(z-e_n^-)(e_n^+-z)|^{1\/2}(1+O(n^{-2})),\qq
\sinh v(z)=v(z)(1+O(|g_n|^2),\qq z\in \ol g_n^\pm.$$ We rewrite the equation $\P_0^+=0$ in the form $\vp_1Y_1=-i\sin k\wt \vp(z_n)$ Then we obtain $$2\d \ve_n(1+O(\ve_n))=v(z)2\ve_n^2(b_n+O(\ve_n))=\sqrt{\d(|g_n|-\d)}2\ve_n^2(b_n+O(\ve_n)),$$ $$\sqrt \d =\ve_n\sqrt{|g_n|-\d}(b_n+O(\ve_n)), \qqq \d=z_n-\m_n,$$ where $\sqrt \d>0$ if $b_n>0$ and $\sqrt \d<0$ if $b_n<0$. Then last asymptotics imply $\d =\ve_n^2|g_n|(b_n+O(\ve_n))^2$, where $b_n=q_0-\wh q_{cn}, \ve_n={1\/2\pi n}$, which yields .
ii\) Let $q\in \cQ_t, q_0=0$ and let each $|\wh q_{cn}|>n^{-\a}$ for some $\a\in (0,1)$ and for $n$ large enough. The proof of other cases is similar. Then using the inverse spectral theory from [@K5], see page 3, for any sequence $\vk=(\vk_n)_1^\iy\in \ell^2, \vk_n\ge 0$ there exists a potential $p\in L^2(0,1)$ such that each gap length $|\g_n|=\vk_n, n\ge 1$ for $n$ large enough. Moreover, for $n$ large enough we can the gap in the form $\g_n=(E_n^-,E_n^+)$, where $\m_n^2=E_n^-$ or $\m_n^2=E_n^+$. In order to choose $\m_n^2=E_n^-$ or $\m_n^2=E_n^+$ we do the following. For any sequence $\s=(\s_n)_{1}^\iy$, where $\s_n\in \{0,1\}$, using Theorem \[T3\] (i) we obtain:
If $\s_n=1$ and $\wh q_{cn}<-n^{-\a}$ (or $\wh q_{cn}>n^{-\a}$), then taking $\m_n^2=E_n^-$ (or $\m_n^2=E_n^+$) we deduce that $\l_n$ is an eigenvalue for $n$ large enough.
If $\s_n=0$ and $\wh q_{cn}>n^{-\a}$ (or $\wh q_{cn}<-n^{-\a}$), then taking $\m_n^2=E_n^-$ (or $\m_n^2=E_n^+$) we deduce that $\l_n$ is an antibound state for $n$ large enough.
iii\) Let $p\in L^2(0,1)$ such that $\g_n=(E_n^-,E_n^+)$, where $\m_n^2=E_n^-$ or $\m_n^2=E_n^+$ for $n\in \N_0$ large enough. Let $\s=(\s_n)_{1}^\iy$ be any sequence, where $\s_n\in \{0,1\}$. We take $\wh |q_{cn}|>n^{-\a}$ for $n\in \N_0$ large enough. We need to choose the sign of $q_{cn}$. Using Theorem \[T3\] (i) we take the sign of $q_{cn}$ by
If $\s_n=0$ and $\l_n^0=E_n^-$ (or $\l_n^0=E_n^+$), then taking $\wh q_{cn}>n^{-\a}$ (or $\wh q_{cn}<-n^{-\a}$) we deduce that $\l_n$ is an antibound state.
If $\s_n=1$ and $\l_n^0=E_n^-$ (or $\l_n^0=E_n^-$), then taking $\wh q_{cn}<-n^{-\a}$ (or $\wh q_{cn}>n^{-\a}$) we deduce that $\l_n$ is an eigenvalue.
Let $\#_{bs}(H,\O)$ (or $\#_{abs}(H,\O)$) be the total number of bound states (or anti bound states) of $H$ on the segment $\O\ss \g_n^{(1)}$ (or $\O\ss \g_n^{(2)}$) for some $n\ge 0$. Here each state being counted according to its multiplicity.
Recall that $H_\t=H_0+q_\t$, where $q_\t=q({x\/\t})$ and $\t\to \iy$. Let $\O=[E_1,E_2]\ss \ol \g_n^{(1)}$ for some $n\ge 0$. Then using the result of Sobolev [@So] with a modification of Schmidt [@Sc] we obtain $$\lb{asbs}
\#_{bs}(H_\t,\O)={\t}\int_0^\iy \rt(\r(E_2-q(x))-\r(E_2-q(x))\rt)dx+o(\t)\qq \as \qq \t\to \iy.$$ Theorem \[T2\] (iii) implies $\#_{abs}(H_\t,\O^{(2)})\ge 1+\#_{bs}(H_\t,\O)$, which together with yield .
The research was partially supported by EPSRC grant EP/D054621. The various parts of this paper were written at ESI, Vienna, Université de Gen$\grave{\rm e}$ve, Section de Mathematiques and Mathematical Institute of the Tsukuba Univ., Japan. The author is grateful to the Institutes for the hospitality. The author would like also to thank A. Sobolev (London) and K. Schmidt (Cardiff) for useful discussions about the asymptotics associated with Corollary \[T5\].
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Koosis, P. The logarithmic integral I, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, London, New York 1988.
Marchenko, V. Sturm-Liouville operator and applications. Basel: Birkhäuser 1986.
Marchenko, V.; Ostrovski I. A characterization of the spectrum of the Hill operator. Math. USSR Sbornik 26(1975), 493-554.
Novikov, S.; Manakov, S. V.; Pitaevskii, L. P.; Zakharov, V. E. Theory of solitons. The inverse scattering method. Translated from the Russian. Contemporary Soviet Mathematics. Consultants Bureau \[Plenum\], New York, 1984.
Pöschel, P.; Trubowitz, E. Inverse Spectral Theory. Boston: Academic Press, 1987.
Rofe-Beketov, F. A finiteness test for the number of discrete levels which can be introduced into the gaps of the continuous spectrum by perturbations of a periodic potential. Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 156 (1964), 515–518.
Schmidt, K. M. Eigenvalue asymptotics of perturbed periodic Dirac systems in the slow-decay limit. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 131 (2003) 1205-1214.
Simon, B. Resonances in one dimension and Fredholm determinants. J. Funct. Anal. 178(2000), no. 2, 396–420.
Sobolev, A.V. Weyl asymptotics for the discrete spectrum of the perturbed Hill operator. Estimates and asymptotics for discrete spectra of integral and differential equations (Leningrad, 1989–90), 159–178, Adv. Soviet Math., 7, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1991.
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|
Ayurveda,
the science of life is the world’s most
ancient and unique system of medicine.The word Ayurveda is
composed of two Sanskrit terms - Ayu meaning life and Veda
meaning knowledge. 'Ayurveda' means the knowledge of life.
It is most treasured gift of India to the world. Ayurveda
is the most eco-friendly system of treatment with no side
effects and relies completely on herbs and natural substances
to heal.
The
basic concept of Ayurveda is based on Trido-shas, Vata, Pitta
and Kapha, the equilibrium of which maintains health. Ayurveda
treats the person as a whole rather than the disease. It maintains
a healthy living in a perfect harmony with the inner self,
mind, body and nature.
The
emphasis of Ayurveda is “to maintain a better life in a State
of perfect health”. Our physician makes a thorough analysis
of your body constitution to prescribe a personal Panchakarma
treatment. It is a holistic natural therapy to prevent diseases,
arrest premature ageing and Regain good health. Recent studies
worldwide reveal that a 3000 year old Traditional health care
system existing in Kerala called Ayurveda is the best remedy
to facilitate the harmony of the Mind, Body and Soul. Migraines,
spondilitis and rheumatism, leukemia, paralysis and insanity
- Ayurveda has a solution for everything.A system developed
by the sages who were eminent Scholars and hard-core researchers,
Ayurveda is the answer to a prayer for a healthy and peaceful
life.
The
Natural way to sound health. Natural way is a smooth transition.
It is harmless usually in eventful;First
aim of Ayurveda is to keep the health of healthy.
The
8 Branches of Ayurveda
*
Kayachikitsa (General Medicine)
Describes ailments of adults is not treated by other
branches of Ayurveda. Hence it is known as general medicine.* Balachikitsa (Paediatrics)
This branch deals with the prenatal and postnatal baby
care as well as the care of a woman before and during
pregnancy. It also elaborates various diseases of children
and their treatments. *Graha Chikitsa (Psychiatry)
The study of mental diseases and their treatments. Treatment
methods include not only medicines and diet but also
yogic methods for improving psychic power. * Salakya Chikitsa (Eye
Diseases, ENT and Cephalic Diseases)
This branch deals with the diseases of ear, nose, throat
and head and their treatments including special techniques
for curing these diseases. *Salya Chikitsa (Surgery)
Maharishi 'Sushrutha' is the first surgeon who is also
the author of Salya Chikitsa, the foremost speciality
of Ayurveda. He describes various surgical operations
using different surgical instruments and devices. * Agada Tantram (Toxicology)
This branch deals with the toxins from vegetables, minerals
and also toxins from animal origins. The concept of
pollution of air and water in certain places and seasons
has been given special consideration. Such pollution
is also said to be the cause of various epidemics*Rasayana (Rejuvenation
Therapy)
This branch which is unique to Ayurveda, deals with
prevention of diseases and promotion of a long and healthy
life. It also advises how to increase our health, intellect
and beauty. * Vajeekarana (Aphrodisiac
treatment)
This branch deals with the means of increasing sexual
vitality and efficiency.
Besides
these 8 branches, Ayurveda also brings diseases affecting
plants and animals into its ambit of consideration.
* Vrukshayurvedam
It deals with the diseases of the plant kingdom and
their treatments (known as Agriculture). * Mrugayurvedam
This Science deals with the diseases of animals and
their treatments (known as Veterinary Science)
Treatments
in Ayurveda
Ayurveda
has been practised for thousands of years in India.
In ancient times Rishis were involved in making medicine
and treating people. Several researches and studies
have been undertaken in this field of medicine. Today,
these treatments are very popular all over the world.
Shodhanam: Various therapeutic procedures are followed
to facilitate elimination of harmful factors:Vamanam
(emesis therapy), Virechanam (purgation therapy), Nasyam
(nasal medication), Vaste (enema therapy), Raktamoksham
(blood-letting therapy).
Pre-treatments for panchakarma: The panchakarma pre-treatment
includes three different processes: Thalam, Snehanam,
swedanam.
Thalam: Before any external treatment thalam has to
be performed. In this treatment, a special mixture of
herbal powder and medicated oil is applied on the upper
portion of the head and allowed to remain for 20 to
45 minutes.This treatment helps in conditions associated
with ENT, insomnia and migraine.
Snehanam: This is a process of oleation . The medicated
oil may be applied externally on the body or given orally.
Swedanam: Swedanam, or the sweating treatment is carried
out through various procedures.
Prime
Treatments in Ayurveda
Pizhichil
: In this treatment, lukewarm herbal
oils are applied all over the body by two to four trained
masseurs in a special rhythmic way for about 60 to 90
minutes per day for a period of 7 to 21 days. This treatment
is very useful for Rheumatic diseases like arthritis,
paralysis, hemiplegia, paralysis-agitanus, sexual weakness,
nervous weakness and nervous disorders etc. Njavarakizhi :
It is a process by which the whole body or any specific
part thereof is made to perspire by the application
of certain medical puddings externally in the form of
boluses tied up in a muslin bag. This is applied by
two to four masseurs for about 60 to 90 minutes per
day for a period of 14 days. This treatment is for all
types rheumatism, pain in the joints, emaciation of
limbs, blood pressure, cholesterol and certain kinds
of skin diseases. Dhara :
In this process, some herbal oils, medicated milk, medicated
butter, milk etc., are poured on the forehead in a special
method for about 45 minutes in a day for a period of
7 to 21 days. This treatment is mainly for insomnia,
vatha predominated diseases, mental tension and certain
skin diseases. Vasthi : Certain
herbal oils, herbal extracts etc., are applied through
the rectum daily for a period of 5 to 25 days. This
treatment is for arthritis, paralysis, hemiplegia, numbness,
gastric complaints associated with rheumatism and constant
constipation. Sirovasthi :
Certain lukewarm herbal oils are poured into a cap fitted
on the head for 15 to 60 minutes per day according to
the patient’s conditions for a period of 7 days. This
treatment is highly effective for facial paralysis,
dryness of nostrils, mouth and throat, severe headaches,
burning sensation of head and other vatha originated
diseases.Benefits:-
Anxiety, Depression, Epilepsy, Hypertension, Diabetic
Neuropathy, Central Nervous System, Hemiplegia Paraplegia,
Strengthens the sensory organs, Insomnia, Pre-mature
graying of the hair & hair losso Mental retardation,
Paralysis, Stress Udvarthanam :
This is a typical massage with herbal powders for about
30 minutes daily for a period of 14 to 28 days. This
treatment is for the diseases like hemiplegia, paralysis,
obesity (excess fat) and certain rheumatic ailments.
Abhyangam :
Special type of oil massage in which strokes are given
according to the diseases for 45 minutes per day for
14 days. This treatment is very useful for obesity,
especially for diabetic Gangrene (a condition due to
lack of blood circulation in the extremes of the body)
etc.Nasyam :
Herbal juices, medicated oils etc., are applied through
nose for 7 to 14 days. This treatment is highly effective
for certain kinds of headaches, paralysis, mental disorders,
certain types of skin diseases etc. Snehapanam :
Medicated ghee is given internally in a proportionally
increased quantity for a period of 8 to 12 days. This
treatment is for osteo arthritis, sporaris, leukaemia
etc. Kizhi : Herbal
leaves and herbs or herbal powders are applied to the
whole body in boluses with hot medicated oils for 45
minutes per day for a period of 7 to 14 days. This treatment
is for osteo arthritis, arthritis with swelling, spondilosis,
sports injuries etc. Dhanyamala Dhara :
Warm herbal liquid is poured all over the body in a
rhythmic way through a special vessel for 45 minutes
to 1 hour daily. This treatment is very effective for
hemiplegia, paralysis, rheumatic complaints etc. Yoni
Prakshalanam : Herbal oils and decoctions are applied
through the vaginal route. This treatment is good for
gynaecological disorders. It is also a purification
process for genital organs. Kativasthi :
In this process specially prepared warm medicated oil
is kept over the lower back with herbal paste boundary.
This treatment lasts for 45 minutes to 1 hour and it
is good for any type of back pain and spinal disorders.
Urovasthi :
Warm medicated oil is kept over the chest for 45 minutes.
This is an effective treatment for asthma, other respiratory
problems, heart diseases and muscular chest pain.
Ksheeradhoomam : This is fomentation with medicated
cow milk. This treatment is good for facial paralysis,
Bell’s palsy, speech disorders and other nervous disorders
of the face
Njavarakizhi
: Njavara kizhi is one of the most important
among our special treatments. Here, the whole body is
made to perspire by the application of certain medicated
rice puddings externally in the form of boluses tied
up in a muslin bag. 'Njavara' is name of the special
nourishing rice we use for Niavarakizhi. This method
of treatment has been prevalent in Kerala from time
immemorial.
The patient is made to lie down on the table in a comfortable
position. External oleation is done before starting
the rice pudding treatment. The rice pudding boluses
are dipped in medicated warm milk and then applied to
the body. The temperature will vary depending on the
tolerance capacity of the person and is done in seven
different postures. Again, there will be an oil application
after the main treatment.
This treatment makes the body supple and removes stiffness.
It is highly beneficial in emaciation of limbs, rheumatism
and joint pains. It clears the obstructions, improves
blood circulation, removes waste from the body, improves
complexion and restores vigor. It prevents excessive
sleep while promoting sound sleep. It makes entire body
strong, sturdy and well developed. It sharpens the senses
and it slows down the ageing process. Podikizhi : "Podi"
means "Powder" and "kizhi" means "pouch".In this treatment,
the patient has to lie in a comfortable position. External
oleation is done before starting. A pouch with herbal
powder is dipped in medicated oil and then applied to
the body. The temperature will vary depending on the
tolerance of the person. The main treatment is followed
by an oil application. Dhanyakizhi :
"Dhanyam" means "Grains" and "kizhi" means "pouch."This
particular treatment drives away the stiffness of the
body. Here the patient is made to lie in a comfortable
position. External oleation is done before starting
the treatment. A pouch with processed grains is then
dipped in medicated oil and applied to the body. Again,
there will be an oil application after the main treatment.Narangakizhi :
"Naranga" means "lemon" and "kizhi" means, "pouch".The
person has to lie down in a comfortable position. External
oleation is done before starting the treatment. A cloth
pouch with lemon and herbs is dipped in medicated oils
and then applied on the body.
Elakizhi :-'Ela' means 'leaves' 'Kizhi' means 'pouch'After
the external oleation, the person has to lie down in
a comfortable position. The pouch with leaves and herbs
will be dipped in the medicated oil and then it will
be applied on the body. The temperature will vary depending
up on the tolerance capacity of the person. Again there
will be an oil application after the main treatment.Benefits:-
Paralytic strokes, Anti-aging &
rejuvenating, Strengthens tissues, Body ache, Emaciation,
Debility Monoplegia, Osteo Arthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Ayurveda
offers two kinds of programs, Rejuvenative & Therapeutic
The Rejuvenation programs
in Ayurveda are designed to improve
your vitality enhances immunity and increase longevity.
They include rhythmic massages that relax each tendon,
medicated bath that revitalize every nerve and diets
that restore you sound health.
Therapeutic
ProgramsAyurveda recognizes you as an individual
with a unique body constitution and mental make up which
is why the physician will design an exclusive package
for you. Even minor therapeutic treatments will be done
only on his advice. He will personally supervise every
step of it during body massages and other health care
programs. Women will have service of female’s massagers.
Role
of Taste In Ayurveda
It
is as important to realise that every food's unique
combination of attributes will influence its taste and
the action it causes in the body. With every taste having
a different action – as detailed below. Astanga Hrdayam
clearly describes the characteristics of each of the
six tastes and problems that might be experienced from
its habitual over-consumption. Most foods being a combination
of two or more of these tastes e.g. coffee is bitter
and pungent. Sour
Comprised of the elements earth & fire, it increases
pitta and kapha and is good for heart and digestion.
Stimulates agni, moves inactive Vata energy down the
pelvic cavity, sets the teeth on edge and increases
salivation. Excess use may cause looseness and flabbiness,
loss of strength, giddiness, itching, irritation, a
whitish yellow pallor, herpetiform lesions, swelling
thirsts and fever, and diseases arising from excess
pitta and kapha.Sweet
Related to earth & water, it mitigates pitta and
vata, producing greater strength in the tissues and
of value to the aged, wounded, emaciated and children.
Universally liked, it often adheres to the inside of
the mouth, giving a feeling of pleasure, contentment
and comfort. Good for the complexion, hair, senses and
ojas, it also increases breast milk and helps unite
broke parts like bones. By its virtue it prolongs life
and helps life activities. In excess however it may
cause diseases arising from fat and excess kapha e.g.
obesity, dyspepsia, unconsciousness, diabetes, enlargement
of neck glands or malignant tumors.Salt
The water & fire in salty taste increases pitta
and kapha. It clears obstruction of channels and pores
and increases the digestive activity and salivation.
Also responsible for lubrication and sweating, it penetrates
the tissues. An excess of it may cause baldness and
graying of the hair, wrinkles, thirst, skin diseases,
blood disorders, herpetiform leisons and loss of body
strengthPungent
Fire & air in pungent increases vata and pitta and
mitigates kapha. Increases hunger, is digestive, causes
irritation, brings secretion from the eyes, nose &
mouth, and gives a burning sensation to the mouth. Dilating
the channels and breaking up the hard masses. But an
excess use of it may cause thirst, depletion of reproductive
tissue and strength, fainting, contracture, tremors,
pain in the waist and back, and other disorders related
to excess of pitta and kapha.Bitter
Air & space being its elements, it mitigates pitta
and kapha. Drying up moisture from fat, muscles, faeces
and urine. It cleans the mouth and destroys the perception
of taste. It is said to cure anorexia, worms, bacteria,
parasites, thirst, skin diseases, loss of consciousness,
fever, nausea, burning sensation. But in excess, it
increases vata, causing diseases of vata origin and
depletion of tissues.Astringent
Air & earth increases vata and mitigates increased
pitta and kapha. It cleans the blood and causes healing
of ulcers. Like bitter, it too dries up moisture from
fat. It absorbs water, causing constipation and hindering
digestion of undigested food. Its excess use causes
stasis of food without digestion, flatulance, pain in
the cardiac region, emaciation, loss of virility, obstruction
of channels and constipation.
GENERAL
GUIDELINES FOR ALL PACKAGES
•
Ayurvedic system of treatment is strictly personalized;
the exact treatment and medicines can be fixed only
after detailed consultation with the doctor.
•
The treatment which is given along with the packages
may vary according to the condition and body constitution
of the patients.
•
Short duration treatments for minor ailments like back
pain, muscular pain, etc. with herbal steam bath, spinal
bath and therapeutic massages will be provided only
on the advice of the physician.
•
Women will have female masseurs for body massage and
other health programs.
•
Some of the programs are not suitable for the very aged,
very young (under 7) infirm, heart patients and pregnant
women.
•
If you have a previous medical history of heart disease,
high blood pressure & blood sugar, chronic skin
disease or asthma, please inform your physician in advance
and bring the medical records.
Why
we choose Kerala?
Abundance
of deep green forests packed with herbs and medicinal
plants have made Ayurvedic preparations from Kerala
the most sought after all round the Globe. In Kerala,
the rains come with humidity. This makes the pores in
our skin open out to the maximum, thereby, making it
more receptive to the herbal oils &therapy
This
treatment includes detoxification and rejuvenation of
body by herbal medicines, which nourishes the body tissues.
This therapy slows down the aging process; recommended
for age group between 16 to 70. Major benefits of this
treatment are prolonged lifespan, great memory, Intelligence,
perfect health, youthfulness, bright complexion and
color, physical endurance, strange endurance, strong
sense organs, perfection in speech sexual power and
brilliance.
From
the perspective of Ayurveda, losing weight is not about
starving you or suppressing the appetite. It is about
balancing ones fat metabolism. You don't have to starve
yourself or exercise until you drop. Balance is the
key and with a therapy which is tailor made to suite
your constitution. Treatment includes body massage by
special herbal powder and internal herbal medicine.
There can be a possible weight reduction of around eight
kilograms in three weeks. The massages include. The
treatment will include some or all of the following
as required.
Udvarthanam:
Massage with special herbal powder. This is especially
done for depleting the fat and strengthening the muscles
and very effective for obesity.
Elakizhi:
One of the most relaxing and refreshing massages that
you can enjoy. This is the massage using fresh herbs
cooked in Ayurvedic oils and packed into bags and applied
over the body by experts. Very good for lubricating
the joints and relieves joint pain especially backache.
Cleanses the channels of circulation and expels toxins
through the sweat.
Abhayangam:
This massage is for proper blood circulation of the
body and relaxation of mind. Experts massage Luke warm
herbal oil on the head and body in the traditional Kerala
Style.
A
healthy spine keeps a man forever young. Sedentary
life styles and jobs of this era cause spinal problems.
Spine being a vital structure in our body problems
related to the spine like neck pain, low back pain,
spondylitis, sciatica, etc are to be treated with
extreme care.
Ayurveda aims at treating the root cause of the problem
rather than symptomatic treatment. Treatments start
with a diagnostic procedure to differentiate local
and systematic pathology and are followed by traditional
ayurvedic massages with special herbs (elakkizhi),
nasal drops, (nasyam) Medicated steam and spinal baths
(kadivasthy) and internal medications. Treatment packages
can be from 7 to 14 days durations. It prevents degenerations
of the spine and cartilage is reduced corrects, IVDP,
muscular stiffness of the back, strengthens of the
back muscles. Prevents the constipations and reduces
the pain in the back. It reduces the calcifications
of the bones reduce the wasting of back muscles.
Reduces
the wastage of muscle and bones, increase the circulation
of the body, tones up muscle system. Normalize the nervous
function. Improves the alimentary tracts. Improves the
vitality of individual. Strengthens the body muscles.
According
to Ayurveda, beauty is not just limited to attractive
physical features or a slim and trim body figure but
it also includes a healthy mental and spiritual state.
This inner beauty is necessary, if the outer appearance
is to be preserved.
Ayurveda
explains about seven functional units called Dhathu
or Tissue. The tissue which most often needs rejuvenation
is the the largest od all our organs, the skin.
The derivative of these seven tissues is called 'Ojas',
the essence. It is Ojas that bestows glow and that special
aura of inner vitality, without which even the most
flawless countenance looks lifeless. To achieve purity
of Ojas, functioning capacity of the seven tissues has
to be enhanced.
Our
Soundarya programme emphasises this. Herbal-based facial
scrubs and lotions are selected according to the dosha
predominance. These rejuvenate the cells and remove
wrinkles. Rejuvenative herbal preparations are used
to re-animate the skin with regular massage.
Key
therapies: 'Udwarthanam with special powders, Uzhichil
with special oils, Mukhalepam - face pack with special
herbs, Thechukuli-Special decoction baths ,Njavara theppu
- rice-pudding application. Flower baths with floral
oils are also included in this programme
SLIMMING
PROGRAMME-
Thaulyakna Chikilsa.
21 to 28 Days.
Diet pills lower the body's fat set points by speeding
up the organism, making both body and brain work faster.
This increases Vata, which makes both body and mind
crave for more sweets to balance.
Ayurveda
believes in speeding up organism in healthy natural
ways, with treatments to increase fat metabolism, exercise,
herb-based diet supplements and the use of light non-kapha
producing foods, which control vata while relieving
the system of excess kapha.
In
Kalari Kovilakam, there is a programme for 28 days including
yoga, which assures you of genuine metabolic change.
It
is a proven fact that the mind plays an important role
in governing not just the actions we take, but their
qualitative nature, ie, how well or badly we act.
Anything which manipulates the mind will thus reflect
on the body. People facing a lot of stress from their
hectic lives thus end up with not only mental, but a
host of physical problems too, usually called 'lifestyle
diseases'.
Ayurveda,
combined with Yoga offers the perfect answer for this.
At
Kalari Kovilakam, we've developed a special 7 to 14
days programme called 'Manasanthy', based on these two
ancient ststems of wellness.
Key
therapies: the classical treatments like Uzhichil, Sirodhara,
Sirovasthy, Nasyam, Kateevasthy, Nj avarakizhi, Sarvanga
dhara, Pichu, Thalam, Thalapothichil etc. are provided
in its authentic form. All these are supported by special
Yoga therapies, herbal medicines and herbal teas according
to the constitution.
This
programme is beneficial for those who are physically
and mentally stressed, and/or suffer from conditions
like insomnia, lack of concentration, fatigue, tension
headaches and so on. It's also good for those who travel
a lot, late night workers, I.T. professionals and computer
users in general. |
/*
* Copyright 2003 (C) Chris Ward <frugal@purplewombat.co.uk>
*
* This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
* License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
* version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
*
* This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
* Lesser General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
* License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
*/
package pcgen.core.prereq;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertFalse;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
import pcgen.AbstractCharacterTestCase;
import pcgen.cdom.enumeration.ListKey;
import pcgen.cdom.enumeration.ObjectKey;
import pcgen.cdom.enumeration.RaceSubType;
import pcgen.cdom.enumeration.RaceType;
import pcgen.cdom.enumeration.Type;
import pcgen.cdom.reference.CDOMDirectSingleRef;
import pcgen.core.Globals;
import pcgen.core.PlayerCharacter;
import pcgen.core.Race;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
@SuppressWarnings("nls")
public class PreRaceTest extends AbstractCharacterTestCase
{
/**
* Test to ensure that we return false when races don't match.
*/
@Test
public void testFail()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
character.setRace(race);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("Orc");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
final boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse(passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure we return false when race is equal but NOT is specified.
*/
@Test
public void testNeqFails()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
character.setRace(race);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("Human");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.NEQ);
final boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse(passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that NOT returns true if races don't match.
*/
@Test
public void testNeqPasses()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
character.setRace(race);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("Orc");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.NEQ);
final boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue(passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that we return true when races are equal.
*/
@Test
public void testPass()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
character.setRace(race);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("human");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
final boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue(passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that we return true when races are equal using ServesAs.
*/
@Test
public void testPassServesAsName()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
final Race fake = new Race();
fake.setName("NotHuman");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(fake);
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.SERVES_AS_RACE, CDOMDirectSingleRef.getRef(race));
character.setRace(fake);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey(race.getKeyName());
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
final boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue("Expected prereq " + prereq + " to pass for race " + fake
+ " with SERVESAS", passes);
}
@Test
public void testRaceTypeEq()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
race.put(ObjectKey.RACETYPE, RaceType.getConstant("Humanoid"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
character.setRace(race);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("RACETYPE=Humanoid");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
final boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue(prereq + " should pass", passes);
}
@Test
public void testRaceTypeNeq()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
race.put(ObjectKey.RACETYPE, RaceType.getConstant("Humanoid"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
character.setRace(race);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("RACETYPE=Dragon");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.LT);
boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue(prereq + " should pass", passes);
prereq.setKey("RACETYPE=Humanoid");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse(prereq + " should not pass", passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that we return true when races RACESUBTYPE are equal using ServesAs.
*/
@Test
public void testPassServesAsRaceSubType()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
race.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Outsider"));
race.addToListFor(ListKey.RACESUBTYPE, RaceSubType.getConstant("aquatic"));
race.addToListFor(ListKey.RACESUBTYPE, RaceSubType.getConstant("foo"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
final Race fake = new Race();
fake.setName("NotHuman");
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Humanoid"));
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.RACESUBTYPE, RaceSubType.getConstant("desert"));
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.RACESUBTYPE, RaceSubType.getConstant("none"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(fake);
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.SERVES_AS_RACE, CDOMDirectSingleRef.getRef(race));
final Race gnome = new Race();
gnome.setName("Gnome");
gnome.addToListFor(ListKey.RACESUBTYPE, RaceSubType.getConstant("SpikyHair"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(gnome);
final Race bugbear = new Race();
bugbear.setName("Bugbear");
bugbear.addToListFor(ListKey.RACESUBTYPE, RaceSubType.getConstant("SpikyClub"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(bugbear);
bugbear.addToListFor(ListKey.SERVES_AS_RACE, CDOMDirectSingleRef.getRef(gnome));
character.setRace(fake);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("RACESUBTYPE=aquatic");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue(passes);
final Prerequisite prereq2 = new Prerequisite();
prereq2.setKind("race");
prereq2.setKey("RACESUBTYPE=foo");
prereq2.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq2, character, null);
assertTrue(passes);
prereq.setKey("RACESUBTYPE=SpikyHair");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse("Prereq " + prereq
+ " should not be passed by character without a "
+ "race or servesas link.", passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that we return true when races RACETYPE are equal using ServesAs.
*/
@Test
public void testPassServesAsRaceType()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
race.put(ObjectKey.RACETYPE, RaceType.getConstant("Outsider"));
race.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Outsider"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
final Race fake = new Race();
fake.setName("NotHuman");
fake.put(ObjectKey.RACETYPE, RaceType.getConstant("Humanoid"));
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Humanoid"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(fake);
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.SERVES_AS_RACE, CDOMDirectSingleRef.getRef(race));
final Race gnome = new Race();
gnome.setName("Gnome");
gnome.put(ObjectKey.RACETYPE, RaceType.getConstant("Smaller"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(gnome);
character.setRace(fake);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("RACETYPE=Outsider");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue("Prereq " + prereq + " should pass due to SERVESAS", passes);
prereq.setKey("RACETYPE=Smaller");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse("Prereq " + prereq
+ " should not be passed by character without a "
+ "race or servesas link.", passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that we return true when races TYPE are equal.
*/
@Test
public void testPassServesAsType()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
race.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Outsider"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
final Race fake = new Race();
fake.setName("NotHuman");
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Humanoid"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(fake);
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.SERVES_AS_RACE, CDOMDirectSingleRef.getRef(race));
final Race gnome = new Race();
gnome.setName("Gnome");
gnome.addToListFor(ListKey.TYPE, Type.getConstant("Smaller"));
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(gnome);
character.setRace(fake);
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("TYPE=Outsider");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue("Prereq " + prereq + " should pass due to SERVESAS", passes);
prereq.setKey("TYPE=Smaller");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse("Prereq " + prereq
+ " should not be passed by character without a "
+ "race or servesas link.", passes);
}
/**
* Test to make sure that PRERACE with wildcarded names functions
* correctly with SERVESAS
*/
@Test
public void testPassServesAsNameWildcard()
{
final PlayerCharacter character = getCharacter();
final Race race = new Race();
race.setName("Human");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(race);
final Race fake = new Race();
fake.setName("NotHuman");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(fake);
fake.addToListFor(ListKey.SERVES_AS_RACE, CDOMDirectSingleRef
.getRef(race));
final Race gnome = new Race();
gnome.setName("Gnome");
Globals.getContext().getReferenceContext().importObject(gnome);
character.setRace(fake);
// Check the servesas condition
final Prerequisite prereq = new Prerequisite();
prereq.setKind("race");
prereq.setKey("human%");
prereq.setOperator(PrerequisiteOperator.EQ);
boolean passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue("PRERACE:1,human% should have been passed", passes);
prereq.setKey("NotHuman%");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertTrue("PRERACE:1,NotHuman% should have been passed", passes);
prereq.setKey("Elf%");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse("PRERACE:1,Elf% should not have been passed", passes);
prereq.setKey("Gno%");
passes = PrereqHandler.passes(prereq, character, null);
assertFalse("PRERACE:1,Gno% should not have been passed", passes);
}
}
|
486 So.2d 940 (1986)
Frank DRAGO
v.
The HOME INSURANCE COMPANY.
No. CA 85 0014.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.
March 25, 1986.
Foye L. Lowe, Jr., Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-appellant Frank Drago.
Michael J. Harig, Baton Rouge, for defendants-appellees Home Ins. Co. et al.
Before EDWARDS, LANIER and PONDER,[*] JJ.
*941 PONDER, Judge.
Plaintiff appeals dismissal of his tort action on defendants' declinatory exception pleading the objection of lack of personal jurisdiction. We affirm.
This is a suit for damages arising out of an alleged slip and fall accident at the Guildwood Inn located in Sarnia, Ontario Province, Canada, on June 18, 1983. Mr. Drago, 77 years of age, a resident and domiciliary of East Baton Rouge Parish both at the time of the accident and of the filing of suit, was a registered guest of the hotel. He filed suit in East Baton Rouge Parish against the Guildwood Inn, a Best Western Inn, its alleged owner, Sheldon Aaron, the inn's insurer, and Best Western.
The exception was supported by Aaron's affidavit which stated that: (1) Guildwood Inn is owned by a Canadian corporation; (2) Aaron, a resident and domiciliary of Ontario Province, is only a stockholder of the said company and not a controlling stockholder; (3) but is the President of the said company; (4) neither Aaron nor Guildwood Inn has or ever has had minimum contacts, business or transaction in or with the said State of Louisiana; (5) the Franchise Agreement between Best Western International, Inc. and Guildwood Inn was not executed in the State of Louisiana; (6) the policy of insurance obtained by the corporation was neither written nor delivered in Louisiana and no premium thereon was paid in Louisiana.
To support his assertion that Best Western solicited business on behalf of 2,800 Best Western facilities "in 1,950 cities worldwide," plaintiff-appellant offered in evidence photocopies of two pages of the "yellow pages" of the Baton Rouge telephone directory.
ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
Plaintiff assigns as error the trial court's holding that it lacked personal jurisdiction over any of the defendants and, in the alternative, its dismissing the suit without allowing amendments to the petition to remove the jurisdictional ground as a basis for objection.
Plaintiff-appellant contends that the filing of a "request for notice of trial date" on July 9, 1984 by attorneys for the insurer and Guildwood Inn constituted a general appearance and waiver of any objection they would otherwise have had. He cites La.C.C.P. art. 7 as authority for his assertion.
Defendants-appellees contend, on the other hand, that Article 7 explicitly requires a request of relief and excepts from implication of general appearance the enrollment of counsel.
Appellant has cited no case law, and we can find none, which supports his premise that the filing of a form "request for notice of trial date" is a pleading which seeks any relief and so constitutes a waiver. The request for notice was a means chosen to inform plaintiff and the court the identities of the attorneys who would be representing the interests of the named defendants. A common sense interpretation of the pleading is to equate it to the first exception stated in Article 7(A), i.e., entry of the name of an attorney as counsel of record.
Plaintiff asserts that personal jurisdiction exists as to Guildwood Inn, its insurer, and Mr. Aaron by virtue of our Direct Action Statute, La.R.S. 22:655, and our "Long Arm Statute," La.R.S. 13:3201. Mr. Drago fell while attempting to get out of the bathtub when the "grab bar" part of the soap dish, which he was holding onto for support, tore loose from the wall. Medical expenses at the hospital in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada totaled $142.79. Additionally, a variety of medical problems including pneumonia, circulatory deficiencies resulting in ulceration of the foot, bleeding ulcers and aggravation of pre-existing atherosclerosis and diabetes were directly caused by the fall and the cost of medical expenses incurred in Louisiana and Texas was $32,125.99. La.R.S. 13:3201 confers jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant when one of the jurisdictional bases therein specified is *942 found to be present and the cause of action sued upon arises from one of the enumerated bases. Cambre v. St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co., 331 So.2d 585, 589 (La.App. 1st Cir.1976), writs denied, 334 So.2d 434 and 435. "One of these bases is the nonresident's ... (d) causing injury or damage in this state by an offense or quasi offense committed through an act or omission outside of this state if he regularly does or solicits any business, or engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed or services rendered, in this state."
Appellees Aaron and Guildwood Inn do not assert that jurisdiction over them could not be obtained under the Long Arm statute because Aaron is a resident and domiciliary of a foreign country and Guildwood Inn is owned by a corporation organized under the laws of the same foreign country. Thus, we are not required to determine whether Louisiana's Long Arm statute can confer personal jurisdiction over residents and domiciliaries of a foreign country if the constitutionally required "minimum contacts" test is met. See 16D, C.J.S., Constitutional Law, § 1159, n. 83, p. 61.
Soileau v. Evangeline Farmer's Co-op, 386 So.2d 179 (La.App. 3d Cir.1980), reiterated that "In order for the proper exercise of jurisdiction in personam over a non-resident there must be sufficient minimum contacts between the non-resident defendant and the forum state to satisfy due process and traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice," as required by cited Supreme Court jurisprudence. Whether a particular defendant has sufficient minimum contacts with Louisiana is to be determined from the facts and circumstances of each case. Drilling Engineering, Inc. v. Independent Indonesian American Petroleum Co., 283 So.2d 687 (La.1973); O'Reilly v. Prat's Travel Agency, Inc., 457 So.2d 24 (La.App. 4th Cir.1984), writ denied, 461 So.2d 319.
We agree with the trial court that there are insufficient contacts for the assertion of "Long Arm" jurisdiction over Guildwood Inn, Sheldon Aaron, and Best Western International, Inc.
The Home Insurance Company would be amenable to the jurisdiction of Louisiana courts if all the requirements of the Direct Action statute are met. In Cambre, supra, we rejected as unsound the argument that "the corrective surgery and treatment performed and administered in" Louisiana is "injury" within contemplation of § 655. The medical problems listed by plaintiff cannot be regarded as "injury or damage in this state" within contemplation of La.R.S. 13:3201(d) or "injury" within contemplation of La.R.S. 22:655. There is no causal nexus between any advertising by Best Western in Louisiana and the alleged tort in Canada. This is an additional reason Louisiana courts do not have personal jurisdiction. Robinson v. Vanguard Ins. Co., 468 So.2d 1360 (La.App. 1st Cir.1985), writs denied, 472 So.2d 34 (La.1985) and 472 So.2d 924 (La.1985), reconsideration not considered, 474 So.2d 1298 (La.1985).
We therefore hold that Louisiana courts cannot exercise personal jurisdiction over any of the defendants.
Appellant's alternative assignment of error is also without merit. We know of no way to cure, by amendment of the petition, personal jurisdiction deficiencies if the constitutionally mandated minimum contacts requirement is not present as to Guildwood Inn, Mr. Aaron, and Best Western International, Inc. Likewise, we know of no way to obliterate, by amendment, the fact that the accident occurred outside of Louisiana.
For the reasons assigned, the judgment maintaining the declinatory exceptions pleading the objection of lack of personal jurisdiction is affirmed, at plaintiff-appellant's cost.
AFFIRMED.
NOTES
[*] Judge Elven E. Ponder, Retired, appointed to hear appeals vice Judge John S. Covington, temporarily assigned to the Twenty-Fifth Judicial District Court.
|
Background {#Sec1}
==========
Adult neurogenesis was first described in animal studies in the 1960s \[[@CR1]\]. It was later observed in adult primates, including humans \[[@CR2]\]. Two well-known regions of the adult brain are widely held to be neurogenic zones: the subgranular zone of the hippocampal dentate gyrus (SGZ) \[[@CR3]\] and the subventricular zone (SVZ) \[[@CR4]\]. Other zones in the brain may also act as neurogenic niches, although this may only occur in certain conditions \[[@CR5], [@CR6]\].
The exact purpose of maintaining neurogenesis throughout adult life is unknown. Neurogenesis in the SGZ has been linked to the consolidation of memory \[[@CR7]\]. In rodents, cells from the SVZ migrate from the rostral migratory stream (RMS) to the olfactory bulb. Based on this finding, scientists believe that the SVZ plays a role in the sense of smell. Nevertheless, the role of SVZ neurogenesis in humans, who may lack a true RMS, is not so clear \[[@CR8]\]. On the other hand, when specific pathological conditions are present, the SVZ seems to be able to increase proliferation and modify cell migration; its potential restorative function has been observed following stroke \[[@CR9]\].
Different studies have pointed to altered neurogenesis in neurodegenerative diseases \[[@CR6], [@CR10]\]. Most of them have found decreases in neurogenesis in these diseases, but findings vary depending on whether studies were carried out in humans or animals, the niche studied, and the moment in the course of the disease \[[@CR10]\]. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease of unknown etiology. At present, there are no curative treatments \[[@CR11]\]. Although ALS was previously thought to impair only motor neurons, we now know that it affects other cells and functions within the nervous system \[[@CR11], [@CR12]\]. Phosphorylated TDP-43 (pTDP-43) is a pathologic lesion characteristic of some degenerative diseases as ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), but also inclusion body myositis \[[@CR13]--[@CR16]\] The only approved treatment, riluzole, is only moderately effective \[[@CR17]\]. Few studies have examined the state of adult neurogenesis in ALS, and almost all of them are in animal models \[[@CR18]--[@CR21]\]. The only published human study is a report on a single case, and the same case now forms part of the series presented here \[[@CR21]\]. This study analyses adult neurogenesis in classic niches in patients with ALS.
Methods {#Sec2}
=======
Patients {#Sec3}
--------
We analyzed the brains of 9 ALS patients (including 2 with FTD) and 4 controls (patients with no history of neurodegenerative disease who died in our hospital).
Patients' medical records were reviewed to compile the variables related to the disease (age at onset, sex, time until diagnosis, time until death, form at onset, associated diseases, neuroimaging findings and presence of neuropsychiatric symptoms). We also checked the control group's medical records to ensure absence of neurodegenerative disease.
Tissue processing {#Sec4}
-----------------
Brains from patients and controls were sectioned in coronal slices 1 cm thick from the frontal to the occipital areas. All specimens were encased in paraffin and subsequently sliced into 6 μm sections with a microtome. Tissue sections were deparaffinized and washed in 0.1 M PBS. Epitopes were unmasked in a 10 mM sodium citrate buffer with a pH 6 at 96 °C for 20 min.
The immunohistochemical study analyzed the medial/central part of the SVZ and the SGZ of the dentate gyrus. Tissues were washed in PBS and then incubated for 1 h in blocking solution (PBS, 0.2%, Triton 10%, normal goat serum). They were subsequently incubated for 24 h with primary antibodies (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Table S1) diluted with PBS. After incubation with the primary antibody, the tissue sections were thoroughly washed in PBS before being incubated with the appropriate Alexa-Fluor antibody during 24 h (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Table S1). After sections had been washed, they were mounted in ProLong Gold reagent with DAPI (Molecular Probes, Invitrogen).
The quantitative immunohistochemical study of pTDP-43 focused on neurons in the dentate gyrus.
We analyzed 10 different fields for each of the antibodies under study; the result given is the mean of all 10 measurements. Results are expressed as cells positive for each antibody per 500 μm^2^.
For the quantitative study, we selected only those samples of the SVZ and SGZ in which both cells and cell layers remained intact.
All quantifications have been made for two differents investigators that were blinded for the patients diagnostic.
Statistical analysis {#Sec5}
--------------------
Data are expressed as mean ± SD. Parametric tests could not be used owing to our small patient sample. Instead, we compared means using the Mann-Whitney U test. Statistical significance was set at *p* \< 0.05. This test was not used for subgroups with fewer than 3 individuals. Since sample sizes were small, no multivariate tests were performed. We compared controls to all ALS patients, and controls to ALS patients subgroup without dementia, for all study variables. Since there were only 2 patients with frontotemporal dementia, that group was not included in the comparative analysis. We used the Pearson test to check for presence or absence of any correlations between presence of pTDP-43 and neurogenesis. Statistical analysis was performed using Prism© software. Graphs of the results were also created with Prism©.
Results {#Sec6}
=======
Clinical data {#Sec7}
-------------
We studied 9 patients with ALS (2 had associated FTD) and 4 controls.
Mean age at time of death was 65.60 ± 15.94 for patients and 69.50 ± 11.38 for controls. Age differences between cases and controls were not significant. Fifty-five percent of the patients were men, as were 75% of the controls.
Regarding patient characteristics, form of onset was bulbar in 55% vs 21% in our historical series (unpublished data). Mean age at time of diagnosis was 64.33 ± 16.75 years (62.33 ± 11.2 in our historical series). Mean survival of patients after diagnosis was 12.44 ± 17.22 years (35.47 ± 17.21 in our historical series); survival after symptom onset was 24.88 ± 19.34 years (45.87 ± 24.12 in our historical series). Dementia was present in 2 patients (22%) vs 8% in our historical series. None of the patients in this study had a family history of ALS, whereas 8.9% of those in the historical study did. Regarding treatment, 3 patients (33%) were not being treated with riluzole when they died (32% in our historical series).
The two patients with FTD have first developed the cognitive symptoms and being diagnosed of FTD in our dementia clinic and then some years after they have developed the motor neuron symptoms. One of the patients have first begun with language alteration and then behavior problems and the other one with behavior problems, memory problems were developed lately. Regarding the motor neuron symptoms they both have developed first bulbar symptoms with few clinical spinal disease.
The mean time between death and autopsy was 5 ± 2 h. The mass of the fixed brains was 1210 ± 147.00 g for patients and 1290 ± 72.73 g for controls (differences not significant).
A summary of the clinical data is provided in the supplemental material (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Table S2). Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was confirmed in all patients by an anatomical pathology study including pTDP-43 immunohistochemistry (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Table S3).
Structural organization of the SVZ in patients with ALS {#Sec8}
-------------------------------------------------------
In humans, the architecture of the SVZ in the lateral wall of the ventricle includes 3 layers. The first is a monolayer of cells in contact with the ventricle (ependymal layer), followed by a hypocellular gap and an additional layer comprising mainly astrocytes (ribbon) \[[@CR4]\]. Since the SVZ may vary in size and composition according to the region analysed \[[@CR4]\], this study focused on its body. While there were no differences between patients and controls in the size of the ependymal layer, there was a significant increase in the thickness of the gap layer in ALS patients (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1a](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"} and [d](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Mean thickness of the gap layer in controls was 44.75 ± 8.02 μm vs 73.78 ± 3.57 in ALS patients (*p* \< 0.01). This difference was also present for patients with ALS without dementia: 71.14 ± 3.99 μm (*p* \< 0.01). Patients with dementia exhibited a thicker layer (83 ± 5.66 μm), but this subgroup was so small that a statistical analysis could not be performed. This increase in size of gap layer was due to abundant cell bodies structurally similar to astrocytes with numerous intermediate filaments. In addition, we observed a marked increase in the thickness of the ribbon (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1b and d](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Ribbon thickness in controls was 53.5 ± 5.51 μm vs 89.89 ± 16.09 μm in ALS patients (*p* \< 0.005). The difference between controls and patients with ALS and no dementia was also significant at 87.29 ± 13.28 μm (*p* \< 0.01). As in the case of the gap layer, the increase in ribbon thickness also appeared to be greater in patients with dementia (99 ± 28.28 μm).Fig. 1Changes in SVZ morphology in patients with ALS. **a**-**b** Illustrations show increases in thickness of the gap and ribbon layers; increases were greater in patients with ALS-FTD. **c** Increased expression of GFAP in the gap and ribbon layers in patients with ALS and ALS-FTD. **d** Images from the semithin sections of the SVZ showing the ventricular wall (V), the ependymal monolayer (I), the gap layer (II), the ribbon layer (III) and the parenchyma (IV). Data from these images was used to prepare the graphics in A and B. **e**-**f** Quantitative graphics representing the proliferative activity in the SVZ of ALS patients based on the analysis of the cell proliferation markers PCNA and Ki-67. PCNA and Ki-67 showed significant increases in PCNA and Ki-67 marking. **g** Confocal microscopy images of the SVZ in controls and patients with ALS and ALS-FTD showing increased Ki-67 and GFAP marking in patients, arrows show a immunopositive cells. **h** Images of SVZ of Control and ALS/FTD Patients. IN ALS/FTD, a displayed GFAP positive projections in contact with the ventricle (arrows). In control samples no were observed. **i** Graph displaying expression of GFAPδ in the SVZ of healthy individuals and patients with ALS and ALS-FTD; expression is significantly higher in patients. **j**-**k** Graphs showing increased expression of the proteins occurring in neurogenesis and neuronal migration in the adult central nervous system (doublecortin, PSA-NCAM); protein levels were significantly higher in patients with ALS or ALS-FTD than in healthy controls. **l** Immunofluorescence study of GFAPδ expression showing increased levels in the SVZ in ALS or ALS-FTD patients. In the details it is observed that in patients greater immunohitochemistry marking shown. **m** Images showing cells positive for doublecortin near the lateral wall. Their elongated fusiform shape is typical of migrating cells (arrows). **n** Illustration of typical SVZ morphology from controls and ALS patients, showing the main changes we observed: thickening of the gap and ribbon layers with increased expression of markers of astrocytes, cell proliferation, and neurogenesis. Graphs show the mean + standard error (\**p* \< 0.05; \*\**p* \< 0.01). Scale bars: D: 50 μm; G-H, L and M: 15 μm
Proliferation of neural progenitor cells in the SVZ {#Sec9}
---------------------------------------------------
Proliferative neural progenitor cells in the SVZ were studied using PCNA and Ki-67 \[[@CR21], [@CR22]\].
For PCNA, the mean number of marked cells in controls was 24.25 ± 3.30 cells/500 μm^2^ vs 73.22 ± 9.83 cells/500 μm^2^ in all ALS patients (*p* \< 0.005). This difference was also present in patients with ALS without dementia: 69 ± 1.83 cells/500 μm^2^ (*p* \< 0.01). It also seems to be bigger in ALS-FTD patients: 88 ± 8.49 cells/500 μm^2^ (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1e](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}).
For Ki-67, the mean number of marked cells in controls was 14.75 ± 2.06 cells/500μm^2^ vs 46.89 ± 17.40 cells/500 μm^2^ for all patients with ALS (*p* \< 0.01). This difference was also observed in cases of ALS without dementia: 38.43 ± 1.99 cells/500 μm^2^ (*p* \< 0.05). As with PCNA, the difference in the number of marked cells seems to be even greater in patients with dementia: 76.5 ± 0.75 cells/500 μm^2^ (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1f and h](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}).
The marker GFAPα was also analyzed. Although it is an astrocyte marker, the glial characteristics of proliferative neural progenitor cells mean that they may be signaled by GFAPα, provided that other proliferation markers co-localize \[[@CR20]\]. This marker also delivered higher numbers of marked cells in patients. Cell count for controls was 87 ± 11.34 cells/500 μm^2^ vs 119.9 ± 18.97 cells/500 μm^2^ in all ALS patients (*p* \< 0.05), 112.3 ± 4.66 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS patients without dementia (*p* \< 0.05), and 146.5 ± 12.02 cells/500 μm^2^ in FTD-ALS patients (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1c](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Given that cells marked with GFAPα were also indicated by other proliferation markers (Fig. [1g](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}), at least some of these cells correspond to proliferative neural progenitor cells.
Cases with ALS-FTD also displayed cells with processes extending through the ependymal layer to reach the lateral ventricular wall (Fig. [1h](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). These cells had previously been described in mice in conditions entailing increased neurogenesis \[[@CR23]\], in human they had been only described in one of the cases with FTD previously published \[[@CR21]\].
Proliferation of pluripotent neural cells (PNCs) in the SVZ {#Sec10}
-----------------------------------------------------------
We used the GFAPδ marker to study PNCs \[[@CR24]--[@CR27]\]. This marker revealed a significantly higher number of these cells in all ALS patients (35.89 ± 14.49 cells/500 μm^2)^ compared to controls (10.75 ± 2.36 cells/500 μm^2^)). The ALS subgroup without dementia also differed significantly from the controls, with 29 ± 2.05 cells/500 μm^2^; (*p* = 0.01). The difference between controls and patients with both ALS and dementia appeared to be even greater: 60 ± 2.83 cells/500 μm^2^ in the ALS-FTD subgroup. However, a statistical analysis could not be performed due to the small sample size (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1i and l](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). GFAPδ staining was stronger in ALS patient than in controls and cells has a fusiform morphology.
Proliferation of neuroblasts in the SVZ {#Sec11}
---------------------------------------
Neuroblasts were studied with PSA-NCAM, doublecortin, and Tuj-1 \[[@CR9], [@CR28]--[@CR31]\]. Using PSA-NCAM, we observed more numerous marked cells in all ALS cases than in controls: 6.5 ± 2.51 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 19.78 ± 1.63 cells/500 μm^2^ in the ALS total (*p* \< 0.01). A significant difference was also present between controls and ALS patients without dementia at 18 ± 3.51 cells/500 μm^2^ (*p* = 0.01), and this may be even greater for cases of ALS-FTD at 26 ± 3 cells/500 μm^2^. Nevertheless, the low number of cases does not allow us to determine the statistical significance of this result (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1j](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}).
Using doublecortin (DCX), we found a significantly higher number of marked cells in the ALS patient than in controls: 5.25 ± 2.22 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 21.33 ± 1.44 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS (*p* \< 0.01). Significant differences remained when comparing controls to patients without dementia: 20.86 ± 4.74 cells/500 μm^2^. Once again, differences may be more pronounced in patients with ALS-FTD at 23 ± 2 cells/500 μm^2^ but patient numbers were too low to permit a statistical analysis (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S4 and S6; Fig. [1k and m](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}).
Tuj-1 only marked the processes of cells and not the neuronal bodies, so a quantitative study could not be completed using this marker.
Changes in neurogenesis and their correlation with the percentage of cytoplasmic phosphorylated TDP-43 {#Sec12}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misallocated (cytoplasmic) phosphorylated TDP-43 is considered a pathologic hallmark of ALS. inclusion body myositis and some forms of FTD \[[@CR16], [@CR32]\]. It has been considered also a marker of the propagation of the disease \[[@CR13], [@CR15], [@CR32]\]. A correlation analysis for the percentage of cytoplasmic phosphorylated TDP-43 and neurogenesis in the subventricular zone found a positive linear correlation (*p* \< 0.05) with a thicker gap layer (Fig. [3a](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}) and a thicker ribbon, but the difference in the latter case was not statistically significant (*p* = 0.057) (Fig. [3b](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}).
Likewise, the correlation was linear and direct for marking of proliferative neural progenitor cells with PCNA (*p* \< 0.05) (Fig. [3d](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}) and with Ki-67 (*p* \< 0.01) (Fig. [3e](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}); and for glial cells with GFAP (*p* = 0.005) (Fig. [3c](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}). The correlation was also linear and direct for GFAPδ as a marker for pluripotent neural cells (*p* \< 0.005) (Fig. [3f](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}).
We found another linear, direct correlation between pTDP-43 and results from 2 different markers of SVZ neuroblasts: PSA-NCAM (*p* \< 0.05) (Fig. [3g](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}) and doublecortin (*p* \< 0.001) (Fig. [3h](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}).
Structural organization of the dentate gyrus in patients with ALS {#Sec13}
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There were no changes in the thickness of the subgranular layer in the dentate gyrus.
Decrease in proliferative neural progenitor cells in the dentate gyrus {#Sec14}
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Analysis of the subgranular zone indicated a decrease in marked proliferative neural progenitor cells. Using PCNA, we found a significantly lower number of marked cells in patients with ALS than in controls: 4 ± 1.41 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 0.94 ± 0.72 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS patients, (*p* \< 0.01). This decrease was also present in cases of ALS without dementia at 1.97 ± 0.73 cells/500 μm^2^, *p* = 0.01). The difference may be even greater in patients with ALS-FTD: 0.5 ± 0.71 cells/500 μm^2^ (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S5 and S7; Fig. [2b](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}). The Ki-67 marker also highlighted a significant decrease in cells in total ALS patients compared to controls: 3.25 ± 0.96 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 0.59 ± 0.66 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS patients with or without dementia (*p* \< 0.01). Control group data for Ki-67 also contrast with results from the subgroup of ALS cases without FTD: 0.75 ± 0.66, (*p* = 0.01) (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S5 and S7; Fig. [2c and d](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}). No cells marked with Ki-67 were visible in the fields examined in patients with ALS-FTD (Fig. [2d](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}).Fig. 2Changes in hippocampal morphology in patients with ALS. **a** GFAP analysis in the hippocampus of ALS patients and controls; protein levels are significantly higher in ALS. **b-c** Quantification of the markers PCNA and Ki-67, which are linked to events in proliferative activity in the hippocampus of patients with ALS; these patients show significant decreases for all markers. **d** Confocal microscope images of the hippocampus in controls and patients with ALS or ALS-FTD. ALS patients show isolated Ki-67--positive cells and increased GFAP marking. **e** Quantification of the expression of GFAPδ, a protein linked to neurogenic processes in the hippocampus; patients with ALS and ALS-FTD show significantly less expression than controls. **f** Graph showing markedly lower expression of PSA-NCAM, a protein linked to neuronal migration, in patients with ALS and ALS-FTD compared to controls. **g** Immunoperoxidase images reveal decreased expression of that marker. GFAPδ cells in patients with ALS were isolated and differed from those observed in controls in that they had fewer processes, a more spherical nucleus (arrow), and were mainly located in the subgranular layer. **h** Images of PSA-NCAM--positive cells in the hippocampus. Tissue samples from controls contained cells with typical elongated processes extending through the granular layer; the ALS group showed isolated, shorter processes, and no processes were observed in the ALS-FTD group. **i** Illustration of the typical morphology of the hippocampus in healthy controls and in patients with ALS showing the principal changes we observed: increase in GFAP-positive cells, neuronal loss, and decrease in markers linked to neuronal migration. Graphs show the mean + standard error (\**p* \< 0.05; \*\**p* \< 0.01). Scale bars: D, G, H: 40 μm
The study of specimens from the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus using GFAP revealed higher numbers of marked cells in patients with ALS: 32 ± 5.03 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 117 ± 26.24 cells/500 μm^2^ in the total ALS group (*p* \< 0.01), 109.1 ± 23.19 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS without FTD (*p* \< 0.01), and 146.5 ± 7.5 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS-FTD. These cells did not co-localize with other proliferation markers (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S5 and S7; Fig. [2a and d](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}), meaning that the marked cells meet the description of true astrocytes rather than proliferative neural progenitor cells.
Patients with ALS show lower numbers of GFAPδ neural pluripotent cells (NPCs) in the dentate gyrus {#Sec15}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GFAPδ was used in this study as a marker for studying NPCs. We observed a lower number of marked cells in ALS patients compared to controls: 11 ± 3.16 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 2.35 ± 1.8 cells/500 μm^2^ in ALS (*p* \< 0.01). This reduction is also significant in ALS cases without dementia at 2.57 ± 0.75 cells/500 μm^2^ (*p* = 0.01) and appears to be more pronounced in ALS-FTD cases: 1.57 ± 0.57 cells/500 μm^2^ (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S5 and S7; Fig. [2e and g](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Furthermore, these cells have a different shape with shorter processes (Fig. [2g](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}).
Fewer neuroblasts observed in the dentate gyrus of ALS patients {#Sec16}
---------------------------------------------------------------
We used the markers DCX, Tuj-1 and PSA-NCAM to study neuroblasts in the dentate gyrus. PSA-NCAM yielded fewer marked cells in patients with ALS compared to controls: 14.5 ± 4.99 cells/500 μm^2^ in controls vs 0.79 ± 0.85 cells/500 μm^2^ in all ALS patients (*p* \< 0.01). This decrease in marked cells is also significant in ALS cases without dementia at 1.01 ± 0.84 cells/500 μm^2^ (*p* = 0.01) and appears to be more pronounced in ALS-FTD cases: 0.05 ± 0.05 cells/500 μm^2^ (Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}: Tables S5 and S7; Fig. [2f and h](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}).
For dobleucortin and Tuj-1 in ALS-patients we only found some dendrites stained but no neuronal bodies, because of that, a statistical analysis was not perfomed for these two markers.
Correlation between percentage of pTDP-43 in cytoplasm and the decrease in neurogenesis in the SGZ {#Sec17}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An analysis of the percentage of cytoplasmic pTDP-43 and the changes observed in the SGZ of the dentate gyrus indicates a linear, direct relationship between the percentage of pTDP-43 and gliosis as marked with GFAPα (*p* \< 0.0001, Fig. [3i](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}). There is an exponential and inverse relationship between the percentage of pTDP-43 and the number of cells in the different stages of neurogenesis, as demonstrated by PCNA (*p* \< 0.0001) (Fig. [3j](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}); Ki-67 (*p* \< 0.0001) (Fig. [3k](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}), for type proliferative neural progenitor cells with GFAPδ (*p* \< 0.005) (Fig. [3l](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}). This is also true of neuroblasts observed with PSA-NCAM (type 3/type D3 cells) (*p* \< 0.005) (Fig. [3m](#Fig3){ref-type="fig"}).Fig. 3Analysis of the percentage of pTDP-43 and its correlation to markers linked to proliferation and adult neurogenesis in the SVZ and hippocampus in controls and patients with ALS/ALS-FTD. **a** Significant direct linear correlation between the increase in gap layer thickness and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **b** Tendency toward a direct linear correlation between the increase in ribbon layer thickness and percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **c** Significant direct linear correlation between the increase in GFAP expression and the percentage of pTDAP-43 inclusions. **d** Significant direct linear correlation between the increase in PCNA protein expression in the SVZ and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **e** Significant direct linear correlation between the increase in Ki-67 protein (indicating proliferation in the SVZ) and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **f** Significant direct linear correlation between increased expression of the GFAPδ protein in the SVZ and the percentage of pTDP-43 inclusions. **g** Significant direct linear correlation between increased expression of PSA-NCAM (neuroblast marker) in the SVZ and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **h** Significant direct linear correlation between the increase in the expression of doublecortin (neuroblast marker) and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43 in the SVZ. **i** Significant direct linear correlation between the increase in the expression of hippocampal GFAP (marker for gliosis) and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **j** The hippocampus shows a significant inverse exponential relationship between the expression of PCNA (proliferation marker) and the percentage of pTDP-43--positive inclusions. **k** Significant inverse exponential relationship between hippocampal expression of the Ki-67 protein (proliferation marker) and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **l** Significant inverse exponential relationship between hippocampal expression of the GFAPδ protein and the percentage of inclusions positive for pTDP-43. **m** The hippocampus displays a significant inverse exponential relationship between the expression of the PSA-NCAM protein (neuroblast marker) and the percentage of pTDP-43 positive inclusions
Discussion {#Sec18}
==========
Upon analyzing earlier studies on the state of adult neurogenesis in neurodegenerative diseases, we encounter dissimilar results, although most studies report a decrease in adult neurogenesis where these diseases are present \[[@CR10], [@CR33]--[@CR37]\]. Nevertheless, proliferation may increase during certain early stages of Alzheimer disease \[[@CR38], [@CR39]\], although this initial response will vanish as neurogenesis starts to decrease in later stages of the disease \[[@CR40]\].Although animal models demonstrate decreased neurogenesis at both niches in Huntington disease \[[@CR41], [@CR42]\], human studies seem to indicate increased neurogenesis in the SVZ, with increase in SVZ and increase of GAP layer \[[@CR36]\] with no changes in the SGZ \[[@CR43]\].
Very few studies have examined adult neurogenesis in ALS. Most of these studies have focused on the neurogenic state of the central canal niche, which seems to exhibit increased neurogenesis preceding symptom onset, according to some authors \[[@CR20]\]. Others have reported increased neurogenesis in early but symptomatic stages of the disease \[[@CR19]\], while still other studies reported no modifications \[[@CR44]\]. Only one study in mice transgenic for the SOD1 mutation has analyzed classic neurogenic niches \[[@CR18]\] and found increased neurogenesis in the SVZ with no changes in the SGZ.
Our group previously reported the case of a patient with ALS-FTD who exhibited a significant increase in neurogenesis in the SVZ \[[@CR21]\]. That case has been included in this series. There have been no other autopsy studies of neurogenesis.
Our autopsy results show that proliferation in adult neurogenic niches is altered in patients with ALS. We observed increased neurogenesis in the SVZ and reduced neurogenesis in the SGZ of the dentate gyrus. We found some neurogenesis in SGZ on controls that is extremely reduced in ALS patients, however, even in the controls neurogenesis in SGZ is not so important as previously described for some authors \[[@CR45]\].This alteration affects all cell types and is present in all ALS cases, whether or not they have associated FTD; however, presence of FTD seems to result in more pronounced changes at both niches (Figs. [1n](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"} and [2i](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Although the proliferation rate at each of these niches differs greatly (it is 6 times higher in the SVZ than in SGZ \[[@CR46]\]), this difference does not offer an explanation of how ALS could give rise to opposite tendencies in neurogenesis at different niches. These increase in proliferation in SVZ has been previously described in Huntington \[[@CR36]\] and in non neurodegenerative diseases as stroke \[[@CR9], [@CR47]\].
The function of adult neurogenesis is unknown. However, the SVZ in humans is believed to be a site of repair, since cells forming at this niche are able to migrate long distances. The SVZ is also thought to respond to insult since there seems to be increased cell proliferation with migration to the lesion \[[@CR9]\]. The role of neurogenesis in the SGZ, in contrast, is not as clear; neurogenesis at this niche has been more often correlated with memory \[[@CR48]\]. In any case, a repair function at this niche would only exert a local effect since the neurons formed here do not migrate significantly \[[@CR48]\]. The increase in neurogenesis in the SVZ may be understood as a response to the loss of neurons in ALS. However, our results do not clarify what happens to new neurons if they migrate to damaged areas, and they do not show whether they are able to integrate. This increase in neurogenesis in the SVZ was also highlighted by the only study of this niche to be carried out in a transgenic SOD1 animal model \[[@CR18]\]. The decrease in neurogenesis in the hippocampus is similar to that described in other neurodegenerative diseases \[[@CR10]\]. The study in transgenic SOD1 mice did not report this decrease \[[@CR18]\], but we note that this model featured pure motor impairment with no associated cognitive changes.
Another topic for discussion is how neurogenesis may be regulated differently in these 2 niches. One potential explanation is that each niche may be regulated by different factors that would be modified by the disease in different ways. Another possibility is that the same factor would have a different effect on each of the neurogenic niches, although such findings have never been described \[[@CR33]\]. Yet another possibility is that the factor responsible for increasing neurogenesis could be delivered to each niche in a different way. For example, if the factor were delivered in CSF, it would be almost unable to act on the SGZ and primarily affect the SVZ by direct contact. Both our group and others have studied the role of CSF in ALS and ALS propagation \[[@CR26], [@CR49], [@CR50]\]. Its role in exosome transport to regulate neurogenesis has also been examined \[[@CR51]\]. This possibility would also explain the presence of cells whose processes stretch to the CSF in patients with FTD-ALS.
According to our observations, the percentage of cytoplasmic pTDP-43 correlated with the change in neurogenesis in both niches. Other authors have described TDP-43 as a marker of disease diffusion and progression that may even be useful for establishing different stages of the disease \[[@CR38]\]. This correlation might therefore indicate a relationship between disease progression and changes in neurogenesis, although our study does not permit us to state this as a conclusion.
Conclusions {#Sec19}
===========
Our observations show that adult neurogenesis is altered in patients with ALS: it increases in the SVZ and decreases in the SGZ (Figs. [1n](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"} and [2i](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Although it is an interesting fact, this study does not let us determine whether this increase in the SVZ has a true impact on the disease and if the new neurons are able to migrate to damaged areas, integrate, and become functional by activating a primitive neural repair response similar to that occurring in other species \[[@CR1], [@CR46], [@CR52]\].
Additional file {#Sec20}
===============
Additional file 1: Table S1.Antibodies used in the immunohistochemical study. **Table S2.** Summary of patient characteristics. **Table S3.** Immunohistochemical studies used in ALS diagnosis. Values for TDP-43 and ubiquitin are expressed in inclusions per field; %pTDP-43 represents the percentage of phosphorylated TDP inclusions out of the total. **Table S4.** Description of neurogenesis patient to patient. **Table S5.** Neurogenesis findings in the subgranular zone of the hippocampal dentate gyrus, by patient. **Table S6.** Summary of results in the SVZ. **Table S7.** Summary of results in the hippocampus. (DOC 302 kb)
ALS
: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
CSF
: Cerebrospinal fluid
DAPI
: 4,6 diamino-2-phenylindole
DCX
: Doublecortin
FTD
: Frontotemporal dementia
GFAP
: Glial Fibillary Acidic Protein
PBS
: Phosphate buffered saline
PCNA
: Proliferating cell nuclear antigen
PNC
: Pluripotent neural cells
pTDP-43
: Phosphorylated Transactivator regulatory DNA-binding protein 43
RMS
: Rostral Migratory Stream
SD
: Standard deviation
SGZ
: Subgranular zone
SOD1
: Superoxide dismutase1
SVZ
: Subventricular zone
TUJ1
: Neuron-specific class III beta-tubulin
**Electronic supplementary material**
The online version of this article (10.1186/s12883-017-0956-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
The authors would like to thank Dr. Armando Martínez for his assistance with tissue extraction and the conventional histological studies of the samples; Dr. Álvaro Vela for his contributions to the recruitment and clinical evaluation of patients for the study; Dr. Pedro López for his help with the drawings and graphs featured in the study; and María Soledad Benito-Martin for her assistance with tissue processing.
Funding {#FPar1}
=======
There is no external funding for this research.
Availability of data and materials {#FPar2}
==================================
The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
LG: manuscript drafting, study concept and design, acquisition of data, data analysis and interpretation, and statistical analysis. UGP: manuscript drafting, study concept and design, acquisition of data, data analysis and interpretation, and statistical analysis. AG: acquisition of data and critical review of the manuscript. JMGV: study concept and design, data analysis and interpretation, study supervision, and critical review of the manuscript. JMG: study concept and design, data analysis and interpretation, study supervision, and critical review of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Ethics approval and consent to participate {#FPar3}
==========================================
We obtained the informed consent for all participants in the study (including consent for autopsy). Autopsies were performed following the procedures established by our hospital's anatomical pathology service.
Likewise, this study was approved by the hospital's ethics committee (Hospital Clinico San Carlos). Data were managed in accordance with the Spanish data protection law of 13 December 1999.
Consent for publication {#FPar4}
=======================
Non applicable.
Competing interests {#FPar5}
===================
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Publisher's Note {#FPar6}
================
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
|
---
abstract: 'In recent years, point clouds have earned quite some research interest by the development of depth sensors. Due to different layouts of objects, orientation of point clouds is often unknown in real applications. In this paper, we propose a new point-set learning framework named Pointwise Rotation-Invariant Network (PRIN), focusing on achieving rotation-invariance in point clouds. We construct spherical signals by Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (DAAS) from sparse points and employ Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) to extract rotation-invariant features for each point. Our network can be applied to applications ranging from object classification, part segmentation, to 3D feature matching and label alignment. PRIN shows performance better than state-of-the-art methods on part segmentation without data augmentation. We provide theoretical analysis for what our network has learned and why it is robust to input orientation. Our code is available online[^1].'
author:
- |
Yang You[^2]\
Shanghai Jiao Tong University\
[qq456cvb@sjtu.edu.cn]{}
- |
Yujing Lou\
Shanghai Jiao Tong University\
[louyujing@sjtu.edu.cn]{}
- |
Qi Liu\
Shanghai Jiao Tong University\
[enerald@sjtu.edu.cn]{}
- |
Yu-Wing Tai\
Tencent\
[yuwingtai@tencent.com]{}
- |
Weiming Wang\
Shanghai Jiao Tong University\
[wangweiming@sjtu.edu.cn]{}
- |
Lizhuang Ma\
Shanghai Jiao Tong University\
[ma-lz@cs.sjtu.edu.cn]{}
- |
Cewu Lu[^3]\
Shanghai Jiao Tong University\
[lucewu@sjtu.edu.cn]{}
title: 'PRIN: Pointwise Rotation-Invariant Networks'
---
Introduction
============
Deep learning on point clouds has received tremendous interest in recent years. Since depth cameras capture point clouds directly, efficient and robust point processing methods like classification, segmentation and reconstruction have become key components in real-world applications. Robots, autonomous cars, 3D face recognition and many other fields rely on learning and analysis of point clouds.
Existing works like PointNet[@8099499] and PointNet++[@NIPS2017_7095] have achieved remarkable results in point cloud learning and shape analysis. But they focus on objects with canonical orientation and perform well only on specially appointed viewpoints. In real applications, these methods fail to be applied to rotated shape analysis since model orientation is often unknown as a priori, as shown in Figure \[fig:pn\_partition\]. In addition, existing frameworks require massive data augmentation to handle rotations, which induce unacceptable computational cost.
![**PointNet++[@NIPS2017_7095] part segmentation results on rotated shapes.** When trained on objects with canonical orientation and evaluated on rotated ones, PointNet++ is unaware of their orientation and fails to segment their parts out.[]{data-label="fig:pn_partition"}](figs//fig2.png){width="\linewidth"}
Spherical CNN[@cohen2018spherical] and a similar method[@esteves2018learning] try to solve this problem and proposes a global feature extracted from continuous meshes, while they are not suitable for point clouds since they project 3D meshes onto their enclosing spheres using a ray casting scheme. Difficulty lies in how to apply spherical convolution in continuous domain to sparse point clouds. Besides, by projecting onto unit sphere, their method is limited to processing convex shapes, ignoring any concave structures. Therefore, we propose a pointwise rotation-invariant network (PRIN) to handle these problems. Firstly, to do spherical convolution on point clouds, we observe the discrepancy between spherical space and Euclidean space, and propose Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (DAAS) to avoid biased sampling. Secondly, we come up with Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) without loss of rotation-invariance, which is able to capture any concave information. Furthermore, we propose point-wise rotation-invariant loss that helps to extract **rotation-invariant features for each point**, instead of a **global feature** used in Spherical CNN.
PRIN is a network that directly takes point clouds with random rotations as input, and predicts both categories and pointwise segmentation labels without data augmentation. It absorbs the advantages of both Spherical CNN and PointNet-like network by keeping rotation-invariant features, while maintaining a one-to-one point correspondence between input and output. PRIN learns rotation-invariant features at point level. Afterwards, these features could be aggregated into a global descriptor or per-point descriptor to achieve model classification or part segmentation, respectively.
We experimentally compare PRIN with a number of state-of-the-art approaches on the benchmark dataset Shrec17[@Yi16] and ModelNet40[@wu20153d]. Under a unified architecture, PRIN exhibits remarkable performance.
{height="5.5cm"}
The key contributions of this paper are as follows:
- [We design a novel deep network processing pipeline that extracts rotation-invariant point-level features.]{}
- [Two key techniques: Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (DAAS) and Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) are proposed. ]{}
- [We show that our network can be used for 3D point matching under different rotations.]{}
Related Work
============
Learning from Geometries
------------------------
The development of features from geometries could be retrospected to manual designed features, including Point Feature Histograms (PFH)[@4650967], Fast Point Feature Histograms (FPFH)[@5152473], Signature of Histogram Orientations (SHOT)[@SALTI2014251], and Unique Shape Contexts (USC)[@Tombari:2010:USC:1877808.1877821]. These descriptors rely on delicate hand-craft design, and could only capture low-level geometric features. Besides, these features are not robust to noisy or partial scanned data since they are devised for certain datasets or specific models.
As the consequence of success in deep learning, various methods have been proposed for better understanding 3D geometries. Convolutional neural networks are applied to volumetric data since its format is similar to pixel and easy to transfer to existing frameworks. 3D ShapeNet[@7298801], VoxNet[@7353481] and Volumetric CNNs[@7780978] are pioneers introducing fully-connected networks to voxels. However, dealing with voxel data requires large memory and its sparsity also makes it challenging to extract particular features from big data. Even subsequent methods such as FPNN[@DBLP:journals/corr/LiPSQG16] propose special operators to deal with this problem, there is no efficient way for voxel learning. Another research branch is multi-view methods. 3D CNN[@7780978] and MVCNN [@su2015multi] render 3D models into multi-view images and propagate these images into traditional convolutional neural networks. These approaches are limited to simple tasks like classification and not suitable for 3D segmentation, key point matching or other senior tasks. Besides, for graphs and meshes, a series of works have been proposed[@Maron:2017:CNN:3072959.3073616; @8100059; @8100180], and Bronstein et al.[@7974879] has made a detailed survey of the above works. Spherical CNN[@cohen2018spherical] and a similar method[@esteves2018learning] propose to extract global rotation-invariant features from continuous meshes, while they are not suitable for point clouds since they project 3D meshes onto their enclosing spheres using a ray casting scheme.
Learning from Point Clouds
--------------------------
With the development of 3D cameras, learning from point clouds has been given great attention. Point clouds possess two special good characteristics. First is that they could be consumed by networks without data pre-processing. Secondly, they are highly computational efficient. This means by designing more innovative features or networks, one could achieve better performance. PointNet[@8099499] is the pioneer in building a general framework for learning point clouds. PointNet++[@NIPS2017_7095] stacks PointNet hierarchically for better capturing local structures.
Since then, many structures are proposed to learn from point clouds. PointCNN[@li2018pointcnn] uses X-Conv at local feature extraction stage to perform better on various tasks. PCNN[@DBLP:journals/corr/abs-1803-10091] utilizes extension and restriction operators to transform point clouds to Euclidean volumetric space for better performance. PointSIFT[@1807.00652] proposes an innovative SIFT-like feature learning method, which is more robust in semantic segmentation. MCCNN[@hermosilla2018mccnn] introduces Monte Carlo convolution for better understanding non-uniformly sampled point clouds, which demonstrate its advantages in real-world data analysis. P2P-Net[@DBLP:journals/corr/abs-1803-09263] applies bidirectional networks and extend PointNet++ to learn geometric transformations between two point clouds. PCPNet[@GuerreroEtAl:PCPNet:EG:2018] and PointProNets[@Rov18a] are designed to learn normals and curvatures on raw point clouds and fit it to a series of novel applications. Kd-Network[@8237361] utilizes kd-tree structures to form the computational graph, which learns from point clouds hierarchically. SyncSpecCNN[@8100180] targets at learning non-isometric shapes, and combines multi-scale spectral information with Spectral Transformer Network for better shape segmentation performance.
Method
======
We now introduce PRIN and the whole pipeline is shown in Figure \[fig:pipeline\]. We start with some preliminaries of understanding rotation-invariance in Section \[sec:pre\]. In Section \[sec:input\], we show how to sample sparse input clouds adaptively with Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (part **a**). In Section \[sec:rotinv\], we derive Spherical Voxel Convolution and its invariance property (part **b**). Then in Section \[sec:output\], we talk about network heads for part segmentation (part **c**) and classification (part **d**). To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose a method to learn end-to-end rotation-invariant point features from sparse point clouds.
Preliminaries {#sec:pre}
-------------
#### Spherical CNN
![2D rotation-invariant point feature illustration. “\*” means 2D rotation convolution around the circle and numbers around circles denote different feature/filter values at their corresponding positions.[]{data-label="fig:invariance"}](figs//rebuttal_v2.png){width="0.9\linewidth"}
We explain how Spherical CNN[@cohen2018spherical] achieve rotation-invariance in meshes by a toy example. Here we use 2D rotation group convolutions to illustrate the idea, as shown in Figure \[fig:invariance\]. In the figure, “filter” is the parameters to be learnt and will not change when input rotates. We can see that when input rotates 90 degrees clockwise, as a consequence of convolution operation, output rotates 90 degrees simultaneously. Therefore, maxpooling the output gives a global rotation-invariant feature. It is the same story when applied to 3D rotation group convolutions, but with different orthogonal rotation bases.
Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling {#sec:input}
-------------------------------
With the insight of rotation-invariance in Spherical CNN, we seek to solve the problem in 3D point clouds domain. However, it is not a straight-forward extension, since the input signal is irregular point clouds instead of meshes. To do so, we should transform irregular point clouds into spherical voxels in order to enable spherical voxel convolution. Nonetheless, if we sample point clouds uniformly into regular spherical voxels, we will meet a problem: points around pole appear to be more sparse than those around equator in spherical coordinates, which brings a bias to resulting spherical voxel signals.
To address this problem, we use Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (DAAS) to transform such irregular point clouds into regular spherical voxels. DAAS leverages a non-uniform filter to adjust to density discrepancy brought by spherical coordinates, thus reducing the bias. Before we discuss spherical voxels, some definitions are given out:
#### Unit Sphere
The space of unit sphere $S^2$ can be defined as the set of points $p \in \mathbb{R}^3$ with norm 1. It is a two-dimensional manifold, which can be parameterized by spherical coordinates $(\alpha, \beta)$, where $\alpha\in [0, 2\pi]$ denotes the azimuthal angle in the xy-axis plane while $\beta\in [0, \pi]$ denotes the polar angle from the positive z-axis.
#### Spherical Voxel Space
A spherical voxel point is identified with three dimensions $S^2\times H$, where $(\alpha, \beta) \in S^2$ represents its location projected onto unit sphere while $h\in H$ represents the distance to the sphere center.\
Our goal is to compute signal $f: S^2\times H\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ at each discrete spherical voxel location $(\alpha[i], \beta[j], h[k])$, given that $i\in\{0,1, \dots, I\}$, $j\in\{0,1,\dots, J\}$, $k\in\{0,1,\dots, K\}$ and $I, J, K$ are predefined resolutions. We denote $(\alpha_n, \beta_n, h_n)$ as the $n$-th point coordinate in $S^2\times H$ and $N$ as the total number of points. We use an anisotropic box filter in spherical coordinates, which can be seen as to weight the contributions from points nearby softly: $$\label{eq:change}
\begin{split}
f(\alpha[i], \beta[j], h[k]) = & \frac{\sum\limits^N_{n=1}w_n\cdot(\delta - \|h[k] - h_n\|)}{\sum\limits^N_{n=1}w_n},
\end{split}$$ where $w_n$ is a normalizing factor that is defined as $$\label{eq:wt}
\begin{split}
w_n =\ &\mathbf{1}(\|\alpha[i] - \alpha_n\| < \delta) \\
\cdot &\mathbf{1}(\|\beta[j] - \beta_n\| < \eta\delta) \\
\cdot &\mathbf{1}(\|h[k] - h_n\| < \delta),
\end{split}$$ where $\delta$ is some predefined filter width. We choose the original signal to be $(\delta - \|h[k] - h_n\|) \in [0, \delta]$ in Equation \[eq:change\] because it captures information along $H$ axis, which is orthogonal to $S^2$, making it invariant under rotations.
![**Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling**. We sample adaptively according to the density in spherical space; filters near pole are wider than those near equator.[]{data-label="fig:density"}](figs//density_v3.png){width="\linewidth"}
#### Density-Aware Factor
$\eta = sin(\beta)$ is the density-aware sampling factor since uniform density in Euclidean coordinates introduces non-uniform density in spherical coordinates, as shown in Figure \[fig:density\]. For more details of the factor $sin(\beta)$, see our supplementary material.
#### Discussion
Compared with PointNet++[@8099499] and PointCNN[@li2018pointcnn], who need to first sample and group points nearby without providing an explicit regular voxel representation in Euclidean coordinates, ours has a uniform structure that is already ready for convolution and pooling. On the other hand, when compared with traditional 3D convolution methods[@7298801; @7353481; @7780978], our design of distorted spherical voxels makes rotation-invariant feature extraction possible. Besides, our network could handle sparse point clouds but also continuous mesh inputs by recording each voxel’s signed distance field. At this stage, we convert irregular unordered points into regular spherical voxels.
Spherical Voxel Convolution {#sec:rotinv}
---------------------------
Given constructed spherical voxel signal, we introduce Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) that helps to keep our network rotation-invariant. Notice that this is different from Spherical CNN, where only spherical signals defined in $S^2$ get convoluted. We extend the convolution definition to spherical voxels defined in $S^2\times H$.
#### Rotations
The rotation group $SO(3)$[@kostelec2008ffts], termed “special orthogonal group”, is a three-dimensional manifold, and can be parameterized by ZYZ-Euler angles $(\alpha, \beta, \gamma)$, where $\alpha \in [0, 2\pi], \beta \in [0, \pi], $ and $\gamma \in [0, 2\pi]$.
#### Rotations of Spherical Voxel Signals
We introduce the rotation operator $L_R$ that operates on spherical voxels. $$\label{eq:rotvox}
[L_Rf](x, h) = f(R^{-1}x, h),$$ where $R\in SO(3)$, $x\in S^2$, $h \in H$ and $f: S^2\times H\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$. Intuitively, this operation only rotates the signal by its unit spherical coordinates, regardless of $H$ domain.
#### Spherical Voxel Convolution {#spherical-voxel-convolution}
With the above definition, we now define the convolution between two spherical voxel signals: $$\label{eq:voxelconv}
\begin{split}
[\psi\star f] (p) = &\langle L_{\Tilde{p}}\psi, f\rangle \\
= &\int_h\int_x\psi(\Tilde{p}^{-1}x, h)f(x, h)dxdh,
\end{split}$$ where $p\in S^2\times H$, $\Tilde{p} \in SO(3)$, $x\in S^2$, $h \in H$ and $\psi, f: S^2\times H\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$. For this equation to hold, we establish a bijective mapping (isomorphism) between $S^2\times H$ and $SO(3)$ by considering $H$ as $SO(3)/S^2=SO(2)$ (see our supplementary material), and then apply Equation \[eq:rotvox\]. We use $\Tilde{p}$ to denote $p$’s corresponding element in $SO(3)$.
#### Equivariance
To derive rotation-invariant features for each point, we need an important property of voxel convolution: **equivariance**. With the unitarity of operator $L_R$[@cohen2018spherical], the equivariance of spherical voxel convolution defined in Equation \[eq:voxelconv\] can be described as $$\label{eq:equiv}
\begin{split}
[\psi\star[L_Rf]](p)=[L_R[\psi\star f]](p),
\end{split}$$ where $R\in SO(3)$ is an arbitrary rotation.
#### Rotation-Invariant KL Divergence Loss
We now define rotation-invariant KL divergence loss for each point $p$: $$\begin{split}
Loss(p) = KL([\psi\star f](p), y(p)),
\end{split}$$ where $f$ is the input signal, $\psi$ is the kernel whose parameters are to be learned and $y$ is the ground-truth one-hot labels.
To show the rotation-invariance, suppose that an input point cloud is rotated by an arbitrary rotation $R$, with $f'=L_Rf$ and $p' = Rp$, the new loss is:
$$\begin{split}
Loss(p') = &Loss(Rp) \\
= & KL([\psi\star f'](Rp), y(p')) \\
= & KL([\psi\star [L_Rf]](Rp), y(p')) \\
= & KL([L_R[\psi\star f]](Rp), y(p')) \quad\text{(Equation~\ref{eq:equiv})}\\
= & KL([L_{R^{-1}}L_R[\psi\star f]](p), y(p')) \quad\text{(Equation~\ref{eq:rotvox})}\\
= & KL([\psi\star f](p), y(p')) \\
= & KL([\psi\star f](p), y(p)) \quad\text{(label stays the same)}\\
= & Loss(p).
\end{split}$$
We see that this loss is consistent under all orientations of the point cloud, thus by evaluating $\psi\star f$ at each point $p$, we would obtain rotation-invariant point-wise features.
In practice, with analogy to $SO(3)$ convolution, Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) can be efficiently computed by Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)[@kostelec2008ffts]. Convolutions are implemented by first doing FFT to convert both input and kernels into spectral domain, then multiplying them and converting results back to spatial domain, using Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT)[@kostelec2008ffts].
#### Discussion
Compared with SphericalCNN[@cohen2018spherical], which projects 3D objects onto their enclosing spheres and therefore loses on dimension, our Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) utilizes all information available on spherical voxels ($S^2\times H$). This has a benefit in capturing complex non-convex structures inside the object. Besides, thanks to SVC, we would obtain a one-to-one point correspondence between input and output (discussed in Section \[sec:output\]), which leads to **pointwise** features.
In addition, when compared with traditional 3D convolution methods like [@7298801; @7353481; @7780978], SVC shares a similar computing pattern but “distorts the space of convolution”. In this way, extracted features are robust to arbitrary rotations while traditional 3D convolution is not. This contributes to **rotation-invariant** features.
Output Network {#sec:output}
--------------
After Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC), we get an output feature vector at each discrete location in $S^2\times H$. Then they are passed through fully connected layers to get a final part segmentation score per spherical voxel. To find rotation-invariant features at original points’ locations, we leverage *Trilinear Interpolation*. Each point’s feature is a weighted average of nearest eight voxels, where the weights are inversely related to the distances to these spherical voxels. This operation is shown in part **c** of Figure \[fig:pipeline\].
It should be mentioned that our network is still able to realize object classification by placing a different head. In this case, we maxpool all the features in spherical voxels and pass this global feature through several fully connected layers to predict final object class scores, as shown in part **d** in Figure \[fig:pipeline\]. This provides a competitive alternative to PointNet[@8099499] or PointNet++[@NIPS2017_7095], while maintaining rotation-invariance.
Method NR/NR NR/AR R$\times10$ R$\times20$ R$\times30$ params input size
---------------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- ---------- ------------------
PointNet[@8099499] 93.42/83.43 45.66/28.26 61.02/41.59 67.85/50.54 74.91/58.66 3.5M $2048\times 3$
PointNet++[@NIPS2017_7095] **94.00/84.62** 60.15/38.16 69.06/47.26 70.01/49.26 70.82/49.95 1.7M $1024\times 3$
SyncSpecCNN[@8100180] 93.78/83.53 47.13/30.41 61.33/41.40 68.10/50.76 73.44/58.03 4.2M $2048\times 33$
Kd-Network[@8237361] 90.33/82.36 40.66/24.76 59.11/38.70 64.50/47.60 69.33/51.06 3.7M $2^{15}\times 3$
Ours 88.97/73.96 **78.13/57.41** **80.94/64.25** **83.83/67.68** **84.76/68.76** **0.4M** $2048\times 3$
Experiments {#seq:experiments}
===========
In this section, we show the performance of PRIN in different applications. First, we demonstrate that our model can be used to perform part segmentation and 3D shape classification with random orientation. Then, we conduct ablation study to validate each part of our network design. At last, we provide some applications on 3D point matching and shape alignment. PRIN is implemented with PyTorch on a NVIDIA TITAN Xp. In all of our experiments, we optimize PRIN using Adam with batch size of 16 and initial learning rate of 0.01. Learning rate is halved every 5 epochs.
{height="8cm"}
Part segmentation on rotated shapes
-----------------------------------
#### Dataset
ShapeNet part dataset [@Yi16] contains 16,881 shapes from 16 categories in which each shape is annotated with expert verified part labels from 50 different labels in total. Most shapes are composed of two to five parts.\
We show our pipeline can be trained to accomplish rotation-invariant part segmentation task. Even though state-of-the-art network like PointNet[@8099499] and PointNet++[@8099499] can achieve a fairly good result, these network can’t perform well on rotated point clouds.
Segmentation is more challenging compared with other 3D tasks , especially for rotated point clouds. We compare our network with several state-of-the-art networks for 3D shape part segmentation. Three tasks are considered:
1\. Train and test with no rotations.
2\. Train with no rotations and test with arbitrary rotations.
3\. Train with 10/20/30 rotations per model as data augmentation, then test with arbitrary rotations.
Table \[tab:compare\] shows the results of each network. All results are reported in accuracy and mIoU[@8099499] metrics. We can find that for other methods, both accuracy and mIoU decrease drastically after test on rotated point cloud. It is possible to improve their performance if we give them enough views of different orientations by data augmentation. In Table \[tab:compare\], it shows that after augmenting data by rotating point clouds with 10/20/30 random orientations per model, their performance improves a little. However, it introduces higher computational cost and their performance is still inferior to ours. Figure \[fig:main\] gives the visualization of results between state-of-the-art and our network over ShapeNet part dataset. Influenced by the canonical orientation of point clouds in the training set, networks like PointNet and PointNet++ just learn a simple partition of Euclidean space, regardless of how objects are positioned in the space.
For this task, we use four Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) layers with channels 64, 40, 40, 50 in our experiments. All convolution layers have the same bandwidth 32. Each kernel $\psi$ has non-local support, where $\psi(\alpha, \beta, h)$ iff $\beta=\pi/2$ and $h = 0$. Two fully-connected layers of size 50 and 50 are concatenated at the end. The final network contains $\approx$ 0.4M parameters and takes 12 hours to train, for 40 epochs.
Classification on rotated shapes
--------------------------------
#### Dataset
ModelNet40 [@wu20153d] classification dataset contains 12,308 shapes from 40 categories. Here, we use its corresponding point clouds provided by PointNet[@8099499].\
Method NR/NR NR/AR params
---------------------------------------- ----------- ----------- --------
PointNet[@8099499] 88.45 12.47 3.5M
PointNet++[@NIPS2017_7095] 89.82 21.35 1.5M
Point2Sequence[@liu2018point2sequence] **92.60** 10.53 1.8M
Kd-Network[@8237361] 86.20 8.49 3.6M
Ours 80.13 **68.85** 1.5M
: **Classification results on ModelNet40 dataset.** Performance is evaluated in accuracy. NR/NR means to train with no rotations and test with no rotations. NR/AR means to train with no rotations and test with arbitrary rotations. PRIN is robust to arbitrary rotations while other methods fail to classify correctly.[]{data-label="tab:classify"}
Though classification does not require pointwise rotation-invariant features but a global feature, our network still benefits from DAAS and SVC so that it could handle point clouds with unknown orientation.
We compare our network with several state-of-the-art methods that handle point clouds. We train our network on the non-rotated training set and achieve 68.85% accuracy on the rotated test set. All other methods fail to generalize to unseen orientation. The results are shown in Table \[tab:classify\].
For this task, we use four Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) layers with channels 64, 50, 70, 350 in our experiments. The bandwidths for each layer are 64, 32, 22, 7. Each kernel $\psi$ has non-local support, where $\psi(\alpha, \beta, h)$ iff $\beta=\pi/2$ and $h = 0$. A maxpooling layer is concatenated at the end to get a global feature, followed by two fully-connected layers. The final network contains $\approx$ 1.5M parameters and takes 12 hours to train, for 40 epochs.
Ablation Study
--------------
In this section we evaluate numerous variations of our method to determine the sensitivity to design choices. Experiment results are shown in Table \[tab:ablation\] and Figure \[fig:robustness\].
bandwidth res. on $H$ DAAS acc/mIoU
----------- ------------- ------ -------------
32 64 Yes 78.13/57.41
16 64 Yes 74.53/53.80
8 64 Yes 71.17/47.10
32 32 Yes 76.56/55.63
32 8 Yes 76.14/54.88
32 1 Yes 76.19/54.32
32 64 No 74.61/54.2
: **Ablation study.** PRIN NR/AR accuracy on rotated ShapeNet part dataset. We compare various types of bandwidth, resolutions on $H$ and whether to use DAAS.[]{data-label="tab:ablation"}
#### Input Bandwidth
One decisive factor of our network is the bandwidth. Bandwidth is used to describe the sphere precision, which is also the resolution on $S^2$. Mostly, large bandwidth offers more details of spherical voxels, such that our network can extract more specific point features of point clouds. While large bandwidth assures more specific representation of part knowledge, more memory cost is accompanied. The results from Table \[tab:ablation\] give us sufficient evidence to validate the improvement with increasing of input bandwidth.
#### Resolution on $H$
Here we study the effects of the resolution on $H$ dimension, which is also the number of sphere signals that are stacked. Table \[tab:ablation\] shows the results of different numbers of resolutions we set. We find that increasing the resolution improves the performance slightly. This is mainly because the point clouds are not so complicated with internal concave structures and could be distinguished with only one cross-section.
#### Sampling Strategy
Recall that in Equation \[eq:change\], we construct our signal on each spherical voxel with an density-aware sampling filter. We now study the effect of Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (DAAS) and the result is shown in Table \[tab:ablation\]. We see that using the $sin(\beta)$ corrected sampling filter gives a superior performance result, which is also confirmed in our theory.
![**Segmentation robustness results.** **From left to right**: we sample a subset of 2048, 1024, 512, 256 points from test point clouds respectively. We observe that our network is robust to missing points and gives consistent results.[]{data-label="fig:robustness"}](figs//robustness.png){width="\linewidth"}
#### Segmentation Robustness
PRIN also reveals a good adaption to corrupted and missing points. Although some points are missing, our network still segments correctly for each point. We show in Figure \[fig:robustness\] that PRIN predicts consistent labels regardless of point density.
Application
-----------
![**3D point matching.** Point matching results between two different airplanes at two different orientations.[]{data-label="fig:matching"}](figs//matching_comp.png){width="\linewidth"}
#### 3D Rotation-Invariant Point Descriptors
On 2D image, we have SIFT, which is a rotation-invariant feature descriptor. Our rotation-invariant network is able to produce high quality rotation-invariant 3D point descriptors. This is pretty useful as pairwise searching and matching become possible regardless of rotations. Like what we do on 2D images, we have feature descriptor library on 3D, given a point cloud, we can retrieve the closest matching descriptor under arbitrary rotations. This is shown in the Figure \[fig:matching\]. We know that which part this point belongs to and where it locates on the object immediately. This 3D point descriptor has the potential to do scene searching and parsing as the degree of freedom reduces from six to three, leaving only translations.
![**Chair alignment with its back on the top.** **Left:** A misalignment induces large KL divergence. **Right:** Required labels fulfilled with small KL divergence.[]{data-label="fig:alignment"}](figs//alignment.png){width="\linewidth"}
#### Shape Alignment with Label Priors
We now introduce a task that given some label requirements in the space, our network would align the point cloud satisfying these requirements. For example, one may want a chair that has its back on the top. So we add the virtual points describing the label requirement. Once the KL divergence between predicted scores and ground-truth one-hot labels of these virtual points is minimized, the chair is aligned with its back on the top. This is shown in Figure \[fig:alignment\].
Discussions and Future Work
===========================
To convert sparse point clouds into a suitable format that is ready for rotation group convolution, we tried several strategies such as Euclidean-kNN, image filtering on cross sections and so on. They both introduce a large bias when further convolved with rotation group kernels. The key reason for these methods to fail is that they are agnostic of discrepancy between Euclidean space and spherical space. This reason is also confirmed in our ablation study: accuracy/mIoU drops for four percent when uniform sampling in Euclidean is used.
Besides, our Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) is totally different from traditional 3D convolution in that the design of spherical voxels makes it rotation-invariant. From another point of view, we have brought 3D convolution into spherical space by exploiting an important fact: translation-invariant 3D convolution in spherical space (FFTed) is rotation-invariant in Euclidean space.
Though our network is invariant to point cloud rotations, we see there are some failure cases that when there are complex internal structures of the object as in Figure \[fig:failure\]. This may be caused by that our filters are not perfect and special filters instead of box filters can be designed. Though current filters are density-aware, they are not aware of curvature change. Also, due to computational considerations, input voxel resolution, which is defined by bandwidth[@cohen2018spherical] is limited to about 32 while better results can be obtained with higher resolution. We leave this memory-efficient convolution and special design of filters as our future work.
![**Failure cases.**[]{data-label="fig:failure"}](figs//failure.png){width="\linewidth"}
Conclusion
==========
We present PRIN, a network that takes any input point cloud and leverages Density-Aware Adaptive Sampling (DAAS) to construct signals on spherical voxels. Then Spherical Voxel Convolution (SVC) follows to extract pointwise rotation-invariant features. We place two different output heads to do both 3D point clouds classification and 3D point clouds part segmentation. Our experiments show that our network is robust to arbitrary orientation even not trained on them. Our network can be applied to 3D point feature matching and shape alignment with label priors. We show that our model can naturally handle arbitrary input orientation for different tasks and provide theoretical analysis that helps to understand our network.
Supplementary {#supplementary .unnumbered}
=============
Density-Aware Factor $\eta$ {#sec:freqchange}
===========================
#### Spacing Representations
We denote volumes (spacing) in euclidean ($\mathbb{R}^3$) and spherical ($S^2$) coordinates as $dxdydz$ and $d\alpha d\beta dr$ respectively, where $r=1$ is a dummy variable representing the radius.
#### Jacobian
Given the relationship from spherical coordinates to Euclidean coordinates, $$\begin{aligned}
\begin{split}
x &= rsin(\beta)cos(\alpha)\\
y &= rsin(\beta)sin(\alpha)\\
z &= rcos(\beta)
\end{split}\end{aligned}$$
The Jacobian $J_t = \frac{dxdydz}{d\alpha d\beta dr}$ of this transformation is $$\begin{bmatrix}
\frac{\partial x}{\partial\alpha} & \frac{\partial x}{\partial\beta} & \frac{\partial x}{\partial r} \\
\frac{\partial y}{\partial\alpha} & \frac{\partial y}{\partial\beta} & \frac{\partial y}{\partial r} \\
\frac{\partial z}{\partial\alpha} & \frac{\partial z}{\partial\beta} & \frac{\partial z}{\partial r}.
\end{bmatrix}$$ Write this out, $$\begin{bmatrix}
-rsin(\beta)sin(\alpha) & rcos(\beta)cos(\alpha) & sin(\beta)cos(\alpha) \\
rsin(\beta)cos(\alpha) & rcos(\beta)sin(\alpha) & sin(\beta)sin(\alpha) \\
0 & -rsin(\beta) & cos(\beta)
\end{bmatrix}.$$ The absolute value of the Jacobian determinant is $r^2sin(\beta)$.
#### Spacing Relations
The spacing relationship between $\mathbb{R}^3$ and $S^2$ is, $$dxdydz = r^2sin(\beta)d\alpha d\beta dr.$$ Since $r = 1$, we have, $$dxdydz = sin(\beta)d\alpha d\beta.$$ Therefore, we choose density-aware factor $\eta$ to be $sin(\beta)$ as density is reciprocal to spacing.
Haar Measure and Parameterization on $S^2$ and $SO(3)$
======================================================
#### Parameterization of $SO(3)$
For any element $R \in SO(3)$, it could be parameterized by ZYZ Euler angles, $$\label{eq:zyz}
R = R(\alpha, \beta, \gamma) = Z(\alpha)Y(\beta)Z(\gamma)$$ where $\alpha \in [0, 2\pi], \beta \in [0, \pi], $ and $\gamma \in [0, 2\pi]$, and Z/Y are rotations around Z/Y axes.
#### Haar Measure of $SO(3)$
The normalized Haar measure is $$dR = \frac{d\alpha}{2\pi}\frac{d\beta sin(\beta)}{2}\frac{d\gamma}{2\pi}.$$ The Haar measure [@kyatkin2000engineering; @nachbin1976haar] is invariant because it has the property that $$\int_{SO(3)}f(R^{'}R)dR = \int_{SO(3)}f(R)dR,$$ for any $R^{'}\in SO(3)$.
#### Parameterization of $S^2$
Likewise, an element $x \in S^2$ is written as $$\label{eq:zy}
x(\alpha, \beta) = Z(\alpha)Y(\beta)n,$$ where $n$ is the north pole.
This parameterization makes explicit the fact that the sphere is a quotient $S^2 = SO(3)/SO(2)$, where $SO(2)$ is the subgroup of rotations around the Z axes.
#### Haar Measure of $S^2$ and $SO(2)$
The normalized Haar measure for the sphere is $$dx = \frac{d\alpha}{2\pi}\frac{d\beta sin(\beta)}{2}.$$
The normalized Haar measure for $SO(2)$ is $$\label{eq:so2}
dh = \frac{d\gamma}{2\pi}.$$
Mapping between $S^2 \times H$ and $SO(3)$ {#sec:map}
==========================================
#### Bijactive Mapping
For an element $(x, h) \in S^2\times H$, where $x:=x(\alpha, \beta) \in S^2$, if we view $H$ as $SO(2)$, $$(x(\alpha, \beta), h) = (Z(\alpha)Y(\beta)n, Z(h)).$$ There is a bijective mapping from $(x, h)$ to $R(\alpha, \beta, h)$, as $R(\alpha, \beta, h)$ can be written as, $$R(\alpha, \beta, h) = Z(\alpha)Y(\beta)Z(h),$$ and the mapping: $$Z(\alpha)Y(\beta)Z(h) \Longleftrightarrow (Z(\alpha)Y(\beta)n, Z(h)).$$
#### Isomorphism by Rotation Operator
With this mapping, any rotation that happens in voxel space $S^2\times H$ will transfer to $SO(3)$ safely, $$\begin{split}
(Qx(\alpha, \beta), h) &=(QZ(\alpha)Y(\beta)n, Z(h))\\
&\Rightarrow (QZ(\alpha)Y(\beta))Z(h)\\
&=QZ(\alpha)Y(\beta)Z(h) \\
&=QR(\alpha, \beta, h)
\end{split}$$ Notice that there is a $2\pi$ constant factor change between the measure of $H$ and the measure of rotations around $Z$ axes, as shown in Equation \[eq:so2\].
[^1]: https://github.com/qq456cvb/PRIN
[^2]: Equal contribution.
[^3]: Corresponding author.
|
Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences graduate Keven Stonewall, of Ashburn, is hoping to develop a cure for colon cancer. He's now a rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin. View Full Caption Keven Stonewall
ASHBURN — Keven Stonewall likes to say "innovation doesn't have an age," which makes sense considering the 19-year-old could be on his way to curing colon cancer.
Working at a Rush University lab while still in high school, the Ashburn native revealed a critical age-related drawback in an experimental vaccine aimed at preventing colon cancer in mice.
A vaccine that could work on seniors is now being developed.
Keven Stonewall is devoted to curing cancer, and he's making a significant difference:
Stonewall "should be heralded for helping to develop more effective colon cancer treatments that will impact the elderly, the population that is most susceptible to colon cancer," said Carl Ruby, the Rush University professor who operated the lab where Stonewall did his research. "He has all the tools. He will go far."
Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences graduate Keven Stonewall, of Ashburn, is hoping to develop a cure for colon cancer. He's now a rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin. View Full Caption Keven Stonewall
Stonewall has spent the last year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he's a rising sophomore and further researching a colon cancer vaccine that could eventually be tested on humans — and "possibly down the road eradicate colon cancer."
"I am very passionate about doing colon cancer research," Stonewall said. "If it works on humans, I would be overwhelmed. My whole life would flash in front of me."
Seeing the Impact of Cancer
Stonewall's love for science began during a fifth-grade science class at Chicago International Charter School's Wrightwood campus, where he was immediately fascinated by looking at cells under a microscope. That Christmas, he received four microscopes as gifts.
His commitment to eradicating colon cancer came during his freshman year at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, when a good friend's uncle was diagnosed with the disease. Stonewall watched his friend transform from a model student to one with bad grades and trouble outside the classroom as his uncle became more ill and eventually died.
"I saw the impact on him and how it impacted his life," Stonewall said. "Cancer has taken over a whole bunch of lives, and I felt like I needed to step up and do something about it."
Before his senior year, Stonewall started his research on a potential colon cancer vaccine while doing an internship at Rush on the Near West Side. He worked in the lab of Ruby, an assistant professor in the departments of Immunology/Microbiology & General Surgery.
After reviewing research suggesting that a chemotherapeutic agent might help kill off other kinds of cancer cells — and promote a healthy immune response — Stonewall set out to test whether the potential colon cancer vaccine worked on both younger and older mice.
He used a high concentration of mitoxantrone — a prescription drug that treats certain types of cancers. He administered this potential vaccine to young and old mice and then injected the vaccinated mice with aggressive colon cancer cells.
He then measured responses, including the makeup of key immune cells called dendritic cells, as well as tumor growth and survival rates.
Stonewall noticed that usually after three days of living with the vaccine, all of the young mice's tumors were eliminated, and they demonstrated immunity to colon cancer. But none of the older mice were protected, leading to tumor growth.
His research helped determine a need for a vaccine that would work on older subjects, scientists said. Ruby said this finding is clinically important since more than two-thirds of colon cancer patients are elderly.
"It's always exciting to have young kids come through the laboratory that have a passion for science and have potential for great things," Ruby said. "Being a mentor for him makes my day."
Andrew Zloza, a Rush assistant professor in the departments of Immunology/Microbiology & Internal Medicine, said Stonewall's work "has suggested that drugs may not work the same in people of different ages."
"This means that age may have to be a factor when physicians choose which drugs and what dosage to use in people of different ages," said Zloza, also co-director of Rush's HIV and Cancer Scientific Working Group. "This is something already taken into account for children versus adults, but now adults may need to be separated into groups by age."
Zloza, who was not involved with Stonewall's research, added: "I think that the work Keven is doing goes far beyond helping us understand how colon cancer treatments and vaccines work — it brings into light a paradigm-shifting call to action — whereby the way we treat adults may have to change to account for age."
Stonewall's colon cancer vaccine findings came about from a national science and engineering contest sponsored by Intel in 2013. His work earned Stonewall numerous awards.
The results of his research were presented at the national meeting for the Society for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer in Washington, D.C., and he is listed as lead author.
"With the data collected so far, the research does in fact have the potential to make it into human trials and possibly down the road to eradicate colon cancer," Stonewall said. "With that being said, the potential vaccine would have to go under years of clinical trials and testing to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine."
Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences graduate Keven Stonewall, of Ashburn, is hoping to develop a cure for colon cancer. He's now a rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin. View Full Caption Keven Stonewall
'His Goal Is Legitimately to Cure Cancer'
At Wisconsin, Stonewall is known as the "colon cancer guy" around campus. That's according to Stonewall and Valyncia Raphael, his mentor with Wisconsin's Posse Foundation — a leadership program for students from urban backgrounds.
"It's weird at times having that title, and sometimes I feel I shouldn't be given a title," said Stonewall, who said he hears the moniker from students and professors. "But it's also kind of cool at times because people actually look at what I'm doing, and it feels really good in my heart."
Raphael, a former Badgers softball player who is a graduate assistant with the Posse Foundation, said Stonewall is "dynamic, incredibly disciplined and self-motivated."
"His goal is legitimately to cure cancer," Raphael said. "Everybody in the Posse [program] looks at Keven as a person who's going to legitimately change the world."
That statement doesn't surprise Stonewall's high school guidance counselor, LaShawndra Pointer. The West Pullman resident said Stonewall has "stood out" since she first met him freshman year at the Far Southwest Side high school in Mount Greenwood. Pointer said Stonewall's accomplishments in high school led to Stonewall earning six academic scholarships, including one from the Posse Foundation, to attend Wisconsin.
"What I've noticed about him is if he does not achieve a certain goal, he doesn't allow that to set him back," Pointer said. "We expect great things, to say the least, from him."
Stonewall, a biomedical engineering major, is back in Chicago for the summer to serve as an intern at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center. Stonewall is working with U. of C. oncologists and learning about other forms of cancer. It fits into his long-term goal of becoming an oncologist.
Stonewall credits his parents for his academic discipline. His father, Keven Sr., and mother, Cawanna, are both city natives and educators within Chicago Public Schools.
Stonewall believes he's inspiring his two younger sisters — Crystal, 17, and Chiya, 6 — and brother — Kristopher, 16 — as well.
Crystal, a rising senior at Ag School, is conducting cancer research as an intern at Northwestern this summer. Kristopher plans to be a mechanical engineer. Stonewall said Chiya is claiming "she wants to be the president."
"You never know," he said.
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A Dying Banker’s Last Instructions
Gordon Murray, left, and his co-author, Dan Goldie, in Burlingame, Calif. Mr. Murray has a form of brain cancer.Credit
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
BURLINGAME, Calif.
There are no one-handed push-ups or headstands on the yoga mat for Gordon Murray anymore.
No more playing bridge, either — he jokingly accuses his brain surgeon of robbing him of the gray matter that contained all the bidding strategy.
But when Mr. Murray, a former bond salesman for Goldman Sachs who rose to the managing director level at both Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston, decided to cease all treatment five months ago for his glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, his first impulse was not to mourn what he couldn’t do anymore or to buy an island or to move to Paris. Instead, he hunkered down in his tiny home office here and channeled whatever remaining energy he could muster into a slim paperback. It’s called “The Investment Answer,” and he wrote it with his friend and financial adviser Daniel Goldie to explain investing in a handful of simple steps.
Why a book? And why this subject? Nine years ago, after retiring from 25 years of pushing bonds on pension and mutual fund managers trying to beat the market averages over long periods of time, Mr. Murray had an epiphany about the futility of his former customers’ pursuits.
He eventually went to work as a consultant for Dimensional Fund Advisors, a mutual fund company that rails against active money management. So when his death sentence arrived, Mr. Murray knew he had to work quickly and resolved to get the word out to as many everyday investors as he could.
“This is one of the true benefits of having a brain tumor,” Mr. Murray said, laughing. “Everyone wants to hear what you have to say.”
He and Mr. Goldie have managed to beat the clock, finishing and printing the book themselves while Mr. Murray is still alive. It is plenty useful for anyone who isn’t already investing in a collection of index or similar funds and dutifully rebalancing every so often.
But the mere fact that Mr. Murray felt compelled to write it is itself a remarkable story of an almost willful ignorance of the futility of active money management — and how he finally stumbled upon a better way of investing. Mr. Murray now stands as one the highest-ranking Wall Street veterans to take back much of what he and his colleagues worked for during their careers.
Mr. Murray grew up in Baltimore, about the farthest thing from a crusader that you could imagine. “I was the kid you didn’t want your daughter to date,” he said. “I stole baseball cards and cheated on Spanish tests and made fun of the fat kid in the corner with glasses.”
He got a lot of second chances thanks to an affluent background and basketball prowess. He eventually landed at Goldman Sachs, long before many people looked askance at anyone who worked there.
“Our word was our bond, and good ethics was good business,” he said of his Wall Street career. “That got replaced by liar loans and ‘I hope I’m gone by the time this thing blows up.’ ”
After rising to managing director at two other banks, Mr. Murray retired in 2001.
At the time, his personal portfolio was the standard Wall Street big-shot barbell, with a pile of municipal bonds at one end to provide safe tax-free income and private equity and hedge fund investments at the other.
When some of those bonds came due, he sought out Mr. Goldie, a former professional tennis player and 1989 Wimbledon quarterfinalist, for advice on what to buy next. Right away, Mr. Goldie began teaching him about Dimensional’s funds.
The fact that Mr. Murray knew little up until that point about basic asset allocation among stocks and bonds and other investments or the failings of active portfolio management is shocking, until you consider the self-regard that his master-of-the-universe colleagues taught him. “It’s American to think that if you’re smart or work hard, then you can beat the markets,” he said.
But it didn’t take long for Mr. Murray to become a true believer in this different way of investing. “I learned more through Dan and Dimensional in a year than I did in 25 years on Wall Street,” he said.
Soon Dimensional hired him as a consultant, helping financial advisers who use its funds explain the company’s anti-Wall Street investment philosophy to its clients. “The most inspirational people who talk about alcoholism are people who have gone through A.A.,” said David Booth, Dimensional’s founder and chairman. “It’s the people who have had the experience and now see the light who are our biggest advocates.”
Playing that role was enough for Mr. Murray until he received his diagnosis in 2008. But not long after, in the wake of the financial collapse, he testified before a open briefing at the House of Representatives, wondering aloud how it was possible that prosecutors had not yet won criminal convictions against anyone in charge at his old firms and their competitors.
In June of this year, a brain scan showed a new tumor, and Mr. Murray decided to stop all aggressive medical treatment. For several years, he had thought about somehow codifying his newfound investment principles, and Mr. Goldie had a hunch that writing the book would be a life-affirming task for Mr. Murray.
“I had balance in my life, and there was no bucket list,” Mr. Murray said. “The first thing you do is think about your wife and kids, but Randi would have killed me having me around 24/7. I had to do something.” The couple have two grown children.
And so he has tried to use his condition as a way to get people to pay attention. The book asks readers to make just five decisions.
First, will you go it alone? The two authors suggest hiring an adviser who earns fees only from you and not from mutual funds or insurance companies, which is how Mr. Goldie now runs his business.
Second, divide your money among stocks and bonds, big and small, and value and growth. The pair notes that a less volatile portfolio may earn more over time than one with higher volatility and identical average returns. “If you don’t have big drops, the portfolio can compound at a greater rate,” Mr. Goldie said.
Then, further subdivide between foreign and domestic. Keep in mind that putting anything less than about half of your stock money in foreign securities is a bet in and of itself, given that American stocks’ share of the overall global equities market keeps falling.
Fourth, decide whether you will be investing in active or passively managed mutual funds. No one can predict the future with any regularity, the pair note, so why would you think that active managers can beat their respective indexes over time?
Finally, rebalance, by selling your winners and buying more of the losers. Most people can’t bring themselves to do this, even though it improves returns over the long run.
This is not new, nor is it rocket science. But Mr. Murray spent 25 years on Wall Street without having any idea how to invest like a grown-up. So it’s no surprise that most of America still doesn’t either.
Mr. Murray is home for good now, wearing fuzzy slippers to combat nerve damage in his feet and receiving the regular ministrations of hospice nurses.
He generally starts his mornings with his iPad, since he can no longer hold up a newspaper. After a quick scan, he fires off an e-mail to Mr. Goldie, pointing to the latest articles about people taking advantage of unwitting investors.
The continuing parade of stories does not seem to depress him, though. Instead, it inspires him further, bringing life to his days. “To have a purpose and a mission for me has been really special,” he said. “It probably has added days to my life.”
In a cruel twist, one of Mr. Murray’s close friends, Charles Davis, chief executive of the private equity firm Stone Point Capital, lost his son Tucker to cancer earlier this year. In his last several months, Tucker was often on the phone with Mr. Murray.
“Gordon has a peace about him, halfway between Wall Street establishment and a hippie,” Mr. Davis said. “It was clear that he and my son could talk in a way that very few people can, since they were in a pretty exclusive club that nobody really wants to join.”
Mr. Murray managed to outlive Tucker, but he does not expect to see his 61st birthday in March. Still, he didn’t bother memorializing himself with a photograph on his book cover or even mention his illness inside. “I’m sick of me,” he said.
But he plays along with the dying banker angle, willing to do just about anything to make sure that his message is not forgotten, even if he fades from memory himself.
“This book has increased the quality of his life,” Mr. Davis said. “And it’s given him the knowledge and understanding that if, in fact, the end is near, that the end is not the end.”
A version of this article appears in print on November 27, 2010, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Dying Banker’s Last Instructions. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe |
Cabin Fever (2002 film)
Cabin Fever is a 2002 American horror comedy film co-written and directed by Eli Roth (in his directorial debut) and starring Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, James DeBello, Cerina Vincent, Joey Kern, and Giuseppe Andrews. The story follows a group of college graduates who rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a flesh-eating virus. The inspiration for the film's story came from a real-life experience during a trip to Iceland when Roth developed a skin infection.
Plot
A hermit walking in the woods encounters his dog, who has died of a bloody infection, and the hermit becomes infected. Meanwhile, college students Jeff, Marcy, Paul, Karen and Bert take a vacation to a remote cabin to celebrate spring break. Bert leaves to shoot squirrels but shoots the now disfigured and bloody hermit. Despite the hermit's pleas, Bert flees and remains silent about the incident.
The group gather around a campfire that night, where they are joined by a friendly drifter named Grimm and his pet dog, Dr. Mambo. When it rains, Grimm leaves with his dog to pack up his belongings. While the friends wait for Grimm indoors, the hermit returns, begging for help. When Bert shuts the door on the sick hermit, he tries stealing the group's car while vomiting blood. When the hermit approaches Marcy and Karen, Paul accidentally sets him on fire. While seeking help the next day, Jeff and Bert encounter a butcher but leave after learning she is the dead hermit's cousin. Paul receives assistance from police Deputy Winston, who promises to send up a tow truck. Paul tries comforting Karen, who is upset over the killing of the hermit. After calming her down, Paul attempts to have sex with her; as he reaches between her legs, he discovers an infection that has spread in her groin. The group isolates her in a shed.
After fixing the truck, Bert coughs up blood but does not tell the others. Bert drives off after Paul and Jeff discover he has caught the disease. Jeff takes the remaining beer and leaves, terrified of becoming infected. Bert seeks help at a convenience store but angers the owner after his son, Dennis, bites him. Bert flees, chased by Dennis's father and two friends. At the cabin, Marcy worries that they will all contract the disease. When Paul comforts her, they impulsively have sex. Regretting the affair, Paul leaves while Marcy takes a bath, crying; as she shaves her legs the flesh begins to peel off and she runs outside in a panic, where she is eaten alive by Dr. Mambo.
Paul discovers the hermit's corpse floating in a reservoir and realizes the infection is spreading through the water supply. Racing back to the cabin, Paul finds Marcy's remains and Dr. Mambo feeding on Karen. After killing Dr. Mambo with Bert's gun, he bludgeons Karen with a shovel out of mercy. A dying Bert returns to the cabin pursued by Dennis's father and his two companions. The posse shoots and kills Bert, and Paul kills all three of them. Paul looks for Jeff; he instead finds Grimm's corpse. Paul takes the convenience store's truck, and, while driving, discovers he is infected before hitting a deer. He reunites with Deputy Winston, who is partying with underage drinkers. Paul requests a ride to the hospital, but before the group departs, Winston is ordered to kill on sight several infected people on a killing spree. With the group turning on him, Paul attacks and infects several of Winston's friends before knocking Winston out. A passing truck drops off Paul at a hospital, where he weakly discusses where he caught the disease. The doctors inform the sheriff that Paul must be transferred. Lying in the back of Winston's squad car, Paul unsuccessfully warns him about the contaminated water supply; Winston dumps him at the edge of a creek.
Jeff, who has been hiding out and drinking in the woods, returns to the cabin the next day. Initially crying after seeing the remains of his friends, he becomes ecstatic upon realizing he is the only survivor. As he raises his arms in victory, Winston shoots him and burns his body with the others. At the convenience store, several children sell lemonade, which they have made with the water from the creek Paul was dumped in, to the same police officers. A large truck filled with bottles of water taken from the creek can be seen leaving the store.
Cast
Rider Strong as Paul
Jordan Ladd as Karen
James DeBello as Bert
Cerina Vincent as Marcy
Joey Kern as Jeff
Arie Verveen as Henry, the Hermit
Giuseppe Andrews as Deputy Winston
Eli Roth as Justin / Grimm
Production
Writing
Eli Roth co-wrote Cabin Fever with friend and former NYU roommate Randy Pearlstein in 1995 while Roth was working as a production assistant for Howard Stern's Private Parts. Early attempts to sell the script were unsuccessful because studios felt that the horror genre had become unprofitable. In 1996, the film Scream was released to great success, leading studios to once again become interested in horror properties. Roth still could not sell his script, as studios told him that it should be more like Scream. Many potential financiers also found the film's content to be unsettling, including not only the gore but also the use of the word "nigger" early in the film.
Roth was inspired to write the script based on his own experience with a skin infection he transmitted while traveling abroad. Various elements of the script were inspired by Roth's favorite horror films, including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Last House on the Left (1972), and The Evil Dead (1981).
Casting
The auditions for the character of Marcy had been scheduled to take place on September 11, 2001. The scene the producers had chosen for the auditioning actresses was the build-up to Marcy's sex scene with Paul. In the scene, Marcy is convinced that all the students are doomed and despite Paul's reassurances, she describes their situation as "like being on a plane, when you know it's gonna crash. Everybody around you is screaming 'We're Going Down! We're Going Down!' and all you want to do is grab the person next to you and fuck them, because you know you're going to be dead soon, anyway." Eli Roth and the producers tried to cancel the Marcy auditions, but the general chaos caused by the attacks made it impossible for them to reach many of the actresses who were scheduled to try out for the role.
Filming
Filming on Cabin Fever began in late 2001 and lasted 24 days, on location in North Carolina.. Cabin scenes were filmed at Catawba cabin, an isolated spot at Raven Knob Scout Reservation, near Mt. Airy, NC. Roth originally wanted Cerina Vincent to show her naked buttocks during her sex scene with Rider Strong. Vincent, who had previously played a nude foreign exchange student in Not Another Teen Movie (2001), was afraid that exposing too much of herself would lead to being typecast as a nudity actress and vehemently refused to bare her buttocks. At the peak of this conflict between the two, Vincent told Roth that if he wanted the shot so badly, he would need to re-cast the role with another actress. But they managed to reach a compromise, in which Vincent showed one inch of her buttocks on camera before Roth measured it for it to be precise. Bedsheets were then taped to her backside at the designated level and the scene was filmed.
Music
Composer Angelo Badalamenti agreed to compose some musical themes for the film out of enthusiasm for the material. However, the bulk of the film's score was composed by Nathan Barr. Some of the music selected for the film was deliberately chosen by Roth for their connection to other horror films; in the opening scene for example, while the main characters are driving to the cabin, "The Road Leads to Nowhere", a song written and recorded for The Last House on the Left (1972), is playing on the radio.
Release
The film premiered at the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2002 and was the festival's closing feature film. After a successful run at TIFF, the distribution rights to the film was sold to Lionsgate for $3.5 million. Cabin Fever was released in the United States on September 12, 2003; it landed at No. 3 during its opening weekend, grossing $8.3 million on 2,087 theaters (an average of $4,137 per screen). The film ended its theatrical run with a gross of $21.2 million in the U.S. and Canada and $30.5 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film released by Lionsgate of that year.
Cabin Fever was released on DVD in March 2004, which includes audio commentary tracks with director Eli Roth and the main cast as well as a featurette entitled "Beneath the Skin", which provides a behind the scenes look on the film. The Blu-ray was released in February 2010, featuring Roth's edited version of the film that was screened at TIFF. The Blu-ray was created from the film's original camera negative overseen by Roth, and includes a brand-new audio commentary with Roth and the main cast as well as a gallery of rare behind the scenes photos.
Critical reception
Uproxx reported that Cabin Fever drew "better-than-average" reviews. The performances from the leads were complimented by critics as "solid" and "adequate". Their roles, however, were met with negative reactions: IGN and the Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis described them, respectively, as stereotypical and "monumentally irritating". Furthermore, IGN and Dargis criticized the film's lack of scares, delivering more jokes and gore. Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone disagreed; Holden said Cabin Fever "finds an unusually potent blend of dread, gore and gallows humor", and Travers called it "a blast of good gory fun that just won't quit". Kim Newman in Empire and Maitland McDonagh in TV Guide awarded Cabin Fever three stars out of five.
Reviewers observed the film's homage to low-budget horror and thriller films, including Night of the Living Dead, Deliverance, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Evil Dead (and its sequel), and The Blair Witch Project. IGN said Cabin Fever "struggles valiantly to be both a worthy addition and simultaneous homage to these genres ... becoming instead a passably enjoyable slab of schlock", criticizing its failure to reinvent the films that inspired Roth's. Conversely, Newman said: "There's a fine line between homage and simply stealing, but writer-director Eli Roth mostly manages the former". Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post said Cabin Fever compared poorly to The Evil Dead and The Blair Witch Project, describing it as "a loud, derivative grade-Z horror film of no particular distinction". McDonagh said Cabin Fever was "more Straw Dogs than Night of the Living Dead", citing its theme of "degeneration of relationships under pressure".
Some critics said Cabin Fever suffered from genre and tone inconsistencies, with Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times comparing the flaw to "kids on those arcade games where the target lights up and you have to stomp on it". Ebert was critical that the film alternates between horror and "weird humor", getting nowhere; he said it "could develop its plague story in a serious way, like a George Romero picture or 28 Days Later". Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly said, "Cabin Fever is what 28 Days Later would have looked like had it been made without style, subtlety, grunge-of-night video photography, or fashionable apocalyptic pretensions." Ebert gave Cabin Fever one-and-a-half stars out of four, and Gleiberman said it was "a big, dumb, crude, noisy, goose-the-audience bash and proud of it".
The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 62 percent, with a weighted average of 5.92 out of 10 based on reviews from 140 critics. The website's "Critics Consensus" says it is "[m]ore gory than scary" and "satisfied with paying homage to genre conventions rather than reinventing them." On Metacritic, the film earned "[m]ixed or average reviews," with a weighted average of 56 out of 100 based on 31 reviews. Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings film series, was a notable fan of Cabin Fever. Having seen the film from a print sent to him, Jackson suspended production on The Return of the King twice in his native New Zealand to have it screened to his cast and crew members. He complimented the film as "unrelenting, gruesomely funny bloodbath". Quentin Tarantino also expressed his admiration for Cabin Fever, calling Roth "the future of horror".
Related works
Roth revealed in a 2010 interview that he had written a treatment for the sequel to Cabin Fever as part of Lionsgate's distribution deal, pitching it as "a Song of the South horror movie filled with corpses and sex." Since Lionsgate was unwilling to produce his idea, Roth entrusted Ti West to direct the sequel entirely from West's own version. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever was released in 2009.
A prequel to the two previous films, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero, was directed by Kaare Andrews in 2014. A remake of Cabin Fever was subsequently announced that same year, with Roth staying on as executive producer. Travis Zariwny directed the remake using Cabin Fever original screenplay co-written by Roth. Despite a mediocre reception upon its 2016 release, with critics calling it "pointless" and derivative, Roth said he was genuinely happy with the remake.
See also
Scream
The Cabin in the Woods
References
External links
Category:2002 films
Category:2002 horror films
Category:American films
Category:American comedy horror films
Category:American independent films
Category:English-language films
Category:Directorial debut films
Category:Films set in forests
Category:Films shot in North Carolina
Category:Films about viral outbreaks
Category:Lions Gate Entertainment films
Category:Films directed by Eli Roth
Category:Films produced by Eli Roth
Category:Films with screenplays by Eli Roth |
With my recent job change, I'm starting to run into a bunch of people asking "What exactly are you going to be doing now?"
I've tried responding by describing the kernel related stuff I've been doing for the past years, and it turns out that a lot of people didn't even realize I was doing that.
So, here's a short list of some of the things that I'm going to be doing at my new job, and most importantly, how you can track what I do yourself, so that I never have to write a status report again...
Stable kernel releases
I've been releasing the Linux kernel stable releases since way back when they first started up, in mid 2005. Early on, the most excellent kernel developer Chris Wright helped out with this task, but for the past few years, I've been doing this on my own.
These releases take the last kernel released by Linus and add any needed bugfixes and other related patches that have gone into Linus's development tree, and package it all up in a format that users can use themselves during the 2-3 month development cycle time while the kernel developers are madly working on creating the next kernel release.
For a description of what entails a change that is acceptable into the stable kernel releases, and how to get a patch accepted, please see the file Documentation/stable _ kernel _ rules.txt in the kernel source tree.
Every year I pick a specific kernel version and declare that as "longterm". That kernel gets support from me for bugfixes and related things for two years before it is gracefully retired to a more leisurely release cycle by the capable extra-extra longterm maintainer. For details on how the longterm kernel works, and how it is picked, see this older post I wrote on the topic.
If you want to be notified of when these kernels are released, you can do one of the following:
read lwn.net, they post the announcements mere hours after they happen. They also post lots of other wonderful things, if you aren't reading this site already, you are missing out.
subscribe to the linux-kernel or stable mailing lists. Note, you will get a lot of other traffic, but it's all good, you wanted to know what was going on in Linux kernel development directly from the developers themselves, right?
subscribe to my twitter feed. You might get other random blatherings there, but I do post the announcements to it.
watch the Linux G+ feed, the releases are all announced there.
subscribe to the google calender feeds of the kernel releases. This is maintained by the talented Tsugikazu Shibata (high powered executive by day, Linux kernel developer by night) and can be found here for the stable kernel releases, here for the main Linux kernel releases, and here for the kernel development releases.
Kernel subsystem maintainer
When I'm not releasing stable kernels, I also maintain a number of different kernel subsystems. These entail USB, driver core, staging, tty, and a variety of other bits of the kernel. Being a maintainer means you read patches from submitters, handle questions from both developers and users about things related to the subsystem (usually bug reports). If a patch looks acceptable, you test it if possible, and apply it to the relevant git tree and push it publicly, and notify the author that it was accepted. Every weekday, these git trees get merged together in the linux-next release, and inevitably, problems are reported and it's up to the maintainer to fix them when they affect their portion of the kernel.
If you are curious as to exactly what portions of the kernel I maintain, look at the MAINTAINERS file in the kernel source tree and search for my name. Those entries will show you exactly where the git tree for the subsystem lives, as well as the proper mailing list to contact if you have questions in those areas.
If you want to follow the development done in these various areas, and what patches I apply, you can subscribe to the RSS feed of the individual git trees listed in the MAINTAINERS file, or you can follow along on the various different mailing lists.
Kernel development
When not releasing kernels or reviewing patches from others, I occasionally get time to fix bugs, rework existing code to solve problems or extend it in various ways, or even rarer, write a new driver for some random hardware device. This is one area that I should be doing more of now that I have extra time available.
Right now I'm working on a driver for a USB to serial device that Linux doesn't support, and I have some ideas for how portions of the driver core can be reworked to handle some areas better (most of that has been suggested by Kay years ago, I really should get around to implementing them...) I also have some ideas on cleaning up some cruftier portions of the kernel that haven't seen any love for many years, but that's more of a long-term goal, no specifics yet.
If you want to follow along with this development, just watch the main kernel tree for commits by me. That can be done by either subscribing to the rss feed for the kernel tree, or just using git and doing simple searches.
I keep my kernel development and maintainership scripts and directory structure in a public github repo, if you are curious about how this type of thing works. There's lots of scripts helpfully named "do.sh" which I really should rename to be a bit more descriptive, but make sense to me relative to the directory they are located in.
I also have lots of talks, scripts, and other minor projects in my public github repo, if you are curious as to other things I work on over time.
Linux Driver Project
Despite the creaky web page, the Linux Driver project is continuing on quite well. We have written a number of new drivers now included in the main kernel tree, as well as maintaining the staging portion of the kernel. I'll be working on revamping the web site to make it a bit more obvious as to what is going on here, but again, the best way to follow this work is to watch the mailing list.
LTSI kernel maintainership
As has been announced in various places, the LTSI project (Long Term Support Initiative) has started up with the goal to provide a kernel that the consumer electronic companies can use to help reduce their maintenance burden, and to provide a common area where they can learn how to get involved in upstream kernel development.
I'm helping in setting the kernel tree for that project up, and getting some of the procedures and processes in place for it to succeed in the long run. For now, until it really gets up and going, I'm also going to be maintaining the tree myself, handling the patches and working on the support scripts to make it easier to develop using it. If you want to track this work, watch the kernel tree, or join the public mailing list.
I'm also talking with lots of different companies that create chips used in consumer devices that have traditionally been out of the main kernel tree, and with others that are active upstream developers, to try to get them all working better together. I'm also working with the Yocto project to see how the two projects can work together in sharing their kernel needs.
To follow the development of this kernel, you can subscribe to the mailing list, read the archives, or just watch the git tree.
Distribution work
I'm still going to continue my maintenance of the openSUSE Tumbleweed distro, as I've come to rely on it, and it really takes almost no time at all to keep up and working properly. To follow along with any Tumbleweed questions/concerns, please read the openSUSE-Factory mailing list. The scripts used to maintain the Tumbleweed distro, and the list of packages in it, can be seen, and watched, in the tumbleweed github repo.
I'm also going to continue to remain a Gentoo developer, and will have time to do more package maintenance there, which I have not had the opportunity over the past few years.
Both of these are distros that I use every day on my development systems and my servers, and are great community-based distributions.
Travel
"You traveled last year as much as people think you do." -- my wife
As usual, I'll be attending all of the various Linux Foundation events held all around the world, as well as other different conferences that I'm invited to and can find time to get to. Odds are I'll also be traveling to different companies to work with their kernel developers on how to get them to integrate better with the upstream kernel community, or how the LTSI kernel can help them out.
So once again, my frequent flier miles status will probably not be downgraded this year, much to my very patient family's despair.
Is that all?
So, hopefully that explains a bit of what I'll be doing in the near future for the upcoming years. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to be working for the Linux Foundation and that they are supporting me in all of this. If there's anything that anyone is thinking I should be doing but seem not to be, please let me know. I want to make Linux succeed and thrive, and whatever I can do to help that out, I will.
posted Mon, 20 Feb 2012 in [/linux] |
On May 12, near the Sunni stronghold of Yusufiya, Iraq (about 15 miles south of Baghdad), al Qaeda fighters ambushed a coalition patrol, killing four soldiers and abducting three, all from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (based at Fort Drum, New York).
Despite warnings from al Qaeda “not to look for the soldiers if [they] wanted them back alive,” American and Iraqi forces mobilized almost 4,000 troops to conduct a search for the missing men. The force spent much of the next weeks searching the area around Mahmoudiya, in the much-publicized “Triangle of Death.” Though they questioned over 450 people and detained 11 as a part of the probe, the soldiers were, unfortunately, not successfully recovered.
On the morning of Wednesday, May 23, Hassan al-Jibouri, an Iraqi boater, saw a body floating in the Euphrates River. It had “head wounds and whip marks on its back,” said al-Jibouri, who alerted police about the discovery. Before the day was over, the body had been identified as being one of the three missing soldiers, PFC Joe Anzack, a 20-year-old from California.
Two weeks later, on Monday, June 4, the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI), an al Qaeda front group within that nation, released a video in which they said that the other two American captives, SPC Alex Jimenez, 25, of Massachusetts, and PVT Byron Fouty, 19, of Michigan, had been killed in captivity. Repeatedly mocking the “American military’s inability to find the soldiers,” the video showed what appeared to be the two soldiers’ identification cards, as well as other personal items, as evidence.
This treatment of captive military combatants is, of course, squarely against the 1949 Geneva Conventions – the same rules of war which America is often accused, both by our foreign enemies and by domestic representatives of the “anti-war” movement, of violating. While the question of whether plainclothed foreign terrorists with no state or military affiliation, who are captured targeting civilians and purposely fighting amongst noncombatants, are entitled to the Conventions’ protections is, perhaps, still open for debate, there is no question that America’s soldiers, fighting in uniform, representing their country, and strictly adhering to the laws of armed conflict are officially protected by these agreements.
Interestingly and predictably silent in the week since the ISI announced that it had murdered the remaining captives have been the “human rights” groups who seem to spend every day accusing the United States of phantom “torture,” war crimes, and various human rights violations, while largely ignoring the real crimes carried out by our enemies. Rather than even mention the killing of these American troops, or any other atrocities carried out on a daily basis by al Qaeda in Iraq (AQIZ), Amnesty International dedicated the front page of their website this last week to headlines decrying “secret CIA detention” facilities, and mourning “another death at Guantanamo after [an] apparent suicide.” The United Nations, always quick to condemn the acts of the US and Israel, had nothing whatsoever to say about this latest atrocity on the part of the Islamic terrorists against whom we are fighting in this war that former Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly called “illegal.” Instead, according to its website, the UN was busy “marking 40 years of occupation by Israel of the Palestinian Territory” and “asking students to join the fight against climate change.”
One notable exception to this trend was Human Rights Watch, which has in the past accused the US of “brutalizing Muslim suspects in the name of the war on terror.” Though their web site (predictably) featured such articles and statements as “The Guantanamo experiment has failed” and “The end of Bush’s kangaroo courts,” the “human rights” organization did, commendably, condemn the murder of the captive American troops. In an article entitled “Execution of Captive Soldiers Violates the Laws of War,” HRW’s Middle East director wrote that “Those claiming to hold the US soldiers captive must treat the men humanely,” and adding that, “if they have done otherwise, they have committed war crimes.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be HRW if it didn’t include an apparently unavoidable dig at the US. The article concludes with the statement, “Human Rights Watch has documented violations of the laws of war of all parties to the conflict, including insurgent groups, US forces and the Iraqi government forces.”
This treatment of captive American young men is not surprising to any who have been paying attention to the actions of these Islamic terrorists in recent years. Though many have blamed the US, and have gone so far as to call this type of behavior “blowback” earned by American actions, such atrocities really are a way of life for al Qaeda and others who have given their lives to brutality and terror. As LTC James Crider, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Squadron in Baghdad, recently told me, these terrorists cannot be appeased or negotiated with. Along with all of the westerners they can get their hands on, “they’ll kill all the Shi’a they can, and then they’ll kill all of the less-radical Sunni. And then, when there is nobody else left to kill, they’ll start killing each other.”
Despite this fact, though, many opponents of America and her foreign policy have claimed that the reason for this brutal treatment of our forces abroad is that we have not properly afforded Geneva Convention protections to captured terrorists. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have said that America’s treatment of detainees and “disastrous Iraq policy” have served as “a giant recruiting poster for terrorists,” and myriad liberal commentators and pundits have repeatedly made statements to the effect that, “as a reaction to [the US] policy of [supposedly torturing detainees,] there is now a good possibility that our soldiers will be tortured.”
That people can utter such statements shows a startling ignorance of the enemy which America is facing. The idea that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups would respond to more humane treatment of captives by American soldiers by treating those they capture more humanely is profoundly mistaken. Lest we forget, these are the same inhuman fanatics who – on camera – cut off the heads of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg, among many others; who routinely detonate themselves and their vehicles within crowds of civilians; and who hijacked American airliners full of fuel and passengers and flew them into skyscrapers. Likewise, these are the same sadistic inhuman fanatics who published manuals on real torture, including such methods as eyeball removal and using a power drill in strategic locations on the body, as well as other indescribably brutal acts.
Simply showing terrorists such as these more goodwill is a means of emboldening them, not of pacifying them; restricting our actions and operations will not cause them to reciprocate, but to increase theirs even more.
The position that al Qaeda’s brutally inhuman treatment of civilians and captive soldiers alike is the result of anything whatsoever that the U.S. has done, or that any action on America’s part – be it legislatively, or by withdrawing forces from areas populated by hardline Islamists – will result in a positive change in terrorist behavior is one which is borne out of ignorance and denial.
Likewise, the position that the United States commits any acts whatsoever which could be construed to remotely resemble real “torture” in any way whatsoever is one borne out of ignorance and willful refusal to face reality. The fact that the word “torture” itself has been dumbed down so much that it is being used day in and day out to describe acts by the US which simply make those who would slaughter us slightly uncomfortable has, as Don Surber of The Belmont Club wrote recently, left us utterly impotent to describe the acts of al Qaeda and others, which until the word lost its meaning and power were known as torture themselves. Surber writes:
The problem with the word "torture" is that it has been so artfully corrupted by some commentators that we now find ourselves at a loss to describe the kinds of activities that the al-Qaeda interrogation manual graphically recommends. Now that the term "torture" has been put in one-to-one correspondence with such admittedly unpleasant activities as punching, sleep deprivation, a handkerchief pulled over one's face and loaded with water, searches by women upon sensitive Islamic men or the disrespectful handling of Korans – what on earth do we call gouging people's eyes out?
There are two answers to that question. The first is that we call that “torture,” as well, and equate such acts as gouging out a person’s eye, or drilling a hole in their arm with a power drill, with such “torture techniques” as those complained of by Mahjid Khan, a Gitmo detainee who had been charged by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with the mission of blowing up several gas stations in the Washington, D.C. area. Facing his Combatant Status Tribunal late last month, Mr. Khan complained of the “mental torture” he was suffering at the hands of his captors. This mental torture, according to his testimony, came as a result of being forced to endure “cheap unscented soap,” “noisy fans,” and half-inflated balls in the recreation yard that “hardly bounce.”
The second answer is that which Mr. Surber posits. He says:
Answer: we call it nothing. My fearless prediction is that not a single human rights organization will seriously take the matter up. There will be no demonstrations against these barbaric practices, often inflicted upon Muslims by other Muslims, in any of the capitals of the world. Not a single committee in the United Nations will be convened nor will any functionary in the European Union lose so much as a night's sleep over it. The word for these activities -- whatever we choose to call it -- will not be spoken.
The second part of Mr. Surber’s answer, though, which must be supplied here, is this: regardless of what we decide to call such practices, the US will be blamed for their being carried out. No matter what America does, and irregardless of the fact that we hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior than any other nation in existence, there will be those who see the US as the greatest evil in the world, and as the source of all the world’s malcontents, criminals, and problems.
We need to understand that it does not matter how much we change our ways of doing business, or how much the hands of our military and other terrorist-fighting organizations are tied in the name of not provoking our enemies further. Those we are fighting in the Global War on Terror are not cut from the same cloth as the militaries against whom we have done battle in the past. They follow no rules but their own, and, rather than being reciprocated, no good deed we perform – and no concession we make – will go unpunished.
The United States formally banned “torture” last year in the foolishly naïve hope that doing so would cause our enemies to be less brutal when our own citizens were captured. If last year’s case of Kristian Menchaca and Tom Tucker, and this year’s case of Joe Anzack, Alex Jimenez, and Byron Fouty, do not cause us to open our eyes to the fallacy inherent in such belief, then we really are in such great denial about the enemy that we are facing in the GWOT that we have little, if any, hope of prevailing. |
All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Introduction {#sec001}
============
Sedentary behaviors (SBs) are those waking activities characterized by low energy expenditure (≤1.5 metabolic equivalents, METs) that are performed in a sitting or reclining position \[[@pone.0188836.ref001]\]. Among the most frequent SBs, watching TV has been consistently associated with higher risk of several adverse health outcomes, independently of physical activity (PA) \[[@pone.0188836.ref002]--[@pone.0188836.ref008]\], but results on the association of other SB with health have been less consistent \[[@pone.0188836.ref009]--[@pone.0188836.ref014]\]. This might be due to several explanations. First, although watching TV and other screens is the predominant leisure-time SB \[[@pone.0188836.ref015]\], TV watching time might not be a marker of a broader sedentary pattern. For instance, in a sample of the population of urban areas of Adelaide in Australia, time spent watching TV was associated positively with time in other SB and negatively with leisure-time PA in women, but no such associations were observed in men \[[@pone.0188836.ref016]\].
Another potential explanation is that different SB may have different health effects. It has been suggested that TV and other "passive" SB including listening or talking while sitting, and sitting around could be more harmful than other "mentally-active" SB, such as computer-use and reading books or newspapers \[[@pone.0188836.ref017]\]. In fact, several studies have found that TV watching time, but not other SB (e.g. time seated at the computer, reading or commuting), is associated with cardio-metabolic biomarkers \[[@pone.0188836.ref009], [@pone.0188836.ref010]\], poor cognitive performance \[[@pone.0188836.ref011]\], and all-cause mortality \[[@pone.0188836.ref012]\]. Also, some studies have found a stronger association of metabolic syndrome, obesity and diabetes risk with time spent watching TV than with time spent seated in other activities, including at work or away from home or driving \[[@pone.0188836.ref004], [@pone.0188836.ref013], [@pone.0188836.ref014]\]. These apparently different associations of each SB may reflect that TV watching time is the predominant SB and is better recalled than time spent in other SB \[[@pone.0188836.ref018]\], but it is also possible that they partly result from distinct demographic and health characteristics of individuals with each SB, which might be difficult to account for in statistical analyses.
To our knowledge, no previous study on a representative sample of a whole country has examined the association between TV watching time and the rest of SB, or has reported the full profile of sociodemographic, lifestyle and health variables associated with each type of SB. Accordingly, the objective of this manuscript was to assess the correlation between time spent in different types of SB, as well as to identify the variables associated with each type of SB, in the adult population of Spain.
Material and methods {#sec002}
====================
Study design and participants {#sec003}
-----------------------------
Data were taken from the Study on Nutrition and Cardiovascular Risk in Spain (ENRICA), whose methods have been reported elsewhere \[[@pone.0188836.ref019], [@pone.0188836.ref020]\]. In brief, this was a cross-sectional study conducted between June 2008 and October 2010 with a representative sample of the non-institutionalized population of Spain aged 18 years and older. Participants were selected by stratified cluster sampling. First, the sample was stratified by province and size of municipality. Second, clusters were selected randomly in two stages: municipalities and census sections. Finally, the households within each section were selected by random phone dialing; participants in the households were selected proportionally to the sex and age distribution of the Spanish population.
Trained and certified staff collected information in three stages: a phone interview and two subsequent home visits. The phone interview obtained data on sociodemographic factors, health behaviors, self-rated health and morbidity. In the first home visit, blood and urine samples were collected and sent to a central laboratory for analytical determinations; and in the second visit, an electronic dietary history was obtained and a physical examination was performed. A total of 22,387 subjects were invited to participate in the study and 12,985 (58%) responded to the telephone interview. Of these, 12,880 (99.2%) provided a sample of blood and urine. Of these, 11,191 (86.9%) participated in the physical examination and provided dietary information. Therefore, the final response rate in the study was 51%. From the study participants, we excluded 992 without complete data on study variables; thus, the analytical sample included 10,199 (5,459 women, 4,740 men) individuals.
The Clinical Research Ethics Committee of 'La Paz' University Hospital in Madrid approved the study, and participants provided written informed consent.
Study variables {#sec004}
===============
Sedentary behaviors {#sec005}
-------------------
SB were ascertained with the questionnaire of the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) validated in Spain \[[@pone.0188836.ref021]\]. Individuals reported the number of hours/week in the preceding year spent in six sedentary activities during leisure time: seated watching TV, seated while commuting, seated at the computer, seated or lying in the sun in summer and winter, seated or lying while listening to music (except in transportation), and seated while reading (except in transportation).
Other variables {#sec006}
---------------
Study participants reported their sex, age, educational level (≤primary, secondary, and university studies), employment status (employed, not employed), and tobacco consumption (current, former and never smoker). Food consumption was obtained with a validated computerized diet history, developed from that used in the EPIC-cohort in Spain \[[@pone.0188836.ref022]\]. This diet history collected information on 34 alcoholic beverages and used photographs to help quantify portion sizes; this information served to classify study participants as non-drinkers (including also occasional drinkers), ex-drinkers, moderate drinkers, and heavy drinkers; the threshold between moderate and heavy intake was 40 g/day in men and 24 g/day in women \[[@pone.0188836.ref023], [@pone.0188836.ref024]\]. Participants were also classified according to their adherence to the Mediterranean Drinking Pattern (MDP), defined as moderate average alcohol consumption with wine preference and intake drinking only with meals \[[@pone.0188836.ref023], [@pone.0188836.ref024]\]. Finally, adherence to the Mediterranean diet was summarized using the MEDAS index \[[@pone.0188836.ref025]\]; a higher score on MEDAS (range 0--14) represented a better adherence.
Physical activity was assessed with the validated EPIC-Spain cohort questionnaire \[[@pone.0188836.ref026]\] and summarized according to the Cambridge Physical Activity Index \[[@pone.0188836.ref027]\]. This index includes four categories (inactive, moderately inactive, moderately active and active), which result from combinations of categories of physical activity at work and of duration (h/week) of physical activity at leisure (cycling, running, aerobics, swimming, etc.). Physical activity at work was obtained in five categories (sedentary occupation, standing occupation, manual, heavy manual work, and no work), which were grouped into sedentary and non-sedentary occupation. Recreational physical activity was expressed in MET-hour/day from walking, cycling and other types of exercise (running, soccer, aerobics, swimming, tennis, gymnastics), and was classified into tertiles. In addition, habitual light intensity physical activity during leisure time was estimated from the time devoted to household chores (cleaning, washing, cooking, taking care of children, etc.) and to gardening and do-it-yourself activities \[[@pone.0188836.ref026]\].
Weight and height were measured at home twice using electronic scales and portable extendable stadiometers. Mean values of the two measurements were used for analyses. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated as weight in kg divided by squared height in m. Normal weight was defined as a BMI\<25 kg/m^2^, overweight as BMI 25--29.9 kg/m^2^, and obesity as BMI ≥30 kg/m^2^.
We also ascertained the time spent sleeping with the following questions: 1)"Can you tell me approximately how long you usually sleep at night?" and 2)"Can you tell me approximately how long you usually sleep during the day?" Participants were asked to report the number of hours and minutes they slept \[[@pone.0188836.ref028]\]. Lastly, study participants reported the following physician-diagnosed diseases: cardiovascular disease (ischemic heart disease, stroke, and heart failure), diabetes and osteomuscular disease (hip or knee osteoarthritis, arthritis).
Statistical analysis {#sec007}
--------------------
To assess the correlation between SB, we calculated partial Pearson correlation coefficients (r) adjusted for sex, age (continuous), education (≤primary, secondary, university studies), and employment status (employed, not employed). Given that BMI may confound the correlation between SB, we ran additional analyses with further adjustment for BMI.
Next, to identify the sociodemographic, lifestyle and clinical variables associated with each SB, we used linear regression models that were adjusted for sex, age (continuous), education (≤primary, secondary, university studies), and employment status (employed, not employed). The study associations were summarized with beta regression coefficients and their corresponding 95% confidence interval. For ordinal variables, we tested the dose-response relationship with P-values for trend, which were calculated by assigning a progressively increasing value (1, 2, 3) to each of the categories, and modeling them as a continuous variable. Finally we examined if the variables associated with each SB varied by sex and age; for this purpose, we used factorial F-tests that compared models with and without interaction terms (products of age or sex categories by the study variables). Given that in most cases P-values were \>0.05 and that results were always similar in each sex and age group, study findings are presented for the total study sample.
Analyses were weighted to reconstruct the Spanish population, and were performed with the *survey* procedure in STATA (version 13.0, College Station, TX: StataCorp LP).
Results {#sec008}
=======
Watching TV was the predominant SB (45.4% of the total sitting time) among study participants, followed by being seated at the computer (22.7%), reading (15.3%) and commuting (11.8%) ([Table 1](#pone.0188836.t001){ref-type="table"}).
10.1371/journal.pone.0188836.t001
###### Time spent in sedentary behaviors (excluding at work) in the adult population of spain (ENRICA study, N = 10,199).
{#pone.0188836.t001g}
Mean (SD), h/day \%
---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ ------
Watching TV 1.96 (1.40) 45.4
Using computer 0.98 (1.46) 22.7
Commuting 0.51 (0.59) 11.8
Lying in the sun 0.02 (0.14) 0.5
Listening to music[^a^](#t001fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.19 (0.51) 4.4
Reading[^a^](#t001fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.66 (0.85) 15.3
SD: Standard deviation
^a^ Except in transportation
Percentages do not sum 100 because of rounding
[Table 2](#pone.0188836.t002){ref-type="table"} presents the correlations between SB. TV watching time showed no correlation with total time spent in other SB (r: -0.02, p = 0.07), and showed a weak inverse correlation with the time being seated while commuting (r:-0.02, p = 0.05) and reading (r: -0.04, p\<0.01). By contrast, it also showed a weak direct correlation with listening to music (r: 0.02, p = 0.03). However, time seated at the computer was directly correlated with time spent in commuting (r: 0.07, p\<0.01), listening to music (r: 0.14, p\<0.01) and reading (r: 0.11, p\<0.01). Also, being seated or lying in the sun was directly correlated with listening to music (r: 0.06, p\<0.01), and longer time listening to music was linked to longer time reading (r: 0.12, p\<001). Results did not materially change after additional adjustment for BMI (data not shown in tables).
10.1371/journal.pone.0188836.t002
###### Correlations (P-value) between the main sedentary behaviors in the adult population of Spain (ENRICA study, N = 10,199).
{#pone.0188836.t002g}
Sedentary behaviors
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- ------------------- ----------------- ------------------- ------------------- ---
Watching TV (h/day) 1
**Other sedentary behaviors (h/day)**[^**a**^](#t002fn001){ref-type="table-fn"} -0.02 (0.07) 1
Using computer (h/day) 0.00 (1.00) 0.13 (**\<0.01**)[\*](#t002fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
Commuting (h/day) -0.02 (0.05) 0.07 (**\<0.01**)[\*](#t002fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.07 (**\<0.01**) 1
Lying in the sun (h/day) 0.01 (0.60) 0.04 (**\<0.01**)[\*](#t002fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.02 (0.06) 0.02 (0.11) 1
Listening to music (h/day) 0.02 (**0.03**) 0.14 (**\<0.01**)[\*](#t002fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.10 (**\<0.01**) 0.02 (**0.02**) 0.06 (**\<0.01**) 1
Reading (h/day) -0.04 (**\<0.01**) 0.11 (**\<0.01**)[\*](#t002fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.08 (**\<0.01**) 0.01 (0.28) 0.02 (**0.02**) 0.12 (**\<0.01**) 1
^a^ Includes sitting time at the computer, commuting, lying in the sun, listening to music, and reading.
\*Not includes the sedentary behavior of interest.
Results are adjusted for sex, age (continuous), educational level (≤primary, secondary, university), and employment status (employed, not employed).
P-values \<0.05 are presented in bold.
[Table 3](#pone.0188836.t003){ref-type="table"} shows the main variables associated with each SB. Watching TV time was greater in those with older age, lower education and unhealthier lifestyle (smoking, worse diet, less recreational physical activity, higher BMI), and in those with diabetes or osteomuscular disease. However, more time seated at the computer and in commuting was linked to younger age, male gender, higher education, and having a sedentary job. Other variables, including diet quality, recreational physical activity, household light intensity activity or night-time sleep were statistically linked to time seated at the computer or during commuting, but the associations were very weak. Associations were less marked for the other SB, but reading time was longer in older people, with higher education, who did more recreational physical activity, devoted less time to household chores and suffered from cardiovascular disease.
10.1371/journal.pone.0188836.t003
###### Beta regression coefficients (95% confidence interval) for the association of sociodemographic factors, lifestyle and morbidity with time spent in sedentary behaviors in the adult population of Spain (ENRICA study, N = 10,199).
{#pone.0188836.t003g}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sedentary behaviors (h/day)
-------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------- --------------------------
**Sociodemographic factors**
Sex
Men Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Women -0.01 (-0.08;0.06)\ **-0.33 (-0.40;-0.26)**\ **-0.22 (-0.25;-0.20)**\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ **-0.10 (-0.13;-0.07)**\ -0.04 (-0.08;0.00)\
Age, years
18--44 Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
45--64 **0.30 (0.23;0.37)**\ **-0.32 (-0.40;-0.23)**\ **-0.18 (-0.22;-0.15)**\ 0.00 (-0.01; 0.01)\ **-0.06 (-0.09;-0.03)**\ **0.14 (0.10;0.19)**\
≥65 **0.89 (0.77;1.00)**\ **-0.68 (-0.76;-0.60)**\ **-0.34 (-0.37;-0.30)**\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ -0.01 (-0.05;0.04)\ **0.33 (0.26;0.40)**\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** **\<0.01** **\<0.01** 0.72 \<0.01 **\<0.01**
Educational level
≤Primary Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Secondary **-0.29 (-0.38;-0.20)**\ **0.43 (0.36;0.51)**\ **0.06 (0.03;0.09)**\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ 0.02 (-0.01;0.05)\ **0.34 (0.29;0.38)**\
University **-0.67 (-0.76;-0.58)**\ **0.98 (0.89;1.08)**\ **0.10 (0.07;0.14)**\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ 0.01 (-0.02;0.05)\ **0.54 (0.48;0.59)**\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** **\<0.01** **\<0.01** 0.65 0.55 **\<0.01**
**Lifestyle**
Smoking
Current Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Former -0.19 (-0.28;-0.10) 0.07 (-0.02;0.17) -0.02 (-0.06;0.01)\ 0.01 (-0.01;0.02)\ -0.01 (-0.04;0.03)\ 0.01 (-0.05;0.07)\
Never -0.21 (-0.28;-0.14)\ 0.05 (-0.03;0.13)\ -0.02 (-0.05;0.02)\ 0.00 (-0.01; 0.00)\ 0.00 (-0.03;0.03)\ -0.02 (-0.08;0.03)\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** 0.26 0.38 0.20 0.94 0.36
Alcohol intake[^b^](#t003fn003){ref-type="table-fn"}
Non-drinker Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Ex-drinker 0.17 (0.00;0.34)\ 0.01 (-0.12;0.13)\ -0.01 (-0.07;0.05)\ 0.02 (0.00;0.04)\ 0.00 (-0.05;0.05)\ -0.01 (-0.10;0.09)\
Moderate drinker -0.04 (-0.10;0.03)\ 0.03 (-0.04;0.10)\ -0.01 (-0.04;0.02)\ 0.01 (0.00;.0.01)\ -0.01 (-0.03;0.02)\ -0.01 (-0.05;0.04)\
Heavy drinker 0.08 (-0.06;0.22)\ -0.07 (-0.21;0.07)\ -0.07 (-0.12;-0.02)\ -0.01 (-0.02;0.00)\ 0.03 (-0.03;0.08)\ -0.04 (-0.12;0.04)\
*P-trend*\ 0.66\ 0.87 0.13\ 0.52\ 0.98\ 0.50\
*(excluding ex-drinkers)*
Mediterranean drinking pattern (MDP) \ \ \ \ \ \
Non-drinker Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Ex-drinker **0.17 (0.00;0.33)**\ 0.01 (-0.12;0.13)\ -0.01 (-0.07;0.05)\ 0.02 (0.00;0.04)\ 0.00 (-0.05;0.05)\ -0.01 (-0.10;0.09)\
Drinker with no MDP -0.01 (-0.08;0.06)\ 0.02 (-0.06;0.10)\ -0.02 (-0.05;0.01)\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ 0.00 (-0.03;0.03)\ 0.00 (-0.05;0.04)\
Drinker with MDP\ -0.07 (-0.17;0.03)\ 0.02 (-0.07;0.12)\ 0.01 (-0.03;0.04)\ 0.01 (0.00;0.02)\ -0.01 (-0.04;0.03)\ -0.03 (-0.09;0.02)\
MEDAS score (tertiles)[^c^](#t003fn004){ref-type="table-fn"}
≤6 Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
7--8 **-0.09 (-0.17;-0.01)**\ 0.04 (-0.05;0.12)\ 0.00 (-0.04;0.03)\ -0.01 (-0.01;0.00)\ -0.02 (-0.04;0.01)\ 0.00 (-0.05;0.05)\
≥9 **-0.19 (-0.26;-0.11)**\ -0.02 (-0.09;0.06)\ **-0.04 (-0.07;-0.01)**\ -0.01 (-0.01;0.00)\ -0.01 (-0.04;0.02) 0.01 (-0.03;0.06)\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** 0.80 **0.03** 0.06 0.47 0.64
Cambridge\'s physical activity index
Inactive Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Moderately inactive **-0.29 (-0.38;-0.21)** **-0.22 (-0.31;-0.14)** **0.04 (0.01;0.07)** 0.00 (-0.01;0.01) -0.03 (-0.06;0.00) 0.03 (-0.03;0.08)
Moderately active **-0.35 (-0.44;-0.26)** **-0.27 (-0.37;-0.17)** 0.03 (0.00;0.07) 0.01 (0.00;0.02) -0.01 (-0.05;0.02) 0.01 (-0.05;0.06)
Active **-0.43 (-0.53;-0.33)** **-0.42 (-0.53;-0.30)** 0.03 (-0.02;0.09) **0.02 (0.01;0.03)** -0.01 (-0.06;0.03) 0.03 (-0.04:0.09)
*P-trend* **\<0.01** **\<0.01** 0.18 **\<0.01** 0.66 0.58
Sedentary work
No Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Yes **-**0.06 (-0.12;0.01) **0.78 (0.68;0.87)** **0.05 (0.01;0.08)** 0.00 (-0.01;0.01) 0.01 (-0.02;0.04) 0.00 (-0.05;0.05)
Recreational physical activity (MET\*h/week)
≤18 Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
\>18-≤39 **-0.15 (-0.22;-0.07)**\ 0.02 (-0.06;0.09)\ 0.00 (-0.03;0.03)\ 0.01 (0.00;0.02)\ 0.04 (0.01;0.06)\ 0.08 (0.03;0.13)\
\>39 **-0.19 (-0.27;-0.12)**\ **0.09 (0.01;0.17)**\ **-0.03 (-0.06;0.00)**\ **0.02 (0.01;0.02)**\ **0.05 (0.02;0.08)**\ **0.22 (0.16;0.28)**\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** **0.03** 0.09 **\<0.01** **\<0.01** **\<0.01**
Performing household\
chores (MET\*h/day)
\<Median (\<3.90) Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
≥Median (≥3.90) -0.03 (-0.10;0.04)\ **-0.11 (-0.19;-0.04)**\ 0.00 (-0.03;0.02)\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ **-0.03 (-0.06;0.00)**\ **-0.06 (-0.10;-0.01)**\
*P-trend* 0.39 **\<0.01** 0.80 0.82 **0.04** **0.01**
Gardening/do-it-yourself (h/day) \ \ \ \ \ \
≤Median (≤0) Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
\>Median (\>0) **-0.21 (-0.28;-0.14)**\ -0.01 (-0.08;0.06)\ **0.06 (0.03;0.09)**\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ 0.00 (-0.03;0.03)\ -0.03 (-0.07;0.01)\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** 0.80\ **\<0.01** 0.69 0.94 0.18\
Body mass index (kg/m^2^)
\>25 Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
25--29.9 **0.15 (0.08;0.22)**\ -0.11 (-0.19;-0.03)\ 0.00 (-0.03;0.03)\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.00)\ -0.02 (-0.05;0.01)\ 0.01 (-0.04;0.07)\
≥30 **0.37 (0.28;0.46)**\ -0.07 (-0.17;0.02)\ 0.03 (-0.01;0.06)\ **-0.01 (-0.02;0.00)**\ -0.02 (-0.06;0.01)\ -0.04 (-0.10;0.01)\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** 0.07 0.15 **0.01** 0.15 0.18
Day-time sleeping (h/day)
\<Median (\<0.14) Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
≥Median (≥0.14) **0.11 (0.05;0.17)**\ -0.01 (-0.08;0.05)\ 0.01 (-0.02;0.03)\ 0.01 (0.00;0.01)\ 0.01 (-0.01;0.04)\ -0.02 (-0.06;0.02)\
*P-trend* **\<0.01** 0.73 0.52 0.10 0.25 0.38
Night-time sleeping (h/day)
\<Median (\<7) Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
≥Median (≥7) 0.01 (-0.06;0.08)\ **-0.07 (-0.14;0.00)**\ **-0.07 (-0.10;-0.04)**\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.01)\ -0.03 (-0.06;0.00)\ -0.03 (-0.08;0.02)\
*P-trend* 0.77 **0.04** **\<0.01** 0.62 0.05 0.19
**Morbidity**
Cardiovascular disease[^d^](#t003fn005){ref-type="table-fn"}
No Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Yes 0.00 (-0.24;0.24)\ 0.12 (-0.06;0.31)\ -0.03 (-0.09;0.03)\ 0.01 (-0.02;0.04)\ -0.05 (-0.10;0.01)\ **0.23 (0.05;0.41)**\
Diabetes
No Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Yes **0.21 (0.07;0.34)**\ 0.00 (-0.09;0.10)\ 0.02 (-0.03;0.07)\ 0.00 (-0.01;0.02)\ 0.05 (-0.01;0.11)\ -0.05 (-0.13;0.03)\
Osteomuscular disease[^e^](#t003fn006){ref-type="table-fn"}
No Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref. Ref.
Yes **0.25 (0.15;0.35)**\ -0.03 (-0.10;0.04)\ 0.01 (-0.02;0.04)\ 0.01 (0.00;0.02)\ **0.06 (0.03;0.10)**\ -0.05 (-0.10;0.00)\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Results are adjusted for sex, age (continuous), educational level (≤primary, secondary, university), and employment status (employed, not employed). However, results for Cambridge\'s physical activity index and sedentary work are only adjusted for age, sex and educational level because the definition of these variables included employment status.
^a^ Except in transportation.
^b^Threshold between moderate and excessive alcohol intake: 40 g/d in men and 24 g/d in women.
^c^Adherence to the Mediterranean diet (range 0--14).
^d^Ischemic heart disease, stroke, or heart failure
^e^Hip or knee osteoarthritis or arthritis.
Statistical significant results (p\<0.05) are presented in bold.
Discussion {#sec009}
==========
Our results in the adult population of Spain show that watching TV has no association with total time spent on the rest of leisure-time SB, but has an inverse weak association with time devoted to commuting and reading. This suggests that people are partly substituting these specific SB for TV watching. Moreover, each type of SB has a distinct demographic and lifestyle profile; while time watching TV was greater in those with older age, lower education, unhealthy lifestyle and who suffered from chronic morbidity, a longer time spent seated at the computer or in commuting was linked to younger age, male gender, higher education and a sedentary job. This could have contributed to differences in health problems associated with TV watching versus other SB observed in several studies.
Our results on the lack of correlation between watching TV and total time spent on the rest SB are consistent with those obtained among middle-age men from an urban area in Australia \[[@pone.0188836.ref016]\]. However, in the latter study, watching TV was directly associated with other SB among women; as argued by the authors, women spend more time than men in home-related chores outside of work hours, so it is possible that differences in the ways that women and men use their non-working hours may influence the gender difference found in their study \[[@pone.0188836.ref016]\]. Our results, obtained in a whole country, show that, compared to men, women spent less time seated using the computer, in transportation and reading, but more time doing household chores (2.82 vs. 1.08 h/day); however, it has not precluded observing a null correlation between TV time and the rest of SB in each gender. Thus, it is possible that gender differences in this correlation are context-specific and they should be studied across countries, cultures, etc.
In addition, our study shows that "mentally-active" SB, including using the computer and reading, tend to cluster and, thus, confirm results of an exploratory factor analysis of data from a postal survey in Japanese older adults \[[@pone.0188836.ref017]\]. Also in line with this investigation \[[@pone.0188836.ref017]\], we found that a "passive" sedentary time, such as TV watching, was associated with less recreational physical activity and higher body weight, while time at the computer and reading were linked to more recreational physical activity but less light-intensity activity at home.
Our results on the variables associated with SB broadly concur with those from a review of 109 studies (83 of them were cross-sectional) published from 1982 to 2011 \[[@pone.0188836.ref029]\]. In this review, TV viewing time increased with age and BMI, decreased with educational level and leisure-time physical activity, and did not vary with gender; however results on the link between watching TV and smoking were mixed \[[@pone.0188836.ref029]\]. Like our study, this review provides evidence that computer use decreases with age and increases with educational level; however no association was found between computer use and leisure-time physical activity, and results were inconclusive about the association with gender and BMI \[[@pone.0188836.ref029]\]. Lastly, results in our study and in the review \[[@pone.0188836.ref029]\] do not support a relationship between any type of SB and alcohol consumption. Our study extends knowledge in this field by considering more types of SB than most previous research \[[@pone.0188836.ref029]\]; moreover, the associations between SB and certain lifestyles (e.g., drinking and dietary patterns, light intensity physical activity at home, sedentary work), which we assessed in our study, have been under-researched \[[@pone.0188836.ref029]\].
Methodological aspects {#sec010}
----------------------
Some methodological aspects warrant a comment. First, this study was cross-sectional, so no causal inferences can be made from the observed correlations and associations. Second, information on SB was self-reported. Sedentary time estimated with the Spanish version of the NHS questionnaire has shown a moderate validity against accelerometry; specifically, the Spearman correlation between the ratio of sedentary lifestyle to physical activity obtained through the questionnaire and the objective estimation (Triaxial Research Tracker) was -0.58 (95% confidence interval -0.75 to -0.33) \[[@pone.0188836.ref021]\]. However, given that objective measurement methods only estimate total sitting time, self-report is the only way to assess the different domains and types of activities that characterize each type of SB. Also, different SB assessed with this questionnaire have predicted obesity, diabetes and other adverse health outcomes in studies in the US and Spain \[[@pone.0188836.ref004], [@pone.0188836.ref012], [@pone.0188836.ref020]\]. Notwithstanding this, we acknowledge that the validity of each type of reported SB is unknown and that we cannot exclude that some SB were performed concurrently (e.g., lying in the sun and reading). Third, in some cases statistical significance was achieved for very weak, and possibly irrelevant, associations (e.g., diet quality and time spent in commuting), due to the large sample of the study; thus these statistically significant associations should not be over-interpreted. Fourth, different lifestyle and clinical profiles associated with TV watching versus using a computer could partly reflect the fact that time spent in the former was much greater than in the latter. Indeed, in a sensitivity analysis changing the thresholds of mentally-active sedentary time from 1 h/day to 3 h/day among older Japanese people, higher mentally-active sedentary time became associated with being overweight \[[@pone.0188836.ref017]\]. Also, too much computer use has been associated with overweight and physical inactivity in a study of 2,650 middle-aged Australian adults \[[@pone.0188836.ref030]\]. Thus, future research should examine if, regardless of the specific activity performed (e.g., reading, commuting, computer use), a very prolonged sitting time could be harmful to health. Fifth, although our study included many lifestyle and clinical variables, we did not assess cognitive, social, or environmental factors potentially associated with SB. Future investigations must consider these variables, because they could mix their health effects with those of SB, and because they can be well suited for targeted interventions to reduce SB. Sixth, as regards generalizability of results, Spain is suffering a hard economic crisis, which may have affected SB (e.g., a higher unemployment rate has surely reduced sedentary jobs and time spent commuting). Thus, results could have been somewhat different had the data been obtained during the hardest period of crisis (2011--2024). Lastly, results should be replicated in countries with different patterns of SB; for instance, studies should be conducted in areas with limited access to internet, which may limit time spent at the computer and modify the observed associations.
Practical implications {#sec011}
======================
Our findings have practical importance. First, given that TV watching is not correlated with total time spent in other SB, future research should assess the health effect of each type of SB separately. Second, because each type of SB shows a distinct sociodemographic, lifestyle and health profile, interventions to reduce each type of SB may need to be targeted to different population subgroups. An third, our research sheds some light on the optimal choice for intervening on SB: substituting SB with a different behavior that involves some type of physical activity (e.g., walking, swimming, laps), versus altering behavioral topography (e.g., from sitting to standing) while continuing with the original activity (e.g., standing while working) \[[@pone.0188836.ref031]\]. Despite the first alternative is behaviorally complex, the inverse association between TV viewing time and recreational physical activity provides some evidence of time displacement, and suggests that increasing physical activity may lead to reducing TV time. However, this seems not be the case for using the computer and reading because they show a direct association with recreational activity. By contrast, the fact that the time using the computer was greater in those with a sedentary job suggests that a postural change from sitting to standing could be a sensible intervention to reduce sedentary time while working at the computer (because most sedentary work currently requires a computer) \[[@pone.0188836.ref031], [@pone.0188836.ref032]\].
Supporting information {#sec012}
======================
###### Database.
(DTA)
######
Click here for additional data file.
This work was supported by grants from FIS 16/609 (State Secretary of R+D+I and FEDER/FSE), DEP2013-47786-R (Secretary of R+D+I and FEDER/FSE), and Plan Nacional sobre Drogas 02/2014 (Ministry of Health). The funding agencies had no role in study design, data analysis, interpretation of results, manuscript preparation or in the decision to submit this manuscript for publication.
[^1]: **Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
|
787 A.2d 1021 (2001)
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee,
v.
Robert Earl SWARTZ, Appellant.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued September 5, 2001.
Filed December 4, 2001.
*1022 Michael R. Hadley, Oil City, for appellant.
James P. Carbone, Assistant District Attorney, Franklin, for Com., appellee.
Before DEL SOLE, President Judge, McEWEN, President Judge Emeritus, JOHNSON, FORD ELLIOTT, EAKIN, JOYCE, STEVENS, MUSMANNO and ORIE MELVIN, JJ.
DEL SOLE, President Judge.
¶ 1 This is an appeal from the judgment of sentence of two to twenty-four months, less one day, of incarceration imposed upon Appellant after he was convicted, at a non-jury trial, of driving under the influence *1023 of alcohol.[1] A divided panel of this Court filed a memorandum opinion on March 27, 2001, ruling that the suppression court erred in upholding the legality of the stop and in refusing to suppress the resulting evidence. On April 10, 2001, the Commonwealth filed an application for reargument en banc. This Court granted the Commonwealth's application on June 8, 2001, and withdrew the panel memorandum opinion. Upon en banc review we have examined Appellant's challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress physical evidence. We conclude that his claim has merit and we vacate Appellant's judgment of sentence and remand for further proceedings.
¶ 2 An appellate court reviewing the ruling of a suppression court must first ascertain whether the record supports the suppression court's factual findings and then determine the reasonableness of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from such findings. Commonwealth v. Gommer, 445 Pa.Super. 571, 665 A.2d 1269, 1270 (1995). "When it is a defendant who has appealed, we must consider only the evidence of the prosecution and so much of the evidence for the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted." Commonwealth v. Queen, 536 Pa. 315, 639 A.2d 443, 445 (1994) (citation omitted). "With respect to factual findings, we are mindful that it is the sole province of the suppression court to weigh the credibility of the witnesses. Further, the suppression court judge is entitled to believe all, part or none of the evidence presented. However, where the factual determinations made by the suppression court are not supported by the evidence, we may reject those findings. Only factual findings which are supported by the record are binding upon this [C]ourt." Commonwealth v. Benton, 440 Pa.Super. 441, 655 A.2d 1030, 1032 (1995) (citations omitted). Moreover, we are bound by those findings that are supported by the record and may only reverse if the legal conclusions drawn therefrom are in error. Gommer, 665 A.2d at 1270.
¶ 3 With regard to the suppression motion, the Commonwealth presented the testimony of Trooper Craig Amos of the Pennsylvania State Police. Although not labeled as such, the trial court made the following factual findings based upon his testimony:
On May 16, 1998, Trooper Amos of the Pennsylvania State Police received a dispatch at 4:24 p.m. The dispatch indicated that a citizen called the State Police to inform them that a blue Ford Escort, with a registration plate BLJ-6698, was being driven in Seneca by an intoxicated individual heading towards Franklin. Trooper Amos did not know the name of the individual who called the Barracks [sic]. Trooper Amos headed towards Franklin in his vehicle and did not find [the blue Ford Escort]. At approximately 5:48 p.m., Trooper Amos spotted the Blue [sic] Ford Escort at the intersection of State Routes 57 and 62, a direction completely opposite from Franklin. Trooper Amos stopped the vehicle solely on the information he received from the 4:24 p.m. dispatch. Trooper Amos did not observe any violations of the Vehicle Code prior to pulling the vehicle over.
Trial Court Opinion, 1/29/99, at 1. The record supports the suppression court's factual findings.[2] Given these findings, the *1024 suppression court concluded that "the information received on the dispatch gave Trooper Amos reasonable suspicion to warrant the vehicle stop at bar." Id. at 2. We cannot agree.
¶ 4 As this Court has summarized:
It is well established "when the police stop a vehicle in this Commonwealth for investigatory purposes, the vehicle, and its occupants are considered `seized' and this seizure is subject to constitutional constraints." Commonwealth v. Knotts, 444 Pa.Super. 60, 64, 663 A.2d 216, 218 (1995). An investigatory stop of an automobile is justified only when it is based upon objective facts creating a reasonable suspicion the vehicle's occupants are presently involved in criminal activity. Commonwealth v. Valenzuela, 408 Pa.Super. 399, 408, 597 A.2d 93, 98 (1991). To meet this standard, the officer must point to specific articulable facts which, together with the rational inferences therefrom, reasonably warrant the intrusion. Commonwealth v. Williams, 419 Pa.Super. 380, 385, 615 A.2d 416, 419 (1992), alloc. denied, 533 Pa. 651, 624 A.2d 110 (1993).
To have reasonable suspicion, police officers need not personally observe the illegal or suspicious conduct, but may rely upon the information of third parties, including "tips" from citizens. Commonwealth v. Wright, 448 Pa.Super. 621, 630, 672 A.2d 826, 830 (1996). Naturally, "if a tip has a relatively low degree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were more reliable." Commonwealth v. Ogborne, 410 Pa.Super. 164, 169, 599 A.2d 656, 659 (1991), alloc. denied, 530 Pa. 631, 606 A.2d 901 (1992) (quoting Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990)). Thus, in Commonwealth v. Wilson, 424 Pa.Super. 110, 622 A.2d 293 (1993), alloc. denied, 536 Pa. 623, 637 A.2d 283 (1993), we examined the requirements surrounding reasonable suspicion for automobile stops emanating from information provided by a tipster and explained:
Reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is dependent upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Both factorsquantity and quality are considered in the "totality of the circumstancesthe whole picture," that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspicion. Thus, if a tip has a relatively low degree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were reliable.
Id., at 115, 622 A.2d at 295-96 (citations omitted).
When the underlying source of the officer's information is an anonymous call, the tip should be treated with particular suspicion. See Commonwealth v. Jackson, 548 Pa. 484, 490, 698 A.2d 571, 573 (1997) (referring to anonymous tip as basis for Terry stop and frisk). However, a tip from an informer known to the police may carry enough indicia of reliability for the police to conduct an investigatory stop, even though the same tip from an anonymous informant would likely not have done so. See id. (citing Alabama v. White, supra). Indeed, "a known informant places himself at risk of prosecution for filing a false *1025 claim if the tip is untrue, whereas an unknown informant faces no such risk." Id.
Commonwealth v. Lohr, 715 A.2d 459, 461-462 (Pa.Super.1998) (footnote omitted).
¶ 5 The Commonwealth contends that because the tip in this case was received by a police dispatcher from a known citizen informant based upon that person's personal observation, it alone carried enough indicia of reliability for the police to make an investigative stop of the motor vehicle. The Commonwealth argues the trooper's receipt of this information from the dispatcher, which described the vehicle with sufficient specificity, coupled with the nature of the offense, driving under the influence, created reasonable suspicion warranting the investigatory stop.
¶ 6 Appellant submits that the information provided to the trooper was insufficient to justify an investigatory stop because the trooper was not given the identity of the individual tipster and thus was unable to judge his credibility or reliability. Appellant notes that the trooper made no observations to corroborate the informant's allegations before stopping the vehicle. In support of his position, Appellant also points to the fact that the informant did not provide a description or name of the driver and that Appellant's vehicle was not stopped until one hour and twenty-four minutes after the informant's call.
¶ 7 Upon review of this record we conclude the absence of certain information coupled with the duration of time which passed between the informant's call and the trooper's stop did not enable the trooper to possess reasonable suspicion that this vehicle was being operated by someone under the influence. As noted by Appellant, the informant described the vehicle, not the driver, and the direction the vehicle was traveling. The trooper patrolled in the identified direction, but did not see the described vehicle. Over an hour and twenty minutes later the trooper observed and stopped a blue Ford Escort traveling at a location completely opposite from the direction given in the police dispatch. Under these circumstances although the car may have been the one observed by the informant, it was not reasonable for the trooper to presume that it was being operated by the same individual who was reported to be under the influence. A significant amount of time had passed, making the report stale, and the fact that the vehicle was traveling in the opposite direction from that reported, made the rational inference that the driver was the one described as intoxicated even less likely. Thus, irrespective of the informant's status as a "known" or "unknown" source to the trooper, given the length of time which passed between the information provided by the informant and the stop, the fact the vehicle was traveling in the opposite direction from that described and the absence of any information from which the trooper could identify the driver, the trooper lacked reasonable suspicion to justify a stop.
¶ 8 These particular facts distinguish this case from Commonwealth v. Korenkiewicz, 743 A.2d 958 (Pa.Super.1999) (en banc), appeal denied, 563 Pa. 659, 759 A.2d 383 (2000), on which the Commonwealth relies. In Korenkiewicz, the night manager of a gas station, after observing suspicious movements of a dark-colored convertible at the station, called 911 relaying to a dispatcher that he "`had a person in the parking lot that was either ill or intoxicated....'" Id. at 960. The night manager again called 911 after the defendant backed his vehicle up once or twice and looked at him in a threatening manner. While the night manager was on the phone this second time, the defendant moved his car toward the exit of the gas station.
*1026 ¶ 9 A police officer on patrol in the area was dispatched to the gas station for a suspicious vehicle and person complaint. While en route, the police officer received additional information that the operator of the vehicle may be intoxicated and was preparing to leave the station. The police officer testified that, as he approached the gas station, he saw a vehicle matching the description broadcast over the police radio and saw that it was about to pull out of the gas station. The officer pulled behind the vehicle and activated his overhead lights. Upon approaching the vehicle, the police officer noticed that the driver exhibited signs of intoxication to such a degree that he was incapable of safe driving. He therefore placed the driver under arrest. This court found the totality of the circumstances justified the stop of the appellant's vehicle to investigate his condition.
¶ 10 In Korenkiewicz the police arrived on the scene and observed the described vehicle before it even exited the parking lot. Similarly in Commonwealth v. Lohr, 715 A.2d 459 (Pa.Super.1998), and Commonwealth v. Janiak, 368 Pa.Super. 626, 534 A.2d 833 (1987), the police were provided with a tip relayed by radio report and moments later were able to locate the vehicle. In Lohr the citizen caller reported that she observed a red and white Ford Bronco being driven erratically into the parking lot of a supermarket. The caller remained on the line with the dispatcher while the officer proceeded to the scene where he observed the appellant operating a red and white Bronco as it began to back out of the parking space. In Janiak, the police were informed by two radio communications that a person was driving while under the influence and within minutes the officers saw a vehicle driving on the exact roadway and coming from the exact direction as that reported. In both cases this court ruled that under the circumstances the police officers acted with reasonable suspicion in effectuating the stop.
¶ 11 In this case, the trooper admitted at the suppression hearing that he stopped Appellant's vehicle without first corroborating the report of drunk driving via any personal observation.[3] This fact, taken together with the lapse in time from his receipt of the report and the absence of any description of the driver, leads us to conclude that insufficient evidence of record was offered to support the traffic stop. Thus, the suppression court erred in upholding the legality of the stop in this case and refusing to suppress the evidence derived therefrom.
¶ 12 Judgment of sentence vacated. The matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Jurisdiction relinquished.
¶ 13 JOYCE, J. files a Concurring Opinion
¶ 14 ORIE MELVIN, J. concurs in the result of the Majority and also joins the Concurring Opinion by JOYCE, J.
¶ 15 STEVENS, J. joins the Majority and the Concurring Opinion by JOYCE, J.
JOYCE, J., concurring.
¶ 1 I agree with the majority that given the duration of time which passed between the informant's call and the vehicle stop; the fact that the informant described the vehicle and not the driver; and the fact that the vehicle was travelling in a direction completely opposite of the direction indicated by the informant, the trooper did not have reasonable suspicion to stop Appellant's vehicle. However, I write separately to note my disagreement with the suggestion that the informant's credibility *1027 or reliability was lessened by the fact that the trooper who stopped Appellant's vehicle did not know the identity of the informant and was unable to judge the informant's reliability and credibility. As our Court noted in Commonwealth v. Cullen, 340 Pa.Super. 233, 489 A.2d 929, 937 (1985), the investigating officer need not have personal knowledge of the facts that support probable cause for an investigative stop. The officer may reasonably rely upon radio transmissions so long as the officer issuing the information has received reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable caution in believing that the suspect has committed or is committing an offense. Id.
¶ 2 Furthermore, Pennsylvania law permits a vehicle stop based upon a radio bulletin if evidence is offered at the suppression hearing to establish reasonable suspicion. See Commonwealth v. Janiak, 368 Pa.Super. 626, 534 A.2d 833 (1987) (allowing police to make stop of individual suspected of intoxication based upon radio information, although police had not personally observed unusual or criminal conduct). Also, the mere fact that the police received their information over the police radio does not, of itself, establish or negate the existence of reasonable suspicion. Commonwealth v. Korenkiewicz, 743 A.2d 958, 964 (Pa.Super.1999) (en banc) citing Commonwealth v. Jackson, 548 Pa. 484, 698 A.2d 571 (1997).
¶ 3 In the case at bar, it is immaterial whether the trooper knew specific information about the informant's reliability. Police officers routinely rely on, and act on the basis of information received from dispatchers. On their part, dispatchers try to distinguish legitimate reports from hoaxes; they try to distinguish unreliable informants from reliable ones before they send out information to the troopers on the streets. Therefore, as long as the dispatcher has determined the identity and reliability of an informant, it is unnecessary for the trooper on the street to be informed of the identity of the informant making the report. The trooper need not be aware of the credibility or reliability of the informant. The job of a police officer involves acting in emergency situations and in a time-sensitive manner. Police officers on the street cannot effectively perform their duties if they are required to personally verify the identity and reliability of each informant whose report they must investigate.
¶ 4 Accordingly, I concur with the result reached by the majority while maintaining that the informant's reliability was not diminished by the fact that the trooper did not know the identity or reliability of the informant.
NOTES
[1] 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3731. Appellant was also found guilty of the summary offense of driving without a seatbelt. 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 4581(a)(2). He was found not guilty of the summary offense of careless driving. 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3714.
[2] Although not stated in the above factual findings, Trooper Amos testified that he confirmed that the registration plate of the blue Ford Escort was the same as that given in the original police dispatch. Trooper Amos also testified that he later learned that the caller was a known police informant.
[3] Although before stopping Appellant's vehicle, Trooper Amos apparently confirmed the vehicle's registration plate as the same as that given in the original police dispatch, the confirmation of this fact in no way provided additional support for the unjustified stop.
|
114 F.2d 304 (1940)
MASSACHUSETTS PROTECTIVE ASS'N, Inc.,
v.
UNITED STATES.
No. 3416.
Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
August 6, 1940.
*305 *306 F. H. Nash, of Boston, Mass., and Erwin N. Griswold, of Cambridge, Mass., for appellant.
Edward H. Horton, Sp. Asst. to the Atty. Gen. (Samuel O. Clark, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Sewall Key and Norman D. Keller, Sp. Assts. to the Atty. Gen., and Edmund J. Brandon, U. S. Atty., and C. Keefe Hurley, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for appellee.
Before MAGRUDER and MAHONEY, Circuit Judges, and PETERS, District Judge.
MAHONEY, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court in favor of the government in a suit brought under the Tucker Act, 24 Stat. 505 (1887), 28 U.S.C.A. § 41 (20), by the Massachusetts Protective Association, Inc., a Massachusetts stock insurance corporation, to recover federal income taxes assessed for the years 1926 and 1928 and collected by a collector who is now out of office. The case was tried upon a stipulation and a supplemental stipulation of facts, and upon oral testimony taken in open court. The facts as found by the District Court from this evidence may be summarized as follows:
The plaintiff is a stock corporation organized under the laws of Massachusetts. During the calendar year 1926, the plaintiff was engaged, as it had been for many years previously, in writing accident and health insurance in Massachusetts, New York and in a number of other states, and was taxable for 1926 as an insurance company, other than life or mutual, under the provisions of Section 246 of the Revenue Act of 1926[1], 44 Stat. 48, 26 U.S.C.A.Internal Revenue Acts, page 195.
*307 Since 1919 the plaintiff has been issuing an accident and health policy which is non-cancellable by the company and which the insured can keep in force until reaching the age of seventy simply by paying the premiums fixed in the policy. The premium on this type of policy from the date of issuance until the insured reaches the age of fifty is in a constant and fixed amount which cannot be increased by the company. The premium increases at fifty, the amount of such increase being fixed in the policy, and thereafter remains constant and fixed.
The plaintiff includes with its annual income tax return an annual statement in the form approved by the National Convention of Insurance Commissioners setting forth its income and disbursements, assets and liabilities, and other pertinent information. By Section 246(b)(1) of the Revenue Act of 1926, this statement is made the basis for the computation of statutory gross income. With its income tax return for 1926 the plaintiff submitted a copy of the statement for that year. On this blank, on page 5, line 25, the plaintiff reports its pro rata unearned premiums, i. e., the part of the net premiums received on all its policies proportioned to the unexpired term of the period for which the premiums were received. Of the last quarterly premiums paid on December 1, 1926, there was here reported 66 2/3 per cent of the whole which was paid for protection to be rendered in January and February of 1927, plus any premiums paid in advance.
On the same page on line 25½, the plaintiff reports its "Additional Reserve on Non-Cancellable Health and Accident Policies", as of the last day of the taxable year. This reserve is set up as a liability of the company and is held to meet the additional hazards on non-cancellable health and accident policies due to the fact that the premiums must remain constant while the risk and cost inevitably increase.
Before 1922, the plaintiff had on its books no additional reserve on non-cancellable health and accident policies similar to that shown on line 25½ of its annual statement for later years. In March, 1923, the New York Superintendent of Insurance required such a reserve to be set up; and pending a determination of the proper size of such reserve as shown by its own experience, the plaintiff set up an arbitrary reserve of $75,000 as of December, 1922. This was increased each year thereafter because of the growth of sales of this type of contract until in December, 1925, on the basis of the 1921 computed experience, the reserve set up was $750,000. This was reported on line 25½ of the annual statement and was approved by the state insurance commissioner. In 1926, a further increase of $491,098.68 was made to the reserve of $750,000, and the total of $1,241,098.68 was reported on line 25½.
In arriving at its net income for 1926, the plaintiff was required to compute its earned premiums according to Section 246(b)(5) of the Revenue Act of 1926. In so doing the plaintiff added to its gross premiums written during the year (minus return premiums and premiums paid for reinsurance) its "unearned premiums" as of December 31, 1925, including in this amount both the pro rata unearned premiums, shown on line 25 of the 1925 statement, and the sum of $750,000, the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance, shown on line 25½ of the 1925 statement, and it deducted from the amount so obtained the pro rata unearned premiums, shown on line 25 of the 1926 statement, and the sum of $1,241,098.68, the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance, shown on line 25½ of the 1926 statement. In other words, as one of the items of net "unearned premiums" which the plaintiff is entitled to deduct from gross premiums written, the plaintiff deducted $491,098.68 which equalled the net addition to the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance between December, 1925, and December, 1926.
In 1930, an actuarial firm employed by the plaintiff completed a study of the plaintiff's experience in the years 1927-1929, and reported what the reserve should be for the coming year on the basis of that experience. It also informed the plaintiff that if the 1927-1929 experience had been known in December, 1925, the proper reserve at that time would have been $900,890 *308 rather than the $750,000 based on the 1921 experience and actually held by the plaintiff.
Thereafter, in 1930, the Commissioner assessed against the plaintiff a deficiency in its 1926 income tax. A portion of this deficiency was made up by the Commissioner's determination that in computing the "earned premiums" according to Section 246(b)(5), the plaintiff should have taken as the reserve for December 31, 1925, shown on line 25½ of the statement for that year, the sum of $900,890 rather than the $750,000 actually held by the plaintiff and reported on line 25½, and accepted by the Commissioner in computing the 1925 tax. The result of this action by the Commissioner was to include in the plaintiff's "premiums earned" in 1926, the difference between $900,890 and $750,000, i. e., $150,890. This difference resulted in an additional tax, plus interest, of $23,428.29. The plaintiff duly filed a claim for refund which was rejected, and this suit was brought to recover the $23,428.29 with interest thereon.
The District Court also found as a fact that in all of the plaintiff's tax returns, the Commissioner has allowed as an exclusion from gross income through the nine years between 1922 and 1930, the net increase in the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance except this amount of $150,890. Since 1930, the 1927-1929 experience has been used to figure the reserves set up, and the net increase in the aggregate reserves has been accepted each year by the Commissioner as an exclusion from gross income.
The refund for 1928 is claimed for the purely technical reason that a small portion of the $23,428.29 here sought to be recovered was not paid in cash but was a credit for an alleged 1928 overpayment which was applied by the Commissioner to the alleged 1926 deficiency. Since the defendant raised no question, either in the trial court or in this court, of the propriety of including this sum in the present suit, other than the general claim that it was not allowable as a deduction from gross income, we do not consider it necessary to pursue the matter further than to say that we consider it to be properly before us. See United States v. Bertelsen & Petersen Co., 1939, 306 U.S. 276, 59 S.Ct. 541, 83 L.Ed. 647.
At the close of all the evidence, both the plaintiff and defendant moved for judgment in their favor, and the plaintiff requested the court to make certain findings of fact and conclusions of law. The judge denied the plaintiff's motion, and filed an opinion containing findings of fact and conclusions of law, giving judgment for the defendant. To the denial of its motion for judgment and the refusal to make the requested findings and conclusions, the plaintiff excepted.
Later the plaintiff moved to vacate the judgment and reopen the trial on the ground that the judge had erred in not allowing it to see his opinion and take exception to the denial of its motions and requests for findings before judgment was entered. The judge denied the motion and held that the exceptions previously taken safeguarded the plaintiff's rights on appeal. This court has held that the opinion in a case brought under the Tucker Act, supra, is a part of the record, and exceptions taken to findings of fact and conclusions of law there made and to the judgment entered are duly taken during the course of the trial. United States v. Hyams, 1 Cir., 1906, 146 F. 15; United States v. Swift, 1 Cir., 1905, 139 F. 225. The first bill of exceptions was properly taken and is validly before this court. The District Court properly denied the motion to vacate the judgment and reopen the trial.
The real question involved in the present controversy is whether the plaintiff in computing its "premiums earned" for the year 1926, under Section 246(b)(5) of the Revenue Act of 1926, was entitled to exclude therefrom the net addition made during that year to the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies required by state laws. In other words, is this addition to the reserve fund a part of "unearned premiums" within the meaning of the above section?
The plaintiff contends that the words "unearned premiums" mean not only the pro rata portion of the premiums collected for the period which has yet to run, shown on line 25 of the annual statement, but, in addition, includes the annual additions to the reserve, set up on line 25½, to take care of the increased risk or additional cost of insurance in the later years of the insured's life. Where the policy is a level premium non-cancellable policy, the plaintiff claims that some of the premiums collected in the early years are unearned and must be set up in this reserve to provide *309 funds for paying the policy obligations in the later years when the cost of the insurance is greater than the level premium collected in those years. Since the plaintiff claims that the portion of the premiums so set aside is in fact unearned, it insists that it is deductible from gross premiums according to the method provided in Section 246(b)(5).
On the other hand, the defendant asserts that the words "unearned premiums" are strictly limited to that portion of the premiums covering the unexpired term of the period for which they are paid, i. e., the pro rata unearned premiums, shown on line 25 of the annual statement. The main argument on which the government rested its case is that the net addition to the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies is no longer deductible from gross premiums in order to arrive at gross income, and that such net addition represents "earned premiums".
The District Court gave judgment for the defendant on the ground that the net addition to the reserve was "earned premiums" within the meaning of Section 246(b)(5) and that Congress did not intend to allow this addition as a deduction. The District Judge in his opinion stated that he could not find from the evidence that the total premium collected from the insured in any one period, even in the later years in which he is entitled to have his policy, is inadequate to take care of the risk or cost of insurance during that period; that when a quarterly premium was accepted, it was accepted for payment for insurance for three months only; that the company guaranteed nothing but that the policy would be kept in force for the next three months; and that the fact that the plaintiff was required to take some part of its earned or unearned premiums to set up a solvency reserve is of no importance as far as Section 246(b)(5) is concerned. He held that only the pro rata unearned premium, shown on line 25, was deductible. We cannot agree with this disposition of the case.
The plaintiff's motion for judgment on all the evidence, in a case tried without a jury, is the equivalent of a motion for a directed verdict and raises a question of law whether the findings support the judgment and whether the findings are supported by evidence. Maryland Casualty Co. v. Jones, 1929, 279 U.S. 792, 49 S.Ct. 484, 73 L.Ed. 960; Griffin v. Thompson, 5 Cir., 1925, 10 F.2d 127; Bank of Waterproof v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 5 Cir., 1924, 299 F. 478; cf. Federal Intermediate Credit Bank v. L'Herisson, 8 Cir., 1929, 33 F.2d 841. Though ordinarily the findings of fact in a trial without a jury are conclusive, where the proper motions are made and exceptions taken at the trial, and when, as here, the record contains all the testimony on which the findings are based, the appellate court can see if the findings are supported by evidence and, if not, can disregard them and reverse the judgment. Collier v. United States, 1899, 173 U.S. 79, 19 S.Ct. 330, 43 L.Ed. 621; United States v. Clark, 1877, 96 U.S. 37, 24 L.Ed. 696; Conners v. United States, 1 Cir., 1905, 141 F. 16; cf. Kirk v. United States, 1896, 163 U.S. 49, 56, 16 S.Ct. 911, 41 L.Ed. 66. The cases cited by the defendant contain nothing to the contrary since they involve cases where the proper motions were not made at the trial to raise the question of lack of evidence.
In a non-cancellable health and accident policy the premium remains level throughout the life of the policy (except perhaps for a readjustment, included in the policy, at a certain age, after which the premium is again level until the expiration of the policy) even though the risk insured against increases with the age of the insured and even though the claim costs in the later years of the policy are, therefore, correspondingly greater than those of the earlier years. It follows, therefore, that in each of the earlier years of a non-cancellable policy the net annual premium collected exceeds the cost of the insurance for those years, while in each of the later years, the cost exceeds the net annual premium. Therefore, the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies is set up and used to supplement the net annual premiums of such policies in the later years to the extent that the prospective cost in those years exceeds the net annual premiums. Equitable Life Assurance Society v. Commissioner, 1935, 33 B.T.A. 708.
Jonathan Sharp, a witness for the plaintiff, in explaining the workings of this reserve, testified as follows:
"The simplest way to consider the reserve shown on line 25½ is to consider a simple non-cancellable contract, the cost of insurance for the first year being $1, the second $2, the third $3 and the fourth *310 $4, or a total of $10. You have an increasing cost of insurance on the average. If those premiums are paid $1 the first year, $2 the second, $3 the third and $4 the fourth, there would be no additional reserve required, but if the premiums are paid $2.50 the first year, $2.50 the second year, $2.50 the third, and $2.50 the fourth, then $1.50 has to be set aside as an additional premium in advance or unearned in the first year, and 50 cents in the second, and they are used in the third and fourth years to make up the difference."
Here it is seen that if the policy is a non-cancellable level premium policy, the annual premium contains, on a given date, two "unearned" portions, e. g., the portion of actual cost for the period for which the premium is paid proportioned to the part of the period which has not yet expired, and that portion of the premium, over and above the actual cost of insurance for the period for which the premium is paid, which represents the amount which must be set aside in order to meet the excess of claims in later years over the level premium then collected. In the above example, suppose the $2.50 level premium is paid on July 1, 1925. On December 31, 1925, fifty cents of the one dollar which the insurance for a year actually costs is unearned, since only one-half the protection has yet been given. This is the pro rata unearned premium reserve which is shown on line 25 of the annual statement. However, there is another sum which is also "unearned", i. e., the $1.50 which was collected as part of the premium but which is in excess of the actual cost of the insurance and must be put into the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance to pay the excess cost above the premium collected in the third and fourth years of the illustration. This is shown on line 25½ of the annual statement.
In the case at bar, the pro rata unearned premium reserve merely represented the amount of the premiums collected which had not been earned because the period for which protection had been bought had not yet entirely elapsed. The additional reserve represented the extra amount included in the premium, made necessary by the fundamental principles of non-cancellable (or guaranteed renewable) insurance, to make up what experience had shown to be the excess of the cost of the insurance in later years over the level premium collected in those years. The entire premium of a non-cancellable health and accident insurance policy could not be wholly earned at the end of the period for which it was paid and be used by the plaintiff in any way it pleased, for by the very nature of the insurance a portion of the premium represents payment now for future coverage at a time when the premium is not sufficient to pay the cost of the insurance.
The reason that this reserve must be set up is that the plaintiff has guaranteed not to increase the premium as the cost of the insurance increases, and to renew the policy automatically on the payment of each succeeding level premium. Without this guarantee the policy would have been a simple non-renewable accident and health policy, on which there would have been no need for an additional reserve since the premium could have been raised at the end of each period to correspond with the risk and cost of the insurance for the coming period, and thus would have been wholly earned at the expiration of the period. The difference is exactly that which exists between a one year term policy of life insurance and a renewable term policy with level premium. See Huebner, Life Insurance (1923) 8 et seq.
The statements in the conclusions of law suggest that, as a matter of fact, the total premium collected in any period is never inadequate to pay the cost of the insurance for that year, that the plaintiff guaranteed nothing more than to keep the policy alive for the next three months, and that the pro rata unearned premiums were in fact the only portion of the premiums unearned. We do not believe these statements can be harmonized with the uncontradicted evidence and the nature of non-cancellable health and accident insurance. See Craig, The Actuarial Basis for Premiums and Reserves in Personal Accident and Health Insurance, (1931) 17 Proceedings of the Casualty Actuarial Society, 51, 66-67; Laird, Non-Cancellable Accident and Health Insurance Underwriting Problems, (1921) 7 id. 302, 316-318; Maverick, "Rates and Reserves for Non-Cancellable Health and Accident Policies" (1921) 3. In so far as the conclusions of law hold that the additional reserve for non-cancellable policies is not, as a matter of law, to be included in the phrase "unearned premiums" in Section 246(b) (5) of the Revenue Act of 1926, they are in our opinion erroneous.
Unless the contrary appears, statutory words are presumed to be used in their *311 ordinary and natural meaning. Helvering v. San Joaquin Co., 1936, 297 U.S. 496, 56 S.Ct. 569, 80 L.Ed. 824; De Ganay v. Lederer, 1919, 250 U.S. 376, 39 S.Ct. 524, 63 L.Ed. 1042. And where the applicable section deals with a particular trade or business, as insurance, the technical insurance terms must be considered to be used in the sense in which such terms are generally used or understood in the insurance business. Travelers Equitable Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, 1931, 22 B.T.A. 784; see G.C.M. 2318, VI-2 C.B. 80, 81 (1927); Hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, on H.R. 8245, 67th Cong., 1st Sess. (1921) 394.
The uncontradicted oral testimony in this case shows that in the insurance business the term "unearned premiums" includes more than the pro rata portion, shown on line 25, and specifically includes the reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies, shown on line 25½. Before Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1921, 42 Stat. 227, insurance authorities had publicly recognized that this reserve was a part of unearned premiums. See, e. g., Laird, Maverick, supra. It thus appears that at the time when the statute was first enacted it was well understood that this particular reserve was included in the technical term "unearned premiums" used by Congress.
That the term was so understood appears even more clearly from an examination of the blank of the National Convention of Insurance Commissioners, which is made the test of gross income by Section 246(b) (1) of the Revenue Act of 1921, supra, and the corresponding section of each successive act. At the time the Revenue Act of 1921 was adopted, the blank contained only line 25 for the entry of unearned premiums. In 1922, line 25½ was added to provide a space for segregating the reserve which was only necessary for non-cancellable health and accident policies. See Proceedings of the National Convention of Insurance Commissioners (1922) 41, 50. The ordinary cancellable policies had no unearned premium except the pro rata reserve and needed no line 25½ reserve. It is significant that the new line was numbered 25½, indicating that it was a subdivision of line 25, and that it was denominated an "additional reserve". To make it even clearer that in finding "premiums earned" the pro rata reserve of line 25 and the additional reserve of line 25½ should be deducted, explicit instructions to that effect were put on page 8 of the blank dealing with the computation of "premiums earned". See Proceedings of the National Convention of Insurance Commissioners (1924) 175, 190. The fact that there was no specific line showing this particular item separately at the time the Revenue Act of 1921 was enacted does not mean that Congress did not intend to include this reserve in the term "unearned premiums" as then understood. Home Title Insurance Co. v. United States, 2 Cir., 1931, 50 F.2d 107, 111. When the Revenue Act of 1926 re-enacted Section 246(b) (1) providing that "gross income" should be computed on the basis of the statement of the National Convention of Insurance Commissioners, the blank, as shown above, expressly provided for the deduction of the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance in arriving at "earned premiums". Congress, in re-enacting this section, must have been referring to this current statement including the deduction of this reserve.
The close analogy of non-cancellable health and accident insurance, where the risk increases and the premium remains constant, to renewable term level premium life insurance has already been noted. In Travelers Equitable Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, supra, a life insurance company was taxed under Section 246 of the Revenue Acts of 1921 and 1924 (identical with the same section of the 1926 Act) as an insurance company, other than life or mutual, as it did not come within the definition of a life insurance company set out in Section 242 so as to be taxed as such under Sections 242-245. The Board of Tax Appeals held that its life insurance reserves, built up from the excess of the early level premiums over the cost of the insurance to compensate for the later excess of cost over premium, precisely as the non-cancellable health and accident reserves are calculated, were "unearned premiums" within the meaning of Section 246(b) (5) and should be added to the pro rata unearned premium reserve for ordinary cancellable casualty policies. The question presented was analogous to the question here, and the Commissioner announced his formal acquiescence in the decision. X-2 C.B. 71 (1931). We agree with the conclusion of the Board that the holding "is in no way inconsistent with the wording or the purpose of that section [§ 246] and is economically sound". The decision and reasoning are directly applicable here.
*312 The defendant, however, contends that the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies is not to be added to unearned premiums in computing gross income, because Congress in the Revenue Act of 1926 made no provision for the deduction from gross premiums of insurance companies, other than life or mutual, of the net addition to reserve funds required by law, which had been allowed to all insurance companies prior to the Revenue Act of 1921.
Close examination of the provisions of the Revenue Act of 1921 relating to insurance (which were re-enacted in the Revenue Acts of 1924 and 1926), and of their legislative history, discloses that no departure was made from the previous system of taxing only the "earned premiums" of insurance companies. This had previously been accomplished by including all premiums in gross income and allowing the unearned portion represented by the net addition to reserve funds to be deducted. The new statute simply continued the same system, as far as insurance companies other than life or mutual were concerned, by defining underwriting income as "premiums earned" and providing for the computation of those premiums in Section 246(b) (5) by subtracting from gross premiums the "unearned premiums" which were still represented by the same reserves. Utah Home Fire Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, 10 Cir., 1933, 64 F.2d 763, certiorari denied, 1933, 290 U.S. 679, 54 S.Ct. 103, 78 L.Ed. 586. Section 246(b) (5) in no way prevents the deduction of the net addition to reserve funds required by law if the addition represents unearned premiums.
Furthermore, any contention of the defendant that Section 246(b) (5) prevents the deduction of the net addition to reserve funds required by law proves too much. The pro rata unearned premium reserve is the original basic reserve fund required by law for all types of insurance. Maryland Casualty Co. v. United States, 1920, 251 U.S. 342, 348, 40 S.Ct. 155, 64 L.Ed. 297; cf. Central National Fire Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, 1931, 22 B.T.A. 1054. The defendant's argument would prevent this reserve from being deducted, yet the pro rata premium reserve is unquestionably deductible from gross premiums to find premiums earned.
Finally, the defendant proposes that the additional reserve on non-cancellable health and accident policies cannot be unearned premiums because if a policy is cancelled by an insured he receives no surrender value and the plaintiff keeps the excess reserve accumulated.
Whether a premium is considered earned or unearned depends upon the nature of the risk and policy involved. American Title Co. v. Commissioner, 1933, 29 B.T.A. 479, affirmed 3 Cir., 1935, 76 F.2d 332. Fire and ordinary casualty insurance premiums become fully earned as soon as the period for which the premium was paid has expired, for the risk expires at the same time; but a title insurance premium is fully earned the moment it is paid although the risk continues indefinitely. American Title Co. v. Commissioner, supra. And marine insurance premiums are often not considered earned until the entire risk has expired. See Mass.Gen.Laws (Ter.Ed. 1932) c. 175, § 10; Huebner, Property Insurance (1927) 355.
The surrender value of a life insurance policy is never the full value of the insurance reserve but is diminished by a surrender charge, and the payment on cancellation of a fire insurance policy is not the total of the pro rata unearned premium but that amount minus the customary monthly short rate. See Mass.Gen.Laws (Ter.Ed.1932) c. 175, §§ 99, 144. Thus, the "unearned premium" cannot be tested by what the company must return on cancellation.
Congress is only interested in determining what part of a company's gross income should be treated as net income for the purposes of taxation. McCoach v. Insurance Co. of North America, 1917, 244 U. S. 585, 37 S.Ct. 709, 61 L.Ed. 1333. In general, premium income is not such, and its inclusion in gross income is only justified by the deductions allowed. See Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means on the Revenue Act of 1918, 65th Cong., 2nd Sess., Pt. 1 (1918) 811. The additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies, whether returnable to the insured or not, is not available for the use of the general purposes of the plaintiff. It is held as a liability to provide for the payment or reinsurance of specific contingent insurance liabilities proven by experience to be a part of the cost of this particular type of insurance in the future years. When an insured cancels his policy, or when the plaintiff reinsures its risks or pays a claim, the sums represented by the reserve on the cancelled policy or the *313 claims, or the total reserve in the case of reinsurance, no longer remain in the reserve but become a part of "gross income" within the meaning of the statute. Cf. Central National Fire Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, supra; Union Underwriters of New York et al., 1926, 4 B.T.A. 472. And the time that portions of premiums which have been set aside in true insurance reserves can be included in gross income is "only where it is clearly shown that subsequent business conditions have released the amount of them to the free beneficial use of the company in a real, and not in a mere bookkeeping sense". Maryland Casualty Co. v. United States, supra, 251 U.S. at page 353, 40 S.Ct. at page 159, 64 L.Ed. 297.
As long as these reserve funds must be held to provide for expected insurance liabilities in the future on these non-cancellable health and accident policies and are not to be used for the general purposes of the company, they are not "earned premiums" within the meaning of Congress and not includible in gross income. The test is not whether the part of the premium set aside in the reserve for non-cancellable health and accident insurance "belongs" to the company in the event of cancellation or lapsing of the policy, but whether that amount is such a part of the company's gross income as Congress considered should be treated as net income for the purposes of taxation. McCoach v. Insurance Co. of North America, supra. We hold that it is not.
The practically unbroken administrative practice of allowing the inclusion of this reserve as unearned premiums in Section 246(b) (5), both in the case of the plaintiff and as generally conceded by the defendant in its answer to the motion to reverse and remand, plus the re-enactment of the relevant portions of the statute eight times, and the Commissioner's acquiescence in the analogous case of Travelers Equitable Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, supra, should settle the case unquestionably. See Haggar Co. v. Helvering, 1940, 308 U.S. 389, 60 S.Ct. 337, 84 L.Ed. 340; Helvering v. Wilshire Oil Co., 1939, 308 U.S. 90, 100, 60 S.Ct. 18, 84 L.Ed. 101; Alaska Steamship Co. v. United States, 1933, 290 U.S. 256, 262, 54 S.Ct. 159, 78 L.Ed. 302; Edward's Lessee v. Darby, 1827, 12 Wheat. 206, 210, 6 L.Ed. 603.
The plaintiff is clearly entitled to include the additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies, shown on line 25½ of its annual statement, in "unearned premiums" in computing its "earned premiums" in accordance with Section 246(b) (5) of the Revenue Act of 1926.
The only question which remains is whether the Commissioner was correct in assessing a deficiency on the ground that the plaintiff should have used as the amount for the additional reserve at the end of 1925 the $900,890 which the experience of 1927-1929 indicated would have been the proper amount of the reserve at that time if the subsequent experience had been known, rather than the $750,000 which was the actual amount allocated to the reserve on the basis of the 1921 experience, the only experience then known. We think the Commissioner was wrong.
It is stipulated that the Commissioner used the figure of $750,000 in computing the plaintiff's tax for 1925. The effect of substituting, in 1930, the sum of $900,890 in place of $750,000 as the reserve held on December 31, 1925, in computing the 1926 tax is to include in "premiums earned" for 1926 the difference between those two amounts, or $150,890, representing an additional tax plus interest of $23,428.29. This $150,890 was a part of the actual addition made to the reserve funds between December 31, 1925, and December 31, 1926, based on the experience of 1921. The reserves of 1925 and 1926 were both accepted as proper by the Commissioner and the various state insurance departments. That the fund as of December 31, 1925, should have amounted to $900,890 was not known and could not have been known until 1930. Any amount held in the reserve between 1925 and 1930, as shown above, is not "earned premiums" within the meaning of the statute but is "unearned premiums". This $150,890 was so held in the reserve, and is, therefore, "unearned premiums". The Commissioner had no right to include it in the plaintiff's gross income.
The additional reserve for non-cancellable health and accident policies is properly includible within the term "unearned premiums" as used in Section 246(b) (5) of the Revenue Act of 1926. The plaintiff in 1926 used the proper figure for said additional reserve as of December 31, 1925, in computing the "unearned premiums" in accordance with Section 246(b) (5). Therefore, the deficiency of $23,428.29 assessed by the Commissioner because he included *314 the $150,890 above referred to in the plaintiff's gross income as "earned premiums" for 1926 was erroneous. The District Court should have granted the plaintiff's motion for judgment.
In the view we take of the construction of Section 246(b) (5) of the Revenue Act of 1926, and in the light of the defendant's answer to the motion, it is not necessary to consider the plaintiff's motion to reverse and remand for a new trial to establish the administrative practice, and the motion is accordingly denied.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause remanded to that court, with direction to enter judgment for the plaintiff in the sum of $23,428.29, with interest from July 15, 1931.
NOTES
[1] "Sec. 246. (a) In lieu of the tax imposed by section 230, there shall be levied, collected, and paid for each taxable year upon the net income of every insurance company (other than a life or mutual insurance company) a tax as follows:
"(1) In the case of such a domestic insurance company, 12½ per centum of its net income;
* * * * * *
"(b) In the case of an insurance company subject to the tax imposed by this section
"(1) The term `gross income' means the combined gross amount earned during the taxable year, from investment income and from underwriting income as provided in this subdivision, computed on the basis of the underwriting and investment exhibit of the annual statement approved by the National Convention of Insurance Commissioners;
"(2) The term `net income' means the gross income as defined in paragraph (1) of this subdivision less the deductions allowed by section 247;
* * * * * *
"(4) The term `underwriting income' means the premiums earned on insurance contracts during the taxable year less losses incurred and expenses incurred;
"(5) The term `premiums earned on insurance contracts during the taxable year' means an amount computed as follows:
"From the amount of gross premiums written on insurance contracts during the taxable year, deduct return premiums and premiums paid for reinsurance. To the result so obtained add unearned premiums on outstanding business at the end of the preceding taxable year and deduct unearned premiums on outstanding business at the end of the taxable year; * * *."
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HUI Bull Seasonals 3
Precious-metals stocks really haven't had a great summer by any means. After rallying initially in June, they started relentlessly drifting lower in July. The net result of this lackluster summer trading is a lethargic drift sideways. Naturally this listlessness has weighed on sentiment among this sector's traders.
At the end of May just before the dawn of the financial-market summer, the flagship HUI gold-stock index closed at 454. Since then, it has generally been flat averaging just 458 on close. At best so far this summer, the HUI was up 8.8% in mid-June. At worst, it was down 4.7% in late July. For a sector accustomed to wild volatility and exciting action, 10 weeks of drifting can feel very discouraging.
But it shouldn't be. Gold stocks almost always tend to drift sideways to lower in the PM summer doldrums. Such uninspiring behavior is par for the course this time of year. I wrote an essay explaining the research behind the PM summer doldrums that was published the very day the HUI peaked this summer (June 18th). At that time when traders were pretty excited about PM stocks' prospects I concluded…
"The bottom line is summer isn't a great time for precious metals. Led by gold, the entire PM complex tends to drift sideways to lower in the summer doldrums in June, July, and August. This listless price action is driven by the combination of no seasonal gold-demand surges and the general lack of investor interest that plagues all markets in the summer months. Sun, sand, and surf simply provide too much competition for traders' attention this time of year."
But today a couple months later, the financial-market summer is starting to wane. We're on the verge of emerging out of the wilderness that was the summer of 2010. After forming a relentless headwind retarding gold stocks' progress this summer, the major seasonal influences affecting this sector are shifting back towards a favorable tailwind. The HUI bull seasonals are looking up, a very bullish omen.
Yes, believe it or not seasonals do affect gold-stock price levels! This probably sounds counterintuitive initially. Investors and speculators can buy and sell gold stocks anytime regardless of the passing of the calendar year, so why does the time of year matter? The answer is quite logical. It matters because calendar seasons greatly affect gold investment demand, and the gold price is the primary driver of gold stocks' ultimate profits. When it rallies, they rally. And when it falls, they follow.
Gold seasonals are extremely important for all PM-stock traders to understand. Read my latest essay discussing them in depth if you are not up to speed. In a nutshell, deeply-ingrained income-cycle and cultural incentives drive big gold demand spikes in the autumn, winter, and spring. But in the summer, there is nothing to drive above-average capital inflows into gold. Thus it tends to grind sideways to lower, and the gold stocks trail in sympathy.
These gold-driven seasonal trends are readily apparent in the HUI. Since markets behave quite differently in secular bulls and bears, I like to start my seasonal analysis when today's secular gold-stock bull was born in 2000. To distill out the HUI bull seasonals, I individually index each calendar year's HUI action from the first day of that year. This ensures percentage changes within each year are perfectly comparable across years despite the HUI trading at progressively higher levels as its bull marches on.
Finally I average together all these individual-year HUI indexes and chart the results. This process reveals the HUI bull seasonals rendered below, which are very valuable for traders to understand. Regardless of everything else going on in the markets, gold stocks tend to be consistently strong and weak at certain times of the calendar year. These tendencies can be used to help investors and speculators execute superior trades.
It's been two-and-a-half years since I last updated this thread of research, with an epic discontinuity defining the period since. During that crazy once-in-a-century stock panic we weathered in late 2008, gold stocks were ripped to shreds in the belly of the beast. Between July and October 2008, the HUI plummeted a jaw-dropping 67.7%! And around half these losses accrued in this span's final month alone! It was not a fun time to own PM stocks.
Then between its brutal October 2008 lows and the end of that year, the HUI rebounded 99.5% higher. This index has never witnessed anything remotely like that panic span, so I was really curious about how such wild swings would alter the HUI's seasonals. Surprisingly though, the blue HUI seasonal line in this chart didn't change too much at all. This shows the value in averaging over a decade's worth of years. No one year, even one as crazy as 2008, wields an outsized influence.
On average since 2000, the HUI has rallied around 27.6% per year (from an indexed level of 100.0 to 127.6). These are stupendous gains over an ugly decade where the general stock markets have languished in a secular bear. As a matter of fact, on the day the HUI bottomed in November 2000 the flagship S&P 500 stock index closed at 1383. Today a decade later it is 21% lower while the HUI is 1151% higher! Gold stocks have been a spectacularly-lucrative investment since 2000!
In this secular bull the HUI has tended to trade in the well-defined seasonal uptrend channel shown in this chart. It hits its seasonal support four times a year, in mid-January, mid-March, late July, and late October. These are the best times of the year seasonally to add new gold-stock and silver-stock positions for investors and speculators alike. Your odds of "buying low" around these support approaches are far better than they are the rest of the year.
Out of these major seasonal lows, the HUI's largest seasonal rallies of the year emerge. The first runs from mid-March to early June and has averaged 14.5% over the course of this gold-stock bull. As long as gold stocks aren't radically overbought in March, we diligently play this strong spring gold-stock rally every year. Our subscribers have made lots of money over the years buying PM stocks with us around mid-March and then selling them in late May or early June.
After this first big seasonal rally, the PM stocks enter the dreaded summer doldrums. They tend to drift sideways to lower for much of the summer. The summers are, without any doubt, the weakest time of the year for the gold stocks seasonally. Every year in May I warn our subscribers about these dangerous PM summer doldrums. They not only result in real trading losses and even bigger opportunity costs, they can really devastate traders' psychology and confidence.
The second big seasonal rally of the year erupts out of exceptionally-oversold HUI lows in late July. It tends to run 15.1% higher on average between late July and late September. Of course right now, in mid-August, we are early on in this HUI seasonal rally. This is very encouraging and ought to excite PM-stock traders bummed out from weathering the summer doldrums. PM stocks almost always rally big heading into autumn, and statistically this seasonal rally is probably already underway.
If you follow our research work at Zeal, you are probably scratching your head at this point. I imagine you thinking, "But Adam, you often write about a mid-August seasonal low. Doesn't this late-July HUI seasonals data contradict this?" Yes, it certainly does. But this apparent contradiction highlights the supreme importance of broad and well-rounded research. Indicators must be considered in concert, not isolation, to optimize trade timing.
Remember that gold stocks (and silver as well) are ultimately driven by the fortunes of the gold price. If gold is weak, the entire gold complex has a tough time rallying. And gold seasonals bottom in mid-August. Of course silver seasonals dutifully follow gold, bottoming between mid-August and mid-September. And just last week, my business partner Scott Wright published some landmark research on junior seasonals. Junior gold stocks are hyper-sensitive to gold sentiment. And when do they bottom? You guessed it, mid-August!
So if you want to buy PM stocks in late July due to these HUI bull seasonals, your odds for success are high. And indeed this year, the HUI's 432 low on July 27th may indeed prove to be summer 2010's closing low. But I've seen plenty of really ugly HUI selloffs into mid-August, like 2007's sharp 13.6% loss over 6 trading days ending August 16th. So personally, I feel more comfortable waiting for the probable mid-August gold lows before adding new long positions. Gold is gold stocks' primary driver.
The HUI tends to see another seasonal pullback in October. Provocatively, the wicked-sharp plunge in October 2008's stock panic stretched this seasonal tendency considerably. Prior to that anomaly, the HUI tended to bounce in the middle of its seasonal uptrend in mid-October, not near support as this latest seasonal chart shows. Since that panic was such an exceedingly-rare event, I certainly wouldn't hold out for a seasonal support approach in Octobers in general. But an early-October pullback is still highly probable.
The third big seasonal rally launching out of October's low actually lasts until late February of the following year. All together it accounts for a 17.6% average HUI rally over this past decade, which makes it the seasonally-strongest time of the year for gold stocks. So as long as gold's fundamentals remain bullish, and neither gold nor the gold stocks have just rapidly spiked to very-overbought levels, it is prudent to be heavily long gold stocks in the winter. Throw in autumn and spring as well, for the other two big seasonal rallies.
So boiled down, these HUI seasonals are really pretty simple. Expect weakness in summer since there is nothing then to drive gold investment-demand spikes. If you are an investor, just gird yourself psychologically for this weakness and don't get caught up in it or worry about it. If you are a speculator, you can sell long positions between late May and early June and then redeploy between late July and mid-August. And then stay long and deployed for the rest of the other three seasons.
This simple truth is so powerful and really highlights the value of expert market research for all traders. Every year without fail, I receive tons of e-mails from discouraged PM-stock investors and speculators in this late-summer timeframe. They are frustrated, discouraged, and have either given up on PM stocks or are considering capitulation. Yet if you study the markets, or spend a little time and money learning from those who do, there is nothing to fear in the summer. Don't expect too much, and you won't be let down.
This next chart takes an alternative view of HUI seasonals, this time dissected monthly. Every calendar month of this gold-stock bull is individually indexed, and then each month is averaged with the same months across all other calendar years. In addition, as in the first chart above, standard deviations are rendered in yellow. The smaller inset charts show the full range of these standard deviations.
Standard deviations, of course, are measures of dispersion. When you are running averages for market-analysis work, the tighter the underlying data the higher the probability your average is meaningful. The narrower the yellow bands (closer to the core blue average), the less dispersed the underlying data is. The sequences 4, 5, 6 and 0, 2, 13 both average 5, but obviously the tighter first one is more likely meaningful.
In calendar-month terms, November, May, and September are the best months for the HUI on average. We are talking gains of 9.2%, 7.7%, and 4.6% respectively. The worst months of the year for gold stocks on average are October and July. This is skewed by the panic October and November of 2008, however. While these two months were still weak and strong pre-panic, they weren't as extreme as they look above.
The 2008 panic and its 2009 aftermath had a much more-pronounced impact on the smaller monthly seasonal datasets than it did on the annual ones. It flattened January, March, and August while extending October and November. If you want to see the panic changes with your own eyes, compare this chart to the last one I built before the panic with data current to February 2008.
These monthly seasonal tendencies reinforce the annual analysis. Summers, especially June and July, tend to be weak during the PM summer doldrums. August looks strong above in monthly terms, but realize most of these gains merely offset July's big losses. The result is the flat late summer seen above on the annual chart. But once summer passes, gold stocks tend to rally on balance in most months except October. While they can drift lower other times, these non-summer pullbacks tend to be trivial.
So once again the core thesis of the HUI bull seasonals emerges. Write off summer, but make sure you are deployed in high-potential gold and silver stocks for the autumn, winter, and spring gold rallies. Thanks to summer's dampening effect on sentiment among naive PM-stock traders, this time of year almost always sees nice bargains in PM stocks. August is the perfect time to stock up and prepare for the highly-probable large autumn gold rally.
Gold tends to rally sharply in autumn because of big Asian buying. After harvest, farmers can invest in gold once they know how big their profits are. And gold demand in India in particular, the world's largest consumer, rockets higher during autumn's festival season. If you have any Indian friends, ask them about Indian wedding season. It is fascinating and often drives big gold rallies which PM stocks leverage.
Which stocks to buy? We can help you with that. At Zeal we deeply research entire PM-stock sub-sectors (gold producers, silver stocks, advanced-stage junior golds, early-stage junior golds) to uncover what we believe are the best stocks fundamentally. We publish comprehensive profiles of our dozen favorite stocks (out of initial universes often in the hundreds) in our popular Zeal Reports. You can enjoy the benefits of hundreds of hours of our expert research for a mere pittance. Buy a PM-stock report today and take advantage of the late-summer bargains!
We also publish acclaimed monthly and weekly newsletters that are invaluable to investors and speculators. All of our research and wisdom flows into these products, helping traders better understand what is going on in the markets, why, and how it can be profitably traded. There is no need to ever be anxious about the financial markets! The more you understand, the less you will worry and the better you will do. Subscribe today and take charge of building your personal fortune!
The bottom line is precious-metals stocks have exhibited very definite seasonal tendencies over the course of their secular bull. This is largely the result of gold demand spikes driven by income-cycle and cultural factors that are tied to the calendar year. While PM-stock seasonals are often secondary drivers that can be temporarily overridden by short-term technical and sentimental extremes, prudent traders still pay close attention to these headwinds and tailwinds.
HUI bull seasonals show investors and speculators when they have the best odds of buying low and selling high. They reveal that summer tends to be a poor time of the year for PM stocks, but the rallies in autumn, winter, and spring far more than make up for these summer doldrums. They also show that our current mid-August timeframe is one of the best times of the year to add new long positions.
Adam Hamilton, CPA
August 13, 2010
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Opoona Original Soundtrack
Overview
It took three years, but at the insistent request of fans, the niche Wii title Opoona finally received an official soundtrack release at the end of 2010. The soundtrack was an unprecedented effort for Hitoshi Sakimoto’s production company Basiscape, featuring all six composers at the company at that time. The composers managed to blend orchestral and acoustic performances, courtesy of Eminence, with various electronic and experimental stylings to capture a light-hearted, personal, yet otherworldly feel to the title. Hailed by many players of the game as one of Basiscape’s best works to date, how does the soundtrack now fare, available on physical media for the first time?
Body
The defining composition of the soundtrack, and indeed Hitoshi Sakimoto’s central contribution as a whole, is the game’s main theme. The theme is whimsical and delightful, exactly as one would expect given the nature of the game; in fact, it is reminiscent of other of Sakimoto’s similarly playful themes, found in works such as Deltora Quest, with its unconventional sense of lyricism. It’s short, but it doesn’t need to be long to be memorable and fitting. Its length allows it the malleability to be worked into themes all over the soundtrack, some by Sakimoto himself and others by Basiscape. Among the most remarkable interpretations include its cinematic exposition at the start of the soundtrack and the more elaborate fairytale orchestration — aptly titled “Main Theme” — on the second disc.
Noriyuki Kamikura provides what is perhaps the best arrangement of the theme, in his “Tokione”. With its blend of addictive techno beats and ethereal piano passages, it is perfectly indicative of the soundtrack as a whole, more than Sakimoto’s relatively orchestrational original theme lets on. Of course, “Tokione” isn’t just a rehash of the main theme, though it is incorporated into the track quite satisfactorily. “Children of Tokione,” arranged by Mitsuhiro Kaneda, focuses primarily on the theme, and, though while quite interesting and whistleable, uses a bit too much of a playful techno arrangement to be as accessible as the aforementioned. Kamikura also arranged Sakimoto’s theme for “Creola’s House,” an absolutely delightful piece with a perfectly placed, mournful violin that complements the otherwise silly tone of the piece.
It’s clear that the artists were fully liberated creatively when creating the various major secondary themes on the soundtrack. “Holy Wilds” is quite fantastic melodically — reminiscent of Iwata’s powerful works; though its initial version is rather short, a version arranged by Namiki, “Paradiso,” elaborates on the melody with a slightly more techno style without sacrificing the melody. Kamikura’s “Concert Hall” and “Back Stage” are among the most beautiful electro-acoustic fusions present on the soundtrack. The composition and arrangement of the material in the former is vivid and enjoyable, replete with complex woodwind counterpoint and elegantly mixed techno. The latter, meanwhile, is a brilliantly subdued version of the former by Kaneda, featuring more than just a simple filter layered over the original material, instead being a full rearrangement.
More melodies on this album get multiple arrangements. Immediately after the previous group comes three tracks: “A Walk in the Sea,” “Intelligent Sea” and “Bravo,” all originally composed by Kaneda and the latter two arranged by Manabu Namiki and Masaharu Iwata. The original track pleasantly makes one think of the ocean thanks to the steel guitar and piano, and gentle, soothing percussion, while the two arranges are each more creative and techno infused than the last. Iwata’s in particular sounds a bit like a departure of form, due to its addictive beat, but the orchestration is very reminiscent of his works. Certainly, the recurrence of several memorable themes throughout the soundtrack makes it all the more accessible and meaningful.
“Warriors of Tizia” is the game’s battle theme. Composed by Sakimoto, this theme complements his main theme in a rather fulfilling fashion. Featuring not a hint of the techno that pervades so much of this album, this piece easily fits right in amongst the others with its overly exuberant and addictive playfulness. The piece is short and resembles circus music a little too strongly, but it works. Of course, other composers infuse this theme with techno elements. Kamikura’s “Dark Rouge” is a particularly frantic, frenzied affair thanks to the brass-focused arrangement. However, easily the highlight among the battle themes is “Partizans”, a heroic blend of the main theme and battle theme with some new melodic elements added by the arranger to augment the fact that the game’s conclusion is around the corner. The anthemic section from 0:31 is one of the defining moments of the entire album.
Though the majority of the soundtrack has a frivolous tone, there are a range of more mature additions to the soundtrack too. One particularly gorgeous composition is “Cathedral”, which showcases Kaneda’s strengths in composition quite fluidly. It starts innocuously with a melody on the piano and some soft techno sounds floating in the background, but everything develops quite fantastically and opens up into a rather satisfying piece. Kamikura’s “The Village Without Memories” melds the soundtracks playful techno with an insightfully profound melody and the composer’s earlier used mournful violin to create something that sounds not entirely unlike a composition of Go Shiina’s. “Old Sanctuary” doesn’t feature any sort of techno at all, though its light orchestration focusing on the woodwinds, reminds the listener of the overall playfulness of the album, despite the sad melody.
Journeying on deeper into Opoona‘s world, Masaharu Iwata’s “Ruins in the Wilderness” is somewhat of an atmospheric piece: while it is rather complex, the piece itself takes a while to get anywhere melodically. Still, there’s more than enough going on to take hold of the listener’s attention for the track’s lengthy playtime. Speaking of the composer, “Central Sea” is a soothing techno piece that opts for relatively lengthy soundscapes to portray the sea, while “Blue Desert Hotel” features vivacious instrumentation that is a delight to trace throughout repeated listens. Kimihiro Abe’s “Great Dunes” uses some abstract melodies and soundscapes, as well as an accordion, to create a piece that might not be liked by all, but certainly will evoke the curiosity of many. The rhythm idiosyncracies typical of Abe’s work are very pronounced here and the elaborate development has a particularly enigmatic quality.
There are a range of much darker tracks that dominate the final disc of the soundtrack. Kamikura’s “Earth Prison,” while extremely neat in context, gets rather irritating quickly due to the somewhat obnoxious sound effects playing ad nauseum in the background. “Rock Castle” is similarly unsettling, though is a more powerful than the aforementioned due to its richer orchestration. Kimihiro Abe’s “Ancient Ruins” and “Holy Spring” obesessively repeat an eerie motif to develop tension. The former is entirely soothing due to its continued focus on warm electro-acoustic soundscapes, though certain textures are particularly abstract here. Namiki’s variation features a chilling use of soprano, made more profound by Abe’s powerful melody and various electronic manipulation. The subdued nature of the accompanying instrumentation, featuring not much more than an organ, helps augment this feel.
To create a unique and otherworldly ambience in the final dungeon, Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaaki Kaneko blended all sorts of percussion samples and sound effects into “Den of Darkness” to incredible effect. For the final battles, Kaneda arranged “Dark Fate,” a variation of the battle theme even more frenzied than Kamikura’s first. This theme seems to utilize Sakimoto’s original, merely layering techno beats and the like over it while adding a few new sections, including one with some frantic strings. “Babushca,” the final battle theme composed by Sakimoto, is entirely expected for the composer. Perhaps most similar to the battle themes in Valkyria Chronicles due to its highly dissonant orchestration and usage of choir singing staccato to set a dark mood, this theme is somewhat unremarkable, if only because it’s so typical for Sakimoto. However, the ending theme, “Good Luck,” is an entirely fulfilling composition by Sakimoto. Utilizing the main theme in a playful techno arrangement, this is the perfect closing cue.
Summary
Once again, the Basiscape team has shown off their incredible ability to create a comprehensive three disc album. It’s one that constantly feels fresh and new, yet one whose pieces all work together surprisingly well, especially considering the number of composers and arrangers involved. Every composer brings something new to the table, but without a listing of who did what, the listener would have difficulty telling them all apart. This album focused on hybridising techno and acoustic samples into a playful and abstract manner, and entirely fulfilled its goal. Such a sound will not be pleasing to all, and some might find it rambunctious and silly, but there’s an incredible amount of depth and complexity in each piece that should not be missed by any lover of game music. Now it’s at last been released in soundtrack form, I consider it a must-have.
stars
1
4.5
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8/1/2012
Opoona Original SoundtrackMarc Friedman
Do you agree with the review and score? Let us know in the comments below!
4.5
Posted on August 1, 2012 by Marc Friedman. Last modified on August 1, 2012. |
4th Update, Sunday AM: DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has won the weekend, as we wrote earlier, thanks to Saturday matinees, which took yesterday to $14.1M, a 119% gain over Friday. This now puts the threequel at a second weekend of $30M, -45%, which is a sign of relief to DWA, as a second weekend drop that’s more severe than -50% is never good for an animated pic. Hidden World will stand just under $98M and will become the third 2019 release to cross $100M after Uni/BVI/Blumhouse’s Glass and STX/Lantern’s The Upside.
Hidden World is also the No. 1 international, No. 1 worldwide, and No. 1 in China, with a total global weekend of $115.4M. Total running WW is $375.4M, which eclipses the original movie’s total global of $351.8M. My colleague, Nancy Tartaglione, will have more on this. Part 2 remains the highest-grossing installment with $621.5M WW.
Despite Hidden World‘s surge, Lionsgate’s A Madea Family Funeral, the final film in the series, continued to over-perform, with an $11.3M Saturday, +75% over Friday, for $27M. Tracking at its highest thought, Madea could only swing $21M. This is a fantastic result for the series to end on. That’s the third-best opening for a Madea movie after 2009’s Madea Goes to Jail ($41M) and Madea’s Family Reunion ($30M).
We can’t write this enough: Don’t underestimate Perry’s Madea. It’s been a little more than a year-and-half since the last Madea pic, Boo 2, with this pic being billed as the finale for this Perry character, which he’s played for 15 years on stage and screen. That’s what drove business here.
Lionsgate always seems to find themselves in a position where tracking pegs a Madea pic at a certain level, and then the movie over-performs. This time around, we hear that What Men Want‘s presence in the marketplace was initially pushing estimates down for Madea Family Funeral. Simply put: Perry’s Madea fanbase is that loyal. We hear that the marketing campaign implemented here for Madea Family Funeral was designed by former Lionsgate marketing boss Tim Palen, who left the studio last June and was behind other Perry hits, as well as the Hunger Games franchise, La La Land, and Wonder. Older women continued to fuel business yesterday between the matinee and prime time shows. The Boos did business late at night because of their younger-skewing demos (due to the social media stars in the film). African-Americans repped 65% of Madea Family Funeral‘s audience, higher than Boo 2‘s 60%.
While Perry has an exclusive first-look deal for films at Paramount, it doesn’t mean he still can’t make movies at Lionsgate. The Madea character is under the studio’s domain, and whenever a Perry pic like this gets released, there’s a halo effect in his related title ancillaries on the home market. The director counts close to $1 billion at the box office for his Lionsgate canon.
Some details on Madea‘s marketing push: Lionsgate drove engagement with custom online creative executions, influencer messaging and playable ad platforms, including a hilarious New York Fashion Week integration on E! News, with Madea modeling her favorite spring look: the MuuMuu. Custom content promotions and sponsorships ran across Bravo, Lifetime, and POP TV. There was also a radio blitz that drove urgency leading into the film’s opening, which included custom short one-liners from Madea. The pic is also being pushed as part of Atom and T-Mobile’s Tuesday program.
The marketplace will go absolutely nuts next weekend with Captain Marvel and, as is standard before a big nine-quad film hits the circuit, the box office calms down. ComScore reports that this weekend’s ticket sales totaled $115M, off 23% from the same frame a year ago and down 10% from last weekend, when Hidden World opened to $55M. Tickets sales for the year are at $1.5B, -26% from a year ago.
MGM’s Fighting With My Family eased 40% in its second wide weekend with a total running cume stateside close to $15M. Lionsgate opened the pic to No. 1 in the United Kingdom to $2.64 million USD at 568 screens.
Focus Features’ Greta is coming in at $4.58M, as forecast yesterday. Business was +13% over Friday, with $1.8M. Best performances for Greta was on the coasts.
Sundance
After its doc hit last year, Three Identical Strangers, NEON has another one on its hands with Apollo 11, which earned $1.65M opening at 120 Imax theaters for a $13,7K per screen. Saturday’s $670K was +68% over Friday’s $400K. The pic will be in regular theatrical release next weekend, as Disney’s Captain Marvel takes all those premium venues. Buzz Aldrin came out to a screening on Thursday night at the Mann Chinese.
A24’s Gaspar Noe horror bacchanal Climax at five sites was No. 1 in each of its NY, LA, San Francisco, and Austin locations, with a total three-day of $121K and the weekend’s best per-screen of $24K. The pic expands into top markets next weekend before busting wide on March 15.
Post Oscar halo: Universal/DreamWorks/Participant Media’s Green Book saw a 121% gain from Oscar night weekend, with $4.7M in weekend 16 for a running total of $75.9M.
Sony’s Best Animated Feature winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse jumped from 743 theaters to 2,404 locations. The webslinger won’t stop in weekend 12 with $2.1M, a +138% surge and a running total of $187.3M. Given the older-skewing fandom surrounding the movie, Sony should keep it alive theatrically with midnight shows.
Warner Bros. A Star Is Born is in its six month and following its Best Song Oscar win for “Shallow,” the studio re-released the Bradley Cooper-Lady Gaga pic with 12 minutes of extra footage and made $1.9M, raising the pic’s domestic total to $213M. That’s something to be commended, considering the film has been in the home market since Jan. 15.
WEEKEND B.O. FOR MARCH 1-3 thumb rank pic dis scrs(cg) fri sat sun 3-day total wk 1 …Dragon 3 DWA/Uni 4,286 (+27) $6.5M $14.1M $9.4M $30M (-45%) $97.7M 2 2 Madea Family Funeral LG 2,442 $9.2M $11.3M $6.5M $27M $27M 1 3 Alita Fox 3,096 (-706) $1.7M $3.2M $2.1M $7M (-43%) $72.2M 3 4 Lego Movie 2 WB 3,458 (-375) $1.2M $3.2M $2.1M $6.6M (-32%) $91.6M 4 5 Green Book Uni/Part/DW 2,641 (+1,388) $1.2M $2.1M $1.3M $4.7M (+121%) $75.9M 16 6 Fighting With My Family MGM 2,855 (+144) $1.1M $2.1M $1.3M $4.69M (-40%) $14.9M 3 7 Isn’t It romantic NL/WB 3,325 (-119) $1.2M $2M $1.2M $4.64M (-35%) $40.2M 3 8 Greta Focus 2,411 $1.6M $1.8M $1.1M $4.58M $4.58M 1 9 What Men Want Par 2,018 (-371) $760K $1.2M $690K $2.7M (-49%) $49.6M 4 10 happy Death day 2U Uni/Blum 2,331 (-881) $703K $1.1M $643K $2.5M (-49%) $25.2M 3
3rd Update, Saturday AM: Per our industry estimates, DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is now looking to have the upper hand over Lionsgate’s Tyler Perry character finale, A Madea Family Funeral. The weekend take estimates at $26M to $25.8M.
Some are considering this to be a photo-finish weekend, but matinees are on Hidden World‘s side. What is clear is that it’s a great result for Madea, outshining the highest point of tracking, which was $20M, the fourth-highest opening for a Perry-directed movie, and a B.O. bump for Perry following the $13.7M opening (one of his three lowest) of Nobody’s Fool, which was the first movie under his exclusive first-look deal with Paramount. Madea also won Friday night with an estimated $9.2M.
“For Perry Fans who have enjoyed his movies and this particular character over the years, Funeral looks and feels like an ideal send off. This contingent is certainly excited to see the movie in theaters, as they consistently have with Perry films over the years. But, plenty of naysayers claim they thought Madea was dead already. They’re shocked these movies keep getting made. Regardless, the convo certainly leans positive thanks to Perry’s loyal target audience,” says RelishMix, which finds most of the buzz emanating for the pic on Perry’s social media handles, which count close to 23M followers.
As typical the weekend before a Marvel movie opens in the marketplace, business simmers down. Captain Marvel, which begins press previews on Monday, is expected to thaw the winter box office with a $100M-$120M opening.
Madea is Teflon-proof against critics, who continue to stick their tongue out at the character with a 33% Rotten Tomatoes on this finale. Audiences gave A Madea Family Funeral an A- CinemaScore and 4 stars on ComScore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, with a solid 67% recommend. African-American audiences led the way at 59%, followed by 16% Hispanic and 15% Caucasian. Females over 25 repped close to half of the audience, followed by men over 25 at 29%. Madea played best where she always does, in the East and South, and particularly in the Southeast.
DWA
Speaking of Hidden World, right now its weekend drop of -53% is the steepest in the franchise, lower than the -50% of Part 2 and the sweet -34% second weekend hold of the original 2010 movie. That latter pic played the spring break portion of March/April, while Part 2 was propelled by summer business. Let’s see where the day takes us. There was only 2% K-12 schools and colleges each on break yesterday, a number that improves next Friday to, respectively, 6%/13%, and ramps up on March 15 to 24%/34%.
Focus Features
The weekend’s other wide entry, Focus Features’ Neil Jordan thriller Greta, isn’t stirring up any excitement, with $4.55M in 5th place (horrible, considering that it reportedly cost the studio $4M to acquire the film; some say $6M), shackled by a 58% Rotten Tomatoes score and awful audience exits, which include 2 stars on PostTrak and a 34% definite recommend. This isn’t the type of specialty release you can platform off those types of numbers, so Focus had to go wide with the pic in 2,411 and fast, so they could at least make their acquisition cash back. The Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz movie drew mostly women at 57% on PostTrak, with an overall audience that was 57% over 25. Low social media universe here, around 40M across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube views and Instagram, which is under the 47M average for specialty release.
The studio attempted to draw in the ‘guilty pleasure’ Bravo New Jersey Housewives crowd, given how both the series and Greta is about overturning tables. In the clip below from Feb. 22, which earned about 35K views daily, two of the Housewives have dinner at Katsuya in Hollywood and, unknown to fellow patrons, do their table-turning thing in honor of Isabelle Hubert’s character in Greta.
But overall, the buzz on social for Greta is “’will wait for Netflix’, as dubious comments chime in,” says RelishMix.
NEON/CNN Films Apollo 11 doc played in 120 sites, earning an estimated $1.3M for a $10.8K screen average. The film has a 100% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
A24’s Gaspar Noe punch bowl horror film Climax is booked at five locations and earning around $17K per screen, for a weekend of $172K. The pic has a 78% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Industry estimates:
BOX OFFICE FOR MARCH 1-3 thumb rank film dis. screens (chg) friday 3-day total wk 1 how To Train Your Dragon 3 DWA/Uni 4,286 (+27) $6.5M (-63%) $26M
(-53%) $93.7M 2 2 Madea Family Funeral LG 2,442 $9.2M $25.8M $25.8M 1 3 Alita Fox 3,096 (-706) $1.7M (-45%) $6.7M
(-46%) $72M 3 4 Lego Movie 2 WB 3,458 (-375) $1.3M (-41%) $5.8M
(-40%) $90.8M 4 5 Greta Focus 2,411 $1.6M $4.55M $4.55M 1 6 Green Book Uni/Part/DW 2,641 (+1,388) $1.2M (+110%) $4.5M
(+114%) $75.7M 16 7 isn’t It Romantic NL/WB 3,325 (-119) $1.3M (-40%) $4.3M
(-39%) $40M 3 8 Fighting With My Family MGM 2,855 (+144) $1.1M (-54%) $4.1M (-46%) $14.4M 3 9 What Men Want Par 2,018 (-371) $758K (-49%) $2.6M (-49%) $49.6M 4 10 Happy Death Day 2U Uni/Blum 2,331 (-881) $700K (-52%) $2.4M (-50%) $25.2M 3
2nd Update, Friday Midday: Midday figures show Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral having the weekend’s edge over DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, $25.4M to $23.3M. Madea will lead Friday with $9M-$10M while Hidden World will do around $6M in its second Friday.
Weekend matinees could swing this race in Hidden World‘s favor, but Madea is blessed by post-church crowds on Sunday. If this pace continues, Hidden World will stand at $90.9M by Sunday and a second weekend that’s -58%.
20th Century Fox/Lightstorm’s Alita: Battle Angel is seeing a third Friday of $1.6M and a third weekend of $6.4M, -48%; her running cume at $55M by Sunday.
Warner Bros. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part in weekend 4 is projected to make $5.8M, -40% for a running total of $90.8M.
Focus Features’ Greta is seeing $2.5M today and $5.3M over three days. Not spectacular. Universal/Participant Media/DreamWorks’ Green Book we hear is doing around $5M at 2,641 locations (up from 1,253) for the weekend post its Oscar Best Picture win, +138% in weekend 16. That number will put the Peter Farrelly-directed drama at $76.2M.
1st Update, Friday 7:41AM: Lionsgate’s final installment of the Madea series, Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral earned a series record of $1.1M last night from previews. The comedy’s pre-weekend projections are between $17M-$21M. There’s some anticipation by some that Madea could easily beat that, and that’s because this is the character’s swan song.
That preview night cash from 2,100 venues is higher than $855K earned by Boo! A Madea Halloween and a notch higher than Perry’s Lionsgate title Acrimony which made $1M. The best opening for a Madea movie is 2009’s Madea Goes to Jail with $41M, followed by 2006’s A Madea Family Reunion ($30M) and 2016’s Boo! A Madea Halloween ($28.5M).
The Madea pics’ demo sweet spot is older women, however the filmmaker was able to engage a millennial crowd with the Boo films by casting a number of YouTube personalities in them. The comedy expands to 2,442 theaters today.
In the film, a joyous family reunion turns into a hilarious nightmare as Madea and the crew travel to backwoods Georgia and unexpectedly have to plan a funeral, which threatens to reveal sordid family secrets.
DreamWorks Animation
However, DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World per industry estimates is expected to ring up around $35M or more in its second weekend, -36% for the No. 1 win. The threequel led all films yesterday with $2M ending its first week at $65.1M with a running total that includes previews of $67.6M. Though Hidden World repped the best opening for the DWA Dragon franchise, its total cume is behind the first week of How to Train Your Dragon 2‘s first week by 3% ($69.8M), and that’s because the latter was a summer film when more kids were off from school. By the end of this weekend, Hidden World‘s total should revolve around $102M. Fandango reports that Hidden World tickets sales are, natch, still leading all titles for the weekend.
TIFF
Focus Features has their $4M TIFF acquisition Greta, a thriller from Neil Jordan that stars Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz. In the film, a young woman befriends a lonely widow, named Greta, who’s harboring a dark and deadly agenda towards her. The film is playing in around 2,400 theaters and is only expected to do between $4M-$6M. It has a 60% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes which isn’t strong enough for an adult-skewing title for sophisticated audiences. We hear from industry sources that the pic did around $350K in previews.
Also in play at 120 Imax theaters is NEON/CNN Film’s Apollo 11 documentary from Todd Douglas Miller. The doc which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival follows Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s lunar mission with never-before-seen audio and 70MM footage. |
package com.indeed.proctor.webapp.tags;
import com.google.common.collect.ImmutableMap;
import com.indeed.proctor.common.EnvironmentVersion;
import com.indeed.proctor.store.Revision;
import com.indeed.proctor.webapp.db.Environment;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Test;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Map;
/**
* Tests for tag functions : TestDefinitionFunctions.java
*/
public class TestTestDefinitionFunctions {
/* Example Commit History:
r134 - INDAPPW-537: Feature flag for html5 history based question navigation
r135 - Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r134) to qa
r136 - Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (qa r135) to production
Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r134) to qa
r137 - INDAPPW-537: Adjusting test ratio allocations
r138 - Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r137) to production
r139 - Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r137) to qa
r140 - Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (qa r135) to production
Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r134) to qa
*/
private static final String WHO = "developer-A";
private static final Date WHEN = new Date(2012, 01, 12);
private static final Map<String, Revision> PROMOTED_REVISIONS = ImmutableMap.<String, Revision>builder()
.put("134", new Revision("134", WHO, WHEN, "INDAPPW-537: Feature flag for html5 history based question navigation"))
.put("135", new Revision("135", WHO, WHEN, "Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r134) to qa"))
.put("136", new Revision("136", WHO, WHEN, "Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (qa r135) to production\nPromoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r134) to qa"))
.put("137", new Revision("137", WHO, WHEN, "INDAPPW-537: Adjusting test ratio allocations"))
.put("138", new Revision("138", WHO, WHEN, "Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r137) to production"))
.put("139", new Revision("139", WHO, WHEN, "Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r137) to qa"))
.put("140", new Revision("140", WHO, WHEN, "Promoting iahtml5qsthisttst (qa r135) to production\nPromoting iahtml5qsthisttst (trunk r134) to qa"))
.build();
private static final EnvironmentVersion PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD;
static {
final Revision trunkRevision = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("137");
// QA revision = 139, promoted from Trunk r137 (effective version)
final Revision qaRevision = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("139");
// PROD revision = 140, promoted from Trunk r134 (effective version)
final Revision prodRevision = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("140");
PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD = new EnvironmentVersion("iahtml5qsthisttst",
// current trunk revision
copyRevision(trunkRevision),
// QA revision = 139, promoted from Trunk r137 (effective version)
copyRevision(qaRevision), "137",
// PROD revision = 140, promoted from Trunk r134 (effective version)
copyRevision(prodRevision), "134");
}
/*
Example Charm Commit history:
(trunk branch)
r178090 - COMP-1654 - changed the rule to check userlanguage, rather than jasxlanguage
r182781 - COMP-1683 - Roll out the test 100% globally
(qa branch)
r178100 - merged r178090: COMP-1654 - changed the rule to check userlanguage, rather than jasxlanguage
r182787 - merged r182781: COMP-1683 - Roll out the test 100% globally
(production branch)
r178374 - merged r178090: COMP-1654 - changed the rule to check userlanguage, rather than jasxlanguage
( not yet merged r182781)
*/
private static final Map<String, Revision> CHARMED_REVISIONS = ImmutableMap.<String, Revision>builder()
// trunk
.put("178090", new Revision("178090", WHO, WHEN, "COMP-1654 - changed the rule to check userlanguage, rather than jasxlanguage"))
.put("182781", new Revision("182781", WHO, WHEN, "COMP-1683 - Roll out the test 100% globally"))
// QA
.put("178100", new Revision("178100", WHO, WHEN, "merged r178090: COMP-1654 - changed the rule to check userlanguage, rather than jasxlanguage"))
.put("182787", new Revision("182787", WHO, WHEN, "merged r182781: COMP-1683 - Roll out the test 100% globally"))
// production
.put("178374", new Revision("178374", WHO, WHEN, "merged r178090: COMP-1654 - changed the rule to check userlanguage, rather than jasxlanguage"))
.build();
private static final EnvironmentVersion CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD = new EnvironmentVersion("acmecmpattrtst",
// current trunk revision
CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("182781"),
// QA revision = 182787, last merged trunk revision r182781 (effective version)
CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("182787"), "182781",
// PROD revision = 178374, merged from trunk revision 178090 (effective version)
CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("178374"), "178090");
@Test
public void testIsCurrentVersionViewingTrunkPromoted() {
final Revision r134 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("134");
final Revision r137 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("137");
final Environment viewing = Environment.WORKING;
Assert.assertFalse("r134 is not current trunk revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r134, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r134 is current trunk revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r137, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
// r134 is not current qa version
Assert.assertFalse("r134 is not current qa version", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r134, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
// r137 is current QA.version
Assert.assertTrue("r137 is current qa version", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r137, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
// r134 is current production version (promoted from QA r135 (trunk r134)
Assert.assertTrue("r134 is current production version", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r134, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
// r137 is current QA.version
Assert.assertFalse("r137 is not current production version", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r137, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
}
@Test
public void testIsCurrentVersionViewingQaPromoted() {
final Revision r135 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("135");
final Revision r139 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("139");
final Environment viewing = Environment.QA;
Assert.assertFalse("r135 is promoted version of trunk revision r134 (not current trunk)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r135, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r139 is promoted version of trunk revision r137 (current trunk)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r139, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r135 is not current qa revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r135, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r139 is current qa revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r139, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
// r135 promoted to production (r140) (trunk r134)
Assert.assertTrue("r135 is promoted version of trunk r134 which is current production.version", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r135, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r139 is not promoted version of production version", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r139, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
}
@Test
public void testIsCurrentVersionViewingProductionPromoted() {
final Revision r136 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("136");
final Revision r138 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("138");
final Revision r140 = PROMOTED_REVISIONS.get("140");
final Environment viewing = Environment.PRODUCTION;
Assert.assertFalse("r136 is promoted version of trunk revision r134 (not current trunk)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r136, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r138 is promoted version of trunk revision r137 (current trunk.revision)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r138, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r140 is promoted version of trunk revision r134 (not current trunk)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r140, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
// r136 promoted to production (r140) (trunk r134)
Assert.assertFalse("r136 is qa r135, trunk r134 neither are current QA.versions", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r136, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r138 is promoted version of trunk revision r137 (current qa.version)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r138, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r140 is qa r135, trunk r134 neither are current QA.versions", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r140, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r136 is not current production.revision (r140)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r136, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r138 is not current production.revision (r140)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r138, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r140 is current production.revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r140, PROMOTED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
}
@Test
public void testIsCurrentVersionViewingTrunkCharmed() {
final Revision r178090 = CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("178090");
final Revision r182781 = CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("182781");
final Environment viewing = Environment.WORKING;
Assert.assertFalse("r178090 is not current trunk revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r178090, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r182781 is current trunk revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r182781, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r178090 is not current qa.version (r182781)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r178090, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r182781 is current qa.version (r182781)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r182781, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r178090 is current production.version (r178090)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r178090, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r182781 is not current production.version (r178090)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r182781, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
}
@Test
public void testIsCurrentVersionViewingQaCharmed() {
final Revision r178100 = CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("178100");
final Revision r182787 = CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("182787");
final Environment viewing = Environment.QA;
Assert.assertFalse("r178100 is merged r178090 (not current trunk revision)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r178100, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r182787 is merged r182781 (current trunk revision)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r182787, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r178100 is not current qa.revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r178100, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r182787 is current qa.revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r182787, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r178100 is merged r178090 (current production.version r178090)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r178100, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r182787 is merged r182781 (current production.version r178090)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r182787, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
}
@Test
public void testIsCurrentVersionViewingProductionCharmed() {
final Revision r178374 = CHARMED_REVISIONS.get("178374");
final Environment viewing = Environment.PRODUCTION;
Assert.assertFalse("r178374 is merged r178090 (not current trunk revision)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnTrunk(viewing, r178374, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertFalse("r178374 is merged r178090 not current qa.version (r182781)", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnQa(viewing, r178374, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
Assert.assertTrue("r178374 current production.revision", TestDefinitionFunctions.isCurrentVersionOnProduction(viewing, r178374, CHARMED_STATE_OF_THE_WORLD));
}
private static Revision copyRevision(final Revision r) {
return new Revision(
// create a new String for revision. Revision was previously an int, and a bug escaped because comparisons were via == instead of .equals
new String(r.getRevision()),
r.getAuthor(),
r.getDate(),
r.getMessage()
);
}
}
|
---
author:
- Yi Liao
- 'and Xiao-Dong Ma'
bibliography:
- 'refs.bib'
title: 'An explicit construction of the dimension-9 operator basis in the standard model effective field theory'
---
Introduction {#sec1}
============
The standard model has been verified to be a good effective field theory that works successfully below the electroweak scale $\Lambda_{\rm EW}$ of a few hundreds GeV. The null result in searching for new particles implies that new physics which presumably holds the key to tiny neutrino masses and fundamental issues such as origin of spontaneous symmetry breaking should exist at a scale $\Lambda_{\rm NP}$ significantly higher than $\Lambda_{\rm EW}$. In this circumstance the new physics effects in currently available experiments may be comfortably described by an effective field theory defined between the above two scales. This effective field theory, termed the standard model effective field theory (SMEFT), contains exclusively the dynamical degrees of freedom in the standard model (SM) and respects its gauge symmetry $SU(3)_C\times SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y$. While the standard model (SM) interactions are dominant, effective interactions originating from new physics are important and interesting – they could modify SM predictions in precision measurements or induce new physical effects that break accidental symmetries in SM such as baryon and lepton number conservation. They therefore deserve a persistent and systematic investigation.
The effective interactions appear as higher-dimensional operators with effective couplings called Wilson coefficients. While the higher-dimensional operators in SMEFT are determined in terms of the SM fields and gauge symmetry, their Wilson coefficients are completely unknown and encode the information of new physics lying at a high scale $\Lambda_{\rm NP}$. To bridge the measurements at low energies to new physics at a high scale, an important task is to establish a basis of operators at each dimension and analyze their renormalization group evolution between the two scales. While the unique dimension-5 (dim-5) operator [@Weinberg:1979sa] has been known for a long time, the bases for even higher dimensional operators have only been established in recent years. At dimension 6, there are 63 independent operators without counting fermion flavors [@Abbott:1980zj; @Buchmuller:1985jz; @Grzadkowski:2010es], among which 59 conserve both lepton and baryon numbers and the other 4 violate both by one unit ($\Delta L=\Delta B=\pm1$). At dimension 7 it turns out that there are 12 operators that violate lepton number by two units ($\Delta L=\pm 2$) and 6 operators that violate both lepton and baryon numbers by one unit ($-\Delta L=\Delta B=\pm1$) [@Lehman:2014jma; @Liao:2016hru]. For the first time the flavor relations among effective operators start to become nontrivial making counting of independent operators complicated. As the dimension increases further, even counting of complete and independent operators becomes difficult. Fortunately, there is an approach based on the Hilbert series (HS) [@Jenkins:2009dy; @Hanany:2010vu] that can be used to enumerate the total number of independent operators for a given configuration of fields at each dimension [@Lehman:2015via; @Lehman:2015coa; @Henning:2015alf; @Henning:2017fpj]; automatic tools based on the HS have been developed [@Henning:2015alf], see Refs. [@Gripaios:2018zrz; @Criado:2019ugp; @Fonseca:2019yya; @Marinissen:2020jmb] for recent efforts. Although the HS does not tell the concrete forms of operators, it is very helpful for us to exhaust all possible forms and confirm their independency as we saw in the construction of dim-7 operators [@Liao:2016hru] and very recently of dim-8 operators [@Li:2020gnx; @Murphy:2020rsh]. If there are new light particles beyond the SM that are most likely a SM singlet such as light sterile neutrinos, they must be incorporated into the framework of effective field theory thus extending the regime of the SMEFT [@Aparici:2009fh; @delAguila:2008ir; @Bhattacharya:2015vja; @Liao:2016qyd].
Our goal in this work is to push this endeavor one step further by constructing a basis of dim-9 operators in SMEFT. Some small subsets of dim-9 operators have previously appeared in the literature focusing on processes of specific interest, including the operators related to Majorana neutrino mass and nuclear neutrinoless double beta decays ($0\nu\beta\beta$) [@Babu:2001ex; @deGouvea:2007qla; @Graesser:2016bpz; @Gustafsson:2020bou], the operators contributing to neutron-antineutron ($n-\bar n$) oscillation [@Rao:1983sd; @Caswell:1982qs; @Rinaldi:2018osy], and those relevant to rare nucleon decays [@Weinberg:1980bf; @Weldon:1980gi; @Hambye:2017qix]. This work provides the first systematic investigation on the basis of complete and independent dim-9 operators, and would serve as the starting point for further physical analysis.
This paper is organized as follows. In section \[sec2\], we will set up our notations and conventions, and summarize various identities to be used for the reduction of redundant operators. In section \[sec3\], we will establish the basis for dim-9 operators in SMEFT. We will illustrate class by class as shown in table \[tab1\] how to perform the reduction to reach the final basis given in tables \[tab:LV1\]-\[tab:BV3\]. We summarize our main results and mention very briefly possible phenomenology related to dim-9 operators in section \[sec4\]. For operators with flavor symmetries we summarize their flavor relations in appendix \[app:flavorsymmetry\], which have helped us count operators independently of the HS approach and thus confirm our basis.
Preliminaries {#sec2}
=============
We start with some notations and conventions. The SMEFT is an effective field theory above the electroweak scale $\Lambda_{\rm EW}$ but far below some new physics scale $\Lambda_{\rm NP}$. It inherits the SM gauge group $SU(3)_C\otimes SU(2)_L\otimes U(1)_Y$ and field contents: the $n_f(=3)$ generations of left-handed lepton and quark doublet fields $L(1,2,-1/2)$, $Q(3,2,1/6)$ and right-handed up-type quark, down-type quark and charged lepton singlet fields $u(3,1,2/3)$, $d(3,1,-1/3)$, $e(1,1,-1)$, and the Higgs doublet $H(1,2,1/2)$. Its effective Lagrangian contains the SM Lagrangian as the leading terms that is augmented by effective interactions involving operators of higher and higher dimensions. To set up our notations and conventions, we write down the SM Lagrangian: $$\begin{aligned}
\label{sml}
\nonumber
\mathcal{L}_{\rm SM}&=&
-\frac{1}{4}G^A_{\mu\nu}G^{A\mu\nu}-\frac{1}{4}W^I_{\mu\nu}W^{I\mu\nu} -\frac{1}{4}B_{\mu\nu}B^{\mu\nu}
\\
&&+(D_\mu H)^\dagger(D^\mu H)
-\lambda\Big(H^\dagger H-\frac{1}{2}v^2\Big)^2
\nonumber
\\
&&+\sum_{\psi=Q, L, u, d, e}\overline{\psi}i \slashed{D}\psi
-\left[\overline{L}Y_e e H+\overline{Q}Y_u u \tilde{H}+\overline{Q}Y_d d H +\rm{h.c.}\right]\;.\end{aligned}$$ Here the superscripts $A$ and $I$ count the generators of the gauge groups $SU(3)_C$ and $SU(2)_L$ respectively, $Y_u,~Y_d,~Y_e$ are the Yukawa couplings which are complex matrices in the flavor space, and $\tilde H=i\tau_2 H^*$. For $n_f$ generations of fermions, we label the fermion fields by the subscript Latin letters $(p,r,s,t,v,w)$; for instance, $L_p$ is the $p$-th generation left-handed lepton doublet. The covariant derivative is defined by $$\begin{aligned}
D_\mu=\partial_\mu-ig_3 T^AG^A_\mu-ig_2T^IW^I_\mu-ig_1YB_\mu,\end{aligned}$$ where $g_{1,2,3}$ are the gauge couplings, and $Y,~T^I,~T^A$ are the generators appropriate for the fields to be acted on. We use the superscript Latin letters ($i,j,k,l,m,n$) and Greek letters ($\alpha,\beta,\gamma,\rho,\sigma,\tau$) to denote field components in the fundamental representations of $SU(2)_L$ and $SU(3)_C$ respectively. We define the following shortcuts for better presentation of operators: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
W^{\mu\nu}\equiv& W^{I\mu\nu}\tau^I\;,~ &
(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ij}\equiv& \epsilon_{ik}W^{\mu\nu}_{kj}= \epsilon_{ik}(\tau^I)_{kj} W^{I\mu\nu}\;,~
\\
G^{\mu\nu}\equiv& G^{A\mu\nu}\lambda^A\;,~ &
(\epsilon G^{\mu\nu})_{\alpha\beta\gamma}\equiv&\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\tau}
G^{\mu\nu}_{\tau\gamma}
=\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\tau}(\lambda^A)_{\tau \gamma}G^{A\mu\nu}\;,\end{aligned}$$ where $\tau^I$ and $\lambda^A$ are the Pauli and Gell-Mann matrices, respectively. The dual field tensor is defined to be $\tilde X^{\mu\nu}=\epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}X_{\rho\sigma}/2$ with $X=B,~W,~G$.
We will systematically classify and construct all dim-9 operators in the next section. To construct a basis for the operators, we first generate all possible field configurations from the HS [@Henning:2015alf], i.e., all subsets of ingredients (fermion and scalar fields, covariant derivative, and gauge field strength tensors) including the number of each ingredient that together can form a gauge and Lorentz invariant dim-9 operator. Then, for each field configuration we construct explicitly complete and independent operators whose total number is consistent with the HS counting. This counting of operators is further confirmed independently by employing flavor relations described in appendix \[app:flavorsymmetry\]. The construction of operators and removal of all redundant ones is highly nontrivial because with so many ingredients which have rich Lorentz and gauge group properties one could make many apparently different but actually related contractions in Lorentz and gauge group indices. We will utilize all kinematical and algebraic weapons in our arsenal to reach the goal, which include integration by parts relations (IBP), the SM equations of motion (EoM), various Schouten identities (SI) for totally antisymmetric rank-$n$ tensors (with $n=2,3,4$), Dirac gamma matrix identities (GI), generalized Fierz identities (FI), and the Bianchi identity (BI) for gauge fields. In the rest of this section we summarize these relations and identities.
Let us start with Schouten identities which are useful in relating various Lorentz and gauge contractions involving totally antisymmetric constant tensors that would look independent. For the $SU(2)$ group, we have the SIs involving the rank-2 tensor $\epsilon_{ij}$, $$\begin{aligned}
&\delta_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}+\delta_{ik}\epsilon_{lj}+\delta_{il}\epsilon_{jk}=0\;, ~~
&&\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}+\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{lj}+\epsilon_{il}\epsilon_{jk}
=0\;.
\label{SI:r2}\end{aligned}$$ For the $SU(3)$ group, we obtain the following SIs involving the rank-3 tensor $\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\gamma}$, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&\delta_{\alpha\beta}\epsilon_{\rho\sigma\tau}
-\delta_{\alpha\rho}\epsilon_{\sigma\tau\beta}
+\delta_{\alpha\sigma}\epsilon_{\tau\beta\rho}
-\delta_{\alpha\tau}\epsilon_{\beta\rho\sigma}=0\;,
\\
\nonumber
&\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\gamma}\epsilon_{\rho\sigma\tau}
-\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\rho}\epsilon_{\sigma\tau\gamma}
+\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\sigma}\epsilon_{\tau\gamma\rho}
-\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\tau}\epsilon_{\gamma\rho\sigma}=0\;,
\\
&(\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\gamma}\epsilon_{\rho\sigma\tau}
+\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\sigma}\epsilon_{\rho\tau\gamma}
+\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\tau}\epsilon_{\rho\gamma\sigma})
+(\epsilon_{\alpha\sigma\tau}\epsilon_{\rho\beta\gamma}
+\epsilon_{\alpha\tau\gamma}\epsilon_{\rho\beta\sigma}
+\epsilon_{\alpha\gamma\sigma}\epsilon_{\rho\beta\tau})=0\;.
\label{SI:r3}\end{aligned}$$ For the Lorentz group we will need the following SI involving the rank-4 tensor $\epsilon_{\rho\sigma\tau\eta}$, $$\begin{aligned}
g_{\mu\nu}\epsilon_{\rho\sigma\tau\eta}
+g_{\mu\rho}\epsilon_{\sigma\tau\eta\nu}
+g_{\mu\sigma}\epsilon_{\tau\eta\nu\rho}
+g_{\mu\tau}\epsilon_{\eta\nu\rho\sigma}
+g_{\mu\eta}\epsilon_{\nu\rho\sigma\tau}=0\;.
\label{SI:r4}\end{aligned}$$ Besides the above standard SIs, we will also require identities that involve generators in the fundamental representations of $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$: $$\begin{aligned}
&\epsilon_{ik}(\tau^I)_{kj}=\epsilon_{jk}(\tau^I)_{ki}\;,~
&\epsilon_{\alpha\beta\tau}(\lambda^A)_{\tau\gamma}
+\epsilon_{\beta\gamma\tau}(\lambda^A)_{\tau\alpha}
+\epsilon_{\gamma\alpha\tau}(\lambda^A)_{\tau\beta}
=0\;,\end{aligned}$$ which imply that $$\begin{aligned}
&(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ij}=(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ji},
\nonumber
\\
&(\epsilon G^{\mu\nu})_{\alpha\beta\gamma}
+(\epsilon G^{\mu\nu})_{\beta\gamma\alpha}
+(\epsilon G^{\mu\nu})_{\gamma\alpha\beta}=0.\end{aligned}$$
Now we collect some identities for Dirac gamma matrices which will be used to simplify fermion structures: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&\sigma^{\mu\nu}=i\gamma^\mu\gamma^\nu-ig^{\mu\nu}\;,
\nonumber
\\
&\epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}\gamma_\sigma P_\pm
=\pm i(\gamma^\mu\gamma^\rho\gamma^\nu-g^{\mu\rho}\gamma^\nu
-g^{\rho\nu}\gamma^\mu+g^{\mu\nu}\gamma^\rho)P_\pm\;,
\nonumber
\\
&\epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}\sigma_{\rho\sigma}P_\pm
=\mp 2i\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\;,
\nonumber
\\
&\epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\eta}\sigma^\sigma_{~\eta} P_\pm
=\pm i(g^{\nu\sigma}\sigma^{\mu\rho}-g^{\mu\sigma}\sigma^{\nu\rho}
-g^{\rho\sigma}\sigma^{\mu\nu})P_\pm\;,
\label{GI}\end{aligned}$$ with the chiral projectors $P_\pm=(1\pm\gamma_5)/2$. The above are straightforward to derive; see, for instance Ref. [@Liao:2012uj]. These seemingly trivial identities will be applied judiciously together with the Fierz identities that we now describe. The Fierz identities are essentially identities for direct products of Dirac matrices, and become identities for products of fermion bilinears when combined with Dirac spinors. We will sometimes denote $(\overline{\psi_1}\Gamma_1\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3}\Gamma_2\psi_4)$ as $\Gamma_1\otimes\Gamma_2$ and its Fierz transformed partner $(\overline{\psi_1}\Gamma_1\psi_4)(\overline{\psi_3}\Gamma_2\psi_2)$ as $\Gamma_1\odot\Gamma_2$. In applying Fierz identities for operators it is necessary to include a minus sign when interchanging the order of two fermion fields.
Our first set of Fierz identities are the standard completely contracted products of two bilinears: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&( \overline{\psi_{1}} \gamma^\mu P_\pm \psi_{2})( \overline{\psi_{3}} \gamma_\mu P_\mp\psi_{4})=-2(\overline{\psi_{1}}P_\mp \psi_{4})(\overline{\psi_{3}}P_\pm\psi_{2})\;,
\\\nonumber
&( \overline{\psi_{1}} \gamma^\mu P_\pm \psi_{2})( \overline{\psi_{3}} \gamma_\mu P_\pm \psi_{4})=+2(\overline{\psi_{1}}P_\mp \psi^{{\tt C}}_{3})(\overline{\psi^{{\tt C}}_{4}}P_\pm\psi_{2})\;,
\\\nonumber
&( \overline{\psi_{1}} \sigma^{\mu\nu} P_{\pm}\psi_{2})( \overline{\psi_{3}} \sigma_{\mu\nu} P_{\mp}\psi_{4})=0\;,
\\
&( \overline{\psi_1}\sigma_{\mu\nu} P_{\pm}\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3}\sigma^{\mu\nu} P_{\pm}\psi_4)=-4(\overline{\psi_1} P_{\pm}\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3} P_{\pm}\psi_4)-8(\overline{\psi_1} P_{\pm}\psi_4)(\overline{\psi_3} P_{\pm} \psi_2)\;.
\label{FI1}\end{aligned}$$ The point here is that contracted vector and tensor products are expressed exclusively in terms of products of scalar bilinears. For charge conjugation of chiral fields, we denote $\psi^{{\tt C}}_\pm\equiv(\psi_\pm)^{{\tt C}}=C\overline{\psi_\pm}^{\rm T}$, where the charge conjugation matrix $C$ satisfies $C^{\rm T}=C^\dagger=-C$ and $C^2=-1$ so that $\psi_\pm=(\psi^{{\tt C}}_\pm)^{{\tt C}}$. And for brevity we also denote $D_\mu \psi^{{{\tt C}},i\alpha}_p=(D_\mu \psi_p)^{{{\tt C}},i\alpha}$ with the superscript $x$ being the weak isospin index $i$ or color index $\alpha$ and the subscript $p$ the generation index. Our second set of FIs are, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&( \overline{\psi_1} P_\pm \psi_2)( \overline{\psi_3}P_\pm\psi_4)=-( \overline{\psi_1}P_\pm\psi_{3}^{{\tt C}})( \overline{\psi^{{\tt C}}_2}P_\pm\psi_4)-( \overline{\psi_1}P_\pm\psi_4)( \overline{\psi_3}P_\pm \psi_2)\;,
\\
\nonumber
&( \overline{\psi_1}\gamma^\mu P_\pm \psi_2)( \overline{\psi_3}P_\pm\psi_4)=-( \overline{\psi_1}\gamma^\mu P_\pm\psi_{3}^{{\tt C}})( \overline{\psi^{{\tt C}}_2}P_\pm\psi_4)-( \overline{\psi_1}\gamma^\mu P_\pm\psi_4)( \overline{\psi_3}P_\pm \psi_2)\;,
\\
&( \overline{\psi_1}\sigma^{\mu\nu} P_\pm \psi_2)( \overline{\psi_3}P_\pm\psi_4)=-( \overline{\psi_1}\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\psi_{3}^{{\tt C}})( \overline{\psi^{{\tt C}}_2}P_\pm\psi_4)-( \overline{\psi_1}\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\psi_4)( \overline{\psi_3}P_\pm \psi_2)\;.
\label{FI2}\end{aligned}$$ One can see the second and third ones can be obtained from the first by replacing $\overline{\psi_1}$ by $\overline{\psi_1}\gamma^\mu$ and $\overline{\psi_1}\sigma^{\mu\nu}$, respectively. Such a replacement is also valid for any other field in equations and , including the case when $\psi_i$ is a charge conjugated field $\psi^{{\tt C}}$.
Finally, we will need the Bianchi identity for gauge fields. For a field strength tensor $X_{\mu\nu}$, the BI means $$\begin{aligned}
D_\mu X_{\nu\rho}+D_\nu X_{\rho\mu}+D_\rho X_{\mu\nu}=0\;,~~{\rm or}~~
D_\nu \tilde X^{\mu\nu}=0\;.
\label{BI}\end{aligned}$$ This will be useful in reducing operators containing both field strength tensors and covariant derivatives.
Operator reduction and operator basis at dimension nine in the SMEFT {#sec3}
====================================================================
To begin with, we first run the [*Mathematica*]{} code for the HS method [@Henning:2015alf] to obtain the field configurations of dim-9 operators and to count the corresponding total number of independent operators for each field configuration satisfying gauge and Lorentz invariance. Since dim-9 operators necessarily violate baryon or lepton number or both in various ways [@Kobach:2016ami], they are non-Hermitian. These operators thus naturally fall into four sectors according to the baryon and lepton numbers they carry, without counting hermitian conjugates. We will discuss and list one half of them, and the other half is obtained by Hermitian conjugation. The operators can also be classified by their field configurations. We will use a generic fermion field $\psi$, scalar field $\varphi$ and field strength tensor $X$ to denote the SM fermions $\{Q,L,u,d,e\}$ and their conjugates, the Higgs $\{H, H^*\}$ and gauge fields $\{B,W,G\}$, respectively. These sectors and classes are displayed in table \[tab1\], together with a count of independent operators in each sector for three generations of fermions. A check mark following a class indicates that it contains baryon-number-violating operators. Our final basis for dim-9 operators is summarised in tables \[tab:LV1\], \[tab:LV2\], \[tab:LV3\], \[tab:LV4\] and \[tab:LV5\] for the sector $(\Delta B,\Delta L)=(0,2)$, the upper part of table \[tab:BV1\] for the sectors $(\Delta B,\Delta L)=(1,3),~(2,0)$, and the lower part of table \[tab:BV1\], tables \[tab:BV2\] and \[tab:BV3\] for the sector $(\Delta B,\Delta L)=(1,-1)$, respectively. In all tables, we also count the number of independent operators for $n_f$ generations of fermions, which helps to confirm our results against the HS approach. We stress again that the complete basis of dim-9 operators includes the Hermitian conjugates of all listed operators.
Here we make some comments on conventions. (1) Each gauge field strength is associated with its gauge coupling, i.e., $\{g_1 B, g_2 W, g_3G\}$. (2) An imaginary unit $i$ is attached to gauge covariant derivative $D$, field strength tensor $X$, and Dirac tensor $\sigma_{\mu\nu}$, in order to avoid some superficial $i$ factors in the calculation of renormalization group effects and $S$-matrix elements. (3) Some obvious contractions of $SU(2)_L$ and $SU(3)_C$ indices by the Kronecker deltas $\delta_{ij}$ and $\delta_{\alpha\beta}$ are suppressed for brevity. In the following subsections we will illustrate our construction steps and techniques of the operator basis class by class. Our main strategy is that for field configurations involving four or six fermions we first employ FIs to fix the fermion structures, then finish $SU(2)_L$ and $SU(3)_C$ contractions, and finally exhaust insertions of covariant derivatives.
Classes $\psi^2\varphi^6$, $\psi^2\varphi^4X$, and $\psi^2\varphi^2X^2$
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The class $\psi^2\varphi^6$ has a single field configuration $L^2H^4H^{*2}$ which leads to the unique dim-9 neutrino mass operator shown in table \[tab:LV1\]. Such Majorana neutrino mass operators have been systematically classified at any dimension in [@Liao:2010ku; @Liao:2017amb]. The class $\psi^2\varphi^4X$ also has a single field configuration $L^2H^3H^*X$ with field strength $X=B,~W$. The operators are straightforward generalizations of similar dim-7 operators in the class $\psi^2\varphi^2X$ by a Higgs pair $H^\dagger H$ [@Lehman:2014jma; @Liao:2016hru]. They are also shown in table \[tab:LV1\].
The SM gauge symmetry restricts the field configuration in the class $\psi^2\varphi^2X^2$ to be $L^2H^2X^2$ with $X=B,~W,~G$. The operators follow three types of Lorentz contractions: $$\begin{aligned}
&(LL)HHX_1^{\mu\nu}X_{2\mu\nu}\;,
&&(LL)HHX_1^{\mu\nu}\tilde X_{2\mu\nu}\;,
&&(L\sigma_{\mu\nu}L)HHX_1^{\mu\rho}X^{\nu}_{2~\rho}\;.\end{aligned}$$ Note that the tensor type with a dual field strength tensor is not independent by the last GI in equation . In addition, the tensor operator vanishes for $X_1=X_2$ by symmetry arguments, but can survive with $(X_1,X_2)=(B,W)$. The final results are shown in table \[tab:LV1\]. For the case with $X_1=X_2=W$, the following identities are used to reduce redundant operators due to different $SU(2)_L$ contractions, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ij}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{kl}=(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ik}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{jl}
-\epsilon_{il}\epsilon_{jk}W^I_{\mu\nu} W^{I,\mu\nu}\;,
\\
&(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ij}(\epsilon \tilde W^{\mu\nu})_{kl}=(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ik}(\epsilon \tilde W^{\mu\nu})_{jl}
-\epsilon_{il}\epsilon_{jk}W^I_{\mu\nu}\tilde W^{I,\mu\nu}\;. \end{aligned}$$ Their proofs are straightforward using the second SI in equation . The operators in the class $\psi^2\varphi^2X^2$ can contribute directly to the Majorana neutrino-photon scattering which has been studied in Ref. [@Liao:2020zyx].
Classes $\psi^4\varphi X$ and $\psi^4\varphi^3$
-----------------------------------------------
The operators in the class $\psi^4\varphi X$ are first classified according to their fermion structures which are a product of two bilinears. Since the field strength tensor has two Lorentz indices, we have three possible structures: the scalar-tensor ($ST$), vector-vector ($VV$), and tensor-tensor ($TT$) ones, which can be generically parameterized as follows: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{ST}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3}\sigma_{\mu\nu}\psi_4)X^{\mu\nu}\varphi\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{VV}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3}\gamma_\nu\psi_4)X^{\mu\nu}\varphi\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{TT}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\sigma_{\mu\rho} \psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3}\sigma^{\rho}_{~\nu}\psi_4)X^{\mu\nu}\varphi\;.\end{aligned}$$ However, we find the last two can be transformed into the first one by the FIs: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&(2\gamma_\mu P_\pm \otimes \gamma_\nu P_\mp)X^{\mu\nu}
=i\left(\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\mp\odot P_\pm-P_\mp\odot \sigma^{\mu\nu} P_\pm \right)X^{\mu\nu}\;,
\\
&(\sigma_{\mu\rho}P_\pm \otimes \sigma^{~\rho}_{\nu}P_\mp)X^{\mu\nu}=0\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&(\sigma_{\mu\rho}P_\pm \otimes \sigma^{~\rho}_{\nu}P_\pm)X^{\mu\nu}
=i\left(\sigma_{\mu\nu}P_\pm \odot P_\pm-P_\pm \odot \sigma_{\mu\nu} P_\pm \right)X^{\mu\nu}\;.
\label{FI3}\end{aligned}$$ Therefore, we only need to consider ${\cal O}_{ST}$. Note in addition that ${\cal O}_{ST}$ with a dual tensor $\tilde X$ in place is equivalent to ${\cal O}_{ST}$ due to the third GI in equation . Taking the SM field contents into consideration and from the HS output we can write down independent operators in each field configuration that are allowed by the SM gauge symmetry. For some field configurations with multiple $SU(2)_L$ doublets there are many apparently independent ways to perform $SU(2)_L$ contractions which would yield redundant operators. Those redundant operators can be reduced by the SIs in equation and the following derived identities involving the $SU(2)_L$ field strength tensor $W$, $$\begin{aligned}
&\epsilon_{ij}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{kl}=\epsilon_{il}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{jk}-\epsilon_{jl}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{ik}\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&\delta_{ij}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{kl}=\delta_{ik}(\epsilon W^{\mu\nu})_{jl}-(W^{\mu\nu})_{il}\epsilon_{jk}\;.
\label{SIW}\end{aligned}$$ In addition, FIs in equation and its generalizations (e.g., by replacing $\psi_2$ by $\sigma_{\mu\nu}\psi_2$ in the first identity in equation ) are also required to reduce redundant operators when identical fermions are present. The final results are listed in table \[tab:LV1\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector and table \[tab:BV1\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector. As an example of the above manipulations, we consider the following operator from the field configuration $Qd^*L^2HB$: $$\begin{aligned}
&~~~~~~\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(\overline{d_p}\sigma_{\mu\nu} L^i_r)
(\overline{Q^{{{\tt C}},j}_s}L^k_t)H^lB^{\mu\nu}
\nonumber
\\
&\overset{\rm SI}{=}
+\epsilon_{il}\epsilon_{jk}(\overline{d_p}\sigma_{\mu\nu} L^i_r)
(\overline{Q^{{{\tt C}},j}_s}L^k_t)H^lB^{\mu\nu}+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{prst}
\nonumber
\\
&\overset{\rm FI}{=}-\epsilon_{il}\epsilon_{jk}
(\overline{d_p}\sigma_{\mu\nu} Q^j_s)(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}_r}L^k_t)H^lB^{\mu\nu}
+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{prst}+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{ptsr}
\nonumber
\\
&\overset{\rm FI}{=}
-\epsilon_{il}\epsilon_{jk}
(\overline{d_p}L^i_r)(\overline{Q^{{{\tt C}},j}_s}\sigma_{\mu\nu}L^k_t)H^lB^{\mu\nu}
+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{prst}+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{ptsr}+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB1}^{prst}
\nonumber
\\
&\overset{\rm SI}{=}
+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{prst}+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB3}^{ptsr}+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB1}^{prst}
+{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB1}^{ptsr}-{{\cal O}}_{dLQLHB2}^{prst}\;,\end{aligned}$$ where the first FI refers to the third FI in equation and the second FI is obtained by treating $\sigma_{\mu\nu}Q^j_s$ as $\psi_2$ in the first FI in equation .
The four-fermion part in the class $\psi^4\varphi^3$ can always be written as a product of two scalar bilinears by FIs summarised in equation . Taking the SM field contents into consideration and from the HS output, we can readily write down the operators for each allowed field configuration. The final results are shown in table \[tab:LV2\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector and table \[tab:BV1\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector, respectively. In obtaining the basis, SIs in equation should be repeatedly implemented to reduce redundant operators arising from various $SU(2)_L$ contractions among multiple $SU(2)_L$ doublets. One can show that any other operators in this class can be expressed as linear combinations of the listed operators with the aid of FIs in equations - and SIs in equation .
Class $\psi^6$
--------------
We first show that all operators in this class can be written as a product of three scalar fermion bilinears ($SSS$). This is realized by the following FIs applied to three bilinears: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
(\sigma^{\mu\rho} P_{\pm}\otimes\sigma^{~~\nu}_{\rho}P_{\mp})
\otimes \sigma_{\mu\nu}P_{\pm} =&0,
\\
\nonumber
(\sigma^{\mu\rho} P_{\pm}\otimes\sigma^{~~\nu}_{\rho}P_{\pm})
\otimes \sigma_{\mu\nu}P_{\pm} =&
i\left(\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\odot P_\pm-P_\pm\odot \sigma^{\mu\nu} P_\pm \right)\otimes \sigma_{\mu\nu}P_{\pm},
\\
\nonumber
2(\gamma^\mu P_{\pm}\otimes\gamma^\nu P_{\mp})
\otimes \sigma_{\mu\nu}P_{\pm}=&
i\left(\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\mp\odot P_\pm-P_\mp\odot \sigma^{\mu\nu} P_\pm \right)\otimes \sigma_{\mu\nu}P_{\pm},
\\
\nonumber
\gamma_\mu P_{\pm}\otimes(\gamma_\nu P_{\pm}\otimes \sigma^{\mu\nu}P_{\pm})
=&i\gamma_\mu P_{\pm}\otimes
\left(\gamma^\mu P_\pm \otimes P_\pm +2\gamma^\mu P_\pm \odot P_\pm \right)\;,
\\
\gamma_\mu P_{\pm}\otimes(\gamma_\nu P_{\pm}\otimes \sigma^{\mu\nu}P_{\mp})
=&-i \gamma_\mu P_{\pm}\otimes\left(\gamma^\mu P_\pm \otimes P_\mp +2 P_\mp \odot \gamma^\mu P_\pm \right)\;.
\label{FI4}\end{aligned}$$ The terms on the right-hand side only involve $VVS$ or $TTS$ bilinears which can be further transformed into $SSS$ structures by FIs in equation . We therefore conclude that all possible dim-9 six-fermion operators can be written as a pure $SSS$ bilinear form. Nevertheless, in the sector $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ for operators involving four quarks and two leptons, we do not fully follow this convention, but prefer to parameterize operators as a quark-lepton separated form in order to compare easily with the results in the literature (see table \[tab:LV3\]). For other sectors with baryon number violation we parameterize operators in the pure scalar form as shown in table \[tab:BV1\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(2,0)$ and $(1,3)$ sectors and table \[tab:BV2\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector (except for the two operators ${\cal O}_{LLeudd}$ and ${\cal O}_{LQdddu}$ which have an $STT$ structure). Due to the complexity of operators in the $\psi^6$ class, we analyze each sector separately to confirm our results.
[$\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector]{} From the HS output the field configurations in this sector can be further divided into three cases: operators with six leptons, operators with two quarks and four leptons, and operators with four quarks and two leptons, which are separated by thick lines in table \[tab:LV2\]. For operators with six leptons the only field configuration is $L^4ee^*$ which leads to the unique scalar-type operator shown in table \[tab:LV2\]. For operators with two quarks and four leptons, there are four field configurations all of which are written as a scalar. Finally, for operators with four quarks and two leptons, we parameterize them as a quark-lepton separated form except for the configuration $u^2d^{*2}e^2$. The completeness and independence of the operators for each allowed field configuration is guaranteed by FIs in equations , , , and SIs in equation . In Ref. [@Babu:2001ex], Babu and Leung listed 12 six-fermion field configurations that violate lepton number by two units but missed $u^2d^{*2}e^2$. For the field configuration $Qd^*L^3e^*$, we find two independent operators instead of one as given in that reference. For the configuration $Q^{*2}u^2L^2$, Ref. [@Babu:2001ex] claims 4 operators after considering two different color contractions in the four-quark part, but we only obtain 2 independent operators. In addition, Refs. [@Graesser:2016bpz; @He:2020jly] list part of operators contributing to the nuclear and kaon neutrinoless double beta decays, respectively.
[$\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(2,0)$ sector]{} The SM gauge symmetry restricts the field configurations in this sector to be $d^2Q^4$, $d^3Q^2u$, and $d^6u^2$. One first uses FIs to fix the scalar structures, and then performs the $SU(2)_L$ contractions. Finally, the color contractions have to be considered carefully due to SIs involving two totally antisymmetric tensors in equation . We find there are 5 operators after considering all algebraic identities which are given at the top of table \[tab:BV1\]. In appendix \[app:flavorsymmetry\], we derive flavor relations for each operator to confirm our counting of operators for the $n_f$-generation case. Restricting ourselves to the first generation of fermions, there are 4 operators which contribute potentially to the neutron-antineutron oscillation as considered previously in [@Rao:1983sd; @Caswell:1982qs].
[$\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,3)$ sector]{} There are only two field configurations $L^3Qu^2$ and $L^2eu^3$ by the SM gauge symmetry, and each of them fits into one scalar structure shown in table \[tab:BV1\]. One can see these operators vanish for one generation of fermions, as had been remarked by Weinberg in Ref. [@Weinberg:1980bf].
[$\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector]{} The field configurations in this sector are divided into two cases with either three quarks plus three leptons or five quarks plus one lepton as separated by a thick line in table \[tab:BV2\]. For the former case, there are six field configurations which are completely covered by seven generic operators. In Ref. [@Hambye:2017qix] however, the authors listed sixteen operators, many of which we find to be redundant by the use of the first FI in equation . For the latter case, we have to consider the first SI in equation to exclude redundant operators due to various color contractions. With the compact operator basis given in table \[tab:BV2\], any other operators formed for each field configuration can be transformed into the list by FIs and SIs.
Classes $\psi^2\varphi^5D$ and $\psi^2\varphi^3XD$
--------------------------------------------------
The SM gauge symmetry only allows the field configuration $LeH^4H^*D$ in the class $\psi^2\varphi^5D$ which yields a unique operator, while it singles out the field configuration $eLH^3XD$ in the class $\psi^2\varphi^3XD$ with $X$ being either $B$ or $W$. These operators are shown in table \[tab:LV2\]. Caution must be practised when constructing operators with $X=W$ as it is necessary to remove redundancy by the identity in equation .
Class $\psi^4\varphi^2D$
------------------------
Lorentz invariance apparently requires the four-fermion part to be either a scalar-vector or a tensor-vector combination: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{SV}:~
(\overline{\psi_1}\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3}\gamma_\mu \psi_4)\varphi^2 D^\mu\;,~
&& {\cal O}_{TV}:~
(\overline{\psi_1}\sigma_{\mu\nu}\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3}\gamma^\mu \psi_4)\varphi^2 D^\nu\;.\end{aligned}$$ However, the structure ${\cal O}_{TV}$ can be transformed into ${\cal O}_{SV}$ by the following FIs, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
i\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\mp \otimes \gamma_\nu P_\pm =P_\mp \otimes \gamma^\mu P_\pm +2 \gamma^\mu P_\pm \odot P_\mp,
\\
i\sigma^{\nu\mu}P_\pm \otimes \gamma_\nu P_\pm =P_\pm \otimes \gamma^\mu P_\pm +2 P_\pm\odot \gamma^\mu P_\pm.
\label{FI5}\end{aligned}$$ It is thus sufficient to focus on the structure ${\cal O}_{SV}$. Now we attach the covariant derivative $D^\mu$ to an appropriate field. With IBP we choose $\psi_1$ to be derivative free, and with EoM we avoid associating $D^\mu$ with the vector current, so that it acts on either $\psi_2$ or the scalar field. The final operators in this class are listed in table \[tab:LV3\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector and table \[tab:BV2\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector. In reaching the listed operators for each field configuration, we have employed FIs in equation and their variants to remove redundant operators arising from the exchange of fermions in the two bilinears. In addition, the SI for the rank-2 totally antisymmetric tensor in equation is also useful to reduce operators due to apparently different $SU(2)_L$ contractions.
We take the field configuration $L^2ee^*H^2D$ in the $(\Delta B,\Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector to illustrate our main points outlined above. Before attaching $D^\mu$ to a specific field, the structure ${\cal O}_{SV}$ appears as, $$\begin{aligned}
\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(\overline{e}L^i)(\overline{e^{{{\tt C}}}}\gamma_\mu L^j) H^kH^l D^\mu.\end{aligned}$$ In this example the $SU(2)_L$ contraction is unique, and the other operator with two $L$s in the same bilinear can be transformed into the above one by the FIs shown in equation and equation . Now we attach $D^\mu$ to a field. By excluding EoM terms and considering IBP relations, we can act $D^\mu$ on $H^k$, $H^l$ or $L^i$. The former two cases lead directly to the two operators shown in table \[tab:LV3\]. The latter case can be recast by the second FI in equation into a symmetric form with the two $L$s in the same bilinear. We thus obtain three operators for this field configuration in the general flavor case. In a similar fashion we can work out all other field configurations.
Class $\psi^4XD$
----------------
By Lorentz invariance the four-fermion part can be a vector-scalar or vector-tensor combination, so that we have the following four possible structures: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{VS}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4) X^{\mu\nu}D_\nu\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{VTa}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)X^{\nu\rho}D^\mu\;,
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{VTb}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)X^{\mu\rho}D^\nu\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{VTc}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma^{\mu\rho}\psi_4)X_{\nu\rho}D^\nu\;.\end{aligned}$$ The field strength tensor $X$ can also be its dual $\tilde X$ for ${\cal O}_{VS}$, while for ${\cal O}_{VTa,b,c}$ the dual case is reducible to the above four structures by GIs in equation . As a matter of fact, we will show below that all structures ${\cal O}_{VTa,b,c}$ can be reduced to the structure ${\cal O}_{VS}$.
We start with ${\cal O}_{VTc}$, which is easily reduced to the $VS$ structure by FI in equation . For ${\cal O}_{VTa,b}$, we assume that $\psi_{2,3,4}$ have the same chirality; if this is not the case, we rewrite $(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)=-(\overline{\psi_2^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu \psi_1^{{\tt C}})$ so that $\psi_1^{{\tt C}}$ has the same chirality as $\psi_{3,4}$. It is easy to see that there are two operators for ${\cal O}_{VTa}$ that are free of EoM and IBP relations, $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{VTa1}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{D^\mu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)X^{\nu\rho}\;,~
{\cal O}_{VTa2}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}D^\mu\psi_4)X^{\nu\rho}\;.\end{aligned}$$ By a generalized FI as in equation , ${\cal O}_{VTa1}$ can be recast as $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{VTa1}=-(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu D^\mu\psi_3)(\overline{\psi_2^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)X^{\nu\rho}
-(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4 )(\overline{\psi_2^{{\tt C}}}D^\mu\psi_3)X^{\nu\rho}\;,\end{aligned}$$ where the first term reduces to EoM operators and the second to $VS$ operators by the GI involving three gamma matrices in equation . A similar manipulation applies to ${\cal O}_{VTa2}$. For ${\cal O}_{VTb}$, when $D^\nu$ acts on $\psi_{3,4}$ it reduces to scalar structures and EoM operators by the GIs in equation . Therefore, with IBP relations, there are also two possible operators, $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{VTb1}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu D^\nu\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)X^{\mu\rho}\;,
&&{\cal O}_{VTb2}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)D^\nu X^{\mu\rho}\;.\end{aligned}$$ However, after the use of BI in equation that is followed by the IBP and EoM procedure, ${\cal O}_{VTb2}$ actually reduces to ${\cal O}_{VTa1,a2}$ which are themselves reducible. For ${\cal O}_{VTb1}$, the reduction to the $VS$ structure is similar to ${\cal O}_{VTa1,a2}$. This establishes our claim that all operators in this class are covered by the $VS$ structure ${\cal O}_{VS}$.
We now consider the insertion of a covariant derivative in ${\cal O}_{VS}$. Upon excluding EoM operators and making $\psi_4$ derivative free by IBP, we obtain six possible operators, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{VS1}=(\overline{D_\nu \psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4) X^{\mu\nu}\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{VS2}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu D_\nu\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)X^{\mu\nu}\;,~
\\
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{VS3}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{D_\nu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4) X^{\mu\nu}\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{VS4}=(\overline{D_\nu\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4) \tilde X^{\mu\nu}\;,~
\\
&{\cal O}_{VS5}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu D_\nu\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4) \tilde X^{\mu\nu}\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{VS6}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{D_\nu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4) \tilde X^{\mu\nu}\;.\end{aligned}$$ The operators ${\cal O}_{VS4,5}$ are reducible due to the second GI in equation and by the use of the EoMs of $\psi_{1,2}$. This leaves us with the operators ${\cal O}_{VS1,2,3,6}$ which may have the field configurations $ud^*L^2XD$, $d^3e^*XD$, and $Qd^2L^*XD$. To obtain the minimal set of independent operators, it is necessary to employ the FI in equation and the SI in equation . Our final results are shown in table \[tab:LV4\] for $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ and table \[tab:BV3\] for $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sectors respectively.
Class $\psi^2\varphi^4D^2$
--------------------------
Gauge invariance requires the field configurations in this class to be either $e^2H^4D^2$ or $L^2H^* H^3D^2$. For $e^2H^4D^2$, one readily gets a unique operator as shown in table \[tab:LV4\]. For $L^2H^* H^3D^2$, we first consider $SU(2)_L$ contractions which take the unique form $\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(H^\dagger H)L^i L^jH^k H^l D^2$ before inserting covariant derivatives into proper positions. Next, we consider the fermion bilinear which can take either a scalar or a tensor type: $$\begin{aligned}
\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(H^\dagger H) (\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}} L^j)H^k H^l D^\mu D_\mu \;, ~
\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(H^\dagger H) (\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\mu\nu} L^j)H^k H^l D^\mu D^\nu \;.\end{aligned}$$ Now we attach covariant derivatives to fields to form specific operators. For the tensor type, the operators with a derivative acting on the lepton field $L$ can be reduced to the scalar ones or EoM operators by the first GI in equation which gives the relation $i\sigma_{\mu\nu}D^\mu L=(D_\nu-\gamma_\nu\slashed{D})L$, and can therefore be discarded. By IBP we can arrange $H^*$ to be derivative free, so that we have two possible non-trivial tensor-type operators, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{T1}=\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(H^\dagger D_\mu H) (\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\mu\nu} L^j)D^\nu H^k H^l \;,~
\\
&{\cal O}_{T2}=\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}(H^\dagger H) (\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\mu\nu} L^j)D_\mu H^kD_\nu H^l \;.\end{aligned}$$ However, by successive application of SIs in equation one finds ${\cal O}_{T2}^{pr}=-({\cal O}_{T1}^{pr}+p\leftrightarrow r)$ so that only ${\cal O}_{T1}$ remains as a tensor operator. For the scalar-type operators, after consideration of IBP (again with $H^*$ to be derivative free), EoM and identical fields, we find five independent operators. All of these six operators for this field configuration are also given in table \[tab:LV4\].
Class $\psi^2\varphi^2XD^2$
---------------------------
Gauge invariance requires the field configuration to be $L^2H^2XD^2$ with the field strength tensor $X=B,~W$. Before attaching covariant derivatives to specific fields, we have the following three types of possibly independent structures in terms of fermion bilinears and Lorentz contractions: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{S}:~\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}L^j)H^k H^lD^\mu D^\nu\;,
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{Ta}:~\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}L^j)H^k H^lD_\alpha D^\alpha\;,
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{Tb}:~\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\rho})_{jl}(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\nu}^{~\rho}L^j)H^k H^l D^\mu D^\nu\;,\end{aligned}$$ with $(\epsilon B_{\mu\rho})_{jl}=B_{\mu\rho}\epsilon_{jl}$. All other $SU(2)_L$ contractions can be transformed into the above ones by SIs in equation . For the scalar structure ${\cal O}_{S}$, the field strength tensor can also be its dual $\tilde X^{\mu\nu}$, while for the tensor structures ${\cal O}_{Ta,b}$ the cases with a dual field strength tensor can be transformed into ${\cal O}_{Ta,b}$ by GIs involving $\epsilon_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}$ in equation . In the following we try to keep operators in the scalar structure as many as possible by reducing operators in tensor structures.
We start with ${\cal O}_{Tb}$. With either $D^\mu$ or $D^\nu$ acting on a lepton field it can be reduced into ${\cal O}_{S}$ and/or ${\cal O}_{Ta1}$. This is obvious for $D^\nu$ via the first GI in equation and the EoM for the lepton field. For $D^\mu$ acting on a lepton field, we rewrite $X_{\mu\rho}=-\epsilon_{\mu\rho\alpha\beta}\tilde X^{\alpha\beta}/2$ and then apply the last and first GIs in equation and the EoM for the lepton field. Furthermore, when either $D^\mu$ or $D^\nu$ acts on $X_{\mu\rho}$ it can be shifted away by the EoM or the BI in equation followed by IBP to reduce to the structure ${\cal O}_{Ta}$. In this way, after IBP and EoM we obtain one operator in ${\cal O}_{Tb}$ with each Higgs field being acted upon by one covariant derivative, $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{Tb1}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\rho})_{jl}(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\nu}^{~\rho}L^j)
D^\mu H^k D^\nu H^l\;.\end{aligned}$$ Note that when $X_{\mu\rho}=B_{\mu\rho}$, ${\cal O}_{Tb1}$ is antisymmetric under the exchange of the two leptons up to EoM operators and operators covered in ${\cal O}_{S}$ and ${\cal O}_{Ta}$. Next we consider ${\cal O}_{Ta}$. Modulo IBP (with $X_{\mu\nu}$ to be derivative free) and EoM, we have the following six operators in ${\cal O}_{Ta}$: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{Ta1}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}
(\overline{D_\alpha L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\mu\nu} L^j)D^\alpha H^k H^l\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{Ta2}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}
(\overline{D_\alpha L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma^{\mu\nu} L^j) H^k D^\alpha H^l\;,
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{Ta3}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}D_\alpha L^j)D^\alpha H^k H^l\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{Ta4}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu} )_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}D_\alpha L^j) H^kD^\alpha H^l\;,
\nonumber
\\
&
{\cal O}_{Ta5}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu}) _{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma^{\mu\nu} L^j)D_\alpha H^kD^\alpha H^l\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{Ta6}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}(\overline{D_\alpha L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}D^\alpha L^j) H^k H^l\;.\end{aligned}$$ Since $\sum_{i}{\cal O}_{Tai}$ contains only EoM terms, ${\cal O}_{Ta5}$ can be excluded. Furthermore, by rewriting $X_{\mu\nu}=\epsilon_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}\tilde X^{\rho\sigma}/4$, ${\cal O}_{Ta6}$ can be transformed into ${\cal O}_{S}$ plus EoM operators by the SI in equation and the first GI in equation . For the remaining four operators, one can easily figure out that only ${\cal O}_{Ta1,2}$ are independent for $X_{\mu\nu}=B_{\mu\nu}$, while there are three independent operators for $X_{\mu\nu}=W_{\mu\nu}$ that may be chosen as ${\cal O}_{Ta1,2,3}$ with ${\cal O}_{Ta4}$ being related to ${\cal O}_{Ta1,2,3}$ by the SI identity $\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon W_{\mu\nu})_{jl}+\epsilon_{jl}(\epsilon W_{\mu\nu})_{ik}=\epsilon_{il}(\epsilon W_{\mu\nu})_{jk}+\epsilon_{jk}(\epsilon W_{\mu\nu})_{il}$ derived from equation .
At last we consider the scalar structure ${\cal O}_{S}$. Upon applying IBP (with $L^i$ being derivative free) and EoM, one obtains three operators, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{S1}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}D^\mu L^j)D^\nu H^k H^l\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{S2}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}D^\mu L^j) H^kD^\nu H^l\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{S3}=\epsilon_{ik}(\epsilon X_{\mu\nu})_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}} L^j)D^\mu H^k D^\nu H^l\;,\end{aligned}$$ plus three more with $X_{\mu\nu}$ being replaced by its dual. For $X_{\mu\nu}=B_{\mu\nu}$, ${\cal O}_{S1}$ can be expressed as a sum of ${\cal O}_{S2,3}$ up to EoM operators by IBP manipulation, while for $X_{\mu\nu}=W_{\mu\nu}$ the operator ${\cal O}_{S3}$ can be expressed as a sum of ${\cal O}_{S1,2}$ up to EoM operators by IBP and the above SI manipulation. In summary, we have the independent operators ${\cal O}_{S2,3}$ plus their dual cases, ${\cal O}_{Ta1,2}$, and ${\cal O}_{Tb1}$ for the field configuration $L^2H^2BD^2$, and ${\cal O}_{S1,2}$ plus their dual cases, ${\cal O}_{Ta1,2,3}$, and ${\cal O}_{Tb1}$ for $L^2H^2WD^2$. All of these operators are listed in table \[tab:LV4\] with fermion flavors counted.
Class $\psi^4\varphi D^2$
-------------------------
For operators in this class one first exploits the Fierz identities to arrange the two fermion bilinears to be in the scalar or tensor form, so that there are four structures to begin with, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{SS}:~(\overline{\psi_1} \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)\varphi D^\mu D_\mu\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{TS}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\sigma_{\mu\nu} \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)\varphi D^\mu D^\nu\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{ST}:~(\overline{\psi_1} \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\mu\nu}\psi_4)\varphi D^\mu D^\nu\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{TT}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\sigma_{\mu\rho} \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu}^{~\rho}\psi_4)\varphi D^\mu D^\nu\;,~\end{aligned}$$ where we use $\psi_3^{{\tt C}}$ instead of $\psi_3$ because all operators violate lepton or baryon number or both. Next we attach derivatives to fields to form possible operators. To do that, we note that the tensor-tensor structure can be reduced into others and EoM operators by the following identities $$\begin{aligned}
&\sigma_{\mu\rho}P_\pm\otimes \sigma_{\nu}^{~\rho}P_\mp -\mu\leftrightarrow \nu=0,
\nonumber
\\
&\sigma_{\mu\rho}P_\pm\otimes \sigma_{\nu}^{~\rho}P_\pm +\mu\leftrightarrow \nu=-2g_{\mu\nu}\sigma_{\rho\sigma}P_\pm \otimes \sigma^{\rho\sigma}P_\pm =8g_{\mu\nu}(P_\pm \otimes P_\pm +2P_\pm\odot P_\pm), \end{aligned}$$ together with IBP (with $\varphi$ to be derivative free), EoMs (for instance, $\overline{\psi_1}i\sigma_{\mu\rho}D^\rho \psi_2=\overline{\psi_1}D_\mu\psi_2-\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu\slashed{D}\psi_2$). Therefore, we only need to consider ${\cal O}_{SS},{\cal O}_{TS},{\cal O}_{ST}$ in the following.
For the scalar-tensor structures ${\cal O}_{TS}$ and ${\cal O}_{ST}$, taking into account IBP (again with $\varphi$ being derivative free) and EoM, we arrive at the following unique forms $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{TS}^{XY}=(\overline{\psi_1}\sigma_{\mu\nu}P_X \psi_2)
(\overline{D^\mu \psi_3^{{\tt C}}}D^\nu P_Y\psi_4)\varphi \;,
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{ST}^{XY}=(\overline{D_\mu \psi_1}D_\nu P_X \psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_Y\psi_4)\varphi \;,~\end{aligned}$$ where we make chiral projectors $P_X$ with $X=\pm$ manifest for convenience. If $\psi_{2,3,4}$ have the same chirality, the operators ${\cal O}_{TS}^{XX},~{\cal O}_{ST}^{XX}$ can be reduced into the scalar-scalar operators ${\cal O}_{SS}$ and EoM operators by the FIs in equation ; for example, for ${\cal O}_{ST}^{\pm\pm}$, we have $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&\quad (\overline{D_\mu \psi_1}D_\nu P_\pm\psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\psi_4)\varphi
\\
&=-(\overline{D_\mu \psi_1}\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\psi_4)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}D_\nu P_\pm\psi_2 )\varphi
-(\overline{D_\mu \psi_1}P_\pm \psi_3)(\overline{D_\nu \psi_2^{{\tt C}}}\sigma^{\mu\nu}P_\pm\psi_4)\varphi\;,\end{aligned}$$ where the tensor currents can be reduced into scalar and EoM terms as we illustrated above. The similar manipulation also applies to ${\cal O}_{TS}^{\pm\pm}$ with $\psi_{2,3,4}$ having the same chirality. Thus for the scalar-tensor structures only ${\cal O}_{TS}^{\pm\mp}$ and ${\cal O}_{TS}^{\pm\mp}$ survive.
Now we come to the scalar-scalar structure ${\cal O}_{SS}$. In this case we can choose to make $\psi_1$ free of derivatives by IBP, then there are generally six ways to distribute two derivatives among the four fields ($\psi_{2,3,4}$ and $\varphi$). But one of the six is still redundant by IBP and EoM. (In the on-shell language this redundancy comes from the momentum relation $(p_2+p_3+p_4+p_\varphi)^2=p_1^2=m_1^2$.) Therefore, we obtain five possible independent forms which can be chosen to be $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{SS1}=(\overline{\psi_1}D_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{D^\mu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)\varphi\;,
&&
\\
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{SS2}=(\overline{\psi_1}D_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}D^\mu \psi_4)\varphi\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{SS3}=(\overline{\psi_1}D_\mu \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)D^\mu\varphi\;,~
\\
&{\cal O}_{SS4}=(\overline{\psi_1} \psi_2)(\overline{D_\mu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)D^\mu\varphi\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{SS5}=(\overline{\psi_1} \psi_2)(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}} D_\mu\psi_4)D^\mu\varphi\;.\end{aligned}$$ If there are identical fields among $\psi_{2,3,4}$, the above five forms could be not completely independent and the redundant ones can be easily identified at this stage. At last by combining the field configurations in this class from the HS output with the above analysis of structures, we obtain the final operator basis as shown in table \[tab:LV5\] for the $(\Delta B,\Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector and in table \[tab:BV3\] for the $(\Delta B,\Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector. One should be careful with the operators with multiple $SU(2)_L$ fields in table \[tab:LV5\], since the SIs in equation have to be used to reduce any redundant operators coming from apparently different $SU(2)_L$ contractions.
Class $\psi^2\varphi^3D^3$
--------------------------
The only possible field configuration is $eLH^3D^3$ with a vector fermion bilinear by Lorentz invariance. With four Lorentz vector indices at hand, they either contract with the tensor $\epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}$ or self-contract in pair. The former yields the unique term $\epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu L^i)D_\nu H^j D_\rho H^k D_\sigma H^l$ which vanishes by SI. In the latter case, all possible operators are constructed by attaching a pair of contracted derivatives to Lorentz scalar operators formed by $eLH^3D$. The latter has the unique form, $\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu L^i)H^j D^\mu H^k H^l$. Modulo the IBP (with the $e$ chosen to be derivative free) and EoM terms, we have the following six possible operators, $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_1=\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu D_\nu L^i)D^\nu H^j D^\mu H^k H^l\;,~
{\cal O}_2=\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu D_\nu L^i) H^j D^\nu D^\mu H^k H^l\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_3=\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu D_\nu L^i) H^j D^\mu H^kD^\nu H^l\;,~
{\cal O}_4=\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu L^i)D_\nu H^jD^\nu D^\mu H^k H^l\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_5=\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu L^i)D_\nu H^j D^\mu H^kD^\nu H^l\;,~
{\cal O}_6=\epsilon_{ij}\epsilon_{kl}(\overline{e^{{\tt C}}}\gamma_\mu L^i) H^j D_\nu D^\mu H^kD^\nu H^l\;.\end{aligned}$$ Since they sum to EoM terms, we choose to discard ${\cal O}_6$ as redundant. Furthermore, ${\cal O}_{2,4}$ can be reduced as linear combinations of ${\cal O}_{1,3,5}$ by IBP of $D^\mu$ and SIs in equation . Therefore we only have three independent operators in this class which are listed in table \[tab:LV5\].
Class $\psi^4D^3$
-----------------
The two fermion bilinears in this class can be a vector-scalar or vector-tensor type: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{VS}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu\psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\psi_4)D^\mu D^2\;,~
\\
&{\cal O}_{VT1}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma^\mu\psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\mu\nu}\psi_4)D^\nu D^2\;,~
\nonumber
\\
&{\cal O}_{VT2}:~(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu\psi_2)
(\overline{\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}\sigma_{\nu\rho}\psi_4)D^\mu D^\nu D^\rho\;.\end{aligned}$$ One can show that the vector-tensor types may be transformed into the vector-scalar type and EoM operators with the aid of FIs in equation , GIs in equation , IBP, and EoMs. Modulo IBP (with $\psi_1$ being derivative free) and EoM terms, we have the following possible independent operators of the vector-scalar type, $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{VS1}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu D_\nu\psi_2)(\overline{D^\nu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}D^\mu \psi_4)\;,~
{\cal O}_{VS2}=(\overline{\psi_1}\gamma_\mu D_\nu\psi_2)(\overline{D^\mu\psi_3^{{\tt C}}}D^\nu \psi_4)\;.\end{aligned}$$ Taking into account the SM field contents and gauge symmetry, we find that the above two actually condense to a single one for each field configuration. Our results are included in table \[tab:LV5\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector and table \[tab:BV3\] for the $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector, respectively.
Class $\psi^2\varphi^2D^4$
--------------------------
In this class the field configuration can only be $L^2H^2D^4$, in which the lepton bilinear can be a scalar or tensor, with the unique $SU(2)_L$ contractions: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{S}:~\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}L^j)H^kH^lD^2 D^2\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{T}:~\epsilon_{ik}\epsilon_{jl}
(\overline{L^{{{\tt C}},i}}\sigma_{\mu\nu}L^j)H^kH^lD^\mu D^\nu D^2\;.\end{aligned}$$ Upon insertion of derivatives one can easily show that the tensor structure is redundant by IBP, the first GI in equation and EoM for the lepton field. For the scalar type ${\cal O}_{S}$, the two pairs of covariant derivatives can be distributed uniformly among the four fields with proper Lorentz contractions. After excluding IBP and EoM operators, we obtain the three operators shown in table \[tab:LV5\].
Conclusion {#sec4}
==========
We have investigated systematically dim-9 operators in the standard model effective field theory thus pushing the frontier in this direction one step further. Due to the complexity of the issue we have employed two approaches for crosschecks. We applied the Hilbert series to generate the field configurations allowed by Lorentz and gauge symmetries and to count the total number of independent operators that can be formed for each configuration. We then constructed all possible operators explicitly for each field configuration, and made use of all available kinematic and algebraic relations to remove redundant operators. The relations include integration by parts, equations of motion, Schouten identities, Dirac gamma matrix relations and Fierz identities, and Bianchi identities. We analyzed flavor symmetry relations among operators that are applied to remove redundant operators and count complete and independent operators independently of the Hilbert series. The two approaches yield a consistent answer. The basis of dim-9 operators is shown in tables \[tab:LV1\]-\[tab:BV3\], and can be summarized as follows. All dim-9 operators violate lepton and baryon numbers in various combinations and are thus non-Hermitian. Without counting flavor or generation there are $384|^{\Delta L=\pm 2}_{\Delta B=0}+10|^{\Delta L=0}_{\Delta B=\pm 2}+4|^{\Delta L=\pm3}_{\Delta B=\pm1}+236|^{\Delta L=\mp 1}_{\Delta B=\pm1}$ dim-9 operators; if three generations of fermions in SM are taken into account, there are then $44874|^{\Delta L=\pm 2}_{\Delta B=0}+2862|^{\Delta L=0}_{\Delta B=\pm 2}+486|^{\Delta L=\pm3}_{\Delta B=\pm1}+42234|^{\Delta L=\pm 1}_{\Delta B=\mp1}$ operators. Our result provides a solid starting point for phenomenological analysis. Compared to lower dimensional operators, dim-9 operators can also violate lepton and baryon numbers in the new combinations $\Delta L=0,~\Delta B=\pm 2$ and $\Delta L=\pm 3,~\Delta B=\pm 1$. The first combination results in the $n-\bar n$ oscillation as studied in Refs. [@Rao:1983sd; @Caswell:1982qs; @Rinaldi:2018osy], while the second one can cause unusual baryon decays. We hope to come back to this phenomenological aspect of the issue in the future.
Acknowledgement {#acknowledgement .unnumbered}
===============
This work was supported in part by the Grants No. NSFC-11975130, No. NSFC-11575089, by The National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant No. 2017YFA0402200, by the CAS Center for Excellence in Particle Physics (CCEPP), and by the MOST (Grants No. MOST 109-2811-M-002-535, No. MOST 106-2112-M-002-003-MY3). We thank Jiang-Hao Yu for sending us their manuscript [@Yu:2020] on the same subject prior to submission and for electronic communications.
Flavor relations {#app:flavorsymmetry}
================
In this appendix we give the flavor relations for the operators with symmetries in the basis. These relations further confirm our counting of independent operators when fermion flavors are taken into account as in the HS approach. We denote fermion flavors by the Latin letters $(p,r,s,t,v,w)$ of an operator in the same order that fermion fields appear in the operator. The results are summarized first in sectors and then class by class.
$\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(0,2)$ sector
Class $\psi^2\varphi^6$: $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{LLH^6}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^2\varphi^4X$: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{LLH^4B}^{pr}+p\leftrightarrow r=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{LLH^4W2}^{pr}+p\leftrightarrow r=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^2\varphi^2X^2$ ($x=1,2$ and $y=1,\dots,5$): $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LLH^2B^2x}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{LLH^2W^2y}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;,~
\\
&{\cal O}_{LLH^2W^26}^{pr}+p\leftrightarrow r=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{LLH^2G^2x}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4\varphi X$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eLLLHW2}^{prst}+s\rightarrow t=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{dQLLHW2}^{prst}+s\rightarrow t=0\;,~
\\
&{\cal O}_{QuLLHW2}^{prst}-s\rightarrow t=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{QuLLHW4}^{prst}+s\rightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4\varphi^3$: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{LeLLH^3}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{QuLLH^32}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{QdLLH^3}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^6$ ($x=1,2$ and $y=1,2,4$): $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eLeLLL}^{prstvw}-{\cal O}_{eLeLLL}^{stprwv}=0\;,
&&\big({\cal O}_{eLeLLL}^{prstvw}+t \leftrightarrow v\big) - t \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{eLeLLL}^{prstvw}+r \leftrightarrow w\big) - r \leftrightarrow v=0\;,
&&\big({\cal O}_{LudLLL}^{prstvw}+t \leftrightarrow v\big) -t \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{dQeLLL}^{prstvw}+t \leftrightarrow v\big) - t \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
&&\big({\cal O}_{QueLLL}^{prstvw}+t \leftrightarrow v\big) -t \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{ddueue}^{prstvw}- {\cal O}_{ddueue}^{rpvwst}=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{duddLL1}^{prstvw}+v \leftrightarrow w=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{duddLL2}^{prstvw}-v \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{duuuLL1}^{prstvw}+v \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{duuuLL2}^{prstvw}-v \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{dQdQLLy}^{prstvw}-{\cal O}_{dQdQLLy}^{stprwv}=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{QuQuLLx}^{prstvw}-{\cal O}_{QuQuLLx}^{stprwv}=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4\varphi^2D$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eeLLH^2D}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&\big({\cal O}_{LLLLH^2D2}^{prst}+r\leftrightarrow s\big)-r\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LLLLH^2D3}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{ddLLH^2D}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{uuLLH^2D}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{QQLLH^2D}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4XD$: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{duLLBD}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{duLLWD}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{duLLGD}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^2\varphi^4D^2$: $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{eeH^4D^2}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{LLH^4D^23}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^2\varphi^2XD^2$ ($x=2,4$): $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{LLH^2D^2Bx}^{pr}+p\leftrightarrow r=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{LLH^2D^2B7}^{pr}+p\leftrightarrow r=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{LLH^2D^2B1-6} {\rm~terms}\;,\end{aligned}$$ where stands for operators produced via the use of EoM that are already covered in the basis of dim-9 or lower dimensional operators.
Class $\psi^4\varphi D^2$: $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{eLLLH^24}^{prst}+{\cal O}_{eLLLH^24}^{psrt}+{\cal O}_{eLLLH^24}^{ptrs}=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{eLLLH^21-3} {\rm~terms}\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^2\varphi^2 D^4$ ($x=1,2,3$): $$\begin{aligned}
&{\cal O}_{LLH^2D^4x}^{pr}-p\leftrightarrow r=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ $\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(2,0)$ sector $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{prvwst}=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{rptswv}=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prwvts}=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{rptswv}=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{prstvw}+t\leftrightarrow w\big)-s\leftrightarrow v=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prstvw}+s\leftrightarrow w\big)-t\leftrightarrow v=
2{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{prwtsv}\;,
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prsvwt}-{\cal O}_{ddQQQQ2}^{prswvt}\big)-p\leftrightarrow r=
\big({\cal O}_{ddQQQQ1}^{prstvw}+t\leftrightarrow v\big)-p\leftrightarrow r\;,
\\\nonumber
& \big[ \big({\cal O}_{udddQQ}^{prstvw}+ r\leftrightarrow s\big)- s\leftrightarrow t \big] -v\leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{stprvw}=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{ududdd2}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ududdd2}^{stprwv}=0
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{ptswvr}+{\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{pwsrvt}\big)-r\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&\big({\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{pvstrw}+{\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{prsvtw}\big)-v\leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\
&\big({\cal O}_{ududdd2}^{prstvw}+t\leftrightarrow w\big)-t\leftrightarrow v= \big({\cal O}_{ududdd1}^{prsvwt}+v\leftrightarrow w\big)-t\leftrightarrow v\;,\end{aligned}$$ $\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,3)$ sector $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&\big( {{\cal O}}_{LLLQuu}^{prstvw}+r\leftrightarrow s\big)-p\leftrightarrow s=0\;,
&&{{\cal O}}_{LLLQuu}^{prstvw}+v\leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{{\cal O}}_{LLeuuu}^{prstvw}+p\leftrightarrow r=0\;, ~
&&{{\cal O}}_{LLeuuu}^{prstvw}+v\leftrightarrow w=0\;, ~
\\
&{{\cal O}}_{LLeuuu}^{prstvw}+{{\cal O}}_{LLeuuu}^{prsvwt}+{{\cal O}}_{LLeuuu}^{prswtv}=0\;.
&&\end{aligned}$$ $\scriptscriptstyle\blacksquare$ $(\Delta B, \Delta L)=(1,-1)$ sector
Class $\psi^4\varphi X$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LdddHB}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;, ~
&&{\cal O}_{LdddHW}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LuddHB}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;, ~
&&{\cal O}_{LuddHW}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eQddHB1}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;, ~
&&{\cal O}_{eQddHB2}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eQddHW1}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;, ~
&&{\cal O}_{eQddHW2}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{LdQQHW2}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;, ~
&&{\cal O}_{LdQQHW4}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4\varphi^3$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LdddH^3}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{LdddH^3}^{prst}+{\cal O}_{LdddH^3}^{pstr}+{\cal O}_{LdddH^3}^{ptrs}=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eQddH^3}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{LdQQH^32}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{LuQQH^3}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{eQQQH^3}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
&&{\cal O}_{eQQQH^3}^{prst}+{\cal O}_{eQQQH^3}^{pstr}+{\cal O}_{eQQQH^3}^{ptrs}=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^6$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eeeddd}^{prstvw} - p \leftrightarrow r=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{eeeddd}^{prstvw}+v\leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eeeddd}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{eeeddd}^{prsvwt}+{\cal O}_{eeeddd}^{prswtv}=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{eLLddd}^{prstvw}+v\leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eLLddd}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{eLLddd}^{prsvwt}+{\cal O}_{eLLddd}^{prswtv}=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{LLeudd}^{prstvw}- p \leftrightarrow r=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LLeudd}^{prstvw}- v \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prstvw}+v \leftrightarrow w=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prstvw}-{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prtsvw}+{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prvwst}-{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prwvst}=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prstvw}+{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prsvwt}+{\cal O}_{eddddd}^{prswtv}=0\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{LQdddu}^{prstvw}- t \leftrightarrow v=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{eQuQdd1}^{prstvw}+v \leftrightarrow w=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4\varphi^2 D$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{edddH^2D1}^{prst}+{\cal O}_{edddH^2D1}^{pstr}+{\cal O}_{edddH^2D1}^{ptrs}=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{edddH^2D1}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
& {\cal O}_{edddH^2D2}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{LQddH^2D1}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{LQddH^2D2}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{edQQH^2D}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
\\
&\big({\cal O}_{LQQQH^2D2}^{prst}-r\leftrightarrow s\big)+r\leftrightarrow t=0\;,
&&{\cal O}_{LQQQH^2D3}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4XD$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{edddBD2}^{prst}-r\leftrightarrow s=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{edddBD1}{\rm~terms}\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{edddBD2}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{edddBD1}{\rm~terms}\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{edddGD3}^{prst}-r\leftrightarrow s=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{edddGD1-2}{\rm~terms}\;,
\\\nonumber
&{\cal O}_{edddGD3}^{prst}+{\cal O}_{edddGD3}^{pstr}+{\cal O}_{edddGD3}^{ptrs}=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{edddGD1-2}{\rm~terms}\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{LQddBD}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{LQddWD}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4\varphi D^2$: $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
&\big( {\cal O}_{LdddHD^22}^{prst}+r\leftrightarrow t\big)-s\leftrightarrow t=\fbox{EoM}+{\cal O}_{LdddHD^21}{\rm~terms}\;,
\\
&{\cal O}_{eQddHD^22}^{prst}+s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{eQddHD^24}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;,~
{\cal O}_{eQddHD^25}^{prst}-s\leftrightarrow t=0\;.\end{aligned}$$ Class $\psi^4D^3$: $$\begin{aligned}
{\cal O}_{edddD^3}^{prst}+{\cal O}_{edddD^3}^{prts}+{\cal O}_{edddD^3}^{ptrs}=\fbox{EoM}\;.\end{aligned}$$
|
The philosopher Peter Singer once described a liberation movement as something that "demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable." Though this passage was written almost forty years ago in defense of the animal liberation movement, which was then just being established, it is apropos of the current fat liberation movement, which is the subject under discussion in Rothblum and Solovay's recently published collection of essays. What currently seems natural is that fat is a disease and that fat people are at risk for a whole host of health related problems, from diabetes to atherosclerosis, and that fat people are themselves to blame for the condition they are in because they are lazy and can't control their appetites. The solution, then, to the current "global obesity epidemic" is to get fat people to loose weight through diets and rigorous exercise regimes.
At the heart of fat studies and liberation is the deconstruction of the above claims, as well as the presentation of different constructions of what fat is and what fat people ought to do in the face of anti-fat attitudes. As Wann puts it in the Foreword to the book: "The field of fat studies requires skepticism about weight-related beliefs that are popular, powerful, and prejudicial…. Unlike traditional approaches to weight, a fat studies approach offers no opposition to the simple fact of human weight diversity, but instead looks at what people and society make of this reality" (x).
There are many ways in which one might distinguish between the various aspects of fat studies. The editors of The Fat Studies Reader have separated the field into six different lines of investigation, but due to space constraints, I'll discuss the field along two broad foci. On the one hand is an examination of the relation between fat and health, which is the focus of Part II of the book. On the other hand, are sociological, psychological, and philosophical questions about fat, which examines how society currently stigmatizes fat and the effects this has on fat people including the issue of how people can come to accept and enjoy their bodies irrespective of weight.
Several articles in Part II (25-112) argue that weight is not in fact a significant factor in determining poor health. Height-weight tables, such as the currently favored BMI (Body Mass Index), are quite arbitrary, have changed considerably over the years, and were in fact the product of insurance companies looking for ways to further profits rather than the result of health researchers. As Burgard says, only "about 9% of the outcome of whether someone has a health problem or not is somehow related to BMI," and even here it's important to note that the problem is "correlated to [fat] but not necessarily caused by it" (43).
According to many within the fat liberation movement, the driving force behind claims that fat people are unhealthy and need to loose weight is money. As Lyons points out, "[b]y 2004, forty-six billion dollars was being spent annually on weight loss products and programs, not including weight loss surgery" (77). This is particularly unfortunate because almost no one looses weight and keeps it off. As Gaesser points out, "of those who intentionally loose weight, most will regain about one-third of their weight within the first year, and virtually all will return to their baseline weight within five years (38). When physicians and other health care workers prescribe weight loss for their patients what they are in fact doing is prescribing weight cycling, or yo-yo dieting. Ironically, there is little debate that such weight cycling is incredibly unhealthy.
As an alternative to this line of 'treatment' some within the fat liberation movement have argued for "health at every size," which is the subject of Burgard's contribution (41-53). This movement attempts to promote health through (1) accepting weight diversity, (2) eating well and taking pleasure in one's eating, (3) encouraging enjoyable physical activities appropriate for one's weight, age, and preferences, and (4) ending weight bias.
The Fat Studies Reader contains two Parts addressing the issue of Western Society's attitudes toward fat: (1) "Fatness as Social Inequality" (113-222), and (2) "Size-ism in Popular Culture and Literature" (223-298). Contained here are articles on such diverse topics as bullying fat children, stigmatizing school weight loss programs in Singapore, airplane and classroom seat sizes, and the fat body in Hollywood films and literature. These articles do an excellent job of demonstrating why weight acceptance is so incredibly difficult in our society given its obsession with thinness and its abhorrence of fat. How to deal with these attitudes is dealt with first in a section on "Embodying and Embracing Fatness" (299-326), which contains articles on fat burlesque and fat fitness, and finally, a concluding section on "Starting the Revolution" (327-340), a call to arms of sorts for fat political activism.
Despite many positive features, The Fat Studies Reader is not without fault. I found it repetitive at times and hence in need of some article pruning, particularly in Parts II and III. Oddly, Parts IV and V were far too brief. Surely, there is much more to say about fat people coming to accept their bodies than a discussion of fat burlesque and fat aerobics. And the last section on political activism contains only two articles and one of those, from fat activist Charlotte Cooper, is actually a critique of the movement – and its focus on America at the expense of fat issues in the rest of the world -- rather than about fat activism per se. Actually, Cooper's article points to another weakness in the book. Although the field of fat studies is in its infancy, an anthology containing 40 essays surely could have found room for more than one self-reflective and critical article. As an example of an issue that stands in need of being addressed is the apparent disconnect between what one might call the 'fat and fit' and 'fat and proud' aspects of the movement. The former relies heavily upon a rather straightforward acceptance of positivist science, albeit in the discrediting of many of the claims made by the weight loss industry about the health dangers of fat and the possibility of sustained weight loss. Consider, e.g., Gaesser's work here. The fat and proud, or fat acceptance side of the movement, however, tends to be radically anti-positivist and accepts a thoroughly post-modern and deconstructionist framework. Kathleen LeBesco's "anti-essentialism" approach is representative of this. This is not to say that this disconnect represents an intractable problem for the fat studies movement, but it is an issue that needs to be considered.
Having said this, I heartily recommend this book. It is, so far as I know, the first book of its kind on fat studies and hence represents essential reading for those who want to know what fat studies is all about as well as for those who have working in some component of the field but want a collection that deals with a vast variety of issues and places the movement in a wider context.
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September 13, 2013. Tested positive for HSV 2 - (h) forum - Herpes Life (http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/129/t ested-positive-for-hsv-2/p1) I'm here to tell my story and get a little off my chest, even though my partner HSV 1 or 2 when considering the placement was no where near my genitalia and
September 28, 2013. Herpes gladiatorum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_gladiatorum) Herpes gladiatorum is one of the most infectious of herpes caused diseases, and is painful fluid filled blisters, often on the neck, chest, face, stomach, and legs. Some individuals can have very mild symptoms that may not be taken as
September 23, 2013. Can you get fever blisters on your chest - WikiAnswers (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_get_fever_blister s_on_your_chest) I went to a dermatologist for a recent outbreak in the middle of my chest. It was Herpes Simplex Virus 1 or "fever blisters" that initally appeared as a red inflamed
September 27, 2013. Herpes: The Facts - AIDS Committee of Guelph and Wellington County (http://www.aidsguelph.org/herpes-the-facts) When many people first tell someone they have genital herpes, they start by and "wrestler's herpes," (herpes gladiatorum) a herpes infection on the chest or
September 16, 2013. Do I have HSV 2 now? - herpes hsv2 | Ask MetaFilter (http://ask.metafilter.com/204670/Do-I-have-HSV-2-no w) I have already left a message on my doctors voice mail and hope to get in get an infection on your chest and it's called wrestler's herpes, etc.
September 19, 2013. hiv positive w/ herpes in chest - Forum on Choosing Your Meds (http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/Treatment/Q10767.html) 17 Oct 2000 It got to the point where I couldn't even drink water. I was put in the hospital and then they found out that I have herpes in my chest. It's not in my
September 29, 2013. Can a first outbreak of Herpes appear on your chest? - Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index%3Fqid%3D200 81112123410AAU7YJ0) My buddy said he had his first outbreak of herpes on his chest. It was a horseshoe shapped row of bumps. Ive read information on various sites
September 12, 2013. So I have Herpes... Maybe? - (h) forum - Herpes Life (http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/1121/ so-i-have-herpes-maybe/p1) I've become bitter, caught in the limbo of having herpes and my life being 'over', and being what it always was. I just had to get somethings off my chest.
September 24, 2013. The Perks of Herpes | The Hairpin (http://thehairpin.com/2012/04/the-perks-of-herpes) 16 Apr 2012 My risks are likely even lower; I got genital herpes from oral sex, and HSV 1 is even harder He reclaimed his hand and rested it on his chest.
September 9, 2013. Worried I have herpes please help - Topix (http://www.topix.com/forum/health/herpes/TUF0VBLBH9 BNKPIR2) I haven't noticed any unusual urination or discharge changes... but now I'm linking my chest infection to the rash I've just found, and convincing
September 15, 2013. How Long Between Exposure and 1st Outbreak? - Herpes Message (http://www.healthboards.com/boards/herpes/328763-ho w-long-between-exposure-1st-outbreak.html) 30 Sep 2005 I had my 1st outbreak of genital herpes three years ago. They were on my nose, my neck, my chest, my mouth, inside my mouth...it was
September 26, 2013. I have herpes, can that cause a rash on my chest and... - JustAnswer (http://www.justanswer.com/health/0qv2j-herpes-cause -rash-chest.html) Question I have herpes, can that cause a rash on my chest and... 8Z. Find the answer to this and other Health questions on JustAnswer.
October 1, 2013. Tested positive for Genital Herpes on my chest through viral culture (http://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/Tested-positive-f or-Genital-Herpes-on-my-chest-through-viral-culture --/show/478231) Could my current results be a false positive? Could his results be a false negative ? How did I get genital herpes on my chest? I have made a
September 22, 2013. Thread: Red itchy dots/spots on Upper Chest? - Herpes-Coldsores.Com (http://www.herpes-coldsores.com/messageforum/showth read.php%3F19504-Red-itchy-dots-spots-on-Upper-Ches t) 29 Jul 2009 I have no idea in heLL how it got up to my upper chest but the last few and now that I'm all paranoid since I've gotten HSV I'm wondering to
September 14, 2013. Myths and Facts About Herpes - HealthAssist.net (http://www.healthassist.net/myth-fact/herpes.shtml) Learn more and have a better understanding of the herpes, including how it and "wrestler's herpes," (herpes gladiatorum) a herpes infection on the chest or face. Myth: My partner has herpes but I have never had any symptoms, so I cannot
September 30, 2013. Can you realistically catch herpes on your chest from boob sex (http://www.healthcentral.com/genital-herpes/c/quest ion/49086/35623) 30 Jul 2008 I know this sounds crass, but I've been seeing a guy and because we're Anyway, I heard that I could catch herpes on my chest from what we
September 10, 2013. My Herpes Confession | MORE Magazine (http://www.more.com/member-voices/your-stories/my-h erpes-confession) 17 Jun 2013 He's having a good time, but my chest is filling up with anxiety with every Of course not all people who get herpes are screwing every Joe or
September 21, 2013. Herpes? Please help! - Better Medicine Forums (http://forums.bettermedicine.com/showthread.php/965 4-herpes-please-help) Yesterday my chest hurt a lot, and today my back. My suggestion to you is to get tested...it MUST be a Herpes Select test...it determines if it is
September 25, 2013. Is this herpes?? at Herpes Support, topic 371896 - Cure Zone (http://curezone.com/forums/am.asp%3Fi%3D371896) is curing I notice another spot on a body part of which I think that it's not a very common body part for herpes: I have one on my underarm, one on my chest, one
September 18, 2013. Does Herpes Look Like A Pimple? - panab - HubPages (http://panab.hubpages.com/hub/Does-Herpes-Look-Like -A-Pimple) 12 Sep 2008 We'll have to go through the cycle of a herpes outbreak in order to give you a If you're still uncertain whether it's a pimple or herpes, then my
September 8, 2013. Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil, how do I know when my herpes is contagious (http://www.oprah.com/own-ask-oprahs-all-stars/Ask-O prahs-All-Stars-Thats-Embarrassing/7) 11 Nov 2011 Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil, how do I know when my herpes is contagious, and how do I tell my partner that I have herpes? you do and I don't want you to think that you got a big Scarlet letter on your chest now, that you're not gonna
Comments about this video:Thanks a lot for the movie. I really did suffer with herpes for almost Two years with multiple skin breakouts till I've found this simple & helpful method of treatment. Have a look at the following web site for additional information: help1.info/get-rid-of-herpes. Cure your herpes. I never had herpes but I know how to cure it. I cured sciatica and flu - medically incurable. I volunteer for the Cure drive and I will help you. Greg 813-784-1495.
October 2, 2013. Red breakout on my chest - Herpes - MedHelp (http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Herpes/Red-breakout-on -my-chest/show/1061503) I often get a round red breakout on my chest. I was diagnosed with herpes 2 many years ago but only had 2 breakouts in 7 years. About a year
December 5, 2013. Can I Spread The Herpes Simplex Infection Around My Body? (http://www.hellolife.net/herpes/b/can-i-spread-the- herpes-simplex-infection-around-my-body/) 5 Feb 2009 Herpes is very common among the United States. About 20 of people over the age of twelve years old have HSV-2, although most do not know
December 6, 2013. Living with Herpes - User Stories - Sexually Transmitted Diseases (http://std.about.com/u/ua/herpes/herpesuserstories. 17.htm) A couple days later after my not talking to him he tells me that I have herpes. On the flip side, I'm anxious to get this off my chest and see if I can be accepted,
December 7, 2013. Chest complication with herpes? - Herpes-Coldsores.Com (http://www.herpes-coldsores.com/messageforum/thread s/chest-complication-with-herpes.59411/) I am getting burning in my stomach and dry cough like I need to clear my lungs but nothing comes out. I got this when I first contracted oral
December 8, 2013. So I have Herpes... Maybe? - (h) forum - Herpes Life (http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/comme nt/3894) I've become bitter, caught in the limbo of having herpes and my life being 'over', and being what it I just had to get somethings off my chest.
December 9, 2013. Just Taking It Day By Day : I Have Herpes Story & Experience (http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Herpe s/3576468) 15 Oct 2013 I found out I had herpes about 4 months or so ago. I guess, the major thing I want off my chest is that, I didn't go through a "run of the mill"
December 10, 2013. Herpes Board Index: genital herpes on chest (http://index.healthboards.com/herpes/genital-herpes -on-chest/1/) Pages: 1 2, Showing 1 - 20 of 37 for genital herpes on chest. I thought it was an allergy but my friend said it is herpes.can you get herpes on your body.I have
December 11, 2013. Herpes : The Facts : ReachOut.com USA (http://us.reachout.com/facts/factsheet/herpes) If you have herpes, it's important to eat well and exercise because you're more likely to have an outbreak if you are Just Need To Get This Off My Chest.
December 12, 2013. If I get cold sores on my lip does it mean I have herpes? | ZocDoc (http://www.zocdoc.com/answers/9772/if-i-get-cold-so res-on-my-lip-does-it-mean-i-have-herpes) Oral herpes is a very common type of infection that is caused by the herpes simplex virus. Many "cold I've had cold sores on my lip on and off for years, like since I was a kid. Does this Why do I have acne on my chest all of the sudden?
December 13, 2013. Patient Comments: Herpes Simplex Infections (Cold Sores (http://www.onhealth.com/herpes_simplex_infections_n on-genital/patient-comments-99.htm) Since I am in my fifties and never have had herpes, I didn't have any idea what now they are showing up on my chest and arm-because I probably spread it
December 14, 2013. Is this herpes?? at Herpes Cure Forum, topic 371896 - Cure Zone (http://curezone.org/forums/am.asp%3Fi%3D371896) is curing I notice another spot on a body-part of which I think that it's not a very common body-part for herpes: I have one on my underarm, one on my chest, one
December 15, 2013. Can you get herpes on your chest - Doctor expertise on HealthTap (https://www.healthtap.com/topics/can-you-get-herpes -on-your-chest) I have been having some rashes on my hand and chest and was wondering if it could be herpes or Hiv. I tested + for herpes 1 and - for hiv after 32 day?
December 16, 2013. Can you get herpes sore on your arms and chest? - Yahoo Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index%3Fqid%3D201 00429013040AAp0dXG) Have you ever got an outbreak on your arm, chest, or legs? If so how do I I have herpes, never had it on my arms or legs. You should see a
March 9, 2014. Shingles: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000 858.htm) Shingles (herpes zoster) is a painful, blistering skin rash. If an adult or child has direct contact with the shingles rash and did not have The rash usually involves a narrow area from the spine around to the front of the abdomen or chest.
March 10, 2014. HowStuffWorks "How Herpes Spreads" (http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/problems/ medical/spread-herpes1.htm) Herpes spreads through skin contact and through bodily fluids. Can you spread herpes when you don't have a cold sore? my god, I must be lucky, I could of got it from 20 - 30 people from different ways, but I still do not have the virus,
March 11, 2014. Herpes Symptoms - Diseases and Conditions - PDR Health (http://www.pdrhealth.com/diseases/herpes/symptoms) Oftentimes people do not know they have a herpes infection. Herpes is usually a mild Sores in the esophagus can lead to weight loss, difficult or painful swallowing, or chest pain. Fever and Check out my latest post on cholesterol drugs.
March 12, 2014. Herpes: Natural Treatment, Causes, Diet & Remedies (http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/remedy/Herpes. html) Common remedies for herpes are ice, tea bags, baking soda, aloe vera, and some mainly on the back, chest, scalp and face; Appearance of liquid-filled blisters, Herpes Treatment: I have some itchy blisters in the form of bunch at my hips
March 13, 2014. Treating Feline Herpes Chest Congestion with Clavamox..Is this a (http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264408/treating-feline- herpes-chest-congestion-with-clavamox-is-this-a-goo d-antibiotic) Hi All, I'm totally new here so sorry if I ask questions that have already been well covered. My cat has a Upper Respiratory Virus..or Feline
March 14, 2014. Getting It Off My Chest : I Have Herpes Story & Experience (http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Herpe s/3120025) Getting It Off My Chest : A true, personal story from the experience, I Have Herpes. I'm not one to write on things like this, but I've never been in more of a low
March 15, 2014. I Have Herpes Zoster On My Chest Can I Join The Army (http://www.recruitersneverlie.com/i-have-herpes-zos ter-on-my-chest-can-i-join-the-army/) 19 Mar 2013 I received a MEPS consult for herpes zoster on my chest. I have passed the ASVAB, and OPI, will I be able to enlist in the Hindi language?
March 16, 2014. Tested positive for HSV 2 - (h) forum - Herpes Life (http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/129/t ested-positive-for-hsv-2/p1) I'm here to tell my story and get a little off my chest, even though my partner knows and I havent had a blood test for HSV as it is pretty expensive and I have no
March 17, 2014. Struggling to come to terms with genital herpes :(. Patient (http://www.patient.co.uk/forums/discuss/struggling- to-come-to-terms-with-genital-herpes 37325%3Fpage% 3D2) 11 Dec 2013 Thinking my bf would have been accepting about this I told him and his I've had nausea, headache, fatigue, chest rash, general aches and
March 18, 2014. Symptoms Of Herpes Sores Or Rashes - The Body (http://www.thebody.com/h/symptoms-of-herpes-sores-o r-rashes.html) TheBody.com fills you in on the topic, symptoms of herpes sores or rashes, with a I have a rash all over my body that itches and burns and a slight sore. I have an itchy rash on my stomach, back, legs, chest and arms but it is worse on my
March 19, 2014. Self help with herpes (shingles, cold sores etc) - just helen - HubPages (http://justhelen.hubpages.com/hub/Self-help-for-Her pes-shingles-cold-sores-etc) 27 Aug 2013 So I was completely bemused when I found a couple of burn like marks on my chest, which hurt like hell. I thought maybe my bra had been
May 26, 2015. What is herpes? | Go Ask Alice! (http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/what-herpes) What are symptoms of the herpes virus? Planned Parenthood answers your questions about what testing and treatment options are available for this STD.
May 27, 2015. What is herpes? | Go Ask Alice! (http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/what-herpes) What are the risks to my unborn baby if I have genital herpes? Will I need a cesarean delivery if I have herpes? Can my baby catch herpes from me (or someone else...
May 28, 2015. Golden Rescue South Florida - available goldens (http://goldenrescue.weebly.com/) HELLO EVERYONE, I AM FROM INDIA, i to suffered from this disease, facial warts on my face, guys they were on my face for two years and i know how difficult it was as...
May 29, 2015. Herpes simplex | University of Maryland Medical Center (http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/herp es-simplex) Golden retrievers for rescue... We are Riley and Skyler Riley is a 3 year old male. He is wearing a blue collar and weighs 65 lbs.
May 31, 2015. Faster and Easier Treatment of Herpes Simplex - Dynamiclear (http://www.dynamiclear.com/) If you have been diagnosed with genital herpes, your sex life is certainly not at an end.
June 1, 2015. Herpes zoster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoster) Being a cold sore sufferer for many years, I was excited when offered Dynamiclear to recommend to our customers as a single dose product. Although a little skeptical...
June 2, 2015. Herpes simplex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes) Herpes zoster, also known as shingles, zoster, or zona, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters involving a limited area. Typically the...
June 3, 2015. small blisters on my labia look like herpes, but I have no... (http://www.steadyhealth.com/small_blisters_on_my_la bia_look_like_herpes__but_I_have_no_other_symptoms_ t113233.html) Herpes simplex is a viral disease caused by the herpes simplex virus. Infections are categorized based on the part of the body infected. Oral herpes involves the face...
July 10, 2015. Herpes cure? New clinical trial for HSV2 vaccine needs... (http://www.hwerks.com/herpes-cure-clinical-trial-hs v2-vaccine-research-testing/) 40 Reviews of Jivana Urgent Care "This is for Dr. Kerry Grey, who apparently has left Jivana. She was amazing. She would take time with you and understood your problems.
July 13, 2015. Gout remedies, The best available natural and drug remedies. (http://www.best-gout-remedies.com/) Shingles, also known as zoster or herpes zoster, is a painful skin rash. It is caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chickenpox.
July 14, 2015. Removalists Adelaide | Budget Furniture Removals (http://www.budgetfurnitureremovals.com/) 40 Reviews of Jivana Urgent Care "This is for Dr. Kerry Grey, who apparently has left Jivana. She was amazing. She would take time with you and understood your problems.
July 15, 2015. Herpes cure? New clinical trial for HSV2 vaccine needs... (http://www.hwerks.com/herpes-cure-clinical-trial-hs v2-vaccine-research-testing/) I am pretty sure I have shingles. When I was 16 I was diagnosed w/herpes simplex 2. I was devastated. To my thankful surprise, from age 18 to current (Im now 35) Ive...
July 17, 2015. Shingles | Home | Herpes Zoster | CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/shingles/index.html) Heartburn Symptoms What does heartburn feel like? Imagine an uncomfortable burning sensation in the chest. If you can, then you know what one of the symptoms feels like.
July 19, 2015. How to Get Rid of Chest Congestion Fast | eHow (http://www.ehow.com/how_5070361_rid-chest-congestio n-fast.html) Chest pain is discomfort or pain that you feel anywhere along the front of your body between your neck and upper abdomen.
July 20, 2015. Herpes Skin Rash Symptoms | eHow (http://www.ehow.com/facts_5009022_herpes-skin-rash- symptoms.html) How to Get Rid of Chest Congestion Fast. Chest congestion is an infection that appears when you have a cold or the flu. It builds up in your lungs. This...
July 24, 2015. Learning How to Cope with Knowing You Have Genital Herpes (http://www.webmd.com/genital-herpes/guide/coping-di agnosis?page=2) Shingles, also known as zoster, herpes zoster, or zona, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters involving a limited area. Typically the...
September 24, 2015. Homeopathic Medicines for warts - Homeopathy Treatment (http://www.drhomeo.com/skin-problem/get-rid-of-wart s-skin-tags-with-homeoapathic-remedies/) Thank you for your comment. I will try to cut wheat out of my diet. The scary thing is I have been buying wheat bread for the longest time. I will have to break that...
September 25, 2015. Mouth ulcers - An auto-immune malfunction? (http://www.mouthulcers.org/messages.php?thread=108) I am not a medical professional and would not be able to diagnose the rash. However, one possibility is blepharitis. This is an inflammation of the eyelid and can...
September 28, 2015. Forever living products testimonials - SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net/aloeveracureflp/forever-l iving-products-testimonials) Thank you for your comment. I will try to cut wheat out of my diet. The scary thing is I have been buying wheat bread for the longest time. I will have to break that...
September 29, 2015. Homeopathic Medicines for warts - Homeopathy Treatment (http://www.drhomeo.com/skin-problem/get-rid-of-wart s-skin-tags-with-homeoapathic-remedies/) I am not a medical professional and would not be able to diagnose the rash. However, one possibility is blepharitis. This is an inflammation of the eyelid and can...
October 1, 2015. Pain Upper Left Quadrant - have had every test - DOC... (http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Digestive-Disorders Gastroenterology/Pain-Upper-Left-Quadrant have-ha d-every-test DOC-stumped-as-usual-/show/228499) Homeopathic Remedies For warts. If ever there is a great treatment for warts and skin Tags, it lies with homeopathic Remedies. The first thing that strikes me as I...
October 2, 2015. Eyelid Rash - itchy, sore, flakey - Skin Cancer (http://www.healthcentral.com/skin-cancer/c/question /95771/61818/) Thank you for your comment. I will try to cut wheat out of my diet. The scary thing is I have been buying wheat bread for the longest time. I will have to break that...
October 3, 2015. Forever living products testimonials - SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net/aloeveracureflp/forever-l iving-products-testimonials) I am not a medical professional and would not be able to diagnose the rash. However, one possibility is blepharitis. This is an inflammation of the eyelid and can...
October 5, 2015. Mouth ulcers - An auto-immune malfunction? (http://www.mouthulcers.org/messages.php?thread=108) Homeopathic Remedies For warts. If ever there is a great treatment for warts and skin Tags, it lies with homeopathic Remedies. The first thing that strikes me as I...
December 14, 2015. Homeopathy for skin problems - Homeopathy at DrHomeo.com (http://www.drhomeo.com/homeopathy-for-skin/homeopat hy-for-skin-problems/) I comment when I appreciate a article on a site or I have something to add to the discussion. Usually it is triggered by the passion communicated in the post
December 15, 2015. Homeopathy for skin problems - Homeopathy at DrHomeo.com (http://www.drhomeo.com/homeopathy-for-skin/homeopat hy-for-skin-problems/) Thank you for your comment. I will try to cut wheat out of my diet. The scary thing is I have been buying wheat bread for the longest time. I will have to break that...
December 16, 2015. Dizzy, nausea, diarrhea, cold chills, shaking, all at the... (http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Undiagnosed-Symptoms/D izzy nausea diarrhea cold-chills shaking all-a t-the-same-time-/show/198914?page=1) I comment when I appreciate a article on a site or I have something to add to the discussion. Usually it is triggered by the passion communicated in the post
December 17, 2015. Homeopathy for skin problems - Homeopathy at DrHomeo.com (http://www.drhomeo.com/homeopathy-for-skin/homeopat hy-for-skin-problems/) Forever living products testimonials 1. ACNEI am an 18 year-old who has suffered with acne for the past 3 years. It has been so badthat I resorted to being...
January 12, 2016. CHEST PAIN. - ResearchGate (http://www.researchgate.net/publication/9448709_CHE ST_PAIN) Herpes simplex (cold sores... Anal herpes is more common in males who have sex with men than with... particularly when affecting the lower chest or lumbar...
January 13, 2016. Gum sores, Mouth sores, Pain or discomfort and Teeth do... (http://symptomchecker.webmd.com/multiple-symptoms?s ymptoms=gum-sores%7Cmouth-sores%7Cpain-or-discomfor t%7Cteeth-do-not-fit-like-they-used-to&symptomi ds=296%7C280%7C1%7C579&locations=7%7C7%7C7%7C7) Hair and scalp problems can be upsetting... If you or someone in your care has chest pains, difficulty breathing, or severe bleeding...
January 14, 2016. Adult Female Back (Rash, Growth, or Disease) | skinsight (http://www.skinsight.com/searchResults/adult_Female _Back.htm)... Mouth sores, Pain or discomfort and Teeth do not fit like they used... Oral herpes is a viral infection and causes... causes chest pain, nausea, and...
January 16, 2016. rash on neck and shoulders - MedHelp (http://healthquestions.medhelp.org/rash-on-neck-and -shoulders) Herpes skin rash is rash that occurs during infection caused by herpes viruses. There are many herpes viruses which can cause herpes rash on... the chest, abdomen...
January 18, 2016. Little red bumps on my chest? | Yahoo Answers (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200802 15072137AAbu46L) rash on neck and shoulders... instead of muscle pain i seem to have pain spots in the center of my chest one on each side close to the center...
January 19, 2016. Genital Herpes: The Basics - HealthCentral (http://www.healthcentral.com/genital-herpes/underst anding-genital-herpes-2518-143.html) Despite their name, cold sores have nothing to do with colds. Some people confuse cold sores with canker sores... Cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus.
January 20, 2016. Getting rid of blood spots on skin? | Go Ask Alice! (http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/g etting-rid-blood-spots-skin) Little red bumps on my chest? I have broken out with these little red bumps on my chest (not breasts)... Baby has a little red bumps on her chest!?
January 21, 2016. What is this itchy red patch on my chest (picture... (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201103 20151912AAMpGWD) What is genital herpes? Genital herpes is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the herpes simplex viruses (HSV) type 1 and type 2. Most genital herpes is caused...
January 22, 2016. Arm Burning Sensation - Symptoms, Causes, Treatments... (http://localhealth.com/article/arm-burning-sensatio n) My daughter and I have these ugly spots on our back, chest... Because skin problems have a number of causes and possible treatments... Herpes; HIV/AIDS;
January 23, 2016. itching around labia & lips/rash between my legs and vag... (http://www.steadyhealth.com/topics/itching-around-l abia-lips-rash-between-my-legs-and-vag) Herpes on your leg... Is it possible? Save... you can have an actual sore cultured to see if it is herpes and also if it is oral or genital herpes. you can have an...
January 24, 2016. Adult Female Chin (Rash, Growth, or Disease) | skinsight (http://www.skinsight.com/searchResults/adult_Female _Chin.htm) itching around labia & lips/rash between my legs and vag... Virus and around 80% of that 60% have no clue that they have herpes because most people either don't...
January 26, 2016. Herpes Q & A | Do you have questions for Dr.Tom... - HSV 1-2 (http://www.herpes.com/showAskTom2.shtml) I ask because I believe I might have genital herpes, but am unsure if this is the case as the "herpes" are not confined to my genitals/butt/thighs...
January 27, 2016. Already get cold sores on my lips can I contract genital... (http://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/Already-get-cold- sores-on-my-lips-can-I-contract-genital-herpes-thro ugh-oral-sex/show/247756) Dr. Tom answers questions about herpes, Page 2 Do you have any questions or concerns about what Herpes is, how it's spread, about the virus itself?
January 28, 2016. Pimples On Lip Vs Herpes - Doctor answers on HealthTap (https://www.healthtap.com/topics/pimples-on-lip-vs- herpes) Already get cold sores on my lips can I contract genital herpes through oral sex... I have herpes too, and it's certainly not worth all this anger and angst;...
January 30, 2016. What is this itchy rash on my chest? | ZocDoc Answers (https://www.zocdoc.com/answers/9325/what-is-this-it chy-rash-on-my-chest) Watch this slideshow of pictures on adult skin problems and learn to spot and treat... (Herpes Zoster) Herpes... pustules on the face and occasionally on the chest...
May 12, 2016. I have a red pimple on my breast. Could it be cancer... (http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/questi on/299598/88629) What are Home Remedies for Heat Rash?... chest, stomach, ears, and face, and the baking soda is working for... but it may be more like a milder version of herpes.
May 15, 2016. Adult Female Back (Rash, Growth, or Disease) | skinsight (http://www.skinsight.com/searchResults/adult_Female _Back.htm) Hair and scalp problems can be upsetting... If you or someone in your care has chest pains, difficulty breathing, or severe bleeding...
May 16, 2016. Sores on face, neck, chest? | Yahoo Answers (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200801 22074208AAyCivv) Doctor insights on: Rash On Upper Back And... Appearing and dispiriting rashes onmy... There is a good possibility,,with that history than you have Herpes...
May 17, 2016. i have calcium deposit in my chest | Other Respiratory... (http://www.steadyhealth.com/topics/i-have-calcium-d eposit-in-my-chest) Dark urine, rash, or chest pain (may occur three to four weeks later)... I have read and agree to WebMD's Privacy Policy. Submit and View Results or View Results.
May 18, 2016. Signs of Herpes on the Penis | eHow (http://www.ehow.com/about_5444277_signs-herpes-peni s.html) Is it possible to get Herpes on the arm? Here's the deal... I have this spot on my arm just below my elbow... I have read that a type of herpes is similar to...
May 19, 2016. Little Red Bumps on the Chest | LIVESTRONG.COM (http://www.livestrong.com/article/293043-little-red -bumps-on-the-chest/) Signs of Herpes on the Penis; Men's Herpes Symptoms; Mild Herpes Symptoms; You May Also Like. Early Herpes Symptoms in Men. There... Can Shingles Affect Your Joints?
May 20, 2016. Neck Rash - Healthgrades (http://www.healthgrades.com/symptoms/neck-rash) I ask because I believe I might have genital herpes, but am unsure if this is the case as the "herpes" are not confined to my genitals/butt/thighs...
May 24, 2016. Herpes simplex (cold sores). DermNet NZ (http://www.dermnetnz.org/viral/herpes-simplex.html) Common Rashes With Blisters... Herpes is caused by one of the two types of the herpes simplex virus... but it can also be found on the chest or arms.
October 14, 2016. Abscess: Causes, Symptoms, Tests, and Treatment (http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/abscess)... specifically, on my chest area. Penny Arcade; The Trenches; PAX;... Our rules have been updated and given their own forum... Spots / Rash, with no other symptoms.
October 15, 2016. Is it a Lump or a Lymph Node? - Verywell (https://www.verywell.com/is-it-a-lump-or-a-lymph-no de-1191840) Call your doctor if any of the following occur with an abscess: You have a sore larger than 1 cm or... in an area anywhere between the abscess and your chest area...
October 16, 2016. Itching small bumps with seedlike cores leave crater, scab... (http://www.steadyhealth.com/topics/itching-small-bu mps-with-seedlike-cores-leave-crater-scab-and-wont- heal) Is it a Lump or a Lymph Node?... So What is a Lymph Node Anyway?... Lymph nodes are found in the neck, armpits, chest...
October 17, 2016. What are these bumps on my penis? | Scarleteen (http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/what_are_t hese_bumps_on_my_penis) A neck rash is an inflammatory reaction of the... which includes the front of the neck between the head and the chest and the nape of the neck just below the...
October 18, 2016. Chin rash - RightDiagnosis.com (http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/sym/chin_rash.htm) Itching small bumps with seedlike cores leave... now spreading all over chest. I have a few that... I guess it's the same meds as patience with the Herpes...
October 19, 2016. Red, Sore bumps on my face but they don't come to a head... (http://www.steadyhealth.com/topics/red-sore-bumps-o n-my-face-but-they-dont-come-to-a-head-like-a-pimpl e) What are these bumps on my penis?... I have been doing some internet research and think they are Fordyce's spots. They don't hurt or itch or anything...
October 21, 2016. Itching or burning, Skin open sore and Skin rash: Common... (http://symptomchecker.webmd.com/multiple-symptoms?s ymptoms=itching-or-burning%7Cskin-open-sore%7Cskin- rash&symptomids=129%7C208%7C185&locations=6 8%7C68%7C68) Red, Sore bumps on my face but they don't come to a head like a pimple :( Save this for later... I have no idea what the problem is, I have cut out soft drinks...
October 22, 2016. Honeycomb Herpes Forum - Support Group Online for HSV (https://honeycomb.click/topic/14217-could-this-have -been-my-1st-ob/) Itching or burning, Skin open sore and Skin rash... Pityriasis rosea is a rash causing pink, reddish, or purplish oval patches on the chest, belly, arms, and legs.
October 23, 2016. Related Pictures & Quizzes - Rash 101: The Most Common... (http://www.medicinenet.com/rash/images-quizzes/inde x.htm)... (Herpes Zoster) Herpes... Many patients also have inhalant... Acne vulgaris is a noninfectious eruption of papules and pustules on the face and occasionally on...
October 24, 2016. Scalp Problems | HealthLink BC (https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/aa84397) Common Rashes With Blisters. Search the site GO. Skin Health... Herpes is caused by one of the two types of the herpes... but it can also be found on the chest or...
October 25, 2016. Sores on the Genitals (Genital Ulcers) - Hesperian Health... (http://en.hesperian.org/hhg/Where_Women_Have_No_Doc tor:Sores_on_the_Genitals_(Genital_Ulcers)) Many people have hair or scalp problems. Hair may thin or fall out, break off, or grow slowly... If you or someone in your care has chest pains...
October 26, 2016. Herpes simplex | DermNet New Zealand (http://www.dermnetnz.org/topics/herpes-simplex/) I know that herpes are only supposed to appear on the mouth or genitals, but is it possible for them to occur elsewhere, as well, such as the shoulders or legs? I ask...
October 27, 2016. I have herpes onmy chest - Revitol Skin Brightner - Sep 22... (http://skinbrightener.herbalous.com/i-have-herpes-o nmy-chest.html) Herpes simplex (cold sores... nearly all children have been infected by the age of 5... particularly when affecting the lower chest or lumbar region... |
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A pollination disaster and resulting food shortage will affect all of us - not just gardeners or farmers. Everyone who likes to eat will be impacted by shortage of certain crops and/or sky high prices. So what is a food-eating person supposed to do?
2) Buy Organic: In addition to not using pesticides at home, it is important to support those farmers who eschew pesticides when they grow our food. If you go to the farmers' market, ask if the farm uses pesticides. Many farms do not use pesticides but either cannot afford organic certification or are in the process of becoming "organic." While you are buying from your favorite farmer, buy flowers - if they offer them. The best farmers load their fields with flowers for healthy soil, pollinators and wildlife. Support their efforts and beautify your home.
3) Plant for Pollinators: Habitat destruction is another primary cause of the pollinator demise. What was once fields of wild flowers are now rows of neatly mowed lawns. Dead branches and entire trees used to stand - or fall - where they may. Now, we lop off branches, cut down trees, and grind them in to mulch. Most yards - including mine! - are filled with non-native and sometimes invasive species. I recently read, though, that "our wildlife gardens are the one of the last lines of defense to protect . . . native pollinators."
Nasturtium, borage and other pollinator friendly flowers in between raised beds increase pollination of your veggies and provide forage for pollinators.
Plant flowers and flowering plants to provide pollinators with the food they need. Natives are best - though times are desperate for pollinators and habitat is limited. In light of the pesticide treated plants sold at Lowe's, Home Depot and Orchard Supply, I'd recommend growing from organic seed/propagating your own plants, exchanging plants with friends, buying starts at the farmers' market and either looking for organic plants or buying from a nursery that can assure you its plants are not pre-treated with pesticides. Also, look for plants that bloom in spring, summer and fall and go for a mix of perennials and annuals so that pollinators can forage almost year round.
My wall of birdhouses. Some have been occupied by birds. Two are currently occupied by bumble bee colonies.
You read that right! I've bought up every birdhouse I come across at garage and estate sales. Mostly because I like the look. Unfortunately, you cannot clean out a bird nest from of some birdhouses. No worries! Bumble bees will thank you for it. I currently have three birdhouses that are host to three different bumble bee colonies. I know I'm not alone. Check out this an article about a colony of bumbles in another birdhouse.
A birdhouse with an abandoned bird's nest becomes home to a bumble bee colony and my veggie garden and fruit trees get pollination galore!
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Though
I'm currently a resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thus will be
blogging from that perspective, I've hopped around three provinces in my
twenty "something" years and lived in cities big and small - sometimes
surrounded by like-minded people, and other times....not so much.
I'm
still working on my identity, which continues to evolve with each new
endeavour and the influences of the individuals I meet, but in an effort
to provide a worthwhile introduction to you, Green Phone Booth readers,
I'd say I fall somewhere amongst the feminist-environmentalists. While
I'm not nearly an expert on living Green and still have tonnes to learn
about eco-friendly decisions, I care deeply about our planet and strive
to live gently upon it.
I subscribe to the belief that if you want
to be a feminist, you are one. I would like to declare that the same
can be said about environmentalists. If you want to make mindful
decisions regarding what you consume, produce, purchase, and promote,
then you're on the right track. Regardless of what the title may be, if
you're making the *effort* to be eco-friendly, green, conscientious,
low-emission, low-impact, carbon footprint-less, or an environmentalist,
then that's what counts. It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing - though
kudos to those who are!
Speaking of titles, I'm the Mindful Echo
because it reflects my state of being and actions. I spend a lot of time
(perhaps too much) inside my head. Thinking and re-thinking decisions
and their impacts. How can I live a life in balance with nature without
it becoming an all-consuming life focus? I strive to be mindful of the
environment; of what it provides me, and how I can respect and repay its
contributions to my life.
You can look forward to me elaborating
on some of these issues in future posts. I'll also be providing my
perspectives on Canadian and local issues and how I work to live Green
at a household level with my partner, two cats and a dog, including
travel, crafting, and locally-sourced delicious food.
When I'm not posting here, you can read my other thoughts at www.halitrax.com or follow me on Twitter @echoesofmymind
Monday, May 20, 2013
Today is Victoria Day here in Canada, a holiday held in celebration of the late Queen Victoria's birthday. It's considered the unofficial kick-off to summer, much like Memorial Day in the United States. With warmer days ahead, this weekend is also often viewed as the time to get your garden going. It seemed like the perfect time to post about growing food.
I live in a house with a good-sized backyard, which includes several gardening beds. While I have ample space for all of my plants on the surface, the truth is I always want more. Like many gardeners, I'm excited by the prospect of growing things, and I'm eager to try new crops. As a result, even in my relatively large space, I use some small-space gardening solutions into my suburban homestead. Today, I'll share three with you.
Three Small-Space Gardening Solutions
1. Potato Planters
This year I purchased some potato patio planters from my local seed and gardening supplier. These three sturdy plastic bags hold about 40 liters of dirt each, and I've planted six potato plants in each. They're relatively light, so they can be moved if you need to re-arrange your small space. when you're ready to harvest, you can just dump the bags out and you've got potatoes. I've found that they work really well, and since potatoes store well you can enjoy the fruits of your labour well into the fall and winter.
2. Re-purposed Greens Planter
Living in the Pacific Northwest, as I do, slugs and wood bugs (or pill bugs, or potato bugs) are always a problem. After a few years of planting tender baby greens only to find them eaten in their infancy, I've learned that I get better results if I put my lettuce in planters rather than directly into my garden, at least until they're big enough to not be eaten in a single bite. For my baby greens, I use old plastic strawberry containers as planters. Lettuce doesn't put down very deep roots, and this is a great way to reuse something I already have on hand.
3. Herbs Grow Anywhere
Many herbs grow like weeds. For example, I first purchased my peppermint plant in 1999, and for the first years of its life it grew in a planter on my apartment balcony. When I moved into this house in 2003, it made the transition to a corner of my garden. It grows almost anywhere, it smells lovely, it's edible, and when it flowers it attracts beneficial insects, providing fabulous natural pest control. Whether you have a small clay pot or a small corner in your garden, herbs are a great small-space plant choice.
What small-space solutions do you use, to get the most out of your garden?
Friday, May 17, 2013
EcoYogini shares a few thoughts on being paid to promote a product....
When I first started blogging I was excited to hear from a few companies wanting to give me "free stuff". My "bribes" have decreased significantly over the past two years (ie non existant), but over the course of my blogging career I have received a beautiful prAna revolution mat at 50% off, a gorgeous Tonic yoga top, a recycled content yogoco yoga mat bag, some makeup samples and a yoga book to review.
I'm not going to lie, getting free stuff rocks, especially if it's products that I would endorse without bribery and can't normally afford (the prAna mat is a great example). Although it felt a little weird to get bribes from "the man"... no matter how awesome the company.
More frequently in the blogging community, sponsorships and endorsement posts are the norm and an fabulous way to make a bit of money while doing something you love (blogging). However, when it comes to critical blogging, it becomes a balance to strive for unbiased reviews or reporting of information and essentially being "paid" to promote a certain product.
This topic is an important one for the blogging community and although the environmental blogging community has discussed this on several occasions (please feel free to link in comments below- my memory is fuzzy this morning), other blogging spheres still have some work to be done hammering out what is ethical for your readers.
Many blogs have product endorsement and sponsorship policies and guidelines publicly posted on their blog for potential sponsors and readers. Environmental blogs typically have strict guidelines regarding what companies and products they will endorse and often will state in some manner in the post a disclosure on sponsorship.
Personally, I made a decision some time ago that I wouldn't accept an active, ongoing product endorsement and any "freebies" for review would only be accepted with the clear statement to the company that I would be critical and honest (even if I don't like the product). This doesn't mean I disagree with bloggers accepting endorsements, I just didn't want the pressure or hassle myself, personally.
Recently, a blogger friend commented that they felt uncomfortable and disappointed when reading a sponsored post that was not clearly advertised in the post title. They felt misled that they were reading an unbiased review of a product only to discover at the very end of the post that it was sponsored.
I will admit thatI do take sponsored posts with a grain of salt. It's hard not to when the writer is essentially paid to promote a product and as a result is not unbiased. It's the reality of accepting a sponsorship role in blogging. That said, I do appreciate when bloggers are honest about the origins of the review and potential bias, and I also feel very confident in certain bloggers' strict sponsorship and endorsement policies.
What are your thoughts on blogging sponsorship? Do you have companies that you are confident promoting? Do you struggle advertising the fact that the post is sponsored?
Friday, May 10, 2013
EcoYogini shares her secrets to figuring out beauty and baby products...
Ever find yourself in the beauty-baby-makeup section of a natural/health foods store feeling like you just want, for once, companies to be HONEST about what the eff they put in their products?
These days being a green consumer in the beauty product/baby product industry means you have to be super label, greenwashing, ingredient and company practices savvy. It can be overwhelming.
In order to avoid random screaming in public and ranting to whomever will listen, I use several strategies and tips to make informed decisions about my product purchases. After a few questions on twitter and from a colleague on facebook, I thought maybe I'd share it with my Booth Peeps!
LABELS/CLAIMS
First things first: just because the product is in the "Natural" section or in a Health/Natural Foods store (or farmer's market) does not automatically mean that the product is free from chemicals or toxins. There are shades of "green" in the eco-beauty world with some products being cleaner than others.
Also, it's important to recognize that some claims and labels have virtually NO policing or standardization and are basically meaningless. Companies can actually MAKE UP fake, or almost meaningless labels (I know! crazy eh?)
For beauty-baby products there really are only a few labels that are of high quality and that matter: The Leaping Bunny (cruelty free), USDA Organic, EcoLogo and Canadian Organic (Bio).
All other claims such as "Natural/Organic" simply stated on the product have absolutely no meaning- you should still peruse the ingredients closely. Even "Not Tested on Animals/Cruelty-Free" with any sort of image other than the leaping bunny don't have any standard testing or ways of proving it.
INGREDIENTS
For myself, the quickest way to finding a company or brand that I could trust was to just go through the work of checking the ingredients on the labels. Eventually, I recognized which companies were "cleaner" (ie less synthetic chemicals) than others. One way to familiarize yourself with ingredients is to read books... and since my eco-book preference is body product books this was not "work" for me. My two favourite eco-product books are:
OR you could simply avoid any ingredients with long scary sounding names. This is tricky as some natural and safe ingredients may be listed by their scientific name, but for the most part companies will put their generic name in brackets afterwards.
Whenever I found a product I was unsure about, or an ingredient I wondered about, I would go home, type in the product or ingredient in Skin Deep Database and go from there.
COMPANIES
Although some companies have my trust, I feel like the ingredient checking really is a BIG part of figuring out what products are the "cleanest" and what you can feel like you can live with. I rarely rely on company claims and am a habitual ingredient checker.
Although it's a bit more awkward, I even check ingredients at craft fairs and farmer's markets. Lots of people use palm oil in their products (a no-no unless it's from certified sustainable sources!) and sometimes I will comment on an ingredient (often it's around soap- it's possible to make soap without palm oil so I'll gently decline buying the soap by saying I'm avoiding palm oil).
Monday, May 6, 2013
The Climate Crusader is taking aim on fast fashion, with its unethical labour practices and wasteful ways.
Over 600 Workers Dead
More than a week ago, a garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 600 workers. If you follow the news, you've likely seen the story. Unfortunately, it appears not to be an isolated incident. A fire in a Bangladeshi garment factory in November killed more than 100 people, and a smaller fire in January killed seven.
Here in Canada, news came out that clothing from the popular Joe Fresh line was manufactured at the plant. The company's CEO has been forthcoming and apologetic; they've promised to establish a relief fund and implement new standards around product manufacture. I'm glad to see that they're taking some degree of responsibility for the situation. However, I believe that we need more than one (or two, or three) companies to make a change. We all need to re-examine the way that we approach fashion.
The Price of Fast Fashion
"Disposable fashion" or "fast fashion" refers to the practice of moving fashion trends quickly and cheaply from the catwalk to your local store. The system relies on responsive supply chains and cheap manufacturing. As with nearly all manufacturing, this means going overseas to countries like Bangladesh, where wages are low and employment standards far less stringent. If you're paying $9.99 for a shirt, you can be sure that the person who sewed it is making very little.
Our fashion system doesn't only pose ethical problems, which reveal themselves in collapsing buildings and dead workers. It's also tremendously wasteful and harmful to the environment. Those cheap clothes typically aren't all that well-made. If you only wear that $9.99 shirt a few times before it falls apart, then you need to buy another to replace it. And another. And another.
All of those shirts carry an environmental footprint, from growing the cotton (which likely isn't organic, and therefore is treated with a lot of pesticides), to manufacture, to shipping, to heating and lighting the store, right down until you get in your car, head to the mall, and cart it home in a plastic bag. Even if you carry a reusable bag and cycle, you're still looking at a significant environmental impact. And then, at the end of the day, all the shirts that don't sell have to go somewhere, too.
Moving Beyond Disposable Fashion
This is all pretty depressing, but the good news is that as a consumer you have the power to vote with your wallet. Every time you spend money on clothing, you're making a statement about the kind of fashion you want. Here are a few ways to reduce your own reliance on disposable fashion:
Shop second-hand. It takes a little more work, but thrift stores can be treasure troves or barely-worn (or even never-worn) clothing. All those designer brands that go out of style after a couple of months often find their way to second-hand or consignment shops. Not only is the clothing cheaper, but you're saving it from the landfill and often supporting charitable causes at the same time.
Look for ethical fashion. Ethical fashion may be more expensive, but it's often better-made. If you invest in quality clothing items and take care of them, in the long run you may find that you spend far less on fashion.
Buy less. This is the biggest and easiest step you can take. Every time you don't buy something, you're saving money and the planet. If you consider your purchases more carefully, you can avoid finding yourself in the situation of coming home with a bag of clothes that you don't actually even really like all that much. You're also stepping outside of that fast fashion system, that relies heavily on all of us buying more clothing than we really need.
Friday, May 3, 2013
This week, as I wrote my umpteenth post about how much I love the farmers market, I realized how many wonderful things I have discovered only because of my permanent detour onto a greener path.
Farmers Markets
For me, one of the greatest benefits of living greener has been becoming connected to my local food economy and developing a greater appreciation for where our food comes from. Since I don't really garden, the farmers market for me is the shortest path of production available. Food has such far-reaching implications for our family's health, how land is used and the health of the planet. It is also a large and recurring expense. I view changing how I buy my food as one of the most important green changes I have made. In addition to feeling great about giving my family the healthiest and tastiest produce available, I feel good about consciously choosing to support small local sustainable farming. I like handing my money straight to the farmer. I have always said that I don't like shopping, but I have discovered that what I actually don't like is shopping in conventional grocery stores and mega-stores and especially malls. Thanks to our local farmers markets, now I often go more than a month without setting foot in a regular grocery store, which means no cheapy toys or salacious magazines at my kids' eye levels, no wandering through a dozen aisles to find the one thing I actually want, no processed foods beckoning, no checkout line. Love that.
Homemaking
I feel a strong sense of satisfaction every single time I make my whole wheat honey bread. It's still like a little miracle every time. Also, it smells amazing and tastes delicious. As one of my friends said, "After eating homemade bread, you can't go back." When I had my last baby, a lot of baking and cooking from scratch got put on hold, but I never stopped making bread. I appreciate the DIY self-sufficient ethic that comes with green living. As a SAHM, there is no final product at the end of the month for which I will receive accolades or a bonus. But going green has nudged me into cooking and baking more from scratch. It made me want to learn to sew in order to be able to mend and make things just the way I wanted them. And I have found that I really enjoy being able to make something, whether that's a loaf of bread or reusable gift bags, especially since as a SAHM, I often don't have much tangible evidence of what I've accomplished any given day. I still don't like to clean.
Cloth Diapers
I'm quite sure I never would have tried cloth diapers if I hadn't become concerned about the ingredients in disposable diapers. But switch I did, and you know what? Cloth diapers are better. They smell less, leak less, wipe better, and feel better (which would you rather wear: cotton or plastic underwear?). They are cuter and more versatile. And they will save you oodles of money. For months after switching from disposables my husband loved to calculate the money we were saving not buying them. Cloth diapering and having to deal with poop (note to disposable diaper users: you are supposed to deal with the poop too) also motivated me to give early potty training a try. And having tried it both ways, I can tell you that putting a baby on the potty is a lot more fun than convincing a 2.5-year-old to use one. |
#include "xmlvm.h"
#include "java_lang_String.h"
#include "java_lang_NullPointerException.h"
#define XMLVM_CURRENT_CLASS_NAME NullPointerException
#define XMLVM_CURRENT_PKG_CLASS_NAME java_lang_NullPointerException
__TIB_DEFINITION_java_lang_NullPointerException __TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException = {
0, // classInitializationBegan
0, // classInitialized
-1, // initializerThreadId
__INIT_java_lang_NullPointerException, // classInitializer
"java.lang.NullPointerException", // className
"java.lang", // package
JAVA_NULL, // enclosingClassName
JAVA_NULL, // enclosingMethodName
JAVA_NULL, // signature
(__TIB_DEFINITION_TEMPLATE*) &__TIB_java_lang_RuntimeException, // extends
sizeof(java_lang_NullPointerException), // sizeInstance
XMLVM_TYPE_CLASS};
JAVA_OBJECT __CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException;
JAVA_OBJECT __CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_1ARRAY;
JAVA_OBJECT __CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_2ARRAY;
JAVA_OBJECT __CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_3ARRAY;
//XMLVM_BEGIN_IMPLEMENTATION
//XMLVM_END_IMPLEMENTATION
static JAVA_LONG _STATIC_java_lang_NullPointerException_serialVersionUID;
#include "xmlvm-reflection.h"
static XMLVM_FIELD_REFLECTION_DATA __field_reflection_data[] = {
};
static XMLVM_CONSTRUCTOR_REFLECTION_DATA __constructor_reflection_data[] = {
};
static JAVA_OBJECT constructor_dispatcher(JAVA_OBJECT constructor, JAVA_OBJECT arguments)
{
XMLVM_NOT_IMPLEMENTED();
}
static XMLVM_METHOD_REFLECTION_DATA __method_reflection_data[] = {
};
static JAVA_OBJECT method_dispatcher(JAVA_OBJECT method, JAVA_OBJECT receiver, JAVA_OBJECT arguments)
{
XMLVM_NOT_IMPLEMENTED();
}
void __INIT_java_lang_NullPointerException()
{
staticInitializerLock(&__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException);
// While the static initializer mutex is locked, locally store the value of
// whether class initialization began or not
int initBegan = __TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.classInitializationBegan;
// Whether or not class initialization had already began, it has begun now
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.classInitializationBegan = 1;
staticInitializerUnlock(&__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException);
JAVA_LONG curThreadId = (JAVA_LONG)pthread_self();
if (initBegan) {
if (__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.initializerThreadId != curThreadId) {
// Busy wait until the other thread finishes initializing this class
while (!__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.classInitialized) {
// do nothing
}
}
} else {
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.initializerThreadId = curThreadId;
XMLVM_CLASS_USED("java.lang.NullPointerException")
__INIT_IMPL_java_lang_NullPointerException();
}
}
void __INIT_IMPL_java_lang_NullPointerException()
{
// Initialize base class if necessary
XMLVM_CLASS_INIT(java_lang_RuntimeException)
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.newInstanceFunc = __NEW_INSTANCE_java_lang_NullPointerException;
// Copy vtable from base class
XMLVM_MEMCPY(__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.vtable, __TIB_java_lang_RuntimeException.vtable, sizeof(__TIB_java_lang_RuntimeException.vtable));
// Initialize vtable for this class
// Initialize interface information
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.numImplementedInterfaces = 1;
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.implementedInterfaces = (__TIB_DEFINITION_TEMPLATE* (*)[1]) XMLVM_MALLOC(sizeof(__TIB_DEFINITION_TEMPLATE*) * 1);
// Initialize interfaces if necessary and assign tib to implementedInterfaces
XMLVM_CLASS_INIT(java_io_Serializable)
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.implementedInterfaces[0][0] = &__TIB_java_io_Serializable;
// Initialize itable for this class
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.itableBegin = &__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.itable[0];
_STATIC_java_lang_NullPointerException_serialVersionUID = 5162710183389028792;
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.declaredFields = &__field_reflection_data[0];
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.numDeclaredFields = sizeof(__field_reflection_data) / sizeof(XMLVM_FIELD_REFLECTION_DATA);
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.constructorDispatcherFunc = constructor_dispatcher;
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.declaredConstructors = &__constructor_reflection_data[0];
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.numDeclaredConstructors = sizeof(__constructor_reflection_data) / sizeof(XMLVM_CONSTRUCTOR_REFLECTION_DATA);
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.methodDispatcherFunc = method_dispatcher;
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.declaredMethods = &__method_reflection_data[0];
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.numDeclaredMethods = sizeof(__method_reflection_data) / sizeof(XMLVM_METHOD_REFLECTION_DATA);
__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException = XMLVM_CREATE_CLASS_OBJECT(&__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException);
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.clazz = __CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException;
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.baseType = JAVA_NULL;
__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_1ARRAY = XMLVM_CREATE_ARRAY_CLASS_OBJECT(__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException);
__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_2ARRAY = XMLVM_CREATE_ARRAY_CLASS_OBJECT(__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_1ARRAY);
__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_3ARRAY = XMLVM_CREATE_ARRAY_CLASS_OBJECT(__CLASS_java_lang_NullPointerException_2ARRAY);
//XMLVM_BEGIN_WRAPPER[__INIT_java_lang_NullPointerException]
//XMLVM_END_WRAPPER
__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException.classInitialized = 1;
}
void __DELETE_java_lang_NullPointerException(void* me, void* client_data)
{
//XMLVM_BEGIN_WRAPPER[__DELETE_java_lang_NullPointerException]
//XMLVM_END_WRAPPER
}
void __INIT_INSTANCE_MEMBERS_java_lang_NullPointerException(JAVA_OBJECT me, int derivedClassWillRegisterFinalizer)
{
__INIT_INSTANCE_MEMBERS_java_lang_RuntimeException(me, 0 || derivedClassWillRegisterFinalizer);
//XMLVM_BEGIN_WRAPPER[__INIT_INSTANCE_MEMBERS_java_lang_NullPointerException]
//XMLVM_END_WRAPPER
}
JAVA_OBJECT __NEW_java_lang_NullPointerException()
{ XMLVM_CLASS_INIT(java_lang_NullPointerException)
java_lang_NullPointerException* me = (java_lang_NullPointerException*) XMLVM_MALLOC(sizeof(java_lang_NullPointerException));
me->tib = &__TIB_java_lang_NullPointerException;
__INIT_INSTANCE_MEMBERS_java_lang_NullPointerException(me, 0);
//XMLVM_BEGIN_WRAPPER[__NEW_java_lang_NullPointerException]
//XMLVM_END_WRAPPER
return me;
}
JAVA_OBJECT __NEW_INSTANCE_java_lang_NullPointerException()
{
JAVA_OBJECT me = JAVA_NULL;
me = __NEW_java_lang_NullPointerException();
java_lang_NullPointerException___INIT___(me);
return me;
}
JAVA_LONG java_lang_NullPointerException_GET_serialVersionUID()
{
XMLVM_CLASS_INIT(java_lang_NullPointerException)
return _STATIC_java_lang_NullPointerException_serialVersionUID;
}
void java_lang_NullPointerException_PUT_serialVersionUID(JAVA_LONG v)
{
XMLVM_CLASS_INIT(java_lang_NullPointerException)
_STATIC_java_lang_NullPointerException_serialVersionUID = v;
}
void java_lang_NullPointerException___INIT___(JAVA_OBJECT me)
{
//XMLVM_BEGIN_WRAPPER[java_lang_NullPointerException___INIT___]
XMLVM_ENTER_METHOD("java.lang.NullPointerException", "<init>", "?")
XMLVMElem _r0;
_r0.o = me;
XMLVM_SOURCE_POSITION("NullPointerException.java", 36)
XMLVM_CHECK_NPE(0)
java_lang_RuntimeException___INIT___(_r0.o);
XMLVM_SOURCE_POSITION("NullPointerException.java", 37)
XMLVM_EXIT_METHOD()
return;
//XMLVM_END_WRAPPER
}
void java_lang_NullPointerException___INIT____java_lang_String(JAVA_OBJECT me, JAVA_OBJECT n1)
{
//XMLVM_BEGIN_WRAPPER[java_lang_NullPointerException___INIT____java_lang_String]
XMLVM_ENTER_METHOD("java.lang.NullPointerException", "<init>", "?")
XMLVMElem _r0;
XMLVMElem _r1;
_r0.o = me;
_r1.o = n1;
XMLVM_SOURCE_POSITION("NullPointerException.java", 47)
XMLVM_CHECK_NPE(0)
java_lang_RuntimeException___INIT____java_lang_String(_r0.o, _r1.o);
XMLVM_SOURCE_POSITION("NullPointerException.java", 48)
XMLVM_EXIT_METHOD()
return;
//XMLVM_END_WRAPPER
}
|
Welcome home, introvert.
I'm Tyler, and I created Riskology to be a community where introverts master their psychology and make a dent in their universe—little steps every day to build something great. Join 25,000+ others just like you on our (totally free) email newsletter and I'll send you our Leadership for Introverts test to build your skills.
The Pre-Mortem: A Simple Technique To Save Any Project From Failure
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Any doctor will tell you that. And so will any sick patient.
So, why is it that age-old wisdom like this is rarely practiced?
Few people exercise and eat right before they realize their health is failing.
You rarely see anyone keep up their car before it breaks down.
No one replaces their roof until water’s dripping on their head.
What’s baffling about these problems is they rarely come out of the blue. They aren’t surprises; we see them coming.
You can feel yourself slowly getting out of shape.
You know if you never change your oil, your car is going to die.
Every day you come home and, for a split second, notice the sagging in the roof before moving on to more pressing matters.
The same is true for any risk-taker working on a big project with many moving pieces. As you maneuver through each day, it takes everything you’ve got to get through the massive pile of to-dos.
You see certain things building up—things you know are going to cause big problems down the line, but they’re not urgent yet. More pressing matters get your attention.
And you know if you allow them to go wrong, they could sink the project. They’re big risks, and they’re right in plain sight!
As a smart introverted leader, you know damn well something must be done, but you feel too scattered to do anything.
Luckily, there’s one simple thing you can do to save any project from disaster.
The Pre-Mortem Technique: Bringing Order to Chaos in A Big Project
Too often, we look back on projects gone horribly wrong and ask ourselves, “What happened?” We do a post-mortem and try to put together the broken pieces that will explain how we failed.
But after your project has failed is the wrong time to discuss the big problems it faced!
What you should’ve done, instead, is held a pre-mortem to look ahead at the challenges that could cause everything to fail, and created a plan to navigate around them.
As part of the small Action Team responsible for putting on a summit for 3,000 people here in Portland each summer, The Pre-Mortem Technique is one we adopted from year one and have held as a sacred ritual—one we know will shepherd our fragile event through any challenges that face it.
Several weeks before the show, we all get together with pizza and ice cream to geek out over the doom and gloom that could come our way. Sounds depressing, but putting big problems out in the open is actually quite a relief.
When you’re working on a high stakes project, no elephant should be left in the room!
Regardless of the goal you’re working on, there are three steps you can take to complete your own pre-mortem and put an iron-clad fence around success for your project.
How to Perform a Pre-Mortem in Three Steps
This is a relatively simple process and powerful in its ability to prevent crisis when done correctly. It’s important, though, that you complete every step and that you do them in the right order, following the instructions carefully.
Before the process, though, a few rules:
Set aside at least two hours of uninterrupted time. If that seems like a lot, ask yourself how much time it will take to clean up the mess you make if disaster strikes while your pants are down.
All stakeholders should be present. Invite everyone with a significant role to the pre-mortem. If you don’t, you’ll face a number of blind spots that could still blow up in your face… and you won’t even know they’re there because the person who could have alerted to you to them wasn’t invited. Everyone is equally important at the pre-mortem.
The pre-mortem must be a face to face meeting. This process will not work via email. A live chat could work, but it will be cumbersome. Video chats would be the next best solution. But unless it is physically impossible, get everyone together in one room. This is critical.
One person should do nothing but take notes. Lots of important problems and solutions get tossed around during a pre-mortem. They’ll be useless to you if someone isn’t in charge of making sure they’re remembered.
Now, the process…
Step 1: Spend one hour listing every possible problem you can imagine.
Your one and only job during the first hour of your pre-mortem is to get down—on paper or a whiteboard—every single problem that has even a remote chance of occurring that would derail your project.
Dream big! Dream small! At this stage, no problem is off-limits, and everyone at the meeting should feel completely uninhibited about tossing out things that sound ridiculous.
Your ability to do this well will depend on how great a job you’ve done building trust within your team. Or, if you’re flying solo, you’ll need to be open and honest with yourself.
Think of this as a brainstorming session of doom. All ideas go, and you should encourage your team to explore different variations of the same problem…
What if a monster eats a team member?
What if an elephant eats our guest of honor?
What if a monster and an elephant get in a fight in our venue?
…as well as very different, unrelated problems:
What if no one shows up to our event?
What if our website goes down?
What if the most important person backs out on us?
The goal is to create a completely exhaustive list of things that could go wrong. Any route you take to get there is allowed.
The only thing not allowed during this phase is proposed solutions. These are strictly forbidden because they draw the team away from getting every single problem out in the open.
If you have a team of talented and solution oriented people, you’ll find this is harder to manage than you think.
Step 2: Pick the top 10 problems.
At this point, you have a massive list of problems staring you in the face, and you need a method to make some sense of the madness.
Now is the time to pick the top 10 problems to focus on before moving into the next phase of the pre-mortem: finding solutions.
Here are a few rules you’ll want to follow to make sure you pick the best ones:
Focus on show-stoppers. The problems you focus on solving should be critical to your project. In other words, if it occurs, will it severely impact the project? If the answer is no, cross it off; it doesn’t belong on your pre-mortem list. This rule will eliminate many of the minor issues that came up—and helped you find bigger problems—but aren’t really mission critical.
Pick problems likely to happen. Don’t waste time solving problems that aren’t likely to actually happen. Instead, try to home in on the “elephant in the room” problems that came up—the ones everyone was secretly worried about but never brought up until now.
Discard problems you have no control over. Every project will face some external risks that you simply can’t control. Toss those out now because there’s nothing you can do about them. This eliminates problems like “Tornado blows everyone to Canada.” From here on out, you’re focusing on problems you can actually fix.
Step 3: Spend one hour creating solutions.
Now is the time for your team to do what it does best: solve problems.
Believe it or not, this part is actually the easiest. Once the biggest problems are out in the open, their solutions become surprisingly simple. As Einstein used to say, “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.”
Go through each problem in your top ten list and either:
Create a proactive solution for it (best for problems facing you now), or
Define a backup plan (best for problems that could happen, but haven’t yet).
Most importantly, a solution is not complete until action items are created and assigned to team members to complete.
Never forget: this process is useless if you get all the way to creating a solution but don’t carry it out because no one knew they were in charge.
Your Homework Today
There are no guarantees when you’re taking on a big, risky project. Sometimes things will go wrong that you didn’t—or even couldn’t—anticipate. But taking a few hours to go through the pre-mortem process is a wise investment for any project that’s important to you.
Once you’ve done it, you can go to bed each night knowing all your bases are covered. Don’t underestimate the value of peace of mind.
Take five minutes and schedule a pre-mortem for whatever it is you’re working on now. |
Clinical Case Reports 2015; 3(12): 1017--1020
Background {#ccr3423-sec-0001}
==========
Subcutaneous fat necrosis (SCFN) of the newborn is a rare inflammatory disorder of the fat tissue presenting in term and postterm infants [1](#ccr3423-bib-0001){ref-type="ref"}, consisting in a lobular form of panniculitis associated to painful, hard, and erythematous--violaceous nodules (Figs. [1](#ccr3423-fig-0001){ref-type="fig"} and [2](#ccr3423-fig-0002){ref-type="fig"}) [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}. SCFN usually has a favorable prognosis, with complete autoresolution of subcutaneous lesions within several weeks or months, but it may also be complicated by serious metabolic alterations [3](#ccr3423-bib-0003){ref-type="ref"}.
{#ccr3423-fig-0001}
{#ccr3423-fig-0002}
Patient 1 {#ccr3423-sec-0002}
=========
A male term newborn was delivered vaginally at 38 + 2 gestational weeks after labor induction for fetal macrosomia. Birth weight was 4170 g. Gravidic history was unremarkable. The patient needed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at birth due to neonatal asphyxia. Apgar score was 1, 5, and 8 at 1, 5, and 10 min, respectively. Cord blood gas analysis showed metabolic acidosis (pH 7.12, [pco]{.smallcaps} ~2~ 36 mmHg, HCO~3~ 11.7 mmol/L, BE −16.7 mmol/L). In the first hours after admission to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), he presented with hypoglycemia responsive to IV glucose infusion. Other laboratory results included: ALT 229 U/L, CPK 2105 U/L, troponin I 0.074 ng/mL, creatinine 0.82 mg/dL, blood urea nitrogen 29 mg/dL, calcium 10.4 mg/dL. There were no neurological complications. On day \#11 of life, the patient presented with painful subcutaneous hard nodules covered by erythematous skin. These lesions were localized on the right arm and on the right armpit (Fig. [1](#ccr3423-fig-0001){ref-type="fig"}), and were consistent with nodules of SCFN. Serum calcium was slightly increased (11.2 mg/dL) at this time point; further monitoring showed spontaneous normalization of serum calcium, which remained normal post discharge. On the occasion of the follow‐up visit 3 months post discharge, the baby was in good clinical condition with an appropriate‐to‐age neurological development.
Patient 2 {#ccr3423-sec-0003}
=========
A full‐term infant girl (40 + 4 gestational weeks) was born by cesarean section for mechanical dystocia with premature rupture of membranes (PROM) 24 h before, with stained amniotic fluid. Her mother had fever in the postpartum and her blood culture turned positive for *Escherichia coli*, so she was administered antibiotic treatment. The baby\'s birth weight was 3940 g (90th--97th percentile, i.e., large for gestational age \[LGA\]), length was 50.5 cm (50th--75th percentile), and head circumference was 35 cm (50th--75th percentile). Soon after birth, the patient developed severe perinatal distress, which rapidly improved with noninvasive ventilatory support in delivery room. Apgar score was 1, 4, and 9 at 1, 5, and 10 min, respectively. She received noninvasive ventilatory support for 48 h after birth.
Inflammatory markers at birth (C‐reactive protein, CRP) were normal. Arterial cord blood gas analysis showed pH 7.05, [pco]{.smallcaps} ~2~ 69 mmHg, BE −12.3 mmol/L, lactate 7.8 mmol/L. On day \#2 of life, an infiltrated erythematous plaque was observed on the right arm, this lesion turned into a purplish hue 2 days later (Fig. [2](#ccr3423-fig-0002){ref-type="fig"}), with no associated tenderness or enlargement. An X‐ray excluded fractures. Predischarge blood tests performed on day \#7 of life showed mild hypercalcemia (calcium 11.1 mg/dL) with normal platelet count. Basing on clinical history, physical examination, and biochemical parameters, the erythematous lesion of the arm was diagnosed as SCFN. The neurological outcome was favorable, as assessed on the occasion of the 3 months follow‐up visit postdischarge.
Discussion {#ccr3423-sec-0004}
==========
Subcutaneous fat necrosis of the newborn (SCFN) represents a benign condition occurring in the neonatal period [4](#ccr3423-bib-0004){ref-type="ref"}, characterized by inflammation and necrosis of subcutaneous fat tissue and typically presenting with subcutaneous purple‐bluish hard nodules (see Figs. [1](#ccr3423-fig-0001){ref-type="fig"} and [2](#ccr3423-fig-0002){ref-type="fig"}) [5](#ccr3423-bib-0005){ref-type="ref"}. Lesions may appear isolated or clustered and are typically located on shoulders, back, buttocks, and face [6](#ccr3423-bib-0006){ref-type="ref"}; nodules may evolve into subcutaneous calcifications [5](#ccr3423-bib-0005){ref-type="ref"}.
Etiology of this disorder is unknown, but it is linked to multiple neonatal and maternal risk factors (Table [1](#ccr3423-tbl-0001){ref-type="table-wrap"}) [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}. Physiopathology of SCFN may involve a precocious phase of impaired tissue perfusion with subsequent tissue hypoxia leading to crystallization of neonatal subcutaneous fat, followed by tissue necrosis and granulomatous reaction [6](#ccr3423-bib-0006){ref-type="ref"}.
######
Neonatal and maternal risk factors for SCFN of the newborn
Neonatal risk factors Maternal risk factors
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
▪Umbilical cord prolapse▪Meconium aspiration▪Perinatal asphyxia▪Therapeutic hypothermia▪Neonatal sepsis ▪Preeclampsia▪Maternal diabetes mellitus▪Maternal medications (calcium channel blockers, cocaine)▪Smoking or exposure to passive smoking during pregnancy▪Materno‐fetal Rh incompatibility
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Subcutaneous fat necrosis is usually a benign condition. Nevertheless, it may be associated with thrombocytopenia, hypoglycemia, hypercalcemia, and hypertriglyceridemia [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}; these metabolic derangements may, in turn, represent a possible risk for serious complications [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}.
Thrombocytopenia is usually synchronous with the appearance of subcutaneous nodules, and it is possibly caused by peripheral platelet sequestration into the lesions [7](#ccr3423-bib-0007){ref-type="ref"}, [8](#ccr3423-bib-0008){ref-type="ref"}.
Hypoglycemia is reported in literature as another risk factor linked to SCFN, but rather than being a cause of SCFN it seems to be itself a consequence of hypoxia [1](#ccr3423-bib-0001){ref-type="ref"}.
Hypertriglyceridemia is caused by mobilization of fatty acids from adipose tissue [3](#ccr3423-bib-0003){ref-type="ref"}.
Hypercalcemia is found in 25% of cases [5](#ccr3423-bib-0005){ref-type="ref"} and represents the most serious potential complication, associated with significant mortality and morbidity [1](#ccr3423-bib-0001){ref-type="ref"}. The first 6 weeks of life represent the time frame at highest risk for clinically significant hypercalcemia in SCFN, with 40% of cases occurring in this lapse of time [9](#ccr3423-bib-0009){ref-type="ref"}.
Usually, serum calcium starts to rise as SCFN lesions begin to regress; sometimes, hypercalcemia is already detectable before the onset of subcutaneous lesions [5](#ccr3423-bib-0005){ref-type="ref"}. Neonates with hypercalcemia tend to present with lethargy, hypotonia, irritability, vomiting, polyuria, polydipsia, constipation, and dehydration [8](#ccr3423-bib-0008){ref-type="ref"}. Hypercalcemia is caused by increased prostaglandin activity, release of calcium from necrotic fat tissue, and increased secretion of 1,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D3 from subcutaneous lesions, leading to an increased intestinal uptake of calcium [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}. If left untreated, moderate to severe hypercalcemia may lead to complications as nephrocalcinosis, nephrolithiasis, renal failure; calcification of falx cerebri, skin, myocardium, and gastric mucosa may also occur [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}, [8](#ccr3423-bib-0008){ref-type="ref"}.
Treatment of hypercalcemia consists of hyperhydration and diet with low levels of calcium and vitamin D; sometimes, other drugs like furosemide and prednisolone are needed to decrease serum calcium [2](#ccr3423-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"}; bisphosphonates (e.g., etidronate) may also be employed to treat moderate to severe hypercalcemia when other measures have proven ineffective [10](#ccr3423-bib-0010){ref-type="ref"}.
In children with a personal history of SCFN it is recommended to evaluate serum calcium levels periodically until the age of 6 months [8](#ccr3423-bib-0008){ref-type="ref"}.
Conclusions and Final Remarks {#ccr3423-sec-0005}
=============================
Subcutaneous fat necrosis is usually a transient and self‐limited condition. However, it may be complicated by a number of metabolic alterations like thrombocytopenia, hypoglycemia, hypercalcemia, and hypertriglyceridemia. It is pivotal to monitor newborns with SCFN to avoid the risk of serious complications, with particular reference to hypercalcemia. Regular monitoring of serum calcium is recommended until the age of 6 months, in infants with personal history of SCFN.
Conflict of Interest {#ccr3423-sec-0007}
====================
None declared.
We thank our friends and colleagues Ian Taylor, MD (Emergency Medicine Department, University of Ottawa), Marco Gasparetto, MD, PhD (Senior Clinical Fellow in Paediatric Gastroenterology at Cambridge University Hospitals, United Kingdom), and Megan Roberts (PR and Brand Communications Manager, Degree in English Literature, University of Cambridge) for their precious help in revising the English of the manuscript.
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Interferon-*γ* (IFN-*γ*), as a proinflammatory cytokine produced in the uterus during early pregnancy, initiates endometrial vasculature remodelling and contributes to the normal health of the deciduas.^[@bib1]^ However, IFN-*γ* administration can also cause pregnancy failure in rabbits^[@bib2]^ and in mice.^[@bib3]^ We previously demonstrated that the deleterious effects of IFN-*γ* were associated with the aberrant expression of major histocompatibility complex class II molecules^[@bib2],\ [@bib4]^ and increased apoptotic death of placental cytotrophoblast cells at the maternal--foetal interface.^[@bib5],\ [@bib6]^
Increasing evidence showed that natural killer (NK) cells had a critical role in foetal resorption, because the depletion of NK cells by anti-asialoGM1 Ab could reduce abortion rates.^[@bib7],\ [@bib8],\ [@bib9]^ However, heavily uterine NK (uNK) cells were transiently found in the uteri of many species and could promote decidual transformation, vascularization and placental formation in midgestation.^[@bib10],\ [@bib11]^ In mice, CD49b (*α*2 integrin chain) is widely used as a pan-NK cell marker,^[@bib12]^ whereas *Dolichos biflorus agglutinin* (DBA) lectin, which reacts with glycoconjugates containing *N*-acetylgalactosamine, is used as a specific uNK cell marker.^[@bib13]^ With regard to the origin of uNK cells during pregnancy, Chantakru *et al.*^[@bib14]^ demonstrated that the marked increase of uNK cells during decidualization was primarily caused by a remarkably increased recruitment of uNK cell precursors, but not *de novo* self-renewal of the existing uNK cells. However, the molecules attracting the homing of NK cells into the uterine bed during pregnancy remain unexplored.
Chemokines are a group of small, structurally related molecules that coordinate the homeostatic circulation of leucocytes.^[@bib15]^ As an unusual member of the chemokine family, CX3CL1 consists of a chemokine domain attached to a glycosylated mucin-like transmembrane stalk^[@bib16]^ and exhibits an efficient chemotactic activity for monocytes, T cells and NK cells.^[@bib17]^ Interestingly, CX3CR1 (the CX3CL1 receptor) defines two killer lectin-like receptor G1-positive mouse NK cell subsets^[@bib18]^ and regulates NK cell trafficking.^[@bib19]^ In addition, IFN-*γ* could modulate the expression of CX3CL1 in endothelial cells.^[@bib20]^ However, few data currently exist on the changes in CX3CL1 during pregnancy failure.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether IFN-*γ*-induced pregnancy failure was associated with the uterine production of CX3CL1 and NK cell uterine homing. We demonstrated herein that IFN-*γ* induced a highly increased proportion of CD49b^+^ NK cells in the uterus and peripheral blood and it induced a significantly upregulated uterine expression of CX3CL1. Additionally, our data showed that uterine CX3CL1 facilitated CD49b^+^ NK cell recruitment into the uterus. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence showing that IFN-*γ*, via stimulating uterine CX3CL1 production, induces CD49b^+^ NK cell uterine homing and thus pregnancy failure in mice.
Results
=======
IFN-*γ* administration resulted in foetal resorption
----------------------------------------------------
To evaluate the adverse effects of IFN-*γ* on pregnancy, syngeneically mated BALB/c females received an injection of 5000 U IFN-*γ* intraperitoneally on gestational day 6 (GD6), and the incidence of foetal resorption was assessed 2 days after treatment. A dose of 5000 U IFN-*γ* was used after preliminary comparisons of different doses (data not shown). We observed that IFN-*γ* administration significantly increased the resorption rate ([Figure 1b](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). The solvent control mice exhibited gross morphologically normal implantation sites ([Figure 1ai](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). By contrast, IFN-*γ* at a dose of 5000 U resulted in embryo loss. Resorbing uterine contents were characterized by the degeneration of the decidua accompanied with thrombosis and haemorrhage. The remnants of decidual tissue had already passed into the uterine lumen with the embryos ([Figure 1aii](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Further histological examination of the control mice revealed a representative view of a GD8 embryo with well-developed deciduas and embryonic capsule ([Figure 1aiii](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). By contrast, implantation sites from IFN-*γ*-treated mice displayed poorly developed deciduas and the absence of embryos ([Figure 1aiv](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). However, the ovaries of IFN-*γ*-treated mice contained normal corpus luteum and exhibited no overt histological abnormalities compared with the control group ([Figures 1av and vi](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Interestingly, when the splenic cells of IFN-*γ*-induced abortion mice after erythrocyte lysis were transferred into syngeneically mated BALB/c on GD6, we also observed a 62.5% resorption rate 2 days posttransfer ([Figure 1c](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}), suggesting that IFN-*γ*-induced resorption was due to leucocytes. Thus, further experiments were designed to explore the causes underlying IFN-*γ*-induced resorption.
IFN-*γ* treatment enhanced the accumulation of the CD49b^+^ NK cell subset
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because uNK cells have critical functions in pregnancy,^[@bib21]^ we examined whether IFN-*γ* treatment would alter the uNK cells. By performing immunostaining analysis, we found that the DBA lectin-positive cells were restricted to decidua basalis and mesometrial lymphoid aggregates of pregnancy (MLAp) of implantation sites in solvent control mice ([Figures 2ai and iii](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). By contrast, no DBA-positive reaction was observed in the sections of uteri from IFN-*γ*-induced abortion mice ([Figures 2aii and iv](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Unexpectedly, CD49b was expressed at a significantly higher level in IFN-*γ*-treated mice ([Figure 2b](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Similar results were observed when CD49b expression was analysed on GD7 ([Supplementary Figure 1A](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Further, uteri were harvested to assess the percentage of CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells in CD45^+^ leucocytes (see [Supplementary Figure 1B](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"} for the gating strategy). The percentage of CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells (lower-right quadrant) in the uterus from the IFN-*γ*-treated group was significantly higher than that from the control group ([Figure 2c](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}), as expected. Interestingly, a similarly significant increase was found in the peripheral blood (see [Supplementary Figure 1C](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"} for the gating strategy) of IFN-*γ*-treated mice when compared with the control mice ([Figure 2d](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Overall, our findings suggested that IFN-*γ* induced a marked increase of CD49b^+^ NK cells in the uterus and peripheral blood.
IFN-*γ* significantly increased uterine CX3CL1 expression via activation of the JAK2- STAT1 pathway
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To analyse whether the changes of NK cells were due to chemokines, quantitative PCR was performed to detect the expression of various chemokines in the uteri. The expression of CX3CL1 mRNA ([Figure 3a](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}, top panel) was markedly upregulated by IFN-*γ* treatment on GD8. The significantly enhanced expression of CX3CL1 was also confirmed by western blotting ([Figure 3a](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}, bottom panel). Furthermore, histological analysis revealed stronger staining in the luminal epithelium and glandular epithelium of the uterus from IFN-*γ*-treated mice compared with control mice ([Figure 3b](#fig3){ref-type="fig"} and [Supplementary Figure 2A](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Similarly, the expression of CX3CL1 protein was also upregulated in the uterus of IFN-*γ*-treated mice when analysed on GD7 ([Supplementary Figure 2B](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Interestingly, CX3CR1 expression was also significantly upregulated in the uterus from IFN-*γ*-treated mice ([Figure 3c](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}).
To further reveal how IFN-*γ* upregulated uterine expression of CX3CL1, we performed uterine stromal cell culture experiments. When uterine stromal cells were treated with IFN-*γ* at doses of 10, 100, 250 or 500 U/ml for 12 h, CX3CL1 protein expression was markedly induced in response to IFN-*γ* at a dose of 250 or 500 U/ml compared with the control group ([Supplementary Figure 2C](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Immunocytochemical staining displayed similar results ([Figure 4a](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}). When IFN-*γ* was administered at a dose of 250 U/ml, CX3CL1 expression levels varied in a time-dependent manner. The CX3CL1 expression level increased within 1 h, peaked at 6 h, continued for at least 12 h and then declined later ([Supplementary Figure 2D](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Thus, the treatment of IFN-*γ* at a dose of 250 U/ml for 12 h was applied in the following study.
Because the Janus family kinase-signal transducers and activators of transcription (JAK-STAT) pathway was widely investigated in IFN-*γ*-mediated signal transduction and transcriptional regulation signalling,^[@bib22]^ we tested whether the regulation of CX3CL1 expression by IFN-*γ* occurred via the JAK-STAT pathway. When uterine stromal cells were pretreated with AG490, a specific JAK2 inhibitor,^[@bib23]^ there was a dose-dependent inhibition of CX3CL1 upregulation by IFN-*γ* (data not shown). At 10 *μ*M, AG490 completely abrogated IFN-*γ*-mediated responses in uterine stromal cells ([Figure 4b](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}), suggesting that JAK2 mediated the IFN-*γ*-stimulated CX3CL1 expression. However, incubation with AG490 alone had no effect on the CX3CL1 basal level ([Figure 4b](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}). In addition, IFN-*γ* treatment strikingly increased phosphorylation of STAT1, and AG490 pretreatment decreased phosphorylation of STAT1 by 55%, as expected ([Figure 4c](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}). To further confirm whether STAT1 phosphorylation affected CX3CL1 expression, fludarabine, a selective STAT1 inhibitor, was used.^[@bib24]^ As shown in [Supplementary Figure 2E](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}, while fludarabine exhibited no influence on the amount of STAT1 protein, it inhibited STAT1 phosphorylation in a dose-dependent manner. Uterine stromal cells, after exposure to fludarabine at 100 *μ*M for 2 h, showed a loss of 60% and 50% of CX3CL1 and pSTAT1 (phosphorylated STAT1), respectively ([Figure 4d](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}), suggesting a close correlation between STAT1 activation and the production of CX3CL1. Collectively, these data strongly suggested that IFN-*γ* upregulated CX3CL1 expression through a JAK2-STAT1 pathway. We then next explored whether and how IFN-*γ*-driven CX3CL1 regulated NK cell migration.
CX3CL1 facilitated peripheral NK cell migration
-----------------------------------------------
To explore whether CX3CL1 would induce the migration of NK cells, we first verified that peripheral NK cells expressed CX3CR1 at their surface. We performed immunostaining on NK cells, and observed a bright staining when cells were incubated with CX3CR1 Ab ([Figure 5a](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}). Then, the ability of peripheral NK cells to respond to CX3CL1 was assessed. Increasing the dose of CX3CL1 triggered a significant increase in cell migration; doses began at 100 ng/ml, and this effect reached a plateau at 500 ng/ml ([Supplementary Figure 3A](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Furthermore, an overnight preincubation of NK cells with pertussis toxin (PTX) at 500 ng/ml massively blocked the stimulatory effects of CX3CL1 ([Figure 5b](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}), indicating a CX3CL1-induced chemotaxis rather than chemokinesis.^[@bib25]^
To mimic the uterine local environment, uterine stromal cells were isolated, cultured and used to prepare conditioned medium (CM). The chemotactic activity of the stromal cell CM (termed control CM) on NK cells was assessed. Chemotaxis to control CM increased robustly to 9.58-fold over that of the control group ([Supplementary Figure 3B](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Similarly, PTX partially abolished CM-mediated migration (data not shown). More importantly, we further found that chemotaxis to IFN-*γ*-treated stromal cell CM (termed IFN-*γ* CM) was significantly increased compared with control CM, and this enhancement of chemotaxis by IFN-*γ* CM can be significantly reversed by preincubation of stromal cells with AG490 ([Figure 5c](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}). To clarify the effect of CX3CL1 in IFN-*γ* CM, a neutralizing anti-CX3CL1 monoclonal antibody (mAb) was used. Blocking of CX3CL1 with neutralizing mAb could partially inhibit the migration of NK cells toward IFN-*γ* CM, compared with the addition of an isotypic IgG control ([Figure 5d](#fig5){ref-type="fig"}).
Although CX3CL1 induced robust migration of peripheral NK cells *in vitro*, this may not reflect the action of this drug *in vivo*. To verify the effect of CX3CL1 *in vivo*, recombinant mouse CX3CL1 was administered intraperitoneally to BALB/c females. Compared with mice treated with placebo, mice treated with CX3CL1 showed a higher percentage of CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells in the uterus ([Figure 6a](#fig6){ref-type="fig"}). Similarly, a significant increase in CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells was found in the peripheral blood of CX3CL1-treated mice ([Figure 6b](#fig6){ref-type="fig"}). Therefore, these data showed that CX3CL1 was associated with increased proportion of CD49b^+^ NK cells *in vivo*. Collectively, our above results strengthened the idea that upregulated uterine expression of CX3CL1 by IFN-*γ* was conducive for the NK cell uterine homing from the periphery.
Discussion
==========
IFN-*γ* has been widely evaluated as a potential mediator of pregnancy failure in humans.^[@bib1]^ We describe here that IFN-*γ* can significantly increase uterine CX3CL1 expression via activation of the JAK2-STAT1 pathway, thus inducing CD49b^+^ NK cell uterine homing, and eventually provoke foetal loss in syngeneically mated BALB/c mice. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study to correlate the deleterious effects of IFN-*γ* during pregnancy with the aberrant regulation of CX3CL1 and NK cells.
IFN-*γ* concentration per implantation site was prominent during early pregnancy in the mice, and uNK cells were the main source of IFN-*γ*.^[@bib10],\ [@bib26]^ As reported by Ashkar and Croy,^[@bib10]^ IFN-*γ* concentration was \~4 U per implantation site on GD6 and peaked on GD10, with \~10 U per implantation site. Implantation sites of IFN-*γ*- and IFN-*γ*R*α*-null mice did not undergo normal gestation-induced spiral artery modification and contained elevated numbers of incompletely differentiated uNK cells and widespread necrotic deciduas, suggesting that IFN-*γ* contributed to the initiation of uterine vascular modifications, maturation of uNK cells and maintenance of decidual integrity.^[@bib27]^ In this report, when each female mouse received an injection of 5000 U IFN-*γ* intraperitoneally on GD6, we observed a higher resorption rate on GD8. Thus, although IFN-*γ* had critical roles in successful pregnancy, a supraphysiological dose of IFN-*γ* was harmful to conceptus. However, the ovaries of IFN-*γ*-treated mice exhibited no overt histological abnormalities, suggesting that IFN-*γ* did not exert its effects on ovaries in this model.
The best studied mouse model of spontaneous foetal loss was the mating of CBA/J females with DBA/2 males.^[@bib3]^ The abnormal resorption rate in the CBA/J × DBA/2 mating combination was thought to be because of activated NK cells and mononuclear cells expressing Mac-1 (CD11b) and F4/80.^[@bib7],\ [@bib28]^ Additionally, human RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss) is associated with NK cells.^[@bib29]^ Our data indicated that the percentage of CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells in the blood and uterus from the foetal resorption group was significantly increased. Thus, our results suggested that CD49b^+^ NK cells were incompatible with successful pregnancy, which seemed to be consistent with a previous report that the cytotoxicity of CD49b^+^ NK cells was higher than that of CD49b^−^ NK cells.^[@bib12]^ Surprisingly, we observed no DBA-positive uNK cells in IFN-*γ*-induced abortion mice. Increasing evidence supports the idea that uNK cells provide major contributions to decidual and vascular remodelling.^[@bib27],\ [@bib30]^ Thus, necrotic deciduas and poor angiogenesis were found within the implantation sites of aborted mice that displayed the absence of uNK cells. At midgestation, excessively accumulated numbers of small, hypogranular uNK cells were found in IFN-*γ*^−/−^ or IFN-*γ*R*α*^−/−^ mice,^[@bib27]^ leading us to hypothesize that increased apoptosis induced by IFN-*γ* may account for the absence of uNK cells in our model. Because there were also DBA^−^ uNK cells present,^[@bib31]^ we could not exclude the possibility that DBA^−^ uNK cells may be present in IFN-*γ*-induced abortion mice.
NK cells, unlike T cells or B cells, which generate Ag-specific receptors by gene rearrangement, are the third major lymphocyte population.^[@bib32]^ The earliest progenitors exclusively committed to NK cell lineage are characterized by the expression of CD122 in the mouse.^[@bib33]^ After the acquisition of CD94-NKG2 receptors and Ly-49, NK cells acquire *α*~v~, CD49b and Mac-1 in order during maturation.^[@bib34]^ Recently, it was reported that CD27 dissected mature NK cells into two subsets, with distinct responsiveness and migratory capacity in the mouse,^[@bib33]^ suggesting that the different effects of IFN-*γ* on CD49b^+^ NK and DBA^+^ uNK cells may be because of their distinct responses to IFN-*γ*-driven CX3CL1. NK cells are regulated by activating and inhibitory cell surface receptors.^[@bib35]^ By defining uNK cells as CD3^−^CD122^+^ cells, Yadi *et al.*^[@bib36]^ reported two distinct subsets in the mice: a DBA-negative population was similar to peripheral NK cells, whereas a DBA-positive population had an unusual NKp46^+^NKG2D^+^NK1.1^−^CD49b^−^ phenotype, and a distinct Ly-49 receptor repertoire compared with CD49b^+^ NK cells.^[@bib36]^ The two uNK subsets were different in functional potential with a biased gene expression.^[@bib37]^ Other finding indicated that DBA^+^ and DBA^−^ uNK cells may represent cells arising from different sources, and DBA^+^ uNK cells may represent cells arising from homed progenitor or precursor cells.^[@bib31]^ CD49b^+^ uNK cells were only a minor subset during normal pregnancy in the mouse,^[@bib36]^ whereas IFN-*γ* administration increased the percentage of CD49b^+^ NK cells in our model. Therefore, these results raise the question whether IFN-*γ* alters the function and phenotype of CD49b^+^ NK cells. It was reported that transforming growth factor *β*1 favoured a transition from peripheral blood NK cells to uNK cells in humans.^[@bib38]^ However, the relationships, in terms of differentiation between DBA^+^ and DBA^−^ uNK cells, still needed further experiments to elucidate in the mice.
Chemokines may have a fundamental role in forming a specialized immune milieu at the maternal--foetal interface by the recruitment of immune cells.^[@bib39],\ [@bib40],\ [@bib41]^ Here, we provided multiple lines of evidences that CX3CL1 may contribute to CD49b^+^ NK cell recruitment to the uterus. First, we observed that upregulated uterine expression of CX3CL1 was associated with an increased proportion of CD49b^+^ NK cells in the uterus after IFN-*γ* administration *in vivo*. Moreover, IFN-*γ*-driven expression of CX3CL1 in uterine stromal cells was closely correlated with the increased migration of NK cells. In addition, the NK cell migration was significantly decreased when CX3CL1-neutralizing mAb was added to the CM, which clearly demonstrated that the chemotaxis of the uterine stromal cells CM was partially because of the presence of CX3CL1. Finally, we observed a greater increase in the recruitment of NK cells into the endometrium after exogenous CX3CL1 administration. Fraticelli *et al.*^[@bib20]^ reported that functional CX3CR1 was expressed strongly in NK cells. In mice, CX3CR1 was identified at a late stage of NK cell development^[@bib18],\ [@bib19]^ and regulated NK cell activity *in vivo* via promoting NK cell trafficking.^[@bib42]^ We verified that NK cells expressed CX3CR1 at their surface and, interestingly, that CX3CR1 expression was significantly upregulated in the uterus after IFN-*γ* treatment. The leucocytes may account for the increased CX3CR1 expression because we could not detect CX3CR1 in uterine stromal cells (data not shown). The unavailability of CX3CR1 Ab for flow cytometry restricted us from detecting CX3CR1 expression on NK cells directly *in vivo*. Nonetheless, our data seemed to support the idea that CD49b^+^ NK cells were recruited from peripheral NK cells, and a bias towards CD49b^+^ NK cells may lead to pregnancy failure. It was reported that CX3CR1- or CX3CL1-deficient mice did not exhibit any overt histological abnormalities and behavioural abnormalities.^[@bib43],\ [@bib44]^ It would be fascinating to investigate whether the responses of CX3CL1^−/−^ or CX3CR1^−/−^ mice to IFN-*γ* stimulus would be indistinguishable from those of wild-type mice.
In addition to CX3CL1,^[@bib17]^ CCL3, CXCL10 and CXCL12 also regulated the trafficking of mouse NK cells.^[@bib45]^ Our results showed that the expression of CXCL12, CXCL10, CCL4 and CCL5 was markedly stimulated by IFN-*γ* treatment in the uteri (data not shown). Compared with the addition of CX3CL1 alone, CM markedly increased the NK cell migration. Moreover, the addition of CX3CL1-neutralizing mAb to CM reduced NK cell migration by \~20%. Taken together, these results suggested that the uterus relied heavily on CX3CL1 to regulate the recruitment of NK cells and that other chemokines, such as CXCL10 and CXCL12, may also contribute to this phenomenon.
In summary, our data indicate that exogenous IFN-*γ* administration leads to the aberrant modulation of CD49b^+^ NK cells in the uterus via the upregulated expression of CX3CL1. We have now added chemokines, regulators of leucocyte trafficking,^[@bib15]^ to the list of factors that cause IFN-*γ*-induced pregnancy failure. This may be a novel mechanism by which IFN-*γ* causes pregnancy failure and may provide a theoretic basis for human embryo abortion therapy.
Materials and Methods
=====================
Mice
----
Eight- to ten-week-old inbred BALB/c mice were purchased from Vital River Laboratories (VRL, Beijing, China). Mice, housed in a temperature- and humidity-controlled room with a constant photoperiod (12 L : 12 D), were fed *ad libitum* and had free access to tap water. Studies involving mouse usage were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China). Pregnancy was achieved by caging female mice with a fertile male at a 2 : 1 ratio, and the day when a copulatory plug was observed was termed GD1.
Treatment of mice with IFN-*γ* or CX3CL1 and histology
------------------------------------------------------
For IFN-*γ* treatment, homozygously mated BALB/c females were injected intraperitoneally with 5000 U IFN-*γ* (Peprotech, London, UK) or placebo (sodium phosphate containing 0.1% BSA) on GD6. For CX3CL1 treatment, homozygously mated BALB/c females were injected intraperitoneally with 1 *μ*g of CX3CL1 (R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN, USA) or placebo (PBS containing 0.1% BSA) on GD6. Mice were killed by cervical dislocation on GD8, and foetal resorption was assessed by observing the contents of uterus. Mice without gross implantation sites or tissue debris in the uterus were considered not pregnant and excluded from the experiment.
For histological analysis, uteri and ovaries were removed and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA) overnight at 4 °C. After fixation, tissues were treated with ethanol and xylene and embedded in paraffin. Sections of 5 *μ*m in thickness were prepared and stained using haematoxylin and eosin (H&E).
Splenocyte transplantation
--------------------------
Spleens from placebo-treated or IFN-*γ*-induced abortion donor mice were gently homogenized in RPMI-1640 medium (HyClone, Logan, UT, USA) supplemented with 1% FBS (HyClone), penicillin/streptomycin (100 U/ml) and then sifted through a 37 *μ*m cell strainer. Donor cells were depleted of RBCs using an ammonium chloride lysing solution (0.14 M NH~4~Cl, 10 nM KHCO~3~ and 1 nM EDTA). Cells were then washed with RPMI-1640 medium and resuspended in RPMI-1640 medium. Homozygously mated BALB/c females on GD6 were used as recipients and were intravenously injected with 1 × 10^7^ donor cells in 100 *μ*l RPMI-1640. Two days later, recipients were killed, and the uteri were examined for the ratio of foetal abortions.
Total RNA isolation and quantitative PCR
----------------------------------------
Total RNAs were extracted with a kit (BioTeke, Beijing, China) and then used as templates for reverse transcription (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). cDNA was amplified using SYBR Green MasterMix (ComWin Biotech Co. Ltd, Beijing, China) according to the manufacturer\'s instructions. Quantitative PCR was performed with a LightCycler 480 (Roche, Indianapolis, IN, USA). The primers used are summarized in [Supplementary Tables 1 and 2](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}, and the target gene mRNA expression was normalized to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) expression. The fold change was calculated as 2 ^−ΔΔCt^ (cycle threshold).
Western blotting
----------------
The following primary Abs were used: anti-CD49b, anti-STAT-1, anti-pSTAT-1 (Cell Signalling Technology Inc., Danvers, MA, USA), anti-CX3CL1 (eBioscience, San Diego, CA, USA), anti-CX3CR1 (eBioscience), anti-actin (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA, USA) and anti-GAPDH (Hangzhou Goodhere Biotechnology Co. Ltd, Hangzhou, China). Proteins were extracted by nondenaturing lysis buffer (Applygen, Beijing, China), and the concentration was determined by a bicinchoninic acid Protein Assay Kit (Pierce, Rockford, IL, USA). Proteins were separated by SDS--PAGE and transferred onto a nitrocellulose membrane (Pall, New York, NY, USA). The membranes were blocked in 5% skimmed dry milk in TBST at 37 °C for 1 h and then incubated with primary Abs at 4 °C overnight, followed by incubation with secondary Abs conjugated to HRP at 37 °C for 1 h (KPL, Gaithersburg, MD, USA). Chemiluminescence reactions were performed with an ECL Detection Kit (Pierce), and images were acquired using a Kodak X-Omat film (Carestream, Xiamen, China). Bands were analysed using Bio-Rad Quantity One software (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA), and expression was calculated as the ratio of the signal for the specific protein to the signal for actin or GAPDH.
Immunochemical staining
-----------------------
Anti-CX3CL1 primary Ab and biotinylated-DBA lectin (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) were used. Cryosections (8 *μ*m) of uteri were fixed in 4% PFA for 15 min. After being washed in PBS, the sections were blocked with 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 min and sequential 10% horse normal serum (ZSGB-BIO, Beijing, China) at 37 °C for 1 h. Then, the cryosections were incubated with anti-CX3CL1 primary Ab or biotinylated-DBA lectin at 4 °C overnight, followed by incubation with secondary Ab conjugated to HRP or streptavidin-HRP (ZSGB-BIO) at 37 °C for 1 h.
The isolated uterine stromal cells were cultured for 12 h and fixed in 4% PFA for 15 min. After being washed in PBS, the cells were blocked with PBS containing 1% BSA at 37 °C for 1 h and then incubated with anti-CX3CL1 primary Ab at 4 °C overnight, followed by incubation with a secondary Ab conjugated to HRP at 37 °C for 1 h.
Cell and tissue slides were stained with diaminobenzidine (ZSGB-BIO) and counterstained with haematoxylin. Images were taken using a Nikon ECLIPSE Ni-U microscope and the NIS software (Nikon, Tokyo, Japan).
Isolation and primary culture of uterine stromal cells
------------------------------------------------------
Uterine stromal cells were isolated from non-pregnant BALB/c mice, according to the protocol previously described, with minor modifications.^[@bib46]^ In brief, uteri were dissected longitudinally and minced into small fragments. Uterine pieces were then placed in 1% trypsin (Sigma-Aldrich) and incubated in a sequence for 1 h at 4 °C and 1.5 h at room temperature with pipetting up and down every 10 min. The tissues remaining after the digestion were washed two times with PBS and incubated for subsequent digestion in 0.1% collagenase (Sigma-Aldrich) at 37 °C for 1 h with pipetting up and down every 10 min. At the end of the digestion, tissues were immediately diluted in DMEM/F12 at a 1 : 1 ratio (HyClone) with 10% FBS and mixed thoroughly. Then, the digested cells (primarily stromal cells) were sifted through 76 and 37 *μ*m cell strainers in a sequence and centrifuged. The pellet was washed two times with PBS. Cells were seeded at a density of 10^6^ cells per 35 cm^2^ in a dish containing DMEM/F12 (1 : 1) supplemented with 10% FBS. After uterine stromal cells adhered to the culture dishes, cells were transferred to serum-free DMEM/F12 (1 : 1) and starved for 24 h before treatment with various concentrations of IFN-*γ*. For inhibitor pretreatment, cells were incubated with various concentrations of AG490 (Sigma-Aldrich) or fludarabine (Selleck Chemicals, Houston, TX, USA) for 2 h before IFN-*γ* stimulation. After 12 h in culture, stromal cell CM was removed, centrifuged at 12 000 r.p.m. for 7 min and stored at −20 °C before use. The purity of isolated uterine stromal cells was above 90% (data not shown).
Isolation of splenic NK cells
-----------------------------
NK cells were aseptically isolated by mechanical dispersion of the whole GD8 BALB/c spleen in RPMI-1640 medium supplemented with 1% FBS and penicillin/streptomycin (100 U/ml). Cell suspensions were subsequently passed through a 37 *μ*m nylon mesh followed by density gradient separation using HISTOPAQUE 1083 (Sigma-Aldrich), according to the manufacturer\'s instructions. Briefly, cell suspensions were carefully loaded onto the HISTOPAQUE 1083 surface and centrifuged at 2000 r.p.m. for exactly 30 min at room temperature. After centrifugation, the opaque interface containing the mononuclear cells was carefully aspirated, washed with RPMI-1640 medium and resuspended in PBS containing 0.2% BSA. Cells were then pretreated with anti-mouse CD16/CD32 mAb (eBioscience) for 10 min on ice and incubated with APC-conjugated anti-CD49b (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA, USA) and PE-conjugated anti-CD3 (eBioscience) mAbs for 30 min at 4 °C. After incubation, cells were washed once with PBS containing 0.2% BSA and sorted by a FACSAria instrument (BD Biosciences, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA). Postsort NK cell purity was routinely more than 95% (data not shown).
Chemotaxis assay
----------------
Quantitative NK cell transmigration assays were evaluated in 5 *μ*m pore Transwell inserts (Corning, Corning, NY, USA), as described previously.^[@bib39]^ Splenic CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells in 100 *μ*l were loaded in the upper well, and 600 *μ*l of medium supplemented with various concentrations of CX3CL1 or stromal cells CM was added to the lower compartment. Cells were allowed to migrate for 2.5 h at 37 °C, with 5% CO~2~, and then cells in the bottom chamber were collected and counted for 150 s using a FACScalibur (BD Biosciences, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA). For treatment with PTX, cells were pretreated with PTX at 500 ng/ml overnight before the assay. Where indicted, blocking of CX3CL1 was performed by adding 5 *μ*g/ml anti-CX3CL1-neutralizing mAb (R&D Systems) or control rat IgG (R&D Systems) to the cell suspension. Cell migration was expressed as a chemotaxis index, which was calculated by the number of migrated cells in the presence of a given CX3CL1 concentration or stromal cell CM divided by the number of migrated cells in response to medium alone.
Immunofluorescence
------------------
Isolated splenic CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells were cytospun onto slides, air dried and fixed in 4% PFA for 20 min. Slides were then blocked with 10% horse normal serum at 37 °C for 1 h and incubated with rabbit anti-CX3CR1 or control rabbit IgG overnight at 4 °C. After three washes with PBS, slides were incubated with FITC-conjugated anti-rabbit secondary Ab (KPL) at 37 °C for 1 h. After staining, slides were washed with PBS and then mounted with antifade mounting media containing PI. Confocal microscopy was performed on a Leica TCS SP8 (Leica, Mannheim, Germany) and final image processing was performed using Leica Application Site Advanced Fluorescence (Leica).
Cell suspension preparation and flow cytometry analysis
-------------------------------------------------------
Peripheral blood was collected in heparinized disposable vacuum blood collection tubes. RBCs were lysed with an ammonium chloride lysing solution. Cells were then washed with RPMI-1640 medium and resuspended in PBS containing 0.2% BSA for further staining.
Uteri were dissected free from the mesometrium and minced into small fragments. Minced uteri were then placed in HBSS containing 200 U/ml hyaluronidase (Sigma-Aldrich), 1 mg/ml collagenase type IV (Sigma-Aldrich) and 0.2 mg/ml DNase (Sigma-Aldrich) for 20 min at 37 °C, as previously described with some modifications.^[@bib47]^ After the digestion, cells were washed with PBS containing 0.2% BSA and incubated in the same buffer for 15 min at 37 °C before filtration through a 37 *μ*m nylon mesh. After centrifugation, cells were resuspended in PBS containing 0.2% BSA for further staining.
Cells suspensions were blocked with anti-mouse CD16/CD32 mAb and then incubated with APC-conjugated anti-CD49b plus FITC-conjugated anti-CD45 (eBioscience) and PE-conjugated anti-CD3 mAbs for 30 min at 4 °C. After staining, cells were rinsed with PBS containing 0.2% BSA and analysed on a FACScalibur.
Statistics
----------
Statistical significance was established when *P*\<0.05. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 16.0 (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA).
We thank Prof. Qing-Yuan Sun and Prof. Haibin Wang for critical reading and revision of the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB944402), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31171435), the Knowledge Innovation Program in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KSCX2-EW-R-06) and the National Key Technology R&D Program (2012BAI31B07).
**Author Contributions**
J-PP designed experiments, provided critical reagents and experimental expertise and supervised the study; Z-YL designed experiments, performed the experiments, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript; H-HC designed experiments, performed the experiments, analysed the data and made the figures; H-YL, Z-HS, L-LL, Y-JZ, YY performed the experiments.
Ab
: antibody
CM
: conditioned medium
Ct
: cycle threshold
CX3CR1
: CX3CL1 receptor
DAB
: diaminobenzidine
DBA
: *Dolichos biflorus agglutinin*
ECs
: endothelial cells
GAPDH
: glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase
GD
: gestational day
H&E
: haematoxylin and eosin
IFN-*γ*
: interferon gamma
JAK
: Janus family kinase
KLRG1
: killer lectin-like receptor G1
MHC
: major histocompatibility complex
MLAp
: mesometrial lymphoid aggregate of pregnancy
NK
: natural killer
PFA
: paraformaldehyde
pSTAT1
: phosphorylated STAT1
PTX
: pertussis toxin
RPL
: recurrent pregnancy loss
STAT
: signal transducers and activators of transcription
TGF*β*1
: transforming growth factor *β*1
uNK
: uterine NK
[Supplementary Information](#sup1){ref-type="supplementary-material"} accompanies this paper on Cell Death and Disease website (http://www.nature.com/cddis)
Edited by T Brunner
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Supplementary Material {#sup1}
======================
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{#fig1}
{ref-type="supplementary-material"} for the gating strategy and the percentages of CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells (lower-right quadrant). Data show the mean±S.E.M. of four (uteri) or five (blood) independent experiments and are obtained from four (uteri) or five (blood) mice of each group, respectively. \*\**P*\<0.01 by independent samples *T*-test. DB, decidua basalis; E, embryo](cddis2014470f2){#fig2}
{#fig3}
{#fig4}
{#fig5}
{ref-type="supplementary-material"} for the gating strategy and the percentages of CD3^−^CD49b^+^ NK cells (lower-right quadrant). Data show the mean±S.E.M. of three independent experiments and are obtained from three mice of each group, respectively. \**P*\<0.05 and \*\**P*\<0.01 by independent samples *T*-test](cddis2014470f6){#fig6}
[^1]: These authors contributed equally to this work.
|
*Streptococcus pneumoniae* is a common pathogen that causes community-acquired infections, such as upper respiratory infections, pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis.[@B1] Clinical syndromes are classified as noninvasive illnesses, such as contiguous spread from the nasopharynx or skin, and invasive illnesses causing infections in sterile body fluids or bacteremia.[@B2] Pneumococci are divided into serotypes based on capsular polysaccharide structures, and 93 serotypes are currently recognized. Serotype distribution varies by age, disease syndrome, and geography.[@B3][@B4] Ever since the licensure and routine administration of polysaccharide-protein pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), pneumococcal ecology has changed, and the serotype distribution in PCV era may be different.[@B5] Non-vaccine type (NVT) strains causing invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) are circulating worldwide.[@B6] The vicious cycle of antibiotic exposure, selection of resistant organisms in the nasopharynx, and transmission of these organisms within the community, which leads to difficult-to-treat infections, has been interrupted to some extent by the introduction and routine use of PCV. Herein, we report an unvaccinated healthy woman with extensive IPD caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) *S. pneumoniae* of NVT suspected to have spread from a PCV13 vaccinated infant.
A 29-year-old healthy woman, who suffered from fever and headache for 3 days, was admitted to our hospital. She was diagnosed with frontal sinusitis and cranial epidural abscess ([Fig. 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). *S. pneumoniae* grew in the blood and tissue specimens from the frontal sinus obtained by a surgical approach. An antibiotic susceptibility test showed an MDR pathogen ([Table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"}). Based on these results, the patient received levofloxacin (500 mg once daily) and vancomycin (1000 mg twice daily) for 2 weeks on admission and levofloxacin for 4 weeks in an outpatient clinic.
We evaluated the patient\'s family members (her husband and 9-month-old infant) to detect the origin of the colonizer MDR *S. pneumoniae*. Family members were subjected to nasopharyngeal (NP) swab culture as an outpatient procedure. The patient\'s blood, sputum, and tissue samples from inflammatory lesions of the frontal, sphenoid, and ethmoid sinus were examined. Specimens were streaked on 5% sheep blood agar plate, and then incubated for 24--48 hr at 37℃. In the case of blood, specimens were used after the positive signal in Bact/Alert 3D System (bioMerieux, Marcy-l\'Etoile, France). For the identification of isolates, we used standard microbiological techniques using typical colonial appearance, hemolysis, Gram staining, bile solubility, susceptibility to optochin (1 µg) discs, and the automated VITEK II system (bioMerieux) with *S. pneumoniae* ATCC 49619 for quality control. According to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines, separate interpretive breakpoints were used to define the resistance of isolates to each antimicrobial agent,[@B7] and an isolate resistant to three or more classes of antimicrobial agents was considered MDR. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Jeju National University Hospital (JNUH 19-02-007), and informed consent was obtained from all participants (the patient and family members).
*S. pneumoniae* isolates were re-inoculated onto blood agar plates to identify the molecular serotypes. Isolates with appropriate properties were serotyped by a sequetyping method, as described previously.[@B8] Genomic DNA was extracted from bacterial cells of a colony of pneumococci using heat lysis method. The primers used to amplify and sequence the cps gene were as follows: *cps1*, 5′-GCA ATG CCA GAC AGT AAC CTC TAT-3′, and *cps2*, 5′-CCT GCC TGC AAG TCT TGA TT-3′. The *cps* locus was conserved in all serotypes, and the middle region of the operon contained serotype-specific genes that were used as targets of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based serotyping methods.[@B8] PCR amplicons were analyzed by 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis. A second primer pair targeting the 16S rRNA gene was used to identify the species. Amplicons with the expected *cps* band sizes (\~1000 base pairs) were purified using a PCR Purification Kit, according to the manufacturer\'s instructions. Cycle sequencing was performed using BigDye Sequence Terminator v.3.1 (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA), according to the manufacturer\'s protocol. Amplicon nucleotide sequences were used to search against the GenBank database (<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/>), and the highest BLAST bit score (typically \>98% identity) was used to identify the serotype. A phylogenetic tree was constructed based on capsular polysaccharide synthesis (*cps*) gene sequences, using the maximum likelihood method implemented in MEGA 6.[@B9] The *cps* sequence data for *S. pneumoniae* were obtained from NCBI/BLAST (<https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi>).
The patient\'s infant was previously healthy, but had experienced an upper respiratory infection 15 days ago and took medicine from a local clinic. According to the Korean National Immunization Program (NIP), routine PCV 13 vaccination was administrated three times. The husband was also healthy, and did not show any sign and symptom of infection within the past three months. *S. pneumoniae* was isolated from the NP swab culture of the patient\'s infant. However, the husband\'s culture was free of pathogens. When bacterial strain analysis was performed on samples from the patient and her infant, capsule serotype was 15B/C (strain 0556-97/3031-06; GenBank number, KY750640.1/KY750644.1). Antibiotic susceptibility test showed identical results for isolates of the mother and her infant ([Table 2](#T2){ref-type="table"}), and their sequence types also matched ([Fig. 2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}).
We report on the transmission of an MDR *S. pneumoniae* of NVT causing cranial epidural abscess, sinusitis, and bacteremia from the nasopharynx of a PCV13-vaccinated infant to a young adult, and changes of antibiotics susceptibilities of serotype 15B/C in PCV era. Pneumococcal colonization is believed to represent the most important source of horizontal spread within the community.[@B10] Since children serve as major vectors of pneumococcal transmission, NP colonization may occur in adults via contact with children.[@B11] By 1 year of age, \~50% of children tend to experience at least one episode of pneumococcal colonization.[@B2][@B12] Although the introduction of PCV was followed by a successful reduction in IPD cases for both children and adults,[@B4][@B11] the frequency of PCV serotypes decreased while that of non-PCV serotypes increased among NP carriage pneumococci in the PCV13 era.[@B11][@B13] A meta-analysis revealed that non-PCV13 serotypes contributed to 42.2% of childhood IPD cases, and non-PCV13 serotypes, such as 22F, 12F, 33F, 24F, 15B, 15C, 23B, 10A, and 38, were predominant in PCV era.[@B14] In addition, an increase in IPD caused by *S. pneumoniae* of NVT has been reported.[@B13][@B15] In particular, serotype 15B/C is currently among the most prevalent replacement for non-PCV13 serotypes,[@B16] and this serotype changes by capsular switching, which involves the emergence of NVT in a prevalent clone by replacement of the capsular polysaccharide locus, such as the switch from serotype 9V to 19A and from serotype 19A to 15B.[@B17] *S. pneumoniae* of the patient and her baby in this study were resistant to most antimicrobial agents tested, except linezolid, tigecycline, vancomycin, and levofloxacin, as observed by MDR patterns ([Table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"}). Additionally, we investigated serotype 15B/C in our previous study.[@B13] Four serotypes 15B/C pneumococci were found in two children and two elderly patients ([Table 2](#T2){ref-type="table"}). All patients had pneumonia. Serotype 15B/C of *S. pneumoniae* isolates showed non-susceptibility to antibiotic classes (penicillins, macrolides, and tetracyclines) in 2009 and 2010. However, *S. pneumoniae* isolated from this patient and her infant showed resistance to antibiotic classes (penicillins, lincosamides, macrolides, cephalosporin, and tetracyclines) in 2018. Compared to 2009 and 2010, the resistance pattern for *S. pneumoniae* of 15B/C changed within the community in 2018. It is important to monitor the frequency of serotype exchanges in order to predict the long-term efficacy of PCV vaccines.
Our study had some limitations. First, we could not definitely conclude that the same serotype had spread from the infant to the mother, since it may have been transmitted from another patient or colonizer with *S. pneumoniae* of 15B/C serotype. Second, our data may not reflect the nationwide serotype and clonal distributions.
IPD of NVT can spread among healthy adults by close contact between family members. Continuous monitoring of antimicrobial resistance and serotype distribution of *S. pneumoniae* is important for disease management in the Korean population. Further surveillance and studies of serotype distribution in the community are necessary in the PCV 13 era.
This work was performed during the author\'s research year at Yuhan in 2019.
The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
**AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS:** **Conceptualization:** Sang Taek Heo.**Data curation:** Young Ree Kim, Suhyun Oh, Jae-Geun Lee.**Formal analysis:** Keun Hwa Lee.**Investigation:** Sang Taek Heo, Jeong Rae Yoo.**Methodology:** Jeong Rae Yoo, Keun Hwa Lee.**Project administration:** Sang Taek Heo.**Software:** Keun Hwa Lee.**Supervision:** Sang Taek Heo.**Validation:** Sang Taek Heo.**Visualization:** Sang Taek Heo.**Writing---original draft:** Jeong Rae Yoo.**Writing---review & editing:** Sang Taek Heo.
{#F1}
{#F2}
###### Antibiotic Susceptibility Tests of Serotype 15B/C *Streptococcus pneumoniae*
Subject Antibiotics susceptibility test
----------- --------------------------------- ------- -------- ---------- ---------- -------- ---------- -------- ---------- --------- ---------
This case R (≥8) N/A R (≥1) R (4) R (4) R (≥8) S (0.5) S (≤2) I (20) R (≥16) S (0.5)
Infant R (≥8) N/A R (≥1) R (4) R (4) R (≥8) S (0.5) S (≤2) I (20) R (≥16) S (0.5)
1 I (0.5) N/A N/A S (0.12) S (0.12) R (≥1) S (≤0.5) S (≤2) I (40) R (≥16) S (≤1)
2 R (≥2) S (2) N/A I (1) S (1) R (≥1) S (1) S (≤2) R (160) R (≥16) S (≤1)
3 R (≥2) S (2) N/A I (1) S (1) R (≥1) S (1) S (≤2) R (≥320) R (≥16) S (≤1)
4 R (≥2) S (2) N/A I (1) S (1) R (≥1) S (1) S (≤2) R (≥320) R (≥16) S (≤1)
TMP/SFX, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole; N/A, not applicable; R, resistance; S, sensitive; I, intermediate.
###### Clinical Characteristics of Patients with Serotype 15B/C *Streptococcus pneumoniae* at Jeju National University Hospital
Subject Date (yr/mon/day) Sex Age (yr) CCI Diagnosis Pitt score Invasive disease Community onset Specimen OP Antibiotics Duration of antibiotics (wk) Hospital days Outcome
----------- ------------------- ----- ---------- ----- -------------------------------- ------------ ------------------ ----------------- --------------------- ----- ----------------- ------------------------------ --------------- ----------
This case 18/12/01 F 29 0 Epidural abscess and sinusitis 1 Yes Yes Blood/Frontal sinus Yes Lev and Van→Lev 6 21 Improved
1 09/10/06 M 84 10 Pneumonia 1 No Yes Sputum No Mox 1 N/A^\*^ Improved
2 09/12/26 F 2 0 Pneumonia 2 No Yes Sputum No AMP/SBT 1 5 Improved
3 10/01/20 F 60 2 Pneumonia 1 No Yes Sputum No Cef→cefodoxime 1 4 Improved
4 09/12/27 M 2 0 Pneumonia 1 No Yes Sputum^†^ No Clar 1 5 Improved
CCI, Charlson comorbidity index; OP, operation; F, female; M, male; Lev, levofloxacin; Van, vancomycin; Mox, moxifloxacin; Cef, ceftriaxone; Clar, clarithromycin; AMP/SBT, ampicillin/sultactam.
^\*^Not hospitalized; ^†^Broncho-alveolar lavage.
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All posts tagged ‘female leads’
High speed motion picture of jet engine, 1946. Photo from user “NASA on The Commons” at Flickr CC.
I remember the time when my mom decided to educate us teenagers about classic movies. The only one I remember specifically was Grease, which you’d think would be a great one for teenagers due to all the underage drinking and the singing and dancing, but the whole thing was a horrible disaster. We teased her mercilessly about her film choices, complaining about everything from the granularity of the film to the ridiculous hairstyles.
Now that I’m older and wiser, I finally understand the lesson that my mom was trying to teach us: Never have teenagers.
But seriously, the lesson I did learn is that perhaps I should get my daughter started earlier on classic movies. Will that help cure the next generation’s jaded appetite for the new and the technologically advanced? Will it help her see the value of a good story over that of flashy graphics and gratuitous special effects? Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers. But I do know is that I’m having fun in the process of learning the answers to those questions.
One of the great things about classic movies, from a purely parental perspective, is that American movies made from 1930 to 1968 had to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code. The Production Code, also known at Hays Code, was a morality code instated in 1930 to allegedly save Hollywood’s reputation after an especially wild decade. It was made legally possible due to a 1915 Supreme Court ruling that motion pictures were not included in the free speech amendment.
During its effective period, the Code required American motion picture companies to have their films approved by the Production Code Administration before release. The Code featured a long list of “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls.” Don’ts were obviously going to get your film rejected, Be Carefuls were to be tread warily. For example, the Code included some now-considered-mild offenses like profanity (especially religious profanity), scenes encouraging empathy towards crimes against the law, detailed methods for petty crimes like theft, any presentation of illegal drug trafficking, and finally and obviously sex in just about any form (including overly passionate kissing, undressing, and suggestive dances or poses). Even just the use of a bedroom as the location for a scene had to be done very carefully.
The Code was finally brought down in 1968. Its downfall came for many reasons. One was the threat of television to the motion picture industry. The motion picture industry needed to offer more incentive (read “scantily clad women”) to convince their audience to leave the comfort of their television set, which — thankfully for cinema — was guided under even stricter morality guides. The rising of foreign cinema also offered competition to the American industry. Moreover, the Supreme Court overturned their 1915 ruling in 1952, which returned free speech to the motion picture industry. It is also clear that the huge mentality change of the 1960s brought on more pressure for the industry to change. In the end, the Code was modified to become the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system that we all know today.
All of this serves as a background to say that, while I don’t agree with censorship, the Code brought along an entire era of generally “decent” films (in terms of appropriateness), a score for parents looking for family-friendly movies outside of the usual choices. Which is not to say that I’d pick any Code era film at random and show it to children without double-checking first. There are, after all, a lot of things that were considered good and wholesome morality then that we now consider sexist, racist, or discriminatory in some way. Nevertheless, there are definitively a lot of Code era movies worth perusing should you get sick of watching the latest explosion-laden, gadget-toting, oops-my-shirt-was-torn-in-the-exact-perfect-place-to-show-my-tight-abs-rocking blockbusters. Here’s a list of the GeekMoms’ favorite Code era movies.
Boys? Yes, I’d like to recommend some books with female leads that your son would enjoy reading. If your next question is “Why?,” then ask your daughter why she liked Harry Potter. She might say it was a good story, great characters, and a fantastic world. Who cares if the main character was a boy? In fact, girls will pick up a book with a hero or heroine equally. According to my excellent librarian resources, boys will actively avoid books with a girl as the main character. What’s the problem? I have no idea.
Why should you encourage your son to read books with heroines? That’s easy. You want your son to grow up knowing that a strong female for a friend, wife or boss is normal and good.
Instead of getting into the psychology of it all, let’s change it. And the best way is to get ‘em while they’re young. Here are a few adventure graphic novels that feature girl go-getters. I picked comics because when my son was young those were the only kind of books he selected on his own.
Giants Beware! By Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre
Claudette wants to battle giants. She’s a great heroine, and breaks the mold. But what makes this book stand out is her two companions. Her little brother Gaston would rather be a pastry chef than a killer, but saves the day when he needs to, and Claudette’s best friend Marie is a girly-girl who loves etiquette, but is brave and clever. In many books with a strong female lead there is rarely another main girl, and the boys are usually competitive. The threesome are silly adventurers, complete with a sweet ending. One of our GeekMoms is reading it to her kids now.
The Courageous Princess By Rod Espinosa
This is almost ten years old and a classic of graphic novels: Talking animals, a fearsome dragon, a long journey, an anthropomorphic rope, and a princess who has integrity while saving herself.
Zita the Spacegirl By Ben Hatke
My son said over breakfast this morning, “Here you egg.” A quote by Strong-Strong, beloved character from Zita. This book is fast-paced with weird aliens, comedy, betrayal, rescues, and cuteness. Zita is brave but alone in this strange world, trying to find her friend. She and her new alien companions save the day.
Akiko on the Planet Smoo By Mark Crilley
Another space adventure that was part of a book club with both boys and girls. This comes as a graphic novel and book series. There are some slight differences between them (not sure why). ALL the kids in the club loved the story. Akiko is a human girl who is taken up to space to help some aliens in trouble. She’s a cool character. And Spuckler- we loved this guy. If you read Akiko out loud, do him in a John Wayne voice. It works.
Angelic Layer By Clamp.
A manga (Japanese comic) about a world where the premier entertainment is fighting dolls (called Angels) using mental control in huge arenas. The main character is a little girl who gets into the game wanting her battle Angel to be “a short girl, but brave and happy.” I can’t say I ever got into this series, but both my kids were addicted at a young age. My son would tell me about the fighting moves ad nauseam.
The Stonekeeper (Amulet, Book 1) By Kazu Kibuishi
The art is entrancing, and the main characters are a brother and sister. When a tentacled monster grabs their mom, Em and Navin are the only ones to save her, entering a dark universe with a magic necklace to help. Scary at times (which makes it cool.)
Nightschool By Svetlana Chmakova.
Definitely for the older son in your life; this is my family’s favorite graphic series. A secret world within our world where different factions sometimes battle, sometimes work together to keep the really bad things away from humans. Epic fights along with cute comedy, and a reluctant heroine Alex, who is powerful beyond what anyone expects. You can read my full review here.
This list gets progressively for older kids, so please flip through them before handing it to your impressionable boy (especially the manga which has provocative poses.) And of course, your girls will love them too!
I love video games. Strike that. I love GOOD video games. The distinction is especially important right now because starting Friday, I’ll be at PAX East for three solid days of VG-playtime.
For those who haven’t heard of it, PAX East is a big-deal video game convention where game developers large and small descend on Boston to ply fans and the press with exclusive demonstrations and freebies. They hope we’ll provide the buzz necessary to launch their latest releases like viral videos.
As a gamer and a discerning person, I’m happy to draw attention to good games. Of course, the question is: How do I identify a good game? No two gamers are likely to answer that the same way because the criteria by which we judge games are strongly influenced by the context of our opinions. Who we are and what we want and expect from games, in other words.
Over the course of the coming week, I’ll be reviewing the games I play at PAX East. Ahead of the event, I expect some disappointments. Most video games are clones of each other – pale imitators trying to be the next Mario Bros, Pole Position, World of Warcraft, or Doom. Most video games are made without women in mind. Where there are playable female characters at all, I expect to find highly sexualized vixens, and any non-player characters will probably be poorly nuanced damsels in distress. Like television shows, most of the video games designed for kids (and women) are vapid time sinks and I expect to see many examples of that sad trend at the convention.
All that said, I anticipate some pleasant surprises. PAX East is where game developers go to make their best impressions on the masses, after all. Some of the art will be dazzling, some of the puzzles will bedevil me, and some of the jokes will not be offensive. And for all the weak-minded joystick jockeys out there who may argue that my reviews won’t matter because I’m just a girl? Watch out. This Geek Mom Pwns Noobs*.
*To Pwn Noobs is to completely obliterate your opponent in any event where there is competition.
This list immediately began forming when I was sitting next to two college girls on the subway. One girl was incredulous that the other had never seen 9 to 5. Overhearing this, I shared her incredulity. How can a young woman make it in this world if she lacks the historical and pop-culture awareness that only a screening of 9 to 5 can bring?
Here are 20 characters that every geek girl should be introduced to before they leave for college, in order from characters you can introduce to young children to ones where you pretty much want to wait until they’re college-bound. These characters all persevere against hardships of one form or another, and they all play a starring role (with apologies to fabulous supporting players like Hermione, Elastigirl, and Lisa Simpson).
1. Olivia – Whether on the page or the TV screen, this diva for the preschool set always dreams big, imagining herself in a wide array of fantasy situations to get through the nuisances of everyday life.
2. WordGirl – Designed as an educational superhero, WordGirl is hilarious, unafraid, and her big words are mightier than the villains’ swords (or cuts of meat).
Kiki's Delivery Service
3. Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service – At 13, Kiki is ready to strike out on her own, figuring out how to become a real witch (and quite an entrepreneur). See also: any other Miyazaki girl character.
5. Pippi Longstocking – Who wouldn’t want Pippi next door, with her horse, her monkey, and her world without limits?
6. Wonder Woman – Her Superfriends self is great for the younger kids, but save the awesomeness of the Lynda Carter twirl and the comic world for the older ones.
7. Nancy Drew – She’s gone through many changes over her long history, but you can always count on Nancy’s intelligence as she cracks the case. See also: Harriet the Spy.
8. Meg Murray from A Wrinkle in Time – An awkward heroine makes her way through a sci-fi world to save her family. What more do you need?
9. Daria – Daria is the perfect role model for coming up with intelligent zingers in the face of stupidity.
10. Buffy from Buffy The Vampire Slayer – I really don’t have to explain the awesomeness of vampire slaying to GeekMom readers, right? Add Willow, Faith, and Anya and you’ve got a show every girl should see.
The Legend of Billie Jean
11. Billie Jean from The Legend of Billie Jean – Three words: fair is fair! (Note: this should be disqualified for the makeover-to-be-powerful, but it’s too awesome not to include.)
12. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games – Katniss is flawed, complex, rebellious, and powerful, and my need to root for her is what keeps me reading and rereading The Hunger Games trilogy.
13. Violet, Judy, and Doralee from 9 to 5 – Yes, they inspired this list, but they also overthrew a corrupt and sexist corporate structure to become the head honchos. See also: Murphy Brown, Mary Tyler Moore, and J.C. from Baby Boom.
14. Natalie, Dylan, and Alex from Charlie’s Angels – I’m going to go with the McG movie version of the angels over the classic TV show, simply because of the angels’ amazing action sequences. Bad taste in men, though.
15. Dana Scully from The X-Files – Always grounded in science and logic, Scully held her own against Mulder’s ongoing conspiracy theories. See also: Temperance Brennan from Bones.
16. Charly from The Long Kiss Goodnight – Geena Davis blossoming from Samantha the schoolmarm to Charly the killer spy is nothing but fun to watch. (Note: this movie also gets the Billie Jean makeover exemption.)
17. Sydney Bristow from Alias – Sure, every episode is a makeover for Sidney, but the combination of her amazing ability to take on different personas with her fighting and technical abilities with her love of family and friends make her a complex character to be reckoned with.
18. Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica – The best thing they did when they revamped Battlestar Galactica is make Starbuck into a woman and put her at the very center of the path to Earth.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
19. Beatrix Kiddo aka The Bride from Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 – Does anything say perseverance more than the relentless training Black Mamba endured that enabled her to punch her way out of a coffin buried six feet under? Plus, there’s the unforgettable sword fight against O-Ren Ishii. See also: Jackie Brown and Shosanna from Inglorious Basterds.
20. Marge Gunderson from Fargo – My favorite movie character of all time, pregnant Marge is able to take down the über-violent bad guy single-handedly. Bonus points for her pregnancy having nothing to do with the movie’s plot.
This is the list I can’t wait to work my way through with my daughter (and my son, for that matter). Who am I missing? Who’s on your list? |
Summary
The activities of some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) challenge governments on politically sensitive issues such as social, humanitarian, and environmental policies. As a result, these organizations are often exposed to increased government-directed threats aimed at monitoring their activities, discrediting their work, or stealing their intellectual property. BRONZE PRESIDENT is a likely People's Republic of China (PRC)-based targeted cyberespionage group that uses both proprietary and publicly available tools to target NGO networks. Secureworks® Counter Threat Unit™ (CTU) researchers have observed BRONZE PRESIDENT activity since mid-2018 but identified artifacts suggesting that the threat actors may have been conducting network intrusions as far back as 2014.
CTU™ researchers divided the threat intelligence about this threat group into two sections: strategic and tactical. Executives can use the strategic assessment of the ongoing threat to determine how to reduce risk to their organization's mission and critical assets. Computer network defenders can use the tactical information gathered from incident response investigations and research to reduce the time and effort associated with responding to the threat group's activities.
Key points
The BRONZE PRESIDENT cyberespionage group targets NGOs, as well as political and law enforcement organizations in countries in South and East Asia.
The threat group appears to have developed its own remote access tools that it uses alongside publicly available remote access and post-compromise toolsets.
After compromising a network, the threat actors elevate their privileges and install malware on a large proportion of systems. The group runs custom batch scripts to collect specific file types and takes proactive steps to minimize detection of its activities.
Strategic threat intelligence
Analysis of a threat group's targeting, origin, and competencies can determine which organizations could be at risk. This information can help organizations make strategic defensive decisions in relation to the BRONZE PRESIDENT threat group.
Intent
CTU researchers have observed BRONZE PRESIDENT targeting multiple NGOs. The threat actors steal data from compromised systems over a long period of time, which likely indicates a long-term objective of monitoring the target's network. BRONZE PRESIDENT uses custom batch scripts to collect either specific file types (including files with .pptx, .xlsx, .pdf extensions) or all files within a specific location. CTU researchers also observed evidence that the threat actors collect credentials from high-privilege network accounts and reputationally sensitive accounts, such as social media and webmail accounts.
Additionally, CTU researchers have observed evidence of BRONZE PRESIDENT targeting political and law enforcement organizations in countries adjacent to the PRC, including Mongolia and India. Some of the group's phishing lures suggest an interest in national security, humanitarian, and law enforcement organizations in the East, South, and Southeast Asia (see Figure 1). These examples reveal BRONZE PRESIDENT's likely intent to conduct political espionage in other countries in addition to targeting NGOs.
Figure 1. August 2019 phishing lure referencing Mongolian national security topics. (Source: Secureworks)
Attribution
It is highly likely that BRONZE PRESIDENT is based in the PRC due to the following observations:
The NGOs targeted by BRONZE PRESIDENT conduct research on issues relevant to the PRC.
Strong evidence links BRONZE PRESIDENT's infrastructure to entities within the PRC.
There are connections between a subset of the group's operational infrastructure and PRC-based Internet service providers.
Tools such as PlugX have historically been leveraged by threat groups operating in the PRC.
It is likely that BRONZE PRESIDENT is sponsored or at least tolerated by the PRC government. The threat group's systemic long-term targeting of NGO and political networks does not align with patriotic or criminal threat groups.
Capability
BRONZE PRESIDENT has deployed a variety of remote access tools. The use of tools not previously observed by CTU researchers suggests that the group could have access to malware development capabilities. BRONZE PRESIDENT also uses widely available or modified open-source tools, which could be a strategic effort to reduce the risk of attribution or to minimize the need for tool development resources. Following a network compromise, the threat actors typically delete their tools and processes. However, the group is content leaving some malware on the network, likely to provide a contingency if other access channels are removed. When the group's activities were detected in one incident, it had elevated privileges and had maintained access to the targeted environment for several months. This finding indicates the group's effectiveness at maintaining long-term access to a targeted network.
Tactical threat intelligence
Incident response engagements have given CTU researchers insight into the threat group's tools and tactics.
Tools
CTU researchers and Secureworks incident responders have observed BRONZE PRESIDENT using the following tools, along with several custom batch scripts for locating and archiving specific file types:
Cobalt Strike — This popular and commercially available penetration tool gains shell access to an infected system. It allows threat actors to execute additional tools and perform post-intrusion actions on compromised systems. Cobalt Strike appears to be one of BRONZE PRESIDENT's preferred remote access tools. During one intrusion, the threat actors installed it on over 70% of accessible hosts. The group's Cobalt Strike installation typically uses a payload named svchost.exe in an attempt to disguise Cobalt Strike activity as the legitimate Windows svchost.exe executable.
PlugX — This remote access trojan (RAT) is popular among PRC-based targeted threat groups. Its functionality includes uploading and downloading files, and it has configurable network protocols. BRONZE PRESIDENT installs PlugX using DLL side-loading. In June and August 2019, BRONZE PRESIDENT delivered PlugX via government and law enforcement-themed phishing lures.
ORat — CTU researchers have only observed this basic loader tool in the context of BRONZE PRESIDENT intrusions. ORat is the name assigned by the malware author, as denoted by the program debug database string in the analyzed sample: D:\vswork\Plugin\ORat\build\Release\ORatServer\Loader.pdb. The tool uses the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) event consumer for persistence by installing a script to the system's WMI registry. Messages sent from ORat to its command and control (C2) server start with the string "VIEWS0018x". If the data received from the C2 server starts with the same string, then the remainder of the payload is decompressed using ORat's "deflate" algorithm and called as a function. ORat acts as a flexible loader tool rather than a fully featured remote access tool.
RCSession — This basic RAT is installed via DLL side-loading, and CTU researchers observed BRONZE PRESIDENT installing it on multiple hosts during intrusions. RCSession was extracted from a file called English.rtf and launched via a hollowed svchost.exe process. RCSession connects to its C2 server via a custom protocol, can remotely execute commands, and can launch additional tools. CTU researchers have no evidence of other threat actors using RCSession or of wide proliferation of the tool, suggesting it may be exclusively used by BRONZE PRESIDENT.
Nbtscan — This publicly available command-line tool scans systems for NetBIOS name information (see Figure 2). In an example observed by CTU researchers, the Nbtscan executable was named Adobe.exe and was installed in several working directories on compromised hosts, including: C:\Recovery\.
Figure 2. Nbtscan being used via RCSession to scan an internal IP range. (Source: Secureworks)
Figure 2. Nbtscan being used via RCSession to scan an internal IP range. (Source: Secureworks) Nmap — BRONZE PRESIDENT used this freely available network scanning tool from the C:\PerfLogs\ folder.
Wmiexec — This publicly available tool uses WMI to create SYSTEM-level shells on remote hosts.
Links to other malware
While analyzing hosts compromised by BRONZE PRESIDENT, CTU researchers identified other malware artifacts. Although there was no evidence of the group using the malware, the threat actors may have leveraged its access or capabilities during earlier phases of the intrusions. The BRONZE PRESIDENT intrusions observed by CTU researchers appear to have taken place over several months or years.
China Chopper web shell files named error404.aspx included the "eval(Request.Item["|"],"unsafe");" string. To successfully interact with the web shell, a threat actor sent HTTP requests that included the "|" parameter. The web shell files appeared to be installed during the timeframe that BRONZE PRESIDENT was active on the system (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Timeline of malicious tool use on a compromised host. (Source: Secureworks)
CTU researchers identified a variety of post-compromise tools stored under %AppData% (e.g., \AppData\Roaming\Temp) on several compromised systems. The widespread proliferation and use of the following tools suggest that the group likely has the knowledge and capability to use them as part of its operations:
Powerview.ps1 — This PowerShell-based module for network reconnaissance is part of the PowerSploit penetration testing framework.
PVE Find AD User — This command-line tool identifies login locations of Active Directory (AD) users.
AdFind — This command-line tool conducts AD queries.
NetSess — This publicly available tool enumerates NetBIOS sessions.
Netview — This tool enumerates networks.
TeamViewer — This remote control and desktop-sharing tool has applications for legitimate and malicious system users. Its installation in a temporary directory alongside network reconnaissance and enumeration tools likely indicates malicious intent.
Initial access and working directories
At the time of detection, observed BRONZE PRESIDENT incidents had likely been ongoing for several months or even years. As a result, CTU researchers were unable to ascertain the initial access vector. In October 2019, third-party researchers described a phishing campaign that used C2 infrastructure that CTU researchers attribute to BRONZE PRESIDENT. This connection suggests that the group uses phishing emails with ZIP attachments that contain LNK files as an initial access vector.
During one intrusion, the threat actors gained administrator access to all systems within a targeted business unit and installed their remote access tools on 80% of the hosts. The group installed multiple tools within the environment, including three different tools on a strategically important server, likely to provide contingency access options (see Table 1).
HOST Cobalt Strike RCSession ORat Host 1 (Server) X X X Host 2 (User PC) X Host 3 (User PC) X X Host 4 (User PC) X Host 5 (User PC) X Host 6 (User PC) X X Host 7 (User PC) X
Table 1. Remote access tools identified on infected hosts during a BRONZE PRESIDENT intrusion.
BRONZE PRESIDENT used multiple directories to install tools on compromised hosts (see Table 2).
Directory Associated tool C:\RECYCLER\ ORat C:\Windows\Help\Help\ Cobalt Strike C:\Windows\debug\WIA\ Cobalt Strike C:\Windows\Logs\DPX\ Cobalt Strike C:\PerfLogs\ RCSession C:\Recovery\ Nbtscan
Table 2. Directories used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to execute or store tools.
Network enumeration, lateral movement, and credential access
During multiple intrusions, the threat actors employed various tools and techniques to understand the network environments. For example, they used Nmap to scan various internal IP address ranges and SMB ports (see Figure 4). They also relied on Nbtscan, net user, and ping commands to obtain insights and identify opportunities for lateral movement.
Figure 4. Nmap network scanning tool use via RCSession. (Source: Secureworks)
BRONZE PRESIDENT regularly leverages Wmiexec to move laterally. During one intrusion, the threat actors extensively used this tool to execute WMI commands on remote hosts in the environment (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Wmiexec used to execute commands on a targeted host. (Source: Secureworks)
They also frequently leverage net commands to connect to other hosts (see Figure 6) using compromised credentials collected during early phases of the intrusion.
Figure 6. BRONZE PRESIDENT Nbtscan use and net commands. (Source: Secureworks)
During one intrusion observed by CTU researchers, the group used the native vssadmin tool on a domain controller to create a volume shadow copy:
vssadmin create shadow /for=c:
The threat actors retrieved the NTDS.dit file from the volume shadow copy. NTDS.dit contains Active Directory data, including password hashes for all users on a domain. Extracting hashes from the NTDS.dit file requires access to the SYSTEM file in the system registry:
reg save hklm\system c:\windows\temp\system.hive
The threat actors saved both the SYSTEM file (system.hive) and NTDS.dit in the compromised host's c:\windows\temp directory. These files were likely exfiltrated and exploited offline to retrieve user password hashes, which could then be cracked or used to perform pass-the-hash attacks.
C2 communications and infrastructure
BRONZE PRESIDENT's C2 techniques are dictated by its remote access tools. The group's primary and likely proprietary RCSession RAT communicates with a hard-coded C2 server using a custom protocol over TCP port 443. After connecting to its C2 server, RCSession checks in with an encrypted beacon and then awaits instruction. The ORat tool, which appears to be used less frequently by the group, communicates over TCP port 80 using a raw socket protocol (not HTTP).
The Cobalt Strike tool has malleable C2 profiles. During one intrusion, it connected to multiple C2 domains on TCP port 80, including mail . svrchost . com, using the following request. Subsequent Cobalt Strike C2 servers included subdomains of svchosts . com, svrchost . com, and strust . club.
GET /Dv9i HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0) Host: mail . svrchost . com Connection: Keep-Alive Cache-Control: no-cache
Some BRONZE PRESIDENT C2 domains analyzed by CTU researchers were hosted on infrastructure owned by Dutch VPS provider Host Sailor, Hong Kong-based New World Telecoms, and Malaysia-based Shinjiru Technology (see Figure 7). The threat actors have used discrete infrastructure clusters that share matching hosting and registration characteristics. The pattern of infrastructure hosting suggests that the group parks its domains when not in use, an operational security technique that limits exposure of the group's overall hosting infrastructure.
Figure 7. Hosting for a subset of BRONZE PRESIDENT C2 domains. (Source: Secureworks)
Persistence, defensive evasion, and exfiltration
Some of BRONZE PRESIDENT's malware has persistence capabilities. For example, ORat uses a WMI event consumer to maintain its presence on a compromised host. The group also creates and maintains scheduled tasks to achieve this purpose. Figure 8 shows a Sysdriver scheduled task that periodically executes a Cobalt Strike payload.
Figure 8. BRONZE PRESIDENT scheduled task created for Cobalt Strike persistence. (Source: Secureworks)
The threat actors tend to install malware on a large proportion of hosts during their intrusions. However, the group exercises restraint and defensive evasion tactics to minimize opportunities for network defenders to detect or investigate its activities. For example, the threat actors deleted volume shadow copies after using them for NTDS.dit retrieval:
vssadmin delete shadows /for=c: /quiet
Likewise, the group demonstrated diligence by killing local and remote processes after they had been used:
taskkill /im svchosts.exe /F
taskkill /S <REMOTE SYSTEM NAME> /U <USERNAME> /P <PASSWORD> /im svchost.exe
BRONZE PRESIDENT targets specific data types. The threat actors use custom batch scripts to create a list of files with predefined criteria and collate the identified files into a .rar archive (see Figure 9). CTU researchers have observed BRONZE PRESIDENT batch scripts named doc.bat, xls.bat, xlsx.bat, ppt.bat, pptx.bat, pdf.bat, and txt.bat.
Figure 9. Batch script (pptx.bat) used to collate and archive all .pptx files in a defined location. (Source: Secureworks)
The group also uses the all.bat batch script to collect all files stored on a specific user's desktop. CTU researchers observed RCSession and Cobalt Strike on systems that BRONZE PRESIDENT targeted for data theft. Either of these tools could have been used to exfiltrate the archived data.
Conclusion
BRONZE PRESIDENT has demonstrated intent to steal data from organizations using tools such as Cobalt Strike, PlugX, ORat, and RCSession. The concurrent use of so many tools during a single intrusion suggests that the group could include threat actors with distinct tactics, roles, and tool preferences. It is likely that BRONZE PRESIDENT has additional unobserved operational tools and capabilities. CTU researchers recommend that organizations apply controls to mitigate common intrusion techniques and behaviors along with controls that address the tools and techniques discussed in this analysis.
Threat indicators
The threat indicators in Table 3 are associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT threat campaigns. Note that IP addresses can be reallocated. The IP address and domains may contain malicious content, so consider the risks before opening them in a browser.
Indicator Type Context ipsoftwarelabs.com
Domain name PlugX C2 server
toshibadrive.com Domain name RCSession C2 server strust.club Domain name ORat and Cobalt Strike C2 server svchosts.com Domain name Cobalt Strike C2 server svrhosts.com Domain name Cobalt Strike C2 server 116.93.154.250 IP address Cobalt Strike download location forexdualsystem.com Domain name Used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to check a compromised system's connectivity apple-net.com Domain name Linked to BRONZE PRESIDENT domain (forexdualsystem . com) lionforcesystems.com Domain name Linked to BRONZE PRESIDENT domain (forexdualsystem . com) wbemsystem.com Domain name Linked to BRONZE PRESIDENT domain (forexdualsystem . com) a0758535cf8eb689782b95d3791d23d5 MD5 hash ORat malware sample 774a9c3ff01a3e734b7bec0c312120126295fad9 SHA1 hash ORat malware sample 2e8762c984468ee309dad30a6c5f6d3308676ac721357da
442a8a5b9d9d65d82 SHA256 hash ORat malware sample 7101fff478290d4db8a1c11a8d3b40cb MD5 hash Cobalt Strike payload 4c81777551a772218519fb6dd1a6672aade4a936 SHA1 hash Cobalt Strike payload bdf1452b55b9974f3e9a4aea4439769a02fd931660ed
655df92519a2a4df1261 SHA256 hash Cobalt Strike payload 5f626148bb2505f91f82da718487ca45 MD5 hash Cobalt Strike payload c72cc22ad328946201b069cddae0eee021d687b1 SHA1 hash Cobalt Strike payload cfa73718e16b499c34951cc5c857cd35bf263f94efa7e1
518cddf27766fb0d2f SHA256 hash Cobalt Strike payload dllhosts.exe Filename Cobalt Strike payload 0617cad9e5d559356c43d4037c86227f MD5 hash Modified DLL file (goopdate.dll) used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to install RCSession f14eaf5d648aebb2ed7b00b2cf4349263b30fb1c SHA1 hash Modified DLL file (goopdate.dll) used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to install RCSession 2ea9ccf653f63bcc3549a313ec9d0bada341556
cc32dd2ca4b73e0c034492740 SHA256 hash Modified DLL file (goopdate.dll) used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to install RCSession 2433a0a2b1bfcbdccdca665cd758a6ad MD5 hash RCSession payload (English.rtf) 603babf64a62989bf00e124955471519f0d8e8ed SHA1 hash RCSession payload (English.rtf) 357943c55c7d6580dd7b91b832b6424403e9d
22b38c615ebac0990eb4cce104c SHA256 hash RCSession payload (English.rtf) 3935da25054700d7b996f5f67de39492 MD5 hash Modified DLL file (goopdate.dll) used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to install RCSession fcb799d02e6c1b4ac76ec8c5e704c7c511762d2d SHA1 hash Modified DLL file (goopdate.dll) used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to install RCSession d0df97adc2a98c02c0adc407fd13040af972106c
2bb24726e963c63f7ab4634d SHA256 hash Modified DLL file (goopdate.dll) used by BRONZE PRESIDENT to install RCSession 6f88260cbc97e60c03e9d91b7e4761a5 MD5 hash RCSession payload (English.rtf ed8ad981c73ed444f1b89c4bda71ed99ca966c5a SHA1 hash RCSession payload (English.rtf) 41ca0ea774b3fdee2ac5b23c95aba0d
e6e24e261e71c26bf1d880932ba954e15
SHA256 hash
RCSession payload (English.rtf)
NATIONAL SECURITY CONCEPT OF MONGOLIA.exe Filename
ORat malware sample 0d3fbc842a430f5367d480dd1b74449b MD5 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX bd2533005a2eaed203054fd649fdbdcd3e3a860a SHA1 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX 59aaa2b8116ba01c1b37937db37213ff1f4a855
2a7211ab21f73ffac2c0c13ce SHA256 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX DSR & CSR of Special Branch Sind.exe Filename Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX e5a23e8a2c0f98850b1a43b595c08e63 MD5 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX 9136eed34bea473d0f8554fb1d914502b832f219 SHA1 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX 918de40e8ba7e9c1ba555aa22c8acbfdf77f9
c050d5ddcd7bd0e3221195c876f SHA256 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX Daily News (19-8-2019)(Soft Copy).lnk Filename Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX 5f094cb3b92524fced2731c57d305e78 MD5 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX 1a2f1c97a5883e8bb4edcdacfe176da98b266b42 SHA1 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX fb3e3d9671bb733fcecd6900def15b9a6b4f36b
0a35bdc769b0a69bc5fb7e40d SHA256 hash Associated with BRONZE PRESIDENT phishing lure delivering PlugX
Table 3. BRONZE PRESIDENT indicators. |
848 F.2d 701
56 USLW 2714
MacArthur DRAKE, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants,v.Keith L. GORDON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 86-2031.
United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 23, 1987.Decided June 3, 1988.
Gilbert King (argued), Gary, Ind., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Macarthur Drake, Gary, Ind., pro se.
R. Stephen Olsen (argued), Ann Arbor, Mich., for defendants-appellees.
Before LIVELY and WELLFORD, Circuit Judges; and McRAE, District Judge.*
WELLFORD, Circuit Judge.
1
Plaintiffs, Indiana residents, were passengers in an automobile struck from the rear in Jackson County, Michigan, by an automobile owned by defendant Cynthia Gordon and driven by defendant Keith Gordon. Plaintiffs filed suit against defendants alleging that at the time of the collision they had been in Michigan less than 30 days during the year 1984 and that their vehicle was not covered by an insurer filing a certification in compliance with Sec. 3163 of the Michigan No Fault Statute ("MNFS").1 Defendants respond that these claims are not substantiated in the record, but, in any event, defendants claim that MNFS bars the damage claims of the plaintiffs.
2
At the time of the accident, August 12, 1984, the parties agree that defendant Cynthia Gordon was registered in Michigan and was covered by an automobile insurance policy procured in compliance with MNFS. Defendant, Keith Gordon, was not a named insured on a policy certified under Sec. 3163, but defendants assert that he was an insured under Cynthia Gordon's policy as a permissive driver or user. Defendants claim that this action is controlled by the MNFS, and for the purposes of summary judgment they admitted that the injuries and damages claimed by plaintiffs were proximately caused by negligence attributable to defendants. The question in this case is whether MNFS is controlling under these circumstances.
3
The district court held that the mere fortuity of involvement in an auto accident with non-residents should not require the Michigan resident defendants to be subject to tort liability which is expressly barred by the MNFS. The court held that:
4
... a non-resident, like a Michigan resident, may not recover non-economic damages for injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident in Michigan unless his injuries satisfied the standard prescribed by M.C.L.A. Sec. 500.3135 and Cassidy v. McGovern [, 415 Mich. 483, 330 N.W.2d 22 (1982) ]. Such a result is not violative of the First and the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the non-residents. A non-resident should not be placed on a superior footing than a resident motorist with respect to his right to recover damages from a negligent operator of an automobile.
5
Drake v. Gordon, 644 F.Supp. 376, 379 (E.D.Mich.1986) (footnote omitted).
6
The first and basic issue is whether MNFS Sec. 3135 applies to a cause of action in tort by a non-resident victim of an automobile accident in Michigan caused by the negligence of a Michigan resident insured under the MNFS where the non-resident claimant had been travelling or operating a vehicle in Michigan less than 30 days and where the claimant's insurance was not certified under the MNFS. We conclude that MNFS is controlling under these circumstances.
7
M.S.A. Sec. 24.13102 [M.C.L. Sec. 500.3102] (1987) (MNFS Sec. 3102) provides in part that "(1) A nonresident owner or registrant of a motor vehicle not registered in this state shall not operate or permit the vehicle to be operated in this state for an aggregate of more than 30 days in any calendar year unless he or she continuously maintains security for the payment of benefits." Criminal penalties are set out for violators of the section. M.S.A. Sec. 24.13113 [M.C.L. Sec. 500.3113] (MNFS Sec. 3113) establishes that a "person is not entitled to be paid personal protection insurance benefits for accidental bodily injury if at the time of the accident any of the following circumstances existed: ... The person was not a resident of this state, was an occupant of a motor vehicle ... not registered in this state, and was not insured by an insurer which has filed a certification in compliance with section 3163 [MCL Sec. 500.3163]." Finally, M.S.A. Sec. 24.13135(2) [M.C.L. Sec. 500.3135(2) ] abolishes all "tort liability arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use within this state of a motor vehicle with respect to which the security required by section 3103(3) and (4) was in effect" with four exceptions. Section (1) of the statute provides that a "person remains subject to tort liability for noneconomic loss caused by his or her ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle only if the injured person has suffered death, serious impairment of bodily function, or permanent serious disfigurement." There is no such claim of impairment or disfigurement here involved.
I. JURISDICTION
8
We first address in this appeal a jurisdictional question raised by this court at oral argument. Defendants initially denied the allegations of the complaint, specifically denying that plaintiffs were entitled to any recovery for property damage under the MNFS. Later, defendants filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asserting that no plaintiff had asserted a threshold claim of serious impairment, or otherwise, under the MNFS. In this motion, defendants did not specifically deal with liability for any part of the property damage claim. Plaintiffs responded to defendants' motion, and also filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, acknowledging that they did not fall within a specified exception to the MNFS. "Damages up to $400 to motor vehicles, to the extent that the damages are not covered by insurance" constitute an exception under MSA Sec. 24.13135(2)(d) [M.C.L. Sec. 500.3135(2)(d) ], MNFS Sec. 3135. Plaintiffs made no claim to an award under this exception, but did assert in a memorandum in support of their cross-motion that "Plaintiffs' vehicle was not covered by an insurer filing a certification in compliance with Section 3163 of the MNFS."
9
In ruling on these motions for summary judgment, the district court made no reference to the style of defendants' motion--that it was for partial summary judgment--and in making his ruling thereon, the district judge did not discuss the issue of property damage. At oral argument, defendants' counsel indicated that they owed plaintiffs $400 pursuant to the Sec. 24.13135(2)(d) exception of the MNFS.2 Plaintiffs, as pointed out, have made no specific claim of entitlement to this amount, although the complaint did assert that "plaintiff, Linda Drake, has incurred property loss." The parties apparently considered Judge LaPlata's oreder to have dealt with all the issues raised. His summary conclusion was simply that "a non-resident should not be placed on a superior footing than a resident motorist with respect to his right to recover damages from a negligent operator of an automobile." 644 F.Supp. at 379 (emphasis added). He did not indicate that "damages" referred only to those for injuries to the person exclusive from property damages.
10
Apparently in response to our question about the finality of the district court's order of October 6, 1986, the district judge entered a nunc pro tunc order of October 26, 1987 stating that the prior order had "disposed of the case in its entirety." Defendants have filed no supplemental or responsive brief dealing with this question. Plaintiffs maintain that there was a clear intent to adjudicate all claims on October 6, 1986; and that "nothing remains to be done before the district court in the instant case." (Appellant's supplemental brief filed November 5, 1987, at p. 2). They further maintain, without contravention, that the "parties understood the district court's 10/6/86 order to be a final, appealable order." (Id.).
11
We recognize that parties, even by express agreement, cannot confer jurisdiction on this court to entertain an appeal from something less than a final, appealable order which deals with all issues between all the parties to a controversy. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291; William B. Tanner Co. v. United States, 575 F.2d 101 (6th Cir.1978). Once a notice of appeal has been filed, the district court ordinarily loses jurisdiction to make any further determinative ruling in the case which is the subject of the notice of appeal. Island Creek Coal Sales Co. v. City of Gainesville, Fla., 764 F.2d 437 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 948, 106 S.Ct. 346, 88 L.Ed.2d 293 (1985).
12
Plaintiffs have made it clear at all times in the district court that they take the position that this action is not governed by the MNFS. They make no claim under that statute, nor do they make a claim under any of its expressed exceptions. They simply assert instead that its limitations upon tort recovery were "not intended ... to pertain to non-residents of Michigan under the circumstances." (Plaintiff's Memorandum in support of plaintiffs' cross-motion for summary judgment, J/A A-62, A-63). In their brief in opposition to defendants' motion as one for "Summary Judgment" not partial summary judgment. (J/A A-75). Defendants' own responsive brief to plaintiffs' motion in the district court refers to their "motion for summary judgment," not for partial summary judgment. (J/A A-76). The latter also referred to purported deposition testimony of MacArthur Drake that "he thought his wife did have liability insurance on the motor vehicle but there was no collision coverage," and that Linda Drake stated "that she thought her vehicle was uninsured at the time." (J/A A-78).
13
While the question is not free from doubt, we conclude that plaintiffs expressly waived a property damage claim in the district court if the MNFS statute were held applicable to their causes of action set forth in their complaint. The district court order of October 6, 1986, therefore, did deal with all the issues before it and was an appealable order. Defendants' counsel's reference at oral argument to an amount which he felt may be owed to plaintiffs for property damage to their car was not a matter remaining before the district court for disposition. We therefore determine that there is jurisdiction for us to decide the merits of this appeal.
14
II. APPLICABILITY OF MICHIGAN NO FAULT STATUTE
15
Plaintiffs do not seek personal injury protection benefits under the MNFS, but instead seek recovery under the common law tort of negligence. Plaintiffs claim that they were not required to maintain security for the payment of benefits under MNFS Sec. 3102(1) because they were not operating a motor vehicle in the state for more than 30 days in the calendar year of 1984. MNFS Sec. 3113(c) excludes such plaintiffs, who are not insured by an insurer who has filed a certification, from entitlement to the no-fault benefits. Thus, plaintiffs assert that MNFS totally excludes persons who are non-residents, travelling in the state for less than 30 days, and who do not carry insurance certified under the Act. They therefore seek a common law remedy for negligence. Plaintiffs interpret MNFS as permitting their common law remedy to remain available to them, relying upon Shavers v. Kelley, 402 Mich. 554, 267 N.W.2d 72 (1978), cert. denied sub nom. Allstate Ins. Co. v. Kelley, 442 U.S. 934, 99 S.Ct. 2869, 61 L.Ed.2d 303 (1979) and the "rule of literalness" so that MNFS would apply only to tortfeasors and victims subject to the security requirement provisions of the statute. Plaintiffs argue that a common law tort remedy is still recognized in Michigan under MNFS, because there remains a continuing right to recover for loss of consortium. See Cotton v. Minter, 469 F.Supp. 199 (E.D.Mich.1979).
16
Defendants argue, on the other hand, that Sec. 3135(1) establishes a "threshold" requirement for recovery for non-economic loss for tort liability in Michigan as to any plaintiff injured on Michigan highways. This threshold requires that plaintiff must first establish death, serious impairment of body funciton or permanent serious disfigurement as a result of the accident before there can be any recovery. Defendants claim that this threshold test applies to all plaintiffs whether insured or not. See Shavers, supra; Bradley v. Mid-Century Ins. Co., 409 Mich. 1, 294 N.W.2d 141 (1980). Since plaintiffs concede that no such threshold injury is here involved, defendants contend they are barred from recovering for non-economic injury, although defendants would admit liability for $400.00 in damages to the plaintiffs' motor vehicle under Sec. 3135(2)(d) of MNFS as a specified exception to the total abolishment of all tort liability under Sec. 3135(2) if properly asserted and proved by plaintiff.
17
Defendants emphasize that plaintiffs could have purchased insurance that complies with the Michigan no-fault requirements under Sec. 31633 and then would have been permitted to recover for both personal injuries and property damage. Thus, defendants maintain that those who pay into the system may receive the benefits provided for by the Michigan Act, which is applicable to all who travel on Michigan's roads whether residents or non-residents. Defendants claim therefore that residency has no bearing on the applicability of Sec. 3135.
18
Plaintiffs respond by urging that the purpose of the MNFS is to replace tort recovery with MNFS benefits for those complying with the statute. Plaintiffs claim that MNFS was not intended to exclude or deny recovery from those not bound by the MNFS, citing Rusinek v. Schultz, Snyder & Steele Lumber Co., 411 Mich. 502, 309 N.W.2d 163 (1981) (because the Michigan legislature did not expressly extinguish plaintiffs' common-law right to recover in tort, it should not be deemed to have done so implicitly.) In Rusinek, the Michigan Supreme Court held that since the language of Sec. 3135 did not expressly abolish the common law action for loss of consortium, it should decline to do so by implication. Rusinek held that permitting such a loss of consortium claim would not "contribute significantly to the problems the act was intended to alleviate", that is "to provide victims of motor vehicle accidents assured, adequate, and prompt reparation for certain economic losses through a system of compulsory insurance which would provide victims with benefits for their injuries as a substitute for their common-law remedy in tort." 309 N.W.2d at 164-66. Yet, in Rusinek, the statute was simply interpreted to permit a spouse of one who is seriously injured under Sec. 3135(1) to recover for loss of consortium. As explained in Cotton v. Minter, 469 F.Supp. 199, 201 (E.D.Mich.1979) "[n]o-fault's purpose was to litigate only cases where there are serious elements of noneconomic loss and bar those where such losses are small. Abolishing consortium would exclude no cases, and allowing it would not open the door to additional cases." Plaintiffs in this case do not claim severe injury and therefore do not fall within the provisions of Sec. 3135(1). We do not, therefore, believe that the Rusinek exception is applicable.
19
Gersten v. Blackwell, 111 Mich.App. 418, 314 N.W.2d 645 (1981) considered whether non-resident motorists in an accident in Michigan with a defendant insured under a Michigan no-fault automobile insurance policy could recover under Sec. 3135 of the Michigan No-Fault Act even though they suffered no serious impairment of a bodily function or a permanent serious disfigurement. Gersten found no problem with adhering to the MNFS statutory arrangement, holding that the non-resident motorists could not recover under the circumstances: "under Michigan's no-fault scheme, plaintiffs are denied personal injury protection benefits while simultaneously being prevented from pursuing tort remedies." 314 N.W.2d at 647.
20
Similarly, in Berrien County Road Commission v. Jones, 119 Mich.App. 315, 326 N.W.2d 495 (1982) the Michigan court held that a defendant truck driver had tort immunity under Sec. 3135(2) where he had voluntarily obtained no-fault Michigan insurance coverage, although not required to do so, and was involved later in an accident with a claimant who had not chosen to participate voluntarily in the Michigan plan.
21
No evidence of a legislative intent to exclude nonresident owners of motor vehicles appears. On the contrary, Sec. 3102 requires defendants' compliance with the security requirements of no-fault after a 30-day period. The 30-day period is to protect tourists and other transient nonresidents from the criminal sanctions imposed by the act.
22
326 N.W.2d at 496-97 (citation omitted) (emphasis in original).
23
It appears clear to us that under Gersten and the MNFS, plaintiff is denied the option of suing for common-law tort injury since the injuries claimed by plaintiffs to be attributable to defendants' negligence do not meet the threshold required under Sec. 3135(1), and because the plaintiffs did not choose to participate and to pay into the Michigan system. We must next consider whether under the facts of this case MNFS, as deemed applicable to plaintiffs' claims, violates due process or equal protection rights or the right to travel and thus is unconstitutional in its application.
III. IS THE MNFS, AS APPLIED, CONSTITUTIONAL
24
Plaintiffs argue that the MNFS is facially overbroad because it imposes the same civil penalties upon transient non-resident plaintiffs as it does upon persons bound by Michigan law to comply with Secs. 3101-02 [M.C.L. Secs. 500.3101, 500.3102] but who fail to meet these requirements--the forfeiture of any civil recovery. They claim that this overbreadth and limitation upon a right to recover damages infringes upon their constitutional right to travel and is unconstitutional on its face. See Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 31 L.Ed.2d 408 (1972); Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971).
25
Although the MNFS does impact upon travel within Michigan, it only does so through regulation of recovery for the negligence of another resulting in an automobile accident. Most states require motorists to carry insurance or furnish security in lieu of insurance as a necessary responsibility for the protection of all motorists while operating on the roads within that state. Such laws have been upheld as constitutional. See, e.g., Williams v. Newton, 236 So.2d 98 (Fla.S.Ct.1970); Bookbinder v. Hults, 19 Misc.2d 1062, 192 N.Y.S.2d 331 (1959). Plaintiffs complain about the loss of rights to recover civil damages, but they could have registered with the state, or they could have protected themselves by paying into the state's plan. In not taking these precautions, plaintiffs must look to their own insurance protection or their own resources for recovery of non-serious claims. Permitting plaintiffs under these circumstances to sue under common tort principles would circumvent the purpose of the MNFS. Michigan motorists or their insurance carriers would have to face litigation for non-serious injuries caused in an automobile accident contrary to the entire statutory scheme. Defendants argue that allowing plaintiffs to receive the benefits denied to those complying with MNFS would be unfair to all those who are required to pay into the plan.
26
We conclude that the MNFS does not penalize or punish plaintiffs for exercising their right to travel in the constitutional sense, but instead simply gives them options as to how they may want to protect themselves in the event, during a short visit, an accident occurs bringing about personal injuries within the State of Michigan. In view of the express purposes of MNFS and the growing and inhibiting expense of acquiring liability or other insurance absent such a law, we conclude that Michigan had a legitimate basis for its enactment, and that it is not unconstitutionally overbroad.
27
In a variation upon their charge of the statute's overbreadth, plaintiffs also contend that their equal protection rights have been violated because they have been treated differently from similarly situated persons under MNFS. The overbreadth argument is that the statute includes and abolishes tort remedies for a cognizant group, transient non-resident motorists. In asserting their equal protection claim, plaintiffs additionally contend that MNFS impermissibly distinguishes between resident and non-resident owners or registrants of motor vehicles operated within Michigan for more than thirty days within a year, and transient non-resident motorists (those only within Michigan for 30 days or less within a year). Those in the first group are required to maintain their entitlement to MNFS benefits and therefore have a remedy if in compliance with MNFS. Those in the second group, however, within which plaintiffs fall, are equally in compliance with the statute's prescriptions should they opt for travelling in Michigan for thirty days or less without obtaining coverage under MNFS, but are left with no other remedy. Plaintiffs also challenge the difference in treatment between automobile tort victims and the victims of other torts to whom traditional tort remedies remain available.
28
Defendants respond that plaintiffs have misapprehended the classifications imposed by MNFS. They argue that MNFS Sec. 3135 does not distinguish between automobile victims on the basis of Michigan residency but rather classifies victims according to the nature of their injury regardless of their residency, a classification which survived constitutional challenge in Shavers v. Kelley, 402 Mich. 554, 267 N.W.2d 72, cert. denied, 442 U.S. 934, 99 S.Ct. 2869, 61 L.Ed.2d 303 (1979). Defendants are correct insofar as all automobile victims, regardless of residency, have no remedy if they are injured by a tortfeasor who has availed himself or herself of the benefits provided by MNFS when the victim has not complied with the statute. However, plaintiffs argue that they have complied with MNFS and essentially contend that the statute cannot constitutionally allow them as transient nonresident motorists to choose not to avail themselves of the statutory remedy while depriving them of common law tort remedies. This treatment infringes upon their fundamental right to travel plaintiffs urge, and the state must demonstrate a countervailing and compelling interest in maintaining such a differential in treatment, which impairs plaintiffs' protected right to migrate freely from state to state.
29
We will concede the issue is a close one for the reasons previously discussed. We, nevertheless, conclude that the impact of MNFS upon plaintiffs' right to travel is not sufficient to rise to the level of a constitutional violation. Accordingly, in the absence of a suspect classification, we must examine MNFS's system to determine whether it is rationally related to a legitimate legislative purpose. McDonald v. Board of Election Comm'rs of Chicago, 394 U.S. 802, 806-09, 89 S.Ct. 1404, 1407-09, 22 L.Ed.2d 739 (1969).
30
As previously stated, the abolishment of tort liability with some exceptions and its replacement with a system of compulsory insurance is rationally related to the legitimate legislative purpose of lowering insurance costs and providing "victims of motor vehicle accidents assured, adequate, and prompt reparation for certain economic losses ... as a substitute for their common-law remedy in tort." Rusinek, 309 N.W.2d at 164-66. Of course, in order for the system to remain fiscally sound and to spread its costs equitably, only those who bear the scheme's burdens should be the recipients of its benefits. Plaintiffs may not successfully contend that they are entitled to the benefits of MNFS without having borne its burdens, which might be one method of equating plaintiffs with the group with which they contend they are similarly situated. Rather, plaintiffs seek to avoid both the financial burden of MNFS and its abolition of tort liability as applied to them.
31
We conclude that the exception to the insurance or security requirements of MNFS carved out by the Michigan legislature for transient non-resident motorists, while continuing to make them subject to the general statutory scheme, has a rational basis and that the distinctions drawn are constitutional. As stated by the Michigan Court of Appeals in Gersten:
32
This scheme, while encouraging compliance with the act on the part of a transient nonresident, does not go so far as to subject the nonresident to criminal sanctions. In this manner the legislation strikes a balance between the Legislature's interest in uniform application of the act to injuries arising out of motor vehicle accidents in our state and the transient non-resident's interest in the operation of his vehicle in our state.
33
314 N.W.2d at 648.
34
Finally, plaintiffs claim that they have been arbitrarily denied access to Michigan courts to pursue their remedies in tort with no provision for a substitute remedy without due process of law. However, plaintiffs could have obtained MNFS benefits and chose not to do so. The statute simply allows, but does not require, transient nonresident motorists who wish to traverse Michigan's borders to come within the aegis of MNFS and to obtain the benefits for which it provides, while granting them a thirty-day period before subjecting them to criminal penalties for noncompliance with MNFS. We conclude that MNFS is constitutional on its face and as applied to plaintiffs under the circumstances.
35
The district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants is accordingly affirmed.
*
The Honorable Robert M. McRae, Jr., Senior U.S. District Judge, Western District of Tennessee, sitting by designation
1
M.S.A. Sec. 24.13163 [M.C.L. Sec. 500.3163] (1987) (MNFS Sec. 3163) provides in pertinent part:
Certification of insurer. Sec. 3163. (1) An insurer authorized to transact automobile liability insurance and personal and property protection insurance in this state shall file and maintain a written certification that any accidental bodily injury or property damage occurring in this state arising from the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle by an out-of-state resident who is insured under its automobile liability insurance policies, shall be subject to the personal and property protection insurance system set forth in this act.
2
This admission is unusual and inexplicable in view of the record before us; there is no clear evidence or even an inference as to whether or not plaintiffs carried property damage or collision insurance coverage on their vehicle
3
M.S.A. Sec. 24.13163 [M.C.L. Sec. 500.3163] (MNFS Sec. 3163) provides in subsection (2) that "A nonadmitted insurer may voluntarily file the certification described in subsection (1)."
|
// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
/*
* Intel SST Haswell/Broadwell IPC Support
*
* Copyright (C) 2013, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
*/
#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/kernel.h>
#include <linux/list.h>
#include <linux/device.h>
#include <linux/wait.h>
#include <linux/spinlock.h>
#include <linux/workqueue.h>
#include <linux/export.h>
#include <linux/slab.h>
#include <linux/delay.h>
#include <linux/sched.h>
#include <linux/platform_device.h>
#include <linux/firmware.h>
#include <linux/dma-mapping.h>
#include <linux/debugfs.h>
#include <linux/pm_runtime.h>
#include <sound/asound.h>
#include "sst-haswell-ipc.h"
#include "../common/sst-dsp.h"
#include "../common/sst-dsp-priv.h"
#include "../common/sst-ipc.h"
/* Global Message - Generic */
#define IPC_GLB_TYPE_SHIFT 24
#define IPC_GLB_TYPE_MASK (0x1f << IPC_GLB_TYPE_SHIFT)
#define IPC_GLB_TYPE(x) (x << IPC_GLB_TYPE_SHIFT)
/* Global Message - Reply */
#define IPC_GLB_REPLY_SHIFT 0
#define IPC_GLB_REPLY_MASK (0x1f << IPC_GLB_REPLY_SHIFT)
#define IPC_GLB_REPLY_TYPE(x) (x << IPC_GLB_REPLY_TYPE_SHIFT)
/* Stream Message - Generic */
#define IPC_STR_TYPE_SHIFT 20
#define IPC_STR_TYPE_MASK (0xf << IPC_STR_TYPE_SHIFT)
#define IPC_STR_TYPE(x) (x << IPC_STR_TYPE_SHIFT)
#define IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT 16
#define IPC_STR_ID_MASK (0xf << IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT)
#define IPC_STR_ID(x) (x << IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT)
/* Stream Message - Reply */
#define IPC_STR_REPLY_SHIFT 0
#define IPC_STR_REPLY_MASK (0x1f << IPC_STR_REPLY_SHIFT)
/* Stream Stage Message - Generic */
#define IPC_STG_TYPE_SHIFT 12
#define IPC_STG_TYPE_MASK (0xf << IPC_STG_TYPE_SHIFT)
#define IPC_STG_TYPE(x) (x << IPC_STG_TYPE_SHIFT)
#define IPC_STG_ID_SHIFT 10
#define IPC_STG_ID_MASK (0x3 << IPC_STG_ID_SHIFT)
#define IPC_STG_ID(x) (x << IPC_STG_ID_SHIFT)
/* Stream Stage Message - Reply */
#define IPC_STG_REPLY_SHIFT 0
#define IPC_STG_REPLY_MASK (0x1f << IPC_STG_REPLY_SHIFT)
/* Debug Log Message - Generic */
#define IPC_LOG_OP_SHIFT 20
#define IPC_LOG_OP_MASK (0xf << IPC_LOG_OP_SHIFT)
#define IPC_LOG_OP_TYPE(x) (x << IPC_LOG_OP_SHIFT)
#define IPC_LOG_ID_SHIFT 16
#define IPC_LOG_ID_MASK (0xf << IPC_LOG_ID_SHIFT)
#define IPC_LOG_ID(x) (x << IPC_LOG_ID_SHIFT)
/* Module Message */
#define IPC_MODULE_OPERATION_SHIFT 20
#define IPC_MODULE_OPERATION_MASK (0xf << IPC_MODULE_OPERATION_SHIFT)
#define IPC_MODULE_OPERATION(x) (x << IPC_MODULE_OPERATION_SHIFT)
#define IPC_MODULE_ID_SHIFT 16
#define IPC_MODULE_ID_MASK (0xf << IPC_MODULE_ID_SHIFT)
#define IPC_MODULE_ID(x) (x << IPC_MODULE_ID_SHIFT)
/* IPC message timeout (msecs) */
#define IPC_TIMEOUT_MSECS 300
#define IPC_BOOT_MSECS 200
#define IPC_MSG_WAIT 0
#define IPC_MSG_NOWAIT 1
/* Firmware Ready Message */
#define IPC_FW_READY (0x1 << 29)
#define IPC_STATUS_MASK (0x3 << 30)
#define IPC_EMPTY_LIST_SIZE 8
#define IPC_MAX_STREAMS 4
/* Mailbox */
#define IPC_MAX_MAILBOX_BYTES 256
#define INVALID_STREAM_HW_ID 0xffffffff
/* Global Message - Types and Replies */
enum ipc_glb_type {
IPC_GLB_GET_FW_VERSION = 0, /* Retrieves firmware version */
IPC_GLB_PERFORMANCE_MONITOR = 1, /* Performance monitoring actions */
IPC_GLB_ALLOCATE_STREAM = 3, /* Request to allocate new stream */
IPC_GLB_FREE_STREAM = 4, /* Request to free stream */
IPC_GLB_GET_FW_CAPABILITIES = 5, /* Retrieves firmware capabilities */
IPC_GLB_STREAM_MESSAGE = 6, /* Message directed to stream or its stages */
/* Request to store firmware context during D0->D3 transition */
IPC_GLB_REQUEST_DUMP = 7,
/* Request to restore firmware context during D3->D0 transition */
IPC_GLB_RESTORE_CONTEXT = 8,
IPC_GLB_GET_DEVICE_FORMATS = 9, /* Set device format */
IPC_GLB_SET_DEVICE_FORMATS = 10, /* Get device format */
IPC_GLB_SHORT_REPLY = 11,
IPC_GLB_ENTER_DX_STATE = 12,
IPC_GLB_GET_MIXER_STREAM_INFO = 13, /* Request mixer stream params */
IPC_GLB_DEBUG_LOG_MESSAGE = 14, /* Message to or from the debug logger. */
IPC_GLB_MODULE_OPERATION = 15, /* Message to loadable fw module */
IPC_GLB_REQUEST_TRANSFER = 16, /* < Request Transfer for host */
IPC_GLB_MAX_IPC_MESSAGE_TYPE = 17, /* Maximum message number */
};
enum ipc_glb_reply {
IPC_GLB_REPLY_SUCCESS = 0, /* The operation was successful. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_ERROR_INVALID_PARAM = 1, /* Invalid parameter was passed. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_UNKNOWN_MESSAGE_TYPE = 2, /* Uknown message type was resceived. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_OUT_OF_RESOURCES = 3, /* No resources to satisfy the request. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_BUSY = 4, /* The system or resource is busy. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_PENDING = 5, /* The action was scheduled for processing. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_FAILURE = 6, /* Critical error happened. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_INVALID_REQUEST = 7, /* Request can not be completed. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_STAGE_UNINITIALIZED = 8, /* Processing stage was uninitialized. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_NOT_FOUND = 9, /* Required resource can not be found. */
IPC_GLB_REPLY_SOURCE_NOT_STARTED = 10, /* Source was not started. */
};
enum ipc_module_operation {
IPC_MODULE_NOTIFICATION = 0,
IPC_MODULE_ENABLE = 1,
IPC_MODULE_DISABLE = 2,
IPC_MODULE_GET_PARAMETER = 3,
IPC_MODULE_SET_PARAMETER = 4,
IPC_MODULE_GET_INFO = 5,
IPC_MODULE_MAX_MESSAGE
};
/* Stream Message - Types */
enum ipc_str_operation {
IPC_STR_RESET = 0,
IPC_STR_PAUSE = 1,
IPC_STR_RESUME = 2,
IPC_STR_STAGE_MESSAGE = 3,
IPC_STR_NOTIFICATION = 4,
IPC_STR_MAX_MESSAGE
};
/* Stream Stage Message Types */
enum ipc_stg_operation {
IPC_STG_GET_VOLUME = 0,
IPC_STG_SET_VOLUME,
IPC_STG_SET_WRITE_POSITION,
IPC_STG_SET_FX_ENABLE,
IPC_STG_SET_FX_DISABLE,
IPC_STG_SET_FX_GET_PARAM,
IPC_STG_SET_FX_SET_PARAM,
IPC_STG_SET_FX_GET_INFO,
IPC_STG_MUTE_LOOPBACK,
IPC_STG_MAX_MESSAGE
};
/* Stream Stage Message Types For Notification*/
enum ipc_stg_operation_notify {
IPC_POSITION_CHANGED = 0,
IPC_STG_GLITCH,
IPC_STG_MAX_NOTIFY
};
enum ipc_glitch_type {
IPC_GLITCH_UNDERRUN = 1,
IPC_GLITCH_DECODER_ERROR,
IPC_GLITCH_DOUBLED_WRITE_POS,
IPC_GLITCH_MAX
};
/* Debug Control */
enum ipc_debug_operation {
IPC_DEBUG_ENABLE_LOG = 0,
IPC_DEBUG_DISABLE_LOG = 1,
IPC_DEBUG_REQUEST_LOG_DUMP = 2,
IPC_DEBUG_NOTIFY_LOG_DUMP = 3,
IPC_DEBUG_MAX_DEBUG_LOG
};
/* Firmware Ready */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_fw_ready {
u32 inbox_offset;
u32 outbox_offset;
u32 inbox_size;
u32 outbox_size;
u32 fw_info_size;
u8 fw_info[IPC_MAX_MAILBOX_BYTES - 5 * sizeof(u32)];
} __attribute__((packed));
struct sst_hsw_stream;
struct sst_hsw;
/* Stream infomation */
struct sst_hsw_stream {
/* configuration */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_alloc_req request;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_alloc_reply reply;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_free_req free_req;
/* Mixer info */
u32 mute_volume[SST_HSW_NO_CHANNELS];
u32 mute[SST_HSW_NO_CHANNELS];
/* runtime info */
struct sst_hsw *hsw;
int host_id;
bool commited;
bool running;
/* Notification work */
struct work_struct notify_work;
u32 header;
/* Position info from DSP */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_set_position wpos;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_get_position rpos;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_glitch_position glitch;
/* Volume info */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_volume_req vol_req;
/* driver callback */
u32 (*notify_position)(struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, void *data);
void *pdata;
/* record the fw read position when playback */
snd_pcm_uframes_t old_position;
bool play_silence;
struct list_head node;
};
/* FW log ring information */
struct sst_hsw_log_stream {
dma_addr_t dma_addr;
unsigned char *dma_area;
unsigned char *ring_descr;
int pages;
int size;
/* Notification work */
struct work_struct notify_work;
wait_queue_head_t readers_wait_q;
struct mutex rw_mutex;
u32 last_pos;
u32 curr_pos;
u32 reader_pos;
/* fw log config */
u32 config[SST_HSW_FW_LOG_CONFIG_DWORDS];
struct sst_hsw *hsw;
};
/* SST Haswell IPC data */
struct sst_hsw {
struct device *dev;
struct sst_dsp *dsp;
struct platform_device *pdev_pcm;
/* FW config */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_fw_ready fw_ready;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_fw_version version;
bool fw_done;
struct sst_fw *sst_fw;
/* stream */
struct list_head stream_list;
/* global mixer */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_info_reply mixer_info;
enum sst_hsw_volume_curve curve_type;
u32 curve_duration;
u32 mute[SST_HSW_NO_CHANNELS];
u32 mute_volume[SST_HSW_NO_CHANNELS];
/* DX */
struct sst_hsw_ipc_dx_reply dx;
void *dx_context;
dma_addr_t dx_context_paddr;
enum sst_hsw_device_id dx_dev;
enum sst_hsw_device_mclk dx_mclk;
enum sst_hsw_device_mode dx_mode;
u32 dx_clock_divider;
/* boot */
wait_queue_head_t boot_wait;
bool boot_complete;
bool shutdown;
/* IPC messaging */
struct sst_generic_ipc ipc;
/* FW log stream */
struct sst_hsw_log_stream log_stream;
/* flags bit field to track module state when resume from RTD3,
* each bit represent state (enabled/disabled) of single module */
u32 enabled_modules_rtd3;
/* buffer to store parameter lines */
u32 param_idx_w; /* write index */
u32 param_idx_r; /* read index */
u8 param_buf[WAVES_PARAM_LINES][WAVES_PARAM_COUNT];
};
#define CREATE_TRACE_POINTS
#include <trace/events/hswadsp.h>
static inline u32 msg_get_global_type(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_GLB_TYPE_MASK) >> IPC_GLB_TYPE_SHIFT;
}
static inline u32 msg_get_global_reply(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_GLB_REPLY_MASK) >> IPC_GLB_REPLY_SHIFT;
}
static inline u32 msg_get_stream_type(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_STR_TYPE_MASK) >> IPC_STR_TYPE_SHIFT;
}
static inline u32 msg_get_stream_id(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_STR_ID_MASK) >> IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT;
}
static inline u32 msg_get_notify_reason(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_STG_TYPE_MASK) >> IPC_STG_TYPE_SHIFT;
}
static inline u32 msg_get_module_operation(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_MODULE_OPERATION_MASK) >> IPC_MODULE_OPERATION_SHIFT;
}
static inline u32 msg_get_module_id(u32 msg)
{
return (msg & IPC_MODULE_ID_MASK) >> IPC_MODULE_ID_SHIFT;
}
u32 create_channel_map(enum sst_hsw_channel_config config)
{
switch (config) {
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_MONO:
return (0xFFFFFFF0 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER);
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_STEREO:
return (0xFFFFFF00 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 4));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_2_POINT_1:
return (0xFFFFF000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LFE << 8 ));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_3_POINT_0:
return (0xFFFFF000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 8));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_3_POINT_1:
return (0xFFFF0000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 8)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LFE << 12));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_QUATRO:
return (0xFFFF0000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT_SURROUND << 8)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT_SURROUND << 12));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_4_POINT_0:
return (0xFFFF0000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 8)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER_SURROUND << 12));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_5_POINT_0:
return (0xFFF00000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 8)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT_SURROUND << 12)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT_SURROUND << 16));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_5_POINT_1:
return (0xFF000000 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CENTER
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT << 4)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT << 8)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT_SURROUND << 12)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_RIGHT_SURROUND << 16)
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LFE << 20));
case SST_HSW_CHANNEL_CONFIG_DUAL_MONO:
return (0xFFFFFF00 | SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT
| (SST_HSW_CHANNEL_LEFT << 4));
default:
return 0xFFFFFFFF;
}
}
static struct sst_hsw_stream *get_stream_by_id(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
int stream_id)
{
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream;
list_for_each_entry(stream, &hsw->stream_list, node) {
if (stream->reply.stream_hw_id == stream_id)
return stream;
}
return NULL;
}
static void hsw_fw_ready(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 header)
{
struct sst_hsw_ipc_fw_ready fw_ready;
u32 offset;
u8 fw_info[IPC_MAX_MAILBOX_BYTES - 5 * sizeof(u32)];
char *tmp[5], *pinfo;
int i = 0;
offset = (header & 0x1FFFFFFF) << 3;
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "ipc: DSP is ready 0x%8.8x offset %d\n",
header, offset);
/* copy data from the DSP FW ready offset */
sst_dsp_read(hsw->dsp, &fw_ready, offset, sizeof(fw_ready));
sst_dsp_mailbox_init(hsw->dsp, fw_ready.inbox_offset,
fw_ready.inbox_size, fw_ready.outbox_offset,
fw_ready.outbox_size);
hsw->boot_complete = true;
wake_up(&hsw->boot_wait);
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, " mailbox upstream 0x%x - size 0x%x\n",
fw_ready.inbox_offset, fw_ready.inbox_size);
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, " mailbox downstream 0x%x - size 0x%x\n",
fw_ready.outbox_offset, fw_ready.outbox_size);
if (fw_ready.fw_info_size < sizeof(fw_ready.fw_info)) {
fw_ready.fw_info[fw_ready.fw_info_size] = 0;
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, " Firmware info: %s \n", fw_ready.fw_info);
/* log the FW version info got from the mailbox here. */
memcpy(fw_info, fw_ready.fw_info, fw_ready.fw_info_size);
pinfo = &fw_info[0];
for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(tmp); i++)
tmp[i] = strsep(&pinfo, " ");
dev_info(hsw->dev, "FW loaded, mailbox readback FW info: type %s, - "
"version: %s.%s, build %s, source commit id: %s\n",
tmp[0], tmp[1], tmp[2], tmp[3], tmp[4]);
}
}
static void hsw_notification_work(struct work_struct *work)
{
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream = container_of(work,
struct sst_hsw_stream, notify_work);
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_glitch_position *glitch = &stream->glitch;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_stream_get_position *pos = &stream->rpos;
struct sst_hsw *hsw = stream->hsw;
u32 reason;
reason = msg_get_notify_reason(stream->header);
switch (reason) {
case IPC_STG_GLITCH:
trace_ipc_notification("DSP stream under/overrun",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
sst_dsp_inbox_read(hsw->dsp, glitch, sizeof(*glitch));
dev_err(hsw->dev, "glitch %d pos 0x%x write pos 0x%x\n",
glitch->glitch_type, glitch->present_pos,
glitch->write_pos);
break;
case IPC_POSITION_CHANGED:
trace_ipc_notification("DSP stream position changed for",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
sst_dsp_inbox_read(hsw->dsp, pos, sizeof(*pos));
if (stream->notify_position)
stream->notify_position(stream, stream->pdata);
break;
default:
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: unknown notification 0x%x\n",
stream->header);
break;
}
/* tell DSP that notification has been handled */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits(hsw->dsp, SST_IPCD,
SST_IPCD_BUSY | SST_IPCD_DONE, SST_IPCD_DONE);
/* unmask busy interrupt */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits(hsw->dsp, SST_IMRX, SST_IMRX_BUSY, 0);
}
static void hsw_stream_update(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct ipc_message *msg)
{
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream;
u32 header = msg->tx.header & ~(IPC_STATUS_MASK | IPC_GLB_REPLY_MASK);
u32 stream_id = msg_get_stream_id(header);
u32 stream_msg = msg_get_stream_type(header);
stream = get_stream_by_id(hsw, stream_id);
if (stream == NULL)
return;
switch (stream_msg) {
case IPC_STR_STAGE_MESSAGE:
case IPC_STR_NOTIFICATION:
break;
case IPC_STR_RESET:
trace_ipc_notification("stream reset", stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
break;
case IPC_STR_PAUSE:
stream->running = false;
trace_ipc_notification("stream paused",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
break;
case IPC_STR_RESUME:
stream->running = true;
trace_ipc_notification("stream running",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
break;
}
}
static int hsw_process_reply(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 header)
{
struct ipc_message *msg;
u32 reply = msg_get_global_reply(header);
trace_ipc_reply("processing -->", header);
msg = sst_ipc_reply_find_msg(&hsw->ipc, header);
if (msg == NULL) {
trace_ipc_error("error: can't find message header", header);
return -EIO;
}
msg->rx.header = header;
/* first process the header */
switch (reply) {
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_PENDING:
trace_ipc_pending_reply("received", header);
msg->pending = true;
hsw->ipc.pending = true;
return 1;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_SUCCESS:
if (msg->pending) {
trace_ipc_pending_reply("completed", header);
sst_dsp_inbox_read(hsw->dsp, msg->rx.data,
msg->rx.size);
hsw->ipc.pending = false;
} else {
/* copy data from the DSP */
sst_dsp_outbox_read(hsw->dsp, msg->rx.data,
msg->rx.size);
}
break;
/* these will be rare - but useful for debug */
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_UNKNOWN_MESSAGE_TYPE:
trace_ipc_error("error: unknown message type", header);
msg->errno = -EBADMSG;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_OUT_OF_RESOURCES:
trace_ipc_error("error: out of resources", header);
msg->errno = -ENOMEM;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_BUSY:
trace_ipc_error("error: reply busy", header);
msg->errno = -EBUSY;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_FAILURE:
trace_ipc_error("error: reply failure", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_STAGE_UNINITIALIZED:
trace_ipc_error("error: stage uninitialized", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_NOT_FOUND:
trace_ipc_error("error: reply not found", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_SOURCE_NOT_STARTED:
trace_ipc_error("error: source not started", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_INVALID_REQUEST:
trace_ipc_error("error: invalid request", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
case IPC_GLB_REPLY_ERROR_INVALID_PARAM:
trace_ipc_error("error: invalid parameter", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
default:
trace_ipc_error("error: unknown reply", header);
msg->errno = -EINVAL;
break;
}
/* update any stream states */
if (msg_get_global_type(header) == IPC_GLB_STREAM_MESSAGE)
hsw_stream_update(hsw, msg);
/* wake up and return the error if we have waiters on this message ? */
list_del(&msg->list);
sst_ipc_tx_msg_reply_complete(&hsw->ipc, msg);
return 1;
}
static int hsw_module_message(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 header)
{
u32 operation, module_id;
int handled = 0;
operation = msg_get_module_operation(header);
module_id = msg_get_module_id(header);
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "received module message header: 0x%8.8x\n",
header);
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "operation: 0x%8.8x module_id: 0x%8.8x\n",
operation, module_id);
switch (operation) {
case IPC_MODULE_NOTIFICATION:
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "module notification received");
handled = 1;
break;
default:
handled = hsw_process_reply(hsw, header);
break;
}
return handled;
}
static int hsw_stream_message(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 header)
{
u32 stream_msg, stream_id;
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream;
int handled = 0;
stream_msg = msg_get_stream_type(header);
stream_id = msg_get_stream_id(header);
stream = get_stream_by_id(hsw, stream_id);
if (stream == NULL)
return handled;
stream->header = header;
switch (stream_msg) {
case IPC_STR_STAGE_MESSAGE:
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stage msg not implemented 0x%8.8x\n",
header);
break;
case IPC_STR_NOTIFICATION:
schedule_work(&stream->notify_work);
break;
default:
/* handle pending message complete request */
handled = hsw_process_reply(hsw, header);
break;
}
return handled;
}
static int hsw_log_message(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 header)
{
u32 operation = (header & IPC_LOG_OP_MASK) >> IPC_LOG_OP_SHIFT;
struct sst_hsw_log_stream *stream = &hsw->log_stream;
int ret = 1;
if (operation != IPC_DEBUG_REQUEST_LOG_DUMP) {
dev_err(hsw->dev,
"error: log msg not implemented 0x%8.8x\n", header);
return 0;
}
mutex_lock(&stream->rw_mutex);
stream->last_pos = stream->curr_pos;
sst_dsp_inbox_read(
hsw->dsp, &stream->curr_pos, sizeof(stream->curr_pos));
mutex_unlock(&stream->rw_mutex);
schedule_work(&stream->notify_work);
return ret;
}
static int hsw_process_notification(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_dsp *sst = hsw->dsp;
u32 type, header;
int handled = 1;
header = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(sst, SST_IPCD);
type = msg_get_global_type(header);
trace_ipc_request("processing -->", header);
/* FW Ready is a special case */
if (!hsw->boot_complete && header & IPC_FW_READY) {
hsw_fw_ready(hsw, header);
return handled;
}
switch (type) {
case IPC_GLB_GET_FW_VERSION:
case IPC_GLB_ALLOCATE_STREAM:
case IPC_GLB_FREE_STREAM:
case IPC_GLB_GET_FW_CAPABILITIES:
case IPC_GLB_REQUEST_DUMP:
case IPC_GLB_GET_DEVICE_FORMATS:
case IPC_GLB_SET_DEVICE_FORMATS:
case IPC_GLB_ENTER_DX_STATE:
case IPC_GLB_GET_MIXER_STREAM_INFO:
case IPC_GLB_MAX_IPC_MESSAGE_TYPE:
case IPC_GLB_RESTORE_CONTEXT:
case IPC_GLB_SHORT_REPLY:
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: message type %d header 0x%x\n",
type, header);
break;
case IPC_GLB_STREAM_MESSAGE:
handled = hsw_stream_message(hsw, header);
break;
case IPC_GLB_DEBUG_LOG_MESSAGE:
handled = hsw_log_message(hsw, header);
break;
case IPC_GLB_MODULE_OPERATION:
handled = hsw_module_message(hsw, header);
break;
default:
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: unexpected type %d hdr 0x%8.8x\n",
type, header);
break;
}
return handled;
}
static irqreturn_t hsw_irq_thread(int irq, void *context)
{
struct sst_dsp *sst = (struct sst_dsp *) context;
struct sst_hsw *hsw = sst_dsp_get_thread_context(sst);
struct sst_generic_ipc *ipc = &hsw->ipc;
u32 ipcx, ipcd;
unsigned long flags;
spin_lock_irqsave(&sst->spinlock, flags);
ipcx = sst_dsp_ipc_msg_rx(hsw->dsp);
ipcd = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(sst, SST_IPCD);
/* reply message from DSP */
if (ipcx & SST_IPCX_DONE) {
/* Handle Immediate reply from DSP Core */
hsw_process_reply(hsw, ipcx);
/* clear DONE bit - tell DSP we have completed */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits_unlocked(sst, SST_IPCX,
SST_IPCX_DONE, 0);
/* unmask Done interrupt */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits_unlocked(sst, SST_IMRX,
SST_IMRX_DONE, 0);
}
/* new message from DSP */
if (ipcd & SST_IPCD_BUSY) {
/* Handle Notification and Delayed reply from DSP Core */
hsw_process_notification(hsw);
/* clear BUSY bit and set DONE bit - accept new messages */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits_unlocked(sst, SST_IPCD,
SST_IPCD_BUSY | SST_IPCD_DONE, SST_IPCD_DONE);
/* unmask busy interrupt */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits_unlocked(sst, SST_IMRX,
SST_IMRX_BUSY, 0);
}
spin_unlock_irqrestore(&sst->spinlock, flags);
/* continue to send any remaining messages... */
schedule_work(&ipc->kwork);
return IRQ_HANDLED;
}
int sst_hsw_fw_get_version(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_ipc_fw_version *version)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request = {0}, reply = {0};
int ret;
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_GET_FW_VERSION);
reply.data = version;
reply.size = sizeof(*version);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, &reply);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: get version failed\n");
return ret;
}
/* Mixer Controls */
int sst_hsw_stream_get_volume(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream,
u32 stage_id, u32 channel, u32 *volume)
{
if (channel > 1)
return -EINVAL;
sst_dsp_read(hsw->dsp, volume,
stream->reply.volume_register_address[channel],
sizeof(*volume));
return 0;
}
/* stream volume */
int sst_hsw_stream_set_volume(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, u32 stage_id, u32 channel, u32 volume)
{
struct sst_hsw_ipc_volume_req *req;
struct sst_ipc_message request;
int ret;
trace_ipc_request("set stream volume", stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
if (channel >= 2 && channel != SST_HSW_CHANNELS_ALL)
return -EINVAL;
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_STREAM_MESSAGE) |
IPC_STR_TYPE(IPC_STR_STAGE_MESSAGE);
request.header |= (stream->reply.stream_hw_id << IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT);
request.header |= (IPC_STG_SET_VOLUME << IPC_STG_TYPE_SHIFT);
request.header |= (stage_id << IPC_STG_ID_SHIFT);
req = &stream->vol_req;
req->target_volume = volume;
/* set both at same time ? */
if (channel == SST_HSW_CHANNELS_ALL) {
if (hsw->mute[0] && hsw->mute[1]) {
hsw->mute_volume[0] = hsw->mute_volume[1] = volume;
return 0;
} else if (hsw->mute[0])
req->channel = 1;
else if (hsw->mute[1])
req->channel = 0;
else
req->channel = SST_HSW_CHANNELS_ALL;
} else {
/* set only 1 channel */
if (hsw->mute[channel]) {
hsw->mute_volume[channel] = volume;
return 0;
}
req->channel = channel;
}
request.data = req;
request.size = sizeof(*req);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: set stream volume failed\n");
return ret;
}
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_mixer_get_volume(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 stage_id, u32 channel,
u32 *volume)
{
if (channel > 1)
return -EINVAL;
sst_dsp_read(hsw->dsp, volume,
hsw->mixer_info.volume_register_address[channel],
sizeof(*volume));
return 0;
}
/* global mixer volume */
int sst_hsw_mixer_set_volume(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 stage_id, u32 channel,
u32 volume)
{
struct sst_hsw_ipc_volume_req req;
struct sst_ipc_message request;
int ret;
trace_ipc_request("set mixer volume", volume);
if (channel >= 2 && channel != SST_HSW_CHANNELS_ALL)
return -EINVAL;
/* set both at same time ? */
if (channel == SST_HSW_CHANNELS_ALL) {
if (hsw->mute[0] && hsw->mute[1]) {
hsw->mute_volume[0] = hsw->mute_volume[1] = volume;
return 0;
} else if (hsw->mute[0])
req.channel = 1;
else if (hsw->mute[1])
req.channel = 0;
else
req.channel = SST_HSW_CHANNELS_ALL;
} else {
/* set only 1 channel */
if (hsw->mute[channel]) {
hsw->mute_volume[channel] = volume;
return 0;
}
req.channel = channel;
}
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_STREAM_MESSAGE) |
IPC_STR_TYPE(IPC_STR_STAGE_MESSAGE);
request.header |= (hsw->mixer_info.mixer_hw_id << IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT);
request.header |= (IPC_STG_SET_VOLUME << IPC_STG_TYPE_SHIFT);
request.header |= (stage_id << IPC_STG_ID_SHIFT);
req.curve_duration = hsw->curve_duration;
req.curve_type = hsw->curve_type;
req.target_volume = volume;
request.data = &req;
request.size = sizeof(req);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: set mixer volume failed\n");
return ret;
}
return 0;
}
/* Stream API */
struct sst_hsw_stream *sst_hsw_stream_new(struct sst_hsw *hsw, int id,
u32 (*notify_position)(struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, void *data),
void *data)
{
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream;
struct sst_dsp *sst = hsw->dsp;
unsigned long flags;
stream = kzalloc(sizeof(*stream), GFP_KERNEL);
if (stream == NULL)
return NULL;
spin_lock_irqsave(&sst->spinlock, flags);
stream->reply.stream_hw_id = INVALID_STREAM_HW_ID;
list_add(&stream->node, &hsw->stream_list);
stream->notify_position = notify_position;
stream->pdata = data;
stream->hsw = hsw;
stream->host_id = id;
/* work to process notification messages */
INIT_WORK(&stream->notify_work, hsw_notification_work);
spin_unlock_irqrestore(&sst->spinlock, flags);
return stream;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_free(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request;
int ret = 0;
struct sst_dsp *sst = hsw->dsp;
unsigned long flags;
if (!stream) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: stream is NULL, no stream to free, ignore it.\n");
return 0;
}
/* dont free DSP streams that are not commited */
if (!stream->commited)
goto out;
trace_ipc_request("stream free", stream->host_id);
stream->free_req.stream_id = stream->reply.stream_hw_id;
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_FREE_STREAM);
request.data = &stream->free_req;
request.size = sizeof(stream->free_req);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: free stream %d failed\n",
stream->free_req.stream_id);
return -EAGAIN;
}
trace_hsw_stream_free_req(stream, &stream->free_req);
out:
cancel_work_sync(&stream->notify_work);
spin_lock_irqsave(&sst->spinlock, flags);
list_del(&stream->node);
kfree(stream);
spin_unlock_irqrestore(&sst->spinlock, flags);
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_bits(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, enum sst_hsw_bitdepth bits)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set bits\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.format.bitdepth = bits;
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_channels(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, int channels)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set channels\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.format.ch_num = channels;
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_rate(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, int rate)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set rate\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.format.frequency = rate;
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_map_config(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, u32 map,
enum sst_hsw_channel_config config)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set map\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.format.map = map;
stream->request.format.config = config;
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_style(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, enum sst_hsw_interleaving style)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set style\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.format.style = style;
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_valid(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, u32 bits)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set valid bits\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.format.valid_bit = bits;
return 0;
}
/* Stream Configuration */
int sst_hsw_stream_format(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream,
enum sst_hsw_stream_path_id path_id,
enum sst_hsw_stream_type stream_type,
enum sst_hsw_stream_format format_id)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set format\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.path_id = path_id;
stream->request.stream_type = stream_type;
stream->request.format_id = format_id;
trace_hsw_stream_alloc_request(stream, &stream->request);
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_buffer(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream,
u32 ring_pt_address, u32 num_pages,
u32 ring_size, u32 ring_offset, u32 ring_first_pfn)
{
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for buffer\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
stream->request.ringinfo.ring_pt_address = ring_pt_address;
stream->request.ringinfo.num_pages = num_pages;
stream->request.ringinfo.ring_size = ring_size;
stream->request.ringinfo.ring_offset = ring_offset;
stream->request.ringinfo.ring_first_pfn = ring_first_pfn;
trace_hsw_stream_buffer(stream);
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_set_module_info(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, struct sst_module_runtime *runtime)
{
struct sst_hsw_module_map *map = &stream->request.map;
struct sst_dsp *dsp = sst_hsw_get_dsp(hsw);
struct sst_module *module = runtime->module;
if (stream->commited) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream committed for set module\n");
return -EINVAL;
}
/* only support initial module atm */
map->module_entries_count = 1;
map->module_entries[0].module_id = module->id;
map->module_entries[0].entry_point = module->entry;
stream->request.persistent_mem.offset =
sst_dsp_get_offset(dsp, runtime->persistent_offset, SST_MEM_DRAM);
stream->request.persistent_mem.size = module->persistent_size;
stream->request.scratch_mem.offset =
sst_dsp_get_offset(dsp, dsp->scratch_offset, SST_MEM_DRAM);
stream->request.scratch_mem.size = dsp->scratch_size;
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "module %d runtime %d using:\n", module->id,
runtime->id);
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, " persistent offset 0x%x bytes 0x%x\n",
stream->request.persistent_mem.offset,
stream->request.persistent_mem.size);
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, " scratch offset 0x%x bytes 0x%x\n",
stream->request.scratch_mem.offset,
stream->request.scratch_mem.size);
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_commit(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request, reply = {0};
int ret;
if (!stream) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: stream is NULL, no stream to commit, ignore it.\n");
return 0;
}
if (stream->commited) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: stream is already committed, ignore it.\n");
return 0;
}
trace_ipc_request("stream alloc", stream->host_id);
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_ALLOCATE_STREAM);
request.data = &stream->request;
request.size = sizeof(stream->request);
reply.data = &stream->reply;
reply.size = sizeof(stream->reply);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, &reply);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: stream commit failed\n");
return ret;
}
stream->commited = true;
trace_hsw_stream_alloc_reply(stream);
return 0;
}
snd_pcm_uframes_t sst_hsw_stream_get_old_position(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
return stream->old_position;
}
void sst_hsw_stream_set_old_position(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, snd_pcm_uframes_t val)
{
stream->old_position = val;
}
bool sst_hsw_stream_get_silence_start(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
return stream->play_silence;
}
void sst_hsw_stream_set_silence_start(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream, bool val)
{
stream->play_silence = val;
}
/* Stream Information - these calls could be inline but we want the IPC
ABI to be opaque to client PCM drivers to cope with any future ABI changes */
int sst_hsw_mixer_get_info(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request = {0}, reply = {0};
int ret;
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_GET_MIXER_STREAM_INFO);
reply.data = &hsw->mixer_info;
reply.size = sizeof(hsw->mixer_info);
trace_ipc_request("get global mixer info", 0);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, &reply);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: get stream info failed\n");
return ret;
}
trace_hsw_mixer_info_reply(&hsw->mixer_info);
return 0;
}
/* Send stream command */
static int sst_hsw_stream_operations(struct sst_hsw *hsw, int type,
int stream_id, int wait)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request = {0};
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_STREAM_MESSAGE);
request.header |= IPC_STR_TYPE(type) | (stream_id << IPC_STR_ID_SHIFT);
if (wait)
return sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
else
return sst_ipc_tx_message_nowait(&hsw->ipc, request);
}
/* Stream ALSA trigger operations */
int sst_hsw_stream_pause(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream,
int wait)
{
int ret;
if (!stream) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: stream is NULL, no stream to pause, ignore it.\n");
return 0;
}
trace_ipc_request("stream pause", stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
ret = sst_hsw_stream_operations(hsw, IPC_STR_PAUSE,
stream->reply.stream_hw_id, wait);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: failed to pause stream %d\n",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_resume(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream,
int wait)
{
int ret;
if (!stream) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: stream is NULL, no stream to resume, ignore it.\n");
return 0;
}
trace_ipc_request("stream resume", stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
ret = sst_hsw_stream_operations(hsw, IPC_STR_RESUME,
stream->reply.stream_hw_id, wait);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: failed to resume stream %d\n",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_stream_reset(struct sst_hsw *hsw, struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
int ret, tries = 10;
if (!stream) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: stream is NULL, no stream to reset, ignore it.\n");
return 0;
}
/* dont reset streams that are not commited */
if (!stream->commited)
return 0;
/* wait for pause to complete before we reset the stream */
while (stream->running && --tries)
msleep(1);
if (!tries) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: reset stream %d still running\n",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
return -EINVAL;
}
trace_ipc_request("stream reset", stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
ret = sst_hsw_stream_operations(hsw, IPC_STR_RESET,
stream->reply.stream_hw_id, 1);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: failed to reset stream %d\n",
stream->reply.stream_hw_id);
return ret;
}
/* Stream pointer positions */
u32 sst_hsw_get_dsp_position(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
u32 rpos;
sst_dsp_read(hsw->dsp, &rpos,
stream->reply.read_position_register_address, sizeof(rpos));
return rpos;
}
/* Stream presentation (monotonic) positions */
u64 sst_hsw_get_dsp_presentation_position(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
struct sst_hsw_stream *stream)
{
u64 ppos;
sst_dsp_read(hsw->dsp, &ppos,
stream->reply.presentation_position_register_address,
sizeof(ppos));
return ppos;
}
/* physical BE config */
int sst_hsw_device_set_config(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
enum sst_hsw_device_id dev, enum sst_hsw_device_mclk mclk,
enum sst_hsw_device_mode mode, u32 clock_divider)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_device_config_req config;
int ret;
trace_ipc_request("set device config", dev);
hsw->dx_dev = config.ssp_interface = dev;
hsw->dx_mclk = config.clock_frequency = mclk;
hsw->dx_mode = config.mode = mode;
hsw->dx_clock_divider = config.clock_divider = clock_divider;
if (mode == SST_HSW_DEVICE_TDM_CLOCK_MASTER)
config.channels = 4;
else
config.channels = 2;
trace_hsw_device_config_req(&config);
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_SET_DEVICE_FORMATS);
request.data = &config;
request.size = sizeof(config);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: set device formats failed\n");
return ret;
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(sst_hsw_device_set_config);
/* DX Config */
int sst_hsw_dx_set_state(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
enum sst_hsw_dx_state state, struct sst_hsw_ipc_dx_reply *dx)
{
struct sst_ipc_message request, reply = {0};
u32 state_;
int ret, item;
state_ = state;
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_ENTER_DX_STATE);
request.data = &state_;
request.size = sizeof(state_);
reply.data = dx;
reply.size = sizeof(*dx);
trace_ipc_request("PM enter Dx state", state);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, &reply);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "ipc: error set dx state %d failed\n", state);
return ret;
}
for (item = 0; item < dx->entries_no; item++) {
dev_dbg(hsw->dev,
"Item[%d] offset[%x] - size[%x] - source[%x]\n",
item, dx->mem_info[item].offset,
dx->mem_info[item].size,
dx->mem_info[item].source);
}
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "ipc: got %d entry numbers for state %d\n",
dx->entries_no, state);
return ret;
}
struct sst_module_runtime *sst_hsw_runtime_module_create(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
int mod_id, int offset)
{
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
struct sst_module *module;
struct sst_module_runtime *runtime;
int err;
module = sst_module_get_from_id(dsp, mod_id);
if (module == NULL) {
dev_err(dsp->dev, "error: failed to get module %d for pcm\n",
mod_id);
return NULL;
}
runtime = sst_module_runtime_new(module, mod_id, NULL);
if (runtime == NULL) {
dev_err(dsp->dev, "error: failed to create module %d runtime\n",
mod_id);
return NULL;
}
err = sst_module_runtime_alloc_blocks(runtime, offset);
if (err < 0) {
dev_err(dsp->dev, "error: failed to alloc blocks for module %d runtime\n",
mod_id);
sst_module_runtime_free(runtime);
return NULL;
}
dev_dbg(dsp->dev, "runtime id %d created for module %d\n", runtime->id,
mod_id);
return runtime;
}
void sst_hsw_runtime_module_free(struct sst_module_runtime *runtime)
{
sst_module_runtime_free_blocks(runtime);
sst_module_runtime_free(runtime);
}
#ifdef CONFIG_PM
static int sst_hsw_dx_state_dump(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_dsp *sst = hsw->dsp;
u32 item, offset, size;
int ret = 0;
trace_ipc_request("PM state dump. Items #", SST_HSW_MAX_DX_REGIONS);
if (hsw->dx.entries_no > SST_HSW_MAX_DX_REGIONS) {
dev_err(hsw->dev,
"error: number of FW context regions greater than %d\n",
SST_HSW_MAX_DX_REGIONS);
memset(&hsw->dx, 0, sizeof(hsw->dx));
return -EINVAL;
}
ret = sst_dsp_dma_get_channel(sst, 0);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: cant allocate dma channel %d\n", ret);
return ret;
}
/* set on-demond mode on engine 0 channel 3 */
sst_dsp_shim_update_bits(sst, SST_HMDC,
SST_HMDC_HDDA_E0_ALLCH | SST_HMDC_HDDA_E1_ALLCH,
SST_HMDC_HDDA_E0_ALLCH | SST_HMDC_HDDA_E1_ALLCH);
for (item = 0; item < hsw->dx.entries_no; item++) {
if (hsw->dx.mem_info[item].source == SST_HSW_DX_TYPE_MEMORY_DUMP
&& hsw->dx.mem_info[item].offset > DSP_DRAM_ADDR_OFFSET
&& hsw->dx.mem_info[item].offset <
DSP_DRAM_ADDR_OFFSET + SST_HSW_DX_CONTEXT_SIZE) {
offset = hsw->dx.mem_info[item].offset
- DSP_DRAM_ADDR_OFFSET;
size = (hsw->dx.mem_info[item].size + 3) & (~3);
ret = sst_dsp_dma_copyfrom(sst, hsw->dx_context_paddr + offset,
sst->addr.lpe_base + offset, size);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev,
"error: FW context dump failed\n");
memset(&hsw->dx, 0, sizeof(hsw->dx));
goto out;
}
}
}
out:
sst_dsp_dma_put_channel(sst);
return ret;
}
static int sst_hsw_dx_state_restore(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_dsp *sst = hsw->dsp;
u32 item, offset, size;
int ret;
for (item = 0; item < hsw->dx.entries_no; item++) {
if (hsw->dx.mem_info[item].source == SST_HSW_DX_TYPE_MEMORY_DUMP
&& hsw->dx.mem_info[item].offset > DSP_DRAM_ADDR_OFFSET
&& hsw->dx.mem_info[item].offset <
DSP_DRAM_ADDR_OFFSET + SST_HSW_DX_CONTEXT_SIZE) {
offset = hsw->dx.mem_info[item].offset
- DSP_DRAM_ADDR_OFFSET;
size = (hsw->dx.mem_info[item].size + 3) & (~3);
ret = sst_dsp_dma_copyto(sst, sst->addr.lpe_base + offset,
hsw->dx_context_paddr + offset, size);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev,
"error: FW context restore failed\n");
return ret;
}
}
}
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_dsp_load(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
struct sst_fw *sst_fw, *t;
int ret;
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "loading audio DSP....");
ret = sst_dsp_wake(dsp);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: failed to wake audio DSP\n");
return -ENODEV;
}
ret = sst_dsp_dma_get_channel(dsp, 0);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: cant allocate dma channel %d\n", ret);
return ret;
}
list_for_each_entry_safe_reverse(sst_fw, t, &dsp->fw_list, list) {
ret = sst_fw_reload(sst_fw);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: SST FW reload failed\n");
sst_dsp_dma_put_channel(dsp);
return -ENOMEM;
}
}
ret = sst_block_alloc_scratch(hsw->dsp);
if (ret < 0)
return -EINVAL;
sst_dsp_dma_put_channel(dsp);
return 0;
}
static int sst_hsw_dsp_restore(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
int ret;
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "restoring audio DSP....");
ret = sst_dsp_dma_get_channel(dsp, 0);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: cant allocate dma channel %d\n", ret);
return ret;
}
ret = sst_hsw_dx_state_restore(hsw);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: SST FW context restore failed\n");
sst_dsp_dma_put_channel(dsp);
return -ENOMEM;
}
sst_dsp_dma_put_channel(dsp);
/* wait for DSP boot completion */
sst_dsp_boot(dsp);
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_dsp_runtime_suspend(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
int ret;
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "audio dsp runtime suspend\n");
ret = sst_hsw_dx_set_state(hsw, SST_HSW_DX_STATE_D3, &hsw->dx);
if (ret < 0)
return ret;
sst_dsp_stall(hsw->dsp);
ret = sst_hsw_dx_state_dump(hsw);
if (ret < 0)
return ret;
sst_ipc_drop_all(&hsw->ipc);
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_dsp_runtime_sleep(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_fw *sst_fw, *t;
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
list_for_each_entry_safe(sst_fw, t, &dsp->fw_list, list) {
sst_fw_unload(sst_fw);
}
sst_block_free_scratch(dsp);
hsw->boot_complete = false;
sst_dsp_sleep(dsp);
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_dsp_runtime_resume(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct device *dev = hsw->dev;
int ret;
dev_dbg(dev, "audio dsp runtime resume\n");
if (hsw->boot_complete)
return 1; /* tell caller no action is required */
ret = sst_hsw_dsp_restore(hsw);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(dev, "error: audio DSP boot failure\n");
sst_hsw_init_module_state(hsw);
ret = wait_event_timeout(hsw->boot_wait, hsw->boot_complete,
msecs_to_jiffies(IPC_BOOT_MSECS));
if (ret == 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: audio DSP boot timeout IPCD 0x%x IPCX 0x%x\n",
sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(hsw->dsp, SST_IPCD),
sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(hsw->dsp, SST_IPCX));
return -EIO;
}
/* Set ADSP SSP port settings - sadly the FW does not store SSP port
settings as part of the PM context. */
ret = sst_hsw_device_set_config(hsw, hsw->dx_dev, hsw->dx_mclk,
hsw->dx_mode, hsw->dx_clock_divider);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(dev, "error: SSP re-initialization failed\n");
return ret;
}
#endif
struct sst_dsp *sst_hsw_get_dsp(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
return hsw->dsp;
}
void sst_hsw_init_module_state(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
struct sst_module *module;
enum sst_hsw_module_id id;
/* the base fw contains several modules */
for (id = SST_HSW_MODULE_BASE_FW; id < SST_HSW_MAX_MODULE_ID; id++) {
module = sst_module_get_from_id(hsw->dsp, id);
if (module) {
/* module waves is active only after being enabled */
if (id == SST_HSW_MODULE_WAVES)
module->state = SST_MODULE_STATE_INITIALIZED;
else
module->state = SST_MODULE_STATE_ACTIVE;
}
}
}
bool sst_hsw_is_module_loaded(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 module_id)
{
struct sst_module *module;
module = sst_module_get_from_id(hsw->dsp, module_id);
if (module == NULL || module->state == SST_MODULE_STATE_UNLOADED)
return false;
else
return true;
}
bool sst_hsw_is_module_active(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 module_id)
{
struct sst_module *module;
module = sst_module_get_from_id(hsw->dsp, module_id);
if (module != NULL && module->state == SST_MODULE_STATE_ACTIVE)
return true;
else
return false;
}
void sst_hsw_set_module_enabled_rtd3(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 module_id)
{
hsw->enabled_modules_rtd3 |= (1 << module_id);
}
void sst_hsw_set_module_disabled_rtd3(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 module_id)
{
hsw->enabled_modules_rtd3 &= ~(1 << module_id);
}
bool sst_hsw_is_module_enabled_rtd3(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u32 module_id)
{
return hsw->enabled_modules_rtd3 & (1 << module_id);
}
void sst_hsw_reset_param_buf(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
hsw->param_idx_w = 0;
hsw->param_idx_r = 0;
memset((void *)hsw->param_buf, 0, sizeof(hsw->param_buf));
}
int sst_hsw_store_param_line(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u8 *buf)
{
/* save line to the first available position of param buffer */
if (hsw->param_idx_w > WAVES_PARAM_LINES - 1) {
dev_warn(hsw->dev, "warning: param buffer overflow!\n");
return -EPERM;
}
memcpy(hsw->param_buf[hsw->param_idx_w], buf, WAVES_PARAM_COUNT);
hsw->param_idx_w++;
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_load_param_line(struct sst_hsw *hsw, u8 *buf)
{
u8 id = 0;
/* read the first matching line from param buffer */
while (hsw->param_idx_r < WAVES_PARAM_LINES) {
id = hsw->param_buf[hsw->param_idx_r][0];
hsw->param_idx_r++;
if (buf[0] == id) {
memcpy(buf, hsw->param_buf[hsw->param_idx_r],
WAVES_PARAM_COUNT);
break;
}
}
if (hsw->param_idx_r > WAVES_PARAM_LINES - 1) {
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "end of buffer, roll to the beginning\n");
hsw->param_idx_r = 0;
return 0;
}
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_launch_param_buf(struct sst_hsw *hsw)
{
int ret, idx;
if (!sst_hsw_is_module_active(hsw, SST_HSW_MODULE_WAVES)) {
dev_dbg(hsw->dev, "module waves is not active\n");
return 0;
}
/* put all param lines to DSP through ipc */
for (idx = 0; idx < hsw->param_idx_w; idx++) {
ret = sst_hsw_module_set_param(hsw,
SST_HSW_MODULE_WAVES, 0, hsw->param_buf[idx][0],
WAVES_PARAM_COUNT, hsw->param_buf[idx]);
if (ret < 0)
return ret;
}
return 0;
}
int sst_hsw_module_load(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
u32 module_id, u32 instance_id, char *name)
{
int ret = 0;
const struct firmware *fw = NULL;
struct sst_fw *hsw_sst_fw;
struct sst_module *module;
struct device *dev = hsw->dev;
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
dev_dbg(dev, "sst_hsw_module_load id=%d, name='%s'", module_id, name);
module = sst_module_get_from_id(dsp, module_id);
if (module == NULL) {
/* loading for the first time */
if (module_id == SST_HSW_MODULE_BASE_FW) {
/* for base module: use fw requested in acpi probe */
fw = dsp->pdata->fw;
if (!fw) {
dev_err(dev, "request Base fw failed\n");
return -ENODEV;
}
} else {
/* try and load any other optional modules if they are
* available. Use dev_info instead of dev_err in case
* request firmware failed */
ret = request_firmware(&fw, name, dev);
if (ret) {
dev_info(dev, "fw image %s not available(%d)\n",
name, ret);
return ret;
}
}
hsw_sst_fw = sst_fw_new(dsp, fw, hsw);
if (hsw_sst_fw == NULL) {
dev_err(dev, "error: failed to load firmware\n");
ret = -ENOMEM;
goto out;
}
module = sst_module_get_from_id(dsp, module_id);
if (module == NULL) {
dev_err(dev, "error: no module %d in firmware %s\n",
module_id, name);
}
} else
dev_info(dev, "module %d (%s) already loaded\n",
module_id, name);
out:
/* release fw, but base fw should be released by acpi driver */
if (fw && module_id != SST_HSW_MODULE_BASE_FW)
release_firmware(fw);
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_module_enable(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
u32 module_id, u32 instance_id)
{
int ret;
struct sst_ipc_message request;
struct sst_hsw_ipc_module_config config;
struct sst_module *module;
struct sst_module_runtime *runtime;
struct device *dev = hsw->dev;
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
if (!sst_hsw_is_module_loaded(hsw, module_id)) {
dev_dbg(dev, "module %d not loaded\n", module_id);
return 0;
}
if (sst_hsw_is_module_active(hsw, module_id)) {
dev_info(dev, "module %d already enabled\n", module_id);
return 0;
}
module = sst_module_get_from_id(dsp, module_id);
if (module == NULL) {
dev_err(dev, "module %d not valid\n", module_id);
return -ENXIO;
}
runtime = sst_module_runtime_get_from_id(module, module_id);
if (runtime == NULL) {
dev_err(dev, "runtime %d not valid", module_id);
return -ENXIO;
}
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_MODULE_OPERATION) |
IPC_MODULE_OPERATION(IPC_MODULE_ENABLE) |
IPC_MODULE_ID(module_id);
dev_dbg(dev, "module enable header: %x\n", (u32)request.header);
config.map.module_entries_count = 1;
config.map.module_entries[0].module_id = module->id;
config.map.module_entries[0].entry_point = module->entry;
config.persistent_mem.offset =
sst_dsp_get_offset(dsp,
runtime->persistent_offset, SST_MEM_DRAM);
config.persistent_mem.size = module->persistent_size;
config.scratch_mem.offset =
sst_dsp_get_offset(dsp,
dsp->scratch_offset, SST_MEM_DRAM);
config.scratch_mem.size = module->scratch_size;
dev_dbg(dev, "mod %d enable p:%d @ %x, s:%d @ %x, ep: %x",
config.map.module_entries[0].module_id,
config.persistent_mem.size,
config.persistent_mem.offset,
config.scratch_mem.size, config.scratch_mem.offset,
config.map.module_entries[0].entry_point);
request.data = &config;
request.size = sizeof(config);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(dev, "ipc: module enable failed - %d\n", ret);
else
module->state = SST_MODULE_STATE_ACTIVE;
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_module_disable(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
u32 module_id, u32 instance_id)
{
int ret;
struct sst_ipc_message request = {0};
struct sst_module *module;
struct device *dev = hsw->dev;
struct sst_dsp *dsp = hsw->dsp;
if (!sst_hsw_is_module_loaded(hsw, module_id)) {
dev_dbg(dev, "module %d not loaded\n", module_id);
return 0;
}
if (!sst_hsw_is_module_active(hsw, module_id)) {
dev_info(dev, "module %d already disabled\n", module_id);
return 0;
}
module = sst_module_get_from_id(dsp, module_id);
if (module == NULL) {
dev_err(dev, "module %d not valid\n", module_id);
return -ENXIO;
}
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_MODULE_OPERATION) |
IPC_MODULE_OPERATION(IPC_MODULE_DISABLE) |
IPC_MODULE_ID(module_id);
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(dev, "module disable failed - %d\n", ret);
else
module->state = SST_MODULE_STATE_INITIALIZED;
return ret;
}
int sst_hsw_module_set_param(struct sst_hsw *hsw,
u32 module_id, u32 instance_id, u32 parameter_id,
u32 param_size, char *param)
{
int ret;
struct sst_ipc_message request = {0};
u32 payload_size = 0;
struct sst_hsw_transfer_parameter *parameter;
struct device *dev = hsw->dev;
request.header = IPC_GLB_TYPE(IPC_GLB_MODULE_OPERATION) |
IPC_MODULE_OPERATION(IPC_MODULE_SET_PARAMETER) |
IPC_MODULE_ID(module_id);
dev_dbg(dev, "sst_hsw_module_set_param header=%x\n",
(u32)request.header);
payload_size = param_size +
sizeof(struct sst_hsw_transfer_parameter) -
sizeof(struct sst_hsw_transfer_list);
dev_dbg(dev, "parameter size : %d\n", param_size);
dev_dbg(dev, "payload size : %d\n", payload_size);
if (payload_size <= SST_HSW_IPC_MAX_SHORT_PARAMETER_SIZE) {
/* short parameter, mailbox can contain data */
dev_dbg(dev, "transfer parameter size : %zu\n",
request.size);
request.size = ALIGN(payload_size, 4);
dev_dbg(dev, "transfer parameter aligned size : %zu\n",
request.size);
parameter = kzalloc(request.size, GFP_KERNEL);
if (parameter == NULL)
return -ENOMEM;
memcpy(parameter->data, param, param_size);
} else {
dev_warn(dev, "transfer parameter size too large!");
return 0;
}
parameter->parameter_id = parameter_id;
parameter->data_size = param_size;
request.data = parameter;
ret = sst_ipc_tx_message_wait(&hsw->ipc, request, NULL);
if (ret < 0)
dev_err(dev, "ipc: module set parameter failed - %d\n", ret);
kfree(parameter);
return ret;
}
static struct sst_dsp_device hsw_dev = {
.thread = hsw_irq_thread,
.ops = &haswell_ops,
};
static void hsw_tx_msg(struct sst_generic_ipc *ipc, struct ipc_message *msg)
{
/* send the message */
sst_dsp_outbox_write(ipc->dsp, msg->tx.data, msg->tx.size);
sst_dsp_ipc_msg_tx(ipc->dsp, msg->tx.header);
}
static void hsw_shim_dbg(struct sst_generic_ipc *ipc, const char *text)
{
struct sst_dsp *sst = ipc->dsp;
u32 isr, ipcd, imrx, ipcx;
ipcx = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(sst, SST_IPCX);
isr = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(sst, SST_ISRX);
ipcd = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(sst, SST_IPCD);
imrx = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(sst, SST_IMRX);
dev_err(ipc->dev,
"ipc: --%s-- ipcx 0x%8.8x isr 0x%8.8x ipcd 0x%8.8x imrx 0x%8.8x\n",
text, ipcx, isr, ipcd, imrx);
}
static void hsw_tx_data_copy(struct ipc_message *msg, char *tx_data,
size_t tx_size)
{
memcpy(msg->tx.data, tx_data, tx_size);
}
static u64 hsw_reply_msg_match(u64 header, u64 *mask)
{
/* clear reply bits & status bits */
header &= ~(IPC_STATUS_MASK | IPC_GLB_REPLY_MASK);
*mask = (u64)-1;
return header;
}
static bool hsw_is_dsp_busy(struct sst_dsp *dsp)
{
u64 ipcx;
ipcx = sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(dsp, SST_IPCX);
return (ipcx & (SST_IPCX_BUSY | SST_IPCX_DONE));
}
int sst_hsw_dsp_init(struct device *dev, struct sst_pdata *pdata)
{
struct sst_hsw_ipc_fw_version version;
struct sst_hsw *hsw;
struct sst_generic_ipc *ipc;
int ret;
dev_dbg(dev, "initialising Audio DSP IPC\n");
hsw = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(*hsw), GFP_KERNEL);
if (hsw == NULL)
return -ENOMEM;
hsw->dev = dev;
ipc = &hsw->ipc;
ipc->dev = dev;
ipc->ops.tx_msg = hsw_tx_msg;
ipc->ops.shim_dbg = hsw_shim_dbg;
ipc->ops.tx_data_copy = hsw_tx_data_copy;
ipc->ops.reply_msg_match = hsw_reply_msg_match;
ipc->ops.is_dsp_busy = hsw_is_dsp_busy;
ipc->tx_data_max_size = IPC_MAX_MAILBOX_BYTES;
ipc->rx_data_max_size = IPC_MAX_MAILBOX_BYTES;
ret = sst_ipc_init(ipc);
if (ret != 0)
goto ipc_init_err;
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&hsw->stream_list);
init_waitqueue_head(&hsw->boot_wait);
hsw_dev.thread_context = hsw;
/* init SST shim */
hsw->dsp = sst_dsp_new(dev, &hsw_dev, pdata);
if (hsw->dsp == NULL) {
ret = -ENODEV;
goto dsp_new_err;
}
ipc->dsp = hsw->dsp;
/* allocate DMA buffer for context storage */
hsw->dx_context = dma_alloc_coherent(hsw->dsp->dma_dev,
SST_HSW_DX_CONTEXT_SIZE, &hsw->dx_context_paddr, GFP_KERNEL);
if (hsw->dx_context == NULL) {
ret = -ENOMEM;
goto dma_err;
}
/* keep the DSP in reset state for base FW loading */
sst_dsp_reset(hsw->dsp);
/* load base module and other modules in base firmware image */
ret = sst_hsw_module_load(hsw, SST_HSW_MODULE_BASE_FW, 0, "Base");
if (ret < 0)
goto fw_err;
/* try to load module waves */
sst_hsw_module_load(hsw, SST_HSW_MODULE_WAVES, 0, "intel/IntcPP01.bin");
/* allocate scratch mem regions */
ret = sst_block_alloc_scratch(hsw->dsp);
if (ret < 0)
goto boot_err;
/* init param buffer */
sst_hsw_reset_param_buf(hsw);
/* wait for DSP boot completion */
sst_dsp_boot(hsw->dsp);
ret = wait_event_timeout(hsw->boot_wait, hsw->boot_complete,
msecs_to_jiffies(IPC_BOOT_MSECS));
if (ret == 0) {
ret = -EIO;
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: audio DSP boot timeout IPCD 0x%x IPCX 0x%x\n",
sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(hsw->dsp, SST_IPCD),
sst_dsp_shim_read_unlocked(hsw->dsp, SST_IPCX));
goto boot_err;
}
/* init module state after boot */
sst_hsw_init_module_state(hsw);
/* get the FW version */
sst_hsw_fw_get_version(hsw, &version);
/* get the globalmixer */
ret = sst_hsw_mixer_get_info(hsw);
if (ret < 0) {
dev_err(hsw->dev, "error: failed to get stream info\n");
goto boot_err;
}
pdata->dsp = hsw;
return 0;
boot_err:
sst_dsp_reset(hsw->dsp);
sst_fw_free_all(hsw->dsp);
fw_err:
dma_free_coherent(hsw->dsp->dma_dev, SST_HSW_DX_CONTEXT_SIZE,
hsw->dx_context, hsw->dx_context_paddr);
dma_err:
sst_dsp_free(hsw->dsp);
dsp_new_err:
sst_ipc_fini(ipc);
ipc_init_err:
return ret;
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(sst_hsw_dsp_init);
void sst_hsw_dsp_free(struct device *dev, struct sst_pdata *pdata)
{
struct sst_hsw *hsw = pdata->dsp;
sst_dsp_reset(hsw->dsp);
sst_fw_free_all(hsw->dsp);
dma_free_coherent(hsw->dsp->dma_dev, SST_HSW_DX_CONTEXT_SIZE,
hsw->dx_context, hsw->dx_context_paddr);
sst_dsp_free(hsw->dsp);
sst_ipc_fini(&hsw->ipc);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(sst_hsw_dsp_free);
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