WILL YOUR NEXT HOME BE NET ZERO?
The government of Canada is taking an active stance on mitigating climate change impacts and reducing green-house gas emissions from residential construction with a mandate to develop a net-zero energy model building code, with the goal that provinces adopt it by 2030.
As people are becoming more aware of the effect the building industry has on the environment, Capstone takes a consumer driven approach to educate our clients with the information required to make responsible decisions for their family and the environment.
What is Net Zero?
There have been several conservation programs over the years; R-2000 and Energy Star, for example, but the CHBA’s Net Zero is the current gold standard and defined as follows:
A Net Zero (NZE) home, is a building for which the amount of energy provided by on-site renewable energy sources is equal to the amount of energy used by the building, over the course of one year.
A Net Zero Ready home is built to the same energy conservation standards as above but is not yet connected to renewable energy systems like solar, for example.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that building a Net Zero Home is drastically different from conventional construction, but it’s simply a matter of implementing construction technologies to increase energy efficiency and provide energy production through on-site renewable energy sources, such as solar.
Building an energy efficient home includes components that ensure the building envelope and the mechanical systems increase the overall performance and comfort of the home and can include the following:
- Energy Efficient Design optimizes site location, window placement, design elements like overhangs and shading structures to provide optimal heating and cooling. Roof details should provide enough space on the roof for Solar Panels or consideration for integrated solar roof shingles, to produce the energy for the home to make it Net Zero.
- Insulation Working through the construction details of the wall and roof assemblies to create a thermal envelope that provides energy efficiency and comfort. Technologies such as BONE STRUCTURE (patented steel frame technology) or SIPS (structural insulated panels) provide alternatives to traditional wood frame construction, reducing thermal bridging and often increasing R- value.
- Airtightness Implementing an exterior air barrier system, paying close attention to air sealing details and performing a blower door test to detect air leaks before drywall goes on is imperative.
- High Efficiency mechanical and ventilation systems Selecting energy efficient products for heating, cooling, domestic water management, and heat recovery ventilation like HRV’s and ERV’s provide optimal efficiency, air quality and comfort for the home’s occupants.
- High Efficiency Appliances Purchasing Energy Star rated appliances like induction cooktops, front loading high RPM washers, heat pump condensing dryers, for example, can considerably lower overall household energy usage.
At Capstone Homes, we believe that environmental responsibility, energy efficiency, and healthy indoor living go hand in hand with comfort, convenience, and great design.
Will your next home be Net Zero? For more information or to learn more, connect with Capstone Homes today!


Right now, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is at the center of one of the most ambitious missions to Mars ever undertaken by humanity. Tonight, they'll be landing a sophisticated robotic rover on Mars, the Mars Science Lab (MSL) Curiosity, and waiting breathlessly as the rover makes its final descent to the surface. Very few people are allowed at JPL today, but luckily you're one of them. Last month, I took an extensive tour of JPL along with thousands of other people who came out to the JPL Open House, a free annual event where the facility opens its doors to the public.
I got photographs of all the places where Curiosity was born, trained, and is today being controlled during these final hours as it approaches its destination. Take the tour and see where Curiosity came from!
Click any image to embiggen.
JPL may be one of the most futuristic institutes on the planet, but it's located in a wild canyon in Pasadena, California, surrounded by nature.
Welcome to the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where there's an enormous warehouse clean room where every spacecraft in JPL's history has been assembled, including MSL.
The room is currently empty because its latest creation, MSL, is on a very important mission right now.
Every single NASA/JPL mission logo is on the wall — here are a few of the earliest.
Another view of the clean room.
Equipment for building the rover.
Outside, an enormous container of liquid nitrogen looms over visitors.
Welcome to Mission Control, where today the whole MSL team is gathered to work on MSL's landing tonight.
It's a pretty cushy room, full of work stations arranged in a U-shape, with giant screens mounted on the walls so people can watch mission updates second-by-second.
Dimly-lit except for the display screens, the room is also highlighted in matte black furniture, making the whole thing look pretty science fictional.
This is where it's all happening right now.
Here's the In Situ Instrument Lab, where the MSL drove over Mars-like terrain so that scientists could test to see how it would handle rocks, sand, and other obstacles once it arrived on the Red Planet.
Inside, you can see the staging area, full of sand and rocks.
It looks sort of like a Hollywood sound stage.
But these simulated obstacles are going to be very real challenges for Curiosity when it starts roving on the Martian surface.
A model of part of the MSL's electronics module.
A huge poster hanging outside one of JPL's buildings expresses the lab's belief that humans might not be the only life in the universe.
Now let's visit one of the machine shops at JPL, where all the parts for the spacecraft are made with insane levels of precision.
A high-precision cutter that uses ultrathin electrified wires to cut.
The best vending machine in the entire universe — stocked with tools.
A few items on offer in the vending machine.
This device is used to map points on physical objects to points in the computer designs used to create them. Basically, it's a way of checking to be sure the components of the rover match the design specifications.
Specs on that machine.
Here's another device for checking physical parts against software designs. Here you can see the machine is measuring a wheel, and in the background you can see the computer design of the wheel.
Tomorrow's rover? A robotic wall crawler, its specialized treads modeled on sticky chameleon feet, might be incorporated into future planetary rover.
Another future direction for planetary rovers — here the boxy shape is actually separated from the two wheels you see behind. The wheels can roll down a huge crater on a line, while sending data back to the other part of the rover. This future rover might be very useful for studying the craters and canyons of Mars.
From Earth to Mars, the MSL has had quite a crossing.


Though currently living in Manila, Philippines, Chona grew up in the coastal province of Bataan, known for its rice lands and fisheries. Although she doesn’t live there anymore, she says that her hometown made a subconscious impact on the nature of her work and her passion for sustainability. A scientific researcher and inspiring woman in aquaculture, she was innately drawn to her field as she grew up around farms and fisheries, and drew inspiration from wanting to help address the needs within the community she grew up in.
Bringing smart technology to traditional aquaculture
In her many years as a scientific researcher, Chona focused on research projects related to agriculture, working with farmers and crops to develop smart technology and improve crop sustainability. An aquaculture project she began during her PhD and is still actively engaged with today is her research project on mangrove crabs, or more commonly known as mud crabs. The mud crab industry in the Philippines is significant: in 2018, over 18,000 tons of mud crabs was exported from the Philippines to the global market. For the past eight years, Chona has been developing technology to help fishers with crab species identification, to ultimately create a more productive and sustainable crab farming industry.
Chona’s research solved a long-standing problem for crab farmers: there are three common mud crab species, but only one is desired by farmers as it grows faster, and up to 40% larger than the others. This matters, as during the younger stages of a crab's life, it is significantly harder to differentiate between species. Fishers resort to over-farming to compensate for projected loss in case they source the wrong juveniles from a trader or catch the species they do not want in the wild. Chona and her team harnessed their research to develop an easy-to-use mobile app, called Crabifier, which uses image analysis to help farmers easily identify juvenile crabs. The ability to rear the right breed meaningfully impacts the livelihoods of crab farmers. Improved productivity also reduces the need to clear as many mangroves to build nurseries for fattening crabs, reducing the ecological impact of crab fishing.
Building trust in science
Crabifier has been well received, but it wasn’t always this way. In the early stages of her career as a young scientist, she experienced significant doubt and resistance from the public who did not trust biotechnology.
Rural farming communities were hard to engage with as they were even more reserved and distrusting of new science. As such, Chona and her team had to do a lot of relationship building, engaging with communities, and learning their languages. It was through these experiences that she realized the importance of science communication.
“Oftentimes, scientists have these grand and complex ideas in their head that they themselves understand,” Chona says. “But if we want people to be accepting of these new technologies, we have to involve them in the process and when talking to them, must always be reminded that we too have a lot to learn from them.”
When engaging with these communities, she understands the importance of respecting their traditional methods and finds a way to incorporate new and improved technology and practices to make their farming more efficient.
Overcoming challenges as a woman in STEM
As a woman, she says that there were a lot of people who were doubtful of her capabilities during her journey as scientist and researcher. People often assumed that agriculture and aquaculture were too laborious for a woman like her. This led her to feeling as if she had to work twice as hard to prove herself.
Throughout her education, she saw a lack of female representation, but was lucky to have a female advisor during her PhD who taught her that it’s possible to be both feminine and resilient. Now, after many years in the industry, Chona is happy to see many more strong women in the field who motivate her. Feeling inspired by others and wanting to empower other women, Chona launched her own YouTube science channel, SHE-ensya, which also showcases women in STEM and their stories.
A message for other women in agriculture
She wants to share a message with all women in the agri-sector:
“Thank you. Thank you for existing and helping feed the world. I feel that the field of agriculture and aquaculture is very under-appreciated even though our very survival is dependent on it. Women help to create a softer and nurturing side, which is the key to making the field more sustainable.”


The study involved 231 military members who were being treated for injuries at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The soldiers were all evaluated for brain injuries, and also had their sense of smell tested. According to researchers, every soldier who failed the smell test had abnormalities on his or her brain scan.
The brain uses both its olfactory system and its memory to interpret smells. When a person smells a scent, that scent is linked to a specific memory—for example, a person who smells onions is able to recall what an onion is through using the brain’s memory. When a person’s memory is not functioning, as is the case with TBIs or Alzheimer’s disease, the brain will not be able to correctly identify the scent.
The study, which was funded by the Department of Defense, may allow physicians on the front lines of war zones to determine which soldiers need to be treated for a traumatic brain injury and which are likely okay. Though this research was done with the hope of assisting the military, the research could also be used to help doctors identify brain injuries in accident victims.
Traumatic brain injuries can hide from doctors. Though severe head injuries have obvious symptoms, people who have suffered from mild brain injuries may go their entire lives without realizing that changes in their behavior were caused by trauma to the brain.
In a case of mild brain injury, usually characterized by a concussion or a period of unconsciousness, the person may suffer from daily annoyances like poor memory or emotional outbursts. By using the smell test, doctors may be able to identify traumatic brain injuries in people who may not realize that they have any symptoms. It is possible that people with mild brain injuries may find great relief from their symptoms once they start treating the brain injury.
Traumatic brain injuries can cause a wide range of symptoms, from minor annoyances to severe and devastating mental and physical disabilities. TBI patients often need years of treatment and therapy in order to regain function, and many are never able to work again. With this loss of income potential, many TBI patients need financial assistance in order to make ends meet.
If you or your family member suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of someone else’s negligence, you deserve compensation for your injury. At the Trial Law Offices of Bradley I. Kramer, M.D., Esq., our dedicated medical and legal staff will evaluate your injury and your medical case history, and will help you receive the compensation you deserve. Bradley I. Kramer is both a medical doctor and an attorney, and has the unique expertise you need on your side to fight back after an injury.
For a free consultation, contact us by calling (310) 289-2600 and speak with an experienced Los Angeles medical malpractice attorney today.


Naturally occurring chemicals found in certain vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, can enhance DNA repair in cells, perhaps helping to stop them becoming cancerous, according to a report published in the British Journal of Cancer* today (Tuesday).
The researchers, based at Georgetown University in Washington DC, have shown that a compound called I3C** found in these vegetables, and a chemical called genistein found in soy beans, both increase the levels of vital DNA repair proteins in cancer cells. Although population studies have suggested a link between eating such vegetables and protection against cancer before, this study now puts forward a molecular mechanism on how they might work.
The repair proteins, regulated by genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, are important for preventing damaged genetic information being passed on to the next generation of cells. If people have a faulty BRCA gene they are at a higher risk of developing some forms of cancer, including breast, ovarian and prostate cancer. Since decreased amounts of the BRCA proteins are seen in cancer cells, higher levels might prevent cancer developing. The ability of I3C and genistein to boost the amount of BRCA proteins could explain their protective effects.
Professor Eliot M. Rosen, senior author of the report, said: “Studies that monitor people’s diets and their health have found links between certain types of food and cancer risk. However, before we can say a food protects against cancer, we have to understand how it does this at a molecular level.”
Prof Rosen’s research group had already shown that some natural chemicals in food increased the levels of BRCA1. In this report, the two compounds they studied both acted on BRCA1 and BRCA2.
Prof Rosen added: “It is now clear that the function of crucial cancer genes can be influenced by compounds in the things we eat. Our findings suggest a clear molecular process that would explain the connection between diet and cancer prevention.”
Professor John Toy, medical director of Cancer Research UK, which owns the British Journal of Cancer, said: “Diet’s role in cancer prevention is complex. This research explores an interesting hypothesis as to how certain components of diet can affect cancer risk. The evidence is building that these chemical compounds act on some of the genes inside cells that help prevent cancer developing.
“We still don’t know if this is exactly how these chemicals might act in every day life. Cancer Research UK’s Reduce the Risk campaign, however, is based on what we do know, including the fact that eating a balanced diet, high in fibre and with plenty of fruit and vegetables, lowers the risks of developing many forms of cancer.”
For media enquiries please contact Michael Regnier in the Cancer Research UK press office on 020 7061 8309 or, out of hours, the duty press officer on 07050 264059.
BRCA genes In 1993, an international team of researchers showed that the inherited breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA1, was responsible for the vast majority of families with multiple cases of breast and ovarian cancer, and a large proportion of those families with breast cancer only.
In 1995, a second breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA2 was identified. The gene is associated with a substantially increased risk of female breast cancer as well as an increased risk of ovarian, prostate and male breast cancer.
Normal BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes produce proteins (also called BRCA1 and BRCA2) that are involved in repairing damaged DNA. Cells with defective copies of the genes cannot repair their DNA so well, meaning mutated genes can survive and the risk of cancer developing is increased. People with faulty versions of BRCA genes are therefore at a higher risk of several forms of cancer.
British Journal of Cancer
- The BJC’s mission is to encourage communication of the very best cancer research from laboratories and clinics in all countries. Broad coverage, its editorial independence and consistent high standards have made BJC one of the world’s premier general cancer journals.
Cancer Research UK
- Cancer Research UK’s vision is to conquer cancer through world-class research.
- The charity works alone and in partnership with others to carry out research into the biology and causes of cancer, to develop effective treatments, improve the quality of life for cancer patients, reduce the number of people getting cancer and to provide authoritative information on cancer.
- Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading independent charity dedicated to research on the causes, treatment and prevention of cancer.
- For further information about Cancer Research UK’s work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 020 7009 8820 or visit the Cancer Research UK website.
Reduce the Risk
Half of all cancers could be prevented by changes to lifestyle. Cancer Research UK’s Reduce the Risk campaign highlights five important ways you can lower your cancer risk: Stop smoking Stay in shape Eat and drink healthily Be SunSmart Look after number one.
* Rosen (2006) British Journal of Cancer 94 (3) ** I3C – indole-3-carbinol


US researchers have discovered a previously unknown early relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex. The small predatory dinosaurs Suskityrannus hazelae lived prior to around 92 million years ago, it was said in the journal Nature, Ecology and Evolution published study.
p. hazalea reached a hip-height of less than one Meter and weighed between 20 and 41 pounds. In comparison to a full-grown T. rex., the could reach nine tons, he was so small. The skull of the type was only 25 to 32 inches long, but the dinosaurs had, according to the researchers, a strong bite force. The dinosaur also possessed a special walking boot.
The species is phylogenetically the oldest, smallest tyrannosaurs sauroiden and the later giants of the representatives, such as T. rex., the lived in front of around 80 to 66 million years ago.
The new style of the associated parts of the skeleton had been found, according to a communication from the University of Virginia already more than 20 years ago in the Zuni basin in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The paleontologist Sterling Nesbitt, who described p. hazelae now together with his Team, had found the Remains of one of the dinosaurs as a 16-Year-old student even as he participated in 1998 in an excavation.
The dinosaurs according to the latest findings about 243 million years ago in the Mesozoic era (the Mesozoic). It is divided into three periods: the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. The Triassic period, almost the entire land mass on the super continent Pangea was summarized, referred to the period from 251 million to 200 million years. On the Triassic to the Jurassic 200 to 145 million years ago, the continent broke apart and slowly in the present-day continents split.
the time of the chalk in front of 145 to 65 million years ago. With the end of the Cretaceous, almost all of the dinosaurs were exterminated. As you look at the birds as descendants of a group of dinosaurs that are not extinct but, strictly speaking, complete.
Of the reptiles, which were then on the earth, survived, for example, crocodiles, snakes, lizards and turtles.
The world of plants changed during this time dramatically. Of former landscapes with coniferous forests and Ginkobäumen the image is changed in the chalk woods-time foliage and Bush landscapes. Responsible for the development of the flowering plants in the early Cretaceous.


This week, in an improbable turn of events, the sound of silence went viral.
An animated GIF showing an electrical tower jumping rope over delightfully bendy power lines began to spread. The frenzy started when Lisa Debruine, a researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow, posed this question:
Does anyone in visual perception know why you can hear this gif? pic.twitter.com/mcT22Lzfkp— Lisa DeBruine 🏳🌈 (@LisaDeBruine) December 2, 2017
When she asked Twitter users in an unscientific survey whether they could hear the image — which actually lacks sound, like most animated GIFs — nearly 70 percent who responded said they could.
Once you “heard” it, it was hard not to start noticing that other GIFs also seemed to be making noise — as if the bouncing pylon had somehow jacked up the volume on a cacophonous orchestra few had noticed before.
But can you actually hear something that does not emit a sound?
Certainly, said Chris Plack, a professor of audiology at the Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, who researches acoustic reflexes and auditory processing.
“Hearing,” as he defines it, does not require external noise; rather, it is “having the experience of a sound.”
The ability to “vEAR” is not limited to scenes where one would expect to hear a noise, they say. One lab study found that more than 20 percent of people could hear flashing lights in silent videos. A range of motions, abstract patterns and even colors evoke sound for some. (Take their survey here.)
The act of hearing a visual highlights the trippy fact that our senses do not operate the way we often assume, with crisp boundaries between them. Smelling, hearing and tasting all “speak to each other and influence each other, so little things like the color of the plate you’re eating on can influence how food tastes,” said Mr. Fassnidge.
It may feel “like the world is right in front of us,” he said, but it’s not so simple.
But what is going on when we vEAR? And what is it about that particular GIF that makes it so “loud” for so many?
“Our brains see this and they say, ‘Wow, a pylon of that size bouncing up and down should be making a noise,’” he said. So we hear one.
Mr. Fassnidge agreed that there is something about the pylons GIF that makes it particularly easy to imagine what it might sound like. Visual hearing is often about some “intersection of perception, memory and imagination all coming together,” he said.
But how do you explain the fact that some people can hear visual recordings of flashing lights, motions and other scenes that might be silent in real life? Why do some people have much more advanced vEARing than others?
It’s too early in the research to say. But Dr. Freeman’s and Mr. Fassnidge’s working theory is that the degree to which one can hear based on visuals likely has to do with how much a given person’s “visual and auditory areas ‘talk’ to each other” in the brain.
“Using electrical brain stimulation, we have also found tentative signs that visual and auditory brain areas cooperate more in people with vEAR, while they tend to compete with each other, in non-vEAR people,” Dr. Freeman said in an email. “So people who claim to hear visual motion have brains that seem to work slightly differently.”
Individuals with frequent or advanced vEARing may have a form of “synesthesia,” a neurological phenomenon in which one sense feeds into another, he said. In other types of synesthesia, sounds might be linked to colors or words with tastes.
Having this particular kind of synesthesia may be confusing for individuals who don’t realize what’s going on.
That was the case for Dr. Freeman, who said he hears most things that move or flash. When he inquired if others could hear the buzzing of flashing lights emitted by a distant tower, for example, he “got quizzical looks. So I stopped asking people.”
Then he came across a paper by two neurobiologists at Caltech, Melissa Saenz and Christof Koch, often credited with first discovering the form of synesthesia he experiences. Their paper convinced him he was not a lone “weirdo,” and that the topic was worthy of additional investigation.
At synesthesia conferences, he’s met others who have even more pronounced visual hearing, most notably Lidell Simpson, for whom the world is a very noisy place, though he is technically deaf.
“Everything I see, taste, touch and smell get translated into sound,” he explained over email. “I can never shut it off.”
His vEARing may be so advanced because before he was fitted for a hearing aid as a toddler, the “auditory bits of his brain were learning to process vision instead — and when they got the hearing aid, sound and vision fused in his brain,” Mr. Fassnidge said.
Even for those with just average vEARing, the sound of a flash of light can be powerful enough to drown out real-world sounds, the researchers have found in their lab.
It’s also possible that those of us who “grew up surrounded by noisy environments” have been hearing based on visuals for years without realizing it, Mr. Fassnidge added in an email.
“I might assume I am hearing the footsteps of a person walking on the other side of the street, when really the sound exists only in my mind,” he said.
The noisy pylons GIF, in that sense, reveals that “we have this unusual ability” — and that some of our daily soundtrack may actually be rooted in imagination.


National Health Insurance
Introduction to National Health Insurance
National Health Insurance, government-operated system of insurance that provides financial benefits and medical services to persons disabled by sickness or accident. National health insurance systems are found in many countries, particularly in Europe. In the United States, health insurance has traditionally been provided by private enterprise on a voluntary basis. National health insurance bills were introduced in the Congress of the United States in the 1930s and 1940s but were not enacted. The Social Security Amendments of 1965, however, created a governmental health insurance program known as Medicare, which is intended primarily for the aged. In 1993 President Bill Clinton introduced a plan for universal health care coverage. However, a compromise could not be reached with opponents in Congress and the bill died. See Health Insurance; Medicare and Medicaid.
Systems of national health insurance frequently are coordinated with other national programs of social insurance, such as pension programs, programs of unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.” (1)
Notes and References
- Information about National Health Insurance in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia


|Angle of Incidence|
The angle of incidence is the angle formed by the wing chord line and the aircraft longitudinal axis. The wing chord line extends from the leading edge of the wing to the trailing edge of the wing. The longitudinal axis is an imaginary line that extends from the nose of the aircraft to the tail.1
The angle of incidence is measured by the angle at which the wing is attached to the fuselage and in general, the angle of incidence is fixed and cannot be changed by the pilot.
The angle of incidence is usually set at a small positive angle in order to allow the fuselage to maintain level during normal cruising flight. The angle of incidence varies on different aircraft, but on most light general aviation aircraft the angle is normally set at 6°.2
The Vought F-8 Crusader has a variable angle of incidence.
Although the angle of incidence is normally fixed, one exception is the Vought F-8 Crusader. The angle of incidence is increased during takeoff and landing in order to increase visibility for the pilot, particularly during landing.
The angle of incidence should not be confused with the angle of attack. The angle of attack is the angle formed by the wing chord line and the direction of the relative wind.
1. AC-61-23A, Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. (Washington, D.C.: Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, 1971). 2.|
Return to Aircraft Theory Index
© The Aviation History Online Museum. All rights reserved.
Created December 13, 2009. Updated June 1, 2015.


Problem: Given a system which is not performing very well, what steps can be taken to increase its performance
System performance depends on a lot of factors.
Below are some of these factors and the corrective measures to increase performance:
Check file IO and try to minimize it.
Look for database locks.
Run some analytics on DB to find long running queries.
Normalize columns where group-by is running on strings
Denormalize tables having frequent joins.
One-to-one mapping tables must be denormalized.
Use SOLR/Lucene for running text-search queries.
Normal databases do not do this very well.
Create indexes wherever missing.
Use hadoop if too many requests are coming per second.
Try to use map-reduce to avoid loading of one server.
Use caching to improve performance.
Turn on Hibernate second-level caching if there are too many surrogate primary key lookups.
Try using distributed caching.
Check that no library is running in debug mode.
Log message printing should not be too excessive to cause slow down.
Check if logger is becoming a bottleneck by creating too much synchronization.
Threads and synchronization:
Take a thread dump to see if some threads are deadlocked or livelocked.
Grep through the code and look for synchronized keyword. See if the blocks are correctly synchronized in code.
Use thread-pool executors.
Use ThreadLocal variables wherever possible to reduce synchronization.
Use AtomicLong, AtomicInteger etc
Use ConcurrentHashMap in place of synchronizedMap(map) to make use of CAS
Do not use Hashtable or Vector if synchronization is not required
Check garbage collector usage. If too much concurrency is there, use concurrent garbage collector or G1 garbage collector.
Check is OS is 32-bit or 64-bit
Check size of RAM
Check the runtime flag with which the binary was launched. Does it restrict memory usage or network bandwidth etc.
Third party libraries and useful commands:
If some third party library is causing bottleneck, try decompiling their libraries.
Use ldd command in linux to see dynamically loaded libraries.
In linux, use nm command to see the symbols of a binary and check if some wrong version of library is being loaded due to wrong PATH variable.
Trace all system calls with the appropriate tool (strace/trace/truss, depending on the OS)
Strace: It intercepts and records the system calls which are called by a process and the signals which are received by a process.
The name of each system call, its arguments and its return value are printed on standard error or to the file specified with the -o option.
Truss: is a debugging utility in Solaris and FreeBSD to monitor the system calls used.
Got a thought to share or found a bug in the code? We'd love to hear from you:


1. Scientists at A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology (IMB) and Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) have identified a gene encoding a hormone that could potentially be used as a therapeutic molecule to treat heart diseases. The hormone - which they have chosen to name ELABELA - is only 32 amino-acids long, making it amongst the tiniest proteins made by the human body.
2. The team led by Dr Bruno Reversade carried out experiments to determine ELABELA's function, since its existence was hitherto unsuspected. Using zebrafish designed to specifically lack this hormone, they uncovered that ELABELA is indispensable for heart formation. Zebrafish embryos without this gene had rudimentary or no heart at all (see Figure 1). Their results were published in the 5 December 2013 online issue of Developmental Cell.
3. Deficiencies in hormones are the cause of many diseases, such as the loss of insulin or insulin resistance, that results in diabetes, and irregularities in appetite and satiety hormones that can cause obesity. Hormones are known to control functions such as sleep, appetite and fertility. However, this is the first time that scientists have revealed the existence of a conserved hormone playing such an early role during embryogenesis, effectively orchestrating the development of an entire organ.
4. The team also found that ELABELA uses a receptor previously believed to be specific to APELIN, a blood-pressure controlling hormone. This receptor called APJ or Apelin Receptor has dual functions - it first conveys signals from ELABELA and then from APELIN. Mutations in the Apelin Receptor also prevent the heart from forming. Zebrafish bereft of the Apelin Receptor are referred to as the Grinch, in reference to the cold and heartless cartoon character created by Dr. Seuss in 1957.
5. ELABELA has also been found to be expressed in human embryonic stem cells , indicating that it might have other functions beyond its role in cardiovascular development.
6. The team's findings hold great promise for the potential use of ELABELA as a therapeutic molecule for cardiovascular disease to be used in cardiac repair and control of hypertension. As some people might have a harmful copy of the ELABELA gene in their genetic make-up, sequencing and screening for this particular gene in the general population might also help to detect predisposition to heart anomalies before the disease progresses.
7. Dr Bruno Reversade said, "The human genome has been sequenced over a decade ago. That we can still find anonymous hormones charms me. There are a still a few more to discover...but not for long."
8. Prof Birgitte Lane, Executive Director of IMB, said, "This discovery shows great promise for the development of targeted therapies for heart disease and blood pressure control in the future. It is an excellent example of how basic research can lead to surprising and unexpected findings that may change and refine medical practice."
9. Prof Hong Wan Jin, Executive Director of IMCB, said, "I am very pleased with Bruno's achievement as it reflects the synergy of collaboration and joint efforts among various research institutes in Singapore."
Annex A- Figures
Figure 1. Zebrafish embryo at 6 days of development.
Notes for Editor:
The research findings described in this media release can be found in the 5 December 2013 online issue of Cell Press under the title, "ELABELA: A Hormone Essential for Heart Development Signals via the Apelin Receptor" by Serene C. Chng1,#, Lena Ho1,#, Jing Tian1, and Bruno Reversade1,2,3
1 Institute of Medical Biology, Agency for Science Technology and Research, 8A Biomedical Grove, #06-06 Immunos, Singapore 138648, Singapore
2 Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Agency for Science Technology and Research, 61 Biopolis Drive, Proteos, Singapore 138673, Singapore
3 Department of Pediatrics, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore
# These authors contributed equally to this work
*Correspondence should be addressed to: Bruno Reversade
AGENCY FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH (A*STAR)
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Tel: (+65) 6826 6291
About the Reversade Laboratory
Dr. Bruno Reversade, a human geneticist and embryologist holds a Senior Principal Investigator position at IMB and IMCB. He is the coordinating investigator on A*STAR's strategic programme on rare genetic diseases. He is an adjunct professor of the Department of Paediatrics at the National University of Singapore. He is also a Fellow of the Branco Weiss Foundation based at ETH in Switzerland, and was the first recipient of the A*STAR Investigatorship, and the first EMBO Young Investigator based outside Europe.
For more information about Dr. Reversade's laboratory, visit http://www.
For more information about ELABELA, visit http://www.
About the Institute of Medical Biology (IMB)
IMB is one of the Biomedical Sciences Institutes of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). It was formed in 2007, with a mission to study mechanisms of human disease in order to discover new and effective therapeutic strategies for improved quality of life.
IMB has 20 research teams working in three primary focus areas - stem cells, genetic disease, and skin biology. The teams work closely with clinical collaborators as well as industry partners, to target the challenging interface between basic science and clinical medicine. IMB's strategic research topics are targeted at translational research to understand the mechanisms of human disease so as to identify new strategies for disease amelioration, cure and eradication and to improve health and wellbeing. Since 2011, IMB has also hosted the inter-research institute Skin Biology Cluster platform, and leads major strategic funding programs in rare genetic diseases and in skin biology. In 2013 IMB became a founding institute of the Skin Research Institute of Singapore.
For more information about IMB, please visit http://www.
About Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB)
The Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) was established in 1987 at the National University of Singapore (NUS) before becoming an autonomous research institute (RI) of A*STAR and moving to Biopolis in 2004. IMCB strives to maintain the scientific excellence of PI-driven research and at the same time aims to promote collaborative team-based projects of medical and industrial relevance.
Funded primarily by the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) of A*STAR, IMCB's research activities focus on four major fields: Animal Models of Development and Disease, Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics, Cell Biology in Health and Disease, and Structural Biology and Drug Discovery.
For more information about IMCB, please visit http://www.
About the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is Singapore's lead public sector agency that fosters world-class scientific research and talent to drive economic growth and transform Singapore into a vibrant knowledge-based and innovation driven economy. In line with its mission-oriented mandate, A*STAR spearheads research and development in fields that are essential to growing Singapore's manufacturing sector and catalysing new growth industries. A*STAR supports these economic clusters by providing intellectual, human and industrial capital to its partners in industry.
A*STAR oversees 20 biomedical sciences and physical sciences and engineering research entities, located in Biopolis and Fusionopolis as well as their vicinity. These two R&D hubs, house a bustling and diverse community of local and international research scientists and engineers from A*STAR's research entities as well as a growing number of corporate laboratories.
For more information, visit http://www.


English Etymology - Oxford Dictionary
Where did the words bungalow and assassin derive? What did nice mean in the Middle Ages? How were adder, ange, and umpire originally spelled? The answers can be found in this essential companion to any popular dictionary.
"A model of its kind--all that anyone other than a specialist needs to know about words."--Daily Telegraph
Powered by Handmark including over 17,000 entries, this is the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to word origins available. Based on The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the principal authority on the origin and development of English words, it contains a wealth of information about our language and its history. For example, readers will learn that bungalow originally meant "belonging to Bengal," that assassin comes from the Arabic for "Hashish-eater," and that nice meant "foolish or stupid" in the thirteenth century, "coy or shy" in the fifteenth. And adder, anger, and umpire were originally spelled with an initial "n." These are but a few of the fascinating tidbits found in this dictionary, which is a must for anyone interested in the richness of the English language.
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On the 10th October 1972, the Somali language gained official status and, out of 18 scripts, the Latin alphabet was adopted for its standardisation.
The country then strove to reinforce its cultural heritage by championing its linguistic identity: dictionaries were compiled and literacy campaigns were launched. Foreign articles and other non-fictional texts have since been translated into Somali, bringing new ideas to the country. Books have also been translated, including children books, and Somali literature has started to be translated into other languages too. Interestingly, and although national institutions promoting the Somali language have stopped their activities due to the collapse of the State in 1991, translation from and into Somali does not seem to have slowed down significantly in the past two decades.
Before the arrival of Italian and British settlers in Somalia, Arabic was the usual vehicle for the written word, making Somali a largely oral language. As a result of its long oral tradition, the language is rich in proverbs, poetry, songs and vivid imagery, which in turn encourage an excellent memory and may explain why Somali speakers are very keen listeners.
However, as speaking is a public activity and reading is a private one, the Somali language will inevitably change over time. For most of human history, languages have been spoken and heard more than they have been written and read. As the more industrialised countries demonstrate, some languages have evolved and spread rapidly over the last two centuries as literacy and education increased drastically, and languages have in turn been affected by the progress of their respective cultures and societies.
As Somali lost its momentum with the civil war, only 37.8% of the Somali population is literate, according to UNESCO, one of the lowest literacy levels in the world today. The number of Somali speakers is estimated to be between 15 and 25 million worldwide.


Indirect Language Stimulation Techniques
Indirect language stimulation techniques are powerful, child-centered strategies to use with your kids to help them learn language. They are appropriate for ALL children (typically developing and those with communicative impairments), and can be used in many different environments. The focus is on the child’s interest and what he/ she is doing, seeing, and feeling.
Indirect language stimulation does not pressure the child to provide a response. Instead, the adult uses simple, short phrases to describe each action or object while interacting with the child. This helps the child learn the language she/ he will need later to participating in the same or similar game.
There are a number of indirect language stimulation techniques, and they are all interesting and worth mentioning. In this post, I will review self-talk, parallel talk, expansion, expansion plus, and recasting.
In self-talk, you talk about what you are doing as you are performing an action. The focus is on the action you are in the midst of doing.
Adult:”I am taking my shoes off. My shoes are wet. Where did my umbrella go? Oh, here it is. I found it. It was behind my purse.”
“I am washing the dishes. I am using soap. ”
Essentially, you are pairing your words with the actions, thus providing an excellent model for your little one(s) to learn language.
These strategies can be used in many different settings: at the grocery store, at the park, at home (e.g., cooking, playing together, doing chores together).
It is important to use short, grammatically correct sentences when you talk to your toddler.
The difference between self-talk and parallel talk is that in the latter you take the perspective of the child.
“You are playing with the cars. The cars crashed.”
How to use: Use on its own or pair up with another indirect language stimulation technique. In my speech therapy sessions, I often use self-talk and parallel talk in the same activity.
With this strategy, you add to what the child is already saying, making it sound more like how you would have said it.
Child: "Baby cry."
Adult: "The baby is crying."
How to use: Expansion works great for toddlers who are learning to combine words. This is a technique I use every day in my practice. It does wonders!
Like in the indirect language stimulation technique which was described previously, the child’s utterance is expanded to make it sound like the adult model. What is different here is that we also add additional information.
Child: “Baby cry"
Adult: “The baby is crying. He looks tired.”
The focus is on the objects the child's engaging with. Take a moment to observe and listen. What does she/he seems interested in at the moment? Use short phrases to describe what the child is seeing.
Adult: “Cookies are delicious.”
"This is a big ball."
"This car is fast."
How to use: I usually use description with kids who already have a fairly good vocabulary. What I like about it is that it provides opportunities to teach a bit more advanced words: e.g., feelings, adjectives, etc.
Recasting helps correct grammatical mistakes in a noninvasive way. Instead of pointing out what the child is doing wrong, we provide a model of what he/ she should be saying.
Child: “The dog barking.”
Adult: “The dog is barking.”
How to use: I recommend recasting if your children have difficulties using grammatical markers (e.g., if you hear phrases such as “The dog sleeping”, “I goed to the park”, etc.)
I am sure you are already using some of these strategies when playing with your toddler. Which ones do you think would be most beneficial for your child?
Planning to see the indirect language stimulation techniques in action? Remember: there is no need to bombard your child! Choose one or two of the strategies and spend some time in preparing they will be implemented in play. It might help to jot down some phrases before you start using them with your child.
Example: Parallel talk ( play activity - playdough)
Adult: “You are squishing the playdough. Now you are cutting the playdough.”
“You made a horse. Wow!”
In order for the “teaching” process to be effective, you will have to dedicate some time to it. Spend 10-15 minutes each day playing while using the strategy. It might take a few weeks to see the effects, but it’s all worth it!
Adapted from: Oh Say What They See: An Introduction To Indirect Language Stimulation (1984). Educational Productions, Portland, Oregon
Photo credit: www.flickr.com/photos/ameriswede/


Below are the basics of interacting with the press.
The Press List
Every organization should maintain a press list—an up-to-date list of information for media contacts that is kept in a digital spreadsheet and sorted in a way that is useful to your organizing. If you do not have existing relationships with reporters just yet, building a basic list is simple! Check out the websites for campus newspapers, news websites, blogs, and television and radio stations you would like to reach. While it’s easy to forget local media, keep in mind that reporters at local papers are always looking for a juicy story and that local and campus news is sometimes picked up by big national publications.
For campus outlets, find contact information for a reporter who is in charge of student life or has written about these issues before. For local outlets, find a contact for a Higher Education reporter. (If you cannot find specific reporters, look for a News Editor or a General Editor). For both outlets, find the contact information for the Opinions Editor, for later use. When compiling these contacts, consider researching specific reporters to see if and how they have covered sexual and domestic violence before—it’ll be useful to know whether they can provide favorable coverage or how they have handled the issue. Put all of this information into a spreadsheet to make your Press List.
Build Relationships with Reporters
Eventually, you’ll want to reach a point where you have professional relationships with the reporters on your Press List. Start by following up with reporters after they cover your action and thanking them with an email or a tweet. Share (positive!) coverage by reporters on your group’s social media. Reporters want people to read their stories, so if lots of students read and share their piece, it will encourage them to cover you or the issue again in the future. If you’ll be breaking news online (for example, your school is interfering with an action and you’re tweeting about it in real time) consider @-ing friendly reporters who may use it for a story.
Once you have established working relationships with reporters, they will likely appreciate personal emails and/or phone calls to let them know about upcoming actions or issues. Keeping reporters in the loop about your upcoming actions will help you build closer relationships and ensure better media coverage in the future.
Media Advisory vs. Press Release
Media Advisories are notices written to alert the media of an upcoming action and are usually sent out up to a week before an action. Media Advisories should include only the essential information about the action—who, what, where, when, and why—in order to allow reporters to plan ahead to cover the action. Include a time for press availability on the day of the action (for when reporters can speak with activists), and contact information for the Press Coordinator. Press Releases communicate greater detail surrounding an event and are usually released the day of.
Press Releases are usually released the day of an event. Releases should include essential information about the action, contact information, context for the action, quotes from activists. Send releases out to reporters a few hours before an action or immediately after it concludes so that they can use information and quotes from the release in their coverage. Some reporters may just use your Press Release as their story (especially if they are unable to attend your event), so it’s important to send this out! Keep in mind quotes in the release do not have to be said at a real place and time—they can (and likely will be) quotes that you write specifically for the Press Release. See below for an example Press Release.
Best Practices for Press Releases and Media Advisories
- Make sure to end Media Advisories and Press Releases with three pound signs at the very end of the document. This is a press formality which signals the end of the document.
- Become friends with the “BCC” field in your e-mail! BCC allows you to send an e-mail to 500 people without giving away individuals’ contact addresses to the other recipients—reporters will appreciate this!
If you’re worried about maintaining secrecy in the lead up to an action when contacting the press, consider setting an embargo. Embargoes are bans that prohibit reporters from publishing specific information before a stated time. Set an embargo when you have sensitive information about an action that you want to share with the press, but do not want the administration or public officials to know about in advance. When doing so, clearly communicate to the reporter which details are embargoed and until what time (provide a specific date and time). Remember that reporters can always choose to ignore an embargo—it’s highly unprofessional, but it could happen—so do not send out any information that you absolutely need to remain private.
Press Timeline for Large Demonstrations, Actions, and Protests
Use this timeline as a reference for how to work with the press for large events—think protests, rallies, and demonstrations where you’re expecting a large turnout.
One Week to Five Days Before the Event:
If you have preexisting relationships with reporters, give them a call or email them to let them know about the event. Provide details about your action and let them know that you will be sending a Media Advisory over in a few days. Remember to clarify if any information is embargoed!
Four Business Days Before the Event:
Send the Media Advisory to your Press List. When sending, place text of the advisory in the body of the e-mail, in addition to attaching as a PDF. Your subject line should start “MEDIA ADVISORY: [INSERT CATCHY TITLE]”. Remember, only send to contacts you think may cover the event. If you’ve never spoken to these individuals before, give them a follow up call the same day. If on the phone, ask: “Will you or someone from your publication be coming to cover our action?” They might respond saying they haven’t seen the release yet, and will get back to you. Ask for a best number to reach them by and make sure they take your number and e-mail as well. If you don’t have a phone number for reporters that you have not spoken with before, send them a follow up email the next day. Again, remember to clarify if any information is embargoed!
One Business Day Before the Event:
For press contacts who you have not heard from, call or email to confrm that they’ve received your Media Advisory, and ask: “Will you or someone from your agency be coming to cover our action?” If they don’t confrm by today, don’t count on them to be there.
Day of the Event:
Send your Press Release out to your media contacts either a few hours before or immediately after your action.
Press Timeline for Small Actions
Use this timeline as a reference for how to work with the press for small events—think letter deliveries and actions involving few activists with a small or no audience.
One Week to One Business Day Before Your Event:
Sometimes small actions come together at the last minute, making it tough for you to alert reporters a full week in advance—this is fine for smaller actions! Call or email one or two reporters (preferably ones you already have relationships with) to let them know about the action. Describe the event and send over your Media Advisory. Remember to clarify if any information is embargoed!
One Business Day Before the Event:
If you have not heard from the reporters yet, call or email them to confirm that they’ve received your Media Advisory. Ask: “Will you or someone from your agency be coming to cover our action?” If they don’t confirm by today, again, don’t count on them to be there!
Tips for Handling Press on the Day-of
Get there early. Arrive at the location of the action at least 30 minutes prior to the start of the Press Availability or, if you will only be answering questions after the action, 30 minutes prior to the start of the action.
Be prepared. Bring Press Kits, a clipboard that has a list of which organizers will be speaking to the press, as well blank paper on which to write down the contact info of all the reporters who show up.
Greet reporters. Introduce yourself to reporters as soon as they show up and hand them a Press Kit. Say something like: “Hi, I’m Allie, and I wanted to be sure you have a copy of our press release. Myself and other organizers are available for interviews.”
Have your cell phone handy. Reporters will likely call you throughout the course of the action if they are having trouble locating it or finding an organizer to speak with. Consider keeping your Press Coordinator(s) free on the day of an action so that they can focus on fielding calls and helping reporters.
The Press Kit
A Press Kit is a physical printed packet of materials to have on-hand at your action. It includes:
- The Media Advisory and/or Press Release
- Any letters or other materials being delivered to your Target
- Fact Sheets or other handouts that educate reporters on the issue
- Contact information for people from your group who have volunteered to speak with the press and/or share their story as a survivor
- Contact information for your group’s Press Coordinator
Journalists will contact you for interviews if they were unable to attend your events as well as for future stories covering sexual and domestic violence activism and related topics. Here are some tips for handling interview requests:
Respond as soon as possible. Journalists typically work on very quick deadlines, so respond promptly, even if it’s just to say you are not available to talk. It helps to designate a point person within your organization to respond to all press emails—they should set their email to forward to their phone or be prepared to check it multiple times a day to stay on top of press requests.
Do not immediately agree to an interview request. If a reporter calls or emails you and wants to interview you for a story, always ask for more information first. Consider asking them for: more details on the story they are writing, their angle or goals for the piece, any deadlines, and what they’re hoping to talk to you about. You can also ask them if they have covered gender violence before and any links to previous work. If you decide you do want to speak with them, let them know what time would be best to talk (this can be as short as “in 10 minutes” or later in the day depending on their deadline). You can also connect them with another student organizer or ask for them to send their questions via email. Some reporters will be willing to conduct an interview online or via email.
Be mindful of who is speaking with the press the most and work to incorporate more voices. The media typically focuses on white, straight-presenting, cisgender female survivors. While these survivors should certainly be sharing their stories, make sure your group encourages and supports folks from a variety of backgrounds to speak with press. Rather than have the person fielding press requests give all of the interviews, spread out interviews between multiple members of your group so that they all gain experience working with press.
Who Speaks to the Press?
Speaking with press can be intimidating! And it is unlikely every member of your group will be comfortable speaking with reporters. To prepare members of your group to speak with press, discuss talking points in advance and use some of the following tips.
Give attention to which voices are speaking most. People speaking to the press should represent a range of experiences of survivors and activists. LGBTQ survivors, people of color, and survivors with disabilities face a variety of unique challenges in seeking support and justice, but are rarely offered media visibility. Fight rape culture by intentionally highlighting experiences that counteract misrepresentative, limited, or harmful narratives about gender-based violence.
Make sure your group has been prepped to speak with the media before any action or interview. Taking some time to review talking points and practice answering questions will go a long way in making sure you are fully prepared to speak with reporters. At actions, prepare as many members of your group as possible with basic talking points in case they are asked, and create a system to direct press toward your designated speakers or Press Coordinators. Make sure all of your members know: 1) There is a Press Coordinator and their name is _____, and 2) No one should speak to the press if they haven’t been prepped.
For actions and for your group, it’s essential that you have Press Coordinators. These people will be responsible for managing all tasks related to interacting with the press. This is a big role so consider assigning two or more organizers.
The Job of the Press Coordinator is:
- To be the main person managing the Press List, including sending e-mails and phone calls;
- To write or manage the writing of any Media Advisories, Press Releases, Talking Points, or the Press Kit;
- To train the people who will speak to press, and coordinate volunteers at the event to direct press to the Press Coordinator;
- To be listed, with their contact information, as the Press Contact for the day of the event;
- To manage press at the event;
- To do follow-up with press immediately after the event and collect stories published about your event.
Preparing for Interviews
Plan what you want to speak with journalists about and set boundaries. It is up to you to tell reporters as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing. If you want to speak about experiences of assault or harassment or identify yourself as a survivor to the press, it can be helpful to think about how much you want to share, what words you want to use to describe your experiences, and how you will feel about that information remaining available online in the future. Journalists can be very pushy so setting boundaries can help. These can include:
- Choosing not to speak about experiences of assault or harassment, whether or not you are already public as a survivor;
- Choosing only to speak about certain aspects of experiences of assault or harassment;
- Only doing in-person interviews;
- Only doing interviews when you can see their questions in advance;
- Only doing interviews if you are allowed to check the draft of their story or your quotations prior to publication;
- Only doing interviews that are recorded to ensure that the journalist quotes you directly, does not misattribute your words, or does not use them out of context.
Think about how you want to frame the discussion. Successful campaigns are able to focus on how sexual and domestic violence at colleges is a systemic and structural issue rather than something involving a handful of individuals—one survivor, one assailant, one bad administrator. Framing the story as systemic rather than individual requires some planning. Points of emphasis in your interview might include: highlighting the breadth of the problem, positioning yourself within a broader movement of survivors and student activists, focusing on administrative failures in addition to the details of particular cases, and describing policy goals for the future.
Think about sharing information on and off the record. There are three ways to share information with journalists: “on the record,” “off the record,” and “on background”. If you say something on the record, everything you say can be used and quoted. Points made “off the record” cannot be published by the journalist (you might want to do this to give a reporter context or an idea for an investigation). A quote given “on background” can be published only under certain conditions that you negotiate with the journalist in advance, usually that they will not print your name. You might use this if a survivor is willing to share their story publicly but would like keep their name anonymous. You should establish whether you want things on or off the record before sharing information with a reporter and communicate that clearly.
It is easy to forget what information you decided to disclose, what information you decided not to disclose, and what information you are willing to disclose off the record. Think through these before an interview and keep them on hand. Remember, the default is that everything is on the record—unless you clearly declare that something is off the record or on background before you say it, it can be used and attributed.
Think about how you want to present yourself visually, especially if you will be appearing in photographs or on television. The media typically has problematic expectations of self-presentation, which can be especially damaging to survivors, women, and trans and gender nonconforming individuals. (Just Google “how to dress appropriately” for some icky examples.) Think through whether (and to what extent) you may want to meet these kind of guidelines while conveying your message. Whether or not you choose to is entirely your decision—remember, do what feels comfortable and truthful to you.
Create and practice talking points as a group prior to your interview. It is important for your group to outline your stance (or lack thereof) on tricky policy questions before members are in front of a reporter. What is your group willing to say about alcohol, Greek life, law enforcement, or any other major issue a typical reporter might raise? Look to the Sample Talking Points section of our Campus Organizing Toolkit PDF for suggested talking points and practice your group’s points with fellow organizers, friends, or by yourself ahead of time. Your group might decide they do not have an organizational response to some of these questions. In that case, figure out whether and how you’ll want to respond individually.
Remember that most reporters do not know much about how colleges handle sexual assault. Be sure to explain things in basic terms and ask them if more clarification is needed.
Try not to feel nervous about making mistakes—we all make them. Speaking with journalists can be very stressful even if you are not speaking about personal experiences. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable. Remember that you have the right to end an interview at any time should you feel otherwise.
If a journalist asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, tell them! You don’t have to answer every question and it’s better to acknowledge that you don’t know than to make an error. If other organizers might know the answer, offer to connect the reporter with them after the interview. You can always say, “I want to make sure I have the most accurate information for you—can I get back to you on that?”
If at any time you are uncertain whether you are speaking on or off the record, ask the reporter for clarification. If you would like to switch between speaking on the record to speaking off the record or vice versa, make sure to explicitly state the change to the reporter and wait for the reporter to acknowledge that change. Remember: Nothing is ever truly off the record. If you really don’t want it printed, it’s always safest not to say it.
For TV: Look at the reporter asking you questions, not at the camera. If you are saying sound bites to a camera with no reporter, look at the camera person, not right at the middle of the camera. Speak slowly and at normal volume. If you’re comfortable being emotional or animated, TV loves personality!
For print: Remember to speak slowly! Watch a reporter’s hand as they take notes. After saying a sentence, wait until they catch up. This can be tough even for very experienced speakers, but if you talk fast and they have to scribble, they’re likely to misquote you. Print reporters, especially during phone interviews, will often leave long pauses in between questions. It’s a tried and true tactic to get you to keep talking and talking. Don’t give in! Say your bit and end crisply.
For radio: Speak at normal volume and a little slower than usual so people listening can really hear you.
At the end of your interview, thank the reporter and get their card or contact information. You’ll want to add them to your Press List if they are not already on it. Ask the reporter if they would like to speak with anyone else and offer to connect them with other organizers and/or survivors who are willing to speak with the press.
Creating talking points prior to speaking with reporters will help you stay on message during interviews—and be more confident too. Talking points should be very clear and concise; focus on the major points of your campaign. What are the most important messages you want your audience to walk away thinking? In order to be the most compelling communicator you can be, your talking points should cover four critical pieces of information:
1) The problem, as you define and understand it (not how the reporter or anyone else wants to situate it). For example: “Survivors on our campus don’t feel safe reporting violence to our school.”
- Offer statistics and anecdotes to support that this is a problem. For example: “Time and time again survivors here tell [your student group name] that they don’t trust the administration to take action against their perpetrator.” Or, “[Your group’s name]’s survey found that 9 in 10 survivors didn’t report because they were afraid they’d be punished for drinking under age when they were assaulted.”
2) Your proposed solution. How can we fix the problem you identified in #1? What do you want changed? This often lines up with the demands of your organizing campaign! Obviously these are complicated issues with complicated solutions, but to be an effective communicator in an interview, you need to pick one (or at most two) fixes and speak only to those.
- For example:“What we need is transparency from the administration.” Not: “Here are the twenty six things the administration needs to do to make change…”
- Explain it in language your audience can understand: For example: “[School name] should publish non-identifying aggregate information about how rape cases are handled each year. That information should include how many people report, how many people go through a disciplinary hearing, how many students are found responsible, and how many people are expelled. This transparency will build students’ trust in the process and will also expose where we can make it better.”
3) Your ask. What do you want your audience to do? Sign a petition? Call your college president? Think carefully about who your target audience is, based both on the outlet with which you’re speaking and on your campaign goals. Is it current students? Community members? Alums? Faculty? Parents?
- For example: In an interview with your school’s alumni magazine, you might say, “To everyone who cares about this campus and this community: pledge to divert your donations from the university to [your student group name, or a national advocacy group] until [school name] starts treating survivors right.”
4) Why it matters. Why should your audience care about this? Depending on who your target audience is, you might appeal to:
- Safety: “This is a matter of campus safety.”
- Equity: “Education is the great equalizer in our country. Rape shouldn’t keep one in five students on our campus from pursuing the American Dream.”
- Family values: “No one’s children should have to be afraid to go to school.”
- Consumer protections: “The cost of a college education shouldn’t include rape.
Keep your message tight, crisp, and clear.
Throughout the interview, keep hitting your talking points. Don’t stray from them. The more your audience (and the reporter) hears your key messages, the more they’ll remember and internalize them. If you bombard your audience (or reporter) with too much information, they’ll come away either retaining none of it or remembering a point that wasn’t all that important to begin with. Know that reporters like to include lots of sources in their story, so it’s not unusual for only a sentence or two of what you say to make it into the piece. That’s another reason why you should re-emphasize your key messages again and again throughout the interview, and try not to stray from them.
You can help guide your audience (and the reporter) to the important messages by flagging them with key phrases such as:
- “The most important thing to remember is…”
- “What’s most important here is…”
- “It all comes down to this…”
- “It all boils down to…” “The key here is…”
What if the reporter doesn’t ask me the questions that my talking points respond to?
It doesn’t matter! 90% of the time, you’re not going to get the perfect question. Think of an interview as an opportunity for you to communicate the points you want to make, not a time to speak to what the journalist wants to hear. You’re there to make your campaign’s points; you should be in control of your message, not the interviewer. When you get a question that’s off your talking points, you should briefy address the question and then pivot to your message. Phrases that can help you pivot are:
- “The fact is…”
- “The real issue is…”
- “That’s part of it. What’s really important is…”
- “Another key problem/issue/concern is…”
- “The thing that really matters is…”
Practice, practice, practice.
Feeling nervous about an interview? Sit down with your organizing group, identify your key talking points, and practice. The more you get used to hearing lots of different questions and bouncing responses off of each other, the better you’ll get at addressing them in real life interviews and knowing how to pivot to your message.
Media interviews can be nerve-wracking but remember that, at the end of the day, they’re a gift—an opportunity to get your message out to your target audience on your own terms. Give it time and effort, and soon you’ll be giving interviews like a pro, and will have gained a lifelong skill too.
Visit the PDF version of our Campus Organizing Toolkit for a selection of talking points on common issues.
For some, deciding whether to go public with your story is an easy and obvious yes. For others, it’s a tough call and one that change over the course of a few weeks, months, or years. For all of us, it’s a decision only we can each make for ourselves.
If you have family or friends with whom you feel comfortable talking about it, do so. They may anticipate concerns that could be important. However, while your loved ones may want what’s best for you, they may not fully recognize the reasons motivating you to go forward or your desire to stay out of the press. They may also have their own reasons for wanting you to make a particular decision: regret for not having gone forward themselves, fear that your assault will reflect poorly on them as parents, or concern that it may alienate some of their friends.
At the end of the day, this is your experience, your activism, your life, and your decision.
If you are deciding to “go public” while organizing for change on your campus, consider asking yourself: What are your personal or organizational goals? Will going public help you accomplish these? Is sharing your story publicly key to your personal healing? Are you hoping to get your rapist expelled? Make sweeping policy change at your school? Increase awareness about violence on your campus, or in a particular community on your campus?
Take time to identify your goals and evaluate whether your “going public” will help accomplish them. Will sharing your story put serious public pressure on your school to shape up? Will it help you heal personally, or win the accommodations to which you are entitled? Would a campaign based outside of individual narratives of violence be more effective? Easier?
It’s important to know that regardless of these organizational goals, sharing your story can help people you don’t even know feel less alone and pressure your school to make change. You might even help yourself: going public with your story can help connect you to other survivors and organizers. Many of us have made some of our very dearest friends doing this work—people we might never have met had we not spoken up in the first place. We’re ready to become your friends and fiercest supporters too.
But there is no right way to be a survivor: sharing your story publicly is not the right decision for everyone. Some people choose not to share for religious or spiritual reasons. Others are concerned about potential legal risks, or that being publicly identified as a survivor might affect their future career prospects. Some people don’t want the attention, in person and online, that sharing publicly can sometimes bring. It’s a decision that only you can make—but whatever you choose is the right thing for you!


Meiosis is a special type of eukaryotic cell division which leads to formation of gametes. Meiosis is limited to germ cells. During Meiosis the cell divides two times, once during Meiosis I and second during Meiosis II which results in formation 4 daughter cells
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What does Snort do, and how is it used? Would you recommend using it in an enterprise environment? Snort is a network...
intrusion-detection system (NIDS), which means that it looks for suspicious network traffic and can alert security administrators based upon predefined rules. For example, it can detect port-scanning activities, detect common attacks on your systems, and so on. Snort is available for many operating systems. A computer running Snort is also called a Snort sensor. A Snort sensor is installed on a network segment where you want to monitor network traffic. Snort listens to all data packets flowing on the network and utilizes its rules database to detect intruder activity. Having detected the activity, it can log the activity in test files, databases, XML files and so on. When used in combination with other products, it can also generate alerts in different forms to alert security administrators. Snort is already being used in many enterprises. It is a good and stable product and is very useful for large environments as well. You can use multiple Snort sensors for data collection to a central database, where you can analyze it using other tools, like ACID. To start, what general tools should an IT shop have in its Linux security toolbox? There are many tools available in open-source. Depending upon what applications and servers are running in an IT shop, a different set of tools is needed. However there are some common tools that are used by everyone in the security area. Some of these are:
- Nessus is a very good tool for assessment of network security.
- Nmap is a very versatile tool.
- If using Linux firewalls, then firewall builder is a good tool.
- You should have a network intrusion-detection system as well, and Snort is a good choice.
The most important component of the Snort system is its detection engine. The detection engine applies rules to captured data and finds out if it shows intrusion activity. Other important components are input and output plug-ins. Input plug-ins pre-process captured data and make it available to the detection engine. Output plug-ins are used to log intruder activity in different formats. For example, to log data to an Oracle database, you need a database output plug-in.
Rules are used to detect intruder activity and take certain actions when such an activity is detected. Writing good rules is an important part of Snort deployment. Could you offer some best practices for running Snort on multiple network interfaces?
You can run Snort on multiple network interfaces. You should run a separate copy of Snort on each network interface. You should not assign [an] IP address to the network interface(s) on which you run Snort. On Snort sensors where you have multiple network interfaces, you should spare one of these interfaces for the management purpose, and an IP address should be assigned to this interface only. What are the most common mistakes made when installing Snort in an enterprise environment?
Snort comes with a default configuration file, which is the most generic one. Most of the people leave this generic file unchanged, which may slow down Snort from a performance perspective. For example, the file includes all default rules. If you are not running a Web server, you may not like to have rules related to Web server intrusion activated. If you select rules carefully, it will increase the performance of Snort. Additionally, default rules may generate lots of fault positive alarms. You need to fine-tune the system according to your environment.
Another important aspect of Snort deployment is that the Snort sensor should not be visible to outside users. You can do it by not assigning any IP address to the network interface on which Snort is running (running Snort in stealth mode). What role do honeypots play in Linux security?
The basic idea of honeypots is to attract hackers to systems, which look like real production servers and get information about their techniques by logging hacker activities. Honeypots are important not only for Linux security but for other operating systems and applications as well. From a Linux perspective, you get to know different techniques hackers are trying to use. Having this knowledge, you can increase security on your systems and fortify them.
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In Australia, The Civil War, The Civil Rights Movement, and even Obama becoming the first Black President isn't "black history," it's all part of America's history. I look forward to the day when "Black History" is told and taught along with everyone else's history in America.
The presence of a "Black History Month" or any other "Minority History Month" means that there is still an "us and them" type mentality in this country; so much so that minorities need their own history separate from the rest of America's History.
This isn't as negative as it sounds, though. It also means that America as a nation agrees that minority contributions to America's history are important enough that at least a month's recognition of them annually is necessary.
That said, here's my final question for this year's Black History Month:
"What does Black History Month mean to you?"
Here is what some of them had to say:


Kids Guide - How to Pet Dogs
So you're out and about running your errands when in the distance you spot a cute, adorable dog. You take a few moments out of your day just to be able to pet that dog and give it a few "He's so cute!" compliments.
If you're this thrilled with a chance encounter with man's best friend, imagine how a young child feels when confronted with the same situation. No not the running errands thing, but seeing the fuzzy dog thing.
As we all know there can be some danger in having a child approach a strange dog and pet it. The Victor Valley Daily Press has a good story on ways to teach kids to pet appropriately as well as warning signs to be wary of.
Some experts suggest having the child putting out a closed fist or a hand with palm upraised, others say just stand there. But all agree: let the dog decide whether to approach the child. Don't hold a dog still in your lap for petting, and respect the dog's decision if it turns away or moves behind the owner.
If the dog does approach, observe the body language. Don't concentrate on the tail, it can be hard to read. Pelar says, "I tell people that if they're looking at the tail, they're watching the wrong end of the dog."
Instead, the mouth can give a lot of clues. A dog that's licking lips, panting excessively, or yawning, is showing that he's not comfortable. These are oral self-soothing behaviors much like sucking your thumb, says Pelar. In contrast - opposite of the common maternal fear of the teeth showing - if the dog's mouth is open, that's a sign that it's relaxed.
It's worth the read, especially with all the potential canine - kid encounters bound to happen over the summer months.


Basic Statistics for Laboratory Professionals (EMU 100W)
This is an introductory course designed to provide participants with a foundation to the fundamental concepts of statistics. Statistical concepts and methods are presented in a way that emphasizes understanding the principles of data collection and analysis.
This virtual instructor-led course will be conducted online. On the right side of the page you will see the dates and times available for this course, each with an individual registration link. Learners will attend using a virtual learning program and will participate in live discussion and activities. A webcam and microphone are required. Details about how to log into the virtual learning program will be provided after your registration is complete.
Participants should be familiar with spreadsheet basic mathematical functions.
Laboratory Managers, Engineers, Scientists, or Technicians
After successful completion of the course, the participant will be able to:
1. Identify, explain, and recognize key terms, definitions, and reference sources related to statistics;
2. Use Excel to perform basic statistical calculations; and
3. Summarize the relationship between statistics and measurement uncertainty.
0.7 CEUs*, 8 Training Hours


A traditional Japanese surface colored copper alloy made since the 15th century. Shakudo contains copper (75-98%) and gold (2-25%, but most commonly 3-5%). Traces of other metals (silver, arsenic, tin, lead, antimony, or iron) may also be present. Shakudo is used for jewelry, tsubas, and sword decoration. Various patination formulas are used to produce a range of colors. The most common is a blue-black.
Synonyms and Related Terms
º Reactive Metals Studio: Data sheet: Shakudo and Shibuichiº B. Sueters, 'Tsuba, their manufacturers and techniques' Andon v. 65, p. 18, 2000.º R. Murakami, 'Japanese traditional alloys' in Metal Plating and Patination, eds. S. La Niece and P. Craddock, Butterworth Heineman, 1993.º H. Ogucki, 'Japanese Shakudo. Its History, Properties and Production from Gold-Containing alloys' in Gold Bulletin, v. 16 (4), p. 125-132, 1983. Link
- G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 657
- David C. Scott, Metallography and Microstructure of Ancient and Historic Metals, The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, 1991
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at http://www.wikipedia.com Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakudo (Accessed Nov. 9, 2005)