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Preventing Cancer: Thwarting a Disease that Affects 1 in 3 Americans | Population Healthy Podcast | University of Michigan School of Public Health
Preventing Cancer: Thwarting a Disease that Affects 1 in 3 Americans
Chances are you or someone you love has been affected by cancer. In fact, more than one in three Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime. This is a disease that takes many different forms, has innumerous causes both known and unknown and affects people in a variety of ways.
In this episode, we talk to four experts from the University of Michigan School of Public Health to learn about their research on cancer, and what they're doing to try and prevent it.
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00:02 Speaker 1: I'm a cancer molecular epidemiologist and I am very interested in tumors and what a tumor can tell us about why a person got the cancer, what led to the development of the cancer and what that tumor tells us about how we can treat the cancer and whether or not that person is going to survive. And it's interesting because tumors develop over decades. And for most people, it takes decades of exposures and decisions and lifestyle that is associated with how that tumor grows and develops. I like to think of this as like the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. So when I was a kid I loved reading about the pyramids. And what was most interesting to me were the stories where archeologists would go and they'd look at the pyramids. And, they would look at whether or not they were lines in the ground, and they could say, "They dragged the bricks across here," or where the lakes were that were leading up to the pyramids, and maybe they floated the bricks and how did they lift them?
01:03 S1: And I feel like that's what I do when I look at a tumor. I look at the structure of the tumor and the different genetic changes in it, and the way that it's in your organ and how it sits and how it behaves, and I think, how does that tell us why a person got the cancer, and what exposures led to it. And looking at these worldwide where exposures are dramatically different in low-income countries, in middle, and in high and dramatically different in urban and rural populations I feel like that tumor can tell you so much about this. And to me, it's the most fascinating part of studying cancer.
01:38 Speaker 2: Chances are you or someone you love has been affected by cancer. In fact, more than one in three Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime. This is a disease that takes many different forms, has innumerous causes both known and unknown and affects people in a variety of ways. Today we're talking to four experts from the University of Michigan School of Public Health to learn about their research on cancer, and what they're doing to try and prevent it.
02:07 S2: Hello and welcome to "Population Healthy" a podcast from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Join us as we dig into important public health topics, stuff that affects the health of all of us, at a population level. From the microscopic to the macro-economic, the social to the environmental, from neighborhoods to cities, states to countries and around the world.
02:40 S2: We can learn a lot about the pervasiveness of cancer and what may be working to slow it down by learning about the numbers behind the disease. Mousumi Banerjee is a research professor in the Department of Biostatistics, at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a member of the University of Michigan, Rogel Cancer Center.
03:00 Banerjee: Statistics is I believe crucial in all areas of cancer research. Cancer research spans a wide range of areas including the basic sciences, clinical research, supportive care, population health and statistics provides a framework for doing evidence-based medicine across this entire spectrum starting from diagnosis to treatment decisions, cost-effective health care delivery and outcomes, you name it. It provides a foundation for scientific decision making. In 2019, it is estimated that roughly about 1.7 million cancers will be diagnosed in the United States which is more than 4800 cases per day. A daunting number.
03:50 Banerjee: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease for both men and women. So, it's a huge public health problem. Among men, the most common cancers diagnosed are prostate, lung and colorectal and together these three account for almost 42% of all cases in men. Prostate cancer alone, accounting for nearly one in five new cases. So for women, the three most common cancers are breast, lung and colorectal and together these three account for one half of all cases, with breast cancer alone accounting for 30% of the new cases.
04:37 Banerjee: These cancers also account for the greatest numbers of cancer deaths. These are all very, very depressing statistics but there is good news and the good news is that during the most recent decade of data that's available going from 2006 to 2015, the rate of new cancer diagnosis has decreased by about 2% per year in men and stayed about the same in women. So the death rate has actually declined steadily over the past 25 years. As of 2016, the cancer death rate for men and women combined has fallen almost like 27% from its peak in 1991.
05:24 Banerjee: According to a recent study by the American Cancer Society, at least four out of 10 newly diagnosed cancers in the US, are potentially avoidable. It's a big number, and this includes 19% that are caused by smoking and 18% that are caused by a combination of things like excess body weight, physical inactivity, excess alcohol consumption and poor nutrition. So, these are all modifiable. Certain cancers that are caused by infectious agents such as the HPV virus, the Hepatitis C virus, the H. Pylori, these could be prevented through for example behavioral changes, vaccination, treatment of the infection and so on.
06:10 Banerjee: Another example, skin cancers. More than 5 million skin cancer cases that are diagnosed annually, could be prevented by protecting skin from excessive sun exposure and not using indoor tanning devices. Screening can help prevent colorectal and cervical cancers by allowing for the detection and removal of precancerous lesions and screening also has the opportunity to detect some of the cancers early, and we all know that when diagnosed early mortality for cancer, such as breast, colon, rectum, cervix, lung cancer can be improved. And I think in addition, a heightened awareness of changes in certain parts of the body, such as breast, skin, mouth, the eyes, may also result in the early detection of cancer. So together all of these things could potentially help us in some of these prevention efforts.
07:16 S2: With a disease as varied and complex as cancer, prevention takes many different forms. The goal of researchers is to identify the right prevention at the right time, that can mean many different things, from country to country.
07:29 Rozek: So my name is Laura Rozek. I am an associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences Nutrition and Global Public Health here at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Most of my work looks at people who have cancer and at risk factors that may have given them the cancer and how those might predict survival from cancer. We can broadly separate cancer prevention into three categories, there's primary prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention. Primary prevention aims to stop the cancer before it even occurs, before there's any indication that there is cancer and this is the cornerstone of public health and the role of public health in cancer prevention. A lot of these strategies are strategies that we do every day here in the United States and worldwide, so vaccination for the Hepatitis virus and HPV viruses is a form of primary prevention because it stops the cancer before it occurs.
08:24 Rozek: Tobacco laws and tobacco cessation programs, these are helpful in preventing tobacco-related cancers. Secondary prevention is an attempt to diagnose cancer as early as possible in order to have the largest impact on survival. And this is where screening programs come into play. The screening programs we often think of that are most helpful with cancer are cervical cancer screening programs like PAP smears, we also have screening programs for colorectal cancer and for breast cancer. In high-income countries, these are really widespread, so most people have a colonoscopy and right now, breast cancer screening programs are readily available in most high-income countries, but they aren't in lower-income countries. And some of the work we've done have looked at ways that we can make cervical cancer screening more accessible to people by using any kind of self-sampling method to look for HPV, which is the virus that's ideologically associated with cervical cancer.
09:22 Rozek: There are all sorts of ways we're trying to mobilize colorectal cancer screening programs, so these can be done in the field and we can identify cancer earlier. Now tertiary programs are associated with your survival and health effects after you're diagnosed. With tertiary prevention, we're really concerned with how we can give people the best treatment for their cancer where they're going to have the longest survival and the best quality of life and this is where precision health can benefit us, especially in western countries, again, where we are able to look really significantly into some of these tumor and say, "This is the best type of therapy for this tumor." These, of course, are not readily available throughout the United States or throughout the world, where people who are of low income or people in lower middle income countries are much less likely to have these kinds of therapies available because it's very expensive to treat cancer and we know that.
10:12 Rozek: And it's also expensive because we need to have the right type of physicians who are available who can have a knowledge base and the ability to treat these cancers. So much of my work is in a global setting and what I've been struck by is that the different countries that we go to have not only different rates of different types of cancers, but the actual cancers are different because for example, when we think of something like breast cancer, a lot of people think that breast cancer is one entity, it's just breast cancer, but there's many different types. There's hormone receptor positive, hormone receptor negative, when you get your breast cancer in life is actually usually indicative of how severe the cancer is going to be. If you have it earlier in life, it's often a more sever cancer. These are cancers we see more often in lower middle income countries.
11:00 Rozek: Now, how this can inform cancer in Western populations is that, and the United States is a perfect example, we are a mix of many different types of people here. And again, this is something we celebrate every day, but we do know that cancer rates are different based on your ancestry. Now as we have looked across populations and across the African Diaspora, we've noticed that areas of Africa from which African-American women in the United States came, so, Ghana, for example, they are much more likely to have much more aggressive breast cancer subtypes. But when we look at East Africa, for example, Ethiopia, there are actually much less likely to have these aggressive cancer subtypes indicating that there's probably something that is uniquely genetic or something about the biology of these women and these tumors that's just inherently different, and that helps us inform how we can treat these cancers and to look at there to see maybe there's ways that these cancers can inform precision medicine specific to the African-American population.
12:01 Rozek: We know that one of the cancers that's increasing in the united States is a young onset colorectal cancer, and this increase is actually greatest in African-American men and women. We have tumors from Ethiopia, we have tumors from Ghana and we have tumors from Detroit and so we are looking across the genetic differences in these tumors to see maybe there's something that's just ancestrally similar with these tumors, maybe we can identify navel changes in these tumors, that can tell us, "There's a better way to treat this, there is a better way to prevent this." And because with both breast cancer and with colorectal cancer, we can change the screening guidelines. We can say if you are African-American, you might want a screen at 40 for colorectal cancer. There might be ways that we can change this where the global biology of the tumors can inform this. And again, it's really exciting and it's really exciting research to think about how this can inform precision medicine worldwide.
13:00 Rozek: So we often I don't think give enough credit for where we're doing a lot of really good public health successes. And one of them is cervical cancer in western countries, where the widespread availability of Pap screening has led to really just incredible decreases in the incidence of cervical cancer. And that, in conjunction now with widespread availability of the HPV vaccine, we can see in front of us, we can see that we can end cervical cancer definitely in Western countries, and likely worldwide. And this is an area of emphasis for the World Health Organization. Now where HPV vaccine is not readily available, so in many lower middle income countries, and definitely in low-income countries, but the knowledge is there. And we've done some work in Ethiopia and in Thailand and we've tested ways that we can make cervical cancer screening more accessible to populations that either may not have PAP screening available or something called VIA, which is another way that they can do a visual test, for cervical cancer or they just might not wanna do it just because of cultural reasons.
14:04 Rozek: So we've looked at ways that women can self-test because if a woman knows that she's HPV positive she is much more likely to develop cervical cancer, and she can be referred for more screening, and the woman is more likely to do it because we can say to this woman, "You have a virus that means you can get cancer." Because a lot of our studies ask women what is their knowledge-base on cancer? And even in low-income countries, they know. They know, that things are available and we found through our studies that they're willing to get tested. Oftentimes, it is an issue, where they wanna do it in the way where they're comfortable and where their entire family is comfortable with it, and that they're willing to do what it takes to not get cancer.
14:43 Rozek: Childhood cancer, detection and treatment is another major emphasis area for the World Health Organization. That's because we're realizing that the earlier we treat childhood cancer, and the better we're able to target the therapy, the fewer late life health effects because a lot of childhood cancers can be treated very efficiently, but the quality of life and some of the effects during this very critical window of development can lead to these long-lasting issues in children as they move through decades of life.
15:13 Rozek: In lower middle income countries children can be diagnosed late for a number of reasons. One of them is just not having the availability of a cancer hospital or a treatment center where they're able to diagnose this. And we do some work in Indonesia with Dharmais Cancer Center where they have a destination program for childhood cancer, but in a country with 17,000 islands where they have significant travel obstacles to get to the hospital, often by the time they know they have cancer, it's actually quite late. Worldwide policies that address cancer and cancer incidents are again the bread and butter of public health, because public health can make population level differences that will affect decades of cancer incidents.
15:54 Rozek: Of course, the most common example is tobacco where our policies on tobacco taxation, and tobacco laws limiting when and who could buy cigarettes have played a major role in decreasing tobacco use in many countries, not only high-income countries. And I'll point out here Thailand which has historically had some of the strongest tobacco laws in the world, the rates of tobacco smoking in Thailand are well below the rest of Southeast Asia. And they've been progressive and they've been effective.
16:26 Rozek: And that'll be interesting to see what happens as we're watching more of these policy-based solutions to public health come into play. We're starting to recognize that alcohol may play a stronger role than previously thought in the development of cancer, and the WHO is reacting to this by following up their framework convention on tobacco control with a similar convention on alcohol use worldwide. And these laws again, are pivotal for public health and a variety of diseases. But just pointing out here, that even if we don't see the direct relationship between these laws and cancer, that they actually have a very, very direct relationship because the more healthy a population, the less likely they are to have high rates of cancer and we see that just about everywhere.
17:15 S2: One of the policies that has been particularly effective in preventing cancer, both in the US and in other countries across the globe is tobacco control. But even with successes in tobacco control lung cancer remains a leading cause of death throughout the world.
17:31 Meza: Hi, my name is Rafael Meza, I'm associate professor of Epidemiology and Global Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and co-leader of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. Lung cancer is quite common, unfortunately, it's actually the number two cancer in both men and women in the US. Actually more people die of lung cancer in the US than from breast, prostate, and colon cancer combined, and globally is number one, in terms of incidents, as well as mortality. We actually are now seeing important declines in many places, and in many countries, particularly in developed countries like the US or England and others where really, the majority of lung cancers that we see now are due to smoking. As smoking has come down in many places thanks to tobacco control and just thanks to the awareness that smoking is bad for your health, and as a consequence lung cancer which increased a lot in the past century now is coming down. But unfortunately that's not uniform. There are countries and places where for instance smoking is not decreasing, may actually be increasing.
18:46 Meza: There are other risk factors of lung cancer besides smoking. So for instance, miners who might be exposed to asbestos or arsenic or radon gas tend to have higher rates of lung cancer. Environmental radon gas exposures and residential radon gas exposures is one important risk factor. So for instance, that's why it's important that if you live in an area where there is environmental radon, you would test your house and if there is radon gas present that you would treat it. Second-hand smoke, if you don't smoke but you are next to people who smoke, that will also increase your risk, and it's related but for instance, having chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so like emphysema or chronic bronchitis is a risk factor for lung cancer.
19:37 Meza: The lung cancer screening is a relatively new modality of cancer screening. It was actually recommended at the end of 2013 and 2014, not for everybody, but for a subset of current and former smokers, between the ages of 55 and 77, according to CMS or 80 according to the US Preventive Services Task Force. And smokers who have smoked at least, what we call 30 pack years. If someone smokes one pack of cigarettes a day for a year, that's one pack years. So, it's really for for instance smokers who have been smoking for at least 30 years, one pack a day, or any other combinations, and for those former smokers that they haven't quit for more than 15 years.
20:21 Meza: Slowly, it has been implemented in the US and it's going, but it's certainly not yet at levels of other cancer screenings, such as mammography or colorectal cancer screening, that's one of the ongoing challenges, to disseminate the knowledge that there's this test and if you're a current or former smoker, you might qualify and you might be recommended to do it and, of course, getting people to think about it, if it might be something that would be good for them. Lung cancer screening is able to detect lung cancers earlier, usually, lung cancer presents itself very late, when you have symptoms is when you might have a cancer that's already stage 3 or stage 4. And unfortunately, the prognosis for those cancers is pretty bad. That's where lung cancer screening comes, where maybe through a CT scan, you'll be able to find a nodule and find it at a time when it is still treatable, so, maybe, stage one.
21:12 Meza: Everyone who has lungs is at risk of lung cancer and, of course, we know that those who smoke are at the highest risk of lung cancer, but even among the whole population, there are groups who might have certain preconditions or predispositions. If you have cases of lung cancer in your family, you would be at highest risk. Unfortunately, African-Americans in the US are a group that seems to be particularly affected by lung cancer and particularly certain types and they have been identified to be at higher risk for instance, than comparable folks from other racial groups, even if they smoke the same level. Lung cancer is a disease that has a lot of stigma. Unfortunately, smokers tend to be pointed at and sometimes consciously or even unconsciously, even blamed for their disease. And I think that has been one of the issues with lung cancer screening.
22:06 Meza: Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of advocates out there fighting to help people get screened or telling people to get screened. There isn't much of a I guess community who's organizing raises or events so people can learn about it. So, I think we really need a lot of help getting the word out and making sure that smokers, of course, former smokers, and everybody know that if someone gets lung cancer it's not their fault. There's many factors that come into play for people getting a disease like lung cancer. And in the end, it doesn't matter who you are, you should get the help and the resources that you need, and in this particular case, it doesn't matter if you are still smoking or you used to be smoking.
22:50 Meza: So, for people that have been smoking for a long time, there is nothing better to reduce the risk of lung cancer than to stop smoking. So, even if you've smoked for a long time, when you quit, immediately, you start collecting benefits in reducing your cardiovascular disease, improving your health, and your physical capability, and after a few years, your risk, for instance, for something like lung cancer, is gonna start decreasing. It will not get to the point of being similar that of a never smoker, but it will go down.
23:29 S2: Smoking is just one common risk factor for cancer, another is obesity, which actually increases your risk for many types of cancers.
23:38 Colacino: I'm Justin Colacino, I'm an assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences, and also assistant professor of Nutritional Sciences here at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. My lab is interested in studying how diet and environment interact and cause cancer. Obesity is defined by looking at a ratio of an individual's height and weight, using a method we call the body mass index. So the body mass index is calculated as an individual's weight in kilograms, divided by their height in meters squared. And so a body mass index of greater than 25 but less than 30 is considered overweight, a body mass index of greater than 30 is considered obese. Researchers and doctors will also use other methods to calculate obesity, they'll look at things like waist-to-hip ratio or sometimes skin full thickness or total body fat as well. We know about the links between obesity and cancer from various methods, from human population studies, as well as animal studies, so really, we know that obesity is a huge public health problem, first of all.
24:36 Colacino: The Centers for Disease Control estimates that about 70% of the US population are either overweight or obese, which has lead to a lot of studies linking obesity and cancer. And so, how we do this in a public health setting, is with cohort studies, where we follow a group of people over time, and we look to see who gets cancer, and then we can look back at previous characteristics and compare are the individuals that are more likely to get cancer those who are more obese at baseline, or not? So, we know that obesity is related to increased risk of a number of different cancers, and these are some of the most common cancers, like breast cancer and colon cancer, and it's also related to some of the most aggressive cancers that are hardest to treat like gallbladder cancer and pancreatic cancer.
25:20 Colacino: What we're trying to figure out is, can obesity itself, cause cancer? Right? And so, a lot of these epidemiological studies and animal studies have pointed to obesity being a risk factor for up to 17 different cancers. And so, researchers are starting to understand how obesity might cause cancer. And there's a number of different ways or hypotheses that researchers think that obesity might increase cancer risk. And so, one of them is through inflammation. Obese individuals, if we look at their blood, they have higher levels of sort of inflammatory factors than lean individuals, and we can also do studies where we look at adipose tissue itself in obese versus lean individuals, and when we look at that adipose tissue from obese individuals, we see infiltration of a lot of different immune cells that kick-off all of these really potent inflammatory factors and what we're learning now is that those inflammatory factors can promote the growth of tumors.
26:09 Banerjee: So that's one way that obesity might be able to cause cancer, we also know that adipose tissue itself can promote the generation of different hormones like estrogen and we know that estrogen is really important for the development of cancers like breast cancer or endometrial cancer. Adipose tissue is the body's fat tissue and usually it's made up of what we call adipocytes, those are our fat cells and there's also a bunch of other cells in there, there are some immune cells in there, there are some cells like blood vessels in there and all of this comes together to make that fat tissue and that's what we call adipose tissue.
26:39 Colacino: We know that obesity is also associated with high levels of insulin and a similar growth factor called insulin-like growth factor. These are really important signals that tell cells that they need to grow and they've been linked to an increased risk of cancer at multiple sites. And then fat tissues themselves also produce their own signaling molecules which we call adipokines, one of these common ones is called leptin and we know that increased levels of leptin also lead to increased amounts of cellular proliferation. So there's multiple ways that obesity we think might be mechanistically linked to the development of cancer. So we're learning more about how obesity affects cancer morbidity, it's a little bit more difficult to study then this link between obesity and cancer incidents but what we're starting to see is that indeed obesity is associated with adverse outcomes with respect to cancer mortality for a number of different cancers.
27:28 Colacino: So, in public health we try to think about intervening on obesity at multiple levels really. So there's the individual levels where we can always make recommendations to individuals, usually through their primary care physician to improve their diet, eat better, exercise more, lose weight so that's the personal responsibility angle. Of course we also know that there's a lot of systemic issues and social issues that promote obesity in different populations so it's really important to make sure that everyone has access to good grocery stores, make sure that everybody has access to parks and sidewalks so that they can move around more and get exercise easily. So we think that there's the individual factors all the way up to the social factors are where we could intervene on a public health level to try to influence this link between obesity and cancer.
28:13 Colacino: There's some potential interesting intersections between exposure to environmental chemicals and obesity and cancer that I think we're just starting to uncover. There are specific types of chemicals that we call obesogens that exposure to these chemicals seems to promote obesity. And so we've identified some of these in animal studies, we've identified some of these in human population studies but we're still at the very beginning stages of trying to understand whether exposure to these chemicals might influence cancer risk through this obesity pathway.
28:47 Colacino: So my lab's always been interested in really understanding how environmental factors influence cancer risk and cancer progression. I'm fortunate that I have great collaborators here that are really excited about obesity and the mechanisms that obesity cause cancer. And so one of my graduate students Evan Hill has been working on multiple projects in this area and his interest has really, I think rubbed off on me. It's really been because of my great collaborators and my great students that I also have got excited about this field as well.
29:24 S2: Thank you for listening to this episode of Population Healthy from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. We're glad you decided to join us and hope you learned something that will help you improve your own health or make the world a healthier place. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe or follow this podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Be sure to follow us @umichsph on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook so you can share your perspectives on the issues we discuss, learn more from Michigan public health experts and share episodes of the podcast with your friends on social media. You can also check out the show notes at our website, population-healthy.com for more resources on the topics discussed in this episode. We hope you join us for next week's episode where we'll dig further into public health topics that affect all of us at a population level.
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Lung Cancer Will Remain Major Health Issue, Despite Falling Rates
In This Episode
Mousumi Banerjee
Anant M. Kshirsagar Collegiate Research Professor of Biostatistics
Director of Biostatistics, Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy
Mousumi Banerjee is Research Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Director of Biostatistics at the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy (CHOP). She is also a member of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her methodological research focuses on tree-structured regression and ensemble methods, multilevel models, longitudinal analyses, survival analyses, and competing risks; with applications to cancer epidemiology and health services research. Learn more.
Laura Rozek
Associate Professor in Environmental Health Sciences
Associate Director, Office of Global Public Health
Associate Professor, Nutritional Sciences
Dr. Rozek uses population-level statistical and molecular approaches to address the environmental and epidemiological risk factors for cancer with an emphasis on US minority and global populations. With colleagues at academic institutions in Thailand, she has established bidirectional collaborative projects that address the temporal changes in cancer incidence for the purpose of informing cancer prevention and health policy decisions in the country. She has also developed community-based studies of unique cancer risk factors and predictors of cancer survival in northeast and southern Thailand. Learn more.
Justin Colacino
John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences
Assistant Professor, Nutritional Sciences
Dr. Justin Colacino is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health. His research focuses on understanding environmental and dietary factors in carcinogenesis and cancer prevention. Specifically, the goal of his research is to characterize the environmental susceptibility of normal human stem cell populations, elucidating the etiology of sporadic cancers. Learn more.
Rafael Meza
Associate Professor, Epidemiology
Associate Professor of Global Public Health
Co-Leader, Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Program, UM Rogel Cancer Center
Dr. Meza is associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Meza's research interests lie at the interface of epidemiology, biostatistics and biomathematics. In particular, he is interested in cancer risk assessment and the analysis of cancer epidemiology data using mechanistic models of carcinogenesis. Learn more.
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Norfolk Mills
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Harry Apling
The site database search engine is below and on the Norfolk Mills page
Last site update 10th January 2020
You can use this search engine to search for all pages within the site that may contain a
name of your choice:
This website contains a considerable amount of historical and genealogical data for in excess of
1,200 mills along with over 3,000 photographs.
All pages should be easily accessible via the links above.
Information on Norfolk windmills and watermills.
Also photographs for copying (repairing if necessary) and preserving.
All photographs would of course be returned immediately
Please or telephone 07836 675369
Harry Apling's wonderful book
Norfolk Corn Windmills
along with around
1,500 other mill titles and documents
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Alan Ticehurst
At the time of Domesday, in the 11th century, there were some 580 recorded watermills in Norfolk, but no windmills. The earliest known windmill in Norfolk was recorded at Rackheath in 1268 and the earliest identified windmill site in Norfolk was at Barton_Bendish in 1338, although Thomas Thurne gave a windmill in Waxham to Hickling Priory c.1190.
By the early 1800s only 80 or 90 watermills were still functioning but there were still 300 - 400 windmills in the county. By the late 1800s the water and windmilled stone ground flour was fast giving way to roller mill produced flour. The taste of the people was changing and the new technology was capable of producing flour far more efficiently and faster.
Horning_Mill_Loke_postmill was probably the first postmill and possibly even the first windmill to be fitted with William Cubitt's patent sails c.1807 that were eventually to be used by virtually all Norfolk windmills. Stalham_smockmill is the only other known contender.
The first steam mill for auxiliary power was installed at Dickleburgh in 1834.
In 1939 Claude Messent recorded that there were only 60 watermills still standing and by 2004 the number had gone down to 52 with only around 20 still containing any remnants of machinery and many have now disappeared completely. Forever.
Standing watermills and windmills are now a rarity and this website is intended to provide a pictorial and historical record of all the mills I can trace here in Norfolk, England.
Jonathan Neville
Pages are continually being updated and added - so any and all help with information, anecdotes and photographs would be greatly appreciated.
Remember to hit the refresh button when re-visiting in order to see page changes - otherwise your pc will probably load the old page from its internal cache.
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Mills Section
24,696 visits from 66 countries in our first 4 months in 2002!
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This site came onstream on 6th September 2002 and traffic has slowly increased.
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7 Bollywood Films Which Portrayed The Spirit Of Boxing
6 Dec 18 @ 5:16 PM | By Ravi
Sports have played a crucial part in our Bollywood films as quite a few sports movies off-late have done extremely well at the box-office, some turning out to be blockbusters. Cricket no doubt takes the cake when it comes to making a top sports movie whereas boxing comes in a close second followed by wrestling, mixed martial arts and other such activities. There have been many actors who’ve played boxers on screen but for a different cause. Movies based on boxing exclusively have been a handful of which some have been inspired from real life pugilists and some have turned out to be revenge dramas. Here’s a compilation of seven top boxing movies in Bollywood which exclusively portrayed the spirit of boxing on screen with aplomb.
Mukkabaaz (2018)
Mukkabaaz, a film by Anurag Kashyap is no doubt one of his best directorial films. With intense dialogues and showing the discrimination the lower caste still faces in India, Anurag portrayed it all brilliantly. Starring Vineet Kumar Singh, Mukkabaaz did justice in capturing the spirit of boxing in the film. The film was a sleeper hit but was highly praised by the critics.
Saala Khadoos (2016)
The latest boxing flick in the offing which was also released as Irudhi Suttru in Tamil starring Madhavan and Ritika Singh, who is trained by the former to make it as a boxing champion. The film is directed by Sudha Kongura Prasad and releases on January 29, 2016.
Sources: pycker
Saala Khadoos
Mary Kom (2014)
One of the best sports movies ever made. A biopic on Olympic boxing medallist Mary Kom had Priyanka Chopra playing the gutsy Manipuri pugilist and her journey of becoming a world champion. The film directed by Omung Kumar did good business at the box-office.
Mary Kom
Apne (2007)
Directed by Anil Sharma, this was the first time where real life father and sons - Dharmendra, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol came together on screen. All played boxers who fight for one another to avenge their defeat in the ring. The film also starred Kiron Kher, Shilpa Shetty and Katrina Kaif who played the female leads. The film emerged a hit at home as well as overseas.
Apne
Aryan: Unbreakable (2006)
This action-drama film was written and directed by Abhishek Kapoor which had Sohail Khan in the titular role where he’s got to choose between his boxing career and his family. The film was an above average grosser at the box office which also starred Sneha Ullal, Inder Kumar and Puneet Issar in pivotal roles.
Aryan: Unbreakable
This action drama film may as well end up on top of the boxing movie list in terms of release. Directed by Raj N. Sippy, the film starred Mithun Chakraborty, Rati Agnihotri, Sharat Saxena, Danny Denzongpa and Tanuja. Loosely based on Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky, the film was a typical masala film where Mithun takes up boxing in order to fulfill his father’s dream.
Main Intaquam Loonga (1982)
Main Intaquam Loonga was a remake of superstar Rajkumar’s Kannada hit Thayige Thakka Maga (1976). Dharmendra played the main lead who avenges his father’s death by knocking out Amrish Puri’s men one by one. This average grosser was directed by T. Ramarao.
Main Intaquam Loonga


JM Salazar > audio book
by Mauricio Salazar | May 27, 2018 | Reviews
Last week I've spent almost 18 hours listening to "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. I've read two others books from the same author "The Da Vinci Code" and "Inferno". The first book was ok, nothing amazing but entertaining. The second book was very good, not for the...
by Mauricio Salazar | Mar 26, 2018 | Reviews
The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin Narrator Richard Ferrone Duration : 13:48:44 Parts : 11 Link on OverDrive: https://www.overdrive.com/media/92914/the-compleated-autobiography-by-benjamin-franklin The biography of Benjamin Franklin...
by Mauricio Salazar | Dec 21, 2017 | Reviews
World War II is a complex subject. Last year, I began to read books and listen to audiobooks about this war. Before that, I had just seen some movies about the conflict. I think it is important to understand why some horrible things happened in the world in past and...
Take Command – Kelly Perdew
by Mauricio Salazar | Jul 1, 2016 | Reviews
Last February, I finished to listen to the audio book of Kelly Perdew, the winner of the second series of Donald Trump's reality show, "The Apprentice". The book, "Take Command", is a kind of guide to inspire business people to hire people that were in the army for...


Federal spending on science and technology remains solid in 2015 Budget
Washington, D.C., December 15, 2015 – Kelly Phillips Erb, a contributor of Forbes, comments on the federal budget vote. “While the tenor of the debate felt partisan from start to finish, the final vote didn’t have an overwhelmingly partisan flavor. Of the Senators voting yes, 31 were Democrats, 24 were Republicans and 1 was Independent. Of the Senators voting no, 21 were Democrats, 18 were Republicans and 1 was Independent. Of those abstaining, one was a Democrat three were Republicans. The more than 1,600 page bill, considered a compromise on both sides, was a $1.014 trillion budget which will keep the lights on in Congress through September 2015.”
“The bill increased funding for cyber security for the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Fraud control measures related to cyber security also resulted in funding bumps for other agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.”
“While the Ebola virus is still making headlines, Congress carved out an entire section of the budget for “Ebola response and preparedness.” The National Institute of Health (NIH) not only got a regular budget boost but additional research money to fight Ebola. Also benefiting directly and indirectly from the Ebola scare, along with concerns about other infectious diseases, are the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
“Science was overall a big winner in the budget. Not only did medical research see extra funds, so did other sciences. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will all see better numbers in 2015 than last year.”


Live Review – Ward Davis, Lucero and Cody Jinks in Albany, GA
News Comments Off on Live Review – Ward Davis, Lucero and Cody Jinks in Albany, GA
By Joshua Wallace
All Photography By Joshua Wallace
Ward Davis
This past Thursday on November 7th, 2019 I had the chance to see Cody Jinks live with Lucero and Ward Davis as opening acts. I arrived at the Albany Civic Center shortly after 6pm. That was the time printed on the ticket and on everything on social media, so I assumed it meant doors were at 6pm. Nope, the show started at 6pm and I could hear Ward Davis already going as I got my ticket at Will Call. I walked into the Civic Center as Ward was playing “Old Wore Out Cowboys” from his 15 Years In A Ten Year Town album. This song normally features Jamey Johnson and Willie Nelson on the record, but this time we had an early guest appearance from Cody Jinks who graced the stage for a verse in the song. The crowd was still filling in at this point as like me, I assume most people thought the show started at 7pm.
Ward Davis feat. Cody Jinks
Ward Davis put on a good set this evening with tracks like “Get To Work Whiskey” and his cover of “Big River”. He also got around to “Good and Drunk” which is my favorite track off the Asunder EP he released last year. He rounded out the set on the keys playing tracks like “15 Years In A 10 Year Town”, “I Got You” and a rousing rendition of The Eagles hit “Desperado”.
Lucero was up next and I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of theirs and I was hoping to get a better feel for the band in a live setting, but it didn’t work out that way this evening. Between Ward and Cody, they were kind of the odd band in the sound mixing department and I don’t think that worked in their favor. I did pick up on a few songs they played like “On My Way Downtown” which is my favorite track from the 2012 Women and Work album. Ben Nichols did a stripped down version of what I think was “The War” from the 2005 release Nobody’s Darlings. They also did “Texas & Tennessee” from their 2013 EP of the same name. They also played a newer song called “Hello My Name Is Izzy” which has been released as a single. They finished the set with a track from the 2002 release Tennessee titled “The Last Song”. I hope to be able to catch this band live again soon and catch a full set next time.
You could tell this crowd is ready for Cody Jinks by the time he hit the stage. Before we get into Cody’s set, I have to commend whoever was playing music before Cody came on. They mixed classic country hits with songs from current artists like Paul Cauthen, Alex Williams, Whitey Morgan and others who many in this crowd might not have heard of as Albany, GA is a fairly new market for Jinks.
Cody Jinks
Cody Jinks started right away with music from his new records. He kicked the set off with “Same Kind Of Crazy As Me” from The Wanting. This set was heavy on new tunes, but he plays a long enough set list that you still get everything you want. Speaking of the set list, he is doing something interesting with his set lists as of late. He has lines with two songs listed instead of one. It seems like these are parts in the set where he has two songs in the same key lined up and can select either one. This is a very cool way of doing things. It gives the band flexibility to read the room and it potentially gives fans a different experience each night instead of just having the same old set.
Jinks then went on with the title track off the Lifers album and followed that up my personal favorite off that record “Big Last Name”. More new songs followed with “Tell Em What It’s Like” and “The Wanting”. After those tracks we got into “I’m Not The Devil” which had a special appearance from Ward Davis who sang a verse. Albany, GA was also the site of the very first live version of “Where Even Angels Fear To Fly”. I really dig this one live and it is quickly becoming a favorite of mine off The Wanting album.
Cody Jinks feat. Ward Davis
We also got another favorite track of mine off The Wanting album with “Which One I Feed”. I was especially looking forward to this one as it was one of my favorite preview tracks leading up to the albums release. More new music soon followed with “Ain’t A Train”. This song is huge for the fiddle solo that hits you hard every time it drops in the song. Well, the live band does not have a fiddle player so Austin “Hot Rod” Tripps grabs a dobro instead. While it’s a good track live, it’s just not the same without that hot fiddle solo. Jinks mentioned that this is one of his most upbeat setlists he’s ever done before going into one of his biggest tear jerker tracks in “David”. It still hits hard in a live setting.
Cody Jinks and The Tone Deaf Hippies
Another new track followed with “Wounded Mind”. This isn’t one that I had anticipated hearing live, but it’s a good one. It’s a very good deep cut from The Wanting. Up next we had “Holy Water” from Lifers and “Think Like You Think” from After The Fire. There is a bit of irony singing a song like “Think Like You Think” in front of a drunk and rowdy crowd on a Thursday night, but it’s a damn good song live. “Cast No Stones” was one of the highlights of this night for me. It’s one of my favorite Jinks tracks overall, but this is especially good live as he brings the house lights up for an extended sing-a-long with the crowd. “Must Be The Whiskey” and “Hippies and Cowboys” closed out the regular set. “Must Be The Whiskey” is a huge fan favorite off the album Lifers and it feels like a hit every time I hear it live. Jinks came out for a two song encore which included the acoustic leaning “The Raven and The Dove” and one of his biggest fan favorite songs “Loud and Heavy”.
This was my third time seeing Cody Jinks live and his show never disappoints. From seeing him at the Ryman a couple of years ago to this show, he keeps getting better. He’s upped his showmanship a lot recently. He picks out kids in the crowd and gives them guitar picks and acknowledges signs and interacts with the crowd in a meaningful way. A lot of independent artists don’t do this level of crowd interaction but it is a must for bigger stages and crowds. Cody Jinks is riding high and the sky’s the limit. He’s always on tour and I can’t wait till the next time I get to see him live. You can find out if he’s coming to a town near you at this link.
Posted by GaryHayes at 10:13 am	Tagged with: Alabany Civic Center, Albany GA, Cody Jinks, Joshua Wallace, live review


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FiRES WERE SHOT: Pieces of the White Sun
January 16, 2014 January 16, 2014 HypnagogueLeave a comment
Austin-based duo FiRES WERE SHOT run acoustic guitars through effects and looping stations to create a pleasingly hypnotic blend of warm organic sounds and deeply resonant drones on Pieces of the White Sun. John Wilkins and Clay Walton open this 11-track affair with the hum and buzz of gear turning on, and then start strumming, picking and layering. Listening to this release is a little like playing an early Windham Hill album having just enjoyed a bit of your controlled substance of choice. That familiar warm, folksy feel runs through everything, melodic, laid-back and intimate. Take that and lace it with the mind-salving effect of the repeating, near-minimalist loops and the long-held drone structures that run underneath it all, and you’ve got something that can make you simply lose track of time. Close listening is a must, as Wilkins and Walton pay a lot of attention to the use of harmonics and resonance as ways to quietly fill a moment, and also to capture as drone elements. There’s a lot to dig into here. I like the almost clockwork cadence of “Scattered in the River,” and the way the duo chop up the sound as the piece glides to a close. There’s some smooth slide guitar howling gracefully against a fast-picked counter-melody on “In the Heavens Meadow,” and it comes off as sweetly soulful. “McElligot’s Pool” dives deep into the repetition and ups the ante with a gritty, raw edge and edge-of-feedback wails. Again, what really works here is that the honest, folk-music tone, rich in its simplicity, anchors the thing and lets the two explore the building sound. As much good as I have to say about this release, I have to add that FiRES WERE SHOT almost lost me with the abrupt ending of the first track, “Before That Time.” While I’ve come to understand it a little better as an artistic choice after repeat listens, it still doesn’t work for me. And it’s not just that it sounds like someone hit a button too soon and made a rough edit, it’s that–perhaps in my opinion only–the piece deserved to come to a better close. Sometimes you can cut a piece off in mid-statement like this and it’s fine. They do it well on “Long Match,” which is a pretty straightforward song that gets some great texture from what sounds to these ears like augmented/distorted vocals. When this piece hits its drop-out, it throws the listener into a hushed space where the drones continue to wash back and forth, carrying the echo of the melody until it all fades down. It works. In the case of “Before That Time,” though, the sudden stop just amplifies the fact that there was more to be said, and it would have been worth hearing.
Pieces of the White Sun is a great thing to dive into, headphones-first. Wilkins and Walton exhibit complete control over their loops and layers, and play up the acoustic side. It’s got charm, and it’s got that nice experimental edge. Worth discovering.
Available at Bandcamp.
Aaron Static: Redemption
Mingo: Sky Over Sea
The Last Few
So Long, and Thanks for All the Support
Visiting Cat, Host
Eyes Cast Down, Souls Adrift, in Disrepair
Von Geistley, Winter
Red Sky Lullaby, Very Own Special Day
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We Are All Roxana Santos
Thanks to all of the pressure and community support, Roxana was finally released on Monday, February 4th. Although Roxana is back home with her children, her fight is far from over.
As you may already know, Roxana came to the U.S. more than 13 years ago, fleeing violence in El Salvador and extreme violence in her home. In 2008, Roxana was racially profiled by two deputies from the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office in Maryland while sitting on a bench eating lunch. The two officers unlawfully detained and transferred her to ICE. In 2013, Roxana won an important victory from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, finding that the Sheriff’s deputies had violated her constitutional rights to be free from unlawful seizure. The case is now in the damages phase in the federal district court for Maryland.
Despite the fact that Roxana won her case, owns her own home, and has deep ties to the United States, Roxana has been forced to attend regular check-ins with ICE for the past decade stemming from this initial arrest.
On Tuesday, January 8th, 2019, Roxana’s worst fear was realized after she was detained during a routine check-in despite the fact she had a court hearing the following Monday regarding her civil rights case.
The community responded immediately. CASA and CASA in Action members rallied outside of ICE, and civil rights leaders demanded Roxana’s release. Thousands of supporters like you signed petitions advocating for her. Religious and community leaders joined Roxana’s husband Cesar and their three youngest children to go from office to office in Congress asking the Maryland delegation to get personally involved in her case.
Thanks to all of the pressure and community support, ICE released Roxana on Monday on a $5,000 bond; an amount of money that was raised in under 36 hours.
Although Roxana is back home with her children, the fight is far from over. We need to keep on fighting with Roxana for justice. There are three ways you can get involved:
Donate to Roxana
Donate to CASA
Attend Roxana’s next check-in
Contribute financially: After almost a month in detention, Roxana’s family financial resources are depleted and it’s not clear if Roxana will be able to return to work. Her family needs support to pay for medical bills, groceries, their mortgage payments, and other necessary expenses. If you would like to support her family directly, you can do so through her gofundme page.If you’d like to support CASA’s work in defending Roxana, please click here.
Show Up: Roxana will have to check in again with ICE. Please click here if you would like to come support her outside of the ICE offices in Baltimore, MD. Sign up with the link above and we will provide more details when a date is scheduled. Help us make sure Roxana is released at her next check-in to the community that loves her.
Thank you for showing up and supporting Roxana.
Gustavo Torres,
Executive Director, CASA


Foresight & Analyses
Events & Speeches
We believe that future research or foresight is and should be a collective learning exercise in order to succeed. It is important that all related people (with different backgrounds and often conflicting interests) set up the focal research question together, go thought the learning journey together (using different types of analyses and expertise on their way) and finally brainstorming the results and needed actions together.
This page illustrates the CV our team’s research, foresight and analytical work experiences and cooperation projects with other researchers and wise statesmen over time. Some of the research projects below were initiated and carried out during the time our team members worked at the Estonian Development Fund. We are willing to assist our partners in their own foresight and research projects; as well we are ready to lead or participate in new and challenging projects across the world. Please write to: info@estcorp.eu.
The Future of Work and Skills 2025 / 2015
An overview of major trends and their impact on the economy and labor market in the ten-year perspective. The aim of the review is to encourage the social partners to discuss the future trends and factors of work, technology change, new business and management models, to create a context and provide a sense of though for forecasting the work-force and skill needs of different industries, and to be an input for future training needs and HRM policies.
Four Future Stories for Järva County / 2015
Scenarios are a tool for helping to take a long view in a world of great uncertainty. Moreover, scenario planning allows making future-proof decisions today. The team ESTCORP led the process and development of alternative narratives – four future stories – for Järva County in Estonia. In Foresight projects, the scenario method practiced by ESTCORP is a policy analysis tool that helps describe a possible set of future conditions. At national, regional and local level scenarios can be used to improve planning capacity, to enrich strategic public policy decisions and to guide major capital investments.
International Institutional Accreditation of TUT / 2014
The CEO of ESTCORP Dr Ott Pärna was among the authors of An International Institutional Assessment and Accreditation Report of the Tallinn University of Technology (TUT) for the Estonian Higher Education Quality Agency EKKA. The institutional accreditation of TUT was an external evaluation assessing the compliance of the management, administration, academic and research activity, and academic and research environment of the university with the legislation as well as with the purposes and development plans of the university.
Financial and Social Sustainability of Estonian Microfinance Market / 2014
This research paper analyses the applicability of the rational assumption that supports the position that it is unnecessary to protect people against the consequences of their choices in the Estonian microfinance market. This is done in the light of the perfect market philosophy, inevitable information asymmetry among market players and time-inconsistent preferences of borrowers. The purpose of the article is to find evidence whether the microfinance market in Estonia sufficiently satisfies the basic conditions of a financially and socially sustainable free market.
Modern Concept of Social Innovation University / 2013
The ESTCORP team supported the Tallinn University’s Rector’s Office in their strategy work in making the university more socially responsive and entrepreneurial, both in Estonia and internationally. According to the new Development Plan of the University, five focus areas linking the university competences to the societal challenges were the following: educational innovation, digital and media culture, cultural competences, healthy and sustainable lifestyle, society and open governance.
Estonia – The Business Paradise: Attracting Higher Added Value FDI / 2013
The project “Involvement of RD&I intensive and higher added value foreign investments as a part of Estonia’s innovation policy” was carried out for the Government Office of the Republic of Estonia. The research project analyses how foreign investors can leverage the industry, technology and economy upgrading in Estonia. The analysis puts FDI into a modern and interdisciplinary context where highly mobile global knowledge workers are more likely to choose a job because of where an organisation is located rather than because of the organisation itself. Therefore, the question what makes cities and countries great comes into play. Among other analyses, this research includes six country case studies: Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Singapore, Czech Republic and Lithuania. The research was conducted together with Technopolis Group.
Towards a Systemic Approach to Understanding and Managing Innovation in the Public Sector / 2013
This research project is about innovation in the public sector. In a time of economic crisis and continued cost-cutting, public sector innovation is essential for governments in order to maintain service standards and find radical solutions for complex challenges. The research question of the project asks what are the main characteristics and driving forces of the public service innovation system and do they differ across countries? The research has four perspectives through which the public sector innovation process is analysed: managerial, learning, technological, and systems perspective. As data on public sector innovation is quite rare, this research provides a unique combination of theoretical foundations and exploratory cross-country survey on public sector technological innovations in four European countries – the UK, Denmark, Finland and Estonia.
Management and Development of State Owned Enterprises / 2012
An analytical work on how to better lead, manage and develop Estonian state-owned companies. Among other things, the analysis contained different best practices across the world (i.e. Temasek Holdings in Singapore, Ownership Steering and Solidium in Finland) and provided alternative management structures to be possibly implemented in Estonia. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Experimental Economic Policy / 2012
Modern economic policy is a joint discovery and development process of public and private sectors, together with academia, which support businesses in finding and utilising new emerging opportunities rather than continuing old pathways and cutting in stone old existing economic structures. Based on the international stock of knowledge and practices, this analysis opens up the emerging topic of experimentation in economic policies, together with smart specialisation and required strategic agility in state affairs. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Markets and Innovation at the Bottom of the Pyramid / 2012
Across the world, most businesses focus their activities – products and services – at the top, indeed the smaller part of the income pyramid. This literature review and analysis work focuses on the bottom part of the pyramid and how to tackle it. This part of the global market consists of about 4 billion inhabitants, which is more and more accessible, with the total purchasing power of a “few trillion” US dollars and growing. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Estonia-India: The Future of (Economic) Relations / 2012
The goal of the Estonia-India foresight was to identify means of stimulating business opportunities and mutually valuable economic relations between the two countries, establish a basis for the knowledge about the Indian economy and a contacts network of potential partner institutions/companies to further advance collaborations. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Talent Foresight / 2012
The first phase of the Estonian talent foresight together with the International Talent Forum. The mission of the foresight was to provide knowledge for a topic that spans a range of various policy areas and stakeholders, draw a complex concept from this and initiate a discussion about the pathways to opening up Estonia and making it attractive for (foreign) talents. The world is a battleground for talents where apart from companies, nation states are also competing against each other alongside negative population growth and aging trends. The answer does not lie in one-off education or migration policy fixes or project-based campaigns, but in a jointly developed holistic solution – in a Talent Policy. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
World in 2020: Key Trends and Their Impact to Estonia / 2012
This research report presents the most significant external changes that could influence Estonia in the following decade. Based on them, conclusions have been drawn as points for consideration in the process of establishing objectives, priorities and activities regarding the use of EU and other resources when making future plans for Estonia, in order to ensure that external opportunities as well as risks are taken into account. This trend analysis is also helpful as a tool for all decision makers and interested parties when planning strategies for various policy areas as well as company business strategies. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
ICT in Financial Intermediation Sector / 2012
In today’s world, the biggest influence on ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) is in their applications in other economic sectors and areas of society. This analysis focuses on different future crossroads of the financial intermediation sector and ICT sector trends. Based on this synthesis, the report draws out alternative development trajectories and makes suggestions to both areas, as well as jointly. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
The Role of Different Funding Models in Stimulating the Creation of Innovative New Companies in Europe / 2011
This international research project lead by Technopolis Group focused on three main questions. Firstly, what are the main financial mechanisms in the US, Europe (EU plus associated countries such as Israel) and other industrialised countries for stimulating new high technology businesses (or ”Yollies”: young leading innovators)? Secondly, what do VC activities in the US, Europe and other selected industrialised or emerging economies look like today? And thirdly, what is the most appropriate mix of financial support for young innovation companies and what mix of financial methods is optimal at the European level?
Estonian Growth Vision 2018: Goals and Aspirations for the Next Decade / 2011
The Estonian Growth Vision 2018 was one of the widest structured national vision building exercises carried out in Europe. It was a year-long process engaging around a thousand leading thinkers in Estonia into a strategic discussion about the future of Estonia that phrased its goal as “Estonia – globally competitive, locally attractive” and described the 8 key vision choices where the work done today will largely determine the future path of the Estonian economy. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Scenarios 2018: Four Alternative Futures for the Estonian Economy / 2011-2012
The report contains four possible scenarios of the Estonian economy: Southern Finland, Hanseatic League II, Skype Island and State Returns. The conclusions drawn from the scenarios were the basis for the creation of the Growth Vision 2018. The report is also a good handbook for joint scenario-building work in different areas, consisting also of methodological aspects and respective international knowledge. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Trend Blog “Fututuba” / 2011-2012
Success in the turbulent world depends on how much we know and understand the inevitable processes taking place in the world. The trend blog “fututuba” (futures room) introduces fresh surveys and stories on future workplaces, sprouting business opportunities, the future of energy sector, green economy, aging, distant markets, urbanisation, novel governance methods, foreign investments, consumption, migration, and more. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
ICT in Healthcare Sector / 2011
It is estimated that the healthcare sector is becoming the biggest global profit-making area for the information and technologies sector by 2020. Similarly, e-health related costs are estimated to become the third largest cost area in the health sector with about 5 per cent of total costs. This report analyses the opportunities of using ICT in different areas and “layers” of healthcare. It also suggests that, given its high “e-reputation”, Estonia should become the development lab for healthcare innovations. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
ICT in Education / 2010
The coming decade or two are bringing radical experiments and changes to the nature of education, its provision methods, inter-linkages, etc. One of the cornerstone components of this transformation is information and communication technology and its applications. This report analyses the potential usage of ICT in education, draws a roadmap and provides key-suggestions in preparing for these developments, taking advantages of them and boosting them. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Internationally Competitive Universities: Internationalisation Trends and Practice / 2010
The report explains the basics of internationally competitive universities and alternative ways how this competitiveness can be achieved. The report discusses internationalisation and its part in the creation, development and management of a world-class university. The report is based on a review of recent relevant literature and on the authors’ knowledge (Academic Cooperation Association) of and experience with the themes of higher education internationalisation and excellence in tertiary education. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Foresight on Export of Health and Wellness Services in the Next Decade / 2010
The foresight project tested a hypothesis that Estonia has a potential for exporting healthcare services. The final report explains the underlying requirements for the export of healthcare services, discusses the trends driving the growth, analyses the competitive advantages of Estonia and offers strategy choices for using opportunities. The basis for justifying the topic of this study was the fact that commercial presence/outward direct investments and consumption abroad/health tourism comprise two major ways of cross-border provision of healthcare services (respectively 50% and 40% of global healthcare services export turnover). Moreover, more than half of all Europeans would be willing to consume healthcare services abroad according to the survey conducted in the European Union in 2007. But only 4% (c. 17 million adults) have actually experienced cross-border health services within a year. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Financial Services Sector in Estonia: Growth and Export Opportunities and Policy Implications / 2009
The foresight project (initial report by Oxera Consulting) explored the prospects of Estonia in increasing the export of financial services and concluded that Estonia has the opportunity to increase exports in certain niches of financial services, primarily by offering professional back-office services to international financial companies and providing asset management and private banking services to the Central and Eastern European and the CIS markets. Attention was also given to the public-private cooperation platform concept FinanceEstonia. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Industry Engines 2018: Growth and Internationalisation Opportunities of Manufacturing Industry for the Next Decade / 2009
The foresight project, which searched the future leading industries, outlined three types of growth opportunities for the current manufacturing companies and provided policy suggestions concerning the activity of the state in supporting the shift of Estonian industry into new growth areas. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
White Paper to the Parliament / 2009
The White Paper was a vision by Estonian economic experts to the Parliament for the necessary steps to overcome the economic crisis in Estonia and to establish a basis for new growth. A similar timely report was also produced by NESTA in the UK “Attacking the Recession: Setting the Agenda for a New Economy”. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Est_IT@2018: Estonian ICT Sector in the Future / 2009
This was a flagship foresight project of the Estonian ICT sector highlighting the areas of the economy with the greatest IT growth potential and putting forward policy suggestions for what to do to enable Estonia to reap the benefit from ICT as much as possible. The main attention of the final suggestions was put on ICT related human resources, including the internationalisation of higher education, interdisciplinary master’s programs in Technology and Business Administration with emphasis on IT, and roadmaps in the six focus areas identified. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
The Current Status of Estonian Economic Competitiveness and Future Outlooks of Economy / 2008
This report analysed the Estonian economic structure, competitiveness and future outlook, and compared the picture with other more advanced and successful countries. The analysis, written by researchers from the University of Tartu, brought out structural weaknesses of the economy and illustrated four alternative scenarios forward. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Annual Reports “Forward!” to the Parliament of the Republic of Estonia / 2008-2011
These annual reports focused on different “burning” and “future” topics related to the advancement of the Estonian economy and society. The focus of the 2011 issue was on the opportunities and challenges emerging from the future developments of the world economy; megatrends strengthened in the crises; Estonia’s need for and hesitation related to Asia; a global war for talent and deepening lack of qualified labour in Estonia emphasising the need for holistic talent policy. Also, Estonia’s choices to respond to the rapid global changes with agile governance and experimental economic policy were shown. The work has been done at the time Dr Ott Pärna led the Estonian Development Fund.
Establishing the Basis for the Elaboration of the Estonian Design Policy Measures / 2003
The report (research by Mollerup Designlab A/B) presented a proposal for an Estonian design policy and its 7-year vision. The underlying hypothesis was that good design is a strong competitive factor as design is marginal to production costs and paramount in terms of market impact. The proposal for an Estonian design policy is based on three research studies. The studies deal with Estonian design supply, Estonian demand for design, and design policies in a number of comparable countries.
Business Incubation in Estonia / 2003
The report reviewed the current situation and guidelines for government intervention in Estonia related to business and technology innovation. The report was published by the Innovation & Technology Policy Division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Estonia in Innovation Studies (3).
Innovation in Estonian Enterprises 1998-2000 / 2002
The report presented the results and analysis of the Community Innovation Survey III among Estonian enterprises. The results were published by the Innovation & Technology Policy Division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Estonia in Innovation Studies (2).
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(Visit Our Studio at Zazzle to Customize Your Family’s Coat of Arms)
The first mention of a Van Meteren, (also called Van Meteren or Van Meter or Van Metre) we can trace is in a deed dated September 1253. “Meeteren”, is a village in the Tielerwaard and the village of Meteren is still shown on the current maps of Holland.
One of the branches of the family lived in the “Huise Van Meteren” in Geldermalsen.There is but little available concerning the residences of the Van Meterens in Holland; one sketch, however, has been obtained which refers to the “Huise Van Meteren” situate in the Heerlykleid Metere, in Geldermelsen. It was reported to be a stately structure. The home, for many years and generations, of one the branches of the Van Metre family, and subsequently of others. This mansion stood in a beautiful park of magnificent trees, some of which were of great height and dimensions. The house was rebuilt in 1768-9, but it has at last served its day; it was sold in December, 1906, and, has since been torn down.
Coat-of-Arms: Our family’s coat of arms the Van Meteren is divided into four equal parts. Two quarters diagonal of each other with horizontal stripes of red and yellow. On the yellow stripes we find eight martlets (or swallows), three on the top stripe, two in the middle and three at the bottom stripe. The two other quarters are azure with in the centre a red fleur de lis (the royal emblem of France). The title here, “jr.,” is synonymous with Jonkvrouw, young woman, feminine, and Jonkheer, young man, masculine. “Ridderschap” and “Ridderedd” signifies either Nobility or Knighthood. As both men and women of this line fought valiantly for France and Christendom. The coat of arms of the village Meteren is azure with in the center a golden fleur de lis. The coat of arms of the village Cuijk has horizontal stripes of red and yellow. On the yellow stripes we find eight martlets, three on the top stripe, two in the middle and three at the bottom stripe. The coat of arms of the van Meteren/van Meeteren/Van Metre/Van Matre family is composed out of the coat of arms of the village of Meteren and of the village Cuijk, representing the ties of the two families and villages dated in the 1300-1400’s.
The branch of the VanMeteren family with whom we are direct descendants, came to America in 1662, as revealed in the papers of the ship “Vos” (Fox), arriving at New Amsterdam. The Van Meterens were of Holland/Dutch lineage, and a new spelling of the name came upon them as they reached New Amsterdam and subsequently moved into New Jersey, VanMeter is first seen. In the third generation of the family was John VanMeter, who commanded a trading expedition into the wilds of Virginia and four of his sons subsequently settled in the mountain districts of old Virginia (WV).
The VanMeters had previously secured their conditional grants by orders of the governor and council, dated June 17, 1730. The John VanMeter grant, located in the VA (WV) valley, enjoined the settlement of ten families. Broadly interpreted, the territory was a vast tract of uncharted wilderness–exceeding 40,000 acres.
John’s son Isaac VanMeter with his wife and four children settled at historic Fort Pleasant in what is now Hardy County, West Virginia, in 1744. Isaac Van Meter, brother of Jacob, was killed and scalped by the Indians near his fort in 1757. One of his sons was Colonel Garret Van Meter who was born in New York in February 1732, and was a boy of twelve when the family located at Fort Pleasant. In 1756 he married Mrs. Ann Markee Sibley, and after the death of his father, inherited Mount Pleasant and a large tract of surrounding land. This land grant was issued by Lord Fairfax, from King George in 1761. (This original land grant document is currently in the Muse’s family’s possession today). He was a colonel of a regiment of militia in General Washington’s army in the Revolution. After the war he and his wife lived at old Fort Pleasant, where they stayed until death.
Only two of their sons grew to mature years, Isaac, born in 1757 and Jacob, born May 18, 1764. These brothers married sisters, Bettie and Tabitha Inskeep, whose mother was Hannah McCulock (McCulloch), a daughter of the most famous Indian fighter and scout of his day. Jacob Van Meter, the younger son of Colonel Garrett Van Meter, inherited the Fort Pleasant homestead, where he and his wife, Tabitha, spent their lives. He was colonel of a regiment in the second war with Great Britain in 1812. He became a flour miller in the South Branch Valley and for many years was a partner of Chief Justice Marshall in the breeding of thoroughbred horses.
Utilizing the land of heritage, family owned for 287 years (as of 2017); the direct descendants of the original VanMeters/VanMetres/VanMeterens/VanMeeterens of today are still residing and working in Hardy County WV. The Muse’s family calls the land Windy Ridge Farm and the cottage home has been named The Painted Nest. The farm houses a state of the art poultry operation, pasture and crop land, as well as acres of undisturbed woodland.
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VCU criminologist is helping develop a worldwide approach to ethics education
Jay Albanese is among a group of experts from 30 countries developing curriculum on crime and justice-related topics for instructors across the world. (Photo courtesy of L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs)
By Pamela Stallsmith
L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs
pstallsmith@vcu.edu
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018
A street vendor is selling a counterfeit designer handbag at an amazing price. What’s the harm in buying one and saving hundreds of dollars?
Lots, according to Jay Albanese, Ph.D., a renowned criminologist and professor of criminal justice in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“The result of you buying the bag is you’re supporting the criminal enterprise that manufactured it, the profits of which go to the further enslavement of workers, intellectual property theft against the legitimate bag maker, and money laundering through other countries,” Albanese said.
“This relatively inconspicuous act of buying a counterfeit bag has large consequences that in fact are global,” he said. “Citizens often participate in organized crime without knowing what they’re doing. Without better education, people don’t realize that these smaller acts result in larger harms.”
Citizens often participate in organized crime without knowing what they’re doing.
Educating people about ethics — what’s right and what’s wrong — lies at the heart of a global project in which Albanese has been actively involved.
Through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Education for Justice initiative, Albanese is among experts from 30 countries, and the only American, developing a global open-access curriculum on crime and justice-related topics for instructors around the world. He was the principal drafter of the course modules on organized crime and served as a reviewer for the course modules on integrity and ethics.
“Dr. Albanese was selected to participate in this project because of his vast knowledge and expertise on organized crime, as well as his ability to convey such knowledge in a manner that is simple and understandable, even to those professors and students less familiar with this area of study,” said Flavia Romiti, associate crime prevention and criminal justice officer at UNODC.
“During the coming months, his expertise, as well as his oratory skills, will be sought for the presentation of the material to the academic community around the globe,” Romiti said.
Ultimately, the curriculum will be available for open-access use by instructors and students around the world, and will be available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
“The idea is to keep the accessibility as open as possible. All you need is an internet connection,” Albanese said. “We’re trying to raise the level of awareness and the level of seriousness of these issues by not putting up barriers. We hope these will be the most-used source materials in the world once they’re available.”
Watch the U.N. videos featuring Jay Albanese at
https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/multimedia/index.html
The initiative seeks to prevent crime and promote a culture of lawfulness through education activities designed for all students, from grade school through university. Albanese has appeared in several U.N. videos about the project.
Albanese plans to incorporate the modules into his classes at the Wilder School, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, including organized crime and professional ethics.
Albanese is a leading scholar in transnational and organized crime and corruption. He is the author of 20 books, including a leading text in the field, “Professional Ethics in Criminal Justice: Being Ethical When No One is Looking.”
“Ethics is the most fundamental problem on the planet,” Albanese said. “How do people make decisions that exploit others? Until we have people making decisions that are not in their own self-interest, we will continue to have conflicts, political upheaval, irregular immigration and economic suffering. All the big issues that anybody cares about are ultimately ethical issues.”
VCU honors seven at faculty convocation