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813 N.E.2d 393 (2004)
Julie A. LOVELL, Appellant-Defendant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
No. 65A05-0312-CR-658.
Court of Appeals of Indiana.
August 12, 2004.
Transfer Denied September 28, 2004.
*395 John D. Clouse, Ivan A. Arnaez, Evansville, IN, Attorneys for Appellant.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Daniel Jason Kopp, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
OPINION
SHARPNACK, Judge.
Julie Lovell appeals her convictions for dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony[1] and possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony.[2] Lovell raises four issues, which we partially consolidate and restate as:
I. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence obtained as a result of the police search of Lovell's garbage bags into evidence;
II. Whether the trial court properly denied Lovell's motion for judgment on the evidence; and
III. Whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain Lovell's convictions for dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony and possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony.
We affirm in part and reverse in part.
The relevant facts follow. On March 6, 2003, Posey County sheriffs deputies went to a residence on Old Blairsville Road in Posey County, Indiana. When the deputies approached the residence, they noticed a strong smell of ether. They knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. One of the deputies parked his marked police car in a nearby parking lot so that he could observe the residence, and a short time later, the deputy observed four individuals, including Lovell, exit the residence and get into two separate vehicles.
Posey County Narcotics Unit Officer Terry Cooper and Deputy Jim Reeves were called to assist. Upon arriving at Lovell's residence, they noticed the odor of ether coming from the residence. The officers also saw three bags of trash next to the mailbox. The officers took the three trash bags, transported them to the Posey County Jail, and examined the contents of the trash bags for evidence of illegal drug activity. The officers found evidence of methamphetamine manufacture, sale, and use. Specifically, the officers found a plastic bag with the corners cut off on the end, burnt aluminum foil with residue, a hydrochloric generator, a piece of a rubber hose, batteries, which had their lithium removed, a receipt for "Liquid Fire," numerous coffee filters, and mail addressed to Lovell. Based upon this evidence, officers obtained a search warrant for Lovell's residence.
Officers then executed the search warrant. The officers searched a vehicle registered *396 to Lovell, and inside the vehicle, officers found a red air tank, which smelled of anhydrous ammonia. The officers also searched the area surrounding the residence and found a green thermos,[3] two starting fluid ether cans that had been punctured to extract the ether, white paper, which had been extracted from a lithium battery in order to obtain the lithium, and a plastic bag with a white powder residue. Inside the kitchen, officers found a coffee filter with residue, pieces of aluminum foil with residue, Morton Salt, Hi-Top Salt, Epsom Salt,[4] and a smoking hydrochloric generator with residue. Inside the bedroom, officers found a bowl with a residue, later identified as methamphetamine, two capsules with white powder, and an ink pen, which had been altered for methamphetamine use. Inside the bathroom, officers found a half-full bottle of Liquid Fire, and inside the living room, officers found a pair of scissors with burn marks on it. Based upon this evidence, the officers concluded that methamphetamine had been manufactured at this location.
The State charged Lovell with dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony and possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony. Prior to trial, Lovell filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized as a result of the search of the three garbage bags and the evidence seized pursuant to the subsequent search warrant. After a hearing, the trial court denied Lovell's motion. During the trial, Lovell made a continuing objection to the evidence that was the subject of her motion to suppress. After the State's case in chief, Lovell made a motion for judgment on the evidence, arguing that:
Now on Count I, as I look at the statute, actually one of the definitions.... Preliminary Instruction "F", which was given to the jury, it states, "Manufacture means....", and we go down to the last paragraph. "It does not include the preparation, compounding, packaging or labeling of a controlled substance by practitioner or (b) by a practitioner....", and so on. Now the State has the burden of proof on absolutely everything. They have the burden of proof as to the manufacturing, but they also have the burden of proof to show that she does not fit under this exception. And I believe that the failure to show that she does not fit in that exception, if this were to go to the jury, there would be no evidence at all. Now Ms. Lovell does not have a duty to do anything in this case. The entire burden is upon the State. So as to Count I, they did not put on any evidence to show that she does not .. that she fits .. they did not ... they put in absolutely no evidence to show that the last portion of "F" would apply or not apply. Basically that area is blank, and when it is written into the definition, that is almost considered part and parcel of elements.... We believe that they failed to meet all the elements of the case. They failed to meet the requirements of the definition of manufacturer, and therefore, there must be a directed verdict on Count I.
Id. at 198-199. The trial court denied Lovell's motion for judgment on the evidence, noting that:
The Court finds that the State does not have to disprove exceptions to the statute unless there is evidence produced that would require counter evidence. *397 For example, in this case, unless there was some evidence that [Lovell] was, in fact, a practitioner or working under the direction of a practitioner. So the Court is going to overrule the Motion for Judgment on the Evidence.
Id. at 201. The jury found Lovell guilty as charged, and the trial court sentenced her to ten years in the Indiana Department of Correction.
I.
The first issue whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence obtained as a result of the police search of Lovell's garbage bags into evidence. The admission of evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial court. Hyppolite v. State, 774 N.E.2d 584, 592 (Ind.Ct.App.2002), trans. denied. The decision to admit evidence will not be reversed absent a showing of manifest abuse of discretion resulting in the denial of a fair trial. Id. An abuse of discretion occurs when a decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before the trial court. Id.
Lovell argues that the search of her garbage bags violated Article I, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution, which provides that:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized.
When evaluating a search or seizure under Article I, Section 11, we must determine whether under the totality of the circumstances the State's intrusion was reasonable. State v. Stamper, 788 N.E.2d 862, 865 (Ind.Ct.App.2003), trans. denied.
In Moran v. State, 644 N.E.2d 536, 537 (Ind.1994), our supreme court addressed the issue of whether police conduct in taking and examining trash put out for pickup was consistent with the protection afforded by the Indiana Constitution. There, police officers searched several plastic garbage cans that were approximately one foot from the street in front of a house and near the mail box. Id. at 538. The garbage cans had been set out for trash pickup, which was scheduled for that day. Id. Moran filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized as a result of the search of the garbage cans. Id. at 537. The trial court denied his motion, we affirmed, and our supreme granted transfer. In addressing this issue, our supreme court noted that:
We do not lightly entertain intrusions on those things that we regard as private, i.e. concealed and hidden. However, at the same time the inhabitants of this state have always valued neighborliness, hospitality, and concern for others, even those who may be strangers. Here, an open front walk leading to the front porch of a house is accurately judged by the passerby to be an open invitation to seek temporary shelter in the event of a sudden downpour. Stepping on that part of a yard next to the street or sidewalk to seek shade from a tree or to pick edible yet valueless plants growing in the lawn has been regarded proper conduct. It is permissible for children at play on the street or in the alley to examine the contents of garbage cans to find interesting items, so long as they do not make a mess. It is not infrequent that valuable items are placed in the trash in hopes that someone passing by will see them there and will take them and make good use of them. It has often been said that if you do not want others to know what you drink, don't put *398 empties in the trash. It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.
(internal footnotes and quotations omitted). Our supreme court also acknowledged that "Hoosiers are not entirely comfortable with the idea of police officers casually rummaging through trash left at curbside." Id. However, our supreme court concluded that the curbside search of Moran's trash was reasonable based upon the totality of the circumstances because: (1) police officers reached the trash without trespassing on the property; (2) the search was performed at a time when neighbors would not be disturbed; and (3) the search was performed in a manner consistent with typical trash collection. Id.
Likewise, here we find the officers' search of Lovell's garbage bags to be reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. When officers arrived at Lovell's residence, they saw three garbage bags next to Lovell's mailbox. There were several residences nearby, and officers saw that many of those residences also had trash next to their mailboxes. Lovell's garbage bags, along with the garbage bags of her neighbors, had apparently been set out for trash pick-up. Officers then seized the three garbage bags next to Lovell's mailbox. In seizing Lovell's garbage bags, the officers conducted themselves in the same manner as would be appropriate for those whose duty it was to pick up the garbage bags. We also find no indication in the record that in seizing Lovell's garbage bags, officers trespassed on Lovell's property or disturbed Lovell's neighbors. Based upon our review of the record, we conclude that Lovell's constitutional rights were not violated when officers searched her garbage bags, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence obtained as a result of the police search of Lovell's garbage bags.[5]See, e.g., Moran, 644 N.E.2d at 541.
II.
The next issue is whether the trial court properly denied Lovell's motion for judgment on the evidence. A motion for judgment on the evidence should be granted only if there is a total lack of evidence as to the guilt of the accused or where there is no conflict in the evidence and it is susceptible only to an inference in favor of the accused. Wilcox v. State, 664 *399 N.E.2d 379, 382 (Ind.Ct.App.1996); Ind. Trial Rule 50. A motion for judgment on the evidence will not be granted if the State presented a prima facie case. Id. Upon review, we look at the denial of a motion for judgment on the evidence as we do all challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, and we neither reweigh evidence nor judge witness credibility. Id.
Lovell argues that the trial court erred by denying her motion for judgment on the evidence because the State failed to meet its burden of production with respect to Count I, dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony. Dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony is governed by Ind.Code § 35-48-4-1 and provides that: "A person who ... knowingly or intentionally... manufactures ... cocaine, a narcotic drug, or methamphetamine, pure or adulterated, classified in schedule I or II ... commits dealing in cocaine, a narcotic drug, or methamphetamine, a Class B felony." The term "manufacture" is defined as:
(1) the production, preparation, propagation, compounding, conversion, or processing of a controlled substance, either directly or indirectly by extraction from substances of natural origin, independently by means of chemical synthesis, or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis, and includes any packaging or repackaging of the substance or labeling or relabeling of its container. It does not include the preparation, compounding, packaging, or labeling of a controlled substance:
(A) by a practitioner as an incident to his administering or dispensing of a controlled substance in the course of his professional practice;
(B) by a practitioner, or by his authorized agent under his supervision, for the purpose of, or as an incident to, research, teaching, or chemical analysis and not for sale; or
(2) the organizing or supervising of an activity described in subdivision (1).
Ind.Code § 35-48-1-18 (Supp.2003) (emphasis added). Lovell argues that the State needed to prove that she was not a practitioner within the meaning of I.C. §§ 35-48-1-18(1)(A)-(B). Lovell bases this argument on Poe v. State, 775 N.E.2d 681, 685 (Ind.Ct.App.2002), trans. denied, where we held that the personal use exception[6] was an element of the definition of manufacture for which the State had the burden of proof. Lovell contends that, like the personal use exception, the State had the burden to prove that she was not a practitioner as defined in I.C. §§ 35-48-1-18(1)(A)-(B). The State does not challenge that contention but argues that, based upon the evidence it presented at trial, the jury could have reasonably inferred that Lovell was not a practitioner with the meaning of I.C. §§ 35-48-1-18(1)(A)-(B).
The State presented evidence that deputies approached Lovell's residence, smelled a strong odor of ether, and knocked on the front door but there was no answer. A short time later, one of the deputies, who was in a nearby parking lot, observed four individuals, including Lovell, exit the residence. After obtaining a search warrant, officers searched Lovell's residence, her vehicle, and her yard and found evidence of the manufacture, sale, and use of methamphetamine. *400 For example, officers found a red air tank, which smelled of anhydrous ammonia, two starting fluid ether cans, which had been punctured to extract the ether, white paper, which had been extracted from a lithium battery in order to obtain the lithium, a plastic bag with a white powder residue, a coffee filter with residue, pieces of aluminum foil with residue, several types of salts, a smoking hydrochloric generator with residue, two capsules with white powder, an ink pen, which had been altered for methamphetamine use, a half-full bottle of Liquid Fire, and a pair of scissors with burn marks. The officers also a found a bowl with a white residue, later identified as methamphetamine. The State presented evidence explaining how these ingredients and objects, which were recovered from Lovell's residence, are commonly used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.
The officers found the specific evidence of methamphetamine manufacture in several rooms of Lovell's residence, in her car, and strewn throughout her yard. It was reasonable for the jury to conclude that the location and type of this evidence was inconsistent with the location and type of evidence, which would indicate that a "practitioner" had been working out of Lovell's residence to administer or dispense a controlled substance in the course of a professional practice or had prepared or was preparing methamphetamine in the course of performing research, teaching, or chemical analysis. Moreover, during Officer Cooper's testimony, he described the process of methamphetamine manufacture to the jury by dividing the process into several distinct steps that each required specific ingredients and objects. The State's presentation of evidence included the presentation of ingredients and objects used in almost all of the steps identified by Officer Cooper. Further, Lovell's behavior in attempting to leave her residence undetected after officers had knocked on her door is not consistent with the behavior of a "practitioner" acting within the confines of the law. We conclude that based upon the State's presentation of evidence, it was reasonable for the jury to conclude that Lovell was not acting as a practitioner as defined by I.C. §§ 35-48-1-18(1)(A)-(B), and the trial court properly denied Lovell's motion for judgment on the evidence on this issue.
III.
The last issue is whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain Lovell's conviction for dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony and possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony. When reviewing a claim of insufficiency of the evidence, we neither reweigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of witnesses. Jordan v. State, 656 N.E.2d 816, 817 (Ind.1995), reh'g denied. Rather, we consider the evidence most favorable to the judgment and the reasonable inferences therefrom. Id. We will affirm a conviction if evidence of probative value exists from which the trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. Circumstantial evidence alone is sufficient to sustain a conviction. Floyd v. State, 791 N.E.2d 206, 210 (Ind.Ct.App.2003), trans. denied.
A.
Dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony is governed by I.C. § 35-48-4-1, which provides that: "A person who ... knowingly or intentionally ... manufactures ... methamphetamine ... commits dealing in ... methamphetamine, a Class B felony." Manufacture is defined as:
(1) the production, preparation, propagation, compounding, conversion, or processing *401 of a controlled substance, either directly or indirectly by extraction from substances of natural origin, independently by means of chemical synthesis, or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis, and includes any packaging or repackaging of the substance or labeling or relabeling of its container. It does not include the preparation, compounding, packaging, or labeling of a controlled substance:
(A) by a practitioner as an incident to his administering or dispensing of a controlled substance in the course of his professional practice; or
(B) by a practitioner, or by his authorized agent under his supervision, for the purpose of, or as an incident to, research, teaching, or chemical analysis and not for sale; or
(2) the organizing or supervising of an activity described in subdivision (1).
I.C. § 35-48-1-18. Lovell argues that the State failed to present any evidence proving that she manufactured methamphetamine. We disagree.
The State presented evidence that deputies approached Lovell's residence, smelled a strong odor of ether, and knocked on the door but there was no answer. A short time later, one of the deputies, who was in a nearby parking lot, observed four individuals, including Lovell, exit the residence. After obtaining a search warrant, officers searched Lovell's residence and found evidence of the manufacture, sale, and use of methamphetamine. For example, in Lovell's vehicle, officers found a red air tank, which smelled of anhydrous ammonia. Outside Lovell's house, officers found two starting fluid ether cans, which had been punctured to extract the ether, white paper, which had been extracted from a lithium battery in order to obtain the lithium, and a plastic bag with a white powder residue. Inside Lovell's house, officers found a coffee filter with residue, pieces of aluminum foil with residue, several types of salts, a smoking hydrochloric generator with residue, two capsules with white powder, an ink pen, which had been altered for methamphetamine use, a half-full bottle of Liquid Fire, and a pair of scissors with burn marks. The officers also a found a bowl with a white residue, later identified as methamphetamine. The State also presented evidence explaining how these ingredients and objects recovered from Lovell's residence are used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.
Based upon our review of the record, we conclude that evidence of probative value exists from which the trier of fact could have found that Lovell manufactured methamphetamine and was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony. See, e.g., Bush v. State, 772 N.E.2d 1020, 1022 (Ind.Ct.App.2002) (holding that evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction for dealing in methamphetamine).
B.
Possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony is governed by I.C. § 35-48-4-14.5(c),[7] which provides that "[a] person who possesses two (2) or more chemical reagents or precursors with the intent to manufacture... Methamphetamine, a schedule II controlled substance under IC XX-XX-X-X ... commits a Class *402 D felony." The State alleged that Lovell possessed the following chemical reagents or precursors: ephedrine, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, anhydrous ammonia, and ether, all of which are defined as "chemical reagents or precursors." See I.C. § 35-48-4-14.5(a). Lovell argues that the State failed to present sufficient evidence that she possessed a chemical reagent or precursor other than anhydrous ammonia.
I.C. § 35-48-4-14.5(c) required the State to prove that one other chemical reagent or precursor, in addition to anhydrous ammonia, was present. The officers found a smoking hydrochloric generator with residue, and the State argues that "[o]ne may reasonably infer, as did the officers trained in the cleanup of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories, that the residue was hydrochloric acid." Appellee's Brief at 11. However, the State presented no evidence indicating that the residue found at the bottom of this hydrochloric generator was in fact hydrochloric acid, and therefore, we disagree with the State's suggestion that the jury could have reasonably inferred that the residue was hydrochloric acid. We conclude that evidence of probative value did not exist from which the jury could have found that Lovell possessed hydrochloric acid. Because the State failed to prove that Lovell possessed two chemical reagents or precursors, the State failed to prove that Lovell was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony. See, e.g., Livermore v. State, 777 N.E.2d 1154, 1162 (Ind.Ct.App.2002) (holding that the evidence was insufficient to support the defendant's conviction for possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture).
For the forgoing reasons, we affirm Lovell's convictions for dealing in methamphetamine as a class B felony and we reverse her conviction for possession of chemical reagents or precursors with intent to manufacture as a class D felony.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
DARDEN, J. and ROBB, J. concur.
NOTES
[1] Ind.Code § 35-48-4-1 (Supp.2003).
[2] Ind.Code § 35-48-4-14.5 (2003). Subsequently amended by Pub.L. No. 225-2003, § 5 (effective date July 1, 2003).
[3] Officer Terry Cooper of the Posey County Narcotics Unit testified that anhydrous ammonia is commonly transported in this type of thermos.
[4] Officer Cooper testified that salt is used in manufacturing methamphetamine.
[5] Lovell argues that officers trespassed onto her property in order to seize her garbage bags. "Allegations of error in overruling a motion to suppress are not preserved for appellate review unless the record reveals a proper objection when the evidence is offered at trial." Edwards v. State, 682 N.E.2d 800, 802 (Ind.Ct.App.1997). Although Lovell objected to the admission of the evidence at trial, all of the specific testimony she uses to support her argument comes from the suppression hearing. The testimony from the suppression hearing along with any applicable exhibits are not relevant to our consideration of whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the evidence seized as a result of the search of Lovell's garbage bags. Rather, our review of this issue is limited to the trial transcript. We find no evidence in the trial transcript indicating that officers trespassed onto Lovell's property in order to seize her garbage bags.
Further, we need not reconcile State v. Stamper, 788 N.E.2d 862, 866 n. 2 and Litchfield v. State, 808 N.E.2d 713, 716 (Ind.Ct.App.2004), which to some extent, at least, may not be reconcilable. In our case, it was not necessary for the officer to go onto the defendant's property to reach the garbage bags that had apparently been placed by the mailbox along the road as had been done by the neighbors with their garbage bags. Under the approach of Stamper or Litchfield, the seizure of the garbage bags was, in the totality of the circumstances, reasonable. See, e.g., Moran, 644 N.E.2d at 541.
[6] Prior to a 2001 amendment to I.C. § 35-48-1-18, the definition of manufacturer included a personal use exception, which provided that manufacturing did not include "the preparation or compounding of a controlled substance by an individual for his own use...." See Pub.L. No. 17-2001, § 18 (effective date July 1, 2001). On July 1, 2001, the legislature removed this language from the text of I.C. § 35-48-1-18.
[7] In July 2003, prior to Lovell's arrest, the legislature amended I.C. § 35-48-4-14.5. The charging information indicates that Lovell was charged under subsection (c), however, the language pertaining to Lovell's charge is currently found in subsection (e). See Pub.L. No. 225-2003, § 5 (effective date July 1, 2003). For purposes of this opinion, we will cite to subsection (c).
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Femtosecond laser flap parameters and visual outcomes in laser in situ keratomileusis.
To evaluate the flap-producing characteristics of the VisuMax femtosecond laser system and their relationship to visual and refractive outcomes after laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Center, Dubai Healthcare City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Case series. A review of LASIK cases from December 2008 to December 2009 was performed. Parameters recorded included the achieved flap thickness measured with intraoperative ultrasonic pachymetry, laser energy, side-cut angle, visual outcomes including uncorrected (UDVA) and corrected (CDVA) distance visual acuities and manifest refraction, higher-order aberrations using Hartman-Shack wavefront analysis, and complications. The study comprised 98 patients (195 eyes). The femtosecond laser energy for flap preparation was 160 to 200 nJ. The mean achieved flap thickness was 91.35 μm ± 12.26 (SD) (attempted 80 μm), 98.5 ± 14.39 μm (attempted 90 μm), 109.94 ± 13.43 μm (attempted 100 μm), 112.7 ± 7.45 μm (attempted 110 μm), and 123.82 ± 9.64 μm (attempted 120 μm). Postoperatively, 87% of eyes were within ± 0.25 diopter of the intended spherical equivalent, 75% had a UDVA of 20/16 (-0.1 logMAR) or better, and 42% gained 1 or more lines of visual acuity; no eye lost CDVA. No statistically significant relationships were found between energy, side-cut angle, achieved flap thickness, and refractive and visual outcomes. Complications were mild and did not affect final visual outcomes. The femtosecond laser yielded precise flap dimensions with a narrow standard deviation and a high level of safety. Neither author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned. |
Q:
Is it safe to spin on a volatile variable in user-mode threads?
I'm not quite sure if it's safe to spin on a volatile variable in user-mode threads, to implement a light-weight spin_lock, I looked at the tbb source code, tbb_machine.h:170,
//! Spin WHILE the value of the variable is equal to a given value
/** T and U should be comparable types. */
template<typename T, typename U>
void spin_wait_while_eq( const volatile T& location, U value ) {
atomic_backoff backoff;
while( location==value ) backoff.pause();
}
And there is no fences in atomic_backoff class as I can see. While from other user-mode spin_lock implementation, most of them use CAS (Compare and Swap).
A:
Tricky. I'd say that in theory, this code isn't safe. If there are no memory barriers then the data accesses you're guarding could be moved across the spinlock. However, this would only be done if the compiler inlined very aggressively, and could see a purpose in this reordering.
Perhaps Intel simply determined that this code works on all current compilers, and that even though a compiler could theoretically perform transformations that'd break this code, those transformations wouldn't speed up the program, and so compilers probably won't do it.
Another possibility is that this code is only used on compilers that implicitly implement memory barriers around volatile accesses. Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler (2005 and later) does this. Have you checked if this is wrapped in an #ifdef block or similar, applying this implementation only on compilers where volatile use memory barriers?
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VirnetX (VHC+4.1%) rallies after announcing it received a favorable Markman ruling related to its patent suits against Cisco, Apple, NEC, and Aastra. Shares have been range-bound in recent months due to uncertainty about the outcome of VirnetX's legal disputes. |
In return for handing over day-to-day operations, the town received a $23 million upfront payment and will get $2.3 million each for the first five years and $1.1 million annually for the next 20 years with additional payments if an expansion of the landfill is approved by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Though Conners is a Democrat, he has run for office on the Republican line and has sometimes feuded with other members of his party, including former Albany County Executive Michael Breslin. Conners and the other parties to the suit argued the deal should have been subject to a permissive referendum, allowing voters to gather signatures to put the contract on the ballot.
In a decision received by the town Monday, state Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough ruled the deal was legal and did not require the public to be allowed to seek a referendum.
McDonough said New York's General Municipal Law allows towns to enter into a lease for a term not to exceed 25 years for a solid waste management facility. That language in the law specifically says it prevails even if there is other language in the law regarding the length and terms of contracts a community can reach, he wrote.
"The petition's legal conclusions are flatly contradicted by the documentary evidence," McDonough wrote. "The Court cannot read Town Law ... as imposing a requirement for a permissive referendum in this matter."
McDonough also ruled that the legal challenge to the decision did not fall into one of three types of claims the law allows: that the deal was not authorized under the law, that portions of the law were not complied with, or that a conflict of interest exists.
Supervisor Paula Mahan hailed the decision and criticized Conners for filing the suit.
"This was clearly political on Mike Conners' part," Mahan said. "He was trying to take the landfill from the town of Colonie to solve his problems in the county. It was the best decision for the town of Colonie."
Mahan said Conners "should be ashamed of himself" for filing the lawsuit.
"We knew we were doing the right thing," she said. "There was no question about it."
Conners said he still opposes the landfill deal and denied any political intent to filing the lawsuit. He would prefer a regional solution to landfill issues, he said.
"I still think Paula is giving away the biggest asset the town has for pennies on the dollar," he said.
Sal Ferlazzo, attorney for Conners and the other residents, vowed to appeal.
"The court misunderstood the specific requirements in the law that requires a permissive referendum," he said. "Clearly we have a strong disagreement with the court." |
Q:
Get all post from specific category with flexible code
I have two table:
Table Post:
id cateid content
#### ###### ###############
14 35 Lorem isplum
Category table:
id name
#### #########
35 Sport
I usually using method to get all post from category like this:
$itemSport = array();
$itemSport = getAllPostFromSportCate(35);
with 35 is values of table.
Problem is:
When I delete values 35 from Category table.
I can't getAllPostFromSportCate($id) because Category table not exist this values.
I don't want insert values like 35 to function getAllPostFromSportCate($id).
If user change id of Category table. All logic will fail.
Problem 2:
I don't want pass values like 35.
Normal, I receive values when user click button.
Like:
select * from Post where cateid = (select id from Category)
or
select * from Post where cateid = $_POST('idCate')
A:
It looks like your question contains the answer (well, kind of):
select * from Post where cateid = $_POST('idCate')
You would build a form which lists the categories, that form could just use the ids of the categories as input values. Then the text shown for them would be the category name.
However, you need to make sure you properly escape the form values before you perform the database query, to prevent SQL injection
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New York could bar doctors from performing so-called virginity tests under legislation prompted by rapper T.I.’s controversial remarks that he has a gynecologist check his daughter’s hymen annually.
Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages said Tuesday the bill she submitted last month would prohibit medical professionals from performing or supervising such examinations, though it’s unclear how common they are in the U.S. New York would also consider it sexual assault when such tests are performed outside of a medical setting.
“It’s medically unnecessary,” the Democrat said. “It’s often painful, humiliating, traumatic. All in all, it’s a form of violence against women.”
READ MORE: T.I. makes sure his daughter’s hymen is ‘intact,’ experts say that’s problematic
Her bill has attracted support from three Democratic lawmakers, and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration officials called the practice “disturbing.” Solages said no other states have such bans.
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The World Health Organization, U.N. Women and the U.N. Human Rights office called for the end of the tests worldwide last year. They said the testing often involves inspecting the hymen or inserting fingers into the vagina.
T.I., also known as Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr., drew criticism when he said in a November episode of the podcast Ladies like Us that he asked a gynecologist to check his teenage daughter’s hymen shortly after her birthday each year. She is now 18.
“I put a sticky note on the door: ‘Gyno. Tomorrow. 9:30,’” the rapper said.
After his comments prompted backlash on social media, he told Jada Pinkett Smith on the Facebook interview show Red Table Talk he’d been exaggerating and that “he was never in any exam room.”
5:14 OBGYN sits down with Global News to educate people on the hymen OBGYN sits down with Global News to educate people on the hymen
Phone and email messages were left with T.I.’s publicist Tuesday.
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Experts say such testing is painful and that there’s no evidence such testing shows whether a woman or girl has had vaginal intercourse.
“There is no test that can tell you whether someone had intercourse, whether consensually or non-consensually,” said Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University and senior medical adviser for Physicians for Human Rights.
Mishori said there’s a mistaken belief that you can tell whether someone’s had vaginal intercourse from a tear in a hymen, which can also tear from tampons or physical activity.
Some women lack a hymen, a membrane that partly covers vaginas which can also change as a girl matures due to hormonal changes.
READ MORE: T.I.’s hymen comments reflect society’s ‘antiquated view’ of virginity: experts
“It’s of course not only impossible to tell for sure, but also a violation of woman’s rights,” said retired obstetrician-gynecologist Jaana Rehnstorm, who is the founder and president of gender equality non-profit The Kota Alliance.
Such testing stems from cultural concerns about a woman’s “purity” or “marriageability,” Mishori said.
“If a women is not a ‘virgin,’ her prospects of being married, her prospects of securing a family, her prospects of being thought of as an upstanding citizen can go down the drain,” she said.
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“These are very sexist ideas about women and sexuality.” Tweet This
But criminalizing the practice is “misguided,” Mishori said.
0:40 Rapper T.I. says he makes sure his daughter’s hymen is ‘intact’ Rapper T.I. says he makes sure his daughter’s hymen is ‘intact’
“I think the solution is we have to think about education, we have to think about changing social norms,” she said.
“We have to think about breaking down stigma and educating not only the patients in front of us but the family members and community members.”
“I think unfortunately, if you ban it or if you criminalize it, it will drive it underground,” she said.
Such examinations have been documented in at least 20 countries. The extent to which they are performed in the U.S. is unclear, though Mishori said that physicians have shared anecdotes of patients and parents requesting such testing.
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“This happens in different communities — not just migrant or immigrant communities, but also maybe very, very religious communities,” she said.
READ MORE: T.I. defends controversial comments about his daughter’s hymen
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists President Ted Anderson has said the organization does not have guidance on so-called virginity testing.
“As a medical organization, ACOG releases guidance on medically indicated and valid procedures,” he said in a statement.
Solages called the practice “barbaric,” saying it is based on the idea that women are men’s property. She said just one instance, such as T.I.’s, of such an examination happening is enough for a ban.
“Whether he was being serious or he was being sarcastic, he brought to the limelight that this is happening in the U.S.,” she said. |
437 S.W.2d 415 (1969)
JEFFERSON COUNTY DRAINAGE DISTRICT NO. SIX, Appellant,
v.
GULF OIL CORPORATION, Appellee.
No. 7040.
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Beaumont.
January 30, 1969.
Rehearing Denied February 20, 1969.
*416 W. G. Walley, Jr., J. B. Morris and J. Kenneth Hynes, Beaumont, for appellant.
W. B. Edwards, William F. Erwin, Jr., Fred A. Lange, Houston, for appellee.
KEITH, Justice.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court granting Gulf Oil Corporation (hereinafter styled "Gulf") a permanent injunction restraining Jefferson County Drainage District No. Six (hereinafter styled "District") "from constructing or installing a boxed culvert in, or upon" certain property owned by Gulf. The trial was without a jury and no findings of fact or conclusions of law were filed.
The property was on a service road forming an integral part of Interstate Highway 10 in the City of Beaumont, upon which Gulf had constructed a large service station. Immediately to the south of the improved portion of Gulf's property was a large open and unlined drainage ditch used, if not owned, by the Drainage District. Still further south, Continental Oil Company (hereinafter styled "Conoco") owned property which had not been improved at the time the litigation was commenced.
Gulf alleged that Conoco, being desirous of developing its property, presumably for a service station which would compete with Gulf's existing facility, initiated discussions with the Drainage District in 1966 seeking to have the District condemn an easement over the lands owned by both Gulf and Conoco then occupied by the open ditch; and, after the acquisition of the easements from the two companies, the District would then "box" the entire ditch with a large concrete culvert, cover the "box" with dirt, and thereby make usable the forty feet of Conoco's land fronting on the service road.
After perfecting the appeal to this Court, the District filed a motion to advance submission of this cause, attaching a certified copy of a resolution wherein the Conoco proposal was set forth in more detail than was shown upon the trial. Among the recitations in the resolution is this:
"WHEREAS, Continental Oil Company has made a firm offer to Jefferson County Drainage District No. 6 to waive all claims for damages to its remaining property from which is to be taken the right of way needed to be acquired from Continental Oil Company for said improvement and to further donate to Jefferson County Drainage District No. 6 the cost of installing within the proposed *417 new right of way a concrete box to the extent of Eighteen Thousand ($18,000.00) Dollars, of said cost of installation of said concrete box, all as is set forth in the offer in writing from Continental Oil Company attached hereto; * * *"
The District began condemnation proceedings with the filing of its petition with the Judge of the County Court at Law on June 26, 1968, seeking to condemn an easement over Gulf's land for drainage purposes. The special commissioners took their respective oaths and gave notice to Gulf of a hearing to be held on July 15, 1968. Claiming that it had not had the full tenday's notice required by Article 3264, Vernon's Ann.Civ.St., Gulf brought suit in the District Court against the District seeking an injunction.
The petition alleged Gulf's ownership in fee simple of its entire tract, the filing of the condemnation proceedings, and quoted some of the allegations of the condemnation proceedings then pending. These allegations were excerpted by Gulf from the petition for condemnation which had been filed by the District:
"It is necessary and expedient for the maintenance of proper drainage in said District that the Petitioner acquire an easement for drainage purposes across, through and upon the above described real estate for the purpose of constructing a drainage ditch thereon and providing proper right-of-way for maintenance of the same * * *
"Jefferson County Drainage District No. 6 of Jefferson County, Texas, is in the process of constructing certain drainage improvements within said District consisting of a drainage ditch for the carrying off of surface water within the District which will otherwise overflow on the lands of some of the citizens residing within the District creating the danger of flooding and doing great damage to homes and commercial establishments. The ditch to be constructed for the purpose of preventing such damages and to alleviate present conditions will cross lands of the Defendant [plaintiff herein] located within the limits of the Drainage District and it is necessary that the District acquire such easement across, through, and upon * * *"
The District allegations so noted were then traversed by Gulf as being "incomplete, incorrect, erroneous and misleading * * * [and] there is, in fact, no necessity, no expediency, and no public interest to be served by the condemnation * * *" These allegations with reference to Conoco then follow:
"Continental Oil Company is the owner of the tract of land on the other side of the Beaumont High School ditch, which forms the boundary between its property and that belonging to plaintiff herein. Continental has petitioned the defendant to condemn an easement over plaintiff's one-half of said ditch, and in consideration therefor it has agreed to donate an easement across its one-half of said ditch and has agreed to pay the costs of constructing a pipe in the ditch and the costs of covering the entire ditch in order that the now existing, adequate, sufficient, and efficient drainage ditch will be artificially converted, under the guise of public necessity, to a culvert, so that it can be filled in and overlaid with top soil so as to increase the size and enhance the commercial usability and value of Continental's property, increasing its dimensions sufficiently to accommodate a retail service station thereon. Plaintiff would further show the Court that the pipe which defendant proposes to lay in the ditch and the covering of the ditch will not aid "in carrying off of surface water within the District which will otherwise overflow on the lands of some of the citizens residing within the District', but rather the flow of water in the ditch will be impeded by the contemplated improvements. Continental and defendant have made this agreement for the sole purpose of enabling Continental *418 to use their one-half of the ditch for the purpose of constructing a service station thereon. The proposed taking of plaintiff's property for the private use of Continental violates Section 17 of Article 1 of the Constitution of Texas."
Gulf then offered in the pleadings to donate the required easement to the District "provided the ditch is not covered." Gulf sought a temporary injunction after hearing, and a permanent injunction upon a final trial, restraining the District from acquiring Gulf's property through eminent domain proceedings, or alternatively, that the District be enjoined from covering any part of the ditch so acquired from either Gulf or Conoco. As noted above, Conoco was not made a party to the suit.
The amended answer filed by the District contained a plea to the jurisdiction of the Court, a plea in abatement, a special plea in bar, and a general denial. The special plea asserted, in substance, that being created as a drainage district by the Legislature, it was clothed with the power of condemnation under Article 8151, V.A. C.S., and Article 8154, placed upon the drainage commissioners, not the Court, the duty of keeping the ditches in repair, etc.
It was alleged further that a hearing was had (following proper notice) before the Special Commissioners on August 21, 1968, with an award having been made to Gulf from which it had appealed to the County Court of Jefferson County at Law by filing its objections and exceptions on September 10, 1968. From these allegations, the conclusion was drawn that the exclusive jurisdiction to hear the entire controversy was vested in the County Court at Law and that the District Court was without jurisdiction to interfere with the jurisdiction of the County Court at Law. Copies of the condemnation proceedings were attached to the answer and are in the record before us. Such proceedings all appear regular and no complaint is made in either brief as to their sufficiency.
The plea in abatement, repleading the foregoing facts by reference, sought to abate the suit because the County Court of Jefferson County at Law had acquired jurisdiction of the subject matter of the suit. The special plea in bar asserted that Gulf had an adequate remedy at law in that the issue of the right to condemn Gulf's property "can and must be asserted and determined" in the County Court at Law.
Fundamental to the appeal is the contention of the District that the District Court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter; or, to state the issue conversely, the exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine the right of condemnation rested in the County Court of Jefferson County at Law.
The first point of the District complains of the action of the trial court in overruling the plea to the jurisdiction. Gulf counters that the District does not have "the right to appropriate Gulf's property through condemnation proceedings and thereafter construct improvements thereon for the avowed purpose of benefiting the private interests of Continental Oil Company."
The focus of the Constitutional prohibition against the taking of private property for private use is sharpened by the opinion of Maher v. Lasater, 163 Tex. 356, 354 S.W. 2d 923, 924 (1962) wherein the Court said:
"Section 17 of Article 1 of the Constitution of Texas, Vernon's Ann.St., provides that `No person's property shall be taken, damaged or destroyed for or applied to public use without adequate compensation being made, unless by consent of such person; * * *.' That provision not only requires the payment of adequate compensation for property taken for public use, it prohibits the taking of property for private use. Marrs v. Railroad Commission, 142 Tex. 293, 177 S.W.2d 941, 949; Coastal States Gas Producing Co. v. Pate, 158 Tex. 171, 309 S.W.2d 828, 833. The provision operates as a limitation on the power of the Legislature as well as a limitation on the power *419 of governmental agencies and public and private corporations. McInnis v. Brown County Water Imp. Dist., Tex.Civ.App., 41 S.W.2d 741, 744, writ refused. The Legislature may not authorize that which the Constitution prohibits. [Emphasis by the Court]."
In seeking the injunction, Gulf made it clear that it was not disputing the authority of the District to acquire the easement for the ditch. Rather, what Gulf sought was to control the discretion of the Drainage Commissioners as to the use which would be made of the right-of-way after its acquisition.
Gulf had appealed from the award of the Commissioners and the entire proceeding was then pending before the County Court at Law, before the trial on the merits or entry of judgment in the District Court in this case. There was and is no reason why Gulf could and can not have its rights adequately protected in the County Court at Law through the proper pleadings and proof. In State v. Giles, 368 S.W.2d 943, 947 (Tex.Sup., 1963), the landowner had sought an injunction to restrain a hearing before commissioners appointed by the County Judge contending that since one was disqualified, the proceeding would be void. The Court said that the District Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the condemnation proceedings, held that the injunction order was void and ordered the writ of mandamus to issue.
Again, we note that there is no attack made by Gulf upon the regularity of the condemnation proceedings then pending in the County Court at Law. That Court had full and exclusive jurisdiction to determine all the issues involved in the controversy between the District and Gulf, including the basic right of the District to condemn Gulf's property.
We now quote from Wilson v. Donna Irr. Dist. No. 1 Hidalgo, Tex.Civ.App., 8 S.W.2d 187, 188 (writ ref., 1928):
"No case has been cited by appellant, nor has a diligent search by this court revealed the issuance of an injunction to restrain the action of the county court in a prima facie legal condemnation suit, and to pass upon issues which might be submitted to the county court. Appellant has the opportunity to be heard on all the matters raised by him as to the legality of a condemnation of his land for the purposes alleged by him. If he should not be satisfied with the action of the county court in the premises, he has the right of appeal, where he can present all the defenses sought to be made the basis of the issuance of a writ of injunction. If the ditch sought to be dug is not for a public use, the presumption will prevail that the county court will not countenance the condemnation of the land. If there is no necessity for appropriating the land, the presumption is that the county court will not permit its appropriation. If the court, however, permits the appropriation of the land in defiance of appellant's rights and the Constitution and laws, appellant can obtain redress by an appeal."
What was said in Wilson, supra, applies with equal vigor and force in this case. The rule is concisely stated by Judge Pope when he was upon the San Antonio Court of Civil Appeals in State v. Andricks, 304 S.W.2d 566, 567 (writ ref., 1957):
"Condemnation is a matter for the County Court and a district court cannot enjoin the County Court from trying any case over which the County Court has jurisdiction. [Citing cases]."
The cases supporting the proposition that once the jurisdiction of the County Court is invoked in a condemnation proceeding it is exclusive are many, a few of which follow: Tarrant County v. Shannon, 129 Tex. 264, 104 S.W.2d 4 (1937); Gulf Coast Irr. Co. v. Gary, 118 Tex. 469, 14 S.W.2d 266, 17 S.W.2d 774 (1929); Nagy v. City *420 of Amarillo, Tex.Civ.App., 358 S.W.2d 682 (error ref. n. r. e., 1962).
Gulf, countering the thrust of the District's point, contends that the District has misconstrued Gulf's position in the trial court, restating its position in these words taken from its brief:
"Gulf has never contended, and it does not now contend, that the Drainage District does not have the power and right to condemn an easement across Gulf's property involved in this suit. Our sole contention is that the Drainage District does not have the right to appropriate Gulf's property through condemnation proceedings and thereafter construct improvements thereon for the avowed purpose of benefiting the private interest of Continental Oil Company."
* * * * * *
"Here the injunction sought, and the injunction granted, was to restrain the use being made of the property which would benefit solely the private interests of Continental Oil Company."
We have examined carefully the authorities cited by Gulf[1] in its brief and do not find them to be controlling under the fact structure of this case. Only one court, the County Court at Law, had jurisdiction of the entire subject matter and of the parties. There being no title question involved, Gulf having had proper notice of the hearing before the Commissioners, having participated in the hearing and having appealed to the County Court at Law, all matters were properly before that court before the trial on the merits in this cause. There is no question of priority of jurisdiction involved here. [cf. Cleveland v. Ward, 116 Tex. 1, 285 S.W. 1063 (1926)]. Only the County Court at Law could grant full relief sought by all of the parties and its jurisdiction was and is exclusive. Gregg v. Lower Nueces River Water Sup. Dist., Tex.Civ.App., 303 S.W.2d 812, 815 (error ref., 1957).
It follows, therefore, that the District Court, lacking jurisdiction to entertain Gulf's suit, erred in granting the relief sought by Gulf and in issuing the injunction. Point One of the District is sustained and the judgment of the District Court is reversed, the injunction dissolved, and judgment rendered that Gulf take nothing. This action makes it unnecessary for us to consider the remaining points urged by the District.
Reversed and rendered.
NOTES
[1] Tod v. Massey, Tex.Civ.App., 30 S.W.2d 532 (no writ, 1930); Leathers v. Craig, Tex.Civ.App., 228 S.W. 995 (no writ, 1921); Moseley v. Bradford, 190 S.W. 824 (Tex.Civ.App.1916), rev. sub-nom. Bradford v. Moseley, 223 S.W. 171 (Tex. Com.App.1920); City of Houston v. Kunze, 153 Tex. 42, 262 S.W.2d 947 (1953); Union Fraternal Latino Amer. v. City of San Antonio, Tex.Civ.App., 315 S.W.2d 68 (no writ, 1958).
|
Disagreement between acute and chronic haemodynamic effects of nadolol in cirrhosis: a pathophysiological interpretation.
The acute effects of beta-blockers may be different from chronic; mechanisms underlying this difference are poorly elucidated. To assess portal pressure and its pathophysiological determinants after acute and chronic administration of nadolol. In 24 patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension hepatic venous pressure gradient, portal blood flow and resistance to portal blood flow were measured before, 60-90 min after acute administration of nadolol, and after 1 month. Patients were good-responders if hepatic venous pressure gradient was < or =12 mmHg, or decreased by at least 20%. Eleven and 13 patients were good- and poor-responders to acute administration, respectively. Acute poor-responders showed a lower decrease in portal blood flow (P = 0.04) and a less evident decrease in mean arterial pressure (P < 0.001). Eleven and 13 patients were good- and poor-responders to chronic administration, respectively. Chronic poor-responders showed a larger increase in resistance to portal blood flow compared with good-responders (P = 0.01). Disagreement between acute and chronic effects was seen in 12 patients: six were acute good-responders chronic poor-responders and six were acute poor-responders chronic good-responders. Acute good-responders chronic poor-responders patients had the smallest decreases in portal blood flow and in mean arterial pressure after acute administration, while acute poor-responders chronic good-responders showed the largest (P = 0.05 and 0.01). Disagreement between acute and chronic effects of nadolol on hepatic venous pressure gradient is common. The mechanism responsible is complex, the acute effect being mainly modulated by arterial hypotension and the chronic effect by changes in portal resistance. |
Q:
How to get SSH logs and send to remote syslog server in macOS?
On Linux, I can get sshd logs such as:
sshd Accepted publickey for user from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx port xxx ssh2: RSA SHA256:.....
and send them to a remote syslog server by adding a file in /etc/rsyslog.d/
How can I get similar data on MacOS 10.14 (Mojave), and also have macOS send the data to a remote syslog server?
I can get the data I want using this command:
log stream --process sshd --info --predicate "messageType = 'info'"
Now need to figure out how to configure ASL (Apple System Logger).
A:
I ended using the log command to stream the messages to a file, and then use an external program (remote_syslog2) to stream the file contents to the remote syslog server.
To write log messages to a file /var/log/sshd.log, I created a file /Library/LaunchDaemons/log-streamer-sshd.plist with the contents:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>log-streamer-sshd</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/bin/sh</string>
<string>-c</string>
<string>/usr/bin/log stream --info --style compact --predicate '(sender == "sshd")'</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>ServiceDescription</key>
<string>Start sshd log stream</string>
<key>ExitTimeOut</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>StandardOutPath</key>
<string>/var/log/sshd.log</string>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>
On boot, the LaunchDaemon runs the log command, selecting only messages sent by sshd. Its output is written to /var/log/sshd.log.
The results of my research into this follow.
Apple has reinvented the syslog wheel twice. In the beginning, OS X used syslog the same way as most Unix/Linux systems. Log messages are classified by facility and severity, and syslog.conf can be configured to write to log files and remote syslog servers.
Later, Apple introduced Apple System Log (ASL). ASL allowed more fine-tuned behavior such as separating log messages by metadata e.g. process ID, and complex rules via predicates. ASL also integrates logrotate functionality.
Starting in macOS 10.2 Sierra, the final form of logging became Unified Logging (UL). UL stores logs on disk in a proprietary and undocumented compressed binary format, effectively a database. Many log messages may not even be written to disk, but just held temporarily in memory. UL features include permission controls on access to log messages, controlling what users or groups can see which messages. It can also control the display or saving of messages for privacy. Subject to developer overrides, string replacements, arrays, and objects in log messages are considered to have private data, while integer replacements and static strings are assumed to not have private data.
The only ways to read UL logs are to use the Console GUI app and the log command-line tool. Some developers have created apps to help query UL, but those are just front-ends to the log command. Apple has not provided any APIs to programmatically get log messages, only to write log messages. Logs can be exported to a different system via sysdiagnose, but again can only be read on another Mac with Console or the log command.
At least in Mojave, most system logs are either sent directly to UL or redirected from syslog and ASL to UL. I could only find the sshd messages I wanted in UL.
Another possibility may have been to run sshd with the -E flag. That would involve editing the ssh.plist file in LaunchDaemons, but can only be done by disabling System Integrity Protection. I decided that was less than ideal and would introduce brittleness (what happens when the OS gets upgraded?).
Links for additional info:
Apple WWDC 2016
macOS Unified log: 1 why, what and how
macOS Unified log: 2 content and extraction
macOS Unified log: 3 finding your way
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vesicle stabilization, and more particularly to such stabilization by suspending micellular particles such as vesicles in a polymeric gel matrix.
2. Description of Prior Art
The use of micellular particles such as phospholipid vesicles (or liposomes as they are commonly referred to) as carriers for pharmaceutical and diagnostic agents has been the subject of extensive investigation, Ryman B.E., et al., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 308, 281 (1978); Gregoriadis, G., Ed., "Liposome Technology", CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Fla., Vol. II (1984); Fendler J.H., Acc. Chem. Res., 13, 7 (1980); and Weinstein J.N., et al., Science, 204, 188 (1979). Examples of the potential application of phospholipid vesicles include consideration as carriers of enzymes, drugs (particularly anti-tumor drugs), chelating agents, hormones, radionuclides, cell-modifying substances, antigens, antibodies, interferon inducers, and virus subunit particles. However, liposomes (especially small sonicated vesicles) are thermodynamically unstable at temperatures below the phase transition temperature, and tend to aggregate or fuse, to form larger unilamellar vesicles on long-term storage, Sheetz M.P., et al., Biochemistry, 11, 4573 (1972); Lawaczeck R.L., et al., Biochem, Biophys. Acta, 443, 313 (1976); Larrabee H.L., Biochemistry, 18, 3321 (1978); and Shullery S.E., et al., Biochemistry, 19, 3919 (1980).
Aggregation or fusion of the small particles into larger particles alters the properties of the vesicles, which can in turn modify the permeability of the vesicles and in vivo biodistribution, Kao Y.J., et al., Biochem. Biophys. Acta., 677, 453 (1981); and Abra R.M., et al., Biochem. Biophys. Acta., 666, 493 (1981). It is accordingly highly important to be able to store micellular particles without having the particles aggregate or fuse together with the resultant potential change in important properties. |
Respiratory failure due to retained esophagus: a complication of esophageal replacement.
Recurrent fistulas occur in about 10% of infants treated for esophageal atresia with distal tracheoesophageal fistula. Failed repair of a recurrent fistula rarely requires esophageal replacement and removal or diversion of the native esophagus. We present a patient who underwent multiple operations for recurrent tracheosophageal fistula whose native esophagus was eventually replaced with a colonic interposition graft. Over the subsequent 9 years he experienced failure to thrive, respiratory distress, and repeated pulmonary infections attributed to chronic aspiration. Eventually, he developed respiratory failure and required endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation. He became increasingly difficult to ventilate and, in spite of aggressive efforts, suffered a cardiac arrest from which he could not be resuscitated. At postmortem, a dilated blind segment of native esophagus, which was compressing and obstructing the malacic trachea, was found in the posterior mediastinum. Death was caused by massive air embolus, which was in turn attributed to the high airway pressures needed to ventilate the patient. Tracheal compression by a remnant of native esophagus should be considered in the differential diagnosis of respiratory failure after esophageal replacement. |
Q:
Passing string via pointer - incompatible argument
I'm trying to pass two strings to a function that copies the second string into the first string. Get the error messages
"passing arguement 1/2 of 'CopyStrings'from incompatible pointer type - line 25.
note: expected 'char*' but argument is of type 'char**' - line 8
Here is my code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
// a function that gets 2 strings and copies the second one into the first one
char CopyStrings(char* string1, char* string2)
{
strcpy(string1, string2);
return *string1;
}
int main()
{
char* string1 = (char*)malloc(sizeof(char)*10);
char* string2 = (char*)malloc(sizeof(char)*10);
strcpy(string1, "ugabuga");
strcpy(string2, "mukaluka");
printf("%s", CopyStrings(string1, string2));
free(string1);
free(string2);
return 0;
}
Any suggestions what I messed up and how I write the pointers correctly?
EDIT - Now that I changed
(&string1, &string2)
into
(string1, string2)
the program chrashes.
A:
You really want just
CopyStrings(string1, string2)
It's char* already, and you're making char** from it with the ampersand.
Another problem is in your function - it should be:
char* CopyStrings(char* string1, char* string2)
{
strcpy(string1, string2);
return string1;
}
(if you want to return the first string).
A:
There were several problems with the OPs code:
In the following code, most of the problems are commented (and fixed)
One thing to know, in C, an array name degrades to the address of the array try to always pass pointer to array rather than the complete array the %s conversion operator is expecting the associated parameter to be the address of a char array.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
// a function that gets 2 strings and copies the second one into the first one
char* CopyStrings(char* string1, char* string2)
{
strcpy(string1, string2);
return string1; // return pointer to string1
}
int main()
{
char* string1 = malloc(10); // char is always 1 so no need for sizeof(char)
char* string2 = malloc(10);
strcpy(string1, "ugabuga");
strcpy(string2, "mukaluka");
printf("%s\n", CopyStrings(string1, string2));
free(string1);
free(string2);
return 0;
} // end function: main
|
What's In a Name? In Iraq, Life or DeathAs sectarian violence smolders in their country, Iraqis with names that are easily recognized as Sunni Arab are changing their names in the hope of avoiding violence. Some Shiites are also adopting neutral-sounding Arabic names as a means of escaping scrutiny.
As sectarian violence smolders in their country, Iraqis with names that are easily recognized as Sunni Arab are changing their names in the hope of avoiding violence. Some Shiites are also adopting neutral-sounding Arabic names as a means of escaping scrutiny.
The fall of Saddam Hussein brought a rush of men — many of them named after Saddam or his sons — to government offices, applying to have their names changed. But now it's those with names that are clearly Shiite or clearly Sunni who are looking to have their names changed to something more neutral.
Handed down by tribal tradition, the names are an easy way to mark sectarian differences. Abu Showkat, a registry clerk at the Iraqi nationality and passports office, says some of the more common names are Omar, Abu Beker, Othman, Abdul Hussein, and Ali.
The names come from men involved in the 7th century battle over who would succeed the Prophet Mohammed, a dispute that led to the schism between Sunnis and Shiites. The Shiites believe that Ali, Mohammed's cousin or son-in-law, was his rightful heir, whereas the Sunnis believe the successor should be appointed by a council. Abu Bakr was the first appointed caliph, or successor, and Omar was the second. So today, names like Omar are typically Sunni, while Ali is typically Shiite.
Men like Omar al Tikriti, who says the de-Baathification drive has made it difficult for him to find work, say they hear stories about groups of massacred men all having the same name.
"Lately we've witnessed a phenomenon where everyone who bears the name of Omar is being killed," al Tikriti said.
He cited a television report on 16 men, all named Omar, who had been killed.
"My cousin works at the hospital in Medical City," al Tikriti said. "And he confirmed that the 16 were brought to the morgue in one day, and all of them were called Omar." |
Introduction {#Sec1}
============
Detecting objects in a scene proved to be a very difficult task, which has been investigated for a variety of applications in recent years, such as face detection, self-driving cars, medical disease detection, video surveillance, and for natural disaster protection. The convolutional neural networks (CNNs) represent the heart of state-of-the-art object detection methods. They are used for extracting features. Several CNNs are available, for instance, AlexNet, VGGNet, and ResNet. These networks are mainly used for object classification task and have evaluated on some widely used benchmarks and datasets such as ImageNet (Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). In image classification or image recognition, the classifier classifies a single object in the image, outputs a single category per image, and gives the probability of matching a class. Whereas in object detection, the model must be able to recognize several objects in a single image and provides the coordinates that identify the location of the objects. This shows that the detection of objects can be more difficult than the classification of images.Fig. 1.Examples of images from the ImageNet 2012 dataset.
Traditional object detection models tend to use methods such as Haar-Like features \[[@CR1]\], HOG \[[@CR2]\], and Scale-Invariant Feature Transform \[[@CR3]\] for extracting the features in the image. Those approaches have been based on the way we could manually design the features or the model according to our understanding. Recently it has been proven that it is more efficient to let the machine handle these tasks. And this is when the convolutional neural networks came to take control, achieving impressive successes \[[@CR4], [@CR5]\]. The present paper will be structured as follows. First, we review the leading state-of-the-art convolutional neural network architectures used in object detection. We then introduce the image datasets we have used to compare the networks along with the experiments. We further report the results of each architecture when used with state-of-the-art object detection models.
Convolutional Neural Network Backbones {#Sec2}
======================================
The selection of CNN architectures to be covered in this article is not made randomly, but according to their popularity and performance in different state of the art object detection models.
AlexNet {#Sec3}
-------
Krizhevsky et al. \[[@CR4]\] in 2012, developed a convolutional neural network composed of 8 layers, where 5 are convolutional and 3 are fully connected. The network is called AlexNet. In comparison to LeNet-5, AlexNet \[[@CR6]\] has more layers and contains around 60 million parameters. Rectified Linear Units (ReLUs) are used for the first time as activations in AlexNet instead of sigmoid and tanh activations to add non-linearity. AlexNet is used in object detection models such as R-CNN \[[@CR7]\], and HyperNet \[[@CR8]\].
VGG-16 {#Sec4}
------
In 2014 a network called VGG-16 \[[@CR9]\] was released, composed of 13 convolutional and 3 fully connected layers with ReLU activation. VGG-16 provides more layers compared to AlexNet and uses smaller filters of 2 × 2 and 3 × 3. It includes 138 million parameters. A deeper version of VGG called VGG-19 is available. VGG-16 is one of the most used architectures in object detection and achieved interesting performances; it's used for instance in algorithms like Fast R-CNN \[[@CR10]\], Faster R-CNN \[[@CR11]\], HyperNet \[[@CR8]\], RON384 \[[@CR12]\], SSD \[[@CR13]\] and RefineDet \[[@CR14]\].
GoogLeNet {#Sec5}
---------
Also called Inception V1, GoogLeNet \[[@CR15]\] is a small network developed by Szegedy et al. in 2014. Their method is different from that of VGGNet and AlexNet. They came up with a new notion known as blocks of inception, where it embeds multi-scale convolutional transformations. The inception block includes filters of varying sizes 1 × 1, 3 × 3 and 5 × 5. It employs a 1 × 1 convolution in the middle of the network to reduce dimensionality and they opted to use global average pooling instead of fully connected layers. The network is made of 22 layers with 5 million parameters. GoogLeNet mainly is used in YOLO \[[@CR16]\] object detection model.
ResNets {#Sec6}
-------
Convolutional neural networks have become more and more deeper with the addition of layers, but once the accuracy gets saturated, it quickly drops off. To solve this issue, He et al. in 2015 developed ResNets \[[@CR5]\] which are based on residuals or skip connections. They also use Batch Normalization \[[@CR17]\]. ResNets are mainly consisting of convolutional and identity blocks. There are many variants of ResNets, for instance, ResNet-34, ResNet-50 which is composed of 26 million parameters, ResNet-101 with 44 million parameters and ResNet-152 which is deeper with 152 layers. ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 are used widely in object detection models. While ResNet-50 is used in some object detection frameworks such as BlitzNet \[[@CR18]\] and RetinaNet \[[@CR19]\]. ResNet-101 is used in Faster R-CNN \[[@CR5]\], R-FCN \[[@CR20]\], and CoupleNet \[[@CR21]\], etc.
Inception-ResNet-V2 {#Sec7}
-------------------
Szegedy et al. published in 2016, Inception-ResNet-V2 \[[@CR22]\], a CNN inspired by the ResNet and based on a hybrid approach by combining Inceptions and ResNet architectures, which use residual connections as an alternative to concatenation filters. Inception-ResNet-V2 is composed of 164 deep layers and about 55 million parameters. The Inception-ResNet models have led to better accuracy performance at shorter epochs. Inception-ResNet-V2 is used in Faster R-CNN G-RMI \[[@CR23]\], and Faster R-CNN with TDM \[[@CR24]\] object detection models.
DarkNet-19 {#Sec8}
----------
A network developed to be small and efficient at the same time. It is based on many previous ideas like the Darknet reference, Network In Network \[[@CR25]\], Inception \[[@CR15], [@CR26]\] and Batch Normalization \[[@CR17]\]. Darknet-19 \[[@CR27]\] uses convolutional layers instead of fully connected layers. It is composed of 19 convolutional and 5 max-pooling layers. It uses only 3 × 3 convolutional kernels and several 1 × 1 convolutional kernel to reduce the number of parameters. DarkNet-19 is used in YOLOv2 \[[@CR27]\].
Data, Experiments and Results {#Sec9}
=============================
Data {#Sec10}
----
To assess the different CNNs mentioned above, we used several common data sets in the field of classification and object detection. First, we used the ImageNet database \[[@CR28]\], one of the largest databases available today, it contains more than 14 million images from different categories. We used ImageNet to calculate Top-1 and Top-5 accuracy rates. Afterward, we used Pascal VOC \[[@CR29]\] (2007 and 2012), and the Common Object in Context (COCO) \[[@CR30]\] dataset for the object detection purposes.
Experiments and Results {#Sec11}
-----------------------
In this section, we experiment with the CNNs mentioned in this paper along with the object detection models based on these networks under the different datasets and benchmarks. In Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}, with the exception of the DarkNet-19, all the experiments are carried out with PyTorch[1](#Fn1){ref-type="fn"}, an open-source machine learning framework and Nvidia T4 GPU. The input size resolution is 224 × 224 for all networks except for Inception-ResNet-V2 where the input size is 299 × 299. To evaluate the computational complexity of each network we use the Multiply-And-Accumulate (MAC) operation that could be considered as two separate floating-point operations (FLOPs) \[[@CR31]\]. In Table [2](#Tab2){ref-type="table"} and Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}, the detectors are trained on Pascal VOC07 trainval and Pascal VOC12 trainval. The +S suffix means that the model is trained also for segmentation and extra annotations. For the Table [4](#Tab4){ref-type="table"}, the models are trained on MS COCO trainval35k set.Table 1.Network's performance on the ImageNet 1-crop accuracy rates.NetworkParams(M)MACs(G)Top-1 accuracyTop-5 accuracyAlexNet61.1**0.72**56.5579.09VGG-16138.3615.571.5990.38GoogLeNet6.621.5269.7889.53ResNet-5025.564.1276.1592.87ResNet-10144.557.8577.3793.56Inception-ResNet-V255.8413.22**80.395.1**DarkNet-19^a^----72.991.2^a^<https://pjreddie.com/darknet/imagenet/#darknet19> Table 2.Comparative results on Pascal VOC 2007 test set (%).DetectorBackboneDatamAPHyperNet \[[@CR8]\]AlexNet07++1265.9PFPNet-R512 \[[@CR32]\]VGG-1607++1282.3YOLOv1 \[[@CR16]\]GoogLeNet07++1263.4BlitzNet512 \[[@CR18]\]ResNet-5007++12+S81.5CoupleNet \[[@CR21]\]**ResNet-101**07++12**82.7** Table 3.Comparative results on Pascal VOC 2012 test set (%).DetectorBackboneDatamAPPFPNet-R512 \[[@CR32]\]VGG-1607++1280.3YOLOv1 \[[@CR16]\]GoogLeNet07++1257.9CoupleNet \[[@CR21]\]**ResNet-101**07++12**80.4** Table 4.MS COCO test-dev 2015 detection results (%).DetectorBackboneDatamAP@.5mAP@ \[.5,.95\]PFPNet-R512 \[[@CR32]\]VGG-16trainval35k**57.6**35.2BlitzNet512 \[[@CR18]\]ResNet-50trainval35k50.932.5CoupleNet \[[@CR21]\]**ResNet-101**trainval35k57.5**36.4**Faster R-CNN G-RMI \[[@CR23]\]Inception-ResNet-V2trainval55.534.7YOLOv2 \[[@CR27]\]DarkNet-19trainval35k44.021.6
Discussion {#Sec12}
==========
In Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}, we note that the Inception-ResNet-V2 network achieved a Top-1 Accuracy of 80.3% and 95.1% in the Top-5, higher than all other networks. Both ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 perform almost as well as Inception-ResNet-V2. Whereas AlexNet had 56.5% and 79.09% in Top-1 and Top-5 respectively, the remaining networks achieved nearly similar results. From Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}, architectures based on the residual concept achieve better accuracy using a very reduced number of parameters compared to other architectures. For example, ResNet-50 has about 25 million parameters, ResNet-101 has around 44 million parameters and Inception-ResNet-v2 contains almost 55 million parameters, whereas VGG-16 has more than 138 million parameters. Although AlexNet and Inception-Resnet-V2 have a very similar number of parameters, the accuracy and number of MACs are much lower in AlexNet compared to Inception-Resnet-V2. Table [2](#Tab2){ref-type="table"} clearly shows that in object detection the networks with the best performance are VGG and ResNets. ResNet-101 with CoupleNet, ResNet-50 with BlitzNet512 and PFPNet-R512 with VGG-16 performed an accuracy of 82.7%, 81.5%, and 82.3% respectively in the Pascal VOC 2007 test set. In Pascal VOC 2012, Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"} indicates that PFPNet-R512 with VGG-16 and CoupleNet with ResNet-101 achieved an accuracy of 80.3% and 80.4% respectively, while YOLOv1 with GoogLeNet achieved only an accuracy of 57.9%. For MS COCO we notice that the models based on VGG-16, ResNet-101 and Inception-ResNet-V2 achieved interesting results which are 57.6%, 57.5% and 55.5% respectively for mAP@.5, and 35.2%, 36.4% and 34.7% for the mAP@ \[.5,.95\]. While YOLOv2 with DarkNet-19 produced a mAP@.5 of 44% and a mAP@ \[.5,.95\] of 21.6%. According to the results obtained, we could mention the networks contributing to the highest performance in object detection are VGG-16, the ResNets family and also Inception-ResNets-v2, which combines the Inception and ResNets networks. This explains the wide use of these architectures in different object-detector models.
The following Table [5](#Tab5){ref-type="table"} shows the main features added for each architecture to improve the performance.Table 5.Main added features in the CNNs.NetworkWhat's Novel?AlexNet- Apply Rectified Linear Units (ReLU) to add non-linearityVGG-16- Deep network, approximately twice as deep as AlexNetGoogLeNet- Using dense modules as opposed to stacking convolutional layersResNets- Using batch normalization and skip connectionsInception-ResNet-V2- Using residual inception blocks instead of inception modules- Adding the inception module (Inception-A) after the stem module- Using more inception modulesDarkNet-19- Combine Darknet extraction, Network In Network, Inception and Batch Normalization in a single model
Conclusion {#Sec13}
==========
In this paper, we studied the state-of-the-art CNNs for object detection. We devoted the study to networks that have achieved remarkable performance. We outlined the datasets used for testing the CNNs as well as the object detection models. We compared those networks and models on multiple benchmarks and datasets. We report that the application of convolutional neural networks in object detection has given impressive state-of-the-art results.
<https://pytorch.org/>.
This work is carried out with the support of the 'Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST)' of Morocco, through the Research Excellence Awards Program 2019.
|
Infection of man with Trichuris vulpis, the whipworm of dogs.
A gravid female Trichuris was found in histopathologic sections of an appendix in a post-mortem examination, and a posterior extremity of a male Trichuris was recovered from the unsectioned portion of the same appendix. These parasites were identified as T. vulpis, the whipworm of dogs. |
Q:
(?:\d[ -]*?){13,16} - confused with the priority that is given in matching the pattern to the given regex
I'm confused why this pattern captures 4564-1234-4325-2146, even though it has 19 digits including '-'
The above pattern only captures 4564-1234435-2146-8
leaves the last hyphen and the digit 8
A:
It captures 13-16 digits, each followed by zero or more spaces or dashes (the [ -]*?). In other words, the {13,16} applies to the entire group (?:\d[ -]*?). So, it could capture, for example, 1--2-3--4-5-6 7-----8-9-0-1-2-3-4-5-6-. In your sample case, it captures these 16 chunks:
4
5
6
4-
1
2
3
4-
4
3
2
5-
2
1
4
6
|
/* Copyright (c) 2008-2020 the MRtrix3 contributors.
*
* This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
* License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
* file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.
*
* Covered Software is provided under this License on an "as is"
* basis, without warranty of any kind, either expressed, implied, or
* statutory, including, without limitation, warranties that the
* Covered Software is free of defects, merchantable, fit for a
* particular purpose or non-infringing.
* See the Mozilla Public License v. 2.0 for more details.
*
* For more details, see http://www.mrtrix.org/.
*/
#ifndef __dwi_tractography_connectome_extract_h__
#define __dwi_tractography_connectome_extract_h__
#include "file/ofstream.h"
#include "dwi/tractography/file.h"
#include "dwi/tractography/properties.h"
#include "dwi/tractography/connectome/connectome.h"
#include "dwi/tractography/connectome/exemplar.h"
namespace MR {
namespace DWI {
namespace Tractography {
namespace Connectome {
class Selector
{ MEMALIGN(Selector)
public:
Selector (const node_t node, const bool keep_self = true) :
list (1, node),
exact_match (false),
keep_self (keep_self) { }
Selector (const node_t node_one, const node_t node_two) :
exact_match (true),
keep_self (true) { list.push_back (node_one); list.push_back (node_two); }
Selector (const vector<node_t>& node_list, const bool both, const bool keep_self = false) :
list (node_list),
exact_match (both),
keep_self (keep_self) { }
Selector (const Selector& that) :
list (that.list), exact_match (that.exact_match), keep_self (that.keep_self) { }
Selector (Selector&& that) :
list (std::move (that.list)), exact_match (that.exact_match), keep_self (that.keep_self) { }
bool operator() (const node_t) const;
bool operator() (const NodePair&) const;
bool operator() (const node_t one, const node_t two) const { return (*this) (NodePair (one, two)); }
bool operator() (const vector<node_t>&) const;
private:
vector<node_t> list;
bool exact_match, keep_self;
};
class WriterExemplars
{ MEMALIGN(WriterExemplars)
public:
WriterExemplars (const Tractography::Properties&, const vector<node_t>&, const bool, const node_t, const vector<Eigen::Vector3f>&);
bool operator() (const Tractography::Connectome::Streamline_nodepair&);
bool operator() (const Tractography::Connectome::Streamline_nodelist&);
void finalize();
void write (const node_t, const node_t, const std::string&, const std::string&);
void write (const node_t, const std::string&, const std::string&);
void write (const std::string&, const std::string&);
private:
float step_size;
vector<Selector> selectors;
vector<Exemplar> exemplars;
};
class WriterExtraction
{ MEMALIGN(WriterExtraction)
public:
WriterExtraction (const Tractography::Properties&, const vector<node_t>&, const bool, const bool);
void add (const node_t, const std::string&, const std::string);
void add (const node_t, const node_t, const std::string&, const std::string);
void add (const vector<node_t>&, const std::string&, const std::string);
void clear();
bool operator() (const Connectome::Streamline_nodepair&) const;
bool operator() (const Connectome::Streamline_nodelist&) const;
size_t file_count() const { return writers.size(); }
private:
const Tractography::Properties& properties;
const vector<node_t>& node_list;
const bool exclusive;
const bool keep_self;
vector< Selector > selectors;
vector< std::unique_ptr< Tractography::WriterUnbuffered<float> > > writers;
Tractography::Streamline<> empty_tck;
};
}
}
}
}
#endif
|
Nitric oxide improves pulmonary vascular impedance, transpulmonary efficiency, and left ventricular filling in chronic pulmonary hypertension.
Chronic pulmonary hypertension is difficult to treat and despite the introduction of several therapeutic options, no single therapy is universally recommended. Nitric oxide has had some role clinically in improving pulmonary hemodynamics in this setting; however, basic investigation has not been performed in an appropriate large animal model of stable pulmonary hypertension. This study was designed to examine the effects of inhaled nitric oxide on pulmonary hemodynamics in the setting of a canine model of monocrotaline pyrrole-induced chronic pulmonary hypertension and used Fourier analysis for assessment of pulmonary vascular impedance. Sixteen mongrel dogs (22 to 25 kg) were used. Animals underwent percutaneous pulmonary artery catheterization to measure-right-sided hemodynamics before and 6 weeks after a right atrial injection of either monocrotaline pyrrole (n = 8) or placebo (n = 8). Six weeks after the injection all hearts were instrumented with an ultrasonic flow probe, sonomicrometric dimension transducers, and micromanometers. Data were collected at baseline and after nitric oxide administration. Harmonic derivation of functional data was achieved with Fourier analysis. Six weeks after the injection, significant increases in pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance were observed in the monocrotaline pyrrole group. Nitric oxide led to significant decreases in pulmonary vascular impedance. Significant improvements in pulmonary blood flow, transpulmonary efficiency, and left ventricular filling were also observed. This investigation demonstrates the well-known clinical effects of nitric oxide in improving pulmonary hypertension, which were also associated with an increase in pulmonary blood flow, transpulmonary efficiency, and left ventricular filling in the setting of monocrotaline pyrrole-induced pulmonary hypertension. |
Q:
SymmetricDS: Database System Design
I need some advices, I want to build the database system like this using SymmetricDS.
The Orange Box is a PC that sync 1 API Database and 1 APP Database.
The Grey Box is multiple-PC that sync each API Database.
The idea is I want to make the system can handle multiple APP, so I need create API Database that synced with other API Database.
And also I need create APP Database that synced with local API Database independently (using transformation table and column).
So there is 2 SymmetricDS instances, 1 between each API System, and 1 between APP and API System.
Is that good to make separate 2 SymmetricDS instances? Or just 1 for all? Or is there other recommendation design?
Thank you.
A:
one symmetricds instance can sync multiple databases. so, one instance per location. i.e., one symmetricds in the central hub, and one per local
|
The relationship of phonological awareness, rapid naming, and verbal memory to severe reading and spelling disability.
The present study examined the relationship of phonological awareness, naming speed, and verbal memory to the scores obtained from five tests assessing word attack, word identification, reading comprehension, and spelling skills in 54 children with severe reading disabilities (48 boys and 6 girls; M age = 9 years, 7 months). Multiple regression analyses indicated that the best predictor of achievement across the five academic tests was the Verbal Comprehension factor from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. Age, socioeconomic status (SES), and externalizing behavior problems were also significant predictors of achievement, depending on the academic measure. After controlling for age, SES, behavior problems, and intelligence, the phonological awareness task added significantly to the prediction of word attack, spelling, and reading comprehension scores; rapid letter naming added significantly to the prediction of word identification and prose passage speed and accuracy scores; and a word-list memory task added significantly to the prediction of word recognition scores. These results suggest that several independent processes interact to determine the extent and severity of reading problems. |
Q:
Worry in the backoffice of my module undefined index prestashop
I developed a prestashop module, when I am in the backoffice of my module, I have many with errors:
Notice à la ligne 30 du fichier
C:\xampp2\htdocs\projet_presta\app\cache\dev\smarty\compile\86\1c\1c\861c1cb1906b13002a1460e54203e8a370598366.file.displayContent.tpl.php
[8] Undefined index: avisnote Notice à la ligne 30 du fichier
C:\xampp2\htdocs\projet_presta\app\cache\dev\smarty\compile\86\1c\1c\861c1cb1906b13002a1460e54203e8a370598366.file.displayContent.tpl.php
[8] Trying to get property of non-object
in my module avisnote.php file:
public function displayContent()
{
$avisnote = Db::getInstance()->executeS('SELECT * FROM `'._DB_PREFIX_.'avisnote` LIMIT 1');
print_r($avisnote);
foreach ($avisnote as $row)
{
$file = $row['url'];
$state = $row['etat'];
}
if(isset($fileContent) && !empty($fileContent))
{
$fileContent = file_get_contents($file, NULL, NULL);
$var_sep = explode(";", $fileContent);
$nb_avis = $var_sep[0];
$note = $var_sep[1];
$this->context->$smarty->assign('avisnote',
array('nb_avis' => $nb_avis,
'note'=>$note,
'etat'=>$state));
}
return $this->display(__FILE__,'views/templates/hook/displayContent.tpl');
}
the paths of my files:
avisnote.php : Modules/avisnote/
displayContent.tpl : Modules/avisnote/views/templates/hook/
displayContent.tpl:
<p></p>
<div itemprop="itemreviewed" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate">
<span itemprop="itemreviewed">Mywebsite</span> <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"> <span itemprop="average">{$avisnote.note}</span> sur <span itemprop="best">5</span> </span>
<br />basé sur <span itemprop="votes">{$avisnote.nb_avis}</span> avis Avis Vérifiés</div>
</div>
A:
You have at least 2 errors in your code.
First you check if isset($fileContent) then use the variable $file. Second, you have $this->context->$smarty ... Your code fixed should be more like:
public function displayContent()
{
$avisnote = Db::getInstance()->executeS('SELECT * FROM `'._DB_PREFIX_.'avisnote` LIMIT 1');
print_r($avisnote);
foreach ($avisnote as $row)
{
$file = $row['url'];
$state = $row['etat'];
}
$nb_avis = $note = $state = '';
if(isset($file) && !empty($file))
{
$fileContent = file_get_contents($file, NULL, NULL);
$var_sep = explode(";", $fileContent);
$nb_avis = $var_sep[0];
$note = $var_sep[1];
}
$this->context->smarty->assign('avisnote',
array('nb_avis' => $nb_avis,
'note'=>$note,
'etat'=>$state));
return $this->display(__FILE__,'views/templates/hook/displayContent.tpl');
}
|
open Core_kernel
open Bap.Std
module type Corpus = sig
type t
type key
val look : t -> length:int -> int -> key option
end
module type S = sig
type t [@@deriving bin_io, sexp]
type key
type corpus
val create : unit -> t
val train : t -> max_length:int -> (key -> bool) -> corpus -> unit
val length : t -> int
val next : t ->
length:int ->
threshold:float ->
corpus -> int -> int option
val pp : Format.formatter -> t -> unit
end
module Make
(Corpus : Corpus)
(Trie : Trie.S with type key = Corpus.key) = struct
module Bin = struct
type t = (int * int) Trie.t [@@deriving bin_io, sexp]
end
type t = Bin.t [@@deriving bin_io, sexp]
type corpus = Corpus.t
type key = Corpus.key
let create = Trie.create
let pp_pair fmt (x,y) = Format.fprintf fmt "(%d,%d)" x y
let pp = Trie.pp pp_pair
let train ~max_length test set pass trie =
let rec outer = function
| 0 -> ()
| n -> inner n 0
and inner length m = match Corpus.look set ~length m,pass with
| None,_ -> outer (length - 1)
| Some s, `Pos when test s ->
Trie.change trie s (function
| None -> Some (1,0)
| Some (a,b) -> Some (a+1,b));
inner length (m+1)
| Some s, `Neg ->
Trie.change trie s (function
| Some (m,n) when not(test s) -> Some (m,n+1)
| x -> x);
inner length (m+1)
| _ -> inner length (m+1) in
outer max_length
let train trie ~max_length test set =
train ~max_length test set `Pos trie;
train ~max_length test set `Neg trie
let test ~threshold trie key =
match Trie.longest_match trie key with
| None -> false
| Some (_,(a,b)) ->
let n = a + b in
Float.(of_int a / of_int n > threshold)
let next_if (trie : t) ~length ~f set n =
let open Option.Monad_infix in
let rec loop n =
Corpus.look set ~length n >>= fun key ->
match Trie.longest_match trie key with
| None -> loop (n+1)
| Some (len,stats) ->
if f key len stats
then Some n
else loop (n+1) in
loop n
let next trie ~length ~threshold set n =
next_if trie ~length set n ~f:(fun _ _ (a,b) ->
let n = a + b in
Float.(of_int a / of_int n > threshold))
let length = Trie.length
end
module Make2
(Corpus : Corpus)
(Trie : Trie.V2.S with type key = Corpus.key) = struct
include Make(Corpus)(Trie)
type token = Trie.token
let fold = Trie.fold
end
module Bytes = struct
include Make2(struct
type t = mem
type key = mem
let create mem = mem
let look mem ~length n =
let from = Addr.(Memory.min_addr mem ++ n) in
match Memory.view ~from ~words:length mem with
| Ok mem -> Some mem
| _ -> None
end)(Memory.Trie.Stable.V1.R8)
let find bw ~length ~threshold mem =
let start = Memory.min_addr mem in
let rec loop acc n =
match next bw ~length ~threshold mem n with
| Some n -> loop (Addr.(start ++ n) :: acc) (n+1)
| None -> List.rev acc in
loop [] 0
let find_if bw ~length ~f mem =
let start = Memory.min_addr mem in
let rec loop acc n =
match next_if bw ~length ~f mem n with
| Some n -> loop (Addr.(start ++ n) :: acc) (n+1)
| None -> List.rev acc in
loop [] 0
let p1 m n = float m /. float (m + n)
and p0 m n = float n /. float (m + n)
let find_using_bayes_factor sigs ~min_length ~max_length threshold =
let (s1,s0) = fold sigs ~init:(0,0) ~f:(fun (s1,s0) key (h1,h0) ->
let length = List.length key in
if length >= min_length && length <= max_length then
h1 + s1, h0 + s0
else s1,s0) in
let ph1 = float s1 /. float (s1 + s0) in
let ph0 = 1. -. ph1 in
let ratio m n =
let r = p1 m n /. p0 m n
and q = ph1 /. ph0 in
r *. q in
find_if sigs ~length:max_length ~f:(fun _ length (h1,h0) ->
length >= min_length &&
Float.(ratio h1 h0 > threshold))
let find_using_threshold sigs ~min_length ~max_length threshold =
find_if sigs ~length:max_length ~f:(fun _ length (h1,h0) ->
length >= min_length &&
Float.(p1 h1 h0 > threshold))
let pp_byte ppf x =
Format.fprintf ppf "%02x" @@ Word.to_int_exn x
let pp ppf t = fold t ~init:() ~f:(fun () words (a,b) ->
let p1h1 = float a /. float (a+b) in
Format.fprintf ppf "%-8d %-8d %-8d %.4f " (a+b) a b p1h1;
List.iter words ~f:(Format.fprintf ppf "%a" pp_byte);
Format.fprintf ppf "@\n");
end
type stats = int * int
module V1 = struct
module type S = S
module Make = Make
end
module V2 = struct
module type S = sig
include V1.S
type token
val next_if : t -> length:int -> f:(key -> int -> stats -> bool) -> corpus ->
int -> int option
val fold : t -> init:'b -> f:('b -> token list -> stats -> 'b) -> 'b
end
module Make = Make2
end
module Stats = struct
type t = stats
let trials (a,b) = a + b
let h1 = fst
let h0 = snd
end
|
Following an MS episode, recovery involves the resolving of inflammation and remyelination. However, other processes, such as functional cortical network changes, may also have a role to play.^[@R1]^ Whether such changes are driven by the specific neurologic deficit experienced by the patient or by the underlying disease pathophysiology and are they specific to certain regions are questions that remain unanswered.
The visual system is a suitable model to address this. Although optic neuritis (ON) is a shared neurologic deficit of both MS and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), 2 distinct CNS inflammatory diseases, in patients with MS, the same underlying pathophysiology may or may not involve the optic nerve.^[@R2],[@R3]^
NMOSD and MS differ in their pathophysiologic mechanisms: while in MS, demyelination is the primary damage mechanism; in NMOSD, it is secondary to astrocytopathy, and thus the damage is considered more severe.^[@R4]^ Furthermore, as NMOSD is antibody mediated, it is more localized to regions containing the antibody target (aquaporin-4).^[@R5]^ These differences in severity and damage distribution suggest that cortical network changes following ON may differ in the 2 disease types.
Moreover, our previous works have emphasized the importance of activity along the visual dorsal stream in patients with ON,^[@R6][@R7][@R10]^ but our works on connectivity have used whole-network resolution.^[@R10],[@R11]^ Therefore, to examine whether there are specific connectivity changes within the visual network, we herein used graph theory methods,^[@R12],[@R13]^ focusing on its regional measures to pinpoint which visual regions are more affected.
Methods {#s1}
=======
Participants {#s1-1}
------------
Sixty-two patients were prospectively recruited into this cross-sectional study at the NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, including 18 patients with ON in context of clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), 21 patients with CIS with nonvisual episodes (CIS--nonoptic neuritis \[nON\]), and 23 patients with NMOSD and previous ON. Since enrollment in the study, 3 patients with CIS-ON and 5 patients with CIS-nON have been diagnosed with early relapsing-remitting MS according to the 2010 revised McDonald criteria.^[@R14]^ Patients with NMOSD met the international consensus diagnostic criteria for NMOSD.^[@R15]^ In addition, 26 healthy controls (HCs) were also recruited ([table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"}). Data from these cohorts have been previously published.^[@R10],[@R16],[@R17]^
######
Study cohort description
Standard protocol approvals, registrations, and patient consents {#s1-2}
----------------------------------------------------------------
The study was approved by the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin ethics committee and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.^[@R18]^ Written informed consent was obtained for each participant.
Data acquisition and analysis {#s1-3}
-----------------------------
MRI data were acquired on a 3T scanner (Magnetom Trio; Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) using a 12-channel head coil. Anatomic sequences included high-resolution T1-weighted images (MPRAGE sequence, repetition time \[TR\]/echo time \[TE\] = 1,900/3.03 ms, field-of-view \[FOV\] 256 × 256 mm^2^, matrix 256 × 256, 176 slices, slice thickness 1 mm) and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)-weighted images. 3D FLAIR images (3D FLAIR/TE/TR = 6,000/2,100/388 ms, FOV 240 × 240 mm^2^, matrix 240 × 240, 176 slices, slice thickness 1 mm) of all patients were checked and verified for T2 lesions by 3 expert raters under the supervision of a board-certified radiologist. Whole-brain segmentation and quantification of lesions of FLAIR images were performed using ITK-SNAP ([itksnap.org](http://www.itksnap.org)).^[@R19]^ Further lesion analysis was performed using the mrVista software package (VISTA Lab, Stanford University).
Resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI) measurements were obtained with an echo-planar imaging sequence (TR/TE = 2,250/30 ms, FOV = 218 × 218 mm^2^, matrix 64 × 64, 37 slices, slice thickness 3.4 mm, sequence duration 9 minutes). Subjects were instructed to lie still with their eyes closed. Functional imaging data preprocessing and analysis were performed using the BrainVoyager software package, version 20.6 (Brain Innovation). Data underwent slice scan time correction, motion correction, and high-pass temporal filtering by BrainVoyager default parameters to remove drift and improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Functional images were coregistered to the anatomic images using trilinear interpolation and transformed into Montreal Neurological Institute space. Each participant\'s scan was verified to include the entire brain, with particular attention to the occipital lobe. Each scan was manually checked for quality.
Network construction {#s1-4}
--------------------
Complex network analysis is based on graph theory, a mathematical approach to networks. Briefly, the method requires definition of brain regions as nodes and the search for connections, or edges, between those nodes. These connections, anatomic or functional, can then be thresholded and binarized into connectivity matrices, representing the existence or lack of connection between any 2 nodes in the network. From these matrices, various measures can be extracted to quantify network topology and organization ([figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}).
![Visualization of the translation process from atlas to brain network\
(A) Original Wang et al.^[@R20]^ atlas as transformed into BrainVoyager. (B) Creating thresholded and binarized matrices representing all the connections in both hemispheres. (C) A visual network graph representation (healthy control group).](NEURIMMINFL2019024729f1){#F1}
Visual network node definition {#s1-5}
------------------------------
As we focus in our studies on the visual system, visual network nodes were defined using the probabilistic atlas of Wang et al.,^[@R20]^ created in Montreal Neurological Institute space and used in visual system--related studies,^[@R21][@R22][@R24]^ which afforded us the level of detail we needed. The constructed networks included 50 regions of interest (ROIs) (25 per hemisphere, 8 ventral-temporal regions, 9 dorsal-lateral regions, and 8 parietal-frontal regions, [figure 2A](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, table e-1A, [links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)), each representing a node. Because of the variety in ROI sizes, wishing to minimize bias of variations in ROI size on estimates of connectivity and signal-to-noise ratio differences, the ROIs were arbitrarily constricted to a set size of 5 × 5 × 5 voxels, positioned at the center of each atlas-defined ROI. The specific size was set so that all constricted regions would be within the borders of their respective original ROIs.
![Regions of interest (ROIs) used\
(A) Visual network ROIs, color coded according to classification in Wang et al.^[@R20]^---ventral-temporal (red), dorsal-lateral (blue), and parietal-frontal (green). (B) Motor network ROIs. Visualization created using Xia M, et al.^[@R55]^ d = dorsal; FEF = frontal eye field; hMT = human middle temporal region; hV4 = human visual region V4; IFG = inferior frontal gyrus; IPS = intraparietal sulcus; LO = lateral occipital cortex; M1 = primary motor cortex; MST = medial superior temporal area; PO = pars opercularis; PT = pars triangularis; SMA = supplementary motor area; SPL = superior parietal lobule; v = ventral; VO = ventral occipital cortex; V1 = primary visual cortex; V2 = secondary visual cortex; V3 = visual area V3.](NEURIMMINFL2019024729f2){#F2}
Motor network node definition {#s1-6}
-----------------------------
In addition to the visual network, we wished to examine whether similar changes to those in the visual network of patients with ON may also be found in other networks in patients with corresponding CIS episodes. As many of the patients with CIS-nON have experienced motor symptoms, the motor network was also defined, based on the Harvard-Oxford cortical and subcortical structural atlas, included in FMRIB Software Library,^[@R25]^ and on several motor network--related studies.^[@R26][@R27][@R28]^ The constructed networks included 12 ROIs (6 per hemisphere, [figure 2B](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, table e-1B, [links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)). The selected ROIs were pure motor regions to provide us with a clean cutoff between networks and participants and no overlap existed between the 2 networks used. ROIs were constricted to 125 voxels, as in the visual network. Because of the variety of CIS episodes included in the CIS-nON group, for the motor network analyses, we have further divided the CIS-nON group into patients with motor symptoms (CIS-nON-motor, n = 10) and with other nonmotor symptoms, mainly sensory (CIS-nON-other, n = 11).
Matrix preparation {#s1-7}
------------------
The average RS-fMRI time course of all voxels within each ROI was extracted, and Pearson correlation coefficients, representing connectivity strength between regions, were calculated between each pair of ROIs in each hemisphere, resulting in two 25 × 25 hemispheric visual matrices for each subject and two 6 × 6 motor matrices. Each correlation matrix was thresholded and binarized at a range of correlation thresholds (0.1--0.5 for the visual network and 0.1--0.2 for the motor network, at increments of 0.05). The highest correlation threshold was set as the last threshold in which all subjects still had any connection between ROIs. Four patients with CIS-ON and 2 patients with CIS-nON did not have connections in the highest threshold of the motor network. Analyses have been performed with and without these patients, and no significant differences were found.
Network analysis {#s1-8}
----------------
Both local and global network properties were studied using the MATLAB Brain Connectivity Toolbox.^[@R12]^ Here, we briefly list the network analysis metrics chosen to characterize the networks. All parameters were integrated over the various thresholds used to create a single value for analysis. Graphs presenting the metrics used over the entire range of correlation thresholds are presented in figure e-1 ([links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)). It should be noted that most metrics chosen could not be used in the motor network because of the small number of regions used and the largely disconnected networks obtained.
Basic network topology analysis {#s1-9}
-------------------------------
To characterize the general structure of the network in the local (nodal) level, the nodal degree of the various ROIs was explored. The group mean degree of each given ROI was compared between groups to examine changes following ON and verify whether any region or subdivision of regions showed greater change. Network density, the proportion of existing connections in the network out of all possible connections, based on the entire network\'s degree, was also calculated and compared to examine the global network differences between groups.
Global network analysis {#s1-10}
-----------------------
To examine the topological organization of the studied networks, 6 global network metrics were explored. Because this study explored only nodes within the visual system, we were interested in seeing whether small-worldness, a ubiquitous trait reported in brain networks, also exists within the visual network. To that end, we included 4 parameters used to calculate small-worldness---clustering coefficient *C*~*p*~, harmonic mean of shortest path lengths *L*~*p*~, and their normalized counterparts. These were defined as in [@R29]. A typical small-world network should exhibit γ \> 1 and λ ≈ 1. The harmonic mean was chosen, rather than the more commonly used characteristic path length, because most of the networks in our study are at least partially disconnected and therefore have infinite characteristic path length.^[@R31]^
To examine segregation and integration within the visual network, we first looked at the 2 efficiency metrics, the global and local efficiency parameters. Global efficiency is the reciprocal of the harmonic mean, thought to represent how efficiently information is exchanged within the network. Local (or nodal) efficiency is defined for the single node, localizing global efficiency effects to specific nodes, giving a measure of how well that region is integrated within the network.^[@R32]^
To further examine segregation and integration, we also calculated modularity.^[@R33]^ This measure of network segregation quantifies the degree to which the network may be subdivided into nonoverlapping groups of ROIs, which are densely interconnected within and sparsely connected without.
Statistical analysis {#s1-11}
--------------------
Data were examined for normality using QQ-plots and Shapiro-Wilk tests. The results variables were non-normally distributed, and thus, for univariate comparisons between groups, we used the Kruskal-Wallis test. To assess the independent effect of group designation on the result variables, after checking compliance with model assumptions, multivariate linear models were built using age, sex, and Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score as covariates. Statistical significance was assessed at *p* \< 0.05 level. To control the false discovery rate, multiple comparison correction was performed using the Benjamini-Hochberg method. All calculations were performed using R version 3.5.1 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria).
Data availability {#s1-12}
-----------------
The data sets generated for this study are available on request from the corresponding author.
Results {#s2}
=======
Research cohort characteristics {#s2-1}
-------------------------------
A summary of demographic and clinical measures is presented in [table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"}. Differences were found in age, disease duration, and EDSS score between the 2 CIS groups and the HC and NMOSD groups (*p* \< 0.01 for all comparisons). Male/female ratios were also different between those groups. Therefore, age, sex, and EDSS score were added as covariates to all analyses and were found to have no effect on the results. Disease duration was not included as a covariate because it was highly correlated with age of patients (*p* = 0.007). Visual acuity did not significantly differ between any of the groups and therefore was not included as covariate, either.
No significant differences were found in lesion number, volume, or specific location in the 3 patient groups. No significant differences were found between hemispheres in any of the metrics. However, significant results between groups were more pronounced in the left hemisphere, and therefore, only these results are presented. For the motor network, significant results were found only in the right hemisphere, and those are the results presented. Results for the unpresented hemispheres can be seen in the supplemental materials ([links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)).
Visual network results {#s2-2}
----------------------
### Small-worldness apparent in visual networks {#s2-2-1}
By the criteria defined for small-worldness, the healthy visual network appears to display a small-world structure. All the participants in the HC group have shown properties within the criteria (λ values were nearly 1 in all participants and thresholds; γ values were mostly higher than 1, barring a few inconsistent exceptions). The same was shown in the patient groups, excluding 1 patient with CIS-ON and 1 patient with CIS-nON who failed to meet the γ \> 1 criterion. To verify whether this deviation from criteria somehow influences our group results, analyses were performed with and without these patients, and no significant differences were found, so both were included in the results. The small-world criteria curves for each group are presented in figure e-2 ([links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)).
### Basic network topology patterns {#s2-2-2}
[Figure 3](#F3){ref-type="fig"} presents a visualization of the visual network for the 4 groups. The normal network displayed by the HC cohort ([figure 3A](#F3){ref-type="fig"}) appears to be more connected than all 3 patient groups ([figure 3, B--D](#F3){ref-type="fig"}) in all 3 region subdivisions (ventral-temporal in red, dorsal-lateral in blue, and parietal-frontal in green). The NMOSD group ([figure 3B](#F3){ref-type="fig"}) and the CIS-ON group ([figure 3C](#F3){ref-type="fig"}) are quite similar in appearance and better connected than the CIS-nON group ([figure 3D](#F3){ref-type="fig"}), which displays the highest disconnection.
![Visualization of the visual system for the 4 subject groups\
Considered at correlation threshold *r* = 0.5, shown in the coronal (back view, top), sagittal (lateral left hemisphere view, middle), and axial (dorsal view, bottom) planes. Nodes (regions of interest) are color coded according to their classification in Wang et al.^[@R20]^---ventral-temporal (red), dorsal-lateral (blue), and parietal-frontal (green). The size of nodes reflects the relative degree of a given region in the network. Disconnected regions are presented using an arbitrarily selected size for visualization purposes. Visualization created using [@R55]. CIS = clinically isolated syndrome; NMOSD = neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder; nON = nonoptic neuritis; ON = optic neuritis.](NEURIMMINFL2019024729f3){#F3}
This connectivity pattern, according to which: HCs \> NMOSD ∼ CIS-ON \> CIS-nON, is seen globally using the density metric. HC density (0.28 ± 0.09) is higher than CIS-nON density (0.19 ± 0.1, *p* = 0.0009), and it is higher, though not significantly so, than the density of the CIS-ON group (0.22 ± 0.1, *p* = 0.05). The NMOSD group (0.24 ± 0.1) density was higher than that of the CIS-nON group, but not significantly so (*p* = 0.06). No significant differences were found between the CIS-ON and NMOSD groups or between the NMOSD and HC groups.
The mean degree of the HC group was significantly higher than that of the CIS-nON group in all visual regions, although not all survived multiple comparison correction. Most surviving comparisons were in low-order and dorsal-lateral regions (lower-ventral: V1v and V2v; lower-dorsal: V1d, V2d, and V3d; dorsal-lateral: MST, hMT, and V3b; frontal-parietal: IPS0, IPS1, and IPS2).
In addition, the pattern found using the density metric, by which HCs \> NMOSD ∼ CIS-ON \> CIS-nON, exists mostly in the dorsal-lateral region subdivision. The ventral-temporal subdivision (excluding the very early regions, V1v and V2v) generally shows no significant differences between groups. The parietal-frontal subdivision shows either no significant differences between groups at all (IPS3, IPS4, and IPS5) or a pattern where the 2 CIS groups show no difference between them but lower mean degree than both the HC and NMOSD groups (SPL1, frontal eye field \[FEF\], *p* = 0.06). [Figure 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"} shows an example from each subdivision, displaying the emerging patterns. The average degrees for each ROI can be found in table e-2 ([links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)).
{#F4}
### Network segregation and integration patterns {#s2-2-3}
All segregation and integration metrics reveal connectivity differences unlike those for the basic network topology, showing a pattern by which HC ∼ NMOSD \> CIS-ON ∼ CIS-nON. This is in contrast to the basic topology pattern (achieved using the degree and density metrics), which highlighted the similarity in topology in different diseases sharing the same neurologic deficit (HC \> NMOSD ∼ CIS-ON \> CIS-nON).
Modularity results ([figure 5A](#F5){ref-type="fig"}) show differences between the HC and CIS-nON groups (0.39 ± 0.05 and 0.3 ± 0.08, respectively, *p* = 0.004), as well as between the NMOSD (0.37 ± 0.05) and CIS-nON groups (*p* = 0.016), but no significant differences between the HC and NMOSD groups. The modularity result of the CIS-ON group (0.33 ± 0.09) is not significantly different from any of the other groups but is quantitatively closer to the CIS-nON group.
{#F5}
The harmonized mean of the characteristic path length ([figure 5B](#F5){ref-type="fig"}) shows a difference between the HC and CIS-nON groups (0.75 ± 0.44 and 2.56 ± 2.91, respectively, *p* = 0.01). Although the difference between the CIS-nON and NMOSD groups (0.83 ± 0.37, *p* = 0.087) is not significant, the NMOSD group displays a shorter path length. The harmonized mean of the CIS-ON group (2.11 ± 2.79) was not significantly different from any of the groups, and no significant difference was found between the HC and NMOSD groups.
Similarly, global efficiency ([figure 5C](#F5){ref-type="fig"}) shows change between the HC and CIS-nON groups (0.35 and 0.25, respectively, *p* = 0.008). Again, no significant difference was found between the NMOSD (0.31) and CIS-nON groups (*p* = 0.093), but the NMOSD group quantitatively shows higher efficiency. The CIS-ON group once again shows no significant differences (0.28) from any group, but is between the NMOSD and CIS-nON groups in terms of global efficiency.
Local efficiency showed similar results with differences found between the CIS-nON group and the HC and NMOSD groups, though mostly in high-order regions, particularly in the dorsal-lateral and parietal-frontal region subdivisions (lower-ventral: V1v, CIS-nON vs HCs only; lower-dorsal: V3d; dorsal-lateral: MST, hMT, V3a CIS-nON vs HCs only, LO1, LO2, V3b CIS-nON vs HCs and NMOSD; frontal-parietal: IPS3, IPS4, IPS5, SPL1 vs HCs only, IPS2, FEF vs HCs and NMOSD; regions V3b, IPS3, IPS5 have also shown significant differences between HCs and CIS-ON). Details on local efficiency for each ROI can be seen in table e-3 ([links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)).
Motor network results {#s2-3}
---------------------
Differences between groups were found using the degree metric in the motor putamen, between the HC group, which was most connected (0.54), and all patient groups (CIS-ON, 0.28; CIS-nON-motor, 0.225; CIS-nON-other 0.28; *p* \< 0.01 for all) except for the NMOSD group (0.38; *p* = 0.1 after multiple comparison correction). No significant differences were found between any patient groups.
In the pars opercularis (inferior frontal gyrus--pars opercularis), differences were found between the CIS-nON-motor group (0.25) and the HC (0.57; *p* = 0.004) and NMOSD (0.49; *p* = 0.03) groups. Density and global efficiency metrics also show differences between the HC group and the CIS-nON-motor group (density: HCs, 0.12; CIS-nON-motor, 0.07; *p* = 0.005; efficiency: HCs, 0.14; CIS-nON-motor, 0.09; *p* = 0.001). Density also shows difference between the HC group and the CIS-ON group (0.11; *p* = 0.04). Other comparisons did not survive correction, but surprisingly the general pattern remains here, similarly to the visual network: HCs \> NMOSD \> CIS-ON ∼ CIS-nON-other \> CIS-nON-motor. Results are presented in figure e-3 ([links.lww.com/NXI/A207](http://links.lww.com/NXI/A207)).
Discussion {#s3}
==========
In this study, we addressed visual cortical network patterns in inflammatory diseases following ON. To that end, we included 2 prototypic autoimmune CNS diseases with distinct underlying pathophysiology, MS and NMOSD.^[@R34],[@R35]^ These diseases both share visual dysfunction caused by ON as clinical commonality. Through these 2 disease types, we have attempted to discover whether changes to the visual system following ON are driven just by the specific neurologic visual deficit or also by the underlying pathophysiology. We used graph analysis methods to investigate topological and local changes in resting-state visual networks of patients in those 2 disease groups, further dividing the MS group into patients with and without ON.
Our main findings showed 2 distinct patterns of change in the visual networks of the patient groups. First, the highly connected normal visual network is affected in all 3 disease groups, showing reduced density and changes in topology. These differences from HCs, however, are most pronounced in the CIS-nON group. The 2 ON groups (NMOSD and CIS-ON) showed remarkably similar results in density and degree distribution, particularly in lower and dorsal-lateral regions, both higher than those of patients with CIS-nON. This suggests changes unique to the directly affected system (visual input). We cautiously suggest that these changes may reflect an attempt to compensate for the damage incurred, lasting even when the underlying pathology has existed for years, considering the relatively long disease durations displayed by the NMOSD compared with the CIS-ON group.
Second, measures of network segregation and integration, defining efficiency of information transfer and local structure, showed similarity between the MS-background groups (CIS-ON and CIS-nON), whereas the NMOSD group showed results closer to those of the HCs. This suggests that network segregation and integration may be more affected by type of underlying pathophysiology, rather than the specific neurologic deficit.
The question of whether cortical reorganization plays a role in recovery from ON has long been discussed. Early studies focused mainly on cortical activity patterns in response to visual tasks presented to the affected eye. Some studies have suggested that adaptive cortical plasticity following ON involves increased activity in higher visual areas, assisting in overcoming visual insult.^[@R36][@R37][@R39]^ However, later studies suggested that cortical activation reflects the visual percept rather than demonstrates plasticity.^[@R8]^ In recent years, the importance of considering cortical networks rather than regional activity has emerged. Functional connectivity, assessing the synchronized fluctuations in the fMRI signal between regions, has shown sensitivity to neurologic damage and so it was suggested that connectivity rather than activity may play a role in clinical outcome. However, as this is a cross-sectional study, and no clinical measures were included, this remains hypothetical.
In MS and NMOSD, much emphasis has been given to changes in functional connectivity in sensorimotor networks. Functional connectivity within the motor network was found to reflect motor function^[@R40]^ and to change in response to rehabilitative intervention^[@R41]^ in patients with MS. Whether such changes reflect compensatory mechanisms or loss of function is still a matter of debate.^[@R42],[@R43]^ It has been suggested that the interpretation of such observations depends on lesion load and disease duration.^[@R44]^
Our motor network results show no compensatory changes in the subgroup of nON patients with motor symptoms. On the contrary, specific clinical motor involvement resulted in reduced connectivity within the motor cortex. These results are particularly prominent in view of the opposite results obtained in the visual network, where the relevant neurologic deficit seemed to be associated with elevated connectivity. We suggest that this may be the result of lesions located close to motor regions compared with the more peripheral damage sustained through ON, causing greater direct damage to the system. Another piece of evidence supporting this suggestion is the denser motor network seen in the NMOSD group, who almost all had myelitis in addition to ON (19 of 23 patients). This finding may be the motor network\'s equivalent of response to distant damage. However, because of the small numbers of patients included in the nonmotor subgroup and of patients with nonmyelitis NMOSD, these speculations should be taken with caution.
Although much attention has been given to the motor networks in recent years, the visual system has received less attention, usually as a small part of a wider study.^[@R43],[@R45]^ A study focusing on the visual system of patients with NMOSD and previous ON has shown increase in the functional connectivity of the primary visual network compared with those without ON.^[@R11]^ These findings were also associated with greater retinal damage and reduced visual acuity, suggesting an attempt at cortical reorganization. Similar findings were seen in our previous work, showing an increase in visual network connectivity in patients with CIS-ON compared with CIS-nON.^[@R10]^ A MEG/OCT study of the visual system in patients with MS has succeeded in differentiating between patients with and without ON based on a unique pattern of connectivity that specifically involves the visual system.^[@R46]^ These studies mostly focus on the neurologic deficit as the driving force behind the effects observed in MS and NMOSD connectivity and are congruent with the general connectivity patterns presented in our current study.
However, another cause for connectivity change may be the specific type of disease. Very few studies have tried to compare connectivity between these 2 similar, yet dissimilar, disease groups. Of these, one has studied the functional and structural connectivity of the thalamus, finding structural changes in both diseases but functional disconnection only in MS.^[@R47]^ Another study used a wide array of tests to differentiate between the 2 disease types, showing that the top 2 modalities useful in this were white matter lesion load and functional connectivity.^[@R48]^ In our results, the white matter lesion element appears negligible because both groups exhibit similar lesion number and volume, and even lesion distribution was not localized in any of the groups. And yet, the segregation and integration patterns of the functional visual network differed between MS and NMOSD, with those of the latter more closely resembling that of HCs. We suggest that this marked difference may stem from differences in normal-appearing white matter. Diffusion tensor imaging studies have shown diffusion abnormalities in both disease types, but patients with MS display widespread and more severe degree of abnormality.^[@R49][@R50][@R51]^ This may explain the difference in the segregation and integration properties of functional connectivity between the 2 groups.
The use of graph-based analysis has enabled us to explore both these driving forces of connectivity alterations, the specific neurologic deficit and the disease type itself, that appear to be associated with different types of change. Another advantage of this method is its ability to examine connectivity not only in a holistic manner. In a work from 2015, the advantage of graph-based analysis in MS was presented. Although emphasis was on cognitive changes, it was suggested that graph theory should be used to overcome the simplistic and incomplete interpretations of previous methods.^[@R52]^ Work on functional connectivity of the visual network in MS over the years has mainly examined the network as a single entity, using independent component analysis^[@R10],[@R53]^ or seed-region analysis.^[@R54]^ However, the introduction of graph theory methods^[@R12]^ has opened new possibilities in studying the affected network. In MS, the different works report both decreased global connectivity attributed to disease course and adaptation patterns with increased local connectivity and modularity.^[@R13]^ Our current findings, highlighting reorganization in dorsal-lateral regions, known to be involved in dynamic perception processes, are consistent with our previous works that emphasized persistent motion perception impairment following ON.^[@R7],[@R8]^ Based on our previous works in the field, we suggest that the dorsal stream-specific increase in connectivity in our current study may be part of a recovery process involving functional modifications. Because both ON groups exhibit such a pattern, this supports the notion that the neurologic deficit elicits these changes. As this is a cross-sectional study, this remains only a suggestion.
This study has several limitations. First, graph theory methods are often used on larger subject groups. However, the significance of the results and their consistency with our previous findings convince us that our current findings are true. Second, the differences in age in all groups and in disease duration between the disease groups are problematic, but these measures were factored into the various analyses and had no significant influence on the results. Third, our assumptions regarding the existence of compensatory mechanisms are based on the patterns emerging and former findings of our research. Further light could have been shed on the matter, had behavioral measures been included, as well as a longitudinal design. It should be further noted that this study analyzed only functional connections within the visual system, without the added information that could have been gleaned from the complementing structural connectome, limiting the ability to disentangle compensatory changes from structural damage. Furthermore, although the differences between groups may indeed be interpreted as reorganizational changes of the visual network in response to damage, they may also reflect differential level of damage between individuals. This issue should be further investigated using a different study design because it could not be covered under the scope of the current study.
To conclude, the visual network, highly connected in HCs, is made less connected by disease, be it MS or NMOSD. However, a higher degree of connections was observed in the ON groups (CIS-ON and NMOSD) compared with the nON group. This suggests that the system responds to specific damage caused to the anterior visual pathway, bringing connectivity closer to that of a normal network, regardless of disease type. On the other hand, network segregation and integration and the efficiency of information transfer appear more affected by disease type, altered in the MS groups, but not in NMOSD, particularly in higher regions. Therefore, we suggest that the response to damage is dependent on the type of neurologic deficit within the limitations of the underlying pathophysiology.
Study funding
=============
Supported by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (research grant RG-1802-30165) and the Applebaum Foundation. F. Paul was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Exc 257).
Disclosure
==========
Y. Backner, I. Ben-Shalom, J. Kuchling, N. Siebert, M. Scheel, K. Ruprecht, A. Brandt, F. Paul, and N. Levin report no disclosures. Go to [Neurology.org/NN](https://nn.neurology.org/content/7/3/e687/tab-article-info) for full disclosures.
CIS
: clinically isolated syndrome
EDSS
: Expanded Disability Status Scale
FEF
: frontal eye field
FLAIR
: fluid-attenuated inversion recovery
HC
: healthy control
NMOSD
: neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder
nON
: nonoptic neuritis
ON
: optic neuritis
ROI
: region of interest
RS-fMRI
: resting-state functional MRI
[^1]: Go to [Neurology.org/NN](https://nn.neurology.org/content/7/3/e687/tab-article-info) for full disclosures. Funding information is provided at the end of the article.
[^2]: These authors are equally contributing last authors.
[^3]: The Article Processing Charge was funded by the authors.
|
Friday, October 1, 2010
Beneath the surface of the water lies lurking a silent death.... whatever. This painting was done for Utah's Hogle Zoo for their special exhibit Ghost of the Bayou which featured "Antione", a leucistic American alligator. Leucistic is not a true albino condition, thus the electric blue eyes. This painting was accepted into the 50th Annual Society of Illustrators Annual among other awards.
He was found along with his 17 brothers and sisters in a bayou outside of New Orleans in 1987. Born without skin pigment, it was feared that the babies would not survive long in the wild because of an inability to conceal themselves from predators or survive the threat of constant sunburn. They were captured and taken to the New Orleans Zoo to reside.At last report, nine of them are still living today. It was really fun to paint this creature and even more fascinating to see him in real life. One of the great living oddities of nature. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
The Story So Far
I have been making art for as long as I can remember. These days I work in acrylic paint or Photoshop when creating illustrations for magazines, children's book publishers and advertising clients. I have even been given some cool awards for it. Lately, I am loving oil painting out of doors and for galleries.
Permissions
All images and content are copyright 2010-2015 Greg Newbold and/or their respective owners. For those wishing to use text or images in any traditional print media or for commercial licensing rights, please email me regarding permissions.
If you want to quote this site for use on a non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page, please feel free as long as you give a credit and link back. Students may also quote text or reference images in their school reports. |
This site is a combination of tutorials from various forums including photocamel , hellophoto and nikongear and is open to submissions . Hopefully we can round up "The best of the forums" tutorials to help beginners interested in photography .If you would like to add a useful article please contact me |
PD-L1 Expression in Endometrial Carcinoma Cells and Intratumoral Immune Cells: Differences Across Histologic and TCGA-based Molecular Subgroups.
Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a biomarker that may predict the response to anti-programmed death 1/PD-L1 immunotherapy. We evaluated the expression of PD-L1 in carcinoma cells (Ca) and immune cells (ICs) across histopathologic and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) molecular subgroups of endometrial carcinoma (EC). Our study included 842 patients with EC. Direct sequencing of polymerase epsilon (POLE) exonuclease domain hot spots and conventional immunohistochemistry (MLH1, PMS2, MSH2, MSH6, p53) were conducted to identify TCGA classification-based molecular subgroups of EC: POLE-mutated, mismatch repair deficient, no specific molecular profile, and p53 aberrant. Multiplex immunohistochemistry was performed to evaluate PD-L1 expression in Ca and tumor-infiltrating ICs. PD-L1 expression in Ca and in ICs was detected in 8.6% and 27.7% of the cases, respectively. A combined positive score (CPS) was ≥1% in 19.4% of the samples. PD-L1 positivity in Ca and ICs, and CPS correlated with tumor T-cell density (P<0.001). POLE-mutated and mismatch repair-deficient tumors were more likely to present PD-L1-expressing ICs, CPS positivity, and abundant tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes compared with other TCGA subgroups (P<0.001). No differences existed in Ca-PD-L1 expression (P=0.366). Within various histotypes, non-endometrioid carcinomas displayed the highest Ca-PD-L1, ICs, and CPS (P<0.03). Advanced cancers showed more frequent Ca-PD-L1 positivity (P=0.016), and CPS (P=0.029) and IC≥1% (P=0.037) positivity compared with early disease. In conclusion, PD-L1 expression profiles differ between molecular subclasses, histologic subtypes, and disease stage of EC. Prospective studies are needed to explore the predictive value of various PD-L1 scoring systems within the subgroups of EC. CPS presents methodological advantages over cell type-specific scoring systems. |
Q:
Mocking 2 data repositories at the same time with Laravel 4
I am developing an application using Laravel 4 and trying to follow TDD. I use, following tutorials from Jeffrey Way or Philip Brown , repositories for my database. I had problems with that before ( Mockery not calling method from repository (interface) ) but everything is working fine now in my tests. However, I do get an error trying to mock 2 repositories in the same test, like this:
class PedidosControllerTest extends TestCase {
private $mock;
private $pedidoModelMock;
private $mockCliente;
private $clienteModelMock;
function setUp() {
parent::setUp();
$this->mock = $this->mock('repositories\canarias\PedidoDbRepository');
$this->pedidoModelMock = Mockery::mock('Pedido');
$this->mockCliente = $this->mock('repositories\canarias\ClienteDbRepository');
$this->clienteModelMock = Mockery::mock('Cliente');
}
public function mock($class)
{
$mock = Mockery::mock('Model', $class);
$this->app->instance($class, $mock);
return $mock;
}
protected function tearDown()
{
Mockery::close();
}
public function testIndexWithClient()
{
$nestedView = 'pedidos.index';
$this->registerNestedView($nestedView);
$this->mockCliente
->shouldReceive('find')
->once()
->with(698)
->andReturn($this->clienteModelMock);
$this->mock
->shouldReceive('findAllFromCliente')
->once()
->with(698)
->andReturn($this->pedidoModelMock);
$this->clienteModelMock
->shouldReceive('getAttribute')
->once()
->with('nombre')
->andReturn('Pepito');
$this->call('GET', '/clientes/698/pedidos');
$this->assertResponseOk();
$this->assertViewHas('pageAttributes');
$this->assertViewHas('contenido');
$this->assertNestedViewHas($nestedView, 'pedidos');
$this->assertNestedViewHas($nestedView, 'cliente');
}
}
From what I've tested (no pun intended), the problem seems to be related with this code shared by both $this->mock and $this->mockCliente:
Mockery::mock('Model', $class);
I get an error saying that Model class doesn't exist. In other functions of the test, where I just use ONE mock, that class is found indeed, so it's not related with the name being misspelled or something like that.
Is that Model class somehow "lost" the first time is mocked?
A:
It turned out it was indeed a problem with the class being mispelled (idiot mistake, I know). It should be
$this->mockCliente = $this->mock('repositories\canarias\ClientesDbRepository');
instead of
$this->mockCliente = $this->mock('repositories\canarias\ClienteDbRepository');
|
You might know the voiceover at the start of The Big Lebowski. As tumbleweed meanders through Los Angeles, Sam Elliott introduces us to the film’s main character: “Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself ‘The Dude’.”
The Stranger rambles on about this and that until he gets somewhere near the point. “Sometimes, there’s a man. And I’m talkin’ about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there’s a man; well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude.”
It’s also Kaiser, in Rio de Janeiro, in the 1980s and 1990s. Carlos Henrique Raposo was the handle his parents gave him but he never had much use for that. This Raposo, he called himself “Kaiser”. And in one ostentatiously bemulleted package, he embodied the roguish charm of one of the world’s most soulful cities. “Rio de Janeiro is a special state,” says Joel Santana, the coach who has won the state championship (the Campeonato Carioca) with all four of Rio’s main clubs. “Cariocas (natives of Rio) are more free, relaxed, fun. The environment is conducive to it. A lot of beach. A lot of samba. A lot of drums. You get into the groove without knowing. A good Carioca is somebody who knows how to live life.”
Kaiser has lived life to the brim. In his pomp he was everything from fixer to gigolo to party planner to gangster’s pet. Most of all, he was football’s finest conman. Renato Gaúcho, one of the finest Brazilian players of his generation, calls Kaiser “the greatest footballer never to have played football”. He had a career spanning more than two decades, during which he was associated with Rio’s four biggest clubs – Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo and Vasco da Gama – as well as Bangu, América and a number of overseas teams. Yet throughout his career he went out of his way not to play football. “I wanted to be among the other players,” Kaiser says. “I just didn’t want to play. It’s everybody else’s problem if they want me to be a footballer. Not even Jesus pleased everybody. Why would I?”
His story is so astonishing that, in 2015, a British company bought exclusive rights for a feature-length documentary. It includes interviews with legends of Brazilian football such as Carlos Alberto, Zico, Júnior, Bebeto and Renato Gaúcho – not to mention multiple audiences with Kaiser. His memory is somewhere between selective and defective, and there is an undeniable element of fantasy to his story. As you dig deeper, one thing becomes abundantly clear: a lot of this stuff really did happen.
One of the greatest players of all time poses with Zico. Photograph: Carlos Kaiser
Piggy in the middle
Kaiser had more front than Copacabana Beach. His staple trick was to make friends with influential people: he would befriend powerful figures at each club, telling them about his impressive football CV. If he was in the mood, he would approach journalists, players and the club owner, constructing a web of lies so elaborate that nobody could remember who had vouched for him in the first place.
In those days, before the internet, nobody was much the wiser. Even if they had the inclination to check – and Rio has never been the most anal of places – they wouldn’t have been able to do so. “Life,” says Kaiser, “is marketing” – and he told his stories with such infectious conviction that it was easy to be swept along. Bebeto, the World Cup-winning striker of 1994, says: “His chat was so good that if you let him open his mouth, that would be it. He’d charm you. You couldn’t avoid it. That would be it.”
In the first training session Kaiser usually suffered a muscle injury that would keep him out for an indefinite period, during which he would hang around the club and become an unofficial morale specialist. “He created a fun, happy and lighthearted mood,” says Alexandre Torres, the former Brazil international and son of Carlos Alberto. “He would tell stories and he would get players dreaming. I think that’s why everybody liked him so much.”
On the few occasions he did train, he had the rare ability to find himself in space. Trouble was, that space was usually as far away from the action as possible. In theory Kaiser was a centre-forward; in practice he was a really false nine.
Kaiser! The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football is exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the US. Photograph: We Are Buzzers
One team became so frustrated with Kaiser’s injuries that they called in a witch doctor; Kaiser brusquely informed him there are some things even black magic cannot cure and sent him packing. He would do anything to avoid playing or win favour. He paid youth-team members to clatter him in training so that he could fake injury, and gave watching spectators money to sing his name when the club owner was around. Long before Stephen Ireland came up with the idea, Kaiser was committing grannycide: his grandmother was regularly killed off to help him avoid his inanimate nemesis, the football.
Kaiser says he had some talent but chose not to use it. Some interviewees corroborate that, including Jair Pereira, the former Atlético Madrid coach who won more than 20 trophies in his career, although the majority burst out laughing at the suggestion. In Brazil, training sessions would often be preceded by a game of piggy in the middle. “He was completely out of his depth,” Bebeto says. “He would be dashing from one end to the other. Sweating loads! He was knackered before training even started! One day we just said: ‘Get out, Kaiser! Otherwise we’ll end up killing you!”
Kaiser’s most famous – and most dangerous – scam occurred at Bangu, a small club in the West Zone and a place that has the distinction of hosting the first football match ever played in Brazil. In 1985, they came within a penalty shootout of winning the Campeonato Carioca, an achievement that would have registered extremely high on the Leicester Scale. At the time they were owned by Castor de Andrade, Brazil’s premier bichiero (somebody who operates an illegal gambling game), who was routinely described as the most dangerous man in Brazil and was great friends with the Fifa president João Havelange. Castor was not a man to mildly irk, never mind cross. After one match he chased a referee around the pitch, a gun flapping in his back pocket as he attempted to engage the ref in urgent discourse regarding a minor disparity in their interpretation of the laws of the game.
Castor signed Kaiser, prompting a newspaper headline: “BANGU HAS ITS KING”. That headline became famous, and not only because Kaiser showed it to everybody at every opportunity. When he arrived he had the usual injury problems. Castor loved him anyway, because of his cheek, his charisma, his chutzpah – and his apparently endless access to beautiful women. He loved Kaiser’s personality so much that he wanted to see its manifestation on the pitch. One weekend Kaiser was studiously continuing his rehab at 4am in Caligula nightclub when word reached him that Castor had sent an order for him to be on the bench the next day. Kaiser panicked before being reassured by the coach that he would stay as a non-playing substitute.
Bangu had a dreadful start to the match and were soon 2-0 down. Castor sent a message from the stands via walkie-talkie that it was time to unleash the star signing. Kaiser had two choices. He could go on as substitute, in which case he was dead; or he could refuse to go on, in which case he was dead. So he improvised a third option. While warming up, Kaiser heard an opposing fan call him a “long-haired faggot” and used it as an excuse to start a brawl with the away supporters. He was sent off before getting on the pitch.
Kaiser was summoned to see Castor after the game. “God has taken both my parents away but gave me another father who they accused of being a crook,” he sniffed. “So I lost it and went for them. But don’t you worry because my contract is up in a week and I’ll be off.” Castor gave him a pay rise and a contract extension.
That day, like every other, Kaiser lived on instinct and in the moment. He didn’t live for tomorrow; he didn’t even live for later today. His life has been a never-ending hustle predicated on a series of small, instinctive scams that make up one gigantic scam. And that’s why so many people love him.
Kaiser in the colours of FC Wacker Innsbruck. Photograph: Carlos Kaiser
The good 171
In Brazil, 171 is the article in the penal code that deals with scammers and confidence tricksters; thus such people are known as 171s. Nearly everyone goes out of their way to tell you Kaiser was a good 171. “I don’t know of anybody who has a story showing Kaiser as untrustworthy,” said Carlos Alberto, the captain of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup winners.
In terms of effectiveness, he was a great 171. There were all the low-level scams – losing his wallet, the cash machine swallowing his card – so that he would never have to pay for a meal. This would often be quite a bill. Kaiser goes through phases of binge eating and binge dieting and on one occasion the staff at a pizza restaurant counted as he went through 70 (S-E-V-E-N-T-Y) slices of pizza. Not content with redefining football, Kaiser redefined restaurant culture by introducing the free all-you-can-eat buffet. “I could be penniless,” he says, “but if I had to take a girl out to dinner in the best place in Rio I could.”
He had no money but he was a self-made VIP. Alexandre Torres recalls Kaiser asking his father – Carlos Alberto, the captain of the greatest football team in history – whether he would like to stay in the stunning resort town of Búzios, Brazil’s answer to St Tropez, over Christmas and New Year. Carlos Alberto knew that even he would not be able to get a reservation at such short notice but decided to call Kaiser’s bluff. Ten minutes later Kaiser came back with a hotel name and a contact, and Carlos Alberto stayed there for five days.
Kaiser, centre, shows off his magnificent mullet. Photograph: Carlos Kaiser
Carnival
Rio is one of the most unfettered places in the world. The most obvious manifestation of this is in the physical act of love, yet the relationship between sex and misogyny has often been on the unpleasant side of uncomfortable. “My whole life has revolved around sex,” Kaiser says. “There are no other hobbies. If I went to a nightclub I’d spend 10 minutes chatting up a girl and then leave. You just take her into the first bathroom and the first available cubicle, give her one then leave. This all comes from the culture in which I was raised. I came from a very poor culture among ignorant people, so I had it in my head that to have sex you needed to be macho. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of.”
He used his status to chat up women. Sometimes he would show a grainy VHS of a namesake scoring brilliant or vital goals. He was almost in a grainy VHS himself when he went along to a porn audition to support his cousin and made such an impression that he nearly ended up in the film.
Diego Maradona enjoys himself at Rio Carnival. Photograph: Terry George/WireImage
Kaiser modelled himself on his idol and best friend, the superstar Renato Gaúcho, with sunglasses that never came off and an extravagant mullet that he would constantly flick behind his ears. Renato symbolised the last golden age of Brazilian domestic football, when the greats spent the majority of their careers at home and the game had not been infected with professionalism. Renato, Kaiser and another forward called Gaúcho were inseparable, while he regularly hung out with Romário, Edmundo and even Diego Maradona, who often came to Rio Carnival.
Renato is the superstar Europe never knew: a tall, elegant winger who was almost too hunky to function. Bebeto thinks he was as good as Lionel Messi and Neymar. Renato’s time might have been 1986 but he was kicked out of the World Cup squad by Telê Santana, a lightning rod for a number of players who sneaked out of the team camp for a night out.
Renato had a short period at Roma, when professionalism and the lack of beaches sapped his spirit. The rest of his career was spent in Brazil. Even though the team that won the World Cup in 1994 is remembered with an asterisk because of their conservative style of play, domestic football was as expressive as ever. This was a team when Jogo Bonito was a philosophy rather than an advertising slogan.
In 1995, during a particularly glamorous race for the Rio state championship, Renato, Romário and Túlio had a playful, ongoing public argument about who was the King of Rio. Renato won the argument with his legendary “belly goal” to win the final of the Campeonato Carioca for Fluminense against Romário’s Flamengo. There was another contender for the crown. These days Kaiser is in his 50s and works as a fitness trainer for women – but his legend endures. “Those three were just squabbling,” says Alexandre Torres. “They wanted to usurp a guy who was impossible to dethrone. The real king of Rio was Kaiser.”
Kaiser! The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football is available exclusively in the US on Amazon Prime Video. An accompanying book, by Rob Smyth, is also available. |
Structural basis of SspB-tail recognition by the zinc binding domain of ClpX.
The degradation of ssrA(AANDENYALAA)-tagged proteins in the bacterial cytosol is carried out by the ClpXP protease and is markedly stimulated by the SspB adaptor protein. It has previously been reported that the amino-terminal zinc-binding domain of ClpX (ZBD) is involved in complex formation with the SspB-tail (XB: ClpX-binding motif). In an effort to better understand the recognition of SspB by ClpX and the mechanism of delivery of ssrA-tagged substrates to ClpXP, we have determined the structures of ZBD alone at 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 A resolution in each different crystal form and also in complex with XB peptide at 1.6 A resolution. The XB peptide forms an antiparallel beta-sheet with two beta-strands of ZBD, and the structure shows a 1:1 stoichiometric complex between ZBD and XB, suggesting that there are two independent SspB-tail-binding sites in ZBD. The high-resolution ZBD:XB complex structure, in combination with biochemical analyses, can account for key determinants in the recognition of the SspB-tail by ClpX and sheds light on the mechanism of delivery of target proteins to the prokaryotic degradation machine. |
package com.adafruit.bluefruit.le.connect.ui.utils;
import android.content.Context;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.view.MotionEvent;
import android.view.VelocityTracker;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewConfiguration;
import android.widget.FrameLayout;
import android.widget.OverScroller;
// from: https://github.com/devunwired/custom-touch-examples/blob/master/TouchExamples/src/com/examples/customtouch/widget/TwoDimensionScrollView.java
public class TwoDimensionScrollView extends FrameLayout {
//Fling components
private OverScroller mScroller;
private VelocityTracker mVelocityTracker;
/* Positions of the last motion event */
private float mLastTouchX, mLastTouchY;
/* Drag threshold */
private int mTouchSlop;
/* Fling Velocity */
private int mMaximumVelocity, mMinimumVelocity;
/* Drag Lock */
private boolean mDragging = false;
public TwoDimensionScrollView(Context context) {
super(context);
init(context);
}
public TwoDimensionScrollView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
super(context, attrs);
init(context);
}
public TwoDimensionScrollView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
super(context, attrs, defStyle);
init(context);
}
private void init(Context context) {
mScroller = new OverScroller(context);
mVelocityTracker = VelocityTracker.obtain();
//Get system constants for touch thresholds
mTouchSlop = ViewConfiguration.get(context).getScaledTouchSlop();
mMaximumVelocity = ViewConfiguration.get(context).getScaledMaximumFlingVelocity();
mMinimumVelocity = ViewConfiguration.get(context).getScaledMinimumFlingVelocity();
}
/*
* Override the measureChild... implementations to guarantee that the child view
* gets measured to be as large as it wants to be. The default implementation will
* force some children to be only as large as this view.
*/
@Override
protected void measureChild(View child, int parentWidthMeasureSpec, int parentHeightMeasureSpec) {
int childWidthMeasureSpec;
int childHeightMeasureSpec;
childWidthMeasureSpec = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED);
childHeightMeasureSpec = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED);
child.measure(childWidthMeasureSpec, childHeightMeasureSpec);
}
@Override
protected void measureChildWithMargins(View child, int parentWidthMeasureSpec, int widthUsed,
int parentHeightMeasureSpec, int heightUsed) {
final MarginLayoutParams lp = (MarginLayoutParams) child.getLayoutParams();
final int childWidthMeasureSpec = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(
lp.leftMargin + lp.rightMargin, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED);
final int childHeightMeasureSpec = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(
lp.topMargin + lp.bottomMargin, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED);
child.measure(childWidthMeasureSpec, childHeightMeasureSpec);
}
@Override
public void computeScroll() {
if (mScroller.computeScrollOffset()) {
// This is called at drawing time by ViewGroup. We use
// this method to keep the fling animation going through
// to completion.
int oldX = getScrollX();
int oldY = getScrollY();
int x = mScroller.getCurrX();
int y = mScroller.getCurrY();
if (getChildCount() > 0) {
View child = getChildAt(0);
x = clamp(x, getWidth() - getPaddingRight() - getPaddingLeft(), child.getWidth());
y = clamp(y, getHeight() - getPaddingBottom() - getPaddingTop(), child.getHeight());
if (x != oldX || y != oldY) {
scrollTo(x, y);
}
}
// Keep on drawing until the animation has finished.
postInvalidate();
}
}
//Override scrollTo to do bounds checks on any scrolling request
@Override
public void scrollTo(int x, int y) {
// we rely on the fact the View.scrollBy calls scrollTo.
if (getChildCount() > 0) {
View child = getChildAt(0);
x = clamp(x, getWidth() - getPaddingRight() - getPaddingLeft(), child.getWidth());
y = clamp(y, getHeight() - getPaddingBottom() - getPaddingTop(), child.getHeight());
if (x != getScrollX() || y != getScrollY()) {
super.scrollTo(x, y);
}
}
}
/*
* Utility method to initialize the Scroller and start redrawing
*/
public void fling(int velocityX, int velocityY) {
if (getChildCount() > 0) {
int height = getHeight() - getPaddingBottom() - getPaddingTop();
int width = getWidth() - getPaddingLeft() - getPaddingRight();
int bottom = getChildAt(0).getHeight();
int right = getChildAt(0).getWidth();
mScroller.fling(getScrollX(), getScrollY(), velocityX, velocityY,
0, Math.max(0, right - width),
0, Math.max(0, bottom - height));
invalidate();
}
}
/*
* Utility method to assist in doing bounds checking
*/
private int clamp(int n, int my, int child) {
if (my >= child || n < 0) {
/* my >= child is this case:
* |--------------- me ---------------|
* |------ child ------|
* or
* |--------------- me ---------------|
* |------ child ------|
* or
* |--------------- me ---------------|
* |------ child ------|
*
* n < 0 is this case:
* |------ me ------|
* |-------- child --------|
* |-- mScrollX --|
*/
return 0;
}
if ((my + n) > child) {
/* this case:
* |------ me ------|
* |------ child ------|
* |-- mScrollX --|
*/
return child - my;
}
return n;
}
/*
* Monitor touch events passed down to the children and
* intercept as soon as it is determined we are dragging. This
* allows child views to still receive touch events if they are
* interactive (i.e. Buttons)
*/
@Override
public boolean onInterceptTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
switch (event.getAction()) {
case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN:
//Stop any flinging in progress
if (!mScroller.isFinished()) {
mScroller.abortAnimation();
}
//Reset the velocity tracker
mVelocityTracker.clear();
mVelocityTracker.addMovement(event);
//Save the initial touch point
mLastTouchX = event.getX();
mLastTouchY = event.getY();
break;
case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE:
final float x = event.getX();
final float y = event.getY();
final int yDiff = (int) Math.abs(y - mLastTouchY);
final int xDiff = (int) Math.abs(x - mLastTouchX);
//Verify that either difference is enough to be a drag
if (yDiff > mTouchSlop || xDiff > mTouchSlop) {
mDragging = true;
mVelocityTracker.addMovement(event);
//Start capturing events ourselves
return true;
}
break;
case MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL:
case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
mDragging = false;
mVelocityTracker.clear();
break;
}
return super.onInterceptTouchEvent(event);
}
/*
* Feed all touch events we receive to the detector for
* processing.
*/
@Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
mVelocityTracker.addMovement(event);
switch (event.getAction()) {
case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN:
// We've already stored the initial point,
// but if we got here a child view didn't capture
// the event, so we need to.
return true;
case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE:
final float x = event.getX();
final float y = event.getY();
float deltaY = mLastTouchY - y;
float deltaX = mLastTouchX - x;
//Check for slop on direct events
if (!mDragging && (Math.abs(deltaY) > mTouchSlop || Math.abs(deltaX) > mTouchSlop)) {
mDragging = true;
}
if (mDragging) {
//Scroll the view
scrollBy((int) deltaX, (int) deltaY);
//Update the last touch event
mLastTouchX = x;
mLastTouchY = y;
}
break;
case MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL:
mDragging = false;
//Stop any flinging in progress
if (!mScroller.isFinished()) {
mScroller.abortAnimation();
}
break;
case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
mDragging = false;
// Compute the current velocity and start a fling if it is above
// the minimum threshold.
mVelocityTracker.computeCurrentVelocity(1000, mMaximumVelocity);
int velocityX = (int) mVelocityTracker.getXVelocity();
int velocityY = (int) mVelocityTracker.getYVelocity();
if (Math.abs(velocityX) > mMinimumVelocity || Math.abs(velocityY) > mMinimumVelocity) {
fling(-velocityX, -velocityY);
}
break;
}
return super.onTouchEvent(event);
}
} |
"Algorithm" is not a four letter word - jashkenas
http://www.jamisbuck.org/presentations/rubyconf2011/index.html
======
swannodette
I'd like point out something that isn't mentioned in the slides at all. The
ideas behind the algorithm are not just games, not just exercises, not just
methods of self improvement. I'm reminded of Feynman's story of the wobbling
plate. They have very deep implications for how we design programs and how we
design programming languages.
The notion of search (logic programming, constraint solving) is a woefully
under appreciated topic - I would argue because our programming languages make
it very difficult to apply this kind of beautiful knowledge back onto the
programming language itself.
What is a type system if not a kind of maze solver? What happens when you
apply machine learning like heuristics to a pattern match compiler? What
happens if we can apply algorithm rules at the level of the method signature?
Yes learn some algorithms, then question why our programming languages limit
how much we can put these great ideas into practice.
~~~
palish
_"The ideas behind the algorithm are not just games"_
Clarifying, sorry.. could you elaborate a bit on what you meant by "games"?
~~~
mcantor
"Stuff that doesn't matter beyond the novelty of screwing around with it"
------
kragen
There's some good stuff here, but a lot of the psychology is ill-founded.
Flow, for example, is probably the most effective form of practice, and play
often creates flow. Jamis recommends practicing constantly, but it's extremely
well established that spacing your practice out gives you more bang for the
buck, more improvement per hour of practice. (This is called "massed practice
vs. spaced practice", and it's been known since before the dawn of cognitive
psychology.)
(There's some pretty good evidence that you can fill the spaces in between
your practice sessions by practicing something else — without losing the
benefit of spacing.)
The maze generation algorithms, though, are awesome.
My favorite is still this one by Joe Allen:
/* jallen@ic.sunysb.edu */ /* Amazing */ /* Joe Allen 129.49.12.74 */
int a[1817];main(z,p,q,r){for(p=80;q+p-80;p-=2*a[p])for(z=9;z--;)q=3&(r=time(0)
+r*57)/7,q=q?q-1?q-2?1-p%79?-1:0:p%79-77?1:0:p<1659?79:0:p>158?-79:0,q?!a[p+q*2
]?a[p+=a[p+=q]=q]=q:0:0;for(;q++-1817;)printf(q%79?"%c":"%c\n"," #"[!a[q-1]]);}
~~~
jamis
I definitely was not recommending constant practice--I agree that doing so
will hurt you more than it helps you! I was recommending consistently regular
practice.
~~~
meric
"play is not exercise" Is this true? ...I have always thought I've learned
more "playing" with programming than when programming to produce a specific
output... Or perhaps... I've forgotten the last time I've done something hard.
------
robobenjie
I like the visualizations for the maze generation a lot.
I actually used (yet another) maze generation algorithm for an xbox360 game I
worked on as a school project. The constraints were slightly different because
we wanted cycles and no dead ends.
You put all the cells in a list and take them out at random. If there are 3 or
more walls, tear down walls until there are less than 3. When you are done you
cannot have any dead ends because a dead end must have three walls. Of course
you can have unconnected loops, so you have to go through and tear down walls
to connect unconnected segments when you are done.
I don't know what my point is.
Mazes are neat.
~~~
palish
A point P is inside triangle ABC iif the angles add up to 2pi. (APB + BPC +
CPA == 2pi)
Thought I'd share too, don't have a point. :) graphics programming / dot
product is neat.
Actually, there are some pretty fun graphics algorithms. I could ramble on
about some, but don't want to intrude / doubt anyone cares but me, heh.
~~~
bulte-rs
You've got a 'carer' right here. I'd love to read more on 'traditional'
algorithms applied on CG.
------
fl3tch
Another warning, for photosensitive epileptics: there are rapidly flashing
lights in that demo. I have a mild form of it and I started to feel weird, so
if you're highly sensitive, you'll want to skip running the maze on the slide
labeled "aldous-broder-demo".
Here's a tip for UX people: don't make anything flash more than 2 times per
second. Also, "in the United States, websites provided by federal agencies are
governed by section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Act says that pages
shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency
greater than 2 Hz and less than 55 Hz." So that's the official recommendation.
~~~
kragen
How would you recommend visualizing that algorithm?
~~~
jrockway
Visualizing algorithms is unfair, because some people were born without vision
and therefore cannot "visualize".
~~~
harkain
The problem isn't that it is unfair to people who suffer of epilepsy, the
problem is that it could be DANGEROUS to people who suffer of epilepsy.
Someone who is blind can't be harmed by being unable to see this particular
visualization.
~~~
tripzilch
If it's so DANGEROUS why isn't there some kind of active display filter
available to dampen temporal frequencies between 2 and 55Hz?
That, and--though it wouldn't have helped in this case--the most I heard about
epilepsy complaints is on forums with flashy animated GIF images. Why do they
browse with GIF animation enabled? Really, if it's such a health hazard, and
_images_ posted on a forum can give you dangerous seizures, why would you take
a risk and trust on the goodwill of the community and take your chances with
the occasional troll?
I don't want to dismiss the problem, not at all, I just wonder about the
victim mentality displayed and lack of proactiveness.
Especially the display filter. If it's an actual health hazard, you shouldn't
be asking people not to show flashing imagery on their sites, you should be
taking action yourself, making sure your computer display is unable to display
this imagery. Any kind of modern 3D GFX card should easily be able to detect
flashing areas and dampen and/or motion blur them so they're safe, without
much processing power needed. You'll be erring on the side of caution of
course, so some video content might be degraded (though with a well-designed
filter this should be minimal) so you'll want a key-combo to (at your own
risk) temporarily disable the filter (with a parental lock for the children,
of course).
~~~
kragen
Yeah, it would be great if everyone who had epilepsy was up to hacking their
video card driver to simulate an e-ink display's slow updates. I'm interested
to hear what modifications you've made to your own system software to make it
suit your preferences.
~~~
esrauch
Except that it's not even that. In firefox there is just a setting that
disables animating gifs, if this is something that is affecting a significant
number of people at any significant level of danger, then why don't people
disable it?
It seems to me that the most likely explanation is that the risk is so minimal
that people with epilepsy aren't even willing to give up lolcat gifs for it,
though it is possible that people are unable to conceive of a setting existing
to disable a largely unnecessary feature in a piece of software.
If it is a significant danger, and people don't realize you can disable it,
then that seems to indicate a significant failing of the entire system, from
doctors to parents to people taking care of themselves properly. I really want
to believe that it isn't the case.
------
barrkel
"Play" is boring if it isn't challenging. I completely disagree with the
dichotomy presented at the start of this presentation. It seems to imply that
improving is painful, and is something you need to force yourself to do.
(Furthermore, I've never found learning about new algorithms to be taxing, and
certainly never regarded it as a four-letter word.)
~~~
jamis
My intent was definitely not to portray learning as painful. Learning is a
joyful thing. But it's not something you can acquire by passively staring at
the world. You need to exert yourself if you want to do more than gain a
passing acquaintance with things.
~~~
barrkel
Yes; but playing is not passively staring at the world, nor does it involve a
lack of exertion, nor yet again lack of a "passing acquaintance". The point of
play is that you can exert yourself without having much hard work of willing
it. A child with a new toy is highly engrossed, focused, and certainly not
passive nor satisfied with a "passing acquaintance".
I guess I reacted to the screwed-up faces in particular; they looked like they
were in pain.
~~~
jamis
Our problem here is the overloaded nature of the word "play". I do not
disagree that children learn through play. But I'm using the word differently
in my presentation: I'm using it to refer to activities that you (as an adult)
pursue casually, as a way to relax or enjoy yourself. If you play the guitar
very well, for instance, you might take an hour in the evening to just "play",
singing along, etc. This serves many purposes, and is definitely valuable,
well-spent time, but it does not serve to improve your guitar playing. To
accomplish that, you'd need to spend some time working on guitar techniques
that you are less accomplished at.
You can see my problem, hopefully. Ambiguity in language has been the downfall
of more than one well-intentioned presenter!
~~~
barrkel
You have overloaded play in a very specific way in your response; playing an
instrument. I'd have preferred it if you'd chosen something else, because I
think it introduces a third meaning for play (specific to instruments) apart
from both the focused play like that of a child and something an adult pursues
casually (which I doubt should be called play).
My hobby (as well as my only form of transport) is motorbikes. I do it for
over an hour every day. I'm definitely getting better at it, because of an
iterative process of analysis and experimentation. If I just looked at it as a
means of transport, I wouldn't be so eager to stretch myself; I'd be content
with getting from A to B in a safe and not very efficient manner.
It's completely different to programming, so in some ways it is relaxing; it's
certainly highly enjoyable; but it is also simultaneously energizing and
tiring. It uses a completely different part of my brain, and gets the
adrenaline going.
I think if guitar-playing was my hobby, I'd be focused on improving and having
an iterative experimentation / analysis cycle. But if guitar-playing was
something I did to make music, perhaps to entertain other people, then the
focus is elsewhere. It would no longer be play; it would merely be doing.
What I'm getting at is that play (my definition of it, at least) necessarily
implies stretch goals, doing things that you have room to improve at, because
without challenge it's boring. What makes it different from work is intrinsic
motivation, and hence the lack of a need for application of will.
But you're right in another respect, this is all coming down to a disagreement
over the use of words, rather than a disagreement in concepts etc. The start
of the presentation just rubbed me the wrong way, and I've made far too much
out of this small thing...
------
Permit
Personally I really enjoyed the short slide by slide format a lot. Perhaps
it's a short attention span brought on by years in front of a computer, but I
struggle with massive walls of text occasionally. At the very least I found it
to be a nice changed on top of being an interesting subject.
~~~
jarek
Ironically, I lost interest in this at some point because of the slide format.
With a wall of text, I can figure out how long it is and whether I want to
dedicate the time to read it. These cute arrow-key slides were giving me no
feedback how many there are and whether it's going to take half an hour to go
through them all, so I closed them. Heh.
~~~
savinos
There's #read/#total in the lower-right corner, fwiw. :)
~~~
jarek
I didn't notice, but apparently I was right to abandon it!
------
AbyCodes
_acquainting yourself with theory is acquainting yourself with new concepts.
It gives you building blocks and labels that you can build on, and hang later
concepts on. Without the scaffolding that theory gives you, you'll miss many
opportunities for insight later._
So very true. The difference between the me one year back and the me now is
that _I know how and why_ certain things are the way they are. Understanding
is enlightening.
_Ultimately, it is that resistance you need to seek out. Look for things that
will challenge you consistely (sic). Work at them until the resistance goes
away, and then look for something new. That's how you'll grow your craft.
That's what will make you better than you are today._
Amen.
------
dazbradbury
I feel I should point out that a lot of people would consider this bad advice.
"It is critical to remember that play is not exercise."
Focusing on what are you're good at (like algorithms for creating mazes), is
in fact exercise. You're getting better at what you already consider yourself
good at (assuming you don't stagnate - which I think the article is really
getting at.)
Should you focus on weaknesses or strengths is a big debate, but strength
finder ([http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-
StrengthsFinder-2.a...](http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-
StrengthsFinder-2.aspx)) seems like a popular camp.
~~~
angrycoder
The problem is that you are arguing the analogy. What you are saying neither
fits the point or spirit of his slide show.
~~~
dazbradbury
I am just pointing out that the start of the slideshow is a little unnecessary
and potentially off-putting, I quite enjoyed the concise diagrams and
animations which followed.
I think those with a CS degree and a good understanding of graph theory should
still sit and enjoy it!
~~~
slowpoke
I don't think you need a CS degree to enjoy this. I'm a CS student, and I did.
:)
------
jashkenas
For the curious, here's a link to Jamis' repository of Maze visualizations,
implemented in CoffeeScript: <https://github.com/jamis/csmazes>
------
ComputerGuru
Warning: severe pollution of "history" links in your browser ahead.
~~~
dibarra
Worked fine for me on Chromuum.
~~~
anonymoushn
<http://ompldr.org/vYWw2MQ>
Looks like this over here.
------
kragniz
The articles on his blog (<http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/>) give more in-depth
explanations for those who dislike the slides.
------
awolf
This site crashes my iPad's browser. iOS 5.0 beta 7. Anyone else?
------
Kafka
Wonderful slides! I hope there will be video further on.
I didn't like "It is critical to remember that play is not exercise." and to
improve it I would like to add something like "But it's totally fine if your
exercise feels like play. If your exercise is fun it's so much easier to do".
------
jwrnz
I'd like to point out that on the first frame with text on it, the text runs
off the screen. So i closed it. I don't even know what the slideshow was about
:( firefox 7.0.1 resolution 1280x1024
no text at all in 1024x768
~~~
hmottestad
Yep. Scaling doesn't work in firefox. It does work in chrome though.
------
savinos
This is remarkable. The # of ways to solve the same problem is great
(ironically, I knew mostly Prim's and Kruskal's algorithms because they are
more common), the visualization is great too. I liked the slide format, a bit
too long maybe.
Also, since it's a computer science post :) I would have added time
complexity, just for sake of completeness.
A big plus to the whole concept of "code kata".
Great stuff.
------
danso
Pretty. But I would love just a long single page version of it, particularly
when it gets to definitions. The page already loads all the content and assets
at the start.
~~~
icebraining
Try disabling Javascript, it fallbacks to a single page version; at least it
does here with NoScript.
------
vanelsas
I think the author did a great job and took quite some time to share his
knowledge with us. Pity the average response on HN tends to be a compliment
followed by a but.... I guess we feel we are always smarter than the next guy,
he just happens to put in the effort :-)
Well done, loved it all the way!
------
capkutay
You know what they say...
You have a problem, so you suggest "I'll make an algorithm to solve it!"
...now you have 2 problems.
------
karinqe
Nice, but my browser (Firefox 6.0.2) hung up for a few moments on the last
slide and it took me painfully long to close the tab.
------
ckeen
This is a nice presentation! Apart from the excellent content, what did you
use to produce the html slides?
~~~
jamis
The slides presentation was built on top of deck.js
(<http://imakewebthings.github.com/deck.js/>).
------
bojanbabic
Love the presentation! Can someone point me to similar presentations/resources
on same topic?
------
tantalor
> This set of potential spanning trees is called a spanning forest.
A spanning forest is a graph, not a set.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_forest>
~~~
pork
If you insist on being pedantic, you can compose a set of spanning trees into
a spanning forest, which is a graph.
------
cycojesus
slightly off-topic but an inconvenient of this medium of presentation is that
printing fails horribly.
------
ghempton
Algorithms for brogrammers.
|
This application claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 to Japanese Application Serial No. 2000-170962, filed Jun. 7, 2000. The Japanese Serial No. 2000-170962 names the same inventors as this application: Ser. No. 09/876,305, FUEL SUPPLY CONTROL SYSTEM FOR INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE.
The present invention relates to a fuel supply control system for an internal combustion engine having an exhaust gas recirculation mechanism, and more particularly to such a fuel supply control system for controlling a fuel amount to be supplied to the engine in consideration of the case that the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism is deteriorated to cause a deviation of an exhaust gas recirculation amount from a target value.
After the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism is used over a long period of time, there is a possibility that an exhaust gas recirculation passage or an exhaust gas recirculation valve constituting the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism may be clogged to cause a decrease in exhaust gas recirculation amount from a target value, resulting in an increase in a NOx emission amount. Known is a failure determining method including the steps of measuring an intake pressure when opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and an intake pressure when closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve in the condition where the operating condition of an internal combustion engine is stable, and determining that the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism has failed if the pressure difference between these intake pressures measured above is smaller than a predetermined value (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 7-180615).
When exhaust gas recirculation is carried out, an intake air amount is reduced. It is known that such a reduction in the intake air amount is corrected by using an EGR correction coefficient for reducing a fuel supply amount according to the exhaust gas recirculation amount to thereby correct the fuel supply amount (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 7-127494, for example).
When the deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism progresses to such a degree that the failure of the mechanism can be surely determined by the conventional failure determining method mentioned above, the exhaust gas recirculation amount is deviated (decreased) from a target value to cause deterioration in exhaust emission characteristics. Further, in the case of correcting the fuel supply amount by using the EGR correction coefficient as mentioned above, the following problem occurs. That is, in spite of the fact that the actual exhaust gas recirculation amount is decreased from a target value with the progress of deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism, the EGR correction coefficient is calculated on the assumption that exhaust gas recirculation corresponding to the target value is executed. As a result, the correction by the EGR correction coefficient becomes excessive (the air-fuel ratio becomes leaner than a desired value), causing increase in the NOx emission amount.
Furthermore, the deterioration in exhaust emission characteristics due to such excessive correction becomes apparent before the degree of deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism reaches such a degree that the failure of the mechanism can be surely determined. It is therefore desired to accurately determine the deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism, of such a degree that the mechanism has not apparently failed.
It is accordingly a first object of the present invention to provide a fuel supply control system which can more properly perform the correction of a fuel supply amount in consideration of the deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism to thereby maintain good exhaust emission characteristics over a long period of time.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a fuel supply control system having a function capable of accurately determining the deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism, of such a degree that the mechanism has not apparently failed.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fuel supply control system for controlling a fuel amount to be supplied to an internal combustion engine having an exhaust gas recirculation mechanism comprising an exhaust gas recirculation passage connected between an intake pipe and an exhaust pipe, and an exhaust gas recirculation valve provided in the exhaust gas recirculation passage. The fuel supply control system includes: an intake pressure sensor for detecting an intake pressure (PBA) of the engine; and correcting means for correcting the fuel amount (TOUT) to be supplied to the engine according to a pressure difference (DPBEGR) between an intake pressure detected when opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and an intake pressure detected when closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve.
With this configuration, the fuel amount to be supplied to the engine is corrected according to the pressure difference (DPBEGR) between the intake pressure when opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and the intake pressure when closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve. The pressure difference (DPBEGR) decreases as the degree of deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism increases. Accordingly, by increasing the fuel supply amount with a decrease in the pressure difference (DPBEGR), the fuel supply amount can be corrected to a proper value according to the degree of deterioration, to thereby maintain good exhaust emission characteristics over a long period of time.
Preferably, the correcting means corrects the fuel amount so that the fuel amount increases with a decrease in the pressure difference.
Preferably, the correcting means measures the pressure difference when the fuel supply to the engine is interrupted.
Preferably, the fuel supply control system further includes an engine rotational speed sensor for detecting a rotational speed (NE) of the engine. The correcting means corrects the pressure difference according to the detected rotational speed of the engine, and corrects the fuel amount according to the corrected pressure difference.
Preferably, the fuel supply control system further includes an air-fuel ratio sensor provided in the exhaust pipe; air-fuel ratio correcting means for calculating an air-fuel ratio correction coefficient (KO2) according to an output from the air-fuel ratio sensor and correcting the fuel amount by using the calculated air-fuel ratio correction coefficient; and deterioration determining means for determining deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism according to a difference (DKO2) between the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient calculated during a period of opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient calculated during a period of closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve. The correcting means corrects the fuel amount when the deterioration determining means determines that the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism is deteriorated.
Preferably, the deterioration determining means comprises means for calculating a first average (KO2WTEGR) of the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient during opening of the exhaust gas recirculation valve and means for calculating a second average (KO2WOEGR) of the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient during closing of the exhaust gas recirculation valve, and calculates the difference (DKO2) by using the first and second averages.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fuel supply control system for controlling a fuel amount to be supplied to an internal combustion engine having an exhaust gas recirculation mechanism comprising an exhaust gas recirculation passage connected between an intake pipe and an exhaust pipe, and an exhaust gas recirculation valve provided in relation to the exhaust gas recirculation passage. The fuel supply control system comprises: an air-fuel ratio sensor provided in the exhaust pipe; air-fuel ratio correcting means for calculating an air-fuel ratio correction coefficient (KO2) according to an output from the air-fuel ratio sensor and correcting the fuel amount by using the calculated air-fuel ratio correction coefficient; and deterioration determining means for determining deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism according to a difference (DKO2) between the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient calculated during a period of opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient calculated during a period of closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve.
With this configuration, the deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism is determined according to the difference (DKO2) between the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient calculated during the period of opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient calculated during the period of closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve. When the air-fuel ratio deviates from a desired value to a lean region, the value of the air-fuel ratio correction coefficient (KO2) increases. Therefore, the absolute value of the difference (DKO2) increases as the degree of deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism increases. Accordingly, by determining the degree of deterioration according to the difference (DKO2), the deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism, of such a degree that the mechanism has not apparently failed can be accurately determined.
Preferably, the fuel supply control system further comprises correcting means for correcting the fuel amount according to a degree of deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism when the difference (DKO2) becomes greater than a predetermined value (DKO2EGRF).
Preferably, the fuel supply control system further comprises an intake pressure sensor for detecting an intake pressure of the engine. The correcting means uses a pressure difference (DPBEGR) between an intake pressure detected when opening the exhaust gas recirculation valve and an intake pressure detected when closing the exhaust gas recirculation valve, as a parameter indicating the degree of deterioration of the exhaust gas recirculation mechanism. |
Safety and efficacy of a potential treatment algorithm by using manual compression repair and ultrasound-guided thrombin injection for the management of iatrogenic femoral artery pseudoaneurysm in a large patient cohort.
Because of the risk of associated complications, femoral pseudoaneurysm (PSA) formation implies further treatment. Ultrasound-guided thrombin injection (UGTI) is becoming the accepted gold standard, but manual compression (MC) represents an established treatment option including PSAs not feasible for UGTI. This study aims to assess our experience in PSA treatment using MC or UGTI according to a potential algorithm based on morphological properties in a large patient cohort. Between January 2007 and January 2011, a total of 432 PSAs were diagnosed in 29091 consecutive patients (1.49%) undergoing femoral artery catheterization. When compressible, small PSAs (<20 mm), PSAs without clearly definable neck, PSAs directly adjacent to vessels, and PSAs with concomitant arteriovenous fistula were referred to MC (n=145, 34%). All other PSAs were treated by UGTI (n=287, 66%). Follow-up duplex scans were performed within 12 to 14 hours after manual compression therapy and within 4 to 6 hours after UGTI or by the next morning and were available for 428 patients (99.1%). The overall success rate of our institutional therapeutic approach was 97.2%, which was achieved by 178 MC- and 357 UGTI-procedures, respectively. Procedural complications occurred in 5 cases (1.4%) after UGTI and in 3 cases (1.7%) after MC, respectively. The treatment algorithm was not successful in 12 patients, whereas 2 PSAs (0.5%) were successfully excluded by implantation of a covered stent-graft, and 10 patients necessitated surgical intervention (2.3%), which was associated with a high complication rate (30%). The presented treatment algorithm facilitates effective and safe PSA elimination. |
Q:
How to get the public IP address of current user in Lightning component hosted on public community page
How would I get the IP address of the current user, when the user using a custom lightning component on a public community page?
Using this Apex code:
Auth.SessionManagement.getCurrentSession().get('SourceIp');
Throws error:
Guest users must never have a session ID created as it would be a
security problem.
A:
As suggested by Adrian Larson, I can get the public IP address using JavaScript.
JavaScript helper method
getPublicIPAddress: function() {
var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.open('GET', "https://api.ipify.org?format=jsonp=", true);
request.onload = function () {
if (request.status >= 200 && request.status < 400) {
let ipAddress = request.responseText;
console.log(ipAddress);
} else {
// We reached our target server, but it returned an error
console.log(request.statusText);
}
}
request.onerror = function () {
// There was a connection error of some sort
console.log(request.statusText);
}
request.send();
},
NOTE: you may need to add a Remote Site Setting
|
Summary
According to Inglewood Lt. Mike McBride, officers responded to a call of a disturbance at an apartment, followed by reports of "violent male." In the indoor courtyard of the building, they encountered Ford with a handgun; according to McBride, he was acting in a "bizarre" fashion. Officers tried and were unable to communicate with him. Things escalated: what exactly happened remains under investigation. More than one officer fired many rounds. Ford was pronounced dead at the scene. |
Characterization of intranuclear capsids made by ts morphogenic mutants of HSV-1.
We have characterized capsids made by seven temperature-sensitive (ts) mutants of HSV-1 previously shown to be defective in viral DNA processing and packaging at the nonpermissive temperature (NPT). The empty capsids isolated from mutant-infected cells at the NPT were devoid of DNA, cosedimented in sucrose with wt B capsids, and contained the same structural proteins found in wt B capsids (W. Gibson and B. Roizman (1972). J. Virol. 10, 1044-1052). The presence of VP22a in empty capsids suggests that the processing of this protein from higher-molecular-weight precursors and its association with capsids is required, but not sufficient, for DNA encapsidation. Mutants made no detectable A capsids at the NPT, but did so at the permissive temperature (PT), suggesting that A particles are generated during or subsequent to, rather than prior to, encapsidation. In temperature-shift experiments, it was demonstrated that capsids of one of the mutants, F18, made at the NPT did not participate in DNA encapsidation when cells were subsequently shifted to the PT. Only those capsids made after temperature shift to the PT acquired viral DNA, implying that the ts mutation in F18 may lie in a gene coding for a structural protein, or in a protein involved in the processing of viral DNA. |
Can warmwater streams be rehabilitated using watershed-scale standard erosion control measures alone?
Degradation of warmwater streams in agricultural landscapes is a pervasive problem, and reports of restoration effectiveness based on monitoring data are rare. Described is the outcome of rehabilitation of two deeply incised, unstable sand-and-gravel-bed streams. Channel networks of both watersheds were treated using standard erosion control measures, and aquatic habitats within 1-km-long reaches of each stream were further treated by addition of instream structures and planting woody vegetation on banks ("habitat rehabilitation"). Fish and their habitats were sampled semiannually during 1-2 years before rehabilitation, 3-4 years after rehabilitation, and 10-11 years after rehabilitation. Reaches with only erosion control measures located upstream from the habitat measure reaches and in similar streams in adjacent watersheds were sampled concurrently. Sediment concentrations declined steeply throughout both watersheds, with means > or = 40% lower during the post-rehabilitation period than before. Physical effects of habitat rehabilitation were persistent through time, with pool habitat availability much higher in rehabilitated reaches than elsewhere. Fish community structure responded with major shifts in relative species abundance: as pool habitats increased after rehabilitation, small-bodied generalists and opportunists declined as certain piscivores and larger-bodied species such as centrarchids and catostomids increased. Reaches without habitat rehabilitation were significantly shallower, and fish populations there were similar to the rehabilitated reaches prior to treatment. These findings are applicable to incised, warmwater streams draining agricultural watersheds similar to those we studied. Rehabilitation of warmwater stream ecosystems is possible with current knowledge, but a major shift in stream corridor management strategies will be needed to reverse ongoing degradation trends. Apparently, conventional channel erosion controls without instream habitat measures are ineffective tools for ecosystem restoration in incised, warmwater streams of the Southeastern U.S., even if applied at the watershed scale and accompanied by significant reductions in suspended sediment concentration. |
Q:
Why are the page numbers of the leaked documents cut off before they are copied?
In the beginning of the The Post, you see that the people leaking the Pentagon Papers cut the page numbers off each page before they copy it. Why did they do this? For anyone - including investigative journalists - finding the material, it is hard to figure out in which order the pages were.
In fact, that is making Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and his journalists team a lot of trouble when they receive the material later in the movie, because they have to order thousands of pages without any of them carrying a page number.
A:
They're not removing the page numbers.
What they are actually doing is removing any indication that the stolen documents are classified Top Secret - Sensitive. *
*I'm unsure as to the reason why but I suspect that this is to give some protection to anyone receiving the copies from legal issues. If they didn't know they were classified then they have some defence if prosecuted.
That the page numbers are also removed is just an unfortunate by-product.
|
290 F.2d 387
110 U.S.App.D.C. 196
George T. WADE et al., Appellants,v.Oscar J. LANE, Appellee.
No. 16204.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued April 28, 1961.Decided May 11, 1961.
Mr. Laurence T. Scott, Washington, D.C., with whom Mr. Denver H. Graham, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellants.
Mr. Howard J. McGrath, Washington, D.C., submitted on the brief for appellee.
Before WILBUR K. MILLER, Chief Judge, and EDGERTON and PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
1
George T. Wade was an attendant in an ambulance which was struck by Lane's car. He sued for damages, claiming to have sustained back injuries which for some time prevented him from operating his taxicab. His wife, Marguerite E. Wade, joined as plaintiff, suing for loss of consortium. The jury found for the appellee.
2
Appellant's application for a 'hacker's license,' filed some months before the end of the alleged period of disability, which stated his physical fitness, was received in evidence against him. He concedes it was admissible, but contends, as the sole ground for reversal on appeal, that it was prejudicial error to receive in evidence the reverse side of his application, which was a certificate from his own physician that a physical examination revealed no disability. On the face of the application, appellant adopted the information shown on the reverse side.
3
We find no error.
4
Affirmed.
|
centex99, welcome to the SEC. Get Ready! It's all about the D in the SEC. I can't wait for my Vols to play the Aggies in College Station. That's a trip I have to make!
boatbum, That's going to be a huge loss for the Hogs. WTH was he thinking...oh that's right, Little Bobby was doing the thinking. Can't say that hasn't happened to me before....but I'm not the highest profile person in the state.
boatbum... there's a couple of very real reason you should be concerned.
1) Spring ball is over, there's no changing the offensive system now
2) Arkansas HAD a really good recruiting class and alot of them have tweeted they are stayin in the program despite losing their head coach....but I wouldn't count on it. I know our Bob............ (Stoops), is probably fishing in Arkansas this week....
3) The most obvious choice for an interim would be Taver Johnson. And that's actually not a bad call...BUT I wouldn't count on Bobby's brother, Paul sticking around for the whole season.... that.....and Taver's offensive knowledge wouldn't fill up a thimble.
The good news..... you have Alabama & LSU at home this year.......Boston Butts are easy to cook......and beer is easy to drink......
Rumor floating around that they are talking to art briles from Baylor. I would expect there are a lot of coaches that want in the sec, but hard for someone to walk in the door during may and have much success.
Afraid this might be a 7 or so win season. That's tough following 11 wins, and a top 5 ranking.
As a life long Arkansas resident and Razorback football fan (64 years and counting) when I reflect on the most recent situation, it occurs to me that this is just another in a long list (since Broyles) of coaching dramas that we've had. Running off Lou Holtz & Ken Hatfield for no good reasons and hiring replacements like Jack Crowe. Having malcontents flying airplanes with banners over the stadium urging the firing of Houston Nutt and the revelations of his indiscretions and obsession with text messaging (Bobby, did you not read the news about that???). This is just another in a long line of dramas that has finally led me to giving up my season tickets this year.
I'm proud of Jeff Long and I think the team will be fine, although perhaps not a national contender as hoped.
That said, I understand that Petrino's wife has left him and moved to College Station - she wanted to get as far away from college football as possible ;-) |
Tag: baking
If you’re looking for something to do with all the amazing peaches arriving at the farmer’s markets this month, THIS. Use all peaches, or blend fruits like I did. Either way, know this: this is a VERY easy WOW-FACTOR dish everyone needs in their repertoire.
While I typically use regular all-purpose flour for this cake, this was the first time I attempted working with a gluten-free flour. And, let me tell you: this Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Baking Flour performed EXACTLY like my regular flour. The cake was light and moist… and, tasty as all get out. So, if you’re wanting gluten-free, THIS IS IT.
2 Large Eggs (room temperature… or ‘flash warmed’ in a bowl of warm water)
2 tsp Vanilla
STEP 1:
Preheat the oven to 350°F and prep your fruit.
STEP 2: PREPARE THE BATTER
Whisk or sift together the flour, baking power and salt. Set aside.
In a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time. Beat until smooth and fully incorporated.
Stir in half the flour mixture, then the milk, then the remaining dry ingredients. Do not over-mix; stir just until the flour is barely incorporated into the batter. Set aside.
STEP 3: MAKE SUGAR GLAZE / FRUIT LAYER
Melt butter in a 10″ cast iron skillet with stove on medium high. Add brown sugar and whisk the sugar into the butter to bring to a slow boil. Wisk for 2-4 minutes until the mixture is thick and smooth. Remove from heat.(NOTE: If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, you can caramelize your butter and sugar in any skillet. Then, once melted, simply pour the sugar mixture into a baking pan before moving to next step.)
STEP 4: ASSEMBLE THE CAKE
Arrange the fruit in the bottom of the pan. If it’s in slices, you can create a pinwheel design around a circular pan – or, get creative. Set aside.Gently dollop the batter over the fruit then gently smooth with a pastry spatula so there is an even layer of batter over all the fruit.
Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes or until: a) the top of the cake is golden brown, b) it begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, and 3) a toothpick comes out clean. (NOTE: Sometimes the fruit bubbles up and over. You can place a sheet pan on the shelf under the cake to catch any drips.)
Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Let the cake settle for a minute, until any fruit that has leaked up the sides has stopped bubbling. (TIP: Do not let the cake completely cool or it will be very difficult to get it out of the pan.)! Run a knife around the edges of the cake. Place your cake plate over the cake and, using hot pads, carefully flip the cake over. Gently remove the cake pan. Here’s a peek into how it all comes together in my FINEX cast iron 10″ skillet:
NOTE: Follow Bob’s Red Mill on Facebook and Instagram and watch for the release of the full length video – coming soon! And, yes, while my company, Relish Division, produced this video for Bob’s Red Mill, the recipe and the opinions are all my own 🙂 And, yes, that’s actually me in the video making the cake from scratch.
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After months of being consumed by remodeling, moving, unpacking, and purging, all of a sudden I woke up and the truth hit me: I have a child starting 7th grade, one starting high school, and my baby going into 3rd grade next week; the big Labor Day camping adventure we do with six other families every year is THIS weekend, our 17th wedding anniversary is coming up on the 5th; and, yes, SUMMER IS OVER.
Wow. Three months gone. Just. Like. That.
While summer started with us packing up and moving out of the rental we were in for two years, it’s ending with us officially in our new house – yippee! It’s the smallest house we’ve lived in as a family (we left 3800 sq feet in suburbia three years ago and now live in just about 2100 sq feet), yet it’s also the happiest, most comfortable house we’ve ever lived in. Soooo much work went into getting it ready for our July 1st move in: tearing down walls, a new beam, electrical work, floor installation and refinishing, painting, carpeting… and, even though we’re in, there’s still lots and lots of work to complete. But, WE ARE HOME – and we are blessed we now have a place to root our hearts and watch our kids continue to grow.
One of the raddest parts of this remodel and move is that Frigidiare partnered up with me again! Yep! Revolocity Creative spearheaded the whole project and in just a few weeks our new kitchen campaign will launch. You’ll see the reveal of my kitchen before and after, tag along with me as I shopped for appliances, and then cook with me in the kitchen! I’ll share recipes, kitchen life hacks, and we’re even doing a recipe contest giveaway! So, follow me, Frigidaire and Kraft Foods on Facebook and STAY TUNED!!
Something I want to share with you today, though, is this: my strawberry ricotta french galette.
It seems only appropriate as we say goodbye to summer and, soon, to fresh strawberries, that we mark the end with a little something special, no? Well, THIS is special… and it’s gonna thrill your taste buds to no end.
All it takes is this: a pint of fresh strawberries, some ricotta cheese, a little powdered sugar, and homemade pastry dough…
and then these simple ingredients for the finishing: an egg wash (take a room temp egg and beat it until smooth), a little sugar, and some fresh grated lemon zest.
First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees and make the dough. It’s the dough I used for my mango tart on Food Fighters, and the same dough I use for my hand pies and plated pies. This is the dough you need to know.
Add flour, butter, and sugar to the bowl of a food processor. Turn on for 10 seconds nonstop. Then, pulse and additional 5-8 times. The goal is for butter bits to be about a little larger than pea sized…. so don’t over process!
Drizzle a TBSP of water at a time through the top of the food processor and pulse for 1 second after each water addition.
Pour mixture from food processor bowl into a large mixing bowl and, using your hands, squeeze the dough together until all of the mixture is stuck together. (NOTE: The dough should lean to the dry side. If it is too dry, wet your hands and continue to work dough until it adheres. If it is too sticky, add a tsp of flour at a time until the stickiness is gone.
Form two discs, wrap in plastic, and chill.
For a video tutorial on the dough, watch this:
Second, prepare your ricotta mixture.
1 cup of ricotta cheese
1/3 cup of powdered sugar
Place the two ingredients in a bowl together and stir until sugar is fully incorporated. Set aside.
Third, prepare your strawberries. Wash and dry them, and then slice them in thin slices. Be sure to keep the strawberries together, though – it will make for a prettier layout when you put the galette together. Set aside.
Fourth, roll out the pastry. Once your dough is chilled and ready to use, flour your surface, flour the disc, and get to rolling until you have a disc that’s bout 1/4″ thick.
Now, one of the things I love most about galettes is that they’re meant to look rustic. So, when you roll the crust out, remember that: it doesn’t need to be perfect.
Fifth, assemble the galette. With the rolled out pastry centered on your baking sheet, smear your sweetened ricotta cheese around the center (being sure to leave about 2″ between the ricotta and the edge of the crust).
Cover the ricotta with your strawberries, and then begin to fold the crust up over the edges of the strawberries….
until it looks like this:
Once you have the sides folded in, wash all of the exposed dough with your egg wash (it’s what helps the crust get nice and golden)…
Lightly sprinkle the entire tart with some sugar…
And then finish it off with a little fresh grated lemon zest (about 1 lemon worth)…
Once it’s ready to go, bake it in the oven for 15-18 minutes (or until golden brown)… and LOOK WHAT YOU’LL HAVE: pure deliciousness.
From start to finish, this is something you can get together in less than 30 minutes (if you already have the dough made)… AND, it’s something that will make whomever you serve feel your love 😉
Make it. Eat it. Come back and tell me about it. I’ve missed you… and, now that I have my brain back and I’m settled in, I promise I won’t be a stranger anymore. Thanks for sticking with me – thanks for reading.
TOMORROW: It’s quinoa time!! I’ll tell you what to do with a leftover rotisseri chicken and a box GQ Brand 100% Royal Tricolor Quinoa. It’s a fast, flavorful, crowd-pleasing meal you don’t want to miss.
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My mom’s dad was addicted to granola when I was little. He was a military man – very rigid and regimented, and when we stayed with them I knew one thing for certain: granola and milk would be my breakfast.
My grandpa would buy dozens of boxes of granola at a time. He bought the exact same brand and exact same flavor, and I could always count at least six boxes at a time being perfectly stocked side by side in the overflowing pantry. (I chuckle as I think of him standing in front of the dozens and dozens of granola options we have available today… how would he have decided?)
But anyway, with all that said, I guess you could say I have a special spot in my heart for granola… and for the sweet memories of childhood it brings to mind.
While I love granola, though, the problem I have with most commercial options (beyond the mere fact they are flat out expensive!) is they are filled with sugars, preservatives, and other junk. If you read the labels, it’s quite shocking, actually: some granola has even more sugar than the ‘taboo’ cereals like Frosted Flakes. Seriously! So, what’s a girl to do?
Make my own!
Today I’m sharing my Quinola Crunch recipe with you for several reasons:
1) It’s yummier than anything you’ll find on the shelf.
2) It’s made with nothing but amazing God-made ingredients (i.e. no refined grains, flours, or sugars).
3) Making it yourself will save you a boatload of money.
4) It’s one more exceptional way to get a little more quinoa into your day!
5) I love you and I want you to be healthier by cutting out all the excess refined sugars you can.
So, you ready to wow yourself with your quinola-making abilities? Here we go:
Timing: It will take you about 10 minutes to put together, 20 minutes to bake.
In a glass bowl, melt coconut oil for approx 45-60 seconds. Add honey and return to microwave for another 30 seconds. Using a hand whisk, whisk thoroughly; then, add in vanilla and salt and whisk again to fully incorporate all ingredients together.
Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and mix until all dry ingredients are coated evenly. Spread mixture out on a cookie sheet so that the mixture is about one inch thick.
Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Remove sheet and carefully stir the mixture so that exposed surfaces are turned under. (Pay special attention to disrupt the sides and corners since those tend to toast faster than the center.)
Return sheets to oven and bake for another 10 minutes. (NOTE: The key to cooking time? You’re waiting for the mixture to turn a beautiful LIGHT golden color. So, if the mixture is already looking golden when you pull it out after the first 10 minutes, you’ll want to return it for less time after stirring; and, if you don’t notice much change in color after the first 1o minutes, you’ll be able to leave it for a little longer in the second round.)
When baking is complete, remove trays from oven and allow quinola to cool completely right on the tray. Once cooled, use a spatula to carefully release the quinola from the pan. (The more gently you work, the more chunky your quinola will be.)
Store in an airtight container.
That’s it! It is sooo yummy… and an entire tray is sooo inexpensive to make when you consider how much ‘gourmet’ quinoa snacks and granola are going for these days. (I’ve seen granola similar to this selling for close to $20+ a pound!! And this recipe? It will probably cost you about $5 for the whole tray.)
I love to just nibble on my quinola, or it’s especially yummy as a sprinkle over greek yogurt:
Quinola Crunch and Greek Yogurt
A few final tips:
You can find all ingredients in most bulk bins.
Buy organic everything if you can… and look for ‘unsulfured’ dried fruits.
The first time you make it keep a close eye on it so you don’t over toast it! Lightly toasted, lightly toasted, lightly toasted!
The quinola continues to cook AFTER you remove it from the oven… keep that in mind! So, it’s better to pull it out a little under toasted than too toasted.
Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you try it… and then come back and let me know what you think!!
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My earliest memories of ‘breakfast’ are from when I was 5. We were living in an apartment in Oakland, California. Every morning before Kindergarten my nana would get me out of bed, sit me in my dad’s antique rocker with the velvet cushions and lions head arm-rests, and she’d serve me toast with strawberry jelly and a cup of coffee.
(Yes, I said “kindergarten” and “cup of coffee” in the same sentence.)
Sometimes I’d get cereal… and, sometimes I’d get her scrambled eggs. But without a doubt: breakfast was always one of those three dishes.
Then, my next breakfast memories are from when I was about 9 and in Guam. I remember the feel of the cool island air on my skin as I sat in the open doorway of our tin shack’s back porch. I always made it just in time to watch my nana throw cracked corn to the masses of chickens cooing in her honor. Half asleep, I’d watch her routine – and then, when her pockets were empty of the chicken goodies, she’d walk next door to her house and then return to mine with one of three things: a bag of warm donuts from the old man that used to sell them out of the back of his car on our street, a stack of her famous pancakes, or a plate of scrambled eggs.
Again, I could always count on it being one of those three things… and, honestly: the lack of variety never bothered me one bit.
So it is in my house these days. Breakfast is one of those meals where my kids can pretty much bank on one of a handful things, typically: cereal, fruit, and hardboiled eggs; quinoa porridge; or this:
Quinoa Dutch Baby, served with a dusting of powdered sugar, a drizzle of real maple syrup, and fresh strawberries
The beauty of this dish is that, while it looks gourmet and totally wows the kiddos, IT IS SO SIMPLE. Seriously, it cooks itself! Here’s what you do:
Ingredients to make one 9×11 glass baking dish (feeds 4-5):
4 eggs, room temperature (you can bring eggs to room temperature by soaking them in their shell in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
1 cup milk
1 cup flour, sifted
two pinches of nutmeg
1 cup of cooked quiona
3 TBSP butter, sliced in squares
Place your glass baking dish in the oven and pre-heat the oven (and the dish) to 425.
Whisk your eggs until they are light. Add the milk, flour, and nutmeg; and, gently whisk until all ingredients are blended. (NOTE: It’s okay for it to be a little chunky, so don’t over mix!)
When the oven is ready, here’s where you’ll need to work a little quick:
Remove the hot pan (carefully!) from the oven. Place the butter squares in the pan so they begin to melt. Using a fork, stab a butter square and butter up the sides of the pan, too.
Pour the cooked quinoa into the buttered pan; toss it quickly through the butter and evenly distribute it.
Immediately pour in your batter over the quinoa making sure the batter goes to each edge of the pan. (Yes, it will disrupt the perfect distribution of your quinoa, but that’s okay.)
Return the pan to the oven. Bake for approximately 13-15 minutes, or until the center is set, and the sides are lightly brown and begin to curl up the sides of the pan.
Voilà!
Now, here’s a big difference between my quinoa dutch baby and a traditional: This version won’t give you the impressive ‘rise’ of a true dutch baby due to the density of the whole quinoa. BUT, what it lacks in rise, it makes up for in texture and flavor. (Since you add the quinoa to a hot buttered pan, it crisps just a little and – mmmm! – you get a little crunch here and there…)
Now, peeps, seriously, there are some MUSTS for serving this yumminess hot out of the oven:
You MUST use real maple syrup when you serve this little number… and just a drizzle! You don’t want it drunk on maple syrup.
You MUST also use fresh fruit of some kind, like berries, or mango, or a warm fruit compote made by simply throwing some frozen berries in the microwave. The texture of this dutch baby is very dense, so the fresh fruit lightens it.
You MUST dust with powdered sugar. Notice I said ‘dust’. It’s simply for effect more than anything. The goal is for the sweetness to come from the fruit and maple syrup, not an abundance of powdered sugar.
You may be asking: “Elisha, what if I don’t want it with the powdered sugar and maple syrup? ” Or, “what can I do with the leftovers?”
Here’s an alternative for serving (and it’s even better when they are cold):
Please note that this recipe is not gluten-free. I used regular flour for this recipe, although I’m guessing it’s possible to replace the regular flour with gluten-free flour. Would you do me a favor? If you make a gluten-free version of this, would you come back and share it with us? I’d love to hear how it turns out and what (if any) alterations you had to make to cooking time.
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When we eat cookies, I prefer they be decadent as possible. Forget the packaged cookies that have been packed on a shelf for months. Forget the ‘treats’ that are low-fat, sugar free, calorie free. Yuck.
If my kids are gonna eat a cookie, I want it to be made with real everything and nothing but pure delight to the palate.
(Same thing applies to cakes, pies, scones, cobblers. If we’re gonna eat it, then I’m gonna make it. Why? Because I know when I make it it’s gonna be the best it can be.)
Take these peanut butter cookies my 11-year old wowed us with yesterday: real peanut butter, pure vanilla extract, a dash of baking soda and lots of pure cane sugar.
Lots of sugar? Yes. But, she took pleasure in the process – and all of us took pleasure in the enjoyment of warm cookies fresh out of the oven. We made several batches, which means we’ll all be nibbling on cookies for the next several days. BUT – when the cookies are gone, it may be awhile before another batch is produced.
That’s the thing about sugar: in moderation it’s perfectly fine, especially if it is contained in what we expect it to be contained in: candy, cakes, pies, treats.
Where I have a problem with sugar is that’s been added to everything these days. We are hard pressed to find anything without added sugars, including “healthy” things, like yogurt, energy bars, condiments, soups, bread. Just take a look!
And, it’s the ‘healthy’ places that sugar lurks that drives me crazy. Why? Because the ‘evil’ is unidentifiable to my kids.
I’d rather my kids be able to identify what needs to be eaten in moderation (candy, cookies, treats), then be duped into thinking ‘fat-free’, ‘low-calorie’, ‘whole-grain’, ‘gluten-free’, ‘heathy’ means a free for all. (And yes: there is junk food lurking under each of these labels…)
So, back to the issue at hand: home-made cookies.
Life needs a little sweetness, doesn’t it? So, let’s take the time to make cookies at home. Let’s enjoy them. Let’s dip them in cold milk and savor every fat filled, sugary gulp they provide.
But let’s not do it too often, let’s not overdue it when we do it, and let’s be sure that we keep the added sugars out of the rest of our food so we can eat home-made cookies (and other home-made treats) with pure pleasure, and little guilt. |
Prima Facie Duties Correlated With Ethical Theories
Slight Revision September 18, 2002
W. D. Ross' seven prima facie duties and the three other prima facie duties
introduced in the web page on the prima facie duties approach did not
just fall from the sky. Most of them are taken from principles that, at one
time or another, have been proposed as the central obligation in the moral life.
If instead we start out from a theory that lists these prima facie duties,
the other various ethical theories could be understood as elaborating one
or more of the prima facie rules from a particular perspective. The table below
shows how several of the prima facie duties can be correlated with those ethical theories.
Note: Some theories may be narrower in focus than the corresponding
prima facie duty. Utilitarianism, for instance, favors promotion of pleasure or
preference satisfaction, and aims to prevent pain or dissatisfaction, but it does
not regard things like virtue or knowledge as goods in themselves or moral vice
or ignorance as evils in themselves. |
Hometown Hero
Cristiano Lucarelli returned to his hometown club Livorno this season after two years away, and Neil Sherwin looks at the player who wears his heart firmly on his sleeve.
With the club logo tattooed on his left forearm and his squad number chosen in honour of his side’s biggest group of Ultras, Cristiano Lucarelli is not a man to hide his feelings.
After eight clubs in a decade, he finally pulled on the shirt of his boyhood heroes Livorno in 2003, and he was the catalyst for the club’s ninth place finish in his second season.
Lucarelli banged in 29 goals in 38 matches during Livorno’s return to the top flight in 2003/04, and followed that up with 24 goals in 35 games during the next campaign to pick up the league’s Top Goalscorer award.
“Some football players pay a billion for a Ferrari or a yacht; with that money I bought myself Livorno’s shirt,” he said.
“That’s all.”
His good form resulted in a call up to the Italian national team for whom he scored three times in six games.
Lucarelli had his suitors from big European clubs, but rejected their advances in order to stay at Livorno.
He had previously spent some time in Spain with Valencia but that spell ended rather unhappily after just 13 games and one goal during the 1998/99 season.
However in 2006, Livorno accepted an offer of £6 million from Shakhtar Donetsk and Lucarelli agreed to the move, becoming the first Italian player to play in the the Ukraine.
He stayed at Donetsk, in typical Lucarelli fashion, for one season, averaging just under a goal a game, before returning to Serie A with Parma, though he was used sparingly as the club was relegated from Serie A.
In July of last year Lucarelli completed a loan move back to his spiritual home, the Stadio Armando Picchi.
His passion for the club has never been in doubt. While playing for Torino, Lucarelli attended a game which saw Livorno promoted from Serie B and he was amongst a crowd of fans that celebrated on the pitch afterwards.
As a youngster he demonstrated his allegiances during an under 21 international when he took off his shirt to reveal a Che Guevara t-shirt (Livorno is notorious for its left wing politics).
“My Che Guevara t-shirt became a national scandal,” he said.
“I tried to explain that Che Guevara is the symbol of Livorno supporters and that was my way of saying thank you, but all my attempts were useless.
“However, since that day I became a sort of ‘hero’ for the people in Livorno and this is exactly what I wanted.”
Lucarelli has also set up a successful business in the city with the launch of the Corriere di Livorno newspaper in 2007.
“Our newspaper is mainly focused on local and regional issues but we do have pages about national and international politics, the economy and, of course, sport,” he told FourFourTwo magazine.
Now the club captain, Lucarelli put in a typically passionate performance and played a starring role in last week’s 3-3 draw with Roma as he helped himself to a hattrick.
However with the end of the season fast approaching,the club are firmly in the relegation zone and the now 34 year old striker won’t be able to drag them out of danger all by himself.
Even if the worst happens and Livorno return to Serie B, you can be sure that none of the blame will be placed at the feet of Lucarelli.
In the words of coach Serse Cosmi after the Roma game, “Lucarelli IS Livorno”.
Author Info
Neil Sherwin
Co-editor of BackPageFootball.com. Writes mostly on Premier League, A-League and MLS with contributions to other sites including TheFootballSack, InBedWithMaradona and Bloomberg's BSports. Has featured on The Guardian's Football Weekly. |
Cooking, comedy, cartoons and codswallop
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Tag Archives: Glasgow
Featured
Travellers on Scotland’s world-renowned West Highland Line can look forward to a number of exciting initiatives over the next couple of years. Revamped trains will offer innovations such as see-through windows, flushable toilets and, best of all, on-board “tourism ambassadors” to tell visitors all about the route.
Recently, over a pleasant evening of cocktails, canapés and lounge jazz in the Marine Bar, Mallaig, I got chatting to one of the newly recruited “ambassadors”, who was kind enough to give me an advance copy of their script, which I’m delighted to reproduce here. And I must admit, even to a seasoned traveller like me, it’s remarkably enlightening.
The Isle of Eigg, viewed from the site of the proposed Isle of Muck Monorail terminus.
Section 1: Mallaig to Fort William
The line to Mallaig was built in 1901 in order to take herring to London, back in an era when fish had much higher disposable incomes than they have today. But the railway soon caught the imaginations of local humans as well, keen to escape the industrial grime of Beasdale and Lochailort for the unspoilt majesty of Dalmuir.
The importance of Mallaig as a port grew following the introduction in 1932 of its first car ferry, the Road to the Isles. To avoid confusion with the vessel’s somewhat unusual name, the nearby A830 trunk road was subsequently renamed the Boat to Fort William. Mallaig’s once mighty fishing industry has declined from its 1960s heyday; but the sea continues to play a vital part in the village’s economy, and species as diverse as prawns, haddock, salmon and mackerel can be found in its Co-op to this day.
Our first stop is Morar, whose “White Sands” were famously featured in the film Local Hero. The movie’s soundtrack was written and performed by jobbing musician Mark Knopfler, who has since fallen on hard times and can often be found hanging around the beach during tourist season, noodling away on his guitar for pennies. A similar fate befell locally-born weather presenter Carol Kirkwood, who now lives in a wheelie bin outside the Morar Hotel, offering speculative long range forecasts in exchange for Special Brew and pork scratchings.
At Arisaig, the line affords spectacular views of the islands of Rum and Eigg, which take their names from the two most popular breakfast items in the West Highlands. The village itself is a pleasant five minute stroll downhill from the station, though the return journey is an arduous three day climb that should only be attempted in the presence of a Sherpa. Arisaig is currently the westernmost railway station in Britain, although it is scheduled to lose this title in 2019 when the Isle of Muck completes its long-awaited monorail network.
Historic Glenfinnan is where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his royal standard to instigate the Jacobite Rising of 1745. As the train crosses the iconic Glenfinnan Viaduct, it accelerates to a near-standstill so passengers can admire the famous monument to the Prince on the banks of beautiful Loch Shiel – surely one of the finest views in Scotland.
Of course, none of this is of the slightest interest to the thousands of grown men and women who come here every year with the sole purpose of following in the footsteps of a fictional schoolboy wizard. In this respect, it’s no exaggeration to say that Harry Potter has done for Glenfinnan what Miss Hoolie did for Tobermory. On the station platform, local entrepreneurs rush to sell Harry-themed postcards, keyrings, golf umbrellas and gimp masks to enthusiastic tourists – whose children, meanwhile, remain on the train, staring at their phones, valiantly trying to get Snapchat to work with a one bar mobile signal. They have no idea who Harry Potter is.
From Glenfinnan, the train continues east along the northern bank of Loch Eil, stopping briefly to pick up frostbitten escapees from the loch’s Outward Bound centre, and on to the village of Corpach, which gained its name – meaning “field of corpses” – following a particularly violent shinty match in 1470.
At Banavie, we pass the famous Neptune’s Staircase, a system of locks on which boats ascend 60 feet to the higher section of the Caledonian Canal. You’d do well to take a moment to admire this while you still can, because after almost 200 years in operation, modern accessibility requirements dictate that it will shortly be pulled up and replaced with a state-of-the-art “Neptune’s Travelator”. Banavie is also the home of the signalling centre that controls every train departure on the West Highland Line, from Mallaig all the way to Helensburgh, with the aid of an exceptionally loud whistle.
On the approach to Fort William, the region’s most celebrated landmark finally comes into view, to gasps of delight of locals and tourists alike. No trip to the area is complete without paying it a visit; but once you’ve been to McDonald’s, it’s also worth checking out Ben Nevis. Despite its status as the highest mountain in Britain, the climb to the summit is surprisingly straightforward, attracting visitors in large numbers – partly to admire the stunning views, but mainly so they can bang on about it for years as if they’re Sir Edmund chuffing Hillary.
Section 2: Fort William to Crianlarich
The circuitous nature of this section of line can be traced back to a design meeting at Glasgow engineers Forman & McCall in 1889. Chief engineer James Bulloch, running late and still drunk from the night before, hastily sketched out a route on the back of a beer mat on the tram to work before presenting it to his colleagues. When the practical difficulties of the proposed line were pointed out to him, Bulloch decided to brazen it out, as the minutes of the meeting record:
Mr Forman observed that the intended route would pass over miles of saturated, uninhabitable bogland, rendering its construction almost impossible; but Mr Bulloch demurred, insisting it would “aw be fine” and that “awbody kens trains can float, eh?”. Mr Bulloch then abruptly left the meeting and headed in the direction of a local hostelry, pausing briefly to urinate in the street and swear at a passing horse.
Based on Bulloch’s visionary design, the line heads northeastwards from Fort William to Spean Bridge. It passes close to the Commando Memorial, which honours a local regiment who helped conserve scarce textile resources during World War II by going into battle without any underwear. Their sacrifice became a symbol for British stoicism in wartime, and led to the coining of the term “crack troops”. The highly lifelike Commandos sculpture was completed in 1952, and it’s understood the Queen Mother took enormous pleasure in unveiling it.
Roy Bridge was home to the parents of Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first ever saint, and indeed its only one until the recent canonisation of Dame Edna Everage. North of the village lies the glacial feature now known as the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, although prior to improvement works during the last Ice Age, it was referred to as the Single Track Road of Glen Roy with Passing Places.
From Tulloch station, we head south past beautiful Loch Treig, whose evocative-sounding Gaelic name translates into English as “Loch of Death” – a macabre naming convention shared by nearby Loch Arkaig (“Loch of Indiscriminate Slaughter”) and Loch Ossian (“Loch of Stamping on Little Bunny Rabbits”). Here, the train begins its long climb to the highest station in the UK at Corrour. The steep incline poses a challenge for the ironically-named “Sprinter” trains that operate this route, and it’s relatively common for the guard to ask passengers to get out and push.
The scenery around Corrour may be familiar as the location of the “Great Outdoors” scene in Trainspotting, in which the group get off the West Highland Line train and set out to climb the nearby Leum Uilleim mountain. Rumours that the same train also inspired the film’s “Worst Toilet in Scotland” scene remain unconfirmed.
By this point, there are no roads for miles around, and the surrounding countryside is wet and treacherous, as starkly illustrated by the dozens of abandoned, half-submerged rail replacement buses visible from the train window. The train, however, continues serenely across the moor to Rannoch station, its tracks “floating” on a mattress of tree roots, earth and brushwood, which represents something of a triumph for drunken, last minute railway design.
The railway line finally rejoins the main road just before Bridge of Orchy, which consists of a hotel, a church and not much else. In West Highland terms, this is enough to qualify it as a major conurbation. We then round the spectacular horseshoe curve at the base of Beinn Dorain, on which the train will often pass itself coming in the opposite direction, before arriving at Upper Tyndrum. If ever you’re catching the train here, be sure to go to the correct station: the village also has stops at Tyndrum Lower, Tyndrum Even Lower and Tyndrum Subterranean, making it the only settlement in Britain with more railway stations than people.
Finally, after almost two hours’ travel through largely barren wilderness, the scenery changes dramatically. Bright lights, office blocks, multiplex cinemas and retail parks begin to dominate the skyline, which can mean only one thing: we are approaching Crianlarich.
Section 3: Crianlarich to Glasgow Queen Street
Crianlarich is where the Mallaig and Oban lines meet, which means a wait of around ten minutes while the two trains divide, sub-divide, sub-sub-divide and reattach, often all at the same time. As a result, the station is beloved of smokers, who gather on the platform and attempt to consume as many cigarettes as possible before the scheduled departure. The all time record is held by the late Willie “One Lung” Jackson of Locheilside, who on 23 October 2004 managed to puff his way through thirteen filterless roll-ups and a cheroot before being ushered back on to the train.
These days, smoking is officially prohibited even on the open platform, following a successful complaint from a nearby sheep with a slight bronchial condition. Like the rule outlawing on-train drinking after 9pm, this by-law is both warmly endorsed and religiously observed by regular users of the West Highland Line.
The first stop on this final section of the line is at Ardlui, at the north end of Loch Lomond. Traditionally, this is the last northbound stopping point for day-trippers from the central belt who get off here, stop for a few pints in the Ardlui Hotel and get the late train home, which is sufficient for them to claim proudly that they’ve “done” the Highlands.
From Ardlui, the train proceeds south along the west bank of the loch, which despite its proximity to Glasgow, remains an unspoilt oasis of serenity, punctuated only by a few hundred passing speedboats, jet skis, cruise ships and supertankers. The picture postcard view across the loch was largely unobstructed until the past few years, when local practical jokers began planting trees at regular intervals to irritate tourists attempting to take photographs through the window.
The next stop, Arrochar and Tarbet, is situated on the narrow isthmus between two lochs. Arrochar sits at the head of Loch Long, a popular location for diving and fishing – though many old-timers feel these pursuits have lost much of their excitement since the closure of Arrochar’s torpedo testing facility in 1986 – while the village of Tarbet lies on Loch Lomond, a little under two miles away. During the Scottish-Norwegian War of the 13th century, Viking invaders would haul their longboats across the isthmus in order to reach Loch Lomond. Warriors who completed this arduous task were traditionally rewarded with extra pay and rations. This was known as an Isthmus Bonus.
Garelochhead station looks over the naval base at Faslane, which houses the UK’s stockpile of Trident missiles. As at Glenfinnan, locals have been quick to capitalise on the area’s fame, and souvenir hunters are encouraged to visit the pop-up shop on the platform and pick up a fully functioning scale model of a nuclear submarine to entertain the kids.
Helensburgh Upper represents the end of the West Highland Line “proper”, after which the train joins the busy Strathclyde suburban rail network. The remainder of the route is perhaps less spectacular than what has gone before, but still has much to recommend it. As we reach the Clyde Estuary, a number of anonymous but renowned local artworks become visible, including Still Life With Shopping Trolley and a postmodern arrangement of dead pigeons and Tennents cans that is simply entitled Glasgow. The train also provides the ideal perspective – and distance – to view the towns of Greenock and Port Glasgow at their very best.
Finally, after further stops at Dumbarton Central and Dalmuir, we reach our final destination of Glasgow Queen Street. As you disembark, keep an eye out for any West Highlanders who have travelled with you, as they take a moment to absorb the contrast between Scotland’s largest city and the landscape of lochs and mountains from which they’ve come – before swiftly realising their mistake and getting straight back on the train.
[Author’s note: Please note that this is an unofficial draft copy of the tourism ambassadors’ script, and I cannot be held responsible for any minor inaccuracies contained therein. For a more authoritative representation of the line, you might want to check out the Friends of the West Highland Line website and/or this wonderful BBC documentary from 1960, showing a day in the life of the line in the era of steam travel.] |
Q:
reading json files from s3 to glue pyspark with glueContext.read.json gives wrong result
Does anyone know why glueContext.read.json gives me a wrong result?
Basically the below 2 methods give me very different results. After exploding, df2 has much fewer records than df1.
anyone had experienced the same?
Thanks!!
df1 = glueContext.create_dynamic_frame_from_options("s3", format="json", connection_options = {"paths": ["s3://.../"]})
df2 = glueContext.read.json("s3://.../",multiLine=True)
A:
Generally glueContext.create_dynamic_frame_from_options is used to read files in groups from source location (large files), so by default it considers all the partitions of files. Below is the syntax:
df = glueContext.create_dynamic_frame_from_options("s3", {'paths': ["s3://s3path/"], 'recurse':True, 'groupFiles': 'inPartition', 'groupSize': '1048576'}, format="json")
Here groupSize is customisable and you can change it according to your need.
Meanwhile glueContext.read.json is generally used to read specific file at a location.
So in your case it might be happening that the glueContext.read.json is missing some of the partitions of the data while reading. This is the reason that there is difference in size and rows in both the data frames.
|
Carefully chop pine nuts very fine. Mince 1 cup basil and mix with pine nuts & flour in wide bowl. Pat dry the chicken and lightly season with salt & pepper; brush each half chicken breast with olive oil and coat with pine nut basil mixture. Cover loosely with plastic wrap while you make the sauce.
Combine shallots, Chardonnay & cream in non reactive saucepan. Reduce over high heat to about ¼ cup liquid. Reduce heat to medium low and whisk in butter a few bits at a time, until butter is used up and sauce is emulsified. Season with salt & pepper and lemon juice. Remove from heat and keep warm until ready to serve.
Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, & bake chicken for 25-30 minutes. Serve on a bed of mashed potatoes with sauce draped to one side. Garnish with remaining basil leaves. |
/*
* OpenAPI Petstore
* This spec is mainly for testing Petstore server and contains fake endpoints, models. Please do not use this for any other purpose. Special characters: \" \\
*
* The version of the OpenAPI document: 1.0.0
*
*
* NOTE: This class is auto generated by OpenAPI Generator (https://openapi-generator.tech).
* https://openapi-generator.tech
* Do not edit the class manually.
*/
package org.openapitools.client.model;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonInclude;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonProperty;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonCreator;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonValue;
import io.swagger.annotations.ApiModel;
import io.swagger.annotations.ApiModelProperty;
import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Ignore;
import org.junit.Test;
/**
* Model tests for Order
*/
public class OrderTest {
private final Order model = new Order();
/**
* Model tests for Order
*/
@Test
public void testOrder() {
// TODO: test Order
}
/**
* Test the property 'id'
*/
@Test
public void idTest() {
// TODO: test id
}
/**
* Test the property 'petId'
*/
@Test
public void petIdTest() {
// TODO: test petId
}
/**
* Test the property 'quantity'
*/
@Test
public void quantityTest() {
// TODO: test quantity
}
/**
* Test the property 'shipDate'
*/
@Test
public void shipDateTest() {
// TODO: test shipDate
}
/**
* Test the property 'status'
*/
@Test
public void statusTest() {
// TODO: test status
}
/**
* Test the property 'complete'
*/
@Test
public void completeTest() {
// TODO: test complete
}
}
|
Monday, September 25, 2006
Poop
Friday, September 22, 2006
Little Heidi
Little Heidi has been staying with us for the past week. She has been an utter darling, melting our hearts from my maid to my hard-hearted Dad. My brother and I enjoyed watching her chewing antics, gnawing at doormats and chasing anything that moved. I adored the way she would fall asleep halfway chewing at the doggy toy (Furry) I placed next to her as a security blanket.
Mister Toto, on the other hand, can get rather irritated with Heidi's constant tail-chewing (his) habits. Heh.
Tonight, Heidi will be going home with Catherine. This morning, my brother went to the backyard to look at her.
Hey, he said, I will not be able to catch you by the time I come home. You will probably be with your new owner. I'm here to say Goodbye.
All right, Heidi girl, I will give you Furry to chew on so you will have company before you sleep in your new home. Catherine dear will be a good mother, I'm sure. :)
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Adoption Mission
What a hectic, hectic weekend! But the excellent news is: All the puppies have new owners to shower them with love and new homes! Whee!
I was panicking on Friday, not exactly knowing where to go or what to do. It was a mess, really. Thankfully, with the wonderful invention of the Internet and of course, some strange stroke of luck, things seemingly turned out quite fine for now. There was quite an overwhelming response to my advertisement on WhoLivesNearYou.com, my blog, and my plea on MSN Messenger. Perhaps the word of mouth is really a powerful tool. Thank you, once again, to those who help in some way or another!
Fortunately for me, I have a friend like Shannon who knows alot about dogs, puppies and whatsnot and a neighbor named Jeanette who specialized in pet supplies. Jeanette provided me with some fences and together with my brother, they neatly whipped up an enclosure for the 5 little darlings.
On Friday night, someone took home little fluffy 'Bao Gong'. However, his irresponsible actions left me rather shaken and I demanded he bring the dog back the next day. This little glitch in the mission left quite a sour taste in my mouth, and I began to feel anxious about the fate of the little puppies.
I worked till late Saturday dawn, putting up online notices and doing some doggy rescue research, before waking up early to prepare the little ones to meet potential adopters. Before my mum and Lina gave them all a bath, I decided to release them in the garden for some fun, with Toto as the chief herder.
Sometimes, the little ones get into fights...
..and Captain Toto has to come to the rescue...
..and tell the rough ones to bugger off!
Eh, eh, ask you all don't fight already. Don't understand, is it?
Soon, at about 11 in the morning, my friends who are keen to adopt began to arrive. They comprised mainly of Catherine, Cynthia and Cynthia's colleagues. Shannon came with bags of puppy goodies to help with the chaos. In fact, I think we did look like a mini SPCA in action because one of the potential adopter quip "Are you all some sort of pet rescue group???" Haha.
Look how busy my backyard was!
Everyone appeared to have a personal favorite. Each one took a puppy up for loads of cuddles. Catherine picked little diamond and renamed her 'Heidi'. Cynthia picked little brownhead and renamed her 'Twinkle'. Daimler picked the adorable little Bao Gong.
Weighing the puppies!
Shannon the vet, deworming the pups.
Daimler with Twinkle and Bao Gong. All the puppies love him!
Two puppies were adopted by persons who responded to my WhoLivesNearYou advertisement. We interviewed them and made them promise to bring them back for vaccinations. I will call them a week later to update on their progress.
Here is Jackie No. 1 going to her new home. :)
Here is Twinkle, going home too!
My mummy was a great help, feeding the visitors with goodies, mopping up, and telling us grandmotherly stories. Kudos to the Mum!
Sandy dropped by to show the puppies some love too.
Some other random picturesof the little pups.
Anyway, I am amazed at the speedy success of the mission, at least for now. I will check back with the owners to ensure the pups are fine. Probably, we can organize some kind of outing to reunite the siblings? Hee.
The picture below says it all at the end of the day.Doggone it, I am so exhausted!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Argh!
I just spent the last hour speed-reading documentation, relocating stacks of notes, removing tapes and boxes, to install a newly purchased Canon Printer.
Actually, it was given free during the Comex Fair where my brother bought a laptop. He came home with the deal which delighted my mother who has been nagging for a new printer to replace our old ones.
Anyway, like all men, my brother's assurance of 'I will set up the printer soon' actually means 'Never' or if you prefer, 'Over my dead body'.
Either that, he knows the universal strategy of all men, that is - by leaving any accursed chore undone for long periods of time, the chore will automatically dissipate into thin air (read: get done by a woman).
Thus, as usual, I morphed into the handyman of the family, the superheroine who solves all video cassette recorder woes, wireless internet troubles, television reception disorders and whatsnot.
However, just when I thought the newly minted printer is settled all nicely at the corner of the table amidst all my sweat and cuss words, I realized I am missing a bloody USB CABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I called my brother hastily.
Me: Brother, the printer you brought home has no USB cable one.Bro: Huh.Me: How to connect to computer like that? Wireless meh?Bro: Mmm. I need to ask my friend.
Suddenly, a burst of light shone from above and magnified a line of super mini-sized (probably Arial Font Size 1.0 words) that reads: USB cable must be purchased to connect this product to the PC.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Happy Birthday Lina! & Flying Escargot
Lina, our domestic helper, is one special person. Not only has she the uncanny ability to comprehend and predict each family member's quirky habits, she is also blessed with quick wit and sharp initiative. Another special trait of hers include sharing her birthday with one of world's tragic incidents - September 11th.
Yesterday, my mum and I took her out to celebrate her birthday. After browsing around Bugis Junction, we settled upon Ma Masion, a restaurant that serves up a fusion of Japanese and Western Cuisine. The queue comprised mainly of Japanese customers, probably an indication of how authentic the food is.
After queuing for a good 20 minutes, we were finally shown our seats.
Here are shots of Mumsy and Lina waiting for their food.
I don't know what they are laughing at. Maybe I looked funny.
Our meal started with a cheesy potato appetizer. The perfect solution to my melted cheese craving for the night.
Next, the waitress presented our plate of escargots before setting them on fire.
Notice how my mother looked mildly distressed to witness her escargots going into flames. Lina, on the other hand, looked coolly amused.
Like the ever-efficient cook of the house, Lina could not help but keep an eye to ensure the dish isn't overcooked, even when posing for photos. Hee.
Anyway, I offered kindly to pry the little bits of flesh from the shells, using the typical sort of pincer and a dented fork
The powerful spring of the stupid tool took me by surprise when I released it accidentally. The victimized escargot shot and riccocheted off the walls somewhere. Lina dissolved into teary laughing hysterics while my mother pretended I was not her daughter.
After ensuring I did not injure any fellow customers with the wayward escargot, I found it strangely nestled under my chair. Let's hope nobody notice eh?
Since the flesh was still inside the shell, my mother asked me to pick it up and pry anyway. Ho ho. I became an expert in maneuvering the damn pincers. No more flying escargots.
The main courses arrived soon after.Lina's chicken steak
Mum and her mouth-watering Chili Cod Roe Spaghetti
More cheesy satisfaction - Au Gratin with Prawns and Scallop
All in all, it was an awesome dinner. I'll give it a 7.5/10. Thumbs up!
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Exploring the East
Since I moved to Holland area, my hangouts are mostly confined within town and the Western region (unless I have possession of the car or attain some kindly chaffeuring services). Yesterday, a group of us planned an expedition to the East, specifically the Coast, a place where we have quite neglected recently.
We started out the typical East Coasty way, that is, to rent a bloody bike (or blades). The whole park was simply teeming with roller-bladers, cyclists and people. I was reminded of my distaste for this public park on a weekend. Crowds. Mmm. I am anti-crowd kind of person, explicating my preference for ulu parks such as Kent Ridge and Labrador, where there are no people to wag fingers and chide me for not leashing Mister Toto.
Anyway, we rented our bikes and rode towards this mini jetty towards Fort Road where I enjoyed watching uncles flying some very powerful kites. It was quite entertaining, really. Or maybe, I am just getting old so I actually enjoyed watching it.
After making a detour at the dead end, we rode towards Bedok Jetty, which was overcrowded as usual. We veered off slightly from the jetty, found some nice patch of grass for us to lay our mat, and settled down for some 100-plus and card games. It was a good, cheap way to while time away, coupled with the beautiful sky and cool sea breeze.
As dusk slowly sunk in, we cycled back dutifully to return our bikes. There was an hour free for every hour of rental. I am not sure if this is the norm among the bicycle shops, but hey, 7 bucks for 2 hours of exercise is quite inexpensive, eh?
The arduous task of deciding where to dine was up next. It can be quite a chore selecting a place, especially in big groups where the majority of people are inclined to quip "Anything, lah." Thankfully, as we were browsing and racking our brains, a friendly waitress came up to us and started introducing the menu in a non-hardselling way. Needless to say, we were sold. I think the restaurant is called Zen, serving up pan-Asian fusion cusine, next to MacDonalds.
Our meal was quite a fine palate, comprising...
Fresh Oysters (One for a dollar!)
A variety of Sashimi
Crispy Frog Legs
Drunken Lobster Soup
Truffle Mushroom Ice Cream
... and quite some dishes more. I like the Oriental Crab Mee sua. Mmm. Thinking about it makes me hungry now.
Amazingly, despite the fulfilling dinner, Alvin insisted on going to Macs next door to get his dosage of french fries.
Here, he displayed how he could get rid of his double chin should he consume too much french fries.
Finally, we strolled down the beach with some drinks bought from 7-11, put the mat to a good use again, and sleepily lounged around for some lazy games. The games did quite an excellent job of waking us up and tickling our funny bones.
So, the moral of the story is, invest in a good picnic mat and perhaps, some speakers for your ipod for a nice cheap way to while your Saturday away. :) |
When we hear the words, semiconductor device, we may think first of the transistors in PCs or video game consoles, but transistors are the basic component in all of the electronic devices we use in our daily lives. Electronic systems are built from components such as transistors, capacitors, wires and other electronic devices such as light emitting diodes and semiconductor lasers. These components are typically integrated into a single chip made of a semiconductor material.
Advanced courses go more deeply into semiconductor theory, device physics, fabrication processes, and advanced and special purpose devices, such as heterostructure devices, power devices, and optoelectronic devices.
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This nanoHUB "topic page" provides an easy access to selected nanoHUB Semiconductor Device Education Material that is openly accessible and usable by everyone around the world.
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We invite you to participate in this open source, interactive educational initiative:
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* [http://www.nanohub.org/contribute/ Contribute your content] by uploading it to the nanoHUB. (See "Contribute Content") on the nanoHUB mainpage.
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* Provide feedback for the items you use on the nanoHUB through the review system. (Please be explicit and provide constructive feedback.)
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* Let us know when things do not work for you - file a ticket through the nanoHUB "Help" feature on every page
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* Finally, let us know what you are doing and [http://www.nanohub.org/feedback/suggestions/ your suggestions] improving the nanoHUB by using the "Feedback" section, which you can find under "[http://www.nanohub.org/support/ Support]"
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Thank you for using the nanoHUB, and be sure to [http://www.nanohub.org/feedback/success_story/ share your nanoHUB success stories] with us. We like to hear from you, and our sponsors need to know that the nanoHUB is having impact.
[[Image(/site/resources/tools/kronig_penney/allowed_bands_step_well.png, 120 class=align-right)]] The [/resources/5065 Periodic Potential Lab in ABACUS] solves the time independent Schroedinger Equation in a 1-D spatial potential variation. Rectangular, triangular, parabolic (harmonic), and Coulomb potential confinements can be considered. The user can determine energetic and spatial details of the potential profiles, compute the allowed and forbidden bands, plot the bands in a compact and an expanded zone, and compare the results against a simple effective mass parabolic band. Transmission is also calculated through the well for the given energy range.
[[Image(/site/resources/tools/strainbands/strainbands2.png, 120 class=align-right)]] [/resources/5065 StrainBands in ABACUS] uses first-principles density functional theory within the local density approximation and ultrasoft pseudopotentals to compute and visualize density of states, E(k), charge densities, and Wannier functions for bulk semiconductors. Using this tool, you can study and learn about the bandstructures of bulk semiconductors for various materials under hydrostatic pressure and under strain conditions. Physical parameters such as the bandgap and effective mass can also be obtained from the computed E(k). We note here that the bandgaps obtained with DFT-LDA are underestimated, by about a factor of two for some semiconductors (including Si and GaAs), as is well known.
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== Bulk Semiconductors ==
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=== [/tools/abacus Carrier Statistics Lab] ===
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[[Image(/site/resources/2008/01/03885/cd_pg1.jpg, 120 class=align-right)]] The [/resources/5065 Carrier Statistics Lab in ABACUS] demonstrates electron and hole density distributions based on the Fermi-Dirac and Maxwell Boltzmann equations. This tool shows the dependence of carrier density, density of states and occupation factor on temperature and fermi level. User can choose between doped and undoped semi-conductors. Silicon, Germanium, and GaAs can be studied as a function of doping or Fermi level, and temperature. It is supported by a [/resources/3878/ homework assignment] in which Students are asked to explore the differences between Fermi-Dirac and Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions, compute electron and hole concentrations, study temperature dependences, and study freeze-out.
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[[Image(/site/resources/tools/semi/excess_carrier_profile_light_top.png, 120 class=align-right)]] The [/resources/5065 Drift Diffusion Lab in ABACUS] enables a user to understand the basic concepts of DRIFT and DIFFUSION of carriers inside a semiconductor slab using different kinds of experiments. Experiments like shining light on the semiconductor, applying bias and both can be performed. This tool provides important information about carrier densities, transient and steady state currents, fermi-levels and electrostatic potentials. It is supported by two related homework assignments [/resources/4191/ #1] and [/resources/4188/ #2] in which Students are asked to explore the concepts of drift, diffusion, quasi Fermi levels, and the response to light.
[[Image(/site/resources/tools/adept/adept2.png, 120 class=align-right)]] [/tools/adept/ ADEPT] is not supported within ABACUS, since it is a research-oriented tool that enables the study of solar cells for various material systems. A [/site/resources/2007/05/02659/adoc.pdf Reference Manual] and a [/site/resources/2007/05/02660/adept_heterostruct_tutorial.pdf ADEPT Heterostructure Tutorial] are available. The interface is not a simple point-and-click interface as for example the PN junction lab, but simulation commands are entered in a command-like fashion.
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== Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT) ==
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=== [/tools/abacus/ Bipolar Junction Lab] ===
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[[Image(/site/resources/tools/bjt/5_BJTenergy_nonequil.gif, 120 class=align-right)]] The [/tools/abacus/ Bipolar Junction Lab in ABACUS] allows Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) simulation using a 2D mesh. It allows user to simulate npn or pnp type of device. Users can specify the Emitter, Base and Collector region depths and doping densities. Also the material and minority carrier lifetimes can be specified by the user. It is supported by a [/resources/4185/ homework assignment] in which Students are asked to find the emitter efficiency, the base transport factor, current gains, and the Early voltage. Also a qualitative discussion is requested.
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Exercises:
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* [[Resource(5199)]]
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* [[Resource(5193)]]
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* [[Resource(5083)]]
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== MOS Capacitors ==
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=== [/tools/abacus/ MOScap] ===
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[[Image(/site/resources/tools/moscap/moscap.jpg, 120 class=align-right)]] The [/tools/abacus/ MOScap Tool in ABACUS] tool enables a semi-classical analysis of MOS Capacitors. Simulates the capacitance of bulk and dual gate capacitors for a variety of different device sizes, geometries, temperature and doping profiles.
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Exercises:
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* [[Resource(4855)]]
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* [[Resource(5185)]]
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* [[Resource(5187)]]
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* [[Resource(5189)]]
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* [[Resource(5087)]]
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=== [/tools/schred/ Schred] ===
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[[Image(/images/tool/schred/schred.jpg, 120 class=align-right)]] [/tools/schred/ Schred] is not formally supported in ABACUS. It contains more advanced quantum mechanical concepts and is a nanoHUB contributed tool. It calculates the envelope wavefunctions and the corresponding bound-state energies in a typical MOS (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) or SOS (Semiconductor-Oxide-Semiconductor) structure and a typical SOI structure by solving self-consistently the one-dimensional (1D) Poisson equation and the 1D Schrodinger equation.
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* [[Resource(4900)]]
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* [[Resource(4902)]]
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* [[Resource(4904)]]
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* [[Resource(4794)]]
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* [[Resource(4796)]]
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== MOSFETs ==
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=== [/tools/abacus/ MOSfet Lab] ===
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[[Image(/site/resources/tools/mosfet/mosfet.jpg, 120 class=align-right)]] The [/tools/abacus/ MOSfet Lab in ABACUS] tool enables a semi-classical analysis of current-voltage characteristics for bulk and SOI Field Effect Transistors (FETs) for a variety of different device sizes, geometries, temperature and doping profiles.
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* [[Resource(4906)]]
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* [[Resource(5104)]]
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* [[Resource(5191)]]
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* [[Resource(5085)]]
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== About ABACUS Constituent Tools ==
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The Assembly of Basic Applications for Coordinated Understanding of Semiconductors (ABACUS) has been put together from individual disjoint tools to enable educators and students to have a one-stop-shop in semiconductor education. It therefore benefits tremendously from the hard work that the contributors of the individual tool builders have put into their tools.
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As a matter of credit, simulation runs that are performed in the ABACUS tool are also credited to the individual tools, which help the ranking of the individual tools. We do also count the number of usages of the individual tools in the ABACUS tool set, to measure the ABACUS impact and possibly also improve the tool.
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In the description above we do not refer to the individual tools since we want to guide the users to the composite ABACUS tool. We cite the individual tools here explicitly so they are being given the appropriate credit and on their rspective tool pages are being linked to this ABACUS topic page. |
Q:
Why is my Lambda API via Chalice giving an internal server error instead of a datetime value?
The API result at /date is giving an {"message": "Internal server error"} error. /hello is successfully returning 'hello world'.
The ultimate goal is to return the number of days passed so far this year.
'''
from chalice import Chalice
from datetime import date
app = Chalice(app_name='days')
app.debug = True
@app.route('/hello')
def index():
return {'hello': 'world'}
@app.route('/date')
def days():
return date.today()
'''
A:
Based on the comments.
The issue was that date.today() was not returning json.
The solution was to convert it to string so that is correctly recognized as a json string: something like str(date.today())
|
Distribution of P2X receptor subtypes in the rat female reproductive tract at late pro-oestrus/early oestrus.
Using immunohistochemistry techniques, we have examined the female reproductive organs of the rat in late pro-oestrus/early oestrus for the presence of purine nucleotide P2X1-7 receptors. In contrast to the male genital organs and the urinary tract, P2X1 receptors were present weakly, if at all, on smooth muscle membranes, except in blood vessels, whereas P2X2 immunoreactivity in smooth muscle was present in ovary and uterus as well as in blood vessels. Neither P2X1 nor P2X2 receptors were present in fallopian tubes. P2X5 receptors were seen in the differentiating cell layers of the stratified squamous vaginal epithelium and also in the very early stages of ovarian follicular development; P2X6 receptors were present in secondary follicles. P2X7 receptors, markers for programmed cell death, were present in the keratinised vaginal epithelium and also in the exfoliating superficial endometrial cells. The possible biological significance of these signalling molecules in the female reproductive tract is discussed. |
Penicillium sanguifluum
Penicillium sanguifluum is a species of fungus in the genus Penicillium. It was first described scientifically in 1912 by Norwegian mycologist Olav Johan Sopp, who called it Citromyces sanguifluus. Philibert Biourge transferred it to the genus Penicillium in 1923. P. sanguifluum is classified in the section Citrina of Penicillium.
References
Category:Fungi described in 1912
sanguifluum |
I can relate. I just saw the Beach Boys. I was sitting next to three white haired ladies. The audience had more than its share of little old men and women. It was the oldest crowd I've ever seen at a "rock 'n roll" concert. But despite the age of the crowd, they were doing their best to boogie and shake their hips to the music.
I can relate. I just saw the Beach Boys. I was sitting next to three white haired ladies. The audience had more than its share of little old men and women. It was the oldest crowd I've ever seen at a "rock 'n roll" concert. But despite the age of the crowd, they were doing their best to boogie and shake their hips to the music.
So funny, DD and Right on!! You nailed it. Too bad it wasn't disco music (I'm sure that same crowd was headed to a disco concert the following weekend ... and good for them, if they were).
I was laughing out loud when I saw this ...("check out all the old people") and the horror of seeing one's parents in the crowd. I like the gray hair and granny sunglasses of everyone in the stands, too. The entire thing cracked me up.
ETA: I was also happy to be able to post a comic strip, which means that the BDC forum functionality has made a decent comeback.
This is also a common attribute of classical concerts as well, and it's not just that everyone in general is "older" it's that the type of people that go are the "practical shoes" and tweed coat types. :) There is quite a bit of controversy and "talk" about the notion that classical concerts do not attract younger people into the audience, and how this will impact classical organizations in the future if they don't, you know, make some changes. And the ticket prices are perhaps one aspect, but you can attend a classical concer at some venues for dirt cheap in comparison to a rock concert (there are cheap seats to be had).
The smaller venues attract a younger crowd, maybe b/c of the ticket pricing, and sometimes, smaller chamber orchestras have rising, up and coming musicians that attract a younger crowd. I've read that even the NY Met is having financial problems because opera is having the same problem attracting a younger audience. Who is going to fill in the gaps when the older crowds stop attending?
I also find it hilarious to think about the hip hop artists / rappers of today, performing well into their sixties, and wondering if the fans of today will be there scooping up the tickets as part of their "nostalgia" trip. Very hard to imagine they will be as loyal, but time will tell.
Styx along with Boston were the first 2 bands I liked. Styx was from Chicago where I lived in the late 70's and they got plenty of airtime back then, especially on WLS (World's Largest Station at that time). "Pieces Of Eight" I listened to a few weeks ago and it still sounds good. It is is their only album I would recommend.
I go to a lot of gigs, always have. At 53 I'm always one of, if not the, oldest attendee.
I usually take my daughters to Boston in June and in 2013 a friend got us tickets to see the Stranglers. I didn't have the heart to tell her my view of Jefferson Stranglers i.e. no Hugh Cornwell or Jet Black. The Nervous Eaters in support were outstanding, however.
Ah the 70s. So much music: the good, the bad, and the horrendous. The girl I like in the early 70s was into Bobby Sherman.
Later in the decade I hung out with some deadheads at URI (high noon on the quad anyone?) who exposed me to a bunch of really good music although I probably didn't appreciate a lot of it until much later.
And we still go to concerts, the Arcade Fire show a few weeks back was fantastic. We'll probably continue to see them as long as they keep touring. That goes for The National and Radiohead too.
Ah the 70s. So much music: the good, the bad, and the horrendous. The girl I like in the early 70s was into Bobby Sherman.
Later in the decade I hung out with some deadheads at URI (high noon on the quad anyone?) who exposed me to a bunch of really good music although I probably didn't appreciate a lot of it until much later.
And we still go to concerts, the Arcade Fire show a few weeks back was fantastic. We'll probably continue to see them as long as they keep touring. That goes for The National and Radiohead.
I know 20-year olds who barely know who Arcade Fire are, and would prefer to listen to Bob Dylan. Glad you had a great time at their concert, probably fans of all ages. The National are okay in my book, too, but Radiohead is in a different league, and does not belong in the same sentence, or even the same paragraph. :P
Fashions of the 70's alone cannot be surpassed. We owe a debt of gratitude to the fashion designers of that era, but certainly not as much as the 60's. I have a friend born in 1979, who *loves* saying she was born in the 70's.
In reading about the Tom Petty concert at Fenway recently, there were people with white and/or gray hair and long white beards, with tie dye (their ORIGINAL) tee shirts, alongside kids under 10 who were singing every song, who knew ALL the lyrics. Talk about a band that spans the decades and has no generation gap whatsoever with regard to an active fan base.
It's funny, for a long time I thought Styx were a Canadian band. Maybe only a fellow Canuck would understand why I thought they 'sounded Canadian'.
While I'm not as Canadian as you (I spend mostly only summers in Canada, mostly the Montreal area due to my wife being from there ... hence my Tim Wallach of the Expos avatar), I'm going to guess you had the Canadian heavyweight boxing champion Willie de Witt, once dubbed as "The Great White Hope", stuck in your mind when you heard Styx's "Great White Hope" song from their "Pieces of Eight" album.
As I was in the Edmonton, Alberta area for 6 years in the 1980's, I remember Willie de Witt being a major sports story in Canada back then, especially in Alberta where Willie de Witt was from, that along with Wayne Gretzky & Company of the Edmonton Oilers.
This is also a common attribute of classical concerts as well, and it's not just that everyone in general is "older" it's that the type of people that go are the "practical shoes" and tweed coat types. :) There is quite a bit of controversy and "talk" about the notion that classical concerts do not attract younger people into the audience, and how this will impact classical organizations in the future if they don't, you know, make some changes. And the ticket prices are perhaps one aspect, but you can attend a classical concer at some venues for dirt cheap in comparison to a rock concert (there are cheap seats to be had).
The smaller venues attract a younger crowd, maybe b/c of the ticket pricing, and sometimes, smaller chamber orchestras have rising, up and coming musicians that attract a younger crowd. I've read that even the NY Met is having financial problems because opera is having the same problem attracting a younger audience. Who is going to fill in the gaps when the older crowds stop attending?
I also find it hilarious to think about the hip hop artists / rappers of today, performing well into their sixties, and wondering if the fans of today will be there scooping up the tickets as part of their "nostalgia" trip. Very hard to imagine they will be as loyal, but time will tell.
"Darling, he's still dangerous."
Hi Yoga, your great point - and not just about hip hop to me but about all "popular" music - drives me crazy.
Why is it - for some people - that aged musicians in some genres (blues, jazz, classical, folk) can be cool, but in others (rock, punk) they can't? I understand in the latter there is often a youthful, counter-culteral, passion that can become hypocritical, even laughable, once they become a member of the establishment they used to mock...but two of the most passionate, punk rock, wild gigs I've ever seen was the Monks when they were in their late 60s. The Sonics also still kick @r5e and incredibly (not because they are O-L-D, because they haven't written in decades) have a half dozen great new songs.
Also - I'm looking at you, jazz snobs (no one here!) - have you met jazz fans that wax lyrical about the eternal musical brilliance of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald but if you prefer Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard they ask you to run a bath for them? |
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hello i have been married for 26 years and with my partner
Resolved Question:
hello i have been married for 26 years and with my partner for 30.He has developed apparantly a cloes friendship with another woman i was ok with this when it was just random txting but now its 30 times a day plus and phone calls too.I have asked him to reduce this but he says what you problem im not doin anything wrong,maybe he isnt he has promised me faithfully its nothing. i cant get my head round this its the amount of contact they have im not happy with.I have spoken to friends in passing and our daughter who knows everything every person says its wrong. im so unhappy with the arguements ive spoken to the woman concerned who says its innocent too her partner is ill and im truly sorry for tha but i feel shes got feelings for my husband and he has for her because after he found out i rang her he demanded i put it right or he wouid leave.Am i being unreasonable? i feel like im being taken for a complete idiot. jean.I forgot to say that inbox and out box messages are always deleted i feel ashamed to tell you i have checked.
-- You can feel free to share this with your husband as a professional opinion and not just the viewpoint of a friend or other family member:
The very moment that you felt uncomfortable with the relationship between him and this woman, his duty to you as his wife, in keeping with his vows to you on the day you married, would have been to stop.
The relationship between a husband and wife or any partners that promise to 'love & cherish' each other 'until death parts us' is built on teamwork and sensitivity.
If you were the type of person who was overly jealous, controlling and demanding - the relationship likely wouldn't have lasted this long - so I do not believe your request was one made frivolously or one that was unreasonable.
The fact that this relationship (via phone or text or anything else) hurt you or bothered you enough to ask him to stop, should have been all he needed to hear. A loving partner/spouse does not continue to hurt the other just because they are convinced it 'shouldn't' hurt.
If you were to take a hammer and begin slamming your husband's thumb with it - you wouldn't feel the pain. So it would take him asking you to stop and telling you 'that hurts!' to make you aware of it.
From your husband's point of view, he can continue hurting you because in HIS opinion and since HE doesn't feel the pain he's causing you, it must not be happening.
Poppycock! If you were carrying on with another man like this I have little doubt that he'd put his foot down not just about it occurring, but about taking the money out of the household in order to pay for it (phone calls/texts).
--- Now, with all of this said, you have ONE choice to make: Either continue to do the same things you've been doing all along with the same result (which is that nothing changes) or do something different that will force a different result (something must change).
The power is all yours. As helpless as you might feel, you really are the most powerful person in this. It's time to find your voice and use that power.
My suggestion would be to set up a few counseling sessions for both of you to attend. Together. It doesn't matter how you get him there, just do your best. Tell him you want a counselor to help you understand why it's acceptable for him to carry on like a high school boy with an infatuation with this other woman. So he has to be there in order to explain it to the counselor so the counselor can explain to you why it's "ok" for him to do this.
Obviously any counselor who is genuinely educated and experienced will know better. That's why I strongly advise that you avoid people calling themselves "life coaches" or such and do not have verifiable references and college degrees. Ideally, get a referral from your medical doctor or hospital's mental health department when it comes to finding a counselor. If you have med insurance, they'll also have a list.
You can also look into options through your local churches and synagogues. Often you do not have to be a member - counseling is provided across faiths.
And expect that your husband may not go. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't. You need help in learning that you are only a victim of these two people (husband and the woman) because you're allowing it.
They are doing it because there are no consequences. You need to learn what consequences you can rain down upon them if they don't stop this nonsense.
That woman should be talking to her own counselor, not another woman's husband. Your husband shouldn't be play acting as a counselor without acknowledging the sort of pain he is inflicting, first and foremost on YOU and secondly, on this other woman. He has no business being this significant in another person's life, especially when she clearly needs professional help.
Again though, all you can do is what is right for you. And right now it's to stand up, speak up and enlist the help of a professional in your location who will guide you the rest of the way.
--- Be strong. No matter what, remember that you deserve respect and love and this is not what you're getting.
thankyou for your very kind words im glad to think you agree that im not unreasonable.however you last paragraph suggests she needs proffesional help?my husband says they just talk about everything and anything do you think because her partner has had a nervous breakdown that she is turning to my husband for support.Now she is his carer not his luver.
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According to the team, the probable cause of the fractures appears to be “the formation of cracks in the girder weld access [holes]” that were cut in the flanges prior to the beams being placed into service. More specifically, for the engineers in the room:
1. Initially, shallow (micro) surface cracks developed during thermal cutting of the weld access holes in the highly hardened and brittle martensitic surface layer [of the beams].
2. Thereafter, larger pop-in cracks formed in two of the four flanges, potentially during butt welding of the flange plates.
3. Black, tenacious, high temperature oxide was present on both the shallow surface cracks and the larger pop-in cracks, confirming that both crack types formed at elevated temperatures.
4. The fracture origins were located in the mid-thickness of the flange where low fracture toughness, as confirmed by CVN [(Charpy V-Notch)] toughness testing, provided little resistance to rapid, low-energy, brittle fracture.
5. CVN testing was performed on all flange samples at the top, ¼ depth, mid- thickness, ¾ depth, and bottom. ¼ depth CVN results were found to be consistent with the project specification and girder plate mill certifications.
6. Rapid, low-energy fracture of the flanges occurred as the girder was subjected to service loading on top of the normal residual stresses due to welded fabrication.
While further material testing and stress analyses are underway and will be considered in the final assessment due next month, it appears that the cracked flanges, which have maintained “sufficient capacity to support the building dead loads and occupancy loads,” can be fixed in place and the adjacent beams and columns were not overstressed by the fissures. Otherwise, the flanges can be easily replaced with sturdy weld neck flange welding to further support the weight if needed.
And as proposed by Thornton Tomasetti, the compromised areas of the flanges could be ground to a smooth surface, after which cover plates would be installed above and below and bolted together, restoring the beams to their original design capacity. However, whether we see someone or a team walking about in their welding helmet that meets the ANSI standards, we’re not sure what the plans are yet.
In terms of timing, a peer review of the findings and proposed fix are not expected to be reached until January, after which the fix will be implemented and a new structural evaluation will need to be performed. And as such, the Salesforce Transit Center will definitely remain closed through the end of this year and likely through the first, if not second, quarter of 2019, as we first reported earlier this week.
Perhaps, it will depend upon how the peer review reacts to the findings and plan. And of course, with the root cause having been identified, it raises the question of whether other girders in the center were exposed to the same types of cuts and welds but haven’t (yet) cracked.
“These were supposed to be weld access holes. The construction team had already welded without them but the project management team insisted they be cut anyway. So a square hole that was not required was then cut into the flange.”
If that’s the case then there’s a bigger story here of fumbled project management. It is not uncommon for someone higher in the management chain (sponsor, manager, architect) to request something wrong that builders begrudgingly comply with.
The good news is that if the source of the flaw is the creation of the weld access holes then the fix becomes a matter of identifying all of those holes and then fortifying them. In other words the scope of the repair is known and limited. It would be worse if the the problem were a bad batch of steel, then everything would need to be inspected or replaced.
Oh come on: are you going to have us believe a project that came in on-time and underbudget – well, some multiples of each…”close enough for government work”, as they say – got something wrong?
Back to the diagnosis, I’m confused: I thought the fissure was in the web of the beam – you know, the part that actually carries (almost) all the weight – the flange provides stability/stiffness, but only a small amount of load-carrying; did I miss something or is this only part of the remedy?
Thanks (I guess what I missed was Statics II…analysis of the members we treated as lines/vectors in Statics i). Well, anyway, the cracks were in the flange(s), so my thoughts had no bearing anyway….no pun intended.
“In March 2015, a firm enlisted to help oversee the project, Skanska, noted that Herrick Corp. had nearly completed the welding work without creating the required access holes. Herrick “is asking if the hole is required,’’ according to an entry in Skanska’s quality control log at the time. “Skanska QC (quality control) will further investigate this issue.” The following month, a log entry made it clear that the holes were ordered after the fact to eliminate an apparent problem where two welds came together”
In the most generous reading of the source the best you can say is “maybe”. But general consensus seems to be the rat hole was on the task list and some pencil pusher simply wanted this task done. Why Herrick didn’t push back is the big mystery here.
I’m still suspicious of the proximity of these stress cracks to the sinking Millenium. In other words that there is subsidence in this area than results in everything sinking, in this case the sky ridge portion over the street.
Well, that’s a crank theory and the explanation given here makes real sense. Nobody should ever cut a square hole in metal, for any reason. It concentrates stress at the corners of the holes. I think I learned this in my very first semester as a mechanical engineering undergrad. Of course, maybe beam welders aren’t trained engineers.
I’m totally with you there. An engineer can easily draw something that pencils out but can’t be built. In some fields we have “design for manufacturing” guidelines but that does not really translate from mass production to unique large-scale structures. Still, someone on this job should have been able to say the holes should be cut circular, or they should be cut with a water jet instead of a torch, or that the holes should be included by the manufacturer prior to heat treatment. Field changes have been responsible for many notorious engineering disasters and this could have been one.
According to the report: “…larger pop-in cracks formed in two of the four flanges, potentially during butt welding of the flange plates.” If cracks occurred during welding, why weren’t they immediately noticed?
I just have a question….why was this, the billion dollar bus station built there in the first place. The Cal Train Depot would have been the best spot for San Francisco’s main train station. The current temporary bus terminal does that function perfectly well…..So what we have know is a monumental boondoggle that STILL isn’t connected to any rail lines.
What we have is a huge landmark building and elevated park, with a public space below it. The way this building was built was to yell about transit, global warming, whatever to get the PC crowd behind it as a public good. None of that is particularly important to this project, though. The building is built and it will be hugely profitable, and is a big improvement over what was there before. Not at all a boondoggle.
The Caltrain station at 4th and King is not downtown. Train stations work so much better when they are downtown. (Granted, the city has screwed up building it. But the original idea to put the train station downtown was the correct idea.) |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 18a0103n.06
Case Nos. 16-4261, 16-4267, 16-4271, 16-4287 FILED
Mar 01, 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE
) UNITED STATES DISTRICT
Plaintiff-Appellee, ) COURT FOR THE
) NORTHERN DISTRICT OF
v. ) OHIO
)
DARYL DANE DONOHUE (16-4261); )
WILLIAM SCHURECK (16-4267); )
KENNETH JACKSON (16-4271); DENNIS )
DECIANCIO (16-4287), )
)
Defendants-Appellants. )
________________________________________
OPINION OF THE COURT
BEFORE: DAUGHTREY, McKEAGUE, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.
McKEAGUE, Circuit Judge. These four consolidated appeals stem from judgments on
jury verdicts finding all four defendants guilty of numerous charges relating to an investment
fraud scheme. The scheme revolved around development of a hypodermic syringe destruction
device called the “Sharps Terminator.” The jury found that defendants had made material
misrepresentations and omitted material facts in soliciting funding for development of the
product. Defendants were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and ordered to pay
restitution to the victims in the total amount of nearly $10 million. On appeal, defendants assert
-1-
Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
various claims of error that raise several common themes. None has been shown to merit relief.
We therefore affirm all four judgments.
I. BACKGROUND
In August 1992, defendant Kenneth Jackson was convicted in Ohio state court of multiple
counts of unlicensed sales of securities and sales of unregistered securities, passing bad checks,
perjury, theft and aggravated theft. The convictions stemmed from Jackson’s operation of what
the government has characterized as a $13 million Ponzi scheme involving sales of securities in
“Vision Television Network.” As a consequence, Jackson was incarcerated from 1992 to 1999.1
He was also prohibited, by injunction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”),
from holding any corporate officer or director position in a publicly traded company. Jackson
was also subject to a disgorgement order requiring him to pay $1.8 million to the SEC.
Despite these setbacks, in 2002, Jackson had become director of research and
development for Event Future (a/k/a E-Med), a company he and co-defendant Daryl Dane
Donohue established to design and manufacture a hypodermic needle destruction device called
“Needlezap.” The Needlezap disposes of used needles by crushing them. It is a Class III
medical device requiring Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) approval before marketing.
Donohue was employed by E-Med to address the FDA’s regulatory compliance requirements.
The Needlezap was granted FDA approval in 2003 and was patented in 2006.
In 2007, Jackson left E-Med and he and co-defendant William Schureck created Medical
Safety Solutions (“MSS”) to develop and market an improved version of the Needlezap called
the “Sharps Terminator.” The Sharps Terminator was designed to dispose of used needles by
1
During his imprisonment, Jackson became acquainted with at least two individuals who
would later become associated with him as employees in the design and manufacturing
operations at the center of the instant prosecution.
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incinerating them. Again, FDA premarket approval was required. Donohue was hired by MSS
as a regulatory compliance consultant, but Jackson, director of research and development, was
responsible for obtaining FDA approval of the Sharps Terminator. Schureck was Chief
Executive Officer of MSS.
To raise funds for development of the Sharps Terminator by selling securities, MSS
prepared two prospectuses, “Prospectus A” (2007) and “Prospectus B” (2009). Prospectus A
disclosed an Assets Purchase Agreement under which MSS agreed to pay Jackson and Schur
Partnership (a venture established by Schureck) $3 million for transfer of ownership of the
Sharps Terminator, along with its patent and intellectual property rights. What the prospectuses
did not include, relevantly, was any mention of MSS co-founder Jackson’s prior convictions for
theft and securities fraud offenses. Nor did the prospectuses disclose that the conduct for which
Jackson was convicted also precipitated action by the SEC that resulted in a $1.8 million
judgment against him, as well as an injunction prohibiting him from holding any officer or
director position in a publicly traded company.
In the summer of 2007, MSS began displaying its plans for the Sharps Terminator and
soliciting investments at medical trade shows. MSS raised $5 million from investors in response
to Prospectus A. Among the first such investors, co-defendant Dennis DeCiancio invested
$275,000 and became a promoter of the Sharps Terminator at trade shows. Of the $5 million
received, $3 million was to be used to pay for the intellectual property rights in the Sharps
Terminator and to repay prior investors in the Needlezap, and $2 million was to be used for
further research and development of the Sharps Terminator.
In July 2007, MSS also purportedly commenced efforts to obtain FDA premarket
approval and told inquiring investors for years that progress was slow, but approval was
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imminent. In fact, Jackson testified, it was not until October 2012 that he first filed the
application for premarket approval. The FDA responded to the application a month later with
the first of several deficiency letters, which MSS was attempting to address when, in March
2013, its efforts were undercut by execution of a search warrant and seizure of MSS files and
records. In the meantime, the FBI had begun investigating MSS’s operations.2
The investigation ripened into an 80-page, 31-count indictment in the Northern District of
Ohio in July 2015, charging all four of the above-named defendants—Jackson, Donohue,
Schureck and DeCiancio—with numerous offenses allegedly committed between November
2007 and May 2013, including conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, and money
laundering. The charges were premised on allegations that defendants, in soliciting investments
for development and marketing of the Sharps Terminator device: falsely represented the status
of FDA premarket approval proceedings, the market-readiness of the Sharps Terminator, and the
use to which invested funds would be applied; and failed to disclose material information to
prospective investors about Jackson’s prior convictions.
A joint jury trial was conducted in April and May 2016 and culminated in verdicts on
May 6, 2016, finding all four defendants guilty of almost all charged offenses. All four
defendants were sentenced on October 25, 2016, to various prison terms: Jackson to
188 months, Schureck to 108 months, DeCiancio to 70 months, and Donohue to 46 months. The
judgments of sentence were entered on November 1, 2016, and each defendant timely filed
notice of appeal. The judgments were followed by a restitution order on January 5, 2017,
2
In May 2013, MSS entered into a license agreement whereby its rights to the Sharps
Terminator were sold to Sharps Terminator, LLC, in exchange for payment of one-third of net
profits from sales of the Sharps Terminator. The FDA approved the Sharps Terminator for
manufacture and sale in the United States in February 2016 and a patent was issued in March
2016.
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ordering all four defendants, jointly and severally, to pay restitution in the amount of
$9,825,917.41. Amended judgments, incorporating all terms and conditions of the sentences,
were entered on February 6, 2017. None of the defendants filed notice of appeal from his
amended judgment.
On appeal, defendants challenge: the district court’s denial of Jackson’s pretrial motion
in limine (to exclude evidence of his prior convictions), the sufficiency of the evidence to
support the verdicts, and the sentences imposed as procedurally and substantively unreasonable.
None of the claims presents reversible error.
II. JURISDICTION
There is no dispute that the court has jurisdiction to decide defendants’ challenges to their
original judgments, which represent final appealable judgments under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) (final
sentence) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (final judgment), even though the district court had deferred
determination of the restitution amount to a later date. See Manrique v. United States, 137 S. Ct.
1266, 1272–73 (2017) (citing Dolan v. United States, 560 U.S. 605, 617–18 (2010)). The
government contends, however, that defendants’ appellate objections to the amount of restitution
imposed must be dismissed due to their failure to file notice of appeal challenging their amended
judgments ordering restitution. Not strictly a matter of jurisdiction, this issue is addressed below
in Part III.D.2.
III. ANALYSIS
A. Evidence of Jackson’s Prior Convictions
Prior to trial, Jackson filed a motion in limine, asking the court to prohibit the
government from introducing evidence of his prior convictions and the SEC judgment against
him. Jackson asserted that such evidence had no relevance to the charged offenses, would not be
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admissible for a legitimate purpose under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) (“such as proof of motive,
opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident”),
and therefore would be introduced only for the inadmissible purpose of proving his character to
show that the charged conduct was in conformity therewith. Jackson also asked the court to
prohibit the use of such evidence to impeach him, should he testify. He argued that because his
convictions and release from prison occurred more than ten years ago, such evidence would not
be admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 609(b), because its probative value would not substantially
outweigh its prejudicial effect.
The government opposed the motion, contending the evidence of his prior convictions
and the SEC judgment was not Rule 404(b) evidence at all. Rather, it was said to be “direct
proof”’ of the crimes with which Jackson and his coconspirators were charged, i.e., evidence of
material information that Jackson and the others fraudulently failed to disclose to investors.
Further, the government argued the evidence represented proper impeachment material whose
probative value outweighed its potential for unfair prejudice. Notably, Jackson did not file a
reply brief in support of his motion.
Without a hearing, the district court denied the motion in limine in a summary docket-
entry order, essentially adopting the government’s position:
Order [non-document] as to Kenneth Jackson: Defendant’s Motion in Limine To
Exclude Any Evidence Relating To Other Crimes, Wrongs, Or Bad Acts is
DENIED. The Court agrees with the Government that a 404(b) analysis is
unnecessary. The prior convictions at issue are direct proof of the charged
scheme. The Court also agrees that the SEC injunction and judgment are
inextricably intertwined with the money laundering charges. The Court reserves
ruling on whether the prior convictions are proper impeachment. Judge Patricia
A. Gaughan on 2/16/16.
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N.D. Ohio No. 1:15-cr-263, docket entry order, 2/16/16. The district court thus declined to
evaluate admissibility under Rule 404(b), the basis asserted by Jackson in his motion in limine,
because it determined that the evidence was proffered for admissible purposes. Jackson did not
move for reconsideration. All four defendants challenge this ruling on various grounds as an
abuse of discretion.
1. Rule 404(b)
“Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character
in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.”
Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). However, such evidence “may be admissible for another purpose, such
as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of
mistake, or lack of accident.” Rule 404(b)(2).
The standards under which the district court’s Rule 404(b) ruling is assessed are
summarized as follows:
The admission of evidence under Rule 404(b)—like the admission of all
evidence—implicates discretionary judgments under Rules 401 (relevance) and
403 (probative value versus unfair prejudice); it also involves a question of fact
and a question of law. See United States v. Hardy, 228 F.3d 745, 750 (6th Cir.
2000). . . .
First, we review for clear error whether there is a sufficient factual basis
for the occurrence of the “bad act” that is being proffered as evidence (and
challenged pursuant to 404(b)). United States v. Murphy, 241 F.3d 447, 450 (6th
Cir. 2001). Second, we determine de novo whether the evidence was proffered
for an admissible purpose. Id. Third, we review for an abuse of discretion
whether the probative value of the proffered evidence is substantially outweighed
by any undue prejudice that will result from its admittance. Id.
“A factual finding is clearly erroneous when a court, on reviewing the
evidence, is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
committed.” United States v. Seymour, 739 F.3d 923, 928 (6th Cir. 2014)
(internal quotation marks omitted). The district court’s decision to view the
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evidence in a particular way, however, does not constitute clear error simply
because there are other reasonable interpretations of that same evidence that may
seem preferable to the reviewing court. MX Grp., Inc. v. City of Covington,
293 F.3d 326, 331 (6th Cir. 2002).
A district court has abused its discretion when its decision rests on the
wrong legal standard, a misapplication of the correct standard, or on clearly
erroneous facts. Yoder & Frey Auctioneers, Inc. v. EquipmentFacts, LLC, 774
F.3d 1065, 1070 (6th Cir. 2014). A clear error of judgment, which occurs where
the position taken is without sound justification, also constitutes an abuse of
discretion. Id.
United States v. Gibbs, 797 F.3d 416, 421–22 (6th Cir. 2015).
2. “Direct Proof”
As to the first step in the Rule 404(b) analysis—the factual basis for the prior convictions
and SEC judgment—there is no dispute. The second step asks us to identify the admissible
purpose for which the prior bad acts evidence was proffered. The district court determined that
evidence of Jackson’s prior convictions was proffered for the legitimate purpose of proving an
element of the charged offenses, i.e., that Jackson and his co-defendants knew of material
information that they withheld from investors in order to carry out their scheme to defraud. The
court further held that the evidence of the SEC judgment was “inextricably intertwined” with the
money laundering charges. The court thus accepted the government’s argument that the
admissibility of such “direct evidence” of the offenses charged is not subject to scrutiny under
Rule 404(b).
The government relied, and relies, principally on an unpublished Second Circuit decision
for this proposition, United States v. Stitsky, 536 F. App’x 98 (2d Cir. 2013). In Stitsky, the court
held that the “defendants’ prior convictions were direct proof of the charged scheme to defraud”
because they represented facts that the defendants failed to disclose “that investors would have
considered material in making their investment decisions.” Id. at 106.
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The government argues that Sixth Circuit law is consistent with Stitsky, recognizing that
“[r]es gestae evidence, also described as ‘background’ or ‘intrinsic’ evidence, is ‘an exception’
to the Rule 404(b) bar on propensity evidence.” Gibbs, 797 F.3d at 423 (citing United States v.
Adams, 722 F.3d 788, 810 (6th Cir. 2013)). In Adams, the court stated:
Background evidence “consists of those other acts that are inextricably
intertwined with the charged offense.” United States v. Hardy, 228 F.3d 745, 748
(6th Cir. 2000). “Typically, such evidence is a prelude to the charged offense, is
directly probative of the charged offense, arises from the same events as the
charged offense, forms an integral part of a witness’s testimony, or completes the
story of the charged offense.” Id. Concerned with the potential for abuse of
background evidence as a means to circumvent Rule 404(b), we have recognized
“severe limitations as to ‘temporal proximity, causal relationship, or spatial
connections’ among the other acts and the charged offense.” United States v.
Clay, 667 F.3d 689, 698 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting Hardy, 228 F.3d at 749).
Adams, 722 F.3d at 810.
On appeal, Jackson does not contest the fact of the convictions or the fact of the SEC
judgment. Nor does he dispute the allegation, on which some of the charges against him are
based, that he failed to disclose these matters to investors unless asked. Jackson does not
challenge the district court’s conclusion that the evidence is “direct proof” of the charged
offenses. Co-defendant DeCiancio, however, contends Jackson’s prior convictions should not
have been considered direct evidence of a material omission for purposes of the fraud charges.
This, he says, is because there was no affirmative legal duty to disclose the prior convictions.
This argument was not raised in Jackson’s motion in limine and appears not to have been raised
below. It is thus properly reviewed only for plain error.3
3
Jackson’s brief in support of his motion in limine includes one sentence alluding to the
possibility that the government might assert a direct-evidence justification for introduction of the
prior-convictions evidence. If such an argument were made, Jackson hypothesized, it might be
based on the notion that he had an affirmative duty to disclose the convictions, a duty he said is
unsupported by case law or statutory law. R. 47, Motion in Limine at 4–5, Page ID 267–68. The
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We may grant plain-error relief only if four requirements are met: (1) there must be a
legal error; (2) the error must be clear; (3) the error must have affected the appellant’s substantial
rights; and (4) the error must have seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation
of the proceedings. United States v. Lawrence, 735 F.3d 385, 401 (6th Cir. 2013). “Meeting all
four prongs is difficult, ‘as it should be.’” Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009)
(quoting United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83 n.9 (2004)). A conviction should
be reversed under plain-error review only in exceptional circumstances, such that the trial judge
would be deemed derelict in having countenanced the unobjected-to conduct. United States v.
Boyd, 640 F.3d 657, 669 (6th Cir. 2011).
DeCiancio argues that the government has not identified any statute or rule that
establishes a duty to disclose Jackson’s 1992 convictions. Absent a duty to disclose, the
argument goes, defendants’ alleged failure to disclose Jackson’s convictions cannot be deemed a
material omission, and it therefore follows that evidence of the convictions had little, if any,
probative value as “direct proof.” In the securities fraud context, in particular, he argues, there
can be no culpability for silence absent a duty to disclose. Stratte-McClure v. Morgan Stanley,
776 F.3d 94, 100–01 (2d Cir. 2015).
statement anticipates an argument not then before the court and registers Jackson’s objection.
But Jackson’s motion in limine, apart from this lone sentence, was based on Rule 404(b).
After the government responded as Jackson had anticipated it might, citing case law
authority for its position that the prior-convictions information was material and should have
been disclosed, Jackson filed no reply brief. After Jackson’s motion in limine based on Rule
404(b) was denied, Jackson did not move for reconsideration. The argument was thus not
developed in the district court. Nor has Jackson asserted it on appeal.
In other words, the argument alluded to in one sentence below was mentioned only in a
perfunctory manner and never fully developed in legal argumentation—until DeCiancio
developed it in his appeal. Under Sixth Circuit law, such an unpreserved claim is deemed
forfeited (i.e., reviewed only for plain error) unless manifest injustice would otherwise result.
See United States v. Hall, 549 F.3d 1033, 1042 (6th Cir. 2008). Here, as explained below,
DeCiancio has failed to show remediable plain error or manifest injustice.
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In the Sixth Circuit, in the mail and wire fraud context, a false assertion or omission is
material if it “would have affected a reasonable person’s actions in the situation.” United States
v. Daniel, 329 F.3d 480, 487 (6th Cir. 2003); see also United States v. Birnie, 193 F. App’x 528,
534 (6th Cir. 2006). Similarly, in the securities fraud context, the materiality requirement is
satisfied if there is a “substantial likelihood that the disclosure of the omitted fact would have
been viewed by the reasonable investor as having significantly altered the ‘total mix’ of
information made available.” Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224, 231–32 (1988) (quoting
TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U.S. 438, 449 (1976)). It follows that the
“materiality” of the withheld information does not depend strictly on the existence of a duty to
disclose that has been codified by statute or prescribed by regulation. Rather, materiality is a
more fluid concept, dependent on the totality of the circumstances, viewed from an objective
perspective. See United States v. Bravata, 636 F. App’x 277, 283 (6th Cir. 2016) (materiality
requirement deemed satisfied if fraudulent scheme is shown to “be credible enough to deceive
persons of ordinary prudence and comprehension”); United States v. Jamieson, 427 F.3d 394,
414–16 (6th Cir. 2005) (same; finding no error in failure to give “duty to disclose” instruction in
relation to fraud by material omission).
Moreover, our sister circuits have held that a failure to disclose prior convictions can
amount to a fraudulent omission of material fact. In addition to the Second Circuit in Stitsky, the
Eleventh Circuit has also held that evidence of a defendant’s undisclosed twelve-year-old
convictions was “material” and properly admitted in trial. United States v. Bachynsky, 415 F.
App’x 167, 172 (11th Cir. 2011). The Bachynsky court expressly rejected the argument, here
made by DeCiancio, that there could be no duty to disclose because no regulation required
disclosure of convictions as old as his. Id. at 173. According to the court, under Rule10b-5,
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“[t]he duty to disclose ‘is a general one and arises whenever a disclosed statement would be
misleading in the absence of the disclos[ure] of [additional] material facts needed to make it not
misleading.’” Id. at 172 (alterations in original) (quoting S.E.C. v. Fehn, 97 F.3d 1276, 1290
n.12 (9th Cir. 1996)). The Bachynsky court held that because the defendant held himself out as a
legitimate businessman while soliciting investments, he had a duty to disclose his prior
convictions. Id. Invoking the standard established by the Supreme Court in Basic, the court held
the evidence was material because it “would have been viewed by the reasonable investor as
having significantly altered the ‘total mix’ of information made available.” Id. at 172 (quoting
Basic, 485 U.S. at 231–32). See also United States v. Lewis, 774 F.3d 837, 843 (5th Cir. 2014)
(recognizing that nondisclosure of prior securities fraud conviction was material omission);
S.E.C. v. Johnson, 174 F. App’x 111, 115–16 (3d Cir. 2006) (no abuse of discretion in admitting
evidence of undisclosed conviction as material omission). Substantiating its position that
Jackson’s prior fraud-related convictions were “material” under this “reasonable person”
standard, the government cites the trial testimony of numerous investors to the effect that
knowing of Jackson’s criminal past would have influenced their decisions.
DeCiancio contends these case law authorities are distinguishable. His arguments are not
convincing. But even if the district court’s ruling was not compelled by the above authorities
and even if the court were deemed to have erred by admitting evidence of Jackson’s convictions
as direct proof, the above authorities strongly support the conclusion that the “error” was not so
clear that the district court should have excluded the evidence despite four defendants’ failure to
object to it on this basis. Under plain-error review, DeCiancio cannot prevail on this argument.4
4
DeCiancio also argues that the district court’s denial of the motion in limine had the
effect of imposing a never previously recognized duty to disclose all prior convictions to
potential investors. Citing Dale v. Haeberlin, 878 F.2d 930, 934 (6th Cir. 1989), he argues that
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3. “Inextricably Intertwined”
Although Jackson does not challenge the direct-proof rationale for admission of his prior
convictions evidence, he does object to the district court’s characterization of the SEC judgment
as “inextricably intertwined” with the money laundering charges. Jackson concedes that if the
SEC judgment were inextricably intertwined, Rule 404(b) analysis would be unnecessary, citing
United States v. Rios, 830 F.3d 403, 426 (6th Cir. 2016). But he maintains that the SEC
judgment, requiring him to disgorge $1.8 million stemming from the Ponzi scheme that resulted
in his criminal convictions, was too remote in time to be considered inextricably intertwined.
DeCiancio joins in this argument. Not having been raised below, the argument is reviewable
only for plain error.
Granted, to minimize potential for abuse of background evidence in circumvention of
Rule 404(b), we have recognized the need for limitations as to “temporal proximity, causal
relationship, or spatial connections” between the other acts and the charged offense. Adams,
722 F.3d at 810. But the district court accepted the government’s argument that the SEC
judgment, still outstanding at the time of the alleged scheme to defraud, was inextricably
intertwined insofar as it served as a “prelude” to the charged money laundering, “completing the
story” thereof. There is no error in this conclusion. See Gibbs, 797 F.3d at 423; Adams,
such a reinterpretation of the law amounts to a creation of a new “rule” punishing him for
conduct that was not punishable at the time of his actions, an ex post facto violation.
Again, this argument was not made to the district court and is reviewable only for plain
error, a standard DeCiancio cannot meet. At its root, the argument is based on a
mischaracterization of the district court’s ruling. The district court did not create and enforce a
new “rule” that punishes DeCiancio. It ruled that Jackson had not made a persuasive case for
exclusion of evidence that he had been convicted of other fraud offenses and was subject to a
still-pending disgorgement judgment. The court merely ruled that the government was
permitted, subject to other rules of evidence, to introduce evidence the jury could consider in
determining whether the materiality elements of the charged offenses were established beyond a
reasonable doubt. Again, the district court’s failure to recognize this “ex post facto problem”
was not plain error.
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722 F.3d at 810; Clay, 667 F.3d at 697–98; Hardy, 228 F.3d at 748. Indeed, though the SEC
injunction and disgorgement order were entered years earlier, the fact that the obligations
imposed on Jackson were still pending at the time of the alleged scheme rendered the order
“inextricably intertwined,” as in “res gestae or background evidence.” Adams, 722 F.3d at 810;
Clay, 667 F.3d at 697. Again, in this respect, too, there was no abuse of discretion in the district
court’s denial of the motion in limine, much less remediable plain error.5
4. Rule 403 Balancing
Jackson emphasizes that even if his prior convictions were properly deemed relevant as
direct proof, obviating the need for a Rule 404(b) assessment, the district court still abused its
discretion by allowing the government to “bludgeon” him with repeated references to the
evidence without ever undertaking the required Rule 403 “probative value versus prejudicial
effect” analysis. Jackson’s co-defendants join him in this argument.
Defendants’ arguments are based principally on the number of times the government
made or elicited reference to the prior convictions during the trial. They catalogue 80 instances
when government counsel referred to Jackson’s prior convictions, and 44 times when defense
counsel were constrained to refer to them. Obviously, when the district court denied Jackson’s
motion in limine in its summary docket entry order, it ruled merely that the reason asserted for
excluding the evidence was not meritorious and the evidence was admissible. The only
argument before the court at that time was Jackson’s contention that, because the government
could not articulate a proper purpose for introducing the evidence under Rule 404(b), the
5
DeCiancio also asks the court to reject the “inextricably intertwined” exception to the
Rule 404(b) bar altogether, citing several cases from other jurisdictions that have called it into
question. Yet, even if the exception may be subject to abuse in some cases, the district court’s
denial of Jackson’s pre-trial motion in limine is not an example of abuse. This case poses no
opportunity or need for us to depart from our clearly established precedent.
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prejudicial effect of the evidence would necessarily outweigh its probative value. But the district
court correctly accepted the government’s argument that the prior convictions represented direct
evidence of the charged offenses exempt from the Rule 404(b) bar on propensity evidence.
Gibbs, 797 F.3d at 423. Jackson did not file a reply brief opposing the government’s position, so
the district court was not presented with any argument that the direct-evidence purpose of the
prior-convictions evidence was outweighed by its potential for unfair prejudice. Nor was the
court obliged to anticipate, pre-trial, that the government would use the evidence in a manner
that defendants would find objectionable post-trial.
Defendants contend that even if the prior-convictions evidence was properly deemed res
gestae evidence exempt from Rule 404(b) analysis, the court was still obliged to ensure the
probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair
prejudice. See United States v. Churn, 800 F.3d 768, 779 (6th Cir. 2015). The district court is
thus said to have erred by failing to address Rule 403 balancing in its denial of the motion in
limine. Had the court engaged in such balancing, defendants argue, it would have concluded that
the minimal probative value of the evidence was far outweighed by its tendency to prejudice the
defendants in the eyes of the jury due to the government’s excessive references.
Again, the argument was not made to the district court in relation to use of the evidence
as direct proof of the crimes charged. Nor was the present argument made to the district court,
i.e., that unfair prejudice inhered in the sheer number of references to Jackson’s convictions.
Defendants have not identified any instance when they objected and raised this specific concern
to the district court’s attention during trial—i.e., that the cumulative effect of the repeated
references to Jackson’s criminal history was unfairly prejudicial. Again, plain-error review
applies.
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The government maintains that the references to Jackson’s prior convictions were not
excessive. The many references are said to have been due to the nature of the charges (which
required the government to prove the materiality of the information concealed or omitted), the
number of persons victimized by defendants’ scheme (579), and the length of the trial (almost
four weeks). These facts are indisputable.
Thus, Jackson’s criminal history was repeatedly referred to throughout the trial in
furtherance of the government’s burden of proving that defendants had failed to disclose material
information to investors. It was information whose nondisclosure the jury could reasonably have
found was “material.” The information was probative of an essential element of the charged
offenses and was, in like measure, prejudicial to defendants’ defense. Defendants have not
demonstrated, however, that the court’s pre-trial refusal to exclude all mention of the prior
convictions resulted in unfair prejudice to any defendant. Nor have they shown that they
objected during trial to the repeated references to this probative evidence as unfairly prejudicial.
Defendants have failed to show that the denial of the motion in limine was an abuse of discretion
or that the ensuing introduction and repeated references to the evidence amounted to plain error.
5. Jury Instruction
Insofar as the district court denied Jackson’s motion in limine, it opened the door to
evidence that could potentially have been used by the jury for an improper purpose. One way of
guarding against such potential for misuse is by instructing the jury on the limited use for which
the evidence was admitted. Accordingly, Jackson requested such a limiting instruction and the
district court included it, practically verbatim, in its charge to the jury:
You have heard that in 1992, Defendant Kenneth Jackson was convicted
of crimes. These earlier convictions were brought to your attention relative to the
Government’s allegations that the Defendant made material misrepresentations or
material omissions regarding the existence of those convictions. They cannot be
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used for any other purpose. It is not evidence that he is guilty of the crime that he
is on trial for now.
R. 283, Trial Tr. Vol. 18 at 4231–32, Page ID 8970–71. Although Jackson did not object to the
instruction, but rather requested it, he now contends that it is confusing and misleading.6
He contends the purpose of the prior-convictions evidence identified in the instruction—to
permit the jury to consider whether a defendant “made material misrepresentations and material
omissions regarding the existence of those convictions”—is too broad. That is, it is said to be
broader than the purpose for which the court had denied Jackson’s motion in limine—i.e.,
permitting introduction of the prior-convictions evidence as direct proof that defendants, by
failing to disclose the convictions to investors, made a material omission. This language,
Jackson contends, is ambiguous enough to have permitted the jury to consider evidence of his
having made material misrepresentations in the past as evidence that he is guilty of having made
material misrepresentations in relation to the charged crime. The ambiguity is exacerbated, he
contends, by the instruction’s inconsistent and “horribly confusing” use of the pronouns “they”
and “it.”
The legal accuracy of a jury instruction is ordinarily reviewed de novo. United States v.
Blanchard, 618 F.3d 562, 571 (6th Cir. 2010). Here, however, the government contends Jackson
did not merely forfeit review, but waived review, by virtue of having requested the very
instruction that the court gave, which is generally consistent with Sixth Circuit Pattern
Instruction 7.13. Under the “invited error doctrine,” the government contends the court may take
cognizance of error only if it would result in manifest injustice. See United States v. Demmler,
655 F.3d 451, 458–59 (6th Cir. 2011). Arguing there is no reason to believe the jury
6
Not only did Jackson request the instruction, but his attorney expressly stated at the
close of the jury charge that he appreciated the court’s having given his requested instruction.
R. 283, Trial Tr. Vol. 18 at 4242–43, Page ID 8981–82.
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misunderstood the instruction, the government contends that any technical ambiguity or
inartfulness of the instruction is not shown to have resulted in manifest injustice, and the court
should decline to review Jackson’s claim of error. See id.; United States v. Meade, 677 F. App’x
959, 976 (6th Cir. 2017) (declining to review challenge to instruction).
Jackson’s attempts to distinguish Demmler and avoid the invited error doctrine are not
persuasive. But even if Jackson were deemed not to have waived objection, but merely to have
failed to preserve objection, our review would be for plain error only. United States v. Semrau,
693 F.3d 510, 527 (6th Cir. 2012). Under plain-error review, the applicable analysis and the
outcome are practically the same as if the objection had been waived. “In the context of
challenges to jury instructions, plain error requires a finding that, taken as a whole, the jury
instructions were so clearly erroneous as to likely produce a grave miscarriage of justice.” Id. at
528 (quoting United States v. Morrison, 594 F.3d 543, 546 (6th Cir. 2010)). “Reversal is only
proper if the instructions, viewed as a whole, were confusing, misleading, or prejudicial, and the
error seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.”
Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Jackson has not met the requirements for relief under plain-error review. First, a natural
reading of the instruction—despite its rough edges—yields the intended (and entirely proper)
meaning, i.e., that the evidence of Jackson’s prior convictions was introduced in relation to the
government’s allegation that he made material misrepresentations or material omissions
regarding the existence of those convictions, and the evidence was not to be used for any other
purpose. Any imagined ambiguity arising from a technical or strained reading of the
instruction’s language falls short of impugning the integrity of the trial or suggesting a
miscarriage of justice.
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6. Impeachment
Jackson also challenges the district court’s allowance of the prior convictions to impeach
his testimony. When it denied the pre-trial motion in limine, the court refrained from ruling on
the impeachment use of the convictions. In trial, the court allowed the government to use
Jackson’s prior convictions in cross-examining him. After the government’s counsel had been
questioning Jackson for some time, however, Jackson’s attorney lodged an objection that led to a
sidebar conference. R. 275, Trial Tr. Vol. 16 at 3562–64, Page ID 7887–89. The court clarified
that it would permit questioning on the various convictions and whether Jackson believed they
represented material information to prospective investors, but would not permit their use for
impeachment and would not permit inquiry into the details of the convictions. Id. But before
this sidebar conference clarification, Jackson contends the court had in fact allowed counsel to
use the details of the prior misconduct to impeach. Id. at 3550–62, Page ID 7875–87. That is,
before counsel objected, the court is said to have permitted impeachment use of these greater-
than-ten-years-old convictions without undertaking a proper “probative value versus prejudicial
effect” balancing, as required by Fed. R. Evid. 609(b)(1).
First of all, once Jackson’s counsel objected, the district court issued a clarification—a
clarification that he did not and does not object to. Prior to the objection, the allowance of the
questioning is reviewable only for plain error. Review of these thirteen pages of questions and
answers reveals examination of some conviction-related details—the sort of details into which
the court did not permit inquiry after the sidebar clarification. But the gist of the questioning
went to Jackson’s understanding of the materiality of the information that he failed to disclose,
not impeachment. Moreover, since the fact of the convictions had repeatedly been made part of
the record during the government’s case in chief, any prejudicial effect resulting from the few
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details added in this short line of questioning, even if the court’s countenancing of the
questioning were deemed plain error, did not so adversely affect Jackson’s substantial rights as
to impugn the fairness and integrity of the trial. There is no reversible error here.
7. Opening Statement
Jackson also contends the prosecution made improper use of the prior convictions during
its opening statement by mentioning his eight-year term of imprisonment and by inviting the
jurors to identify with the victims. Jackson argues that mention of his imprisonment exceeded
the scope of the permissible use of his prior convictions, as established by the court’s ruling in
denying the motion in limine. He cites Johnson v. Bell, 525 F.3d 466 (6th Cir. 2008), in support
of his contention that “arguments that encourage juror identification with crime victims are
improper.” Id. at 484. Both abuses are said to have been designed to “poison the jury’s mind”
against Jackson.
To prevail on a claim of prosecutorial misconduct, it is not enough for Jackson to show
that the prosecutor’s comments were improper; he must establish that the comments so infected
the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process. Wogenstahl
v. Mitchell, 668 F.3d 307, 327–28 (6th Cir. 2012). If the comments were improper, the court
then considers whether they were so flagrant as to result in such fundamental unfairness as to
warrant reversal. United States v. Lawrence, 735 F.3d 385, 431–32 (6th Cir. 2013). Four factors
guide this determination of flagrancy: “‘(1) whether the conduct and remarks of the prosecutor
tended to mislead the jury or prejudice the defendant; (2) whether the conduct or remarks were
isolated or extensive; (3) whether the remarks were deliberately or accidentally made; and
(4) whether the evidence against the defendant was strong.’” Id. at 432 (quoting United States v.
Carson, 560 F.3d 566, 574 (6th Cir. 2009)). Ordinarily, a claim of prosecutorial misconduct is
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reviewed de novo, but where no objection was made during trial, the claim is reviewed for plain
error. Id.
Jackson’s argument deserves only short shrift. Even if both identified comments were
deemed improper, neither could be deemed to be flagrant. The first improper comment, in its
entirety, consisted of the following:
The witnesses will tell you how defendants failed to disclose to investors
information that would have been important for them to know in deciding whether
to entrust $10 million of their money to the defendants, information such as the
fact that Ken Jackson, the so-called R&D director of their operation, was really,
really the one calling the shots, and that he had previously been convicted of
securities fraud, aggravated theft, and perjury, and sent to jail for eight years
because of it.
R. 243, Trial Tr. Vol. 1 at 15, Page ID 4293 (emphasis added). The comment regarding
Jackson’s imprisonment did not explicitly exceed the scope of the district court’s limine ruling.
The court’s ruling did not define a permissible scope; it merely denied Jackson’s motion to
exclude prior-convictions evidence because it was relevant as direct proof. If the comment was
improper at all, it was because of its gratuitous nature and its arguable tendency to taint the jury’s
objectivity from the outset of the trial. Yet, it was clearly an isolated comment of minimal
significance. It was not flagrant and would only have been made more noticeable if counsel had
objected and persuaded the court to give a limiting or cautionary instruction. The comment did
not infect the trial with such unfairness as to require a new trial. Any impropriety did not
amount to remediable plain error.
The second improper comment was no more offensive:
The evidence will show that Ken Jackson and Bill Schureck owed a lot of
money to a lot of people for these past endeavors. It will show that Ken Jackson
still owed the SEC $1.8 million in relation to a prior securities fraud scheme, a
multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that landed him in jail for eight years, from
1992 to 1999, with those convictions for securities fraud, aggravated theft and
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perjury. All the defendants knew about those crimes and knew about the debt, but
not one of them told potential investors about them.
Still want to give your money to the defendants? Think at a minimum
you’re entitled to know these things before you decide to part with your money?
Id. at 22–23, Page ID 4300–01 (emphasis added). Nominally, the highlighted comments may
have crossed the line of propriety recognized in Johnson v. Bell. But the government argues the
rhetorical questions had a proper purpose: they were designed to assist the jurors in identifying
not with the victims, but with the objective “reasonable person” standard under which they
would soon be asked to assess the materiality of Jackson’s nondisclosure of the convictions.
And in any event, the comments are clearly less flagrant than the improper comments addressed
in Johnson which were nonetheless held not to be flagrant. Here, too, the comments did not
amount to any fundamental unfairness cognizable under plain-error review.
8. Cumulative Effect
Finally, citing Churn, 800 F.3d at 780, Jackson and DeCiancio argue that even if none of
the alleged improprieties regarding use of the prior-convictions evidence, standing alone,
amounts to reversible error, their combined effect warrants reversal. Churn recognizes the
hypothetical possibility that minor errors may combine to produce an unfair trial. Yet, despite
having identified error in the trial court’s evidentiary rulings, the Churn court denied cumulative-
effect relief, because the alleged errors did not affect the defendant’s substantial rights. Id.
Here, defendants’ argument is even weaker than the one rejected in Churn. Defendants have not
shown any cognizable error. As the government argues, “the accumulation of non-errors cannot
collectively amount to a violation of due process.” Campbell v. United States, 364 F.3d 727, 736
(6th Cir. 2004).
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B. Sufficiency of the Evidence
Two of the defendants, Donohue and Schureck, contend the jury’s verdicts are not
supported by sufficient evidence. Though such a challenge is reviewed de novo, to prevail,
defendants must bear a “very heavy burden.” United States v. Robinson, 813 F.3d 251, 255 (6th
Cir. 2016). Relief must be denied if the court finds that, “after viewing the evidence in the light
most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential
elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319
(1979). Under this standard, the reviewing court does not reweigh the evidence, re-evaluate the
credibility of the witnesses, or substitute its judgment for that of the jury. United States v.
Fisher, 648 F.3d 442, 450 (6th Cir. 2011). Substantial and competent circumstantial evidence
may suffice by itself, even without removing every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt.
Id.
1. Schureck
(a) Conspiracy, Mail Fraud and Wire Fraud
In relation to the charges that he participated in a conspiracy to commit mail fraud and
wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1349), and committed the substantive mail fraud and wire fraud offenses
(18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343), Schureck contends the government failed to prove that he knowingly
joined the conspiracy and failed to prove that he knowingly made any material
misrepresentation.
To prove the conspiracy charge, the government was required to prove that two or more
persons conspired, or agreed, to commit the crime of mail fraud or wire fraud and that defendant
knowingly and voluntarily joined the conspiracy. United States v. Rogers, 769 F.3d 372, 377
(6th Cir. 2014). “Circumstantial evidence that a reasonable person could interpret as showing
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participation in a common plan may be used to establish the existence of a conspiracy
agreement.” United States v. Warshak, 631 F.3d 266, 308 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States
v. Cantrell, 278 F.3d 543, 546 (6th Cir. 2001)).
To prove mail fraud or wire fraud, the government was required to prove that defendant
devised or willfully participated in a scheme to defraud, that he used the mails or an interstate
wire communication in furtherance of the scheme, and that he intended to deprive the victim of
money or property. Rogers, 769 F.3d at 377. See also United States v. Kennedy, 714 F.3d 951,
958 (6th Cir. 2013) (recognizing that mail fraud and wire fraud offenses have the same elements
apart from the means of communication used to carry out the scheme). “A scheme to defraud
includes any plan or course of action by which someone uses false, deceptive, or fraudulent
pretenses, representations, or promises to deprive someone else of money.” United States v.
Jamieson, 427 F.3d 394, 402 (6th Cir. 2005).
The jury was instructed in accordance with these standards and in a manner consistent
with the Sixth Circuit Pattern Instructions. See R. 283, Trial Tr. Vol. 18 at 4201–03, Page ID
8940–42 (conspiracy); at 4207–09, Page ID 8946–48 (mail fraud); and at 4211–12, Page ID
8950–51 (wire fraud).
Schureck insists the government’s proofs failed to meet the required elements. He
acknowledges that he solicited money from investors to fund the FDA approval process,
conveyed hope that their investments would be profitable, and transferred money received on
behalf of MSS to his Schur Partnership. However, he insists the government’s proofs failed to
show that he acted knowingly and intentionally with intent to defraud. Insofar as some items of
evidence showed that he made misrepresentations regarding the status of the FDA premarket
approval process or the market-readiness of the Sharps Terminator, he insists that he made them
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in good faith reliance on information received from Jackson. In response, the government
contends that even if the evidence did not directly reveal Schureck’s state of mind, the jury was
presented ample circumstantial grounds on which to reasonably conclude that Schureck, as MSS
President or CEO, had access to inside information that rendered his professed ignorance either
false, unreasonable or unbelievable.
In relevant part, the jury was instructed as follows:
The term false or fraudulent pretenses representations or promises means
any false statements or assertions that concern a material aspect of the matter in
question that were either known to be untrue when made or made with reckless
indifference to their truth. They include actual direct false statements as well as
half truth [sic] and the knowing concealment of material facts.
An act is knowingly done if done voluntarily and intentionally and not
because of mistake or some other innocent reason.
A misrepresentation or concealment is “material” if it has a natural
tendency to influence or is capable of influencing the decision of a person of
ordinary prudence and comprehension.
****
Consequently, it is sufficient that the Defendant by material
misrepresentations intends the victim to accept a substantial risk that otherwise
would not have been taken.
R. 283, Trial Tr. Vol. 18 at 4208–09, Page ID 8947–48.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government and in light of these
instructions, and refraining from reweighing the evidence and re-evaluating credibility, it is
apparent that a rational trier of fact could conclude that Schureck’s participation in material
misrepresentations was not a matter of innocent mistake, but was accompanied either by
knowledge of their untruthfulness or by reckless indifference to whether they were truthful or
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not. Even though the evidence does not remove every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt,
the jury verdicts are sufficiently supported by the evidence.
(b) Securities Fraud
Schureck’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury’s verdict on
the securities fraud claim follows a similar course. To prove the securities fraud charge under
15 U.S.C. § 77q(a), the government was required to prove that Schureck participated in a
fraudulent scheme to offer or sell a security through instruments of interstate commerce. United
States v. Speer, 419 F. App’x 562, 568 (6th Cir. 2011). The statute identifies three unlawful
actions:
(1) to employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud, or
(2) to obtain money or property by means of any untrue statement of a material
fact or any omission to state a material fact necessary in order to make the
statements made, in light of the circumstances under which they were made, not
misleading; or
(3) to engage in any transaction, practice, or course of business which operates or
would operate as a fraud or deceit upon the purchaser.
15 U.S.C. § 77q(a).
In this context, too, Schureck reiterates his argument that any misrepresentations he
participated in were made in good faith reliance on information received from Jackson. Again,
as explained above, there was record evidence on which a reasonable juror could reasonably
choose to disbelieve Schureck or to conclude that his reliance on Jackson was unreasonable or
even reckless.
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(c) Money Laundering
Schureck also challenges the verdicts on the money laundering conspiracy charge, the
money laundering charges, and the charge that he engaged in a monetary transaction in
unlawfully derived property.
To prove money laundering conspiracy under a concealment theory,
18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and § 1956(h), the government had to prove that defendant
conspired with another to violate the substantive provisions of the money laundering statute, i.e.,
to “conduct[ ] a financial transaction with criminal proceeds, with knowledge that the money was
the proceeds of unlawful activity, and with knowledge that the transaction was designed, in
whole or in part, to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the
money.” United States v. Reed, 264 F.3d 640, 650–51 (6th Cir. 2001). To convict a defendant of
engaging in an unlawful monetary transaction under 18 U.S.C. § 1957, the government had to
show that defendant: (1) knowingly engaged, or attempted to engage, in a monetary transaction;
(2) knew that the funds involved in the transaction were criminally derived; (3) used criminally
derived funds exceeding $10,000 in the transaction; and (4) used funds derived from specified
unlawful activity. United States v. Young, 266 F.3d 468, 476 (6th Cir. 2001).
Schureck acknowledges that he transferred monies from the MSS account to the Schur
Partnership account and used these monies to pay his own personal expenses and other
obligations, but maintains he was legally entitled to these funds pursuant to the Assets Purchase
Agreement. He also acknowledges that he transferred monies in the form of a loan from Schur
Partnership to MSS. Further, he admits providing MSS checks to Jackson, which he believed
were for legitimate business expenses. Yet, Schureck maintains the government failed to
prove—as required to establish concealment money laundering—that any of these transactions
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was animated by a purpose to conceal the nature of the illicit funds. See United States v.
Faulkenberry, 614 F.3d 573, 586 (6th Cir. 2010). He also argues the government failed to show
that he knew transferred funds were derived from unlawful activity, as required to prove the
unlawful-monetary-transaction charge.
The government cites circumstantial evidence consisting of numerous irregular monetary
transactions, from which it contends, and we agree, the jury could reasonably infer the requisite
animating purpose and knowledge. Our review of the record, viewed in the light most favorable
to the government, confirms that the jury’s verdicts on the money laundering charges are
adequately supported.
(d) False Statement
Count 31 of the indictment charged Schureck with making false statements to federal
agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). Five elements must be proved: “(1) the making of
a statement; (2) the falsity of such statement; (3) knowledge of the falsity of such statement;
(4) relevance of such statement to the functioning of a federal department or agency; and (5) that
the false statement was material.” United States v. Streets, 401 F. App’x 81, 88 (6th Cir. 2010)
(quoting United States v. Hixon, 987 F.2d 1261, 1266 (6th Cir. 1993)). Schureck contends the
government failed to prove the allegedly false statements made by him to IRS Agent Matthew
Miller were relevant to the functioning of a federal agency. He contends that Miller’s answer, to
the effect that Schureck’s statements necessitated “additional investigation,” is insufficient.
In response, the government argues that Schureck’s argument invites the court to weigh
the evidence and assess Miller’s credibility, which we are not at liberty to do. Indeed, that
“additional investigation” could be deemed to satisfy the fourth and fifth elements of the offense
is borne out by the instruction given to the jury: “A material statement or representation is one
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that has the natural tendency to influence, or was capable of influencing, a decision or function”
of the federal agency. R. 283, Trial Tr. Vol. 18 at 4229, Page ID 8968. The evidence cited by
the government is meager, but sufficient to satisfy the demands of our limited review.
2. Donohue
Donohue likewise contends the government presented insufficient evidence to support
his convictions for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, for mail fraud and wire
fraud, and for securities fraud. He maintains the government failed to show that he knowingly
joined the conspiracy and failed to prove that he knowingly made any material
misrepresentation. To the extent he participated in any communications that included
misrepresentations regarding the status of the FDA approval process, he contends he was merely
parroting information received from Jackson, who was undisputedly the responsible party.
Donohue insists that he was merely a salaried employee, who did what he was told.
Yet, Donohue did not testify to tell his story and the government relies on circumstantial
evidence from which it argues the jury could reasonably conclude that Donohue’s professed
naïveté was not believable. The government contends that, at a minimum, the evidence showed
that Donohue deliberately ignored a high probability that communications he was participating in
were part of an ongoing scheme to defraud and that he knowingly joined and participated in it.
The record evidence is not conclusive, but viewed in the light most favorable to the government,
it is sufficient to support the jury’s verdicts.
C. Denial of Motion for New Trial
After the conclusion of the trial and before the sentencing hearing, defendant Jackson
moved for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. Co-defendant Schureck joined in the
motion, as did co-defendant Donohue. The asserted newly discovered evidence consisted of the
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U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s issuance of a patent on the Sharps Terminator device, on
May 3, 2016, the same day the proofs closed in the trial. Defendants’ position was that issuance
of the patent, based on design drawings that Jackson had created, served to rebut the
government’s theory that Jackson and co-defendants “were selling the rights to a piece of junk”
and that MSS was a “scam business.” The district court denied the motion. The court held, inter
alia, that the evidence was “not material or is merely cumulative or impeaching,” and that
defendants’ argument was “based on a mischaracterization of the government’s theory of the
case.” R. 198, Opinion at 6, Page ID 4106. The court further concluded that defendants fell
short of establishing that the evidence would likely produce an acquittal. Schureck challenges
this ruling on appeal.
The court reviews the denial of a motion for new trial for abuse of discretion. United
States v. Blackwell, 459 F.3d 739, 768 (6th Cir. 2006). To prevail on a motion for new trial
based on newly discovered evidence, a defendant must establish that: “(1) the new evidence was
discovered after the trial; (2) the evidence could not have been discovered earlier with due
diligence; (3) the evidence is material and not merely cumulative or impeaching; and (4) the
evidence would likely produce an acquittal.” Id. (quoting United States v. Glover, 21 F.3d 133,
138 (6th Cir. 1994)).
In appealing the district court’s ruling, Schureck simply reiterates the arguments rejected
by the district court. These arguments fail to demonstrate that the district court abused its
discretion. The district court summed up its conclusion that the new evidence was “not material”
and was “impeaching at best” as follows:
As set forth above, the thrust of the government’s case revolved around false
statements made to investors regarding the status of FDA approval and the
marketability of the Sharps Terminator at the time the investments were made.
The approval of certain designs by the USPTO or the FDA has no bearing on the
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truth or falsity of the statements made by defendants at the time those statements
were made.
R. 198, Opinion at 8, Page ID 4108. In this, there is no abuse of discretion. The new evidence
was not irrelevant, but was only tangentially related to the real issues, and was not so significant
as to pose a likelihood of acquittal on any of the charges.
D. Sentencing Issues
1. Loss Calculation
In the sentencing hearings conducted on October 25, 2016, the court had to determine the
amount of loss caused by defendants’ scheme, to determine the base offense level under
U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1. As a starting point, the court accepted the parties’ acknowledgement that the
monetary loss was in the amount of $9,244,080.61, resulting in an 18-level increase in each
defendant’s base offense level. The court then rejected defendants’ arguments to reduce that
amount for “credit against loss” under Guidelines § 2B1.1, Commentary Note 3(E)(ii), based on
the value of investors’ shares of MSS stock. The court rejected the argument for lack of
evidence that the shares had any value at the time of sentencing. All four defendants contend
this was error.
The sentences imposed by the district court, whether challenged on the basis of
procedural or substantive unreasonableness, are reviewed for abuse of discretion. Gall v. United
States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Defendants’ challenge to the court’s loss calculation is a
procedural challenge. The parties agree that our review of the loss calculation is guided by the
standards enunciated in United States v. Healy, 553 F. App’x 560 (6th Cir. 2014):
“[T]he district court is to determine the amount of loss [under U.S.S.G.
§ 2B1.1(b)(1)] by a preponderance of the evidence, and the district court’s
findings are not to be overturned unless they are clearly erroneous.” United States
v. McCarty, 628 F.3d 284, 290 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Triana,
468 F.3d 308, 321 (6th Cir. 2006)). To show clear error, a defendant must show
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the calculation “was not only inexact but outside the universe of acceptable
computations.” United States v. Martinez, 588 F.3d 301, 326 (6th Cir. 2009)
(quoting United States v. Raithatha, 385 F.3d 1013, 1024 (6th Cir. 2004)). In
calculating the loss, the district court need only make a reasonable estimate.
McCarty, 628 F.3d at 290. “The sentencing judge is in a unique position to assess
the evidence and estimate the loss based upon that evidence.” Id. (quoting
U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n. 3(C) (2008)). For this reason, the district court’s loss
determination is entitled to appropriate deference. Id.
Id. at 564 (alterations in original).
The district court rejected defendants’ argument that they were entitled to any credit
under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, cmt. n. 3(E)(ii), which allows for credit against loss:
In a case involving collateral pledged or otherwise provided by the defendant, the
amount the victim has recovered at the time of sentencing from disposition of the
collateral, or if the collateral has not been disposed of by that time, the fair market
value of the collateral at the time of sentencing.
The district court determined there was no evidence that any investor-victim had sold any of his
or her shares of MSS stock. R. 278, Jackson Sent. Tr. at 7. Further, the court noted there was
“no factual support demonstrating that the stock has any value as of this date.” Id. Accordingly,
the court found the application note not applicable.
Defendants do not quarrel with the finding that there was no evidence of fair market
value at the time of sentencing, but they contend the government had the burden of proving
amount of loss by preponderance of the evidence and the government presented no evidence to
support a finding that the MSS shares still held by investors were worthless at the time of
sentencing. In fact, they insist the record does include evidence demonstrating that the MSS
shares did have some indeterminate value. This value is said to be evidenced by the license
agreement under which Sharps Terminator, LLC, agreed to pay one-third of net profits from
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
sales of the Sharp Terminator to MSS and the FDA’s February 2016 notice of premarket
approval of the Sharps Terminator.
Disposition of defendants’ argument is effectively controlled by Healy, where the court
addressed the same issue in relation to restitution. The Healy court considered whether the
defendant was entitled to a reduction in the amount of restitution based on the potential future
value of his shares in the company, which he was ordered to disgorge. Citing United States v.
Elson, 577 F.3d 713, 733–34 (6th Cir. 2009), the court held that the defendant had the burden of
proving entitlement to such an offset; that the defendant had not shown the company had any
cognizable value at the time of sentencing; and that an offset for potential future increase in
value could be accounted for as a credit against restitution later when that value became
determinate, not as a reduction in the amount of restitution ordered at the time of sentencing.
Healy, 553 F. App’x at 569. Healy’s teaching has been followed in relation to restitution and
analogous amount-of-loss calculation issues. See United States v. Sizemore, 850 F.3d 821, 828
(6th Cir. 2017) (regarding restitution amount, burden of proving offset rests with defendant);
United States v. Jackson, 662 F. App’x 416, 426–27 (6th Cir. 2016) (deferring to district court’s
loss calculation and refusal to grant requested reduction); United States v. Turner, 615 F. App’x
264, 269 (6th Cir. 2015) (same).
Defendants have not shown that the district court’s amount-of-loss calculation was
“outside the universe of acceptable computations,” Martinez, 588 F.3d at 326, and have thus
failed to show clear error.
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
2. Restitution
(a) Challenges Preserved?
In the sentencing hearings conducted on October 25, 2016, the court held that all four
defendants would be jointly and severally liable for restitution in an amount to be determined
later, within ninety days. The court issued all four judgments of sentence on November 1, 2016,
providing the “amount of restitution will be determined within 90 days.” All four defendants
timely appealed. The court then received supplemental submissions from the parties on the
amount of restitution. The court issued its “restitution order” on January 5, 2017, overruling
defendants’ objections to the government’s proposed amount of $9,825,917.41. This restitution
amount was then incorporated into amended judgments issued on February 6, 2017.
No defendant filed notice of appeal from his amended judgment.
There is no dispute that we have jurisdiction to decide defendants’ challenges to their
original judgments, which represent final appealable judgments under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) (final
sentence) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (final judgment), even though the district court had deferred
determination of the restitution amount to a later date. See Manrique, 137 S. Ct. at 1272–73.
The government contends, however, that defendants’ appellate objections to the restitution
amount must be dismissed due to their failure to file notices of appeal challenging their amended
judgments ordering restitution.
This is not, technically, a matter of jurisdiction. In Manrique, the Court refrained from
deciding whether the filing of notice of appeal from an amended judgment imposing restitution is
a jurisdictional requirement, but held the requirement “is at least a mandatory claim-processing
rule.” Id. at 1271. If the failure to meet a mandatory claim-processing requirement is properly
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
raised, the Court held, “the court’s duty to dismiss the appeal [is] mandatory.” Id. at 1272
(quoting Eberhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 12, 18 (2005)).
In response, defendants acknowledge Manrique, but point out that it was decided in April
2017, months after their amended judgments entered. They contend Manrique’s teaching should
not be applied because the law of this circuit had previously held that a notice of appeal from an
initial judgment “sprang forward” and conferred jurisdiction over an amended judgment, absent
a showing of prejudice to the government. See United States v. Stoian, 2015 WL 5036366 at *1–
2 (6th Cir. Aug. 12, 2015) (unpublished); United States v. Malcolm, 114 F.3d 1190, 1997 WL
311416 at *6 (6th Cir. 1997) (unpublished).
The Sixth Circuit authorities cited by defendants, albeit unpublished, do support their
position. The Stoian court relevantly observed: “when all the parties understand that the
judgment was not final, as here, we will ‘not allow that substance to be defeated by, literally, a
form.’” 2015 WL 5036366 at *2 (quoting Malcolm, 1997 WL 311416 at *5). Moreover,
defendants’ objections to restitution, apart from the specific amount, had been asserted at the
time of sentencing and are preserved by their original notices of appeal. The government has not
argued that it is prejudiced as a result of defendants’ failure to file second notices of appeal. So,
according to the Sixth Circuit precedent extant at the time of the amended judgments, all of
defendants’ appellate issues would be deemed properly before the court by virtue of their
original timely-filed notices of appeal.
However, the Manrique Court observed that it had already been made clear in 2010 that
“deferred restitution cases involve two appealable judgments, not one.” Manrique, 137 S. Ct. at
1273 (citing Dolan, 560 U.S. at 618). The Manrique Court thus applied its holding
retrospectively to dismiss appeal from an amended judgment establishing the restitution amount
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
that was issued on September 18, 2014. In the process, the Court rejected the two dissenting
justices’ preference for an “equitable” approach like that previously employed here in the Sixth
Circuit. Subsequently, the Fourth Circuit has applied the rule of Manrique to dismiss an appeal
from a restitution order where the restitution order had been entered after the defendant filed
notice of appeal from the underlying sentence. United States v. McNeil, 707 F. App’x 764, 765
(4th Cir. 2017).
The law thus favors the government’s position, but the equities are with the defendants.
Yet, in our case, the outcome is the same by either way. That is, even if we were to refrain from
enforcing the “mandatory” Manrique claim-processing rule to dismiss defendants’ challenges to
the amount of restitution, consideration of the merits would not result in relief anyway.
(b) Restitution Amount
In its restitution order, the district court explained that the $9,825,917.41 amount consists
of two components:
The first component consists of $9,193,653.75, which is the total amount of
money that victims directly gave defendants to purchase shares of MMS stock,
purchase distribution territories and prepaid inventory, and pay for sales training,
as well as money provided as loans. The government’s calculation includes
credits for any loan repayment or dividend distribution. Defendants do not
objection to this amount.
R. 249, Order at 2, Page ID 4516. While defendants did not object to the first component, they
did object to the second component, $632,263.33, which consists of “‘out of pocket’
expenditures incurred in connection with purchasing stock or prepaid inventory, or expenses
incurred in attempting to establish distribution of the Sharps Terminator.” Id. The district court
overruled defendants’ objection to the second component, and defendants have renewed their
objection on appeal, albeit in different form.
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
On appeal, defendants challenge that portion of the second component attributable to
expenses incurred by Evolutions Enterprises, LLC, amounting to $449,020.91. Evolutions
Enterprises was formed by four individuals (namely Andrew LaPointe, Dave Atkinson, Steve
Roppolo, and Ralph Scumaci) in March 2011 to serve as a distributorship for the Sharps
Terminator in eleven states in the Midwest. These individuals, through Evolutions Enterprises,
invested funds and incurred expenses in reengineering the Sharps Terminator and preparing to
manufacture it in Serbia and market it in the United States and Europe, once FDA approval was
granted. In an argument not made below, Schureck and Donohue now contend that Evolutions
Enterprises is not entitled to restitution because it has been dissolved since it sustained its losses.
The government contends the argument should be dismissed per Manrique, or,
alternatively, should be reviewed only for plain error. The government contends defendants
cannot show remediable plain error because they have cited no authority for the proposition that
a corporate victim is no longer entitled to restitution after it has ceased to operate. Further, the
government argues, although the principal purpose of restitution is to make victims whole, its
purposes also include punishment. See Elson, 577 F.3d at 734. The government contends a
defendant should not be allowed to avoid this “restitutionary punishment” because the losses his
conduct inflicted were so severe as to cause the corporate victim’s insolvency.
Under plain-error review, we find no grounds to disturb the judgment. Defendants have
not demonstrated any error of law or fact, much less plain error that so adversely affects the
integrity and public reputation of the proceeding as to warrant relief. We have no reason to
question the competence of the U. S. Attorney to make fair distribution of restitution payments
as they are received. If the successors in interest or the individuals who actually sustained the
losses through Evolutions Enterprises as a result of defendants’ fraud are unavailable or cannot
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
be ascertained, we are confident that the U.S. Attorney will make pro rata distribution of
restitution payments to others of the numerous victims.
Defendants’ only other objection to the restitution amount relates to the district court’s
refusal to reduce the amount based on the present value of MSS shares held by the victims. In
reasoning paralleling that applied in its amount-of-loss calculation, the district court once again
applied the teaching of Healy, 553 F. App’x at 569. Because the record was devoid of evidence
of the value, if any, of MSS shares at the time of sentencing, the court concluded that defendants
failed to carry their burden of establishing entitlement to any reduction in restitution. The court
did not ignore defendants’ argument that the Sharps Terminator might eventually become a
profitable product, but concluded that speculation about future possibilities could not be taken
into account in determining the restitution amount:
Although I acknowledge that Sharps Terminator is now the subject of an
issued patent and has received FDA approval, the government has represented
that no sales have occurred to date.
Therefore, for this Court to assign any value to these shares would be
speculative at best. And this is especially so in that MSS no longer even owns the
patent, and it appears that the only assets I can even consider is the right to any
future, I’m going to call them, royalties.
And the Sixth Circuit, I think, is quite instructive in United States versus
Healy. That’s 553 F. App’x 560, a 2014 case. Based on Healy, this Court finds
that the shares as of today are worthless. And again, I cannot look at potential
value. I have to look at value today.
R. 278, Jackson Sent. Tr. at 64.
Defendants’ objection to this ruling was raised at the time of sentencing and was
preserved through their original notices of appeal, notwithstanding their failure to file second
notices of appeal from the amended judgments. But the objection is to no avail. Despite their
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
protestations that the shares have some indeterminate potential value that should be taken into
account to prevent a future windfall to the victims, they fail to distinguish the present facts from
those addressed in Healy. Defendants have thus failed to show that the district court clearly
erred in finding the MSS shares had no cognizable value at the time of sentencing.
3. Procedural Unreasonableness
(a) DeCiancio
DeCiancio contends the district court committed procedural error when it adjusted his
base offense level upward by eighteen levels based on the loss calculation attributable to the
conspiratorial scheme without making particularized findings regarding his individual culpability
and accountability for the loss under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B).
At sentencing, DeCiancio argued that he was a minor role participant entitled to a two-
level downward adjustment, which was granted. R. 279, DeCiancio Sent. Tr. at 5, Page ID 8422.
He also argued that his minor role in the conspiracy warranted a downward departure from the
Guidelines range, which was denied, as DeCiancio was sentenced to 70 months’ imprisonment,
at the low end of the range. He also objected to the conspiratorial loss amount of over
$9 million, arguing that he had himself invested $750,000 in Needlezap and MSS, and had never
received compensation from MSS. R. 183, Sent. Memorandum at 2, Page ID 3603. The district
court gave this “objection” short shrift, along with others summarily stated in DeCiancio’s
sentencing memorandum, finding them to be factual in nature, and not well supported nor
pertinent to calculation of the offense level. R. 279, Sent. Tr. at 4, Page ID 8421. This,
ostensibly, is the objection that DeCiancio now argues merited more particularized findings.
Yet, if the district court misunderstood the nature of DeCiancio’s objection to the loss-amount
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
calculation—which would be understandable—this was the moment when counsel could be
expected to speak up. He did not.
Further, when the district court made the Bostic inquiry at the close of the hearing,
DeCiancio did not request clarified findings or object to the lack of particularized findings on the
loss-amount calculation. Rather, he asked the court to note his objection to the denial of his
request for a minimal-role downward departure. Now, on appeal, citing United States v.
Campbell, 279 F.3d 392, 399–400 (6th Cir. 2002), DeCiancio contends the court was obliged to
make more particularized findings as to (1) whether the loss amount was within the scope of his
agreement in joining the conspiracy, and (2) whether that loss was foreseeable to him.
This § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) objection is not an objection that was made below. We therefore
review only for plain error and find that the district court cannot be deemed derelict in having
countenanced the unobjected-to lack of particularized findings. See Boyd, 640 F.3d at 669.
Moreover, even under abuse-of-discretion review, we would find the district court’s response to
DeCiancio’s other minor-role arguments sufficient. As the government points out, the court, in
explaining its two-level downward adjustment for DeCiancio’s minor role in the conspiracy,
recognized that he was not as culpable as Jackson and Schureck. Yet, the court considered the
sentence sufficient but not greater than necessary because “Mr. DeCiancio did, in fact, make
representations regarding FDA approval and, frankly, had the investors not heard that, the
investors wouldn’t have invested.” R. 279, Sent. Tr. at 33–34, Page ID 8450–51. There is thus
no reason to believe that the district court “missed” anything that adversely affected DeCiancio’s
substantive rights or the integrity of the proceeding. DeCiancio has not shown plain error or an
abuse of discretion.
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
(b) Donohue
Donohue also challenges his sentence as procedurally unreasonable. He contends the
court did not adequately explain why it increased his base offense level by two levels under
U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(iii) for causing substantial financial hardship to one or more victims.7
In fact, Donohue argues, the record reflects the court’s determination that the scheme did not
cause victims substantial financial hardship. See R. 278, Jackson Sent. Tr. at 11, Page ID 8358.
The government’s response solves the mystery. At the beginning of Donohue’s
sentencing, the court explained this two-level adjustment by incorporating the reasons set forth
during co-defendant Jackson’s earlier sentencing hearing. R. 280, Donohue Sent. Tr. at 4, Page
ID 8458. The reason then given for the two-level adjustment was that the offense clearly
involved ten or more victims. R. 278, Jackson Sent. Tr. at 12, Page ID 8359. Under U.S.S.G.
§ 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(i), a two-level increase is required if the offense involved 10 or more victims—
irrespective of any substantial financial hardship. There is no dispute about the propriety of this
basis for the adjustment.
4. Substantive Unreasonableness
(a) Donohue
Donohue contends his 46-month within-Guidelines-range prison sentence is substantively
unreasonable because the court did not adequately explain its consideration of the factors
prescribed at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Donohue does not identify any factor that should have been
given greater weight and resulted in a lesser sentence. In fact, the district court had given
Donohue the “benefit of the doubt” in granting him a four-level downward adjustment for his
“minimal role” in the conspiracy. R. 280, Donohue Sent. Tr. at 14–15, Page ID 8468–69.
7
While Donohue cites § 2B1.1(b)(2)(C), the provision his argument is based on is
actually § 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(iii).
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
Donohue’s sentence, at the very bottom of the advisory Guidelines range, is presumptively
reasonable. United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 389 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc). Donohue has
not rebutted the presumption.
(b) Schureck
Schureck also challenges his 108-month prison sentence as substantively unreasonable.
In particular, he contends the court did not give due consideration to his age (82 years) and poor
health in fashioning an appropriate sentence. Again, because Schureck, too, was sentenced to a
prison term at the very low end of his advisory Guidelines range, the sentence enjoys a rebuttable
presumption that it is substantively reasonable.
The district court addressed Schureck’s request for a variance as follows:
I do, in fact, find the sentence to be sufficient but not greater than
necessary to satisfy the purposes of sentencing.
As I stated earlier, this is a major fraud that took money from good,
trusting people. I agree with [AUSA] Ms. Lutzko, I am not going to take age and
health into account because, frankly, sir, you were elderly and had these health
issues when you committed the fraud.
So I am not going to take those into consideration for purposes of the
sentence.
R. 281, Schureck Sent. Tr. at 35–36, Page ID 8521–22. In agreeing with government counsel’s
argument, the court essentially adopted the rationale it had just heard presented by Ms. Lutzko.
In relevant part:
I would also just, finally, with respect to the comments that Mr. Schureck
made, he said he doesn’t like cheap shots. Wouldn’t stand by cheap shots and he
never cheated anyone out of a dime. But the evidence in this case was to the
contrary.
He pulled cheap shot after cheap shot after cheap shot to these investors.
He stood and looked them in the eye and told them: “The FDA approval, we’re
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Case Nos. 16-4261/4267/4271/4287, United States v. Donohue, et al.
getting it next week. The FDA has been out. The FDA is – it’s coming, it’s
here,” and he did that year after year after year.
Those are cheap shots.
Your Honor, with respect to the comments by defense counsel, in
particular with respect to issues of health and age, age here really is a double
edged sword or it cuts in both factors.
Yes, Mr. Schureck is elderly. He also committed this crime while elderly,
and he used his grandfatherly appearance and his elderly status to his advantage
with these investors to convince them to give him their money.
With respect to his health, he was able to commit this crime and fly all
over the country and even the world to get people on board while still suffering
these same sort of issues.
And as Your Honor’s well-aware, the Bureau of Prisons is equipped to
deal with virtually any medical problem either in-house, or if they’re not, they
contract outside with outside medical providers.
Your Honor, this crime was not a youthful indiscretion. This was
something that a person who had benefits through life, a stable life, chose to
commit, and he chose to commit it as an elderly individual, and that shouldn’t cut
-- undercut the seriousness of his crime or the offense.
And, therefore, the government is seeking a significant term of
imprisonment in this case.
Id. at 32–33, Page ID 8518–19.
In the face of this explanation, it is clear that Schureck’s summary argument that the
court did not adequately consider the § 3553(a) factors falls short of rebutting the presumption of
reasonableness.
IV. CONCLUSION
Having thus considered each of defendants’ many claims of legal error, we find no
justification for disturbing any of the judgments. All four judgments are therefore AFFIRMED.
- 43 -
|
Stephen Jarislowsky has no need for awards or statistics to establish his prowess as an investing mind. The fact this self-made man ranks 46th on Canadian Business’s Rich 100, with a net worth of $2.1 billion, says it all. And while he stepped down as CEO of his firm, Jarislowsky Fraser, in 2012, he still comes into work every day to manage his clients’ portfolios, at the age of 91. “It’s fascinating,” he says. “Investing puts you in touch with everything in life. It’s a perpetual exercise of the brain.”
Jarislowsky started his firm in 1955, selling investment research to companies that had big pension funds to manage. The firm was so successful–he would interview the management teams of companies he considered worthy of investing in, a novel idea the time–that clients started asking him to manage their money in the place of their pension managers. In this way, he entered the investment management business.
While the markets have gone through several cycles since then, Jarislowsky’s investment philosophy hasn’t wavered from his early report-writing days. The one thing he wants from a stock is to be able to hold it for as long as possible. Why? Because people should avoid paying capital gains taxes at all cost, he explains. (His clients are virtually all wealthy investors whose portfolios exceed the limits of tax-sheltered registered accounts.) “We don’t want to hand over a great deal of money to the government,” he says. “Capital gains isn’t really capital gains for long-term investors.”
In other words, the longer he holds onto a stock, the more returns compound. Of course, he does have to pay up when he eventually sells, but the less turnover in his portfolios, the longer his assets can grow. Being able to do that, though, means buying companies that will, in fact, be around years into the future. While there are many smaller companies and emerging-market businesses that he finds interesting, he prefers sticking with larger North American operations, such as TD Bank (TSX: TD) and TransCanada Corp. (TSX: TRP), which Jarislowsky Fraser holds in its Select Income Fund, and have better long-term prospects.
He also wants to own businesses in stable, but growing, consumer staples-like industries, such as healthcare and alcohol. “Everyone drinks beer,” he says. Cyclical stocks might make a lot of money over the right five-year holding period, but if you hang on too long, the share price could drop in a downturn and then take years to rise again, he reasons. Even if you sell at the right time you’ll have to pay tax.
While Jarislowsky likes buying undervalued stocks, don’t call him a value investor. Good growth is important to him, too. The best stock has a combination of both attributes. “I’ve never understood this idea that you have to be growth or value,” he says. “I want to buy a company that’s valuable in terms of the balance sheet, but unless I can satisfy my need for appreciation, then I have no interest.”
It’s also important for a company’s management team to be honest and adopt ethical practices. In 2002, Jarislowsky partnered with Claude Lamoureux, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s first president, to found the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance and Jarislowsky has publicly admonished Frank Stronach and Conrad Black, among other high-profile CEOs, over corporate excesses. The best companies have good governance policies, he says. CEOs must also know how to motivate people around them. Above all else, they need to be honest.
Jarislowsky won’t put a time limit on what he means by long-term, but he has held ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) in his personal accounts since 1948, when it used to be Standard Oil. Now, he likes Alimentation Couche-Tard (TSX: ATD-B), CGI Group (TSX: GIB-A) and Accenture (NYSE: CAN), all companies that he says help him meet his target return of around 9% per year.
If there’s one piece of advice that this wise stock picker would give to younger investors, it’s to be patient. He’s noticed over the years that more people want to make money quickly, but that’s not how investing works. “You have to drive at a certain speed and you don’t want to have any accidents,” he says. “Get there in good time. That’s good enough for me.”
MORE MARKET MOVERS: |
package reconnect
import (
context "context"
"testing"
"time"
"github.com/relab/gorums"
grpc "google.golang.org/grpc"
)
type testSrv struct{}
func (t testSrv) Test(_ context.Context, in *Echo, out func(*Echo, error)) {
out(in, nil)
}
func TestReconnect(t *testing.T) {
want := "Hello"
addrs, teardown := gorums.TestSetup(t, 1, func() interface{} {
srv := NewGorumsServer()
srv.RegisterReconnectServer(&testSrv{})
return srv
})
defer teardown()
mgr, err := NewManager(WithNodeList(addrs), WithDialTimeout(100*time.Millisecond), WithGrpcDialOptions(
grpc.WithBlock(),
grpc.WithInsecure(),
))
if err != nil {
t.Fatalf("NewManager: %v", err)
}
node := mgr.Nodes()[0]
testRPC := func() {
resp, err := node.Test(context.Background(), &Echo{Value: want})
if err != nil {
t.Fatalf("RPC error: %v", err)
}
if resp.GetValue() != want {
t.Fatalf("Test() == %s, want %s", resp.GetValue(), want)
}
}
testRPC()
// cause the stream to close
_ = node.gorumsStream.CloseSend()
// wait for stream to reconnect
time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond)
// Try again
testRPC()
}
|
Ferrocene-containing tetrahydropyrazolopyrazolones: Antioxidant and antimicrobial activity.
A series of ferrocenes which contain dinitrogen-fused pyrazolidinone ring were synthesized from acryloylferrocene (4) and N,N'‑cyclic azomethine imines (3). Novel 5‑aryl‑6‑ferrocenoyltetrahydropyrazolo[1,2‑a]pyrazol‑1(5H)-ones were obtained as mixtures of two diastereoisomers (trans and cis) which were separated and isolated as pure substances. Ortho-substituted N,N'‑cyclic azomethine imines 5-oxo-2-(2,4,6-trimethylbenzylidene)pyrazolidin-2-ium-1-ide (3e) and 2-(2-methoxybenzylidene)-5-oxopyrazolidin-2-ium-1-ide (3f) reacted stereoselectively affording only trans-6-ferrocenoyl-5-mesityltetrahydropyrazolo[1,2-a]pyrazol-1(5H)-one (5e) and 6-ferrocenoyl-5-(2-methoxyphenyl)tetrahydropyrazolo[1,2-a]pyrazol-1(5H)-one (5f). Ferrocenyl derivatives were screened for in vitro antioxidant and antifungal activities and excellent DPPH and ABTS radicals scavenging activity was observed with majority of tested 5‑aryl‑6‑ferrocenoyltetrahydropyrazolo[1,2‑a]pyrazol‑1(5H)-ones. Several tested compounds showed selective scavenging properties neutralizing ABTS•+ radical cations in contrast to inactivity toward DPPH radicals. Trans-5-aryl-6-ferrocenoyltetrahydropyrazolo[1,2-a]pyrazol-1(5H)-ones 5b, 5c, 5d, 5j as well as cis-6-ferrocenoyl-5-(p-tolyl)tetrahydropyrazolo[1,2-a]pyrazol-1(5H)-one (6d) displayed fungal growth inhibition at low concentration against C. albicans and/or A. brasiliensis. Molecular docking studies revealed that the cis-6-ferrocenoyl-5-(4-nitrophenyl)tetrahydropyrazolo[1,2-a]pyrazol-1(5H)-one (6l) and cis-6-ferrocenoyl-5-(naphthalen-2-yl)tetrahydropyrazolo[1,2-a]pyrazol-1(5H)-one (6n) have potential to become lead molecules in drug discovery process. |
A device can typically include one or more central processing units (CPU) that are used to process a wide variety of instructions for the device. Each of the CPUs is hardware that carries out the instructions of a program by performing the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the device. For example, the CPU can be used to process different tasks that are running on the device.
Each of these CPU operations will cause the device to consume power that leads to heat being generated by the device. This generated heat can add to a thermal load being applied to the device. An excessive thermal load can affect the device performance and, in extreme cases, can lead to a device shutdown. Existing devices can mitigate the thermal load by reducing the CPU operations globally for all processes, regardless of whether the CPU operations are for a batch process or a process supporting a user interface operation. |
TWPC 2012 WSR 3.5 Predictions - R08 Paul Ricard RESULTS
The round at Paul Ricard has given us Antonio Félix Da Costa and Jules Bianchi as the winners of the weekend. With all this, 2012 WSR 3.5 Two Worlds Prediction Competition will show the following round results:
Congrats to scheivlak (AS), our round winner! Mention to albertascari (NA), who in his debut predicted correctly two of three podium finishers of R2.p-matt is the leader with only one round to go, with four runner-ups. On Forums Championship, there were no major changes.Observations:- SUTIL80 (NA): Put Magnussen twice (2nd and 7th) in his R2 predictions, so these parts of it weren't valid.- kurski (TT): Wrote Bottas on his predictions, but since this driver doesn't drive in FR 3.5, these parts of it weren't considered valid.- In all predictions, were considered Korjus x Melker, Rigon x Pal Kiss and Vainio x Nebilitsky as driver replacements for this round.
And now, we'll see again for the next and last 2012 round of WSR 3.5 Two Worlds Prediction Competition, that will be about the forthcoming weekend at Barcelona, Spain, the next October 20th and 21st. Don't miss this fantastic finale!
Note: For identify reasons, is used the following code, that denotes which forum is used by each concursant to participate here:(AS) Autosport.com Forum(NA) Nextgen-Auto.com Forum(TH) CarAndDriverTheF1.com Forum(TT) Ten-Tenths.com Forum |
Dane Neumeister
prepsports@enquirer.com
Moeller High School varsity boys’ lacrosse head coach Sean McGinnis will be starting his fourth season next spring as the Crusaders leader. In just a bit longer time involved with Team Ohio (six seasons as head coach), the Moeller leader of the local group of high school all-stars has developed a friendly rivalry in the summer with a team from out of state - the Long Island state team, with players set to graduate in 2017 and 2018.
McGinnis and his team of rising juniors and seniors recently completed play in the Brine National Lacrosse Classic, which was held July 19-22 in Midlothian, Virginia. This is the ninth year of the tournament, and McGinnis has been at the helm of a team for the summer’s tournament for the past six years.
The Brine Classic is played on 12 turf fields and features guest speakers who relay information to the coaches and players regarding lacrosse, fitness, and other topics related to the sport. The Classic, which also runs a girls’ division, too, featured four boys’ Ohio teams (with teams of players related to graduating classes in 2017/2018, 2019, 2020/2021 and 2022/2023. The 2020-2021 team, coached by James Rice, recorded a 5-2 overall mark during this past week’s tournament, losing in the championship game, 8-6 to Long Island.
High school and middle school players in Southwest Ohio, and particularly the Cincinnati area, were well-represented at the Brine Classic. McGinnis, in fact, had 10 players from the Cincinnati area, including four players from Moeller High School. They were: Conner Rice, Paxton Kreger, Lucas Klever, and Conor McGeeney. Drew Grafflin attends Loveland High School and is also on the team. Rice is an attacker while Klever and McGeeney play midfield. Kreger was one of two goalies on the team. Grafflin is a long stick midfielder/defenseman.
Other local players, out of the 24 on this summer’s 2017/2018 team, were: Andrew Ellis (Kings, defender), Benjamin Sabelhaus (Lakota East, goalie), Nick Edkins (Lakota East, midfielder), Jack Streicher (Elder, midfield) and Garrett Nemitz, (Springboro, defenseman). McGinnis was assisted on the coaching sideline by two coaches out of Columbus, Ohio.
McGinnis’ Team Ohio finished 2-0-2 in pool play, and qualified to the winners’ bracket. Team Ohio recorded ties against Rochester and New Jersey on the first day of action (July 20), defeated Colorado, 11-5 on July 21 and suffered a 6-5 setback to Virginia on July 21. They moved on to take on Long Island in a first game of the winners’ bracket, dropping a hotly-contested match by a 4-3.
The lost to Long Island was a rematch of sorts for Team Ohio, who last summer knocked off the same team from the east, 7-0 to win the National Championship at the Brine Classic.
“Having the experience of playing them last year helped us this time,’’ McGinnis said. “We talked to the kids about coming together as a team quickly and tried to explain to them about the competition level.”
McGinnis had only three players back from that 2015 summer team, and was pleased with how his team came together and played this time, with very little time to practice. The team selection process began in December of last year, and after 25-30 boys were picked from three different Ohio regions, the team was finalized in June, and had only two practices before the tournament. There were 15 teams in all that played from various states in the 2017/2018 division.
“We played some good teams in the tournament, particularly Rochester and Florida,’’ McGinnis added. “We just ran out of time at the end against Long Island. We had some chances and the game went back-and-forth a lot in the last two minutes.
“As the defending champion you have a bull’s eye on your back. We beat them last year and they got us this year.”
McGinnis said the Brine Lacrosse Classic is very well-run event, which features the likes of college coaches from every level. Those coaches are there to watch players and recruit during the off-season. McGinnis stated that speakers and games were on the daily schedule from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day and there were plenty of talented players, both male and female, that competed.
The team’s head coach added that the talent level in Southwest Ohio has grown every year. He stated that there are five former Cincinnati-area high school players that are currently on Division I college teams.
“The talent in southwest Oho is getting better every year due to things like having a tournament like this (the Brine Classic) to play in,’” McGinnis said. |
Buawangpong N, Teekachunhatean S, Koonrungsesomboon N. Adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with first-trimester exposure to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor blockers: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2020;e00644 10.1002/prp2.644
**Funding information**
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not‐for‐profit sectors.
ACEI
: angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitor
ACR
: assumed comparator risk
ARB
: angiotensin II receptor blocker
CI
: confidence interval
CNS
: central nervous system
CVS
: cardiovascular system
ETOP
: elective termination of pregnancy
FDA
: Food and Drug Administration
GRACE
: good research for comparative effectiveness
LBW
: low birth weight
OAH
: other antihypertensive medications
OR
: odds ratio
PRISMA
: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta‐analyses
RAAS
: renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system
RevMan
: review manager
RoB 2
: a revised tool for assessing risk of bias in randomized trials
RR
: risk ratio
1. INTRODUCTION {#prp2644-sec-0001}
===============
Angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), an alternative for ACEI‐intolerant patients, are commonly used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease whereby the renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system (RAAS) is involved in its pathophysiology.[^1^](#prp2644-bib-0001){ref-type="ref"}, [^2^](#prp2644-bib-0002){ref-type="ref"} ACEIs/ARBs modulate the RAAS by either inhibiting an enzyme responsible for the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II or by antagonizing the effects of angiotensin II at its receptors. As such, ACEIs/ARBs are beneficial to enhanced natriuresis, reduced afterload, and deferral of cardiovascular remodeling, making them useful for various cardiovascular conditions, such as hypertension, heart failure, and postmyocardial infarction.[^3^](#prp2644-bib-0003){ref-type="ref"}, [^4^](#prp2644-bib-0004){ref-type="ref"}, [^5^](#prp2644-bib-0005){ref-type="ref"} ACEIs/ARBs are, thus, one of the most widely prescribed drug classes, with hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide who are exposed to each year.[^6^](#prp2644-bib-0006){ref-type="ref"}, [^7^](#prp2644-bib-0007){ref-type="ref"}
In 1980s‐1990s, there were a series of cases reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) indicating that ACEIs/ARBs are teratogens when being used in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.[^8^](#prp2644-bib-0008){ref-type="ref"} Evidence suggests a relationship between neonatal adverse outcomes (ie, oligohydramnios and other adverse outcomes secondary to impaired fetal kidney development) and ACEI/ARB exposure.[^9^](#prp2644-bib-0009){ref-type="ref"}, [^10^](#prp2644-bib-0010){ref-type="ref"} A "black box" warning issued by the US FDA in 1992 has raised awareness of the teratogenic potential of ACEIs/ARBs, and the second and third trimesters of pregnancy are considered a contraindication to the use of ACEIs/ARBs accordingly.[^11^](#prp2644-bib-0011){ref-type="ref"} In the 2013 Report of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Task Force on Hypertension in Pregnancy, it has been recommended not to use ACEIs/ARBs in women of reproductive age if there is no compelling reason.[^12^](#prp2644-bib-0012){ref-type="ref"} Despite such a feature in the labeling of the potentially teratogenic medications, several cases of fetal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs have been reported thereafter.[^13^](#prp2644-bib-0013){ref-type="ref"}, [^14^](#prp2644-bib-0014){ref-type="ref"}, [^15^](#prp2644-bib-0015){ref-type="ref"} ACEI/ARB exposure during pregnancy is still highly prevalent in many settings.[^16^](#prp2644-bib-0016){ref-type="ref"}, [^17^](#prp2644-bib-0017){ref-type="ref"}
Up to the present time, it still remains unclear whether ACEIs/ARBs are teratogenic if exposure to these drugs is only limited to the first trimester of pregnancy.[^18^](#prp2644-bib-0018){ref-type="ref"}, [^19^](#prp2644-bib-0019){ref-type="ref"}, [^20^](#prp2644-bib-0020){ref-type="ref"} Several epidemiologic studies report inconsistent results on the teratogenic effects of first‐trimester ACEI/ARB exposure in humans.[^17^](#prp2644-bib-0017){ref-type="ref"}, [^21^](#prp2644-bib-0021){ref-type="ref"}, [^22^](#prp2644-bib-0022){ref-type="ref"} Given the increasing incidence of hypertension and conditions in which ACEIs/ARBs are often indicated, systematic investigations on the potential teratogenic consequences of ACEI/ARB exposure during early pregnancy are highly needed to provide more concrete guidance for the use of ACEIs/ARBs in women of reproductive age.[^23^](#prp2644-bib-0023){ref-type="ref"}, [^24^](#prp2644-bib-0024){ref-type="ref"} Should ACEI/ARB exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy be considered nonteratogenic, female patients of childbearing potential could be safely prescribed either an ACEI or an ARB, provided that they are advised of the risks involved and can switch the drug to other alternatives within a few weeks after conception. On the other hand, if exposure to ACEIs/ARBs during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of congenital malformations or adverse maternal outcomes, the use of ACEIs/ARBs in women of reproductive age should be discouraged, particularly given the availability of alternative medications to treat their conditions.[^25^](#prp2644-bib-0025){ref-type="ref"}
The objective of the present study was to determine the effects of prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs, particularly when exposure is limited to the first trimester of pregnancy, on adverse maternal and neonatal birth outcomes by means of systematic review and meta‐analysis.
2. METHODS {#prp2644-sec-0002}
==========
This study conformed to the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta‐analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.[^26^](#prp2644-bib-0026){ref-type="ref"} The study protocol was prospectively registered at the PROSPERO international prospective register of systemic reviews in health and social care (CRD42019140107).
2.1. Search strategy and eligibility criteria {#prp2644-sec-0003}
---------------------------------------------
Initial literature searches were systematically performed in four major search engines, that is, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library, in September 2019, and a repeated search was updated on December 31, 2019. The terms related to adverse pregnancy outcomes (including congenital malformations, teratogens, fetus, and pregnancy) and ACEIs/ARBs (including all generic drug names based on Micromedex) were used to develop a comprehensive search strategy, with no language restriction, to identify all relevant articles. A number of medical subject headings were combined using the 'OR' operator; the results of the two searches (ie, adverse pregnancy outcomes and ACEIs/ARBs) were combined with the 'AND' operator. The reference lists of selected articles were screened manually in search of additional articles, if any.
Relevant studies were selected based on the following criteria: (a) a study involved pregnant women; (b) there was ACEI/ARB exposure during pregnancy; and (c) either adverse maternal outcomes or neonatal birth outcomes, or both, were reported. Included studies were limited to original investigation performed on humans. No restriction was made with respect to study design or subjects' underlying conditions. Studies lacking a control group (eg, case reports, case series, or expert opinion) and review articles (including systematic reviews) were excluded. All studies deemed suitable were retrieved and reviewed independently by two authors to determine study eligibility. Study selection was carried out by two authors independently; disagreements were resolved through discussion and consensus.
2.2. Data extraction and quality assessment {#prp2644-sec-0004}
-------------------------------------------
Two authors independently extracted data from original full‐text articles using a standardized data collection form. The data extracted included (a) first author, (b) publication year, (c) study design, (d) study setting/location, (e) study period, (f) stage of pregnancy, (g) number of participants, (h) exposure (ie, ACEIs or ARBs), (i) control (ie, exposure to other antihypertensive drugs or nonexposure), and (j) outcome of interest (ie, overall and specific congenital malformations, low birth weight (LBW) (birth weight \< 2500 g), miscarriage or spontaneous abortion, elective termination of pregnancy (ETOP), stillbirth, and preterm delivery). In cases where data were missing in an original publication or required clarification, attempts were made by e‐mail contact with the corresponding author.
The quality of included studies was evaluated using the standardized Good Research for Comparative Effectiveness (GRACE) checklist for observational studies and a revised tool for assessing the risk of bias in randomized trials (RoB 2) for randomized‐controlled trials.[^27^](#prp2644-bib-0027){ref-type="ref"}, [^28^](#prp2644-bib-0028){ref-type="ref"}
2.3. Data analyses {#prp2644-sec-0005}
------------------
The exposure of interest was maternal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs during any trimesters of pregnancy or during the first trimester only, and the outcome of interest was adverse pregnancy outcomes, including both maternal and neonatal outcomes. The first trimester‐only exposure was defined as any use of ACEIs/ARBs from the last menstrual period to the third month of pregnancy. An exposure cohort was defined as a group of pregnant women who were exposed to ACEIs/ARBs (ACEI/ARB group), while a control cohort was those who were exposed to other antihypertensive medications (OAH group) or those with no exposure to any antihypertensive drugs (nonexposure group). Extracted relevant data were tabulated in a 2 × 2 contingency table. Odds ratios (ORs) were used as a summary measure for meta‐analysis of dichotomous outcomes. Risk ratios (RRs) were calculated from ORs using the following formula for ease of interpretation: RR = OR/ \[1 -- ACR × (1 -- OR)\]; given that the assumed comparator risk (ACR) is the risk that the outcome of interest occurred in the control group.
Pooled‐effect estimates of each outcome of interest were calculated by the Mantel‐Haenszel random‐effects meta‐analysis. A cumulative meta‐analysis was conducted to determine whether each study added to the pool affected the overall estimate changes. Statistical heterogeneity among included studies was assessed using the Cochran\'s *Q* test and the percentage of total variability across studies due to heterogeneity (*I* ^2^ value). Subgroup analyses were conducted to determine the impact of ACEI/ARB exposure on adverse maternal and neonatal birth outcomes when exposure was limited to the first trimester of pregnancy.
Potential bias from small‐study effects (eg, publication bias) was assessed through visual examination of funnel plots displaying the log OR of individual studies on the horizontal axis and its standard error on the vertical axis.[^29^](#prp2644-bib-0029){ref-type="ref"} A rank correlation test and a linear regression test were applied to identify any potential publication bias in a meta‐analysis with 10 or more included studies.[^30^](#prp2644-bib-0030){ref-type="ref"}, [^31^](#prp2644-bib-0031){ref-type="ref"} Sensitivity analyses on the impact of study design, drug classes, and exclusion of a single study from meta‐analysis as well as the impact of fixed‐effect or random‐effects models on summary measures were performed.
All tests were two‐tailed; *P* \< .05 was considered statistically significant. Quantitative syntheses of the data were done in Review Manager (RevMan) version 5.3. Cumulative meta‐analyses were performed in chronological order using a standard software package (Stata, version 16.0; StataCorp). Formal tests for funnel plot asymmetry were performed using the jamovi project (2019), jamovi version 1.0 (Computer Software), retrieved from <https://www.jamovi.org>.
3. RESULTS {#prp2644-sec-0006}
==========
Of 3427 potentially relevant records identified through the systematic search, 49 full‐text articles were retrieved and examined for eligibility. A total of 19 articles, published between 1992 and 2018, were included for data extraction, with 18 articles that enabled quantitative analysis (Figure [1](#prp2644-fig-0001){ref-type="fig"}). Characteristics of 19 studies are presented in Table [1](#prp2644-tbl-0001){ref-type="table"}, [^32^](#prp2644-bib-0032){ref-type="ref"}, [^33^](#prp2644-bib-0033){ref-type="ref"}, [^34^](#prp2644-bib-0034){ref-type="ref"}, [^35^](#prp2644-bib-0035){ref-type="ref"}, [^36^](#prp2644-bib-0036){ref-type="ref"}, [^37^](#prp2644-bib-0037){ref-type="ref"}, [^38^](#prp2644-bib-0038){ref-type="ref"}, [^39^](#prp2644-bib-0039){ref-type="ref"}, [^40^](#prp2644-bib-0040){ref-type="ref"}, [^41^](#prp2644-bib-0041){ref-type="ref"}, [^42^](#prp2644-bib-0042){ref-type="ref"}, [^43^](#prp2644-bib-0043){ref-type="ref"}, [^44^](#prp2644-bib-0044){ref-type="ref"}, [^45^](#prp2644-bib-0045){ref-type="ref"}, [^46^](#prp2644-bib-0046){ref-type="ref"}, [^47^](#prp2644-bib-0047){ref-type="ref"}, [^48^](#prp2644-bib-0048){ref-type="ref"}, [^49^](#prp2644-bib-0049){ref-type="ref"}, [^50^](#prp2644-bib-0050){ref-type="ref"}: 15 are observational cohort studies, three are case‐control studies, and one is a randomized‐controlled trial, all of which were classified as 'sufficient quality' or 'low risk of bias' studies (Table S1). Relevant studies were conducted in North America (n = 9), Europe (n = 9), or Australia (n = 2). Data syntheses involved a total of 4 163 753 pregnant women, with 7075 exposed to ACEIs/ARBs, 25 379 to other antihypertensive drugs, and 3 782 450 nonexposed individuals. Around two thirds of studies included in qualitative analysis (13/19) reported an increased risk of, at least, one adverse pregnancy outcome of interest in pregnant women with ACEI/ARB exposure (Table S2).
{#prp2644-fig-0001}
######
Study characteristics
Study Year Study design Stage of pregnancy Locations Periods Exposure Comparator
--------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------- ---------------------- --------------------------- -------------------------
Ahmed et al[^32^](#prp2644-bib-0032){ref-type="ref"} 2018 Retrospective cohort First trimester Australia 2005‐2012 ACEIs/ARBs Methyldopa
Banhidy et al[^33^](#prp2644-bib-0033){ref-type="ref"} 2011 Case‐control Any trimesters Hungary 1980‐1996 Captopril OAH; Nonexposure
Bateman et al[^34^](#prp2644-bib-0034){ref-type="ref"} 2017 Retrospective cohort First trimester United States 2000‐2010 ACEIs Nonexposure
Caton et al[^35^](#prp2644-bib-0035){ref-type="ref"} 2009 Case‐control First trimester United States 1997‐2003 ACEIs/ARBs OAH; Nonexposure
Chintamaneni et al[^36^](#prp2644-bib-0036){ref-type="ref"} 2018 Retrospective cohort Any trimesters United States 2003‐2014 ACEIs (mostly Lisinopril) Nonexposure
Colvin et al[^37^](#prp2644-bib-0037){ref-type="ref"} 2014 Retrospective cohort Any trimesters Australia 2002‐2005 ACEIs Nonexposure
Cooper et al[^38^](#prp2644-bib-0038){ref-type="ref"} 2006 Retrospective cohort First trimester United States 1985‐2000 ACEIs OAH; Nonexposure
Cournot et al[^39^](#prp2644-bib-0039){ref-type="ref"} 2006 Prospective cohort First trimester France n/a ACEIs Nonexposure
Diav‐Citrin et al[^40^](#prp2644-bib-0040){ref-type="ref"} 2011 Prospective cohort First trimester Israel; Italy 1994‐2007; 1990‐2008 ACEIs OAH; Nonexposure
Fisher et al[^41^](#prp2644-bib-0041){ref-type="ref"} 2017 Case‐control First trimester United States 1997‐2011 ACEIs/ARBs OAH; Nonexposure
Hoeltzenbein et al[^42^](#prp2644-bib-0042){ref-type="ref"} 2018a Prospective cohort First trimester[^1^](#prp2644-note-0003){ref-type="fn"} Germany 2000‐2014 ACEIs Methyldopa; Nonexposure
Hoeltzenbein et al [^43^](#prp2644-bib-0043){ref-type="ref"} 2018b Prospective cohort First trimester[^1^](#prp2644-note-0003){ref-type="fn"} Germany 2000‐2014 ARBs Methyldopa; Nonexposure
Lennestal et al[^44^](#prp2644-bib-0044){ref-type="ref"} 2009 Retrospective cohort First trimester Sweden 1995‐2006 ACEIs/ARBs OAH; Nonexposure
Li et al[^45^](#prp2644-bib-0045){ref-type="ref"} 2011 Retrospective cohort All trimesters; First trimester; Second or third trimester United States 1995‐2008 ACEIs OAH; Nonexposure
Malm et al[^46^](#prp2644-bib-0046){ref-type="ref"} 2008 Retrospective cohort First trimester Finland 1996‐2001 ACEIs OAH; Nonexposure
Moretti et al[^47^](#prp2644-bib-0047){ref-type="ref"} 2012 Prospective cohort First trimester Canada n/a ACEIs/ARBs OAH; Nonexposure
Piper et al[^48^](#prp2644-bib-0048){ref-type="ref"} 1992 Retrospective cohort All trimesters United States 1983‐1988 ACEIs n/a
Porta et al[^49^](#prp2644-bib-0049){ref-type="ref"} 2011 Randomized‐control[^2^](#prp2644-note-0004){ref-type="fn"} First trimester Italy, USA, UK, Denmark, Sweden 2001‐2008 Candesartan Nonexposure
Vasilakis‐Scaramozza et al[^50^](#prp2644-bib-0050){ref-type="ref"} 2013 Retrospective cohort First trimester United Kingdom 1991‐2002 ACEIs OAH; Nonexposure
Abbreviations: ACEIs, angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors; ARBs, angiotensin II receptor blockers; n.a., not available; OAH, other antihypertensive medications.
No longer than gestational week 20.
Data derived from three randomized, placebo‐controlled trials (ie, DIRECT‐Prevent 1, DIRECT‐Protect 1, and DIRECT‐Protect 2).
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Meta‐analysis of 17 included studies found a significant association between overall congenital malformations and prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs (OR = 2.16, 95% CI = 1.72‐2.71, *P* \< .0001, calculated RR = 2.06; Table [2](#prp2644-tbl-0002){ref-type="table"}). A cumulative meta‐analysis demonstrated that the addition of subsequent studies had little effect on the OR, but simply narrowed the 95% CI (Figure [S1](#prp2644-sup-0001){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). The significant relationship still existed when analysis was limited to studies with the first trimester‐only exposure (OR = 1.94, 95% CI = 1.71‐2.21, *P* \< .0001, calculated RR = 1.91; Figure [2](#prp2644-fig-0002){ref-type="fig"}). The cumulative meta‐analysis displaying results accumulated over successive studies is shown in Figure [S2](#prp2644-sup-0002){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. Cardiovascular system (CVS), central nervous system (CNS), and urogenital malformations were found to be associated with ACEI/ARB exposure during pregnancy (OR = 2.96, 95% CI = 2.57‐3.39, *P* \< .0001, calculated RR = 2.87; OR = 2.02, 95% CI = 1.08‐3.78, *P* = .03, calculated RR = 2.01; OR = 4.57, 95% CI = 2.11‐9.89, *P* = .0001, calculated RR = 4.35, respectively). The significant association between ACEI/ARB exposure and CVS malformations was still present when analysis was limited to studies with the first trimester‐only exposure (OR = 3.02, 95% CI = 2.60‐3.51, *P* \< .0001, calculated RR = 2.92; Figure [3](#prp2644-fig-0003){ref-type="fig"}).
######
Adverse pregnancy outcomes following ACEI/ARB exposure compared with control
Outcomes Studies included Exposure Heterogeneity Effect measure
-------------------------------------- ------------------ ---------- ---------------- ---------------- ----- ------ --------------- ----------
Exposure in any trimesters
Congenital malformations
Overall 17 538/6935 166295/3804799 0.0002 64% 2.16 (1.72, 2.71) \<.00001
CVS 9 244/5828 56389/3372581 0.71 0% 2.96 (2.57, 3.39) \<.0001
CNS 3 22/5014 5475/1800439 0.14 49% 2.02 (1.08, 3.78) .03
Urogenital 2 7/141 1352/96903 0.81 0% 4.57 (2.11, 9.89) .0001
LBW 3 101/639 27499/475076 0.001 85% 2.30 (1.20, 4.41) .0004
Miscarriage 6 149/1180 254/3070 0.39 4% 1.63 (1.30, 2.05) \<.0001
ETOP 6 118/1180 145/3070 0.003 73% 2.54 (1.41, 4.59) .02
Stillbirth 8 15/1474 24/4690 0.42 0% 2.36 (1.17, 4.76) .02
Preterm delivery 9 321/1478 39071/478072 \<0.00001 95% 1.69 (1.04, 2.76) \<.00001
Exposure in the first trimester only
Congenital malformations
Overall 14 400/6071 107994/3252689 0.41 4% 1.94 (1.71, 2.21) \<.00001
CVS 7 213/4992 49733/2882376 0.72 0% 3.02 (2.60, 3.51) \<.0001
CNS 3 16/4684 5250/1785430 0.08 61% 1.88 (0.73, 4.83) .19
Urogenital 1 1/46 6/977 --- --- 3.60 (0.42, 30.51) .24
LBW 1 21/140 46/316 --- --- 1.04 (0.59, 1.81) .90
Miscarriage 6 149/1180 254/3070 0.39 4% 1.63 (1.30, 2.05) \<.0001
ETOP 6 118/1180 145/3070 0.003 73% 2.54 (1.41, 4.59) .02
Stillbirth 8 15/1474 24/4690 0.42 0% 2.36 (1.17, 4.76) .02
Preterm delivery 7 200/979 394/3312 0.0008 74% 1.26 (0.84, 1.91) .26
Abbreviations: ACEIs, angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors; ARBs, angiotensin II receptor blockers; CI, confidence interval; CNS, central nervous system; CVS, cardiovascular system; ETOP, elective termination of pregnancy; LBW, low birth weight; OR, odds ratio.
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
{#prp2644-fig-0002}
{#prp2644-fig-0003}
Other outcome measures that enabled analysis included LBW, miscarriage, ETOP, stillbirth, and preterm delivery, all of which were significantly associated with prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs (Table [2](#prp2644-tbl-0002){ref-type="table"}). Miscarriage, ETOP, and stillbirth were also significantly related to ACEI/ARB exposure in the only first trimester of pregnancy (OR = 1.63, 95% CI = 1.30‐2.05, *P* \< .0001, calculated RR = 1.55; OR = 2.54, 95% CI = 1.41‐4.59, *P* = .02, calculated RR = 2.37; OR = 2.36, 95% CI = 1.17‐4.76, *P* = .02, calculated RR = 2.34, respectively).
When comparing exposure to ACEIs/ARBs to nonexposure, the significant results were more or less similar to what was observed in the overall findings (Table S3). When comparing ACEI/ARB exposure to OAH exposure, the significant associations for most outcomes of interest were still existent when the analysis was limited to studies with the first trimester‐only exposure (Table S4).
Funnel plot asymmetries, indicative of the evidence of small‐study effects, were observed in the meta‐analyses of all the outcomes of interest, except for stillbirth (Figure [S3](#prp2644-sup-0003){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). The formal tests suggested no significant asymmetry of the funnel plot for the effect estimate of overall congenital malformations (Rank correlation test, Kendall\'s Tau = −0.176, *P* = .349; Linear regression test, Z = −1.302, *P* = .193). When sensitivity analyses were applied, little changes on effect estimates were observed across all the outcomes of interest, indicative of robustness in the overall findings (Table S5). Prenatal exposure to ACEIs, but not ARBs, was found to be significantly associated with overall congenital malformations, LBW, miscarriage, ETOP, and preterm delivery.
4. DISCUSSION {#prp2644-sec-0007}
=============
To the best of our knowledge, this systematic review and meta‐analysis includes the largest dataset in the literature for the purpose of examining the associations between prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including both adverse maternal outcomes and neonatal birth defects. The first trimester‐only exposure to ACEIs/ARBs, previously presumably thought to be safe,[^22^](#prp2644-bib-0022){ref-type="ref"} was found to be significantly associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, including overall and CVS congenital malformations. The overall results of this study may raise concerns about the potential dangers of ACEI/ARB use during early pregnancy.
The adverse pregnancy outcomes that occur following in utero exposure to ACEIs/ARBs may result either directly from the drugs or from underlying maternal illnesses. When the ACEI/ARB group was compared to the OAH group, the effect size was smaller than when it was compared to nonexposure. It is also possible that ACEIs/ARBs may be prescribed more often than other antihypertensive drug classes in hypertensive patients with diabetes because of their proven efficacy against the progression of diabetic nephropathy.[^51^](#prp2644-bib-0051){ref-type="ref"}, [^52^](#prp2644-bib-0052){ref-type="ref"} A hypertensive or diabetic disorder in pregnancy may itself be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes without drug specificity and, thus, may act as a confounder in some observational studies included in our analysis.[^53^](#prp2644-bib-0053){ref-type="ref"}, [^54^](#prp2644-bib-0054){ref-type="ref"}, [^55^](#prp2644-bib-0055){ref-type="ref"} Moreover, patients with such underlying conditions tend to be older and may exhibit other comorbidities, including obesity, which may also be related to an elevated risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes.[^56^](#prp2644-bib-0056){ref-type="ref"}, [^57^](#prp2644-bib-0057){ref-type="ref"} Therefore, it should be kept in mind that there was a likelihood of the present meta‐analyses being confounded by some of these factors, for which some included studies might not adequately control.
Assumed the observed adverse pregnancy outcomes ascribed mainly to the drugs, the increased teratogenic risk could be conceivably attributed to inhibition of RAAS, a system that plays a key role in the embryogenic and fetal development of several organs/systems.[^9^](#prp2644-bib-0009){ref-type="ref"}, [^58^](#prp2644-bib-0058){ref-type="ref"}, [^59^](#prp2644-bib-0059){ref-type="ref"}, [^60^](#prp2644-bib-0060){ref-type="ref"} Not only does fetal RAAS blockade syndrome occur following ACEI/ARB exposure during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy it also may occur in those who are exposed to ACEIs/ARBs at the beginning of pregnancy.[^15^](#prp2644-bib-0015){ref-type="ref"}, [^61^](#prp2644-bib-0061){ref-type="ref"} Although there are unknown biologic mechanisms underlying adverse birth outcomes, inhibition of angiogenesis has been postulated to be a possible mechanism for the CVS malformations.[^62^](#prp2644-bib-0062){ref-type="ref"} Given limited knowledge on how ACEIs/ARBs might interfere with embryonic development during the critical period for organogenesis, further research is warranted to gain a better understanding of underlying mechanisms whereby the drugs might result in adverse pregnancy outcomes. Moreover, differential effects of ACEI/ARB exposure in the first trimester as compared to the second and third trimesters need further investigations.
Although it remains uncertain whether the elevated risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes observed in our analysis is specific to ACEIs/ARBs or related to maternal underlying conditions, this systematic review and meta‐analysis largely supports the current recommendations stating that women of reproductive age should be treated with ACEIs/ARBs only if absolutely indicated.[^17^](#prp2644-bib-0017){ref-type="ref"} Our findings may raise concerns about the potentially deleterious effects of prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs during the first trimester of pregnancy. Given that numerous pregnancies are unplanned, there are formidable practical difficulties in avoiding first‐trimester ACEI/ARB exposure if the drugs are customarily used in female patients of reproductive age.[^63^](#prp2644-bib-0063){ref-type="ref"}, [^64^](#prp2644-bib-0064){ref-type="ref"} Clinical practitioners should treat those with the potential to become pregnant with the least teratogenic drug available.[^25^](#prp2644-bib-0025){ref-type="ref"}, [^65^](#prp2644-bib-0065){ref-type="ref"} Women of reproductive age whose condition is best treated with ACEIs/ARBs should be advised about the potential teratogenic risks of these drugs if they become pregnant. Effective contraception must be assured. However, if female patients inadvertently become pregnant while taking ACEIs/ARBs, clinical practitioners should instruct them to abruptly stop taking the drugs and offer alternatives.[^66^](#prp2644-bib-0066){ref-type="ref"} The only one randomized‐controlled trial included in our analysis suggested no significant association of adverse pregnancy outcomes with drug exposure when the patients discontinued an ARB within an estimated 8 weeks from the last menstrual period.[^51^](#prp2644-bib-0051){ref-type="ref"} It is reasonable to postulate that very short‐term cumulative exposure to ACEIs/ARBs during early pregnancy would be associated with better pregnancy outcomes; however, further investigation is required.
The results of this study should be interpreted with caution. First, asymmetric funnel plots, indicative of the evidence of small‐study effects (eg, publication bias), were observed in the meta‐analyses of most outcomes of interest. The formal tests for funnel plot asymmetry (either the Begg\'s rank correlation test or the Egger\'s linear regression test) are prone to type II errors (or false negative) in small meta‐analyses and, thus, the possibility of small‐study effects or publication bias cannot be ruled out.[^67^](#prp2644-bib-0067){ref-type="ref"} Although search terms being used were broad without being limited to specific study designs, it is conceivable that our analysis might have missed some pertinent studies which are, for example, only available in other databases (eg, Embase) or even be unpublished.[^68^](#prp2644-bib-0068){ref-type="ref"}, [^69^](#prp2644-bib-0069){ref-type="ref"} Positive studies reporting a teratogenic effect of the drugs may be more likely to be published than studies with null results.[^70^](#prp2644-bib-0070){ref-type="ref"} However, sensitivity analyses demonstrated no or little change on effect estimates, indicating the robustness of the results. Selective publications of studies may be of less concern to the validity of the present systematic review and meta‐analysis.[^71^](#prp2644-bib-0071){ref-type="ref"}, [^72^](#prp2644-bib-0072){ref-type="ref"} Second, it has been widely acknowledged in the literature that several observational studies on pregnancy outcome after drug exposure during early pregnancy often ignore left truncation and competing risks, leading to biased crude rates of miscarriage.[^73^](#prp2644-bib-0073){ref-type="ref"} Moreover, ETOP rates may reflect patients' anxiety, including misunderstanding of drug risk, rather than the toxic effects of a drug. As a result, the meta‐analysis might misestimate the effects of prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs, particularly when exposure is limited to the first trimester of pregnancy, on some outcomes of interest. Pharmacovigilance with regard to the exposure of newly pregnant women to their current medications will further provide more evidence on the association between ACEI/ARB use during the early stage of pregnancy and adverse pregnancy outcomes.
In conclusion, this comprehensive and quantitative analysis of the evidence available to date suggests an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including congenital malformations, with prenatal exposure to ACEIs/ARBs, regardless of the trimester of pregnancy. Prescription of ACEIs/ARBs in women with the potential to become pregnant should be discouraged provided that there are alternative drugs with a more favorable risk/benefit profile to treat a condition. Large observational studies that are properly designed to adequately account for the role of confounders are necessary to confirm the results of this study. Further investigations are required to reveal possible pathogenic pathways leading to adverse pregnancy outcomes, particularly congenital birth defects, if confirmed, in those with first‐trimester exposure to ACEIs/ARBs.
ETHICAL APPROVAL STATEMENT {#prp2644-sec-0008}
==========================
This study is exempt from ethical review and received the certificate of exemption from the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University.
PATIENT CONSENT STATEMENT {#prp2644-sec-0009}
=========================
Not applicable.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST {#prp2644-sec-0011}
====================
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
AUTHORS\' CONTRIBUTIONS {#prp2644-sec-0012}
=======================
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by NB and NK. The first draft of the manuscript was written by NB and the manuscript was finalized by NK. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supporting information
======================
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Figure S1
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Figure S2
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Figure S3
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Table S1
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Table S2
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Table S3
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Table S4
######
Click here for additional data file.
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Table S5
######
Click here for additional data file.
This study was partially supported by Chiang Mai University.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT {#prp2644-sec-0014}
===========================
All data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
|
Q:
Enforce generic type return function
For the sake of the example, let's say I want to write a function that adds logging to any function that returns a Promise. In JS I would do something like:
const addLogging = (f) => (...args) => (
f(...args).then(result => {
console.log('result:', result);
return result;
})
)
const test = addLogging(
(value) => Promise.resolve(value)
)
test('foo') // logs "result: foo"
Now I'd like to enforce typings with typescript. Here is what I came up with:
const addLogging = <F extends Function>(f: F): F => (
(
(...args: any[]) => (
(f as any)(...args).then((result: any) => {
console.log('result:', result);
return result;
})
)
) as any
);
// Cool! :)
// type of test is (value: string) => Promise<string>
const test = addLogging(
(value: string) => Promise.resolve(value),
);
// Less Cool :(
// Not valid, how to prevent it with typings?
const test2 = addLogging(
(value: string) => value, // should return a promise
);
The typing of the augmented function is preserved which is nice. But first I have to use a lot of any and also i'd like to enforce that addLogging's f argument must be a function that returns a Promise. Is there any simple way to do that with typescript?
A:
You can be more specific about your constraint on F, you can specify that is a function that takes any number of parameters and returns a Promise<any>
const addLogging = <F extends (...args: any[]) => Promise<any>>(f: F) => ((
(...args) =>
f(...args).then((result: any) => {
console.log('result:', result);
return result;
})
) as F);
//Ok
const test = addLogging(
(value: string) => Promise.resolve(value),
);
//Error
const test2 = addLogging(
(value: string) => value, // should return a promise
);
|
John William Wadsworth
John William Wadsworth (1879-1955) was a British ceramicist.
After studying at the Royal College of Art, he began his career at the Mintons company in Stoke-on-Trent, where he collaborated closely with Léon-Victor Solon on art nouveau designs. These products were marketed as "secessionist ware" in a reference to the Vienna Secession art movement.
He emigrated to the United States in 1901.
He moved to the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company as Art Director in 1915.
He was the father of the potter Philip Wadsworth, born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1910.
References
Further reading
Phillips London, 8 April 1992,"The Ceramic Art and Paintings of John and Philip Wadsworth".
J. Jones, Minton. The First Two Hundred Years of Design & Production, Shrewsbury, 1993, pp. 242–53.
Category:British ceramists
Category:British emigrants to the United States
Category:1879 births
Category:1955 deaths |
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FlYjFT O JUL JL 2.V Jjtmk DARLINGTON RECORD. VOL. VIIL DARLINGTON, GENTRY COUNTY, MISSOURI, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1898. NO. 4f. : i i i 5 -ZZZ News of the Week. Christmas Goods! Don't Fail to See Them. We have lots of them. Commencing Dec. 15, and continuing up to Jan. 1, we will sell I CANDY at 5 and 6 cent per pound. WANTED: 1000 pounds Hens at 4 cents per pound. 1000 oounda of Butter at 15 cents per pound. 1000 dozen Fresh Eggs at 20 cents per dozen. 1000 pounds Chickens at 4$ cents per pound. 1000 pounds Turkeys at 7 cents per pound. 1000 pounds Ducks at o cents per pound. 1000 bushels of Cora at 30 cents per bushel. Brim? vonr Furs. Green Hides. Feathers, etc We have a store full of goods just what you ! want. We want to exchange for the above at prices as above stated. iJnng your casn and get oil-: i verware tickets and get you a piece of Silverware. Call and see us. - THE OLD RELIABLE- V r. Talcott & Son. SPECIAL PRICES 0N J Wagons and Buggies. Columbia, which has a separate guarantee with each rig. If you want to purchase an Al buggy at manufacturer's price, here is our opportunity. There is io better Wagon made than th Macon Steel Skein, and we are selling lots of this make of Wagons. See us for all kinds of Farm Implements. Goodman & Stevens. Money to Loan. On improved farms at low rate of interest, with option of paying $100 or more at any interest payment. I have loaned more money in Gentry county, in the past two years, thau all other agents combined. For verification of this, I refer you to Dale Flowers, recorder. 1 am examiner for company iu Northwest Missouri, that gives me the advantage over all other agents; and as I examine all my own loans you do not have to wait for your money until an examiner comes arouud. I can give you more money on your land than any other agent iu the county. No gold clause. You can pay your loan in SILVER or paper money. Give me a call before you borrow. Straight interest. No cash commission. J. 1J. lkfcCSLHa Sfaiileiyt o. New: Administration CAB! RET CONVENED If! SPECIAL- SESSION. Have decided to tei Kjhal ht vim T. A. CSSSI' Attorney at Law. Office Over Haiidwabe Store. DARLINGTON, MO. A DMINISTRTOR'S NOTICE. Come and see my new stock now arriving: Siding, 11.00 to $2.40. Flooring, $1.40 to $3.60. - Shingles, $1.50 to $3.10. Hoa Wire Painted $2.00. Galvanized Wire $2.35. Wire Nails and Staples, $2.00. benefft of said Other hardware in proportion, claims be not exhibited within two years from tne date ol tnis publication, I . i i 1 1 . r t i rri s HOiL i ..... .1 mey suau oe lorever oarreu. x uis oitu jma . I . V. A . M. 1 - Complete stoc in me oest 3 aru dav o1 D-,.ember. 1898. . T in northwest Missouri. MRS. ellen REARDAN, fJash. Produce or Note. No Book Accounts. Try Me. ' Notice is hereby given, that letters of administration on the estate of Michael Reardan, deceased, were granted to the undersigned on the 28th day of Dec. 181)8, by the Probate Court of Gentry County, Missouri. Ail persons having claims against said estate are required to exhibit them for al lowance to the .administrator, within one year after the date of said letters, or they may be precluded from any estate; and if such Administratrix. S. T. Tracy, MeCVRRY, MO. Bring your Furs to Talcott's. Rev. J. B. Seat is enerired in a protracted meeting at Fairport. -New drees goods at Howerton's. -W. B. Pierce called yesterday and ordered the RECORD sent to Oliver Pierce at Goodland, Kan., for a year Try a sack of Faucett's Flour, at At the market of Hammond & Howerton's. Co. Lard, tallow, sausage, fresh I a. U. Jacobv wanted to start on pork; sugar cured hams, breakfast the new year right, and so he called FRESH CURED MEATS Howerton's for school shoes. J. H. Hammond and wife were guests of Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Gillespie at dinner Sunday. New Salt, 95 cents per barrel. Talcott & Son. Mrs. E. M. Henton of Dorsey, is very low with pneumonia. Hammond & Co. want all your marketable poultry, and will pay you top prices for it. A Mr. Toulon of Omaha, Neb., was the guest of Miss, Nellie Green well first of the week. If you want a loan on your farm, it will pay you to see J. B. Sager at Bank of Darlington. Rev. J. B. Seat conducted a Christmas service at Mount Moriab, Sunday, and reports a splendid meeting. Peanuts by the peck, or any old way, at Cranor s. C. C. Scott and wife came up from Orchid, Sunday, to spend a few days with Darlington relatives and friends. While trying to shoot a hog, at his place west of Hugginsville yesterday, Sanford Rucker accidentally shot one of the Summa boys in the tbigh with a 22-calibre rifle. Ousb Howerton wants your pro duce, and will pay you top prices for it. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Glenn, of McCurry, called at newspaper head quarters yesterday and paid their subscription to the Record a year ahead, and also took advantage of our club bing offer to renew for the twice-a week Globe-Democrat. Go to King's restaurant for fine candies. Lagest, cheapest and best stock in town. A. B. Guetin and P. M. Rodecker counted the beans in the bottle, that was to decide who got tbe big doll at the store of Talcott & Son, Monday! afternoon, and found that the correct number was 2261. Mrs. Curtis Wag oner whose guess was 2250, got the doll. Miss Daisy Miller's guess of 2273 was tho next nearest. Altogether there were 435 guesses, ranging from 350 to 6000. -Cranor & Crnnor have the Delin eator for sale. Metropolitan Fashions. Will order all kinds of patterns at reduced prices. Get a fashion sheet. Mrs. T. L. 'Butler entertained a few friends at dinner Tuesday, in honor of Asa W. Rutler and B. O. Tener. There were present besides these two, Mr. and Mrs. A. Goodman, Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Yankie, Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Cummins, Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Cummins, Mioses Alice Garman, Silvia McCulley and Maude Garman and the RECORD family. Taken all together, it would be hard to find an equal number of men whose eating capacity ould equal that of the men who sat down to this dinner, and we didn't leave the table until our hunger had been appeased. bacon and tender beefsteak. We Tuesday and squared his subscription bay uuies. xoar iraae solicited, account. Hammond & Co. The St. Joseph Daily News is the Newsiest, Brightest and Best Daily cost of collection. Newspaper Published in Record and twice-a-week Globe- Democrat, only tl.75 per year. Turner Shaker Advertising Co., No. 36, has been giving entertainments at Walker's Hall every night this week, and advertising the Shaker remedies. They have attracted large crowds. All knowing themselves to be in debted to me must settle their accounts by cash or note immediately, and save - Northwest Missouri. IT CONTAINS ALL THE NEWS Twelve hours in ; r Advance of any other fct. Joseph Newspaper. IT IS ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDENT Is controlled by No Political Party, Clique or Faction Is Aggressive and Fearless in the - Cause of Bight. FULL ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT - Complete Special Telegraph Service, . Best Market Reports by Wire. Largest Circulation of Any - St. Joseph Newspaper, - 3 a year. , SUBSCRIBE FOR -THE DAILY NEWS. Dr. K. C Cummins. Grip is epidemic, but don't be alarmed. Grip always -seizes the scared people first. Go about your business, keeping your feet dry, your throat protected, your conscience clear, your pores open, and your mouth shut. -New York Mail and Express. Holiday Rates, The C, B. & Q. railroad will, on Dec. 24, 25, 26 and 31, 1898, and Jan. 1 and 2,1899, sell round-trip holiday excur sion tickets to all points on lis lines within a distance of 200 miles, at very low rates. . These tickets are good re turning until January 4, 1899. For further information call on or address J. A. 8w ANSON, Agent. Holiday Rates. The O. & St.; I, railroad will, -on Dec 24, 55, 26 sad 21, 1896V and Jan. 1 and 2, 1899, sell round-trip holiday ex cursion tickets to all ; points on Its lines within a distance of 200 miles, at very low rates." ..Those tickets are good returning until January 4, 1899. ItVva 4 T tnfAmndftAM 4nl1 Am Ita ail. Ol. JOSepll, M0.' dress . J. A? Swanson, Agent GEORGE FRANKLIN LEMLEY The death of Frank Lemley at his home north of town last Friday mom ing, was a shock to his many friends. It was known that he was very sick with pneumonia, but the symptoms were favorable for his recovery up to a few hours before his death. His last illness only lasted nine days. George Franklin Lemley, son of E. M. and Barbara Lemley, was born in Taylor county, Iowa, and came to Missouri with his parents when only a year old. His childhood was passed on the home place 2i miles north of Darlington, and he grew up a bright, intelligent young man. When last we saw him, ten days before his death, he looked the picture of health, and we little dreamed that we would be called upon to chronicle h is death so soon. He was a favorite with his associates and his death has cast a gloom over other homes than his own. Frank was 23 years, 3 months and 23 days old. He leaves a mother and three brothers to mourn bis death. Just three years and one day had elapsed since the death of Frank's sister, Mrs, J. F. Gillespie, till death claimed him as its victim, and another sister, Mrs. Allan Wolford, was stricken by death's remorseless hand in the Intervening years. Tbe remains were followed to the Rouse cemetery by a large number of sorrowing friends and neigh bors,Satur day afternoon, where tbey were cost signed to their final resting place, al ter a -short funeral service conducted by Rev. A. D. Davis. The sympathy of many friends goes out to the bereaved family in their hour o( grief. Other personal items on 4th page. You can pay your taxes at the Bank of Darlington. J. W. Lepper of Albany has been putting a tin roof on Comstock's new barn. Uncle Joe Rouner has sold his 120- acre farm near New Castle, for $20 per acre. TheREOORD family ate turkey and other good things at the McCulley House, on Christmas. Next Sunday we will begin to write it 1899. How many will make a mistake and write it '08 tbe first time? Eggs 20 cents, at Talcott's. Those who happened to notice it, witnessed an almobt total eclipse of the moon early Tuesday evening. The little son of Mr. and Mrs. Sol Lemley, which has been quite sick for a week, is some better at present. Buy your plow shoes of A. Good man . Calvert Garman and wife are now at Poteau, Indian Ter., where he is working in the Amos handle factory. Buy your cigars at King's restau rant. We received a card Tuesday an nouncing tbe birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. A. 3. Lyons, at Chicago, on Monday, Dec 26. Candy, 5 to 25 cents per pound, at King's Restaurant. Rev. Alderman's services have been largely attended each night, in spite of tbe show and other attractions that have kept many away. Wanted Poultry, at Talcott's. Several couples from town attended an oyster supper at Mr. ana Mrs. T.E.Gillespie's west of town, last night. A very enjoyable time is reported. Money to loan on farms at 5 per cent annual interest. J. B. Sager. Darlington, Mo. Elder A. Hunt of Magnet, Ma, will preach from the Baptist pulpit here next Saturday nigh, Sunday at 11 o'clock and Sunday night. Come out and hear him. Ready mixed Candy, 5c per pound, at Goodman's. My son, if you make a New Year's resolve, make a good cme and keep it. Broken promises are worse tnan no promises at all, and broken resolutions Jan. had better never have been made. Michigan salt $1.00: Kansas salt 95 cents at Cranor & Cranor's. Rev. A. D. Davis will begin a revival meeting at the M. E. Church next Sunday morning. Rev. C. E. Petree ol Union Star will be here Monday to aasldt with the services. All are in vited to attend the meetings. A dozen of their friends spent a few hours with Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Yankie at their home on 8th street last night. Chesaindia, checkers and music were indulged in, and the evening was an enjoyable one to all present. We have a special bargain in a small property here in town. Must be sold soon if at all. Inquire at tb is office In the Darlington public school Bert Albin won the free scholarship offered by tbe colleges at Albauy to tbe scholar in each public school in Gentry county, making the best grades lor the term ending with the holidays. Get your dried fruits, such prunes, peaches, apples, figs, etc. Cranor & Cranor's. Miss Rosa Shoemaker and Mrs. G P. McGuire gave the scholars of the primary and intermediate grades of the public school a Christmas treat last Thursday afternoon, and Prof, Ma honey remembered the scholars in his room in like manner Friday. About twenty-five of the boys and girls attended a Christmas Eve party at the home of Mr. and Mrs. D. H Crow. Play and laughter held sway until a late hour, there was an abundant sup ply of popcorn and apples, and every e of the young people had a jolly good time. Died at bis home west of Ford City on Friday, Dec. 23, 1898, of appendicit is, Michael Reardan, aged about 37 years. He was sick less tnan a week, and his death was a severe shock to his family and friends. Deceased leaves a wife and a little daughter four years old. The remains were laid to rest Sunday at St. Patrick's cetne tery, the burial being witnessed by tbe largest audience ever assembled at St Patrick's. John L. Whitescarver of near Al bany was smiling down on his Darling ton friends last Saturday. He remained in town over till Tuesday, and helped Mrs. C C. David surprise her husband with a Christmas dinner on Sunday that included a big fat tnrkey; and John says it was a complete surprise to Cale. Mr. Whitescarver called at news paper den Tuesday and ordered Mr, David's name placed on tbe Record subscription list, and paid for iU -Read Howerton's enlarged bhoe ad this week. Mrs. Mary McConkey and Mrs. S. P. Power entertained at dinner yesterday a number of friends, in honor of H. O. Tener and Asa W. Butler. Among the guests were Rev. and Mrs. A. D. Davis, Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Yan kie, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Talcott, Mrs. as at Faucett's flour at Howerton's. Oren Felts hands us a dollar to ap ply on his subscription account. Get your sale bills printed at thh- office. First-class work and low prices. Geo. W. Shoemaker, the Albany postmaster, is down With pneumonia. All oil cloth goes for two weeks at 10 cents per yard, at Cranor & Cranor's. Most of the public schools of tbe county are enjoying a holiday vacation this week. Buy your Groceries at Goodman's. Rev. N. B. Sill hands us a dollar with the request to send him the home paper for a year. Butter 15 cents, at Talcott's. Bethel & Jameson shipped out two carloads of fat porkers to St. Joseph, Saturday evening, and two more loads Tuesday. Coal Oil 12c. Talcott & Son. Kraut and Pickles at Howerton's. Pay your taxes at the Bank of Darlington and thus save a trip toAlbany. See our ad this week. Talcott & Son. A. Goodman has the com pie test line of Dress Shirts. Dr. M. M. Campbell was called down from Albany last night, in con sultation with Dr. Quigley in the case of Chas. W. Crow, who is worse this morning. For a complete line of Ladies', Misses' and Children's Shoes, go to Goodman's. A. W. Pruden, the carpenter, has earned the gratitude of tbe printers by doing some repair work about the office which will lessen the chill when the cold winds blow. Those owing me on account are re quested to call aud settle before Jan. 1, 1899. I must have my money. U. E. Walker. Miss Tott Rodecker entertained a dozen of her intimate friends at her home Monday night. Music,games and merry laughter made time fly swiftly, and candy and popcorn added to tho general enjoyment of the guests. Marshall Mill Co. guarantees all of Cranor & Cranor's flour. None bet ter. Mrs. Mary L. Parker will sell at public auction at her farm 3 miles northwest of Darlington on Friday, 6. the following property: 35 shoats weighing 50 to 100 pounds, 1 heifer calf, 1 three-year-old filley, and ten hives of bees. For terms see bills. Cash or produce at Cranor & Cran or s is tbe reason everytnmg is so cheap. Henry Bird, who lives near Fair port, was found dead Monday morning in the road between Maysville and Fairport. He had been to Maysville and was returning home. It is supposed that he had been drinking and had fallen out of his wagon and was chilled to death. There was a bottle of whis key found upon his person. King City Democrat. I have received my notarial com mission and seal, and am prepared to do anv kind of notarial work. Office at Lumber Yard. Jasper Shoemaker. We are in receipt of a 23-page booklet from the Stan berry Herald press, contaiuing a splendid write-up of the business interests of the city of Stanberry from the pen of Mr. J. B. Cummins, who was doing some write' up work for the RECORD last summer. Mr. Cummins is a vesatile, energetic writer, with original ideas of his own that add interest tobis work,and having taken his initial lessons in newspaper- READABLE VERSELETS. )ti Time Anyhow. They have stolen the editor's aeinora. Tbry have tried to mnule the press. But somebody has loaued us a Barlow, And the paper will come out I guess. Atlanta Constitution. How They Work. The mills ol the god grind slowly: Tbey don't put on steam or style. But just dawdle ou serenely Aud aet there after awhile. Sau Francisco Examiner. The Flair. WhrtiiFreedom from her mountain height Unfurled her staudard to the air. She vowed she'd stay up day and nieht To keep that banner flontlns; there. Detroit Free Press. 9S: The Poor Cit Boy. Ob. the city boy is bundled In his heavy overcoat. With his costly leather less-liia. With s silk thing; round his throat. And he slides upon the sidewalk Where the ashes have been spread. Aud Imag-ine he is happy On his bricht new sled. There's a hill that's hig-h and slop! us;. Iu the country far away. Where a bey who waxu't bundled Fit to smother, used to stray ; With the swiftness of the Dentins; Down tbe gleaming bill he sped. And no ashes never grated Death his home made sled. Oh. I pity tbe poor city Boy who never gets beyond The narrow, ashy sidewalk Or some hampered little pond ; Ah. the hill was high and sloping. And the way was clear ahead Where a country boy ent coustlnz Ou Howerton's Sr m vi CLEARING-UPg SHOE SALE! In order to clean out our present stock of Slices, we will have a Special 3-Days' Shoe Sale, Jan. 6th, 7th and 9th. & m m (IV vij home made sled. Cleveland Leader. vi 0 m m li m a mm mm mm wig' mm mm w mm mm mm t ft m Were 95 cents (ft f For 3 sale days your choice for cash at 65 cents. (f 50 Fain WCOT S1CSS, Were $1.35 to $1.50 For arove three days will close for cash at $ I . 40 FAIRS OT XDTS IWJL Were $1.50 For 3 sale days take your choice for cash at $1.05. (tV m (n ft ft Personal Paragraphs. E. R. White of King City spent Tues day night here. Wm, Weese of Gentryville was in the city Tuesday. John Redding has been on the sick list the past week. E. C. Felts is again dangerously ill, with typhoid fever. Thos. Davis, the Gentryville barber, was in tbe city Tuesday. John Fuller and wife spent Christmas with bis sister at Union Star. Miss Fannie Crow was calling on old friends in the city yesterday. Uncle Lewis Campbell was quite sick again, a lew days tne past week. J as. E. Vandermark was taking in tbe Bights of St. Joseph yesterday. J. H. Cummins of Stanberry was in town Monday, on the way to St. Joseph. Mrs. Arthur Holmes of Cosby visited relatives near Gentryville first of the week. B. James of near Ford City was cir culating among his Darlington friends. Friday. Miss Maggie Carter of New Hampton visited her sister, Mrs. J. N. Barger, first of the week. Mrs. .Tas. Ash lock of Gentryville re turned home Tuesday from a visit with St. Joseph relatives. Miss Lottie Robinett came up from McFall to spend the holidays with her sister, Mrs. G. W. Bethel. Roscoe and Geo. Dearmond of Mary- ville are visiting the family of their un cle, C. H. Ingalls, this week. Attorney T. A. Cummins has been on the invalid list this week, as the re- ism on the Record, we are pleased to suit of an attack of rheumatism. note his success in the work. TO;n v..b,. .ajat.nt .. Strayed A black Poland-China ter at Albany, was in the city Saturday sow, wnite lace ana leet, weignt aoout and favored us with a fraternal call. 300 pounds. Any information as to the WarreM. Easterly whereabouts of this hog will be suit-1 . ., rj,i ti. Mr ft ft ft ft ft ft ft w ft ft ft ft ft ft Don' tttttt t Buy a Stove Until you have priced our stock of heaters. When yon select a heater, you will want one that combines economy of fuel, durability, and cheapness. We handle the celebrated 99 WILSON HEATER,5 The best stove on the market for the money. Makes the most heat with the least fuel, of any beater manufactured. We can show you the Best Steel Ranges on the Market, and our prices are 25 to 40 per cent lower than those paid to the peddlers. Best Stock of Cutlery EVER BROUGHT TO DARLINGTON Including pocket and tableware, scissors, razors, butcher knives, everything in the cutlery line. Get our prices on Builders' Hardware. We will meet all honest competition on anything in oar line. Call ad 5a u. Wi bsIieTa n ua sits jsh asssj. ft ft ft ft ft ft ft r 5 f w - ft ft ft ft ft ft S J. T. COLLINSWORTH. S Albin's Pharmacy. VSTNEW STOCK OF DRUGS AND CHEMICALS - - Prescriptions a Specialty. School Books, Stationery, Perfumery, Wall Paper, Paints and Oik. tint Jwr Kcrii of to & Ml BqaiiiuBtoq. M. F. M. McCulley. was a large attendance at I ably rewarded There tbe Christmas services at the M. EL Church, Sunday morning. The children's recitations and the music were highly complimented, and there was a Christmas treat for every child present. It was an enjoyable and profita ble service to all who were present At the Baptist church another short Christmas program was rendered, to- lowed by a treat for the children, and the Christian church treated its Sun day school scholars to peanuts and candy at the same hour. -Having sold out the Hardware, we want to settle up our business at once All persons knowing themselves in' debted to us please call and settle im mediately, for we need our money. OWINGS & GUSTIN. November 14, 1898. From Labor Commissioner Rozelle's 20th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the state of Mis souri, just received, we glean the following facts concerning Gentry countv for 1897: Average price of im proved land per acre, $33; unimproved, $15. Assessed value of real estate in county, $3,500,000; estimated full val ue, 99,000.000. Assessed value per sonal property in county, $2,063,229; estimated full value, $3,500,000. As sessed value railroads in county, $383, 318. Average cash rental farm land per acre, $2.50; average grain rent, 50 per cent. Average wages ordinary labor per day, $1: average time em I 1 1 M9t . A , . . J. R. Cunningham of Bethanv. Miss VW Pr cenu Average wages oi Sallle Scaff. Samuel Talcott. and mechanics per day. $1.50; average time Messrs. Edward and Wallace Potter. employed, 66 per cent. Average wages of Turney, . Ma A properly prepared turkey formed the central dish of the sumptuous feast that was served, and tbe occasion was highly enjoyed by all who were present. m Reliable Abstracts of Title, w Fjut4m mnnPT tn Ioa.n nn firm, W at 5 and 6 per cent interest, mod- erate commissions. J . Geo. C Holden, AiDany, mo. of farm hands per month, $18; average time employed, 66 per cent. Average wages of clerks per. month, $32; av erage time employed, 100 per cent. Average wages of teachers per month, average time employed, 6a per cent. Wages have increased slightly during the year. The most profitable products are corn, hay and stock. The at newspaper den Saturday afternoon. Mrs. J. R. Cunningham and son Ar thur, of Bethany, visited her mother, Mrs. Mary McConkey, a few days this week. Miss Maude Helder went to Kansas Citv. Saturday, to spend Christmas ith her father and her brother Frank. Virgil Yates of the Bethany Demo crat force, was in town last Thursday, on the way to Maryville to visit friends. Mrs. J. H. Hammond and Mrs. J. A. Bauer drove in from Ettaville, Tues day and spent the day with Mrs. F. M. McCulley. S. A. Stevens, Jr., of King City, was in the city Saturday, on the way to Stanberrv to spend Christmas with home folks. .Miss Nettie Owings and Master Claire went to Kansas City, Saturday, to spend the holidays with relatives and friends. Uncle John Hamilton was up from Gentryville, Tuesday, and as a matter of course, favored the printer man with a friendly visit. Edward and Wallace Potter of Tur ney, Mo., brotners or Mrs. a. u. uavis, who have been visiting here since Sun day, left to-day for Helena to spend a few days with friends. Mrs. Electa Kettering and her niece, Miss Nellie Turner, came In yesterday from Monmouth, 111., for a month's visit with the former's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Glenn, at their home west of town. Chas. W. Crow was taken down with pneumonia last Sunday, and has been E. WALKER S -DEALER IN- DRUGS - AND - MEDICINES Patent Medicines, Chemicals, Wall Paper, Paints, Oils, Fancy Goods and Toilet Articles, which we are Belling at Keasonable Jrnces. PRESCRIPTIONS CAREFULLY COMPOUNDED. Corner W asl Csstsr Stasis, McKe e's Livery FURNISHES The Best Turn-Outs IN THE CITY. Good Bigs, Fast Teams, Experienced Drivers.! We endeavor to give our patrons the very best Ser- many montns behind, and be Vice VOSSlOie. OTIAJb our prices are SO COW IfUll 1OU Can" condition of the public roads is not deposited enough sound money in the not afford to Walk. Give US a Call, mrj jwu. nuuiucr puiuu; buuwis, vj, i treasury w auve n creuit inara: upi . teachers 138; pupils, 6,752; permanent I to April, 1900, on the RECOHDtubecrip-1 lulPK KK A QllW suffering intensely ever since. He is in a very critical condition at present, but bis friends hope for a turn for the better in a day or two. Our good friend R. W. Smith, of Gentryville, was in town Tuesday. Billy never allows his subscription to run school fund, $81,478.46. tion books.
FlYjFT O JUL JL 2.V Jjtmk DARLINGTON RECORD. VOL. VIIL DARLINGTON, GENTRY COUNTY, MISSOURI, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1898. NO. 4f. : i i i 5 -ZZZ News of the Week. Christmas Goods! Don't Fail to See Them. We have lots of them. Commencing Dec. 15, and continuing up to Jan. 1, we will sell I CANDY at 5 and 6 cent per pound. WANTED: 1000 pounds Hens at 4 cents per pound. 1000 oounda of Butter at 15 cents per pound. 1000 dozen Fresh Eggs at 20 cents per dozen. 1000 pounds Chickens at 4$ cents per pound. 1000 pounds Turkeys at 7 cents per pound. 1000 pounds Ducks at o cents per pound. 1000 bushels of Cora at 30 cents per bushel. Brim? vonr Furs. Green Hides. Feathers, etc We have a store full of goods just what you ! want. We want to exchange for the above at prices as above stated. iJnng your casn and get oil-: i verware tickets and get you a piece of Silverware. Call and see us. - THE OLD RELIABLE- V r. Talcott & Son. SPECIAL PRICES 0N J Wagons and Buggies. Columbia, which has a separate guarantee with each rig. If you want to purchase an Al buggy at manufacturer's price, here is our opportunity. There is io better Wagon made than th Macon Steel Skein, and we are selling lots of this make of Wagons. See us for all kinds of Farm Implements. Goodman & Stevens. Money to Loan. On improved farms at low rate of interest, with option of paying $100 or more at any interest payment. I have loaned more money in Gentry county, in the past two years, thau all other agents combined. For verification of this, I refer you to Dale Flowers, recorder. 1 am examiner for company iu Northwest Missouri, that gives me the advantage over all other agents; and as I examine all my own loans you do not have to wait for your money until an examiner comes arouud. I can give you more money on your land than any other agent iu the county. No gold clause. You can pay your loan in SILVER or paper money. Give me a call before you borrow. Straight interest. No cash commission. J. 1J. lkfcCSLHa Sfaiileiyt o. New: Administration CAB! RET CONVENED If! SPECIAL- SESSION. Have decided to tei Kjhal ht vim T. A. CSSSI' Attorney at Law. Office Over Haiidwabe Store. DARLINGTON, MO. A DMINISTRTOR'S NOTICE. Come and see my new stock now arriving: Siding, 11.00 to $2.40. Flooring, $1.40 to $3.60. - Shingles, $1.50 to $3.10. Hoa Wire Painted $2.00. Galvanized Wire $2.35. Wire Nails and Staples, $2.00. benefft of said Other hardware in proportion, claims be not exhibited within two years from tne date ol tnis publication, I . i i 1 1 . r t i rri s HOiL i ..... .1 mey suau oe lorever oarreu. x uis oitu jma . I . V. A . M. 1 - Complete stoc in me oest 3 aru dav o1 D-,.ember. 1898. . T in northwest Missouri. MRS. ellen REARDAN, fJash. Produce or Note. No Book Accounts. Try Me. ' Notice is hereby given, that letters of administration on the estate of Michael Reardan, deceased, were granted to the undersigned on the 28th day of Dec. 181)8, by the Probate Court of Gentry County, Missouri. Ail persons having claims against said estate are required to exhibit them for al lowance to the .administrator, within one year after the date of said letters, or they may be precluded from any estate; and if such Administratrix. S. T. Tracy, MeCVRRY, MO. Bring your Furs to Talcott's. Rev. J. B. Seat is enerired in a protracted meeting at Fairport. -New drees goods at Howerton's. -W. B. Pierce called yesterday and ordered the RECORD sent to Oliver Pierce at Goodland, Kan., for a year Try a sack of Faucett's Flour, at At the market of Hammond & Howerton's. Co. Lard, tallow, sausage, fresh I a. U. Jacobv wanted to start on pork; sugar cured hams, breakfast the new year right, and so he called FRESH CURED MEATS Howerton's for school shoes. J. H. Hammond and wife were guests of Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Gillespie at dinner Sunday. New Salt, 95 cents per barrel. Talcott & Son. Mrs. E. M. Henton of Dorsey, is very low with pneumonia. Hammond & Co. want all your marketable poultry, and will pay you top prices for it. A Mr. Toulon of Omaha, Neb., was the guest of Miss, Nellie Green well first of the week. If you want a loan on your farm, it will pay you to see J. B. Sager at Bank of Darlington. Rev. J. B. Seat conducted a Christmas service at Mount Moriab, Sunday, and reports a splendid meeting. Peanuts by the peck, or any old way, at Cranor s. C. C. Scott and wife came up from Orchid, Sunday, to spend a few days with Darlington relatives and friends. While trying to shoot a hog, at his place west of Hugginsville yesterday, Sanford Rucker accidentally shot one of the Summa boys in the tbigh with a 22-calibre rifle. Ousb Howerton wants your pro duce, and will pay you top prices for it. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Glenn, of McCurry, called at newspaper head quarters yesterday and paid their subscription to the Record a year ahead, and also took advantage of our club bing offer to renew for the twice-a week Globe-Democrat. Go to King's restaurant for fine candies. Lagest, cheapest and best stock in town. A. B. Guetin and P. M. Rodecker counted the beans in the bottle, that was to decide who got tbe big doll at the store of Talcott & Son, Monday! afternoon, and found that the correct number was 2261. Mrs. Curtis Wag oner whose guess was 2250, got the doll. Miss Daisy Miller's guess of 2273 was tho next nearest. Altogether there were 435 guesses, ranging from 350 to 6000. -Cranor & Crnnor have the Delin eator for sale. Metropolitan Fashions. Will order all kinds of patterns at reduced prices. Get a fashion sheet. Mrs. T. L. 'Butler entertained a few friends at dinner Tuesday, in honor of Asa W. Rutler and B. O. Tener. There were present besides these two, Mr. and Mrs. A. Goodman, Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Yankie, Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Cummins, Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Cummins, Mioses Alice Garman, Silvia McCulley and Maude Garman and the RECORD family. Taken all together, it would be hard to find an equal number of men whose eating capacity ould equal that of the men who sat down to this dinner, and we didn't leave the table until our hunger had been appeased. bacon and tender beefsteak. We Tuesday and squared his subscription bay uuies. xoar iraae solicited, account. Hammond & Co. The St. Joseph Daily News is the Newsiest, Brightest and Best Daily cost of collection. Newspaper Published in Record and twice-a-week Globe- Democrat, only tl.75 per year. Turner Shaker Advertising Co., No. 36, has been giving entertainments at Walker's Hall every night this week, and advertising the Shaker remedies. They have attracted large crowds. All knowing themselves to be in debted to me must settle their accounts by cash or note immediately, and save - Northwest Missouri. IT CONTAINS ALL THE NEWS Twelve hours in ; r Advance of any other fct. Joseph Newspaper. IT IS ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDENT Is controlled by No Political Party, Clique or Faction Is Aggressive and Fearless in the - Cause of Bight. FULL ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT - Complete Special Telegraph Service, . Best Market Reports by Wire. Largest Circulation of Any - St. Joseph Newspaper, - 3 a year. , SUBSCRIBE FOR -THE DAILY NEWS. Dr. K. C Cummins. Grip is epidemic, but don't be alarmed. Grip always -seizes the scared people first. Go about your business, keeping your feet dry, your throat protected, your conscience clear, your pores open, and your mouth shut. -New York Mail and Express. Holiday Rates, The C, B. & Q. railroad will, on Dec. 24, 25, 26 and 31, 1898, and Jan. 1 and 2,1899, sell round-trip holiday excur sion tickets to all points on lis lines within a distance of 200 miles, at very low rates. . These tickets are good re turning until January 4, 1899. For further information call on or address J. A. 8w ANSON, Agent. Holiday Rates. The O. & St.; I, railroad will, -on Dec 24, 55, 26 sad 21, 1896V and Jan. 1 and 2, 1899, sell round-trip holiday ex cursion tickets to all ; points on Its lines within a distance of 200 miles, at very low rates." ..Those tickets are good returning until January 4, 1899. ItVva 4 T tnfAmndftAM 4nl1 Am Ita ail. Ol. JOSepll, M0.' dress . J. A? Swanson, Agent GEORGE FRANKLIN LEMLEY The death of Frank Lemley at his home north of town last Friday mom ing, was a shock to his many friends. It was known that he was very sick with pneumonia, but the symptoms were favorable for his recovery up to a few hours before his death. His last illness only lasted nine days. George Franklin Lemley, son of E. M. and Barbara Lemley, was born in Taylor county, Iowa, and came to Missouri with his parents when only a year old. His childhood was passed on the home place 2i miles north of Darlington, and he grew up a bright, intelligent young man. When last we saw him, ten days before his death, he looked the picture of health, and we little dreamed that we would be called upon to chronicle h is death so soon. He was a favorite with his associates and his death has cast a gloom over other homes than his own. Frank was 23 years, 3 months and 23 days old. He leaves a mother and three brothers to mourn bis death. Just three years and one day had elapsed since the death of Frank's sister, Mrs, J. F. Gillespie, till death claimed him as its victim, and another sister, Mrs. Allan Wolford, was stricken by death's remorseless hand in the Intervening years. Tbe remains were followed to the Rouse cemetery by a large number of sorrowing friends and neigh bors,Satur day afternoon, where tbey were cost signed to their final resting place, al ter a -short funeral service conducted by Rev. A. D. Davis. The sympathy of many friends goes out to the bereaved family in their hour o( grief. Other personal items on 4th page. You can pay your taxes at the Bank of Darlington. J. W. Lepper of Albany has been putting a tin roof on Comstock's new barn. Uncle Joe Rouner has sold his 120- acre farm near New Castle, for $20 per acre. TheREOORD family ate turkey and other good things at the McCulley House, on Christmas. Next Sunday we will begin to write it 1899. How many will make a mistake and write it '08 tbe first time? Eggs 20 cents, at Talcott's. Those who happened to notice it, witnessed an almobt total eclipse of the moon early Tuesday evening. The little son of Mr. and Mrs. Sol Lemley, which has been quite sick for a week, is some better at present. Buy your plow shoes of A. Good man . Calvert Garman and wife are now at Poteau, Indian Ter., where he is working in the Amos handle factory. Buy your cigars at King's restau rant. We received a card Tuesday an nouncing tbe birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. A. 3. Lyons, at Chicago, on Monday, Dec 26. Candy, 5 to 25 cents per pound, at King's Restaurant. Rev. Alderman's services have been largely attended each night, in spite of tbe show and other attractions that have kept many away. Wanted Poultry, at Talcott's. Several couples from town attended an oyster supper at Mr. ana Mrs. T.E.Gillespie's west of town, last night. A very enjoyable time is reported. Money to loan on farms at 5 per cent annual interest. J. B. Sager. Darlington, Mo. Elder A. Hunt of Magnet, Ma, will preach from the Baptist pulpit here next Saturday nigh, Sunday at 11 o'clock and Sunday night. Come out and hear him. Ready mixed Candy, 5c per pound, at Goodman's. My son, if you make a New Year's resolve, make a good cme and keep it. Broken promises are worse tnan no promises at all, and broken resolutions Jan. had better never have been made. Michigan salt $1.00: Kansas salt 95 cents at Cranor & Cranor's. Rev. A. D. Davis will begin a revival meeting at the M. E. Church next Sunday morning. Rev. C. E. Petree ol Union Star will be here Monday to aasldt with the services. All are in vited to attend the meetings. A dozen of their friends spent a few hours with Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Yankie at their home on 8th street last night. Chesaindia, checkers and music were indulged in, and the evening was an enjoyable one to all present. We have a special bargain in a small property here in town. Must be sold soon if at all. Inquire at tb is office In the Darlington public school Bert Albin won the free scholarship offered by tbe colleges at Albauy to tbe scholar in each public school in Gentry county, making the best grades lor the term ending with the holidays. Get your dried fruits, such prunes, peaches, apples, figs, etc. Cranor & Cranor's. Miss Rosa Shoemaker and Mrs. G P. McGuire gave the scholars of the primary and intermediate grades of the public school a Christmas treat last Thursday afternoon, and Prof, Ma honey remembered the scholars in his room in like manner Friday. About twenty-five of the boys and girls attended a Christmas Eve party at the home of Mr. and Mrs. D. H Crow. Play and laughter held sway until a late hour, there was an abundant sup ply of popcorn and apples, and every e of the young people had a jolly good time. Died at bis home west of Ford City on Friday, Dec. 23, 1898, of appendicit is, Michael Reardan, aged about 37 years. He was sick less tnan a week, and his death was a severe shock to his family and friends. Deceased leaves a wife and a little daughter four years old. The remains were laid to rest Sunday at St. Patrick's cetne tery, the burial being witnessed by tbe largest audience ever assembled at St Patrick's. John L. Whitescarver of near Al bany was smiling down on his Darling ton friends last Saturday. He remained in town over till Tuesday, and helped Mrs. C C. David surprise her husband with a Christmas dinner on Sunday that included a big fat tnrkey; and John says it was a complete surprise to Cale. Mr. Whitescarver called at news paper den Tuesday and ordered Mr, David's name placed on tbe Record subscription list, and paid for iU -Read Howerton's enlarged bhoe ad this week. Mrs. Mary McConkey and Mrs. S. P. Power entertained at dinner yesterday a number of friends, in honor of H. O. Tener and Asa W. Butler. Among the guests were Rev. and Mrs. A. D. Davis, Mr. and Mrs. N. F. Yan kie, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Talcott, Mrs. as at Faucett's flour at Howerton's. Oren Felts hands us a dollar to ap ply on his subscription account. Get your sale bills printed at thh- office. First-class work and low prices. Geo. W. Shoemaker, the Albany postmaster, is down With pneumonia. All oil cloth goes for two weeks at 10 cents per yard, at Cranor & Cranor's. Most of the public schools of tbe county are enjoying a holiday vacation this week. Buy your Groceries at Goodman's. Rev. N. B. Sill hands us a dollar with the request to send him the home paper for a year. Butter 15 cents, at Talcott's. Bethel & Jameson shipped out two carloads of fat porkers to St. Joseph, Saturday evening, and two more loads Tuesday. Coal Oil 12c. Talcott & Son. Kraut and Pickles at Howerton's. Pay your taxes at the Bank of Darlington and thus save a trip toAlbany. See our ad this week. Talcott & Son. A. Goodman has the com pie test line of Dress Shirts. Dr. M. M. Campbell was called down from Albany last night, in con sultation with Dr. Quigley in the case of Chas. W. Crow, who is worse this morning. For a complete line of Ladies', Misses' and Children's Shoes, go to Goodman's. A. W. Pruden, the carpenter, has earned the gratitude of tbe printers by doing some repair work about the office which will lessen the chill when the cold winds blow. Those owing me on account are re quested to call aud settle before Jan. 1, 1899. I must have my money. U. E. Walker. Miss Tott Rodecker entertained a dozen of her intimate friends at her home Monday night. Music,games and merry laughter made time fly swiftly, and candy and popcorn added to tho general enjoyment of the guests. Marshall Mill Co. guarantees all of Cranor & Cranor's flour. None bet ter. Mrs. Mary L. Parker will sell at public auction at her farm 3 miles northwest of Darlington on Friday, 6. the following property: 35 shoats weighing 50 to 100 pounds, 1 heifer calf, 1 three-year-old filley, and ten hives of bees. For terms see bills. Cash or produce at Cranor & Cran or s is tbe reason everytnmg is so cheap. Henry Bird, who lives near Fair port, was found dead Monday morning in the road between Maysville and Fairport. He had been to Maysville and was returning home. It is supposed that he had been drinking and had fallen out of his wagon and was chilled to death. There was a bottle of whis key found upon his person. King City Democrat. I have received my notarial com mission and seal, and am prepared to do anv kind of notarial work. Office at Lumber Yard. Jasper Shoemaker. We are in receipt of a 23-page booklet from the Stan berry Herald press, contaiuing a splendid write-up of the business interests of the city of Stanberry from the pen of Mr. J. B. Cummins, who was doing some write' up work for the RECORD last summer. Mr. Cummins is a vesatile, energetic writer, with original ideas of his own that add interest tobis work,and having taken his initial lessons in newspaper- READABLE VERSELETS. )ti Time Anyhow. They have stolen the editor's aeinora. Tbry have tried to mnule the press. But somebody has loaued us a Barlow, And the paper will come out I guess. Atlanta Constitution. How They Work. The mills ol the god grind slowly: Tbey don't put on steam or style. But just dawdle ou serenely Aud aet there after awhile. Sau Francisco Examiner. The Flair. WhrtiiFreedom from her mountain height Unfurled her staudard to the air. She vowed she'd stay up day and nieht To keep that banner flontlns; there. Detroit Free Press. 9S: The Poor Cit Boy. Ob. the city boy is bundled In his heavy overcoat. With his costly leather less-liia. With s silk thing; round his throat. And he slides upon the sidewalk Where the ashes have been spread. Aud Imag-ine he is happy On his bricht new sled. There's a hill that's hig-h and slop! us;. Iu the country far away. Where a bey who waxu't bundled Fit to smother, used to stray ; With the swiftness of the Dentins; Down tbe gleaming bill he sped. And no ashes never grated Death his home made sled. Oh. I pity tbe poor city Boy who never gets beyond The narrow, ashy sidewalk Or some hampered little pond ; Ah. the hill was high and sloping. And the way was clear ahead Where a country boy ent coustlnz Ou Howerton's Sr m vi CLEARING-UPg SHOE SALE! In order to clean out our present stock of Slices, we will have a Special 3-Days' Shoe Sale, Jan. 6th, 7th and 9th. & m m (IV vij home made sled. Cleveland Leader. vi 0 m m li m a mm mm mm wig' mm mm w mm mm mm t ft m Were 95 cents (ft f For 3 sale days your choice for cash at 65 cents. (f 50 Fain WCOT S1CSS, Were $1.35 to $1.50 For arove three days will close for cash at $ I . 40 FAIRS OT XDTS IWJL Were $1.50 For 3 sale days take your choice for cash at $1.05. (tV m (n ft ft Personal Paragraphs. E. R. White of King City spent Tues day night here. Wm, Weese of Gentryville was in the city Tuesday. John Redding has been on the sick list the past week. E. C. Felts is again dangerously ill, with typhoid fever. Thos. Davis, the Gentryville barber, was in tbe city Tuesday. John Fuller and wife spent Christmas with bis sister at Union Star. Miss Fannie Crow was calling on old friends in the city yesterday. Uncle Lewis Campbell was quite sick again, a lew days tne past week. J as. E. Vandermark was taking in tbe Bights of St. Joseph yesterday. J. H. Cummins of Stanberry was in town Monday, on the way to St. Joseph. Mrs. Arthur Holmes of Cosby visited relatives near Gentryville first of the week. B. James of near Ford City was cir culating among his Darlington friends. Friday. Miss Maggie Carter of New Hampton visited her sister, Mrs. J. N. Barger, first of the week. Mrs. .Tas. Ash lock of Gentryville re turned home Tuesday from a visit with St. Joseph relatives. Miss Lottie Robinett came up from McFall to spend the holidays with her sister, Mrs. G. W. Bethel. Roscoe and Geo. Dearmond of Mary- ville are visiting the family of their un cle, C. H. Ingalls, this week. Attorney T. A. Cummins has been on the invalid list this week, as the re- ism on the Record, we are pleased to suit of an attack of rheumatism. note his success in the work. TO;n v..b,. .ajat.nt .. Strayed A black Poland-China ter at Albany, was in the city Saturday sow, wnite lace ana leet, weignt aoout and favored us with a fraternal call. 300 pounds. Any information as to the WarreM. Easterly whereabouts of this hog will be suit-1 . ., rj,i ti. Mr ft ft ft ft ft ft ft w ft ft ft ft ft ft Don' tttttt t Buy a Stove Until you have priced our stock of heaters. When yon select a heater, you will want one that combines economy of fuel, durability, and cheapness. We handle the celebrated 99 WILSON HEATER,5 The best stove on the market for the money. Makes the most heat with the least fuel, of any beater manufactured. We can show you the Best Steel Ranges on the Market, and our prices are 25 to 40 per cent lower than those paid to the peddlers. Best Stock of Cutlery EVER BROUGHT TO DARLINGTON Including pocket and tableware, scissors, razors, butcher knives, everything in the cutlery line. Get our prices on Builders' Hardware. We will meet all honest competition on anything in oar line. Call ad 5a u. Wi bsIieTa n ua sits jsh asssj. ft ft ft ft ft ft ft r 5 f w - ft ft ft ft ft ft S J. T. COLLINSWORTH. S Albin's Pharmacy. VSTNEW STOCK OF DRUGS AND CHEMICALS - - Prescriptions a Specialty. School Books, Stationery, Perfumery, Wall Paper, Paints and Oik. tint Jwr Kcrii of to & Ml BqaiiiuBtoq. M. F. M. McCulley. was a large attendance at I ably rewarded There tbe Christmas services at the M. EL Church, Sunday morning. The children's recitations and the music were highly complimented, and there was a Christmas treat for every child present. It was an enjoyable and profita ble service to all who were present At the Baptist church another short Christmas program was rendered, to- lowed by a treat for the children, and the Christian church treated its Sun day school scholars to peanuts and candy at the same hour. -Having sold out the Hardware, we want to settle up our business at once All persons knowing themselves in' debted to us please call and settle im mediately, for we need our money. OWINGS & GUSTIN. November 14, 1898. From Labor Commissioner Rozelle's 20th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the state of Mis souri, just received, we glean the following facts concerning Gentry countv for 1897: Average price of im proved land per acre, $33; unimproved, $15. Assessed value of real estate in county, $3,500,000; estimated full val ue, 99,000.000. Assessed value per sonal property in county, $2,063,229; estimated full value, $3,500,000. As sessed value railroads in county, $383, 318. Average cash rental farm land per acre, $2.50; average grain rent, 50 per cent. Average wages ordinary labor per day, $1: average time em I 1 1 M9t . A , . . J. R. Cunningham of Bethanv. Miss VW Pr cenu Average wages oi Sallle Scaff. Samuel Talcott. and mechanics per day. $1.50; average time Messrs. Edward and Wallace Potter. employed, 66 per cent. Average wages of Turney, . Ma A properly prepared turkey formed the central dish of the sumptuous feast that was served, and tbe occasion was highly enjoyed by all who were present. m Reliable Abstracts of Title, w Fjut4m mnnPT tn Ioa.n nn firm, W at 5 and 6 per cent interest, mod- erate commissions. J . Geo. C Holden, AiDany, mo. of farm hands per month, $18; average time employed, 66 per cent. Average wages of clerks per. month, $32; av erage time employed, 100 per cent. Average wages of teachers per month, average time employed, 6a per cent. Wages have increased slightly during the year. The most profitable products are corn, hay and stock. The at newspaper den Saturday afternoon. Mrs. J. R. Cunningham and son Ar thur, of Bethany, visited her mother, Mrs. Mary McConkey, a few days this week. Miss Maude Helder went to Kansas Citv. Saturday, to spend Christmas ith her father and her brother Frank. Virgil Yates of the Bethany Demo crat force, was in town last Thursday, on the way to Maryville to visit friends. Mrs. J. H. Hammond and Mrs. J. A. Bauer drove in from Ettaville, Tues day and spent the day with Mrs. F. M. McCulley. S. A. Stevens, Jr., of King City, was in the city Saturday, on the way to Stanberrv to spend Christmas with home folks. .Miss Nettie Owings and Master Claire went to Kansas City, Saturday, to spend the holidays with relatives and friends. Uncle John Hamilton was up from Gentryville, Tuesday, and as a matter of course, favored the printer man with a friendly visit. Edward and Wallace Potter of Tur ney, Mo., brotners or Mrs. a. u. uavis, who have been visiting here since Sun day, left to-day for Helena to spend a few days with friends. Mrs. Electa Kettering and her niece, Miss Nellie Turner, came In yesterday from Monmouth, 111., for a month's visit with the former's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Glenn, at their home west of town. Chas. W. Crow was taken down with pneumonia last Sunday, and has been E. WALKER S -DEALER IN- DRUGS - AND - MEDICINES Patent Medicines, Chemicals, Wall Paper, Paints, Oils, Fancy Goods and Toilet Articles, which we are Belling at Keasonable Jrnces. PRESCRIPTIONS CAREFULLY COMPOUNDED. Corner W asl Csstsr Stasis, McKe e's Livery FURNISHES The Best Turn-Outs IN THE CITY. Good Bigs, Fast Teams, Experienced Drivers.! We endeavor to give our patrons the very best Ser- many montns behind, and be Vice VOSSlOie. OTIAJb our prices are SO COW IfUll 1OU Can" condition of the public roads is not deposited enough sound money in the not afford to Walk. Give US a Call, mrj jwu. nuuiucr puiuu; buuwis, vj, i treasury w auve n creuit inara: upi . teachers 138; pupils, 6,752; permanent I to April, 1900, on the RECOHDtubecrip-1 lulPK KK A QllW suffering intensely ever since. He is in a very critical condition at present, but bis friends hope for a turn for the better in a day or two. Our good friend R. W. Smith, of Gentryville, was in town Tuesday. Billy never allows his subscription to run school fund, $81,478.46. tion books. |
Introduction {#sec1-2331216518803215}
============
One of the roles of hearing care professionals is to work with patients and families to mitigate the negative effects of hearing loss. This is accomplished by identifying, assessing, diagnosing, and treating adults and children with hearing loss, with the goal of fostering communication and psychosocial function (e.g., [@bibr5-2331216518803215]; [@bibr6-2331216518803215]). Mitigating the effects of hearing loss is especially important for older adults because age-related hearing loss is one of the most common chronic conditions associated with aging ([@bibr40-2331216518803215]). Indeed, prevalence estimates suggest nearly one third of older adults have hearing loss ([@bibr12-2331216518803215]; [@bibr123-2331216518803215]). Acquired hearing loss can have considerable consequences, such as reduced speech audibility ([@bibr89-2331216518803215]; [@bibr178-2331216518803215]; [@bibr208-2331216518803215]) and increased cognitive load ([@bibr137-2331216518803215]; [@bibr181-2331216518803215]; [@bibr228-2331216518803215]). These consequences of hearing loss can also have downstream psychosocial sequelae, including increased risk of depressive symptoms ([@bibr32-2331216518803215]; [@bibr150-2331216518803215]), increased social isolation (e.g., [@bibr144-2331216518803215]; [@bibr171-2331216518803215]; [@bibr215-2331216518803215]), and reduced quality of life, evidenced on both generic and hearing-specific measures ([@bibr20-2331216518803215]; [@bibr39-2331216518803215]; [@bibr41-2331216518803215]; [@bibr47-2331216518803215]; [@bibr72-2331216518803215]; [@bibr143-2331216518803215]). Consequently, it is of considerable interest not only to improve audibility and communication but to also reduce the negative consequences of hearing loss.
As a field, audiology has made great strides in the consideration of patients' emotional responses in clinical situations, such as when delivering difficult news ([@bibr53-2331216518803215]; [@bibr65-2331216518803215]), considering the role of significant others ([@bibr143-2331216518803215]; [@bibr197-2331216518803215]; [@bibr210-2331216518803215]; [@bibr216-2331216518803215]), and evaluating the role of hearing loss in psychosocial well-being ([@bibr141-2331216518803215]; [@bibr156-2331216518803215]; [@bibr180-2331216518803215]). One area that has received less attention, but has considerable potential to affect patients' psychosocial function, is how hearing loss affects patients' momentary emotional experiences. Historically, laboratory investigations have almost exclusively used emotionally neutral stimuli. Little is known about how emotionally charged signals affect listeners with hearing loss; for example, can they identify subtle hints of anger in a talker's voice? Can listeners with hearing loss control their own affective tone? Do happy sounds, such as a baby cooing or laughter, make them feel as happy as someone listening with normal hearing? Because the answers to these questions, and questions like them, have the potential to significantly affect clinical outcomes for adults with hearing loss, a workshop was convened by researchers with interest and experience in studying emotional communication in listeners with normal and impaired hearing.
The Hearing, Emotion, Amplification, Research, and Training (HEART) workshop was held in April, 2017 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The purpose of this workshop was to come to a consensus on what is known about the topic, to identify gaps in the existing knowledge, and to suggest priorities for future research. Because research in this area of audiology is in its infancy, the workshop discussions not only included work specific to listeners with hearing loss but also considered research from other fields that typically include participants with normal hearing, including psychology, neuroscience, and computer science. The central themes identified and discussed at the workshop included the following: (a) definitions of emotion perception, (b) appropriate methods and materials, (c) effects of age and hearing loss on emotion, (d) the role of interventions, (e) future directions, and (f) clinical implications. The purpose of this article is to summarize the workshop consensus. Although this article details the HEART workshop discussion and represents the consensus of the participants, it is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the literature or a meta-analysis. Instead, the intent is that this article provides a framework for researchers and clinicians to think about patients' auditory emotional experiences and to provide a springboard for future research. The article is organized around the central workshop themes; each is discussed in turn.
Defining Emotion Perception {#sec2-2331216518803215}
===========================
The word "emotion" commonly refers to the psychological and physiological reactions to sensory stimuli. Because a standardized definition of "emotion" across, and even within, disciplines remains elusive, the working group operationally defined emotion based on the definition proffered by [@bibr155-2331216518803215]. Based on their philosophy and psychology backgrounds, Mulligan and Scherer suggest that the term *emotion* should be reserved for short, momentary affective episodes that are directed toward objects (e.g., things, organisms, events, behaviors, or memories) that elicit changes in the body that may be felt and appraised. The authors argue that longer affective states such as moods or predispositions should be categorized as distinct "affective phenomena."
Classification Systems {#sec3-2331216518803215}
----------------------
Several models have been proposed to classify emotion, and currently there is not a single system that is supported by consensus. Instead, the classification of emotions is often based on one of two general systems, which can be useful for conceptualizing emotion, developing measurement techniques, and evaluating the effects of hearing loss or rehabilitation interventions. The following are the two common classification systems: (a) *categorical systems*, which suggest all emotions can be described with a few basic descriptors (e.g., anger, fear, sadness, enjoyment) and (b) *dimensional systems*, which explain the variability in emotions with two dimensions (e.g., valence, arousal), but sometimes more dimensions (e.g., dominance).
### Categorical systems {#sec4-2331216518803215}
Many experts agree that emotional states can be described based on a set of basic emotions in isolation or in combination. Categorical systems exhibit high face validity, are intuitive, well accepted, and account for much of the variability in participant reports of emotions. That is, when asked to describe emotions, many people will spontaneously produce the descriptors used by categorical theories. A limitation of categorical systems is that the descriptions are inherently tied to a shared, cultural vocabulary. In addition, there is some disagreement about the number and the categories of the basic emotions. For example, [@bibr60-2331216518803215] proposes that the six basic emotions are anger, fear, disgust, sadness, enjoyment, and surprise. Conversely, [@bibr94-2331216518803215] proposes 10 basic emotions: interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. Accordingly, most studies on listeners' perception of auditory emotion have tested between 4 (e.g., [@bibr187-2331216518803215]; [@bibr213-2331216518803215]) and 10 emotions (e.g., [@bibr124-2331216518803215]; [@bibr194-2331216518803215]). While more emotions can be more descriptive, they also add to the cognitive load involved in making a response. Adding cognitive load may make it difficult to disambiguate challenges that are primarily cognitive in nature from challenges that are primarily sensory.
### Dimensional systems {#sec5-2331216518803215}
Unlike categorical systems, dimensional systems can be less dependent on vocabulary. Instead, emotions are described based on a combination of two- or three-dimensional continua. Two dimensions repeatedly emerge: arousal (exciting vs. calming) and valence (pleasant vs. unpleasant). A third dimension, most commonly dominance, has less consistently contributed meaningfully to the classification system (e.g., [@bibr27-2331216518803215]; [@bibr190-2331216518803215]; [@bibr192-2331216518803215]; [@bibr235-2331216518803215]). Valence can be defined as the hedonic dimension of emotion, ranging from pleasant to unpleasant. Arousal can be defined as the mobilization of energy, ranging from calm to excited. Although semantically orthogonal (an emotion could be high or low on either dimension), emotions that score near the extremes on the valence dimension (i.e., are very pleasant or very unpleasant) are also more likely to score higher on the arousal dimension (e.g., [@bibr28-2331216518803215]).
Interindividual and Intraindividual Emotion Perception {#sec6-2331216518803215}
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The working group conceptualized emotion perception as consisting of two types of perception, which are separate, albeit related: (a) how a person perceives or witnesses emotion in others (*interindividual perception*) and (b) how a person experiences the emotion himself or herself (*intraindividual perception*). For the remainder of the article, these two types of perception will be considered separately, as each has different methodologies and potentially distinct effects of hearing loss. However, the working group recognizes the significant overlap between witnessing an emotion and experiencing an emotion. For example, facial mimicry of witnessed emotion may be automatic in some contexts ([@bibr37-2331216518803215]; [@bibr80-2331216518803215]; [@bibr84-2331216518803215]). People also adopt body behaviors congruent with the witnessed emotion ([@bibr82-2331216518803215]). Evidence suggests that the facial feedback from mimicry can influence an observer to experience the witnessed emotion ([@bibr35-2331216518803215]; [@bibr80-2331216518803215]; [@bibr126-2331216518803215]). Although some research has raised important questions regarding the extent to which mimicry can influence experienced or recognized emotions ([@bibr81-2331216518803215]), the cumulative findings demonstrate that inter- and intraindividual emotion perception are not strictly independent from each other.
*Interindividual emotion perception* occurs when a person witnesses, observes, recognizes, or identifies emotions in someone or something else. For example, how well can a listener identify that their communication partner is happy or angry? Humans convey a range of emotions in the way they speak to communicate quickly and efficiently ([@bibr95-2331216518803215]). Expressing emotions in speech has three main purposes ([@bibr31-2331216518803215]). First, it can serve as a symptom, allowing the listener to know how the speaker feels (e.g., a squeal of delight when receiving good news). Second, it can be a signal, asking the listener to take action or conveying the speaker's intent to act (e.g., a shriek of fear that asks for help; [@bibr198-2331216518803215]). Third, it can be a symbol that allows the listener to understand an object or event (e.g., a sigh signifying frustration).
Previous research suggests that typically developing populations are able to correctly identify emotions well above chance levels, for faces ([@bibr59-2331216518803215]) and vocal cues ([@bibr9-2331216518803215]). Accuracy is usually higher for emotion recognition on faces than vocal emotion recognition ([@bibr22-2331216518803215]; [@bibr167-2331216518803215]; [@bibr234-2331216518803215]). Facial emotion recognition is generally around 80% ([@bibr59-2331216518803215]; [@bibr200-2331216518803215]), and vocal emotion identification is around 60% ([@bibr22-2331216518803215]; [@bibr198-2331216518803215]), although the range of accuracies for vocal emotion across studies is from about 60% ([@bibr101-2331216518803215]) to more than 80% correct ([@bibr119-2331216518803215]).
Importantly, absolute performance varies considerably depending on the number of emotions presented and response options provided in a task. Some emotions appear to be easier to identify, while others are more difficult. Anger and sadness are relatively easy to identify ([@bibr13-2331216518803215]; [@bibr98-2331216518803215]; [@bibr101-2331216518803215]; [@bibr124-2331216518803215]; [@bibr166-2331216518803215]; [@bibr187-2331216518803215]; [@bibr200-2331216518803215]), whereas disgust ([@bibr101-2331216518803215]; [@bibr200-2331216518803215]) and surprise ([@bibr59-2331216518803215]; [@bibr166-2331216518803215]; [@bibr195-2331216518803215]) tend to be more difficult. The findings for fear are inconsistent, with some studies concluding that fear is well identified ([@bibr101-2331216518803215]; [@bibr124-2331216518803215]; [@bibr213-2331216518803215]), while others suggest it is poorly identified ([@bibr166-2331216518803215]; [@bibr200-2331216518803215]) relative to other emotions. The hierarchy is generally similar for auditory, visual, and auditory-visual modes ([@bibr152-2331216518803215]), although the identification of happy may be different for facial and vocal emotion ([@bibr207-2331216518803215]). Specifically, [@bibr56-2331216518803215] report emotion recognition accuracy of voices was lower for happiness than for most other emotions; it is well accepted that happiness is the most readily identifiable emotion on faces ([@bibr189-2331216518803215]).
In the auditory domain, emotions are conveyed through different combinations of acoustic cues, with some emotions overlapping more than others ([@bibr124-2331216518803215]; [@bibr195-2331216518803215]). For instance, anger, despair, and elation all have high mean F0 and high intensity, while sadness and shame have low F0 and low intensity ([@bibr13-2331216518803215]; [@bibr168-2331216518803215]). Fear tends to exhibit a high F0 and limited F0 variability ([@bibr168-2331216518803215]), whereas surprise exhibits high F0 and high F0 variability ([@bibr114-2331216518803215]; [@bibr168-2331216518803215]). Interestingly, [@bibr168-2331216518803215] report the acoustic cues important for recognition of emotional prosody translate across several languages (English, German, Hindi, and Arabic). These results demonstrate the strength of acoustic cues across language and cultural variables, although cross-cultural recognition might be specific to negative emotions ([@bibr194-2331216518803215]).
Despite the commonalities across studies in the acoustics underlying interindividual emotion perception, the expression of an emotion can be variable within and across talkers ([@bibr214-2331216518803215]). Differences between talkers can interact with the expressed emotion, possibly making the differences between talkers more noticeable than the differences between emotions. For example, [@bibr56-2331216518803215] found a significant interaction between emotion and talker on an emotion recognition task; accuracy for an older talker was better than for a younger talker, even when both were portraying "anger." Conversely, accuracy was higher for happiness and sadness when these emotions were portrayed by the younger talker compared with the older talker. This finding is consistent with a body of literature demonstrating effects of talker demographics, such as age ([@bibr59-2331216518803215]; [@bibr207-2331216518803215]) and gender ([@bibr38-2331216518803215]; [@bibr244-2331216518803215]) on interindividual emotion perception, particularly as they interact with characteristics of the listener such as age and gender ([@bibr59-2331216518803215]; [@bibr183-2331216518803215]; [@bibr223-2331216518803215]).
*Intraindividual emotion perception* refers to a person's reactions to and experience of listening to or viewing a stimulus containing emotion information. That is, does a person experience happiness when listening to uplifting music or laughter? This type of emotion might also be referenced as an emotional response, elicited emotion, or emotional reactivity. The motivational theory of emotion suggests emotional responses serve two distinct purposes, depending on the valence ([@bibr25-2331216518803215]; [@bibr110-2331216518803215]; [@bibr221-2331216518803215]). Aversive or unpleasant stimuli prepare a body for immediate action (e.g., running away from danger), whereas pleasant stimuli are appetitive, encourage approach behavior, and enhance a person's well-being. Emotional responses might also have implications for speech recognition and cognition. Unpleasant stimuli can improve speech recognition ([@bibr54-2331216518803215]) and facilitate focused attention (e.g., [@bibr14-2331216518803215]; [@bibr105-2331216518803215]). Pleasant stimuli have larger effects in studies where an appetitive or broader attention might be beneficial, such as stress recovery ([@bibr4-2331216518803215]; [@bibr7-2331216518803215]; [@bibr230-2331216518803215]) or creative thinking ([@bibr68-2331216518803215]).
Unlike interindividual emotion perception, the acoustic cues underlying intraindividual emotion perception are less understood. Arousal ratings generally have a clearer relationship with acoustic cues than valence ratings ([@bibr204-2331216518803215]). High-pitched, high-amplitude speech and music both carry higher levels of arousal ([@bibr73-2331216518803215]; [@bibr91-2331216518803215]; [@bibr113-2331216518803215]; [@bibr129-2331216518803215]; [@bibr237-2331216518803215]). However, there is relatively weak and mixed evidence for the acoustic encoding of valence ([@bibr13-2331216518803215]; [@bibr73-2331216518803215]; [@bibr101-2331216518803215]; [@bibr113-2331216518803215]; [@bibr176-2331216518803215]). Indeed, the relationship between acoustic cues and valence depends on whether the stimulus is vocal emotion, music, or nonspeech sounds. For example, [@bibr237-2331216518803215] found louder speech was more unpleasant than quieter speech, whereas in music, louder music was associated with higher ratings of pleasantness. Similarly, F0 is inversely related to perceived pleasantness in speech ([@bibr204-2331216518803215]) but is not related to valence in music or other nonspeech sounds ([@bibr237-2331216518803215]).
The Role of Cognition {#sec7-2331216518803215}
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Although an extended review of the topic was beyond the scope of the HEART workshop, the working group recognized the important contributions of cognition to emotion perception. Significant research attention has been paid to untangling the relationship between emotion and cognition. There is evidence that supports the idea of functional specialization in the brain whereby regions can be considered as primarily "affective" or "cognitive," thus leading to the notion that emotion and cognition operate, to some extent, independently of each other (i.e., the affective independence hypothesis; [@bibr240-2331216518803215]). Consistent with the independence hypothesis, identification of emotion has been reported to be rapid, automatic, and nearly effortless for emotions conveyed by the face ([@bibr106-2331216518803215]; [@bibr227-2331216518803215]) and the voice ([@bibr118-2331216518803215]; [@bibr194-2331216518803215]). In contrast, there is also considerable evidence to support connectionist models of the brain, suggesting that emotion and cognition behaviors arise from interactions of networks of brain regions previously considered more specialized (for a review, see [@bibr172-2331216518803215]). Consistent with the connectionist models, cognitive decline has been shown to negatively affect interindividual emotion recognition ability ([@bibr57-2331216518803215]; [@bibr109-2331216518803215]; [@bibr119-2331216518803215]). Thus, hearing researchers investigating emotion perception should be aware of potential linkages between emotion and cognition and that cognitive processes may mediate or moderate affective experiences, particularly when listening to complex stimuli ([@bibr202-2331216518803215]). Moving forward, it is anticipated that research on emotion in hearing will often employ methodologies that ask participants to perform judgment and decision-making tasks. Accordingly, it may be important to consider individual differences in cognition (for a review, see [@bibr173-2331216518803215]).
Methods and Materials {#sec8-2331216518803215}
=====================
Depending on the research question, the classification scheme, or the type of emotion perception under study, a variety of methodologies and stimuli can be appropriate. The following is a review of some of the methodologies that members of the working group have direct experience with or that are recognized as valid indices of emotion perception, which could be applied to auditory emotion.
Evaluation of Interindividual Emotion Perception {#sec9-2331216518803215}
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### Subjective methods {#sec10-2331216518803215}
Although there are several questionnaires that assess the emotional consequences associated with hearing loss (e.g., Hearing Handicap for the Elderly; [@bibr231-2331216518803215]), we are aware of only one questionnaire that assesses the potential effect of hearing loss on emotional communication. The Emotional Communication in Hearing Questionnaire (EMO-CHeQ; Singh et al., in press) is a 16-item scale assessing vocal emotion hearing difficulties in four subdomains: (a) characteristics of encountered talkers (e.g., voices on television), (b) communication in challenging listening situations (e.g., noisy environments), (c) speech production (e.g., the ability to convey emotion in a subtle manner using one's own voice), and (d) the associated impact of such deficits on socioemotional well-being (e.g., social isolation). Singh et al. (in press) report that for individuals with hearing loss in unaided conditions, the EMO-CHeQ significantly correlates with vocal emotion-identification performance measured behaviorally (*r* = −.64).
### Objective methods (behavioral) {#sec11-2331216518803215}
Objective evaluations of a listener's ability to identify or recognize emotion in others are often based on a listener's performance on a recognition or an identification task. These performance-based methodologies involve presenting stimuli and asking participants to identify or recognize the expressed emotion. Responses are typically closed set (participants choose from a limited number of emotions). Outcomes are usually reported in percent correct or rationalized arcsine units (Studebaker, 1985), reflecting the accuracy of identified emotion. In audiology, closed set response formats have been commonly used to investigate the effects of hearing loss and amplification on emotion perception in others (e.g., [@bibr38-2331216518803215]; [@bibr128-2331216518803215]; [@bibr152-2331216518803215]; [@bibr163-2331216518803215]).
Evaluation of Intraindividual Emotion Perception {#sec12-2331216518803215}
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### Subjective methods {#sec13-2331216518803215}
While it is beyond the scope of this work to describe self-report measures of emotion in depth, it should be noted that a number of self-report measures exist for assessing subjective intraindividual experiences (for a review, see [@bibr136-2331216518803215]). Subjective evaluations generally follow one of the classification systems outlined earlier, categorical or dimensional. Categorical methodologies involve asking participants to label the emotion they are experiencing, either in general or in response to a specific stimulus. To standardize the types of responses elicited, researchers often use validated scales with lists of adjectives that participants can use to rate their emotion. For example, the Differential Emotions Scale ([@bibr94-2331216518803215]) includes a 30-item checklist with three adjectives for each of Izard's 10 identified primary emotions (interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt). Rather than using a binary checklist of adjectives where participants check the adjectives that reflect their emotion, some investigators use a scale, asking participants to rate the extent to which they identify with a particular adjective or emotion. For example, the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scales ([@bibr236-2331216518803215]) consist of 20 adjectives that describe positive and negative affect. Participants rate the extent to which they feel an adjective from 1 (*very slightly or not at all*) to 5 (*extremely*).
Methodologies based on dimensional schemes generally involve asking participants to rate their emotion on each dimension under investigation, typically valence and arousal. The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; [@bibr27-2331216518803215]) can be used to assist participants in rating emotions along dimensions. The SAM provides pictorial representations of the dimensions (valence, arousal); each includes schematic figures expressing the range of each dimension. For example, the valence figures range from a frowning face at the far left to a smiling face at the far right. Participants rate their emotion on a scale of 1 to 9 for each dimension, where 1 reflects a low score on the dimension (*low valence, low arousal*) and 9 reflects a high score on the dimension (*high valence, high arousal*). The SAM also includes a third dimension, dominance, which reflects the extent to which someone feels in control or is being dominated. Other nonverbal, self-report measurement tools include the ProEmo ([@bibr52-2331216518803215]) and an emotion monitor ([@bibr1-2331216518803215]; [@bibr15-2331216518803215]). The ProEmo, similar to the SAM, includes images of 14 cartoons whose face and body are portraying an emotion. Emotion monitors, on the other hand, involve eliciting a continuous rating along a single dimension of a particular emotion. For example, a participant could rate their experienced valence during a 6-s music clip by drawing a line along a paper during stimulus presentation, moving it to the left when he or she felt more pleasant and to the right when he or she felt more unpleasant.
### Objective methods (peripheral physiologic) {#sec14-2331216518803215}
Peripheral physiological measures provide insight into some of the processes underlying the perception of emotional speech. Unlike subjective or behavioral measures of intraindividual emotion, physiologic measures allow for continuous tracking of emotion and do not rely on introspection or shared vocabulary. The valence dimension of speech emotion is best reflected in activity of the zygomaticus major (i.e., smiling) and corrugator supercilii (i.e., frowning) muscles of the face. Positively valenced speech tends to elicit increases in zygomaticus activity and decreases in corrugator activity, while negatively valenced speech tends to elicit the reverse pattern ([@bibr83-2331216518803215]; [@bibr126-2331216518803215]; [@bibr130-2331216518803215]). Peripheral physiological correlates of the arousal dimension of speech emotion might include measures such as heart rate, respiration, and galvanic skin response. For example, [@bibr159-2331216518803215] found that increases in arousal were associated with increases in galvanic skin responses. In the context of music, increases in arousal have been associated with increases in heart rate, respiration, and galvanic skin response (e.g., [@bibr16-2331216518803215]; [@bibr66-2331216518803215]; [@bibr93-2331216518803215]; [@bibr108-2331216518803215]; [@bibr193-2331216518803215]).
One of the challenges involved with interpreting changes in peripheral physiologic measures is that their relationship with acoustic stimuli is likely to be multifactorial. For example, activation of the corrugator muscle may be the result of emotional contagion (e.g., spontaneous reaction to sad speech), emotional induction (e.g., felt response that emerges after extended listening to sad speech), or a startle response to an aversive stimulus. Similarly, and with relevance for hearing aids, an increase in the galvanic skin level may be due to emotional contagion, emotional induction, or a transient increase in stimulus intensity ([@bibr229-2331216518803215]).
### Objective methods (neural physiologic) {#sec15-2331216518803215}
Although a wide range of neural measures have been used to understand the mechanisms underlying emotion processing, comparatively little work has used such measures to track the dynamics of emotional response to auditory stimuli. At least three magnetoencephalography/electroencephalography measures appear to be well suited to this task. First, the lateralization of fronto-cortical activity in the alpha band appears to be dynamically related to the valence of emotional speech ([@bibr17-2331216518803215]; [@bibr49-2331216518803215]). Approach responses to vocal affective stimuli tend to be more left-lateralized, whereas avoidance responses tend to be more right-lateralized. Similar results have been obtained by tracking the hemodynamic response using functional near infrared spectroscopy ([@bibr11-2331216518803215]). As an optical method, this may prove to be particularly useful in testing listeners with hearing aids and cochlear implants. Second, time-locked electrophysiological activity such as the N300 component may serve as a measure of spontaneous emotion recognition from vocal cues ([@bibr23-2331216518803215]). It seems feasible that the magnitude or latency of this event-related potential component will vary as a function of hearing loss or amplification. Finally, the mu rhythm (8--13 Hz) is an endogenous neural oscillation that may have relevance for understanding bottom-up and top-down factors involved in emotional speech perception. This rhythm originates from frontal and parietal sources and is thought to reflect sensorimotor network activity that underpins an internal simulation of observed action. The mu rhythm is desynchronized during perception of vocal activity ([@bibr24-2331216518803215]; [@bibr96-2331216518803215]; [@bibr116-2331216518803215]; [@bibr139-2331216518803215]). The extent of desynchronization has been shown to be greater in adverse listening conditions ([@bibr45-2331216518803215]) and when a listener is specifically asked to evaluate vocal emotion ([@bibr139-2331216518803215]).
### Other objective methods (facial, body, and vocal cues) {#sec16-2331216518803215}
Yet another method to evaluate experiences of individuals when listening to sounds that elicit emotion involves assessing *fine facial behavior*, such as upward-turned corners of the mouth or wrinkled forehead. Such measures include ratings by trained observers (for a review, consult [@bibr42-2331216518803215]) and camera-based automated systems that employ facial recognition technologies. The most popular coding system is the Facial Action Coding System ([@bibr61-2331216518803215]; [@bibr62-2331216518803215]; [@bibr63-2331216518803215]) that trains observers to recognize muscle movements of the face ([@bibr62-2331216518803215]). This method is able to reliably code valence, but, in general, the measures are not particularly robust when evaluating arousal ([@bibr21-2331216518803215]; [@bibr191-2331216518803215]). Camera-based automated systems are becoming increasingly popular in light of technological progress. In a recent study that tested a commercially available facial emotion recognition software, the automated system was as accurate (85%) at identifying emotion as trained human coders when classifying standardized corpora of facial emotion expression ([@bibr117-2331216518803215]). There are many commercially based systems available on the market. Of relevance to audiology, there is evidence to suggest that aging may have a significant impact on automated facial emotion recognition ([@bibr132-2331216518803215]), but the understanding of the extent to which aging influences automated emotion recognition is still in its infancy.
*Gross facial changes*, such as *startle responses*, also offer a potential avenue for the measurement of emotion. There are several behaviors associated with startle responses, with the eye blink being the most robust observable behavioral measure. Startle amplitude (of the eye blink) is larger for unpleasant stimuli and smaller for pleasant stimuli ([@bibr26-2331216518803215]; [@bibr28-2331216518803215]; [@bibr232-2331216518803215]). It is more difficult to discern individual emotions with startle, and thus, this measure is better suited to measuring effect of valence, specifically for stimuli that are of sufficiently high intensity to elicit a startle response.
In addition to facial movements, it is possible to infer experienced emotion based on physical changes in the body, including body behavior, startle responses, and vocal characteristics. First, *body behaviors* complement other measures of intraindividual emotion because, although there is limited research on such behaviors in response to affective stimuli, two specific emotions, pride and embarrassment, have received considerable attention. These two emotions are not particularly discernable from facial expressions. Pride is associated with expansive body positions ([@bibr217-2331216518803215]), and embarrassment is associated with diminutive body postures ([@bibr104-2331216518803215]). Finally, *vocal characteristics* can be used to infer emotion. There is evidence to suggest that under conditions of increased arousal, there are associated increases in vocal pitch ([@bibr9-2331216518803215]; [@bibr102-2331216518803215]; [@bibr200-2331216518803215]), although it is less sensitive to manipulations of valence ([@bibr99-2331216518803215]).
Stimuli for Measuring Inter- and Intraindividual Emotion Perception {#sec17-2331216518803215}
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Unlike the ample availability of speech materials used to assess speech recognition performance, there are fewer corpora available to assess experiences of listening to acoustic emotional stimuli. The following is a nonexhaustive list of currently available corpora well suited for research in audiology, including a discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of each. These could be used to evaluate inter- or intraindividual emotion perception, simply by changing the instruction ("what is the conveyed emotion?" or "how do you feel?").
### The Toronto Emotional Speech Set {#sec18-2331216518803215}
The Toronto Emotional Speech Set (TESS; [@bibr55-2331216518803215]) consists of audio recordings of the 200 NU-6 ([@bibr226-2331216518803215]) items, with each item spoken to portray seven different emotions (angry, disgust, fear, happy, pleasant surprise, sad, and neutral). Each item begins with the carrier phrase "Say the word" that is also portrayed with emotion. There are recordings available for both a younger and older female adult talker, and all items are spoken in a North American accent. An advantage associated with the TESS is that the recordings facilitate simultaneous investigation of both emotion- and word-identification performance; however, because only two actors voiced the test materials, the TESS is not well suited to fully understand effects associated with talker variability.
### The Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song {#sec19-2331216518803215}
The Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song (RAVDESS; [@bibr125-2331216518803215]) consists of audio and audio-visual recordings (centered on the face) of 24 actors (12 female, 12 male) speaking and singing with eight emotions (angry, disgust, fear, happy, surprise, sad, calm, and neutral) for the speech set and six emotional expressions for the song set (angry, fear, happy, sad, calm, and neutral). All emotions except neutral are expressed at two levels of emotional intensity: normal and strong. Recordings are available for two different sentences: "Kids are talking by the door" and "Dogs are sitting by the door." Advantages of the RAVDESS include limited semantic information, auditory and auditory-visual modalities, and a large set of talkers. A disadvantage of the stimuli is that the constrained semantic content potentially limits the realism of the stimuli.
### Corpus of nonverbal vocalizations {#sec20-2331216518803215}
[@bibr121-2331216518803215] developed and validated a corpus of nonverbal vocalizations, which includes recordings of two female and two male talkers vocalizing eight emotions. The emotions include four positive ones (triumph/achievement, amusement, sensual pleasure, and relief) and four negative ones (anger, disgust, fear, and sadness). The authors validated the sounds by testing 20 participants with a forced choice, emotion recognition task and an additional 20 participants with a ratings task, where participants rated the extent to which a recording represented the intended emotion, represented valence, represented arousal, and was believable. Recognition accuracy was 86% on average.
### Montreal Affective Voices {#sec21-2331216518803215}
The Montreal Affective Voices (MAV; [@bibr18-2331216518803215]) includes 90 nonverbal vocalizations that portray 9 emotions (anger, disgust, fear, pain, sadness, surprise, happiness, pleasure, and neutrality) vocalized by 10 actors (5 female). The authors validated the sounds by recording subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and categorical affective state (e.g., not all happy to extremely happy). Recognition accuracy was 68% and highest for female talkers. The corpora developed by [@bibr121-2331216518803215] and the MAV share similar advantages (e.g., limited semantic content, brief duration, behavioral validation, and range of talkers) and disadvantages (e.g., acted stimuli).
### Musical Emotional Bursts {#sec22-2331216518803215}
The Musical Emotional Bursts (MEB; [@bibr165-2331216518803215]) includes 80 music samples that represent four emotions (happy, sad, fear, and neutral), as portrayed by trained musicians improvising on either a violin or clarinet. The authors conceptualize the corpus as a musical corollary to the MAV. The advantages of the MEB include the relatively brief duration of the samples and high recognition accuracy (80%). In addition, use of the MEB in studies is potentially advantageous for scientific inquiry regarding the extent to which vocalizations and music share a similar neural processing; some evidence supports shared circuitry ([@bibr91-2331216518803215]; [@bibr120-2331216518803215]; [@bibr224-2331216518803215]), whereas other evidence supports dissociation ([@bibr122-2331216518803215]; [@bibr162-2331216518803215]; [@bibr170-2331216518803215]).
### Naturally occurring stimuli {#sec23-2331216518803215}
Yet another approach adopted in auditory emotion research is to use naturally occurring, rather than acted stimuli (e.g., [@bibr204-2331216518803215]). This is potentially an important distinction in emotion perception research because acted and spontaneous vocal emotion have been shown to exhibit different acoustical properties (for example in laughter; [@bibr115-2331216518803215]). Although such tokens exhibit high ecologically validity, there are limitations regarding experimental control of the materials. For example, naturally occurring stimuli typically exhibit high variability in semantic content, utterance length, and intelligibility.
### The International Affective Digital Sounds {#sec24-2331216518803215}
The International Affective Digital Sounds (IADS)-2 ([@bibr29-2331216518803215]) is a standardized database of 167 naturally occurring sounds widely used in the study of emotion. The sounds vary along the dimensions of valence and arousal and contain a range of nonspeech sounds such as music (e.g., guitar), nature sounds (e.g., rain), body sounds (e.g., vomiting), animals (e.g., cow moos), human emotions (e.g., crying), and man-made sounds (e.g., siren). Normative arousal and valence SAM ratings collected on 78 undergraduate students of unknown hearing status are available ([@bibr29-2331216518803215]). Given that tokens on the IADS are nonspeech, the corpus is well suited to investigations of individuals who speak languages other than English. The nonspeech stimuli also complement speech corpora, particularly for investigating the potential for distinct emotion perception mechanisms for speech and nonspeech stimuli, as has been reported for cortical auditory perception (e.g., [@bibr161-2331216518803215]).
### The International Affective Picture System {#sec25-2331216518803215}
The International Affective Picture System (IAPS; [@bibr111-2331216518803215]) is a large set (956 color images as of 2005) of emotionally evocative photographs widely used in emotion research that vary along the dimensions of arousal and valence. The corpus includes images of people (e.g., in various states of undress who are happy, angry, sad, fearful, threatening, attractive, etc.), housing projects, toilets, landscapes, waterfalls, sporting events, photojournalism from wars and natural disasters, mutilated bodies, baby animals, threatening animals, erotic images, insects, loving families, and so forth. Normative arousal and valence SAM have been collected across a range of cultures and age groups including children and young adults ([@bibr140-2331216518803215]) and older adults 63 to 77 years of age ([@bibr77-2331216518803215]). Although not auditory in nature, the IAPS allows for a detailed picture of the effects of hearing loss on emotional processing by providing for the quantification of emotional processing of visual stimuli. The strength of the IAPS comes from the nonlinguistic nature of the stimuli and the large number of previous investigations that used IAPS stimuli.
Effects on Interindividual Emotion Perception {#sec26-2331216518803215}
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If people with hearing loss are unable to correctly perceive emotions, it may compromise their ability to communicate and have broad quality of life effects, such as poorer performance at school and in work environments ([@bibr64-2331216518803215]; [@bibr79-2331216518803215]). Indeed, deficits in interindividual emotion recognition have been proposed to be responsible for reduced empathy in children with hearing loss ([@bibr160-2331216518803215]). To fully understand the relationship between hearing loss and interindividual emotion perception, the working group considered the effects of age and hearing loss on interindividual emotion perception separately.
Age {#sec27-2331216518803215}
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There are well-established differences between older and younger adults' abilities to recognize emotion in others in both faces and voice (for meta-analysis, see [@bibr189-2331216518803215]). Although not consistent across all studies (e.g., [@bibr56-2331216518803215]), some authors report asymmetrical age differences, where unpleasant emotions are more influenced by age. For example, the effects of age are larger on listeners' ability to identify sad intonation than happy or neutral vocal intonations ([@bibr56-2331216518803215]; [@bibr149-2331216518803215]; [@bibr166-2331216518803215]; [@bibr207-2331216518803215]). Similarly, age has been shown to negatively affect facial recognition of sadness, but not happiness or surprise ([@bibr103-2331216518803215]; [@bibr157-2331216518803215]; [@bibr220-2331216518803215]). Consistent with this asymmetry, age effects on interindividual emotion perception have been explained in part by a "positivity bias." As people age, they tend to engage in behaviors and thought processes that promote positive emotional experiences ([@bibr36-2331216518803215]; [@bibr92-2331216518803215]; [@bibr134-2331216518803215]; [@bibr135-2331216518803215]). The effects of age have also been attributed to cognitive decline ([@bibr103-2331216518803215]; [@bibr207-2331216518803215]; [@bibr220-2331216518803215]), neuropsychological changes in brain structures associated with sociability ([@bibr189-2331216518803215]), and changes in social environments ([@bibr158-2331216518803215]).
Hearing Loss {#sec28-2331216518803215}
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Given the importance of fundamental frequency and pitch range to vocal emotion recognition, one might expect hearing loss to negatively affect interindividual emotion perception. However, study results into the effects of hearing loss on vocal emotion recognition are mixed and depend on degree of hearing loss. Among a group of elderly listeners with near normal hearing, [@bibr56-2331216518803215] found no association between either degree of hearing loss (as indicated by pure-tone average thresholds) or suprathreshold auditory processing (as indicated by pitch, loudness, or gap detection abilities) and vocal emotion recognition of semantically neutral sentences.
Among older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss, some authors report no association between pure-tone average and emotion recognition, instead attributing population differences to age-related changes in cognition (e.g., [@bibr147-2331216518803215]; [@bibr163-2331216518803215]). More recently, Singh et al. (in press) demonstrated a significant effect of mild-to-moderate hearing loss on emotion recognition, as evidenced by self-reported handicap (EMO-CheQ) and behavioral performance on a recognition task using the RADVESS. The authors also report a strong, negative correlation between four-frequency pure-tone average and emotion recognition (without visual cues), as measured behaviorally (*r* = −.73, *p* \< .05) for hearing-aided listeners, suggesting a strong effect of hearing loss on interindividual emotion perception. Similarly, [@bibr186-2331216518803215] reported a significant negative correlation between low-frequency hearing threshold (average of 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) and the ability to correctly label the emotion in a brief utterance devoid of meaning. Furthermore, participants with normal low-frequency thresholds did not demonstrate interindividual emotion perception deficits, highlighting the importance of low-frequency hearing for emotion recognition and suggesting differences in degree of low-frequency hearing loss is a possible explanation for the mixed findings in the literature. The mixed results might also be partially explained by variability across studies in participants' perception of complex pitch. Pitch perception is significantly related to emotional prosody recognition ([@bibr148-2331216518803215]), but people with similar audiograms can vary considerably in their pitch perception abilities ([@bibr8-2331216518803215]).
Unlike adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss, it is clear that vocal emotion recognition is impaired for adults with severe hearing loss who use cochlear implants, relative to their peers with normal hearing ([@bibr38-2331216518803215]; [@bibr97-2331216518803215]; [@bibr128-2331216518803215]). Cochlear implants provide a representation of speech that is compressed in intensity range and limited in spectral resolution. Pitch is particularly poorly represented via cochlear implants. Rather than perceiving the pitch of complex sounds via information from lower numbered, spectrally resolved harmonics, listeners with cochlear implants must rely on the cues available in the periodic temporal envelope, which even in normal-hearing listeners produce a pitch that is considerably less accurate and less salient than the pitch from low-numbered resolved harmonics ([@bibr19-2331216518803215]; [@bibr88-2331216518803215]). Most research on emotion perception in cochlear implant users has been related to pitch perception and the lack of clear pitch cues. A recent review article has summarized current research on voice emotion perception and production in cochlear implant users ([@bibr97-2331216518803215]). They report that cochlear implant users experience major deficits in emotion perception and production in speech, as well as difficulties recognizing emotional content in music. In speech, as well as music, alternative cues to pitch, such as intensity, duration, and speaking rate or tempo, are used to some extent, but not always very effectively.
Music perception is also highly degraded in cochlear implant users, in terms of their ability to recognize melodies or harmony ([@bibr138-2331216518803215]). Not surprisingly, therefore, cochlear implant users have difficulty distinguishing consonant chords from dissonant chords ([@bibr34-2331216518803215]), and they are not able to recognize emotions in music based purely on major or minor scale ([@bibr86-2331216518803215]). However, in cases of natural music, where other cues such as intensity and tempo are available, the emotion recognition by cochlear implant users is well above chance, although not quite as high as for normal-hearing listeners ([@bibr33-2331216518803215]; [@bibr86-2331216518803215]).
Like adults, children with profound congenital hearing loss also demonstrate deficits in emotion perception of speech ([@bibr38-2331216518803215]; [@bibr85-2331216518803215]; [@bibr169-2331216518803215]) and music ([@bibr86-2331216518803215]; [@bibr238-2331216518803215]), although evidence suggests limited emotion perception deficits for children with moderate-to-severe hearing loss ([@bibr57-2331216518803215]). The examination of interindividual emotion perception in children provides insight into the developmental effects of hearing loss and language on emotion recognition. Children with cochlear implants exhibit impaired emotional recognition or delayed emotional competence ([@bibr51-2331216518803215]; [@bibr58-2331216518803215]; [@bibr75-2331216518803215]; [@bibr151-2331216518803215]; [@bibr184-2331216518803215]; [@bibr185-2331216518803215]). It has been proposed that these deficits can be explained, in part, based on a model of hierarchical development of emotion comprehension, which develops with increasing age ([@bibr179-2331216518803215]). Limited access to auditory information is expected to disrupt the hierarchy and delay emotional development (e.g., [@bibr43-2331216518803215]; [@bibr51-2331216518803215]; [@bibr243-2331216518803215]). With hearing loss, there might be less verbal sharing ([@bibr51-2331216518803215]) and fewer interactions in parent--child communications ([@bibr43-2331216518803215]). As a consequence, these children have more restricted auditory learning opportunities leading to less flexible and more narrow perception of emotional situations ([@bibr179-2331216518803215]). It is therefore speculated that the delayed emotional development is a product of delayed speech and language development rather than (necessarily) a distortion or reduction of the acoustic cues necessary for adequate emotion recognition ([@bibr127-2331216518803215]). These findings highlight the important interplay between hearing and language development on emotion perception.
Modality {#sec29-2331216518803215}
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Although the focus of this article is generally on auditory emotion perception, the consideration of stimulus modality provides insights into the mechanisms associated with changes in emotion perception with age or with hearing loss. That is, does hearing loss or advanced age affect interindividual emotion perception with visual cues? As a result of the aforementioned age-related changes in cognition and social function, it is not surprising that advanced age reduces recognition ability of emotion in faces ([@bibr50-2331216518803215]; [@bibr146-2331216518803215]; [@bibr158-2331216518803215]; [@bibr220-2331216518803215]). However, the conclusions regarding the interactions between mild-moderate, acquired hearing loss and stimulus modality are less clear. Some investigators report changes in interindividual emotion perception in the visual domain with hearing loss ([@bibr186-2331216518803215]), whereas others report hearing loss does not affect emotion perception with stimuli that are audio-visual (Singh et al., in press). The reconciliation of these findings is unclear; it might be related to age effects or methodology choices.
In children, emotion recognition in the visual domain has been shown to be resilient to the effects of hearing loss for school-aged children and adolescents (approximately 6 to 18 years old; Dyck et al., 2004; [@bibr85-2331216518803215]; [@bibr87-2331216518803215]; [@bibr152-2331216518803215]). Conversely, hearing loss has been associated with global emotion perception deficits in the visual domain for preschool children (approximately 2 to 5 years old) with hearing aids or cochlear implants. These results suggest that hearing loss has a developmental, modality-independent effect on interindividual emotion perception that is not evident in school-aged children or adolescents.
Effects on Intraindividual Emotion Perception {#sec30-2331216518803215}
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Age {#sec31-2331216518803215}
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As with interindividual emotion perception, the recognized positivity bias might be expected to influence intraindividual emotion perception. Instead, age effects on emotional responses have been small and difficult to measure in response to pictures ([@bibr77-2331216518803215]) and sounds ([@bibr176-2331216518803215]), particularly with a small number of stimuli ([@bibr135-2331216518803215]; [@bibr145-2331216518803215]; [@bibr239-2331216518803215]). When effects of age are noted, the findings have been confined to specific stimuli (older adults rate pictures of risky behavior as less pleasant than younger adults; [@bibr77-2331216518803215]). Other researchers report that age increases the range of emotional responses to pictures, where pleasant stimuli are rated as more pleasant ([@bibr10-2331216518803215]; [@bibr77-2331216518803215]; [@bibr212-2331216518803215]) and unpleasant stimuli are rated as more unpleasant ([@bibr77-2331216518803215]).
There is mounting evidence that the lack of large aging deficits in intraindividual emotion perception is due to compensatory cognitive strategies. That is, older adults engage more prefrontal cortical regions and exhibit a smaller subcortical (amygdalar) response compared with younger adults, particularly for unpleasant stimuli ([@bibr67-2331216518803215]; [@bibr222-2331216518803215]). For pleasant stimuli, older adults have been shown to demonstrate more amygdalar activity than younger participants ([@bibr133-2331216518803215]). These data suggest that, despite similar behavior between younger and older adults, the interplay between the cognitive and the automatic systems shifts with age.
Hearing Loss {#sec32-2331216518803215}
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One of the first investigations into the effects of acquired hearing loss on intraindividual emotion perception of sound also revealed cortical changes in response to sounds in the presence of hearing loss. [@bibr90-2331216518803215] tested older adults with normal hearing or acquired hearing loss, presented nonspeech sounds, and measured the emotional response behaviorally and physiologically. The results indicated that listeners with hearing loss were less affected by the emotional sounds than their peers with normal hearing. In addition, listeners with hearing loss demonstrated more prefrontal engagement and less amygdalar engagement, suggesting cognitive and behavioral consequences of hearing loss on emotional responses. These findings were confirmed by [@bibr176-2331216518803215], who evaluated subjective ratings of valence and arousal at multiple signal levels to evaluate the effects of age and hearing loss on emotional responses to nonspeech sounds. Although ratings from younger and older listeners with normal hearing were not different from each other, listeners with hearing loss exhibited a reduced range of valence ratings. They rated pleasant stimuli as less pleasant and unpleasant stimuli as less unpleasant compared with listeners with normal hearing. Furthermore, [@bibr177-2331216518803215] found the effect of hearing loss to be inversely related to degree of hearing loss, whereby those with higher pure-tone averages exhibited smaller ranges of emotional responses to nonspeech sounds.
Modality {#sec33-2331216518803215}
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As with interindividual emotion perception, the extant literature suggests intraindividual emotion perception is more robust with visual than with auditory stimuli ([@bibr28-2331216518803215]; [@bibr209-2331216518803215]), although auditory and visual stimuli result in a similar pattern of behavioral and electrophysiological results ([@bibr28-2331216518803215]; [@bibr46-2331216518803215]; [@bibr69-2331216518803215]; [@bibr206-2331216518803215]). The results of most studies evaluating the combined effects of audition and vision on emotional responses to nonspeech sounds suggest that the combination of congruent sensory modalities enhances the emotional response relative to unimodal sensory stimuli ([@bibr44-2331216518803215]; [@bibr70-2331216518803215]), similar to findings reported for faces combined with speech stimuli ([@bibr125-2331216518803215]). Furthermore, auditory stimuli facilitate the early and immediate processing of visual processing, as evidenced by enhanced electrophysiological cortical responses ([@bibr70-2331216518803215]) and priming ([@bibr201-2331216518803215]). Not all have reported multisensory enhancement of intraindividual emotion perception with combined auditory and visual cues ([@bibr30-2331216518803215]), perhaps as a result of suboptimal congruency. Incongruent valence pairing could negatively affect multisensory enhancement. For example, [@bibr70-2331216518803215] found that valence ratings of pleasant sounds paired with pleasant pictures were significantly higher than pleasant sounds paired with unpleasant pictures.
Although yet to be investigated, the results of multisensory evaluations in listeners with normal hearing might provide insight into the expected effects of hearing loss on intraindividual emotion perception. Specifically, because hearing loss reduces ratings of valence of pleasant sounds ([@bibr176-2331216518803215]), one might expect valence ratings of auditory-visual stimuli to be lower for listeners with hearing loss than peers with normal hearing. Conversely, if intraindividual emotion perception of visual stimuli is preserved with hearing loss, and cortical reorganization associated with hearing loss results in dominance of visual sensory processing ([@bibr142-2331216518803215]), or increased reliance on visual cues for processing speech ([@bibr188-2331216518803215]), listeners with hearing loss might not demonstrate differences in intraindividual emotion perception of audio-visual stimuli, relative to peers with normal hearing. Seemingly, the interaction between stimulus modality and acquired hearing loss warrants investigation.
Interventions {#sec34-2331216518803215}
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Technological Interventions {#sec35-2331216518803215}
---------------------------
### Hearing aids {#sec36-2331216518803215}
To date, few articles have been published investigating how hearing aids influence interindividual perception. One test of emotion understanding with a study of 4- to 5-year olds found that hearing-impaired children wearing hearing aids exhibit levels of emotion understanding equivalent to that observed with normal-hearing children ([@bibr112-2331216518803215]). In contrast, on tests of emotion identification, hearing aid users generally have more difficulty than listeners with normal hearing. For example, children and adolescents who wear hearing aids have emotion-identification scores that are about 30 percentage points lower than those of their normal-hearing peers ([@bibr152-2331216518803215]; [@bibr164-2331216518803215]). It could be that the effects of hearing loss on emotion perception are less readily observed on comprehension tasks, which are more dependent on context and cognition (for a review, see [@bibr174-2331216518803215]).
The performance gap between aided and unaided listening appears to be somewhat smaller for adults than for children, possibly due to a different time course and underlying mechanism of hearing loss. One study showed that older adults with normal hearing outperformed older adults who wore hearing aids by 19 percentage points ([@bibr233-2331216518803215]). Importantly, the aforementioned studies on adults and children did not test listeners with hearing loss in both unaided and aided conditions, so it is unclear how much hearing aids improved emotion recognition.
Two studies have investigated emotion-recognition performance in groups of adults with normal hearing, hearing loss in unaided conditions, and hearing loss aided conditions. It was first observed that, compared with not wearing their own hearing aids, aided listeners experience minimal benefits of about 6 percentage points ([@bibr74-2331216518803215]). Similarly, Singh et al. (in press) found that behavioral performance on an emotion-recognition task and perceived disability using the EMO-CHeQ were similar in both unaided and aided groups of older adults with acquired moderate hearing loss (see also [@bibr159-2331216518803215]). Together, these data suggest limited, if any, positive effects of hearing aid use on emotion-recognition performance.
Conversely, although there have been few studies published in the area, there appear to be some effects of hearing aid use on intraindividual emotion perception. Two studies report on the perception of arousal and valence by older listeners with hearing loss. The findings from these two studies suggest that an increase in sound intensity leads to an increase in arousal ratings. Arousal ratings were generally higher when stimuli were presented at higher intensity ([@bibr176-2331216518803215]) or with the use of hearing aids ([@bibr203-2331216518803215]). Based on the findings reported by [@bibr176-2331216518803215] that increasing the overall level of sounds from 60 to 80 dB SPL reduced ratings of valence, it might be expected that hearing aids would negatively affect ratings of valence. Instead, results from two studies suggest that providing individualized amplification through hearing aids did not affect ratings of valence ([@bibr175-2331216518803215]; [@bibr203-2331216518803215]).
### Cochlear implants {#sec37-2331216518803215}
There have been some investigations into the optimization of emotional prosody recognition for cochlear implant users. For example, the addition of an acoustic hearing aid to a cochlear implant (i.e., bimodal hearing) has been shown to improve prosody recognition for cochlear implant users for both adults ([@bibr107-2331216518803215]; [@bibr153-2331216518803215]) and children ([@bibr218-2331216518803215]). Within the cochlear implant itself, researchers report improvements in vocal emotion recognition with increased number of channels ([@bibr38-2331216518803215]; [@bibr128-2331216518803215]), particularly for the identification of prosody associated with joy ([@bibr242-2331216518803215]). In addition, cochlear implant processing schemes can affect prosody recognition. Agrawal and colleagues compared prosody recognition of angry, happy, and neutral sentences using Psychoacoustic Advanced Combination Encoder (PACE) and the Advance Combination Encoder (ACE) strategies for listeners with normal hearing ([@bibr3-2331216518803215]) and for cochlear implant users ([@bibr2-2331216518803215]). The ACE and PACE processing are similar, both stimulating electrodes with the highest amplitude in a given cycle. However, PACE targets electrodes that are more important for listeners with normal hearing, rather than focusing on all spectral maxima. Combined, the results of Agrawal et al. demonstrate advantages of the PACE processing for emotional prosody recognition, especially for the identification of happy.
Training Interventions {#sec38-2331216518803215}
----------------------
Investigators have also focused on the effects of musicianship on emotional speech processing (e.g., [@bibr48-2331216518803215]; [@bibr120-2331216518803215]; [@bibr205-2331216518803215]; [@bibr219-2331216518803215]). The interpretation of these studies is complicated by questions regarding whether group differences are due to preexisting conditions that anticipate music training. However, several experimental studies support the notion that music training can be used to support emotional speech perception in normal-hearing children ([@bibr154-2331216518803215]; [@bibr225-2331216518803215]), as well as deaf children who wear cochlear implants ([@bibr71-2331216518803215]). One way of understanding these experimental effects is that music training may increase the sensitivity and responsiveness to acoustic dimensions that underlie speech emotion fine temporal structure (pitch), gross temporal structure (dynamics), and spectrotemporal attributes of sound (timbre).
There has been limited work investigating the effects of nonmusic training on emotion recognition, and, to date, the results are not strongly supportive that training improves emotion perception. [@bibr241-2331216518803215] tested the possibility of a 4-week, bottom-up perceptual, speech phoneme training program to improve speech recognition and emotion recognition for experienced bimodal listeners (cochlear implant and contralateral hearing aid). Their results suggest that, although training improved vowel, consonant, and word identification, training did not affect emotion recognition of prosody in semantically neutral sentences.
More specific to emotion, [@bibr57-2331216518803215] developed and tested a psychoeducational program for children with prelingual hearing loss (moderate-severe and profound). The training consisted of eleven 45-min sessions related to understanding and recognizing emotions, primarily with pictures. Their results indicate improved emotion vocabulary and emotion comprehension, but not emotion recognition. [@bibr107-2331216518803215] also evaluated the potential for a more focused training program to improve emotion recognition, although the emphasis of their intervention was on improving talker-identification. Talker-identification, such as emotion recognition, depends in part on F0 variability ([@bibr182-2331216518803215]); thus, one might expect talker-identification training to have benefits for emotional prosody recognition. Indeed, the authors report that adults with normal hearing listening to implant simulations over the course of 4 days improved talker-identification performance, and the benefits of the training generalized to speech recognition in noise and also emotional prosody recognition. Taken together, these studies suggest the potential for training programs to improve emotion perception, although a successful training program would likely be in the auditory domain and focus on skills specific to emotion recognition.
Future Directions {#sec39-2331216518803215}
=================
The preceding discussion summarizes the general understanding of emotion perception as it relates to age, hearing loss, and hearing loss interventions within the scope of interindividual emotion perception (e.g., emotion recognition, emotion understanding) and intraindividual emotion perception (e.g., emotional responses, elicited emotion). Although the study of emotion perception is relatively new for audiology, we can draw on decades of research from other fields, including psychology and neuroscience. Drawing on existing literature and contributing novel research specifically with hearing considerations in mind fosters a more comprehensive understanding of auditory emotion perception for people with normal and impaired hearing. The working group identified directions for future research. Most of the recommendations apply to both interindividual and intraindividual emotion perception. The recommendations are broadly divided into three categories, those that relate to (a) a foundational understanding of the interplay between hearing loss and emotion perception, (b) methodological choices to be considered in the future, and (c) priorities for intervention research.
Foundational Questions {#sec40-2331216518803215}
----------------------
Emotions result in both psychological and physical changes that influence behavior. Although there is considerable past research exploring the psychosocial impact of hearing loss, to date, hardly any research has investigated experiences of auditory emotion using physiological measures with hearing-impaired populations. This is somewhat surprising given the central role of emotion to human experience. Hence, there is a need to better understand how hearing loss and amplification influence objective physiological experiences when listening to signals that convey or evoke emotion responses. Such work may be of value because emotion-related biomarkers may represent a novel category of outcome measures by which to assess the efficacy of treatment methods designed to reduce the disability associated with hearing loss.
A second direction for future research concerns the need to better understand the broader impact of hearing-related emotion processing deficits. [@bibr90-2331216518803215] observed that compared with normal hearing controls, individuals with mild-to-moderate hearing loss exhibit altered brain activation patterns when listening to affective but not neutral sounds. This finding raises several questions regarding the causal relationship between these and other variables. For example, does hearing loss lead to emotion processing deficits and can hearing rehabilitation, such as hearing aid fitting, ameliorate such deficits? What are the direct and indirect relationships between hearing loss, emotion, and other variables such as cognition or social relationships? Does psychological distress (e.g., depression, anxiety, etc.) associated with hearing loss arise from the effect of hearing loss on social relationships, emotion processing, or both?
Finally, the working group recommends research that investigates associations between auditory abilities and emotion perception. Although a picture is emerging of the auditory factors that contribute to interindividual emotion perception for older listeners (e.g., pitch, intensity, duration; [@bibr148-2331216518803215]), there is a lack of clear understanding regarding the relationship between hearing abilities (e.g., pure-tone thresholds, speech perception) and both interindividual ([@bibr163-2331216518803215]) and intraindividual ([@bibr177-2331216518803215]) emotion perception. In addition, future work is warranted to identify how specific perceptual abilities (e.g., loudness perception or frequency selectivity) related to this type of emotion perception.
Methodological Choices {#sec41-2331216518803215}
----------------------
Currently, most interindividual perception research uses categorical schemes (e.g., name the emotion expressed by that person), whereas intraindividual perception research often uses dimensional schemes (e.g., how do you feel on the valence dimension). These differences in methodology will likely shed unique insights into the experiences of listeners when encountering signals that contain emotion information. Designing studies that tap into more than one model of emotion perception may better inform us on how listeners perceive different aspects of emotion, and it is possible that some schemes of emotion may better explain the acoustic-perceptual link than others.
A second methodological recommendation the working group suggests is the consideration of more naturalistic stimuli. Nearly all studies on emotional speech perception have used professional actors to simulate different emotional states, to control for sentence content and achieve high-quality recordings. However, simulated emotion may reflect societal norms rather than physiological changes in the talker due to their emotional state ([@bibr199-2331216518803215]), and differences in portrayals between talkers have likely contributed to inconsistent findings between studies. Sentences with simulated emotion differ acoustically from those with real emotion in several ways, including having greater F0 variability, greater shimmer values, and more low-frequency energy ([@bibr100-2331216518803215]). Given these differences between real and simulated emotion, more naturalistic stimuli need to be tested to confirm whether the behavioral patterns and acoustic-perceptual relationships seen with simulated emotion also apply to real emotion. Some examples of naturalistic stimuli that have been used include excerpts from interviews ([@bibr100-2331216518803215]) and talk shows ([@bibr204-2331216518803215]).
Intervention Priorities {#sec42-2331216518803215}
-----------------------
Finally, the working group suggests considerably more research related to interventions that consider emotion perception. One question of interest is related to the effects of hearing aids and cochlear implants on emotion perception. The extant literature would suggest that there is minimal benefit of hearing aids for interindividual emotion perception, with some mixed results for the effects of hearing aids on intraindividual emotion perception. To fully understand the potential effects of interventions on emotion perception, it will be important to consider methodological differences across studies. For example, differences in findings on how hearing aids affect arousal may be partly due to the use of conversational speech samples by [@bibr203-2331216518803215] and the use of nonverbal sounds and nonbiological sounds by [@bibr175-2331216518803215]. Furthermore, [@bibr74-2331216518803215] used speech samples from only one talker (an actor) on the TESS in the emotion-identification task, but it has been shown that talkers differ on how they portray emotions ([@bibr9-2331216518803215]). Speech materials from more talkers should be tested, as well as speech materials recorded under more naturalistic conditions, to make experimental findings more generalizable to real-life listening situations.
A related recommendation is to conduct additional research designed to investigate how different hearing aid and cochlear implant processing parameters (e.g., compression, frequency lowering, etc.) affect the cues that convey vocal emotion. Participants were fit with a single prescriptive method in the study reported by [@bibr175-2331216518803215], whereas participants used their own hearing aids in the studies reported by [@bibr74-2331216518803215], Singh et al. (in press), and [@bibr203-2331216518803215]. One advantage of participants using their own aids rather than aids provided for research purposes is that participants were accustomed to their hearing aids and their performance reflected their emotion perception under typical conditions. However, different types of hearing aid processing may have contributed to variation in performance between participants and made it more difficult to gauge the extent of benefit from hearing aids for emotion perception.
A third recommendation would be to examine whether the effects of learning or training might compensate to some extent for the effects of hearing loss on vocal emotion perception. Specifically, are listeners with hearing loss able to make use of new acoustic cues made available by hearing aids, or are these cues permanently lost? It is not known whether emotion perception would improve as listeners become acclimatized to their new hearing aids, or whether explicit training would lead to greater improvements than simple acclimatization. Given that there are so few studies, one recommendation to advance this area would be to evaluate auditory training of emotion perception with listeners in both unaided and aided conditions.
Clinical Implications {#sec43-2331216518803215}
=====================
Although the working group identified research needs in the area, even before these needs are fulfilled, we can extrapolate several potential implications for audiology practice. To date, there appears to be little to no consideration of a hearing-impaired listener's experience of emotion when developing or assessing treatment interventions. Hence, one potential clinical application is that the use of emotion-based outcome measures may guide the development of hearing instrument technologies and treatment interventions.
A second application relates primarily to understanding patient experiences relevant for counseling. We believe that, currently, counseling sessions include few discussions regarding the impact of hearing loss on emotion perception such as the ability to correctly recognize the vocal emotion in others and the experience of listening to stimuli that evokes emotion responses (i.e., laughter, music, or crying). Discussion of potential emotion processing sequelae associated with hearing loss may be beneficial in several ways. For example, counseling that discusses perception of signals that contain auditory emotion may raise the patient's awareness about the potential impact on everyday communication and quality of life.
A third application, also related to counseling, concerns the paucity of discussion of the psychosocial consequences associated with hearing loss. Despite receiving training regarding the emotional impact of hearing loss, and despite the myriad of positive outcomes associated with effective clinician-patient communication (i.e., greater treatment adherence, patient disclosure, and patient satisfaction; for a review, see [@bibr78-2331216518803215]), there is evidence to suggest that when opportunities to discuss emotions present themselves, therapeutic communication in audiology inadequately addresses experiences of emotion associated with hearing loss ([@bibr76-2331216518803215]). Reluctance to discuss emotion may stem, in part, from practitioner's concerns regarding their ability to effectively discuss emotion ([@bibr131-2331216518803215]). One method to potentially foster better communication about emotion and the psychosocial consequences of hearing loss for patients and families is by first discussing a patient's experience with vocal emotion understanding. Such an approach may represent a more naturalistic and less threatening method to discuss emotion as it pertains to hearing loss.
Conclusions {#sec44-2331216518803215}
===========
Hearing loss is a common, chronic condition that affects many older adults. The effects of hearing loss have typically been considered in relation to audibility, speech understanding, and psychosocial function. One subject that has received little attention, but has considerable potential to affect patients' psychosocial function, is how hearing loss and hearing rehabilitation affect patients' momentary emotional experiences. This article is a product from the HEART workshop, which was convened to develop a consensus document describing research on emotion perception relevant for hearing research. The goal of the article is to increase awareness about emotion perception research in audiology and to stimulate additional research on the topic. The working group identified two general categories of emotion perception: (a) interindividual perception, which includes skills such as emotion recognition and identification and (b) intraindividual perception, which includes emotional responses to stimuli. Hearing abilities have been implicated in both types of emotion perception, although different auditory abilities have been related to each type of perception. Interventions that improve pitch perception and spectral resolution would be expected to improve interindividual emotion perception, whereas improving audibility without excessive loudness might be expected to improve intraindividual emotion perception. Training and counseling interventions hold promise for improving both types of emotion perception, although, similar to technological interventions, more work is necessary before specific interventions can be recommended for clinical practice. Despite its infancy, the study of emotion perception has important implications for hearing science, with the potential to improve clinical outcomes by considering emotional experiences.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests {#sec45-2331216518803215}
====================================
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding {#sec46-2331216518803215}
=======
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The workshop and the associated article were funded by Sonova AG.
|
Money Mondays: Even pups get paid!
Heather van Nest took a closer look at different groups that help abused, neglected and abandoned animals, and to no surprise, was able to find unclaimed cash!
http://www.wtsp.com/video/2303646288001/53153651001/Money-Mondays-Even-pups-get-paidhttp://bcdownload.gannett.edgesuite.net/wtsp/35087134001/35087134001_2303651048001_th-516cc76be4b02d0eb55e9161-1592194021001.jpg?pubId=35087134001Money Mondays: Even pups get paid!Heather van Nest took a closer look at different groups that help abused, neglected and abandoned animals, and to no surprise, was able to find unclaimed cash!
AnimalsAnimal Rescuetaylor katzflorida dashund rescueTampaNewsunclaimed cashmoney mondayPetsHeather Van NestmoneywtsplocalGood News01:59 |
Self defense is a common legal defense in an assault case. People who have been charged with assault in New York State for simply defending themselves during an altercation can assert self-defense in an effort to have assault charges reduced or dismissed.
When the accused raises self defense against assault charges, it is up to the criminal defense attorney to show that the use of force was justified. The District Attorney, however, still has the burden of proof in trying to show that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Also known as “justification”, the law of self-defense is complicated.Self-defense involving the use of physical force
New York criminal defense law states that a person may use non-deadly physical force on someone when he or she reasonably believes it to be necessary to defend themselves or another from what is believed to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by another person, unless:
The victim’s conduct was provoked by the defendant with intent to cause physical injury to another person; or
The defendant was the initial aggressor; except that in such case the use of physical force is nevertheless justifiable if the defendant has withdrawn from the encounter and effectively communicated such withdrawal to the other person who persists in continuing the incident by the use or threatened use of unlawful physical force; or
The physical force involved is the product of a combat by agreement, not specifically authorized by law.
Self-defense involving the use of deadly physical force
According to New York criminal law, a person may not use deadly physical force upon another person unless:
The defendant reasonably believes that the other person is using or is about to use deadly physical force. Even in such case, however, the defendant may not use deadly physical force if he or she knows that with complete personal safety, to oneself and others, he or she may avoid the situation by retreating. The defendant does not need to retreat if he or she is:
in his or her dwelling and not the initial aggressor; or
a police officer or peace officer, or a person assisting a police officer or a peace officer at the officer’s direction; or
under the reasonable belief that the other person is committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping, forcible rape, forcible criminal sexual act or robbery; or
under the reasonable belief that the other person is committing or attempting to commit a burglary, and the circumstances are such that the use of deadly physical force as authorized by law.
A person who has been charged with assault should immediately contact an attorney to seek legal advice on how to proceed. Robert S. Gershon has over two decades of experience successfully representing clients who have found themselves in this unfortunate situation. |
Three pregnant women detained in a California jail say they lost their babies due to substandard medical care — with one claiming prison guards stopped at Starbucks on the way to the hospital.
In a recent update to a sweeping class-action lawsuit that alleged widespread abuse at an Orange County lock-up, the women say all three infant deaths might have been avoided if they were given the proper care.
Sandra Quinones, one of the plaintiffs, says she had been in custody for about six months when her water broke in 2016, according to KNBC. She hit the call button to ask for help, but jail deputies didn’t drive her to the hospital until more than two hours had passed.
On the way, Quinones alleges the guards pulled the car over at a local Starbucks to get coffee. Later, her baby died at the hospital.
A second plaintiff, Ciera Stoetling, says she started having contractions in May 2018, and informed a jail nurse. However, the nurse told her there wasn’t enough staff to take her to the hospital, and she would have to wait two more days.
Stoetling gave birth inside the jail, and the baby later died. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office concluded the death was natural, and the jail would not be at fault. In their report, they noted that Stoetling had been smoking methamphetamine while 23 weeks pregnant, and was a daily marijuana smoker, according to KNBC.
The third and most recent case cites an unnamed woman who says she was denied medical care in late July, when her baby had died at 27 weeks. She had been booked just days earlier on two misdemeanors, according to a press release.
The local sheriff’s office denied all of the allegations in a statement to the Orange County Register, saying the allegations are “rooted in a perspective that is anti-incarceration.”
The women are just three of many plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was originally filed in April and documented a number of abuses inside the jail. The allegations included the wrongful monitoring and recording of private phone calls with attorneys, denial of religious services and reports of inmates being held in solitary confinement for years. |
Q:
How can I set the size of the child form base from the free space of the mdi container form in C#?
My problem is that I want the child form to occupy the free space of the MDI container
Here's the code I tried
In my MDI container form load event I have this line of code calling the child form
childform = new ppt.MyChildForm();
childform.MdiParent = this;
childform.Size = childform.MdiParent.ClientSize;
childform.Show();
But what happen is that I think the child form is larger than its parent because it contains a scrollbar how can I fix this?
A:
If AutoSize property is set to true, changing of Size has no effect.
A better practice is to set the Dock property of the child form to DockStyle.Fill. It will always fill the entire client size of its parent, so you have not to worry about parent resizing.
|
Added ability to load data from NMEA log fileAdded ability to filter out NMEA loggins to a more reasonable polling intervalOutput points are colored based comparisys between driven speed and speedlimit
Fixed issue with NMEA parsing on western hemisphereFixed issue with NMEA parsing where interval filter was not properly filtering if there was no valid input within the interval (for example a long time no input when you drive threw a tunnel)Added small black line for visualizing the heading of input points, currently only visualize the selected input point
I added a new function to the test client: "Route sanity check". This function is useful if you want to send xMapmatch results to xRoute and you signal as such a high interval that you cannot use HistoryConsideration (aka global matching). if you do not have HistoryConsideration the chances of xMapmatch picking the wrong result will increase. "Route sanity check" will evaluate the map match result and only send points it is fairly certain of that they are OK to xRoute for a route calculation. |
Q:
Using jQuery .load() with aspx
So I'm fairly new to the .NET framework, but what I'm trying to do is execute the following jQuery code:
$(document).on('click', 'a[data-link]', function () {
var $this = $(this);
url = $this.data('link');
$("#imagePreview").load("imageProcess.aspx?"+url);
where url holds something like "model=2k01&type=black&category=variable".
Unfortunately this doesn't work, becuase when I do something as simple as a Response.Write() in the aspx file, the div tag imagePreview doesn't do anything. However, removing the ? + url part works, but then I can't send any data over to the aspx file. I'm doing it this way because every link a[data-link] has different data that's being sent over, and I need to find a dynamic way to achieve this. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
UPDATE:
Here is the part in my html code that is generating the url stuff:
<a class='modelsBlue' href = '#' data-link='model=" + $(this).find('model').text() + "&type=" + category + "'>" + $(this).find("model").text() + "</a>
and #image preview is in my code as:
<div id = "imagePreview"></div>
When I try to run the code above, i get the following error which seems to be coming from the jQuery.js file:
Microsoft JScript runtime error: Syntax error, unrecognized expression: &type=AutoEarly
Here is the imageProcess.aspx.cs file, which right now is just outputting all images in the directory:
namespace ModelMonitoring
{
public partial class imageProcess : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Response.Write("test");
foreach (var f in Directory.GetFiles(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()))
{
Response.Write(f);
Response.Write("<br />");
}
}
}
}
SECOND UPDATE:
I don't get the error running in chrome or firefox, but the files are not being output.
A:
Turns out it was a whitespace issue. I had to add a wrapper around:
$(this).find('model').text()
to read:
$.trim($(this).find('model').text())
becuase the xml file I was reading from had whitespace around the model name. Thanks to anyone who replied!
|
The Arizona Cardinals and the Chicago Bears asked the Denver Broncos for permission to interview offensive coordinator Mike McCoy for their respective head coaching openings, and ESPN's Adam Schefter reports that both teams have received permission to speak with McCoy.
He is expected to meet with the teams this weekend.
The Cardinals fired head coach Ken Whisenhunt earlier Monday after the team lost 11 of its last 12 games, and the Bears relieved coach Lovie Smith of his duties after Chicago similarly struggled after a 7-1 start to the season.
McCoy's name as an NFL head coach has been gaining steam in the past few seasons. The 40-year-old arrived in Denver in 2009 and was responsible for an AFC West title last year thanks to an offense molded to help then-Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. This year, it's been McCoy's adjustment to quarterback Peyton Manning that led Denver to a No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.
Before joining Denver, McCoy got his start in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers in 2000 and worked his way from an offensive assistant to eventually becoming the passing game coordinator. |
Cast and Crew
Director
Screenwriter
Main Cast
Additional Cast
Tracy Vilar
Gabriel Suttle
David Bloom
Synopsis
Ali gets upset when she learns that Louis has a key to Joe's apartment and she does not. Joe thinks he might be moving to quickly by giving Ali a key so soon, but Louis convinces him to dive into the next phase of his relationship and do it. Joe smoothes things over with Ali, but then she has the locks changed so Louis can no longer come and go as he pleases. Louis is very upset at first, but Ali and Joe eventually convince him that this is a necessary step in Joe and Louis' relationship. Meanwhile, Louis pretends to be a vegan to support Wyatt, so he entrusts his box of meat and vodka to Joe. Later, Wyatt reveals to Joe that he knew Louis was lying all along, but he wants to build up brownie points. |
Tag Archives: Astrophotography
I don’t do very much with astrophotography, but I thought I’d give it a try with the triple conjunction yesterday evening. Venus is on the left, Mars is above it and slightly to the right, the crescent Moon is on the right, partially illuminated by earthshine. |
How to Elevate the Customer Experience
"Why She Buys" author and CEO of a consulting and sales training firm focused on women consumers, Bridget Brennan says successful organizations are adept at powering human connections with the convenience technology provides — and that goes for live events.
Going to the movies used to mean deciding what film you wanted to see and picking a cinema. Today, moviegoers can also choose their seat location, whether they want a private nested chair for couples, and can even select dinner entrees and drinks to go with their rom-com. That’s an elevated customer experience — and the topic Bridget Brennan will explore as it relates to business events and other industries in her keynote presentation on June 13 at PCMA’s Education Conference in Cleveland.
“We are seeing how there are all sorts of innovative, transformational things happening in the world of customer experiences, and I am going to be bringing these best-in-class examples to bear in my presentation at the conference,” said Brennan, author of the best-selling Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World’s Most Powerful Consumers” and CEO of the Chicago-based Female Factor consulting firm devoted exclusively to female consumers.
Brennan, who is currently at work on a book focusing on customer experiences, said that she has found that the power of human-centered customer engagement “is underestimated and under leveraged. Great experiences are still remarkable and people want to have them,” she said, adding that that is particularly true in the digital age.
A way to think about it, Brennan said, is an experience that most people are familiar with — like that example of going to the movies at a high-end theater. “You’re still seeing a movie,” she said. “The product is still the main product, but the experience around it is evolving to differentiate from what happens when you’re watching a movie in your living room. It’s a really interesting example of what it means to be transforming the customer experience — keeping the fundamentals but evolving to stay relevant in our modern age.”
GETTING EMOTIONAL AND TECHY
Brennan also plans to discuss motivators for driving emotional engagement and how those relate to the business of conventions and meeting planning. Emotionally engaging experiences, she said, help any business stand out. To win, businesses must take the best of the visceral connections made in a human-to-human environment but power them with the convenience that today’s technology provides.
Live events provide an ideal example. “If you go out to a big music festival, yes, you are in the mud and you’re engaging with other people and you’re sharing this incredible experience,” Brennan said. “But you expect there to be really good Wi-Fi. Because you want to take a picture of it and put it on Instagram and show everybody what you’re doing. So [for businesses] it’s sort of being able to fire on both cylinders. That’s what’s so exciting. You go there and you get the special experience, but when [a business is] able to meet the new standards that almost everyone has for customer engagement from a convenience perspective, that’s when you can really set yourself apart.”
That convenience perspective is driving customer decision-making. One of today’s macro trends, she said, is called “double duty, half the time.” This has to do with the blurred lines between work and home life, “and the time compression,” she said, that comes from that.
The fact that so many people are challenged by time constraints has spurred the “convenience revolution,” Brennan said, giving rise to app-based businesses like Uber. “A lot of these app-based businesses that have really caught fire in the past decade are very service oriented,” she said, “instead of product oriented. These new experiences are solving for a lot of inconveniences that have always been there that we never really thought about much.”
So while customers may not have previously given much thought to how to get shared rides on demand or doing grocery shopping via an app, they’ve now come to expect such conveniences. And as conditioned consumers of convenience, participants approach their event experience with the same mindset.
“People’s expectations don’t really change across categories,” Brennan said. “So, if you have a really seamless, wonderful experience ordering a pizza [online], that might impact the way that you view buying financial services. We are applying new benchmarks across all sectors.”
WHY FOCUS ON WOMEN CONSUMERS?
Key to any discussion on customer experience is the role of women’s economic power and how to meet and exceed the needs of women as decision-makers, Brennan said.
“Women are typically driving 70 percent-plus of all consumer buying decisions, with a combination of their buying power and influence,” Brennan said. “And that’s because women don’t just buy for themselves. They’re out in the marketplace buying for, or making decisions for, their kids if they have them, spouses and partners, their elderly parents, their in-laws, their businesses, and it’s in this capacity that women drive so much consumer purchasing.”
As such, Brennan called women “the gateway to all other consumers.” And because they have “very high expectations of service experiences,” she said, “when you meet or exceed women’s expectations, you’re actually making all of your customers happy.”
Bridget Brennan will be closing General Session speaker at PCMA Education Conference 2018, being held in Cleveland on June 10–13. For more information, visit pcmaeducon.org. |
Can't quite commit: rumination and uncertainty.
Why do some individuals persist in self-destructive rumination? Two studies investigated the relation between a ruminative response style and the reluctance to initiate instrumental behavior. In Study 1, ruminators were compared to nonruminators regarding their evaluation of a self-generated plan to revise their university housing system and, in Study 2, concerning their plan to redesign the undergraduate curriculum. In both studies, on relevant composite measures, ruminators expressed less satisfaction and confidence with regard to their plans than did nonruminators. They were also less likely to commit to the plans they generated. The findings suggest that in addition to its documented detrimental effects on thinking and problem solving, self-focused rumination may inhibit instrumental behavior by increasing uncertainty, resulting in further rumination and behavioral paralysis. |
List of members of the Connecticut General Assembly from Norwalk
This is a list of members of the Connecticut General Assembly from Norwalk, Connecticut since the founding of the settlement in 1651 to the present.
Seventeenth century
Eighteenth century
Nineteenth century
Twentieth century
Creation of districts (1967)
The January 1967 regular session was the first in which its members were elected by district.
Twenty-first century
See also
Connecticut's 137th assembly district
Connecticut's 138th assembly district
Connecticut's 139th assembly district
Connecticut's 140th assembly district
Connecticut's 141st assembly district
Connecticut's 142nd assembly district
Connecticut's 145th assembly district
Connecticut's 12th Senate district
Connecticut's 25th Senate district
History of Norwalk, Connecticut
List of mayors of Norwalk, Connecticut
References
Category:Connecticut-related lists
Category:History of Norwalk, Connecticut
Norwalk |
Tekst Krant
Sport
'Als coach doe ik twee keer per week examen'
Ajax bracht hij naar een Europese finale, Bayer Leverkusen bereikte onder zijn leiding de Champions League. Peter Bosz (56) ziet veel overeenkomsten tussen betaald voetbal en bedrijfsleven. 'Maar de druk bij een club lijkt me groter. Zo zijn er veel meer tv-programma's over voetbal dan over ondernemen.' |
Potency of fragmented IgG: two studies of postexposure prophylaxis in type A hepatitis.
To determine the effect of fragmentation on potency of immune globulin preparations, two comparisons were carried out. In one study, the immune globulin was derived from American plasma; in the other, the source was Israeli plasma. In each of the two studies, three materials were given to household contacts of icteric hepatitis: (1) human albumin as a placebo; (2) immune globulin with the IgG intact; and (3) immune globulin of the same lot with the IgG deliberately fragmented by added fibrinolysin. Comparable reductions in secondary attack rates were achieved with fragmented and unfragmented materials from both lots. Fragmentation, therefore, had no deleterious effect. In addition, it was found that American globulin is comparable to Israeli globulin for protection against strains of Type A hepatitis prevalent in Israel. Administration in the second half (last 15 days) of the incubation period did not reduce the frequency of icteric disease. |
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Duluth-based Dads & Daughters founders Joe Kelly and Nancy Gruver were "shocked" to learn Monday evening that Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis is suing them over one of the nonprofit's programs, Kelly said Tuesday. Davis filed a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday that accused Kelly, Dads & Daughters [DADs] president, and Gruver, DADs executive director, of stealing her concept for a program called See Jane, which was intended to "research and become involved in advocacy related to the depictions of gender in children's media," according to court documents. In 2004, Davis b
A 109-year history of a U.S. naval base in Duluth will end on Sept. 9 when the Navy Operations Support Center will close for good. The center's six full-time staff, including commanding officers, are being transferred to naval bases across the United States and the 78 reservists, who drill at the base now, will be headquartered at the Minneapolis Naval Reserve Center. The Duluth base was targeted in 2005 by the federal base closure committee, but no formal closure date had been made public until now. The closure will be marked at 2 p.m.
WORTHINGTON -- The local winds were uncharacteristically mild for the 2003 United States Windsurfing National Championships in Worthington, but the windsurfing contenders and officials were blown away by the community's enthusiasm for their sport and hospitality. Thus, Worthington has been granted a chance to impress once again -- and for the winds to gust heartily across Lake Okabena -- as the host site for the 2008 National Championships.
BEMIDJI, Minn. -- Minnesota now facing two disasters, the likelihood of a special legislative session is nearly certain, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Saturday. "It would be helpful to have one, clearly focused in my view on any matters relating to the bridge and transportation issues that can be accommodated -- I'd really appreciate that," Pawlenty said in an interview. "Also we've got flood relief and flood issues in southeastern Minnesota," he said. The trigger for a special session came in the aftermath of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse Aug. 1 in Minneapolis.
WILLMAR -- Minnesota's agricultural legislative leaders want to hear from constituents about the impact of the summer's extreme weather on the agricultural economy and rural areas. The expectation is to gather the information in preparation for the potential fall special session of the Minnesota Legislature, according to Rep. Al Juhnke, DFL-Willmar. The state's attention has been toward the human toll after the Aug. 1 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge and the recent flooding in southeastern Minnesota. Rightfully so, Juhnke says, but meanwhile agriculture has been quietly suffering.
Minnesota State Fair-goers may scurry up 84 steps of the DNR fire tower to get a bird's eye view of the fairgrounds Aug. 23-Sept. 3, in Falcon Heights. Once back on the ground, individuals may attend the grand opening of the DNR Division of Forestry Fire Prevention Building. The log structure is located just northwest of the main DNR building. The red pine building will house a fire tower cab, which once served at Eagle head, east of Sandstone.
Construction of a median on Highway 61 north of the Hastings bridge will be delayed until early September so an inspection of the bridge can be completed first, according to Ken Johnson, the south metro area engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT). The inspection of the Hastings bridge is scheduled to start Aug. 20 and last approximately two weeks. Because of the inspection, traffic on the bridge will be reduced to one lane, Monday through Friday, from about 9 a.m.
CLONTARF -- It wasn't glamorous, but a new star in the crop fertilizer business made its debut Tuesday in a field of wheat stubble west of Clontarf. The ash-based fertilizer generated by the Fibrominn power plant was unveiled to crop input retailers by Cargill Ag Horizons and North American Fertilizer LLC. Cargill is marketing the product, called Nafgrow fertilizer, which will be produced by North American. North American is the fertilizer conditioning plant located next to the 55-megawatt Fibrominn power plant west of Benson.
Where can people visit an underground lake, take a pontoon boat ride on an open-pit mine, or sink into a 50-degree underground mine? The answer is at Minnesota State Parks. Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park in southeastern Minnesota boasts a new visitor center with displays and exhibits that provide insight into the geology and history of the cave," says Warren Netherton, cave specialist. A one-hour tour on paved level walkways reveals stalactites and stalagmites, and the underground Turquoise Lake.
MINNEAPOLIS --- A freeway bridge collapsed during bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic Wednesday night, killing at least seven people in what Minnesota's governor called "a catastrophe of historic proportion." At least 60 were hurt in the Minneapolis disaster, which sent cars and trucks into the Mississippi River. Minneapolis Mayor R.T. |
Skillz and Drillz with Ed ‘Senior’
Continuing with Ed’s look at Practical Shooting, his latest article is featured in the April edition of Shooting Sports. Handy tips on mag changes, loading, quick target acquisition and more when shooting long barrelled pistols.
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Chris Marper: Quite why I earned the nickname FMA, which actually stands for F#cking Marper Again, I don’t know. Apparently, when I post on our Facebook Page about the impending Zombie Apocalypse, buying an island to build our own shooting range, or just suggest that we invest in a machete in case we should get stuck in a jungle somewhere – the phrase “FMA” goes through my colleagues mind…
We use cookies instead of tracer bullets to ensure that we give you a real blast while you visit our website. If you continue to use this site we'll assume that you are ok with it and won't run for cover.I'm Cool |
Our extensive selection of specialized plastic fasteners, Nylon Screws and Nuts, Nylon Rivets and Clips, Washers, Spacers, PCB Supports, Insulating Bushes and Grommets, Cable-ties, Cable-tie Mounts and Clips, Cable Glands and Cord-grips is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
We also stock a large range of Hammond small enclosures manufactured from Plastic, Extruded Aluminium, and Die Cast Aluminium. The range includes all types and sizes, general purpose, miniature, multipurpose, instrument, handheld, watertight, flame retardant.
We have New Zealand’s largest ex-stock range of plastic caps and plugs available in threaded and non-threaded versions in a variety of sizes and materials including polyethylene and vinyl. Our threaded caps and plugs provide the ultimate protection for BSP/NPT and JIC/UNF fittings and ports. And for a lower-cost solution we stock a complete range of non-threaded caps & plugs.
For hi-temperature processes including powder-coating, our range of silicone caps & plugs and hi-temp tapes & discs are the solution. Suitable for temperatures up to 316ºC, we have standard hi-temp product in-stock and ready for delivery to cover the most demanding masking applications.
Be sure to look at our range of industrial components. These include extensive types of knobsHandles, Levers, Hand wheels, and adjustable feet.These are high quality well designed European manufactured items at reasonable prices. |
If you ask most hockey fans what the outcome will be of the Pens-Isles playoff series, you’ll get a variety of responses, and most end with the predictions of a very short series ending after 4 or 5 games. Most people cite Iginla, and Malkin, and Morrow, and Neal, and Letang and blah blah blah…
Here’s how this writer thinks it will go down.
John Tavares, who has had a Hart-worthy season, will be in the post season for the very first time in his young career. He and his Islander team mates have absolutely nothing to lose. And Tavares is looking forward to having the spotlight directly on him.
Nothing would please coach Jack Capuano’s upstart squad more than to take out the mighty Penguins.
Here’s the rub. The Pens acquired Jarome Iginla late in the season, and he might just become the new Ray Bourque. And then there’s the possibility of Sid Crosby coming back from injury. Then there’s all those other names that would be franchise players any place else in the league.
All those names cannot make up for the biggest question the Pens have, and that’s the guy in goal. Which Marc-Andre Fleury will show up this post season? Will it be the one that back stopped the Pens to a Stanley Cup in 2009? Or will it be the sieve that showed up in last season’s first round barn burning loss to the Philadelphia Flyers?
The guy in the net across from Fleury is no peach, either. Evgeni Nabokov has a lot to prove. The San Jose Sharks cast him off after years of post season failure following stellar regular season performances. No one expected Nabby to play as well as he has, and likewise, no expected the Isles to get into the post season. Will Nabokov continue his solid play, or will he live up to the futility of post-seasons long past.
Expect the Isles defense to push hard in front of Nabokov. But, how much will this young group, anchored by Mark Streit, Travis Hamonic, Lubomir Visnovsky, and Andrew McDonald, be able to stop the apparent onslaught of this high octane Pens forward corps?
Will the Pens intimidate these upstarts? As I said before, the Isles have nothing to lose, and Tavares could be a game changer. Look for Matt Moulson, Brad Boyes, and Josh Bailey to make meaningful contribution.
The aforementioned Streit is an interesting case, as he is playing for a contract. One has to wonder if his performance in this series won’t determine how long, and how rich, a contract he gets offered by the Isles.
These Penguins have a lot of the playoff spotlight, adding big names at the deadline to shore up their depth, and, as a result, had a lot of people planning another parade in Pittsburgh. Don’t etch the names into the cup, yet, boys and girls.
Even when Fleury folds like a cheap house of cards in a stiff wind (and he will), the Pens will still prevail in the end. But, rest assured, the Isles will give these Penguins a good scare before the end. Penguins in 7.
Here’s what some of our other writers think:
Mitch Tierney: Penguins in 4 – While it is nice to see the Isles making some progress they will be swept aside my a hungry Penguins team.
Ben Kerr: Pittsburgh in 5. The Pens are just too strong for the Islanders, and will take them out. We’ll give the Isles a game though.
Max Vasilyev: John Tavares has pulled the Islanders into the playoffs with an MVP type season, but he is only one man. Penguins in five.
(See what I mean?)
Schedule:
Wednesday, May 1 7:30 p.m. NY Islanders at Pittsburgh NBC Sports Network, TSN
Friday, May 3 7 p.m. NY Islanders at Pittsburgh NBC Sports Network, TSN
Sunday, May 5 Noon Pittsburgh at NY Islanders NBC, TSN
Tuesday, May 7 7 p.m. Pittsburgh at NY Islanders NBC Sports Network, TSN
*Thursday, May 9 7 p.m. NY Islanders at Pittsburgh TSN
*Saturday, May 11 TBD Pittsburgh at NY Islanders TSN
*Sunday, May 12 TBD NY Islanders at Pittsburgh TSN
Thanks for reading – as always feel free to leave comments below and follow me on twitter @BigMick99. Give the rest of the hockey department a follow while you’re at it – @lastwordBKerr, @IswearGaa and @LastWordOnNHL, and follow the site @lastwordonsport.
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Photo Credit: IslesPunkFan via photopin cc |
Particle repositioning maneuver for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is a common, most often self-limited, vestibular end organ disorder that in some cases may be quite disabling. Recent evidence suggests that some, if not most, cases result from free-floating posterior semicircular canal endolymph particles. We postulate that the particle repositioning maneuver displaces these particles from the posterior canal through the common crus into the utricle, where they no longer induce pathologic responses. Our report focuses on 38 consecutive patients treated with this simple bedside technique during a 10-month period. On follow-up, 26 patients (68.4%) were free of disease, 4 (10.5%) were significantly improved, 4(10.5%) remained unchanged, and 4(10.5%) were lost to follow-up. Of the 4 patients who remained unchanged, 2 underwent successful posterior semicircular canal occlusions. The direction of the nystagmus during the second stage of the maneuver appears important in predicting the efficacy, with reversal of nystagmus denoting a poor response. These findings provide additional insight into the pathophysiology of this disorder. |
The fire, burning in “thick debris,” was reported just after 7 a.m. in the 87000 block of Avenue 66. More than a dozen firefighters sent to the scene found one acre of green waste mulch piles ablaze, said April Newman of the Riverside County Fire Department.
Representatives from Riverside County Environmental Health and the Southern California Air Quality Management District also responded to deal with any potential public health risks that could arise from the fire, which had not been contained as of 10:15 a.m., Newman said. |
Moving
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Watching the sun setting over the Western Isles brings a sense of peace and great joy to the beholder.
Cultural
Generation upon generation of islanders growing up and being so proud of their Hebridean culture.
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Hotel Rooms
Duisdale House offers 18 bedrooms, which are beautifully furnished and offer a touch of luxury. Each one has period features and has been sympathetically refurbished to make the most of the building’s character.
Restaurant
Restaurant at The Duisdale. Skillfully created fine dining daily changing menu featuring the best ingredients the island has to offer. The Chart Room. A more informal approach but equally satisfying imaginative cuisine.
Winter Deals
Cosy up and take a break during winter at Duisdale House Hotel. We are offering special accommodation prices for anyone looking for the perfect winter break. Book your stay then discover the Isle of Skye.
Festive Deals
Enjoy a unique highland getaway at the chic and elegant Duisdale House Hotel on the Isle of Skye. Situated on the Sleat peninsula at the South tip of Skye, you will be rewarded with breathtaking views and peaceful, picturesque gardens at this luxurious, contemporary retreat.
Built in 1865 as a Hunting Lodge, Duisdale House was given a new lease of life when it was taken over by Anne Gracie and Ken Gunn, who have delivered an immaculate, stylish boutique hotel, where guests are offered the highest level of service to ensure a memorable stay. This is reflected in the awards won by the hotel, most recently Scotland’s Independent Hotel of the Year (Catering in Scotland Awards, 2015)
Dining at Duisdale is a must as the team of chef’s are dedicated to offering the best of island and Highland cuisine. You can chose to dine in our 2 AA rosette fine dining restaurant where you will enjoy innovative Scottish cooking at its best, or a more casual supper in the Chart Room.
Relaxation is a priority during your stay at Duisdale, with an outdoor hot tub available exclusively to residents. A range of activities are also available to inspire an action packed break. Day sailing trips on the hotel’s exclusive Yacht ‘Solus a Chuain’ will be an experience you will never forget. The exhilaration of the fresh highland sea air, spectacular scenery and wildlife sightings are complemented with a delicious champagne lunch aboard while set at anchor in a sheltered cove. In addition, you can book a round of golf or an afternoon’s Salmon fishing at our sister hotel, Skeabost House Hotel, further north on the island.
Weddings and romantic honeymoons are a specialty at Duisdale House Hotel. Whether it is an intimate ‘just for two’ wedding, or a large party with family and friends, we have bespoke wedding options that will make for the perfect day.
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Read all about Duisdale House in our Blog where you will learn what is happening in and around the hotel and the surrounding area. |
Ventricular volume growth after cardiac transplantation in infants and children.
Intermediate-term survival after pediatric cardiac transplantation continues to improve. However, little is known about cardiac function and especially ventricular growth in young patients after cardiac transplantation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate serially the hemodynamics, left ventricular (LV) volume, and ventricular function after cardiac transplantation in infants and children. Indications for cardiac transplantation were dilated cardiomyopathy (eight patients), hypoplastic left heart syndrome (six patients), and postoperative structural congenital heart disease (three patients). The age at time of transplant ranged from 7 days to 15 years (median, 3.5 years). The mean follow-up was 30.3 months (range, 13-46 months). Serial annual cardiac catheterizations were performed 1 year (17), 2 years (15), and 3 years (seven) after transplant. Measurements included right and left heart pressures, cardiac index, and LV volume and ejection fraction (Lange). Cumulative results (expressed as mean +/- SD) were pulmonary artery pressure, 14.9 +/- 3.2 mm Hg; LV end-diastolic pressure, 7.7 +/- 2.6 mm Hg; cardiac index, 3.5 +/- 0.52 l/min.m-2; and pulmonary vascular resistance, 2.02 +/- 0.76 units/m2. LV end-diastolic volume increased as patients grew, so that left ventricular end-diastolic volume remained 90 +/- 14% of that predicted for body surface area. The ejection fraction was 99 +/- 6% of that predicted. There was no evidence of chronic rejection by endomyocardial biopsy. No accelerated coronary artery atherosclerosis was identified. Serial studies in these young patients demonstrate normal hemodynamics and LV function after cardiac transplantation. Cardiac transplantation is associated with normal LV volume growth despite immunosuppression and denervation. |
Public Comments Compiled on Rebuilding Nicholas County Schools
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Consensus Building Institute (CBI) today release a compilation of public input received concerning the rebuilding of Nicholas County Schools. Input was received between March 29, 2018 and April 24, 2018 via email and in the form of public comment cards, index cards and sticky notes placed on posters at a public workshop held on April 12, 2018. All forms of public input have been provided to the mediation team (comprised of representatives of the West Virginia Board of Education and the Nicholas County Board of Education) for their review. |
Q:
Any point in subclassing UIButton to create a custom looking button?
I want to create a set of buttons that would work and feel very much like the Metro-style tiles that are available on Windows Phones. I would like to allow the user to tap them to access their underlying functionality (open a modal or something or that sort).
I'm concerned that subclassing UIButton will not get me there. I need square corners and dynamic content inside the tiles themselves. The posts I've found around SO seem to suggest that subclassing a UIButton would not be a good idea for several reasons and that I should instead use UIView. That reply is from 2010, and I have no idea if in the 2+ years since then there have been considerable changes to how one would achieve that effect. Most users these days will have iOS 5.1+ if not 6.0 soon.
Let's say I do go the UIView route. Should I implement UIResponder's touch events or should I instead go the UITapGestureRecognizer route? What's the better practice in 2012?
Thank you!
A:
I'd suggest subclassing from UIControl instead of UIButton. I've seen how those windows tiles look and work in some videos including flipping animations when content changes etc., and it would be easier to package that functionality into a Tile class or something similar than having to carry a modified UIButton everywhere, and doing it for every such instance you need to create.
The reason I'm suggesting to not subclass from UIButton is because it provides support for 1 image and 1 label. You seem to have multiple images and labels on all tiles, so you'll have to start managing your own subviews. Instead of working around the 1 label and image you get in a UIButton, it's cleaner to start from scratch with a UIControl and create your tiles.
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Tag Archives: pain killers
Migraine is a physical disease that can be due to many factors which makes any sort of treatment difficult to implement. Nevertheless, as it is very common we need to look at ways to make it manageable. Migraine can be … Continue reading →
Pain relief drugs may help when you’re in pain but are they really doing you any good? Although they help relieve your pain they don’t fix the underlying issue causing the pain, so the use of pain relief can turn into a long term, unnecessary addiction. Pain relief should be taken in the smallest amounts possible and for a short period of time. Continue reading → |
Sir,
We often encounter subarachnoid block failures in spite of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dripping at spinal needle\'s hub. Although rare anatomical abnormalities like spinal subdural hygroma should be considered, technique-related spinal failures technical are more common and can be easily corrected.
Anatomically, ligamentum flavum is Y-shaped structure bordering epidural space.\[[@ref1]\] Loss of resistance technique appreciates epidural space that does not always have CSF-filled subarachnoid space anteriorly \[[Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}\]. Due to gravity-related CSF-pooling in lumbar cistern, the dural sac\'s volume is largest at third and fourth lumbar interspaces in flexed sitting position.\[[@ref2]\] Due to fixity to stable conus medullaris, floating cauda equina roots have been shown to cluster anteriorly and medially (away from the posterior pool of CSF in lumbar cistern) in flexed body position.\[[@ref3][@ref4][@ref5]\]
{#F1}
If CSF is not flowing freely and is difficult or impossible to aspirate, it indicates Whitacre/Pencan^®^(pencil point tip) needle\'s small eyelet (and not Quincke needle\'s larger-sized "eyelet" with cutting tip) is in thick dural-arachnoid sidewall \[[Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}\]. To assess the location of the eyelet, the needle is rotated 90° counter-clockwise. If this rotation improves CSF flow/aspiration, the eyelet is in right sidewall and needle needs to be withdrawn a couple millimeters into the epidural space before re-directing just left to sidewall puncture. Alternatively, if 90° counter-clockwise rotation decreases or completely stops CSF flow/aspiration, the needle is in left sidewall and the re-directed dural puncture should be just right to sidewall puncture. The withdrawal of needle and re-insertion after redirection avoids delivery of anesthetic medications in the dural-arachnoid sidewall and ensures the injection of spinal anesthetics in the central CSF pool within the posterior half of lumbar cistern, away from peripherally-and-anteriorly seated cauda equina nerve roots within lumbar cistern in flexed-spine sitting position.
Similar technique can be employed during dural puncture with combined spinal epidural (CSE) needles set wherein after withdrawing the spinal needle, the epidural needle also needs to be withdrawn few millimeters out of the epidural space for re-insertion per calculated redirection (calculation elicited from sidewall-seated spinal needle\'s counter-clockwise rotation). Alternatively, if the spinal needle is atraumatically brushing dural-arachnoid sidewall during true "dry tap" CSE technique, the sidedness of sidewall (right or left) can only be judged by patients' paresthesias' lateralization and subsequently following the above-mentioned epidural needle\'s minimal withdrawal before calculated re-direction technique. If the patient does not complain lateralized paresthesias for true "dry tap" CSE technique, sidewall\'s sidedness cannot be judged and calculated re-direction technique cannot be employed.
In summary, irrespective of the theoretical risk for increased post-dural-puncture headache with two dural puncture holes (sidewall and center), the benefit of successful subarachnoid block with calculated re-directioning (vs. commonly performed random re-directioning involving n number of dural puncture holes) outweighs the risks of the subarachnoid space needle manipulations.
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[Acute hepatic porphyria and its neurological syndrome].
Certain of the hepatic porphyrias are classified as belonging to the acute hepatic prophyrias, namely acute intermittent porphyria (AIP), variegate porphyria (VP), hereditary coproporphyria (HCP) and ALA-dehydrase deficiency. The common feature of all acute hepatic porphyrias is the sudden onset of neurological symptoms. The whole syndrome consists of acute abdominal pain crises with autonomic dysfunction, global or focal central nervous system involvement and a predominantly motor polyneuropathy. Mono- or oligosymptomatic manifestations of acute porphyrias occur and are probably underestimated. The laboratory diagnosis of porphyria depends on the measurement of porphyrin precursors in urine, whereas the measurement of porphyrins in urine and feces is essential for evaluation of the porphyria type. Enzyme measurements are used to identify asymptomatic family members whose quantitative excretions of porphyrins are normal. At present the pathogenesis of neurological manifestations of acute porphyrias remains an unsettled question. The major hypotheses are discussed in this paper. The most important precipitating factor in acute hepatic porphyrias is drug ingestion. As many new drugs have not been in use for sufficiently long periods to assess their porphyrogenic activity, it is safer to avoid drugs in patients with porphyria. The most effective treatment of porphyria attacks is the administration of heme. Among the porphyria patients with epileptic seizures requiring antiepileptic medication, treatment with bromides should be taken into consideration. |
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477 F.2d 596
Baileyv.Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
72-3391
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Fifth Circuit
May 8, 1973
S.D.Tex., 474 F.2d 1344
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Studio edition Logger's Lunchbox! This is a special price just for our Kickstarter supporters. The final retail of the item will be $699. Plus, you will be the proud owner of one of our first run devices. These are no-compromise machines and will probably be the most rugged series we'll ever be able to produce. We'll throw in an awesome swag kit and an audio calibration device, too.
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Chonburi has outlawed the promotion of alcohol, beer or cigarettes at Songkran festival sites as the province bolsters efforts to reduce Thai New Year road carnage totals.
Gov. Khomsan Ekachai presided over an April 4 meeting with the Chonburi Accident Prevention and Reduction Center, urging all government agencies to assign workers to prepare campaigns to prevent and reduce accidents.
Police set up traffic check-points before Songkran in front of the Royal Garden Plaza.
Only 15 accidents – resulting in one death and 19 injuries – officially were reported in Chonburi during the 2013 Songkran. But each year brings hundreds of deaths across the kingdom as drunken revelers drive motorbikes and throw water at moving vehicles to celebrate Songkran. The government takes additional steps each year, such as banning alcohol sales at gas stations, but the death toll still remains embarrassingly high.
This year, Chonburi wants to promote a cleaner, safer holiday by preventing promotion or advertising of alcohol, beer or cigarettes in officially designated water-throwing zones and festivals. Legal action was promised against those breaking the ban.
In addition, Khomsan said, government agencies must inform employees to maintain discipline and adhere to traffic rules to set examples for the public.
In Pattaya, traffic Maj. Col. Jetsadawti Inthrapraphan said the city will run a campaign to enforce the wearing of helmets and avoidance of alcohol use while driving.
As was the case last year, however, fines and arrests will be curtailed, focusing more on education. Instead of jailing drunk drivers and other law breakers, police will impose probation terms coupled with community service. The reasoning behind the lowering of penalties is to decrease fear of authorities among the public, police said.
Drunk drives will be placed on probation for up to two years, performing up to 48 hours of public service and require check-ins with probation officers up to four times. Those caught by police will have to work in such places as the Poh Teck Tung Foundation, which assists victims of drunk drivers at Chulalongkorn Hospital and Police Hospital. |
Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a technique for analyzing a swing of a ball hitting tool.
Description of the Background Art
In sports using ball hitting tools such as a bat in baseball and a racket in tennis, capability of a player in swinging a ball hitting tool is an important index for gaining an advantage in a game or the like. Hence, it is expected that appropriate analysis on a swing of a player contributes to improvement in skill of the player as well as research and development of ball hitting tools.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2011-142927 discloses a bat selection system including a sensor bat and a data analysis device. The data analysis device receives input of a type of goal to be achieved by a batter, receives data transmitted from the sensor bat, and calculates kinematics information for a bat swing based on the received data. Based on the input type of goal to be achieved by the batter and an evaluation parameter for the swing of the batter calculated by analyzing the kinematics information, the data analysis device selects an optimal bat for the batter and displays the selected bat and information associated with the evaluation parameter.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2011-142927 describes a configuration in which a bat trajectory is calculated using data from a gyro sensor and an acceleration sensor. However, in the technique of Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2011-142927, measurement errors will be increased due to accumulation of drift errors and integral errors when continuously measuring data of the sensors for a long time. Thus, a bat trajectory cannot be precisely calculated, disadvantageously. In view of this, according to the technique of Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2011-142927, precision in bat trajectory may become gradually worse when the subject continuously swings for a plurality of times. |
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