Increased intracranial pressure and brain edema

Authors: Dietrich W, Erbguth F.

In primary and secondary brain diseases, increasing volumes of the three compartments of brain tissue, cerebrospinal fluid, or blood lead to a critical increase in intracranial pressure (ICP). A rising ICP is associated with typical clinical symptoms; however, during analgosedation it can only be detected by invasive ICP monitoring. Other neuromonitoring procedures are not as effective as ICP monitoring; they reflect the ICP changes and their complications by other metabolic and oxygenation parameters. The most relevant parameter for brain perfusion is cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP), which is calculated as the difference between the middle arterial pressure (MAP) and the ICP. A mixed body of evidence exists for the different ICP-reducing treatment measures, such as hyperventilation, hyperosmolar substances, hypothermia, glucocorticosteroids, CSF drainage, and decompressive surgery.

Valsalva manoeuver, intra-ocular pressure, cerebrospinal fluid pressure, optic disc topography: Beijing intracranial and intra-ocular pressure study

Authors: Zhang Z, Wang X, Jonas JB, Wang H, Zhang X, Peng X, Ritch R, Tian G, Yang D, Li L, Li J, Wang N.

PURPOSE: To assess whether a Valsalva manoeuver influences intra-ocular pressure (IOP), cerebrospinal fluid pressure (CSF-P) and, by a change in the trans-laminar cribrosa pressure difference, optic nerve head morphology.
METHODS: In the first part of the study, 20 neurological patients (study group 'A') underwent measurement of IOP and lumbar CSF-P measurement in a lying position before and during a Valsalva manoeuver. In the second study part, 20 healthy subjects (study group 'B') underwent ocular tonometry and confocal scanning laser tomography of the optic nerve head before and during a Valsalva manoeuver.
RESULTS: During the Valsalva manoeuver in study group 'A', the increase in CSF-P by 10.5 ± 2.7 mmHg was significantly (p < 0.001) higher than the increase in IOP by 1.9 ± 2.4 mmHg. The change in CSF-P was not significantly (p = 0.61) correlated with the change in IOP. During the Valsalva manoeuver in study group 'B', IOP increased by 4.5 ± 4.2 mmHg and optic cup volume (p < 0.001), cup/disc area ratio (p = 0.02), cup/disc diameter ratio (p = 0.03) and maximum optic cup depth (p = 0.01) significantly decreased, while neuroretinal rim volume (p = 0.005) and mean retinal nerve fibre layer thickness (p = 0.02) significantly increased.
CONCLUSIONS: The Valsalva manoeuver-associated short-term increase in CSF-P was significantly larger than a simultaneous short-term increase in IOP. It led to a Valsalva manoeuver-associated decrease or reversal of the trans-laminar cribrosa pressure difference, which was associated with a change in the three-dimensional optic nerve head morphology: optic cup-related parameters decreased and neuroretinal rim-related parameters enlarged. These findings may be of interest for the pathogenesis of glaucomatous optic neuropathy.

Short-duration hypothermia after ischemic stroke prevents delayed intracranial pressure rise

Authors: Murtha LA, McLeod DD, McCann SK, Pepperall D, Chung S, Levi CR, Calford MB, Spratt NJ.

BACKGROUND: Intracranial pressure elevation, peaking three to seven post-stroke is well recognized following large strokes. Data following small-moderate stroke are limited. Therapeutic hypothermia improves outcome after cardiac arrest, is strongly neuroprotective in experimental stroke, and is under clinical trial in stroke. Hypothermia lowers elevated intracranial pressure; however, rebound intracranial pressure elevation and neurological deterioration may occur during rewarming.
HYPOTHESES: (1) Intracranial pressure increases 24 h after moderate and small strokes. (2) Short-duration hypothermia-rewarming, instituted before intracranial pressure elevation, prevents this 24 h intracranial pressure elevation.

Authors: Ridha MA, Saindane AM, Bruce BB, Riggeal BD, Kelly LP, Newman NJ, Biousse V.

PURPOSE: To determine whether MRI signs suggesting elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) are preferentially found in patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) than in those with cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT).
METHODS: Among 240 patients who underwent standardized contrast-enhanced brain MRI/MRV at our institution between 9/2009 and 9/2011, 60 with abnormal imaging findings on MRV were included: 27 patients with definite IIH, 2 patients with presumed IIH, and 31 with definite CVT. Medical records were reviewed, and imaging studies were prospectively evaluated by the same neuroradiologist to assess for presence or absence of transverse sinus stenosis (TSS), site of CVT if present, posterior globe flattening, optic nerve sheath dilation/tortuosity, and the size/appearance of the sella turcica.
RESULTS: 29 IIH patients (28 women, 19 black, median-age 28, median-body mass index, 34) had bilateral TSS. 31 CVT patients (19 women, 13 black, median-age 46, median-BMI 29) had thrombosis of the sagittal (3), sigmoid (3), cavernous (1), unilateral transverse (7), or multiple (16) sinuses or cortical veins (1). Empty/partially-empty sellae were more common in IIH (3/29 and 24/29) than in CVT patients (1/31 and 19/31) (p<0.001). Flattening of the globes and dilation/tortuosity of the optic nerve sheaths were more common in IIH (20/29 and 18/29) than in CVT patients (13/31 and 5/31) (p<0.04).
CONCLUSION: Although abnormal imaging findings suggestive of raised ICP are more common in IIH, they are not specific for IIH and are found in patients with raised ICP from other causes such as CVT.

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The Best Cute and Funny Kids playroom Ideas

Kids playroom must be designed in special attention to the comfort and safety aspects of any furniture and materials in the room. This is done to maintain the safety of children while in the playroom. Because Children are very active, you need to use blunt furniture in the edges and sides to avoid the risk of a child will get hurt while nudging or touching the furniture. Blunt furniture design is also one of very popular interior design in this year. It is specifically designed for parents who care about the safety and comfort of their children. Combine the furniture with bright colors that suit the character of your child.

Make Kids Playroom as Comfortable as Possible.

Completeness and cleanliness are the factor that can increase the comfort of children in the playroom. Complete the playroom with a variety of toys preferred by your child. For the girls, complete their playroom with their favorite characters and toys. For example, you can provide Barbie, Hello Kitty, or Disney Princess characters. As for the boy, you can provide a variety of masculine toys such as toy cars, robots and various sports accessories. Put some cabinets and storage areas to accommodate all the toys. By providing this, playroom will keep clean and tidy.

The Benefit of Playroom for Children

There are so many reasons parents provide a special playroom for their children. The room is deliberately designed separate with children’s bedroom in a few considerations. Firstly, with a separate playroom, kids will be more comfortable and free to play and explore their imagination. Secondly, the toy will be stored neatly without mixed with other child’s stuffs. And lastly, the child’s bedroom will be kept clean and tidy because it is not mixed with a variety of toys that can bring dirt in the bedroom.


Saturday, October 25, 2014

Liszt's Dante Symphony

   Dante's Divine Comedy, as we have seen, made a tremendous impact on Western literature and solidified its position in the Western canon. It comes as no surprise, then, that the literary work spawned creations in other media as well. We've already discussed the paintings and drawings of Doré, Dali, et al., but we have yet to discuss in detail the music that the poem inspired. Two notable programmatic musical pieces (works that relate the story of the Comedy through music) include Franz Liszt's Dante Symphony (S. 109) and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini. Both can be argued to be fantasias (especially Francesca) because of their deviations from contemporary conventions (they were essentially symphonic hipsters), and the influence of Liszt's piece on Tchaikovsky's is evident in the similar portrayal of the Second Circle of Hell. Because Liszt's piece is more encompassing, I will discuss it:
   The Dante Symphony guides us through the Hell and Purgatory, but not Heaven. I think that this forces listeners to think about the idea of Heaven rather than have it be presented to them. Relating to Forms, Heaven is impossible for humans to accurately portray in any medium, be it speech, painting, music, etc. Liszt does, however, give the listener a taste of paradise at the end with the Magnificat. It is the only choral segment of the entire piece, and Liszt gave very specific instructions on hiding the choir from the audience's view to portray an angelic presence. Initially, Liszt had made the Magnificat even flashier than it already is to appease his mistress (she was a princess); however, his level-headed friend, Richard Wagner (should ring a bell or two... or three), talked some sense into him, telling him that the flashiness misrepresented Heaven. Now, on to the symphony itself:
   The symphony begins in lento with Liszt's portrayal of the Gates of Hell (0:00-0:35 in the video below). This introduction, along with much of the symphony, is written in D minor, which key Liszt, quite appropriately, associates with Death (please listen to Liszt's Totentanz, written also in D minor, it's a personal favorite of mine and is very suiting for Halloween. Further, the Dante Symphony includes a large amount of tonal ambiguity, unlike pieces such as Totentanz. This deviation seems to contribute to treachery of Hell.
   Soon--and indeed at varying times throughout the entirety of the Hell portion--the tempo accelerates, referencing the mounting terror and gravity of sin as Dante and Vergil descend. To demarcate the circles of Hell, Liszt uses a pronounced descent motif whenever Dante and Vergil are going deeper into Hell.
   When they reach the Second Circle (that of the lustful), Dante encounters Francesa da Rimini just a he does in the Inferno. To convey the image of the tempestuous winds that Dante describes, Liszt uses rapidly ascending and descending chromatic scales. Tchaikovsky mirrored this technique in his Francesca.
   Finally, the symphony is written in two movements (one of Hell, one of Purgatory) of ternary form. In ternary form, the composer introduces one segment, introduces a second one, and then returns to the (often augmented) first segment (called a recapitulation). This ABA structure mirrors the primary structure of the tercets in which Dante wrote his Comedy (aba bcb cdc ... rhyme scheme) and, by consequence, references the Trinity.
   Alright, no more rambling: here's Franz Liszt's Dante Symphony as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the conducting of Daniel Barenboim. Enjoy!

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Islam Aly

Marginalia 2

One-of-a-Kind. 3.2 x 4.3 x 1.3 "; 10 sections with four folios. Handmade dyed flax paper. Pochoir, two needle Coptic sewing. Leather-covered embossed Islamic binding.

Marginalia 2  is inspired from Arabic commentaries that were written in different books. These commentaries have a unique shape, and layout. It usually would contrast with the geometrical design of the page. The commentaries played an important role in the transmission and transformation of knowledge. I wanted to show the beauty of their calligraphy on the handmade flax paper. I choose different parts of these commentaries and started repeating them on the page.


How to Make Environment Friendly Buildings

How to Make Environment Friendly Buildings
How to Make Environment Friendly Buildings

In the next 15 years, 2 billion more people are expected to move to the world’s cities, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

[ Join: Environment Protection Movement of India ]

The Sustainable Buildings and Construction (SBC) Programme aims to foster a clearer understanding and appreciation of sustainable buildings among relevant stakeholders and to identify the knowledge, resources and incentives required to build, maintain and use them.

[ Why Insecurity Persists in India’s Food Security Act ]

The Programme is led by Finland’s Ministry of Environment, and co-led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Green Building Council (WGBC) and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Some 18 expert organizations, including UN Habitat, have been confirmed to participate in its Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee (MAC).

“In a world where more than a billion new homes are estimated to be needed by 2050, it is absolutely clear that sustainability should begin at home,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNEP.

The SBC Programme will focus on five key work areas. It will:

1. Establish, promote, and enable conditions for sustainable buildings and construction policies;

2. Support and promote sustainable housing;

3. Enhance sustainability in the building supply chain;

4. Reduce climate impact and strengthen climate resilience of the building and construction sector;

5. Enhance knowledge sharing, outreach and awareness raising.

The Programme is one of the six so far approved under the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, and is the fifth to be launched.

Programmes on consumer information, sustainable tourism including eco-tourism, sustainable public procurement, sustainable lifestyles and education have already been launched, while the sixth programme, on sustainable food systems, will be launched later this year.

The 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns (10YFP) is a global framework that enhances international cooperation to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns in developed and developing countries.

It provides capacity-building and technical and financial assistance to developing countries and economies in transition, and encourages innovation and cooperation among countries and stakeholders. UNEP serves as the Secretariat of the 10YFP and administers its Trust Fund.

Photo courtesy: UNEP

RMN News

Rakesh Raman


Category Archives: Best practices

Innovation Everywhere

InnovationIn a recent article by BCG, Casting a Wide Innovation Net, they explain how the best innovators gather ideas from a variety of sources, such as employee ideas, internal sources, and customer ideas. The cornerstone for maintaining this information are the software systems that can tie together disparate organizations and people while enforcing security.

Internal vs. External Innovation

Turnover by Industry

There is a lot of debate about the scope of innovation management, principally, whether it should include “external” participants or just “internal” participants.  So, are you missing something if you focus your innovation efforts inwardly?

There several good reasons for working only with internal people. First, it tends to be easier to manage innovation from internally-based sources because you know the work environment and control management, resources, rewards, and other organization-based factors.   Secondly, there is typically less junk, less quantity, more focused innovation, and better understanding of the total competitive environment.

There are also many good reasons for including external participants as well.  First, there is a significant amount of research that concludes  “outsiders” are better able to solve problems.  Second, the perception organizations become stagnant and aren’t capable of creativity unless new people/ideas are brought into the mix.  Let’s examine both of these reasons.

Outsiders Solve Problems better than Internal People

I don’t dispute that external people are better able to solve problems and inject creativity, however, even these “outsiders” have peripheral knowledge of the problems at hand.  That is, if you are trying to solve complex electrical engineering issues, then you will most likely have to include engineers.  While you have a very good chance of solving the problem by uninterested, distant people (i.e., a mechanical engineer who spent time with electrical engineers or an accountant who used to work at an engineering firm), they still have to grasp the nature of the problem.  Two pieces of research capture the essence of this thought:

  • At the Harvard Business School, Karim R. Lakhani created a process for “broadcasting” tough scientific challenges to outsiders.  They found that people with expertise on the margins of the challenge quickly offered tenable solutions; almost a third of the “unsolvable” challenges were solved.
  • It’s a time-tested phenomenon. In the book, See New Now: New Lenses for Leadership and Life, de Jaager and Ericson report, “A study of the top fifty game-changing innovations over a hundred-year period showed that nearly 80 percent of those innovations were sparked by someone whose primary expertise was outside the field in which the innovation breakthrough took place.”

Internal People are Stagnant

Another aspect of internal vs. external is the notion that long-term employees are not capable of coming up with new solutions because they are jaded on past experiences, i.e., “We already tried that”, and the problem overcoming the not-invented-here syndrome.  However, consider an organization with 10% turnover per year.  In five years, approximately 40% of the organization will be new.  There are new positions, new thoughts, information on competitors, new information on technologies, and so on.  So with this many new people, how much not-invented-here mentality will you really have?  You can have it, but management has to actively promote it.  Also, many long-term employees become disillusioned with management’s lack of follow-through, lack of resources, and low priority for innovation.  These are issues that are much easier to solve internally.

In conclusion, the difference between the results you’ll get from internally-based innovation versus externally-based innovation can be very similar.  If it’s not, then look to your management to instill a better innovative culture.

Apollo 13 Timed Challenges

Apollo 13 Command Module

Apollo 13 Command Module

The Timed Challenge uses:

  • Focused Problem Solving
  • Management Participation
  • Strategic Goals
  • Employee Engagement
  • Limited Resources, and
  • Time Constraints

to inspire creativity and innovation.  One of the most outstanding real-world examples of  Timed Challenges is the Apollo 13 event that turned a near-certain disaster into a spectacular save.  Apollo 13 had taken off from earth on its way to the moon with 3 astronauts on board.  Shortly after takeoff, there was an explosion that severely incapacitated the rocket and put the lives of the astronauts in jeopardy.  While there were many technical issues that were solved by Mission Control, one of the most critical was that the astronauts were running out of oxygen to breathe–their expired CO2 was not being removed and they were getting lethargic and hypoxic.  They was no question that they would die before they could return to earth.  To solve this issues, engineers had to use their limited resources (supplies available to the astronauts in the space capsule) to adapt equipment so that a “square filter would fit into a round filter” as quickly as possible.  Clearly it was a matter of life and death, and it required engineering experts in all fields to collaborate and engage.

Clearly it worked, and the astronauts made it safely back to earth.

There were many other innovations made during the entire flight that saved the crew.  It’s been over 45 years since this happened, but the methods and principles are just as applicable today.  Read the full story here.

2015 Innovation Best Practices Survey

An Innovation Best Practices survey conducted by MindMatters Technologies (republished in Forbes) reveals that a significant percentage of workers believe that their efforts are not sufficiently appreciated or managed within their organizations.

  • Three of four respondents (77%) said their ideas are poorly analyzed or reviewed by their companies,
  • Four of five people who took the survey (81%) said their firms do not have the resources needed to fully pursue the innovations and new ideas capable of keeping their companies ahead in the competitive global marketplace,
  • Half the respondents (55%) said their organizations treat intellectual property as a valuable resource,
  • One in seven (16%) believed their employers regarded its development as a mission-critical function,
  • Almost half (49%) believe they won’t receive any benefit or recognition for developing successful ideas.

One of the most outstanding results was the question, “Do you believe that there are adequate resources available to pursue new innovations and ideas in your organization?”, where over 80% answered negatively.  Unfortunately, this is typical in many organizations, and it is one of the leading reasons why I’ve seen innovation fail.   In the most extreme cases, it turns the entire innovation process upside down by forcing the innovators to justify (again) their ideas to someone who has to “make resources available.” It usually means that resources are taken away from another project and/or that the threshold for getting the resources is extremely high. If management is truly committed to innovation, then the innovation team is trusted with a “budget” to make resource allocations. We already know that not all innovations will be successful, and making an upfront resource commitment means that management is committed for the long term–a critical element of success.

Take a Break for Productivity

Creativity and Innovation

Walk your way to Creativity

Creativity and InnovationIn a recent Journal of Experimental Psychology article, Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz of Santa Clara University, the researchers looked at ways that walking could be used improve your creativity and thinking skills.  While there had been plenty of anecdotal evidence for such a correlation, there was never a thorough scientific study. What they were able to determine, was that people who walked, were more likely to be more creative than those who did not walk. They defined creativity as the number of ways that people come up with different uses for particular object, such as how you might use a tire. They compared this creativity, against normal mental capabilities, such as determining the answers to tests that required particular answers (as opposed to free thinking). They found that walking had no improvement over these “convergent thinking” tests versus “divergent thinking” tests.

During the course of their research, they were able to demonstrate an 81% increase in creativity associated with walking. And you’ll be in good company if you do the same–Aristotle Steve Jobs, and Nietzsche, all made walks part of their daily routine. Unfortunately, researchers were not able to come up with any reason why walking actually improved creativity, but they did empirically test it and determined it to be true. So, if you want to improve yourself, go for a walk–it’ll do you good.

Innovation in Recessions

thick_arrow_up_5575Successful innovation in recessions was examined in a Harvard Business Review article, Roaring Out of Recession, by Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria and Franz Wohlgezogen.  They looked at increases in sales and earnings during a recession, and the strategies that were employed.  The goal was to determine the best strategy during a recession.  The strategies were grouped into four general categories:

  1. Prevention-focused,
  2. Promotion-focused,
  3. Pragmatic, and
  4. Progressive organizations.

Prevention-focused organizations focus on cost cutting and avoiding losses–a purely defensive strategy.  Within this category, the authors examined two major subcategories:  employee reduction and organizational efficiency.  These types of organizations are risk-averse, and will “batten down the hatches” when a storm approaches.  As a general strategy, prevention is the worst, however, organizations that pursued organization efficiency (vs. employee reduction) were more successful in this category.

Promotion-focused organizations focus on building assets and marketing–a purely offensive strategy.  The thought is that during a downturn, by investing in your core assets and building your branding, you’ll hold onto your current customers and build new ones.  Compared with organizations that pursue the prevention-focused strategy, they tend to do better.   The authors divided this category into market building and asset building.  In general, building marketing worked more effectively than building assets.

Pragmatic organizations do everything.  The pursue both offensive and defensive strategies, in essence, throwing everything they have at the problem.  This strategy is significantly better than either defense or offense alone, but is still not the most optimal.  In this case, they don’t “fine tune” the amounts of each type of strategy, and waste resources.

Finally, there are the pragmatic organizations.  They too pursue both offensive and defensive strategies, however, they only pursue operational efficiencies (with respect to prevent-based methods), and pursue both marketing and asset/capital investment with respect to promotion-based methods.  With this strategy, the financial outcome compared with the next best method, as measured by sales improvement is nearly 40% greater, and the improvement with respect to earnings is nearly 160% greater.

So, the bottom line is you keep your employees, and make capital investments that improve operational efficiency and marketing development–two areas that are best addressed with innovation.  Your people are your best asset, again.

Best Leadership style for Innovation

A recent bit of research by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman in the Harvard Business Review looked at the types of leadership qualities most likely to spur employee engagement, or in other words which employees were the most happy/(or not) with their jobs. Generally, they grouped individual leaders as either Drivers or Enhancers. Specifically,

They drew on research from nearly 150,000 interviews (with approximately 30,000 leaders). Not surprisingly, employees believed that the leaders who were the best enhancers were considered to be the best at engaging employees. However, after carefully reviewing the survey results, they discovered that the leaders who had the best employee engagement scored highly in BOTH areas–as drivers and enhancers.

From an innovation perspective, this fits neatly with much of what I’ve seen in many organizations.  Leaders in innovation must get people to focus and stretch on important goals, while acting as role models and providing feedback.  The Challenge methodology provides a framework for building and maintaining this structure and helps guide organizations to innovation success.

Innovation Requires a Process

Innovation isn’t the only creative area where a process is beneficial.

I read an interesting post by Kevin Eikenberry on how creativity is more effectively enabled with a process. While I have long seen the poor results of organizations that fail to embrace any type of process/system for innovation, I never really considered the parallels in both writing and improvisation.  Since Kevin is a writer he speaks specifically to this element demonstrating how he uses a process to facilitate his writing, such as writing during a specific time of the day, collecting articles, and forcing associations using metaphors.  Another interesting comparison is improv.  I had originally thought that improv was based entirely on the actor’s skill.  Although these types of actors are very skilled, they also follow several rules and “practice” different types of exercises to hone their abilities.

It’s tempting to just start innovating by pulling a group of people together and brainstorming.  However, research and results have shown time and time again that the organizations that run innovation as a process are substantially more successful.

Innovation Project Funding

remove_riskOne of the most important factors in innovation is funding. Without it, your ideas are worthless, even the small ones. When people think of funding, they initially think money, and they’d be correct. However, money is only one form. Funding might be allowing someone time off of a project to complete an innovation, or providing them a team to divide up tasks. It’s also necessary to talk about funding from the very start of innovation. Whether it’s explicitly stated or not, your innovators will gauge their participation (or lack of participation) based on whether or not your organization has the ability to follow through on the innovations that are created–therefore funding is critical.

Once project have started, funding obviously continues to play a strong part.  While many organizations periodically rank and evaluate projects for either moving forward or abandoning, they typically look at a myriad of factors, such as marketing, manufacturing, and competition.  One way of categorizing all of your analysis factors is on the amount of risk that is removed.  Consider an entrepreneur and venture capitalist.   The venture capitalist invests in the company for the primary purpose of helping the entrepreneur remove risk.  For example, I’m given money to build a prototype to answer the question of “Can it be build quickly and inexpensively”.  When you are managing many projects, the best way to look at a go/no go decision is a) did the funding in the current stage remove risk (and did it remove enough risk) and b) is the funding for the next phase being used to reduce the next set of risks.  This is why venture capitalists are not interesting in “paying salary” they are interested in remove risks.  Try this the next time you evaluate a project.


U.S., South Korea begin military exercises as North ends armistice

(CNN) -- A new joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States began Monday amid heightened tensions across the region.

The latest exercises fall under the shadow of North Korea's army declaring invalid the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953, an article in Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, reported Monday.

With the declaration, Pyongyang made good on its threat to nullify the armistice.

North Korea previously warned it could carry out strikes against the United States and South Korea.

Military exercises a threat?

The United Nations Command notified the North Korean military on February 21 of the exercise dates, noting that Key Resolve is an annual joint exercise that is not related to current events on the Korean Peninsula.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed tougher sanctions against North Korea Thursday targeting the secretive nation's nuclear program, which followed successful missile and nuclear tests.


Measuring time.

Sometimes I have odd ways of judging how time passes. When I was a kid my family would take vacations that required long drives. At least once a trip my brother and I would ask how much longer, since actual time means little to a six-year-old we would be told time in shows or movies. We understood how long an episode of “Batman” or the movie “Cool Runnings” was and we knew by the time we were done watching we would be there.

The strange things things from childhood always stick. I often judge time in this odd way. I remember in college being asked how long it took me to complete a project, and I would give them the list of movies I watched while working on it. That was the first time I understood that this was not a normal time scale, but that has never stopped me from using it.

Over the past few months I have caught myself using odd ways to measure time and mark the passing days. Sometimes I try to remember how many bars of soap or tubes of toothpaste I have gone through. I have changed my toothbrush twice and am almost through another bottle of face wash. Somewhere around five months ago I lost count of how many boxes of tissues I have gone through. Over the past six months I have bought myself flowers around a dozen times and have managed to kill only one of my plants.

I don’t know if this is a healthy way to mark time passing, but it is how I have gotten used to watching it go by. There is no official list, and I could be off by quite a bit on my mental count, but it helps me to see that time moves forward. A bar of soap and a tube of toothpaste are being used slowly but surely just like I am getting better every day.

Time Machine.

Old friends.

I have always loved going to museums. They are one of my favorite places to reflect, see things from a different perspective and visit old friend. I always feel like I walk out of a museum in a better mood and a better person then I went in. I have so many wonderful memories wondering around and getting lost in painting hung halls.

magGrowing up I remember going to the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) with my family. There are some paintings or sculptures I stand in front of and it’s like I’m a kid again listening to my mom explain something. There is a painting of a woman cutting onions, a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, and how can I forget the mosaic upstairs. My mom would ask my brother and I what it was, and we couldn’t leave it until we came up with the name of it.

Going to such a familiar museum right now is perfect, I haven’t been to the MAG in far too long. Everything was in a slightly different place from how it used to be. It echoes the way I feel about things right now. I’m still me, more so than ever, but things feel slightly off and not where I expected them to be. Of course, as with life, in museums there are new things to explore and find comfort in.

Even with things moved around I still know what pieces I am drawn to, what ones I call friend. Wherever there is a Rodin, Monet, Degas, Rockwell, O’Keefe, Picaso and so many other favorite artists, I know I am among friends.

MAG2 .jpg

When things are hard, I think it is best to remember your roots. Take solace in the things that have always given you comfort, it is the best way to remember who you are and who you want to be.


Frequently Asked Questions

Why might we need two interpreters for this assignment?
Sign language interpreting is both mentally and physically demanding. In accordance with industry standards, certain assisngments i.e. legal, highly technical, lengthy, or fast-paced platform assignments, require more than one interpreter. Team interpreting increases the level of accuracy and decreases the likelihood that either interpreter will suffer a Cumulative Motion Injury (CMI). The most common injuries are to the wrist (carpal tunnel syndrome), the arm (tendonitis), the shoulder (bursitis), and the back.

Does the interpreter need any information in advance?

How do I utilize Interpreting Services?
Requests for services should be made in advance to ensure availability of interpreters. New Clients will need to create an account before scheduling services. Contact requests@GulfStatesInterpreting.com or call 850-296-9478. To check for interpreter availability or to schedule in advance contact scheduling@GulfStatesInterpreting.com or call 850-296-9478.

Are Services available in my area?
VRI Services are available to clients anywhere in the U.S. Gulf States provides on-site services in a variety of areas across the southeastern U.S. To check for interpreter availability or to schedule in advance contact scheduling@GulfStatesInterpreting.com or call 850-296-9478.

What situations are appropriate to use VRI?
Geographic areas that do not have sufficient, qualified interpreters
When immediate communications are needed i.e. on-demand walk-in or emergency services
One on one or small group meetings
Meetings or events where participants take turns speaking
Medical situations where the patient or family member who is deaf can clearly see the screen without straining or causing injury
In some situations, VRI is used only until a qualified, on-site interpreter arrives i.e. Law Enforcement, Emergency room

What's the difference between VRI and VRS?
Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) is a fee-based service for meetings and events where, typically, the interpreter is in a different location from the meeting participants.

Video Relay Services (VRS) is a free service mandated by federal law and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that allows a deaf person and a hearing person to communicate over a phone connection. The deaf person communicates in sign language with the Video Interpreter (VI) through an internet video connection.

What situations are not recommended for VRI?
To include, but not limited to, the following:
Situations that are sensitive in nature
Situations involving young children, those who use sign language other than ASL, or who use idiosyncratic language patterns.
Situations with participants with low vision or other secondary disabilities that may prevent them from properly using the remote interpreter.
Situations that require access to on site activities and speakers that cannot be accessed remotely.


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Fair Shares

Achievement Objectives:

Achievement Objective: NA1-1: Use a range of counting, grouping, and equal-sharing strategies with whole numbers and fractions.
AO elaboration and other teaching resources

Specific Learning Outcomes:

Find halves and quarters of sets, regions and objects by sharing.

Find simple fractions of regions.

Find fractions of sets by sharing.

Description of mathematics:

Number Framework Stages 3 and 4

Required Resource Materials:
Plastic glasses
Play dough
Paper circles
A length of paper
Sliced bread (to make sandwiches)
Paper bags of 20 cubes
Plastic jars (for example, peanut butter jars)
Plastic teddies

The students must come to know common vocabulary for fractions, particularly halves, thirds, quarters (fourths), fifths, and tenths.Initially, the emphasis is on unit fractions, like 1/2 and 1/4, that have one as the numerator. However, it is important to introduce non-unit fractions, like 3/4 and 2/5, when learning opportunities permit.

It is important to expose the students to both continuous models, such as lengths and regions, and discrete models, using sets of objects. A significant development for the students is to use their whole number strategies to anticipate the result of equal sharing. This is easier with halves and quarters than with thirds and fifths, as halving is linked to doubles addition and subtraction facts.

Using Materials

Problem: Show the students the length of paper and tell them that it is a strap of liquorice.“I have this big liquorice strap, and I’m going to cut it in half to share it between Tyler and Briar (two students from the group). I’m going to run my scissors along the strip, and Tyler and Briar will tell me when to stop.”

Run the scissors slowly along the strip until one student calls, “Stop.”

Cut the strip at that place and give the caller the passed over part and the other student the remainder.

Discuss whether the sharing has been fair (it may not be). Ask for other ways to cut the strip in half so that each half is the same length. Folding will be a likely reply. The two pieces can be placed beside or on top of each other to check that they are equal.

Record one-half using both words and the symbol, 1/2 . Discuss why the number two is the denominator. The denominator gives the number of equal parts that one (whole) is divided into.

Tell the students that you want them to find half of some other things.

Set up the following examples:

“Cut the blob of play dough in half.”

“Pour half of the water into one glass, leaving half in the other.” (Start with two glasses, one full of water.)

“Cut this pizza in half.” (Start with a paper circle.)

“Give half of these lollies to Tyler and the other half to Briar.” (Start with a bag of cubes.)

“Cut this sandwich in half.”

Let the students attempt the challenges in small groups. Discuss the ways they shared each item fairly.

Broaden the discussion by posing each of the previous challenges but requiring the students to partition into quarters. For example:

Put one-quarter of the water in each glass. (four plastic glasses)

Some students may discover that halving one-half gives one-quarter.

Record one-quarter using words and the symbol, ¼.

Using Imaging

Fill a plastic jar to the top with equal-sized plastic teddies. Count out the teddies to see how many the jar holds when full. Provide each group of students with a plastic jar, a thick rubber band, and one teddy. Tell them that they are to work out how far up the jar half of the teddies would come and mark where that level would be.

Putting the rubber band around the jar and sliding it up and down is a good way to show the level.

Discuss their predictions, looking for the use of number knowledge, like simple doubles, to estimate half of the teddies and for equalising in their prediction of the level.

The jar can be filled and the teddies shared into two equal sets, counted, and put into the jar to confirm the students’ predictions. Pose the same problem requiring quarters, thirds, or fifths to broaden the students’ knowledge of fractions. Note that finding thirds and fifths of shapes and lengths can be difficult as it involves concepts of angle, area, and volume. Students’ inability to equally share may be due to these factors rather than the fraction concept. Encourage students to work from part to whole, that is, given a fraction they have to recreate the whole. For example:

“This is one-quarter of a shape. “This is one-third of a set.

What is the shape?” How many objects are in the set?”

Using Number Properties

The students’ lack of strategies for division will limit their ability to apply numberproperties. Examples provided should include simple halving and quartering. For example: half of six (1/2 of 6), one-quarter of eight (1/4 of 8).


Archives for category: Cloud

Storage performance is core to application performance and data access.  When we talk about storage performance, we typically talk about IOPS and throughput, but there is a third variable, latency.  Latency measures the time it takes for storage to respond to a request or instruction issued by the CPU.    The lowest latency is achieved by delivering data from memory at the speed of memory.  The typical latency is at 1us.  If data could be delivered at such latency, we would have a highly efficient server architecture, but  there are a number of factors that prevent out ability to see latency at that level.

  • Application latency – the inherent architecture of the application may make it impossible to achieve microsecond latency.  Typical operations add to the overall latency.
  • Local file system – since DRAM is volatile, data that requires persistence must be committed to persistent media before an acknowledgement is returned.  The local file system is responsible for taking blocks off DRAM and copying them to other media on the I/O bus.  A common Linux file sytsem such as XFS or EXT4 add as much at 250us.  Even with the replacement of DRAM with NVDIMM (persistent memory), the latencies remain at minimum at 250us.  Though 250us may seem like nothing, in a typical database environment the reduction of 250us alone would increase IOPS and throughput per core by 350% and 410% respectively.
  • Network – When data travels over the network, whether it is FC or IP, there are added latencies.   Most all SSD/Flash arrays deliver performance at 1ms or more latency.  If SSD/Flash is sitting on the PCIe bus, that latency may be reduced to  a range between 500 and 800 microseconds.  Recently, a new protocol has been developed to allow shared storage (SAN) to deliver the same latency as storage on the PCIe.   This is the NVMe standard.
  • Drive media – Flash has a lower latency profile than HDD; it is not surprising since HDD is a mechanical device where the speed with which the platters spin correlates to the time it takes for the data to be pulled off the drive.  Flash is not a mechanical media and doesn’t have the same delays built in.

Of course we can’t leave out IOPS and throughput.  IOPS measures how many operations can be performed per second while throughput is how much data can be transferred through a given pipe.  Depending on the application, one of the other of these metrics will be more relevant.

For applications that stream data sequentially require more bandwidth and are therefore more concerned with throughput.  Thoughput may be calculated by the total bandwidth of the drives in a given system, the controllers, and the network.  Even if you have a system capable of delivering gigabytes of data, it still needs the network to carry the data.  There is often an imbalance between the network and system capabilities.  Recently a client expressed concern exemplifying this issue.  As a research institution there is a lot of data created by the labs and then processed by the investigators.  The challenge they are facing is that the amount of data being created and moved to a centralized location is much greater than what the network can handle.  As a result, they are unable to transfer data over the wire; some use tape or don’t move data at all.

IOPS  measures the number of operations a drive or a system can perform.  We have seen huge gains with the adoption of SSD/Flash.  Where a 15K RPM drive has the ability to deliver around 180 IOPS, a flash drive has the ability to deliver thousands of IOPS.  About 10-15 years ago storage administrators would be forced to over-provision capacity in order to get enough drives in a RAID set to deliver required number of IOPS.  As an example:  if your application needed 1 TB of data and 1,500 IOPS, using 15K drives at 300GB of capacity each an administrator would have to provision 4 drives to reach required capacity and 9 drives to reach the required IOPS.  Today,  capacity and IOPS can be balanced.

Not all applications require microsecond latency, thousands of IOPS and gigabytes of throughput, but with higher performance, when properly designed, the system can perform at a much higher level of efficiency, both operational and financial.  Next time we talk about performance, let’s make sure we are clear what performance we need.

The noise complicates the conversation.

I spend a lot of time talking to end users about their needs, what is working and what is not.  What surprises me often is the view they have of the cloud.  Cloud is cheaper, it is more agile, it is deployed instantly…..There is no argument that conceptually, using a public cloud is easier than provisioning servers on premise, though outsourcing an application to a SaaS provider is even easier.  And yet, there are gotchas in each scenario.  Here are a few things I learned recently:

  • SaaS providers today provide application availability SLAs, not data integrity or availability SLA.  This means that data loss or accidental anything has no affect on the service provider’s compliance with their promises.  In other words, if the data is that important to you, you need to back it up.  Seems like a simple concept, except that you don’t have a dedicated server or an application instance; this is a multi-tenant environment and there is nothing to put an agent on for a backup.
  • Putting data in the cloud seems like the safest place for it to be.  The cloud provider says so.  You pay $x per GB per month and the provider stores your data.  Data placed in the cloud is stored either in a RAID, mirroring, or erasure coded configuration within the chosen data center location.  If you used to replicate your data between sites so you have some business continuity or disaster recovery…well,  you don’t automatically get it with cloud.  The providers only store in a single location and if you want to have your data in a separate location, you have to pay a separate fee.  This means if you are paying $0.01/GB/Mo, which is about $120/TB/Year, only applies to one data center. If you want a second location, that will be an additional $120/TB/Year.
  • We love the idea that we can provision whatever resources we need, both compute and storage.  Sounds really good; I can provision what I want and need and it is available to me immediately unlike when I have to ask my IT folks to give me a virtual machine.  That is not exactly how it works.  Most cloud providers offer a variety of templates that can be selected.  These are machines that have been already designed with CPU, memory, cache, and storage.  If you need more of something and less of the other, you just have to use what is given to you.  At times, this means that your machines may be either over-provisioned in some areas or under-provisioned in others.  Though there is always a cost attached to each resource, it might be insignificant to the value the end user sees in the service.
  • We often look at other companies using cloud services and say to ourselves, well, if they are using it for all their IT needs, why shouldn’t I.  One common example is Netflix.  Here is a question to ask one self, what is my business model and what are the dependencies and drivers of my business.  This is a really important question because whether you can benefit economically and operationally from the cloud will depend on your business.  As an example:  if you are Netflix and you are providing a streaming service, you need to support as many streams as possible for a single asset for many different assets.  If we equate each stream is a user and each user presents a revenue amount, paying on the fly for more resources is covered by the value creation of such resources.  On the other hand, a less dynamic business like pharma or oil and gas conduct numerous studies that may become revenue producing over time.  Their investment must go as far as possible in order to contain investment costs.  The business driver for Netflix is agility; the business driver for oil and gas is cost containment. Speaking of costs, did you know that IaaS is not less expensive than infrastructure on premise?

It may not seem like I am a fan of cloud, but I am.  I remember back in 2000 when we were trying to figure out how to better utilize resources by sharing them across departments and even organizations.  We didn’t have the right technology then, but we are on our way to having it now.  What cloud really offers is the promise of even greater efficiency than just virtualization and with greater efficiency, lower cost and more productivity per dollar spent.  If we change the conversation from cloud first to what drives my business, then we can come up with an architecture that consists of on premise and cloud environments where the decision to use or the other will be based on what serves my needs in the most cost effective, relevant way.

My job requires me to be at the intersection of customer buying products and services and the industry creating and bringing to market technology.  I have found that there is a great disconnect between what the industry is hyping and what is really possible.

For a number of years now we have been touting the cloud as the answer to all our infrastructure aches and pains.  “If you go cloud, you will have more flexible, just what you need, less expensive services” the trade magazines and pundits claim.  The reality though is, “it depends”.

The concept of utility computing has been around for some time. Back in the boom there were a number of companies attempting to provide storage as a service, shared infrastructure, etc.  I actually worked for one of these companies, Genuity.  What really defines utility based services is the delivery of a service just in time and the payment for such service based on consumption.  That is how the electrical services work.  And if we all needed the same exact service varying only in the quantity of it, then we would be set, but application infrastructure doesn’t run that way. If you poll organizations that have standardized on VMware as an example.  They all may have and even run application such as MSSQL Server or MySQL or another common applications, but the demands of these applications on the infrastructure will be different in every situation.

When customers ask me about cloud or how to get there, usually because someone higher up has decided that cloud is the way to go, I first ask them what it means to them.  I then try to understand the drivers behind wanting to go to the cloud.  Here are some reasons that make sense:  spikes in demand, seasonal applications or projects, don’t want to manage my application, don’t have a secondary site for my backups or DR.  The most common way to embrace the cloud actually aligns with some of the traditional business concepts such as ‘focus on your core competency and outsource secondary services’.  This means if an application or service is not core to your organizations business objectives, then consider outsourcing it.  Best examples of this include email outsourcing (Office365, gmail, other email services), email archiving, CRM, telephony and conferencing, backups, and file sharing.  It also makes sense that if you need some resources for a short period of time, it is more likely to be cost effective to go to the cloud than to procure it in house.

Of course we should keep in mind that not all clouds are the same and that not all applications are the same.  The traditional enterprise applications are highly dependent on the underlying infrastructure to perform while newer cloud-centric applications have build much of those dependencies into the application it self.  This means that your Oracle db may not work well in EC2 but your MongoDB will have no issues.

Finally, if we are talking about utility we are talking about operational costs.  If the goal is to achieve OPex rather than CAPex, cloud is not the only answer.  There are traditional outsourcing offerings in the market that allow you to consume as an OPex, even if the infrastructure is dedicated to you.  There are specialty service providers that offer services for specific applications where the infrastructure is shared but the application is yours and yours alone.  At the bottom of all these options is operational leasing.

I am not saying that cloud is not great and that it is not reality.  What I am saying is that we have to be careful when we refer to cloud.  We need to qualify what we mean, what, expect.  The technology continues to evolve; there is a lot of innovation in the industry today and we are making great progress to making cloud more ubiquitous.  Part of it designing and building applications that run better on commodity infrastructure; part is enabling quality of service and custom service delivery in a multu-tenant environment.  If you think you want cloud, just make sure you have a clear idea of what that means to you.


Take the rain –

So I moved to Portland.

Surrender My Luv

There are ideas that are floating just outside of my consciousness.  I find myself trying to grasp them at least long enough so that they can take form in a way that I can understand.  Dancing outside on the fringes of what I know are concepts that I will soon embrace as truth.  The wisdom of the universe is sitting quietly waiting for me to open up and finally know that it has always been there, to remind me of what I have always known.  The universe is calmly and with love and gentle expectancy teasing my awareness to widen.  I don’t know if the pictures I am seeing are things that have already happened or if they are things I have yet to experience.  Then, as I write this I understand that it is both.  It is what I have done, am doing and will do all designed together into a beautiful picture of truth. I understand that all of this is the key to where I am going or who I am becoming.  And so it is clear that I am to surrender.  I am to surrender to the unknown that is already known.

Healing Is Personal

We all desire to have a healthy physical body, healthy mental outlook and healthy emotional experiences but how we get to that place is a very personal experience.

Why is it that even the most aware of us humans believe it is okay for us to tell others how they need to heal themselves?  It is always interesting to me when I am a member of such a conversation and I hear one human say to another, “This is how you heal and this is the only right way to do it.”  Even when someone has education, training or personal experience I always question it when they tell me that their way is the only option.

The truth is, as much as all sides are loath to admit it, people heal with western medical treatments AND people heal with eastern, energetic, holistic, herbal treatments.  The healing is personal and will always be based on the human’s body, human’s experience but the soul’s experience/desire/agreement will always take priority.  No one can heal someone else, ever.  They may hold the keys to help the other unlock their own healing if the client is willing but no one can “make” someone else heal if that someone is not in a place to allow it.  Question anyone who tells you otherwise.

Spiritual Chaos?

Sometimes you just need to lay on the floor and cry

I spent part of yesterday afternoon laying in the middle of my living room floor crying.  I mean really crying.  You know those sobs that rack your body and make you a snot machine?  Yup, that is what I did while my Tobey and the kittens sat there watching me.  Now, if you are reading this and you know me at all you have already seen me cry.  I cry when I am sad, angry, touched and happy.  If you don’t know me you probably never want to as I am sure that the earlier sentence has just scared you away.  Ha!  Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that crying is a natural part of being human, for me.  And, I embrace it for anyone and everyone who is interested!

See, I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to put up blocks when there is something I do not want to face or to do.  I can be VERY stubborn and sometimes it takes me breaking down in the middle of the living room floor in tears to finally let go and allow the inner guidance/higher self/divine wisdom come out.  As the voice of the Divine said to me  yesterday “You don’t need to let me in – you  need to let me out”.  These sessions are always clearing and cleansing for me.  I surrender and let go of how I think it should be and let myself be shown what can be.  Well, I saw it and it is beautiful.  I understand that my fear of being judged has kept me in a holding pattern of sorts.   As soon as I fear that I will be judged I am judging someone else.  It is amazing how it works out.  I love the paradox of life.

And so it is time to jump off of the cliff, again.  I know that I am already being held so the “jumping” is only in my experience of being human.  My spirit is already flying.


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  1. 1. 1.) In what ways does yourmagazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real magazines?
  2. 2. Masthead: The masthead is Similarities: the biggest text on the page which is used to clearly shows the name of the publication and to attract the audience to buy the magazine. In addition Prop: Both artists are wearing a the magazine has an image of prop, my artist is wearing a microphone which has a sunglasses which has reference to hip hop which reinforces to the target connotations of “coolness” which audience that this is a hip hop from my research proves what magazine. artists are stereotypical viewed as. The other artist as uses a prop, which is a religious crucifix. Image: The image shows who the magazine is revolved around and who is featured in the magazine. In addition both images us affects which is done to make the magazine stand out from the text and background in order for the target audience to see the artist which may then lure them into buying the magazine Background Colour: Both magazines use a backgroundColour scheme: Both magazines use the same colour colour to make the text around itscheme throughout which makes the magazine seems stand out more in order to catchmore professional which will lead to the target audience the target audiences eye whichhaving a positive view on the magazine. This may attract will lead to them reading the textthem to buy the magazine as psychologically them believe which may then lead the targetthey will be receiving the same high quality and audience into purchasing theprofessionalism in the features of the magazine. In addition, magazine.this will lead to the magazine having it’s own individualidentity which will separate them other magazine making itunique which will encourage the target audience to buy thismagazine now and in the future.
  3. 3. Pull quote: The professional magazine uses a convention called a pull quote, this is a something that an artist has said somewhere in the interview. A pull quote particularly in the hip hop magazine genre usually has something that is really unorthodox, the reason it has been put on the front cover as it is the only thing the audience can see and by seeing something unconventional they will be enticed to buy the magazine in order to see why the artist has said this. Header: The professional magazine uses a convention called a header. I have not used a header for numerous reason one being I had many cover lines and I also used a footer which gave the target audience plenty of information on what features are inside the magazine. Therefore there was no reasons for me to include a header in my magazine. Another reason was because it would take up a lot of space on my magazine and I would therefore have to make my surrounding conventions such as my cover lines, masthead and image smaller which would make my magazine seem amateurish and less professional which would repeal the target audience from wanting to buy the magazine. Barcode/ Price: The barcode must appear Camera shots: The camera shot of the on any magazine so that the retailer is able artists are different as my magazine to sell the magazine to the public. Issue/Website information: The uses a close whereas the professional professional magazine has a magazine uses a mid shot to show a The price must appear also appear on any large proportion of the artist. issue date which is used in nearly magazine so that the potential costume all professional magazines in knows how much the magazine is costs. order to show the audience that it is a recent magazine which will encourage them to buy theFooter: In my magazine I use a convention magazinecalled a footer located at the bottom of thepage. I decided to use a footer as I wanted togive the audience a greater insight into whatis in the magazine and the target audienceare likely to find at least one thing that isappealing which may persuade them to buy Differences:the magazine.
  4. 4. Similarities: Contents title: Both contents page have the title ‘Contents’ this is done to inform the reader that this is where he/she can go find topics Logo: Both magazines use a logo which is an that are in the magazine plus, it abbreviation or symbol of the masthead. I used also provides the page numbers in this because most music magazines have this order for them to find the topic. so I wanted to try and use as many conventions as I could in order to make my contents page appear professional which would therefore lead to a larger percentage of my target audience Reviews: Both magazines offer wanting to buy my magazine. the target audience reviews on the latest artists and albums. I decided to use this convention as it would lead the target Cover line: My contents page along with audience to believe they are the professional Q contents page both use getting the latest reviews of the cover lines. The example in both of these in hip hop genre, encouraging the text ‘FEATURE’ These shows the target them to buy the magazine. audience what topics are inside the magazine in order to persuade them to read them. Magazine Information: Both magazines offer the reader a website to visit in order to get more information on hip hop. I decided to useMain Image: Both contents pages use a this convention as it is present in mostimage of a music artist in order to attract the magazines so I wanted to make my magazinestarget audiences eye towards the page. The have the highest amount of professionalismimage of the artist is present of the contents possible as it would lead to more of my targetpage as conventionally it is of the artists audience wanting to purchase my magazine.which is the interview who is revolving.I chose this convention for many reasons,one being the colour of the image differedgreatly from the background colour and Colour scheme: Colour schemes are used in bothsurrounding text which caused the image to magazines as it makes the page stand out and thestand out from the page and appear more surrounding text becomes more visible. I decided to usevisible. Furthermore, the main image is an this convention as it found in most music magazines so Iimportant convention to have on the contents wanted to use as many traditional conventions aspage because from my research I discovered possible in order to make my magazine appearthat if a magazine has a well known it entices professional which would lure my target audience tothe reader to go to read. purchase the magazine
  5. 5. Differences: Barcode scanner: My magazines offers the reader a barcode scanner to access the website of my magazine. The reason why I decided to use this convention as it is present in nearly all music magazines, so by using it I thought it would make my magazine to look professional.Issue data: One difference between these twomagazines is that the Q contents page gives thereader the date and year in which the magazinewas issued in. I decided not to use this featureas I found it to be irrelevant and who notimprove my contents page is any way.Furthermore, I would had to adjust my wholecontents page in order for it to fit in which wouldbe time consuming and damage the image ofmy contents page.
  6. 6. Similarities: Text: Both double page spreads have text of what has occurred in the interview which is important as this is one of the attracts of a magazine and major cause for the target audience to buy the magazine.Pull quote: Both Double page spreads havea pull quote this provides the audience withsomething the artist has said, usually it issomething very controversial as it makesthe target audience want to know why theartist has said that and therefore the pullquote will lead to the target audiencewanting to buy the magazine. Main Image: Both of these double page spreads both share a main image. This is because the main image adds colour to the page, aids the surrounding text to stand out more and makes the page as a whole become more visually appealing.
  7. 7. Company publication name: The professional magazine mentions the name of the publication whereas with my one it does not. The reason I did not mention the name of my magazine was because I believe it was more important to have it on the front cover rather than the double page spread as the audience would know the name of the magazine before they look inside. However, I believe this is something I should have used but, I could not even if I chose to as I did not have the space and to find space would result in decreasing the size of the text and main image which was lead the quality of the magazine being tarnished along with the look of professionalism Differences:Colour: These two double page spreads differ as with mydouble page spread it uses different colours for the textregarding the interview. I chose to do this as it brightensthe text and makes it more eye catching and clearlydifferentiates the text spoke by the artist and theinterviewer. The professional double page spread uses thesmall colour for the text about the interview which is inblack. This makes the magazine seem dull and because itis one a light background it does the aid itself or thesurrounding text and images in becoming more visible
  8. 8. Text: The text was clearly the most important thing to have as a double page spreads purpose is to discuss an artist or band. My double page spread along with the professional one use the same font and size throughout as this assist the professional look which will lure my target audience to buy my magazine. Furthermore the text is spilt into different sections just like the professional magazine, this makes the text easier for the reader to see and understand and also improves the presentation of the double page spread which is a major factor target audiences look at when buying a magazine which I acquire from my questionnaire and focus group research. Similarities:Main Image: My double page spread along with Title: Both double page spreads use athe professional one both have a main image. title. This was important as it discussingThis was crucial to have as it would not seem right who the text is about and also mentionsto not have an image of the artist I am discussing which artist the magazine is choosing tobecause when I looked at professional magazine, talk about. This adds to the professionalin there double page spread there was always an look of my double page spread as all theimage of the artist they are discussing. professional double page spread IFurthermore, the image makes the page become analysed in my research had a title whichmore noticeable as if there was only text this could shows that my magazine is using theto the target audience not wanting to buy the conventions of real life magazines.magazine as it would look more like a newspaperrather than a magazine about their hobbies andinterests.
  9. 9. Differences: Text wrap: The professional double page spread uses a tool on In – Design to wrap the text around the image. I did not use this tool as I did not feel that it looked good and therefore decided not to do itColour: A difference between theses two double page spreads is that withmine I use a mixture of darker and whereas with the other image it usesa light image. The reason why I used a darker colour for my image isbecause it makes it stand out from the light background colour which iscream. The reason why I decided to use the colour black for my text isbecause it makes with the image and colour of the title which keeps to thecolour scheme making the page look more professional. Furthermore , itmakes the text and image stand out and appear more presentable whichwill lead to the target audience wanting to purchase my magazine.
  10. 10. 2.) How does your media productrepresent particular social groups? My magazine represents social groups through: • Race • Gender • Age •Social class.
  11. 11. Age:Age is presented in my magazines as the image is of a artist ages of 16-19, this means thatonly young people who fit into this age category are eligible to read this magazine or listen tothe hip hop. This therefore disregards and other aged audiences such as elderly or middleaged people are to read the magazine. Furthermore, another way which age is presented isthat the hip hop artists are aged 28-35 year olds.This leads to the stereotypical view that only people within this age can be hip hop artists, soby using a young hip hop artist it challenges the ideology and emphasises that anyone nomatter what age can be hip hop artists.
  12. 12. Race:Race is presented in my music magazine as on my front cover I have a close up of a white artists. Frommy research on my chosen genre which is hip hop, I came to learn that hip hop was created by theAfrican American black community and even in the present day it is seen as a predominantly black artform. However, there are some white hip hop artists and by using a white artist I am breaking thestereotypical view that only black people are hip hop artists. Which is presenting the people with whiteethnicity to have the rights to listen and perform in hip hop as black people. Furthermore because I amnot using a stereotypical black artist as many other professional magazines do, I am showing my targetaudience that this is a magazine for people of all colours therefore making it more appealing to the hiphop and other audiences leading to the public wanting to buy my magazine.
  13. 13. Gender:Gender is also represented as I use a male artist which is present on my front cover, contentspage and double page spread. Although hip hop is a genre shared by both male and female hiphop artists it is stereotypically viewed to only inhabited by male artists. So by using a male artist Iam contributing to the ideology that this is a genre whose artists are only male.Moreover, mise-en-scene is relevant when representing gender as the clothes used are hoodieswhich is mainly worn by males so therefore this is another indication that my magazine is targetedat male audiences. However, in my cover lines I do mention a few female hip hop artists whichemphasises that my magazine is not biased against females and that is represented both maleand female audiences.Furthermore the colours used also represent this magazine add the sense that it is only for malesas the colours used which are dark blue, black, red and green are masculine colours leading tomy magazine to be aimed at male audiences.
  14. 14. Social Class:Social class in presented in my magazine through mise-en-scene by the clothes that my artist iswearing. Hoodies are stereotypical viewed to be for people of a low class such as C2, D and E,therefore this leads to the stereotypical ideology that this magazine and the hip hop genre itselfis only for lower class individual. Another way the clothes represent social class is the hats my artist is wearing called a snapback. This is a very popular piece of clothing worn by hip hop artists and fans however,stereotypes have emerged with lead to this type of hat being associated with the lower andworking class background and also hip hop. Therefore, this reflects the target audience, fansand artists of hip hop to be of a low social class.
  15. 15. 3.) What kind of media institution might distribute your media productThe media institution that might distribute my media product is HarrisPublications. The reason why Harris Publications might distribute my magazine isBecause it is the genre that they have experienced in as they have publisherMany magazines in this genre with is hip hop. Some hip hop magazines whichIt is publishes are:• King magazine• Scratch magazine• XXL magazine
  16. 16. Why might Harris Publications might distribute my magazine:Harris publications might distribute my magazine as they have a publishers over75 magazines titles who have been in the publishing business since the 1950’s.Harris publications is an American publication company as mentioned publishesmagazines such as King, XXL and Scratch. These are very successful magazineswhich are attracts hundreds of millions of readers a year.As mentioned Harris publication as been publishing for 62 years. So from this it isclear they have a wide knowledge of how to attract their target audience to buytheir magazine. Plus, as mentioned they own King, XXL and Scratch which aresuccessfully hip hop magazines which is the same genre of my magazine so theywill therefore know how to distribute it to the target audience.Harris Publications already distributes hip hop music magazines so they wouldhave the knowledge and expertises to lure a wide and varied audience to buy theirmagazines. Plus, even though Harris Publications is extremely good at targetingthe hip hop target audience, it is also good at targeting other genres of music andother audiences as they had been previously publishing 20 years before thecreation of hip hop therefore, this is clear evidence that Harris publications canlure and appeal other target audiences to buy there magazines.
  17. 17. 4.) Who would the audience be for your magazine?My magazine focuses on the genre of hip hop which has a wide and varied audience ofdifferent ages, social class, gender ethnicity and psychographic profile.However, I needed to find the specific target audience for hip hop in order to make mymagazine appeal to them so they will be purchased to buy it. To do this I conductedqualitative research in the form of a focus group and quantitative research in the form of aquestionnaire. Age:I discovered that my target audience for my magazine would be males aged 11 – 20. Ireason why my the age my target audience would be in this is a popular genre for youngteenagers as they are the main fans for this genre. However the reason why early adults intheir 20’s would be my target audience is because some of the artists are there own age sothey feel they can relate to them and their current lives and problems. Social ClassThere are many different social classes who listen to hip hop and buy hip hop magazinesbut, from my research I discovered that these people are within the lower and middle class.The reason why some of my audience would be in the located in low class is because someartist discuss there problems living in poverty and how they turn turned their life from ‘ragsto riches’, this uses emotional manipulation to make the people within the lower class theyto can turn their lives around so they listen to hip hop and buy their magazines in the hopeof getting a better life. The demographics of my target audience would be located in GroupE which are students or Group D which are semi skilled manual workers.
  18. 18. Gender:Any gender may like hip hop and hip hop magazines however, I needed to find thegender that mostly buys hip hop magazines so that I could target my magazinetowards them so that they are lured to buy it. From my questionnaire I discoveredthat it is mainly males who buy hip hop magazines so when constructing mymagazine I made sure that I used conventions that attracted the male audience sothat they would be persuade to buy my magazine. Although males are targetaudience I also gathered information which was females also listen to hip hop andbuy hip hop magazines. So although my magazine did primarily aim at the maleaudience I did add a few female conventions to ensure that my magazine appeals tothe whole audience so that they too would be persuaded to buy the magazine alongwith the male audience. Ethnicity:Hip hop is presently one of the most popular and favoured music genres in the musicindustry which appeals to make people with different ethnicities however, from myresearch the main two ethnicities that listened to hip hop mostly were a audiencewho were either white or black. The reason why hip hop is popular with black peopleis because hip hop originated within the black community and hip hop is primarilybased with black hip hop artists therefore they can feel they can relate to them.However, in recent years there has been an include in white hip hop artists andtherefore, whites audiences have increased. So I therefore had to includeconventions that appeal to both black and white audiences.
  19. 19. Psychographic profiling:Another way my target audience was identified is through their psychographic profile, this is targetingthe audience directly through their needs and desires. After researching he age, gender, social classand ethnicity of my target audience it was fairly to find out what they wanted in a hip hop magazine as Iwas able to just ask them which made sure my results was correct and accurate.To find out what my target audience wanted in a magazine I conducted primarily research in the form ofa focus group where I asked various questions such as: ‘Why do you like hip hop? What conventions doyou like about hip hop magazines? What conventions do you dislike about magazines?’ Thesequestions gave me clear and specific answers which was easy to interpret so I therefore used thereinformation so that my magazine would be more appealing towards the whole target audience. The four Cs:I believe that my target audience can be classed as mainstreamers. Mainstreamers are audiences whoare concerned with stability and security, they want to buy well recognised bands. This is an importantaspect of my target audience as they will only want to buy renowned and well know magazines, thiswas important when I came to construct my own magazine as I would have to use the codes andconventions of other professional magazines to ensure that it appealed to mainstreamers so that theywould then buy my magazine.However my target audience could also be classed as aspires. Aspires are audiences who are seekingto improve themselves and their lives. My evidence of this is from my research I discovered that peoplelisten to hip hop as they wish to be like the artist and get everything else that follows such as fame,money and success. Therefore when constructing my magazine I wanted to some my target audiencehow successful my artist is in order to send out a message that they too can be like him, which ismisleading them encouraging them to buy the magazine.
  20. 20. 5.) How did you attract your audience:After conducting all my research it was information that I then used my researchfindings in a way that would attract my target audience to buy my hip hop magazine.One way I attract my audience was by using cover lines that had masculine colourssuch as red, blue, green and black. As my target audience mainly consists of males Ineeded to use colours that males generally like, so by using the colours they likedwhich I found from my research this will lure they towards the magazine and couldthen persuade them to buy the magazine.
  21. 21. The masthead ‘VOICE’ also attracts my target audience because from my focus group I discoveredthat some people listen to hip hop because it creates a voice for their problems. So by me having themasthead ‘VOICE’ it makes the target audience feel that the magazine can relate to them, thistechnique is called emotional manipulation and will persuade the target audience to buy themagazine. In addition the cover line ‘Latest news on artists’ makes the target audience feel they aregetting the most up-to-date news on their favourite artist, this will tempt will then tempt the targetaudience to buy my magazine.Another cover line that attracts my target audience is ‘Exclusive Interview: KANO’ The word exclusivecreates the impression that this interview can only be found in this magazine and also that themagazine is so good the artist only wanted to talk to this magazine, this will encourage the targetaudience to buy this magazine as the contents can only be found here and no where else. Moreover,if the name of famous and well known artist in on the front cover this will immediately catch the targetaudience’s eye as they will be familiar with seeing his name a lot, therefore this cover line will thenlead to the target audience taking an interest in my magazine and could possible lure them topurchase the magazine.
  22. 22. Another way I attracted my target audience is by mentioning artists they like and know in mycover lines, which I found out from my focus group and questionnaire. If they see artists they likethey will be encourage to take interest in my magazine and may lead to them buying mymagazine. I also mentioned a few female artists in my cover lines just to make sure that I alsotarget female audiences as they are also an important factor in terms of my audience.An additional way I attracted my target audience was by adding a footer. The reason why thiswould attract my target audience is because I am offering them additional things they can receive ifthey buy this magazine and it is fairly logical that one out these six possible topics will persuadethem to take interest in this magazine and could potential lead them to buy the magazine.
  23. 23. 6.) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I then edited my image by I then made my masthead by using removing it from the backgroundFirstly I began constructing my the text tool to write of text. For the by using the filter extract tool. Imagazine by putting a colour on image of the fist and microphone then used the rubber tool tomy background. To do this I located inside the masthead I used remove any tiny traces of theselected the background layer, the crop tool and linked the layers background. I then placed itselected the paint bucket tool together and used the move tool to within the middle of the page byand chose the colour I wanted. place it within the letter O. using the move tool
  24. 24. I then added a footer by the shape tool and selecting a rectangle. I then I then added a main cover outline it on the bottom of the pageI then added cover lines line. Again I achieved this byonto my front cover by using and used the paint bucket tool to add using the text tool and then the colour green to make it stand outthe text tool. I then used the moving it into the position Imove tool to position the from the surrounding texts and other wanted by using the move colours.text anywhere I wanted on tool. I then used the paintthe page. After I was bucket to add colour to the I then added writing to the rectanglesatisfied where the cover text. I then added an outline but selecting the text tool. After I wasline was located I used the to the main cover line by pleased with the size and font of thepaint bucket to add colour to adding an effect and going text I added the colour white by usingmy text. to the stroke tool. the paint bucket tool and added a black outline by using the stroke tool.
  25. 25. I then added a price andbarcode. For the price Iagain used the text tool totype of the text and thenused the paint bucket toolto add the colour. For thebarcode I used one fromthe internet as there wasno possible way for me tomake my own.
  26. 26. Technologies used whilst constructing your magazine?
  27. 27. Internet:The internet was one of the most important and useful pieces of software inregards to constructing my magazine and searching for information about the hiphop genre. The internet was effective as it allowed me use search engines such as‘Google’ to look at professional magazines and decided what codes andconventions to use and not use on my magazine. It also allowed me go ontowebsites such as slide share and blogger so that I could upload my coursework.Through the internet I was able to obtain information of the history of hip hop andhow it was created and by what community which aided me when I came toconstruct my magazine. It also allowed me to get images of hip hop artist, bandsand magazines to put on my coursework.
  28. 28. Microsoft word 2003:Microsoft word 2003 was another piece of software is used through my coursework. Itwas effective as it allowed me to write my coursework on the computer so that I couldthen upload on my account on blogger. Microsoft word was useful as it saved me thetime and effort on writing it on a piece of paper and then scanning it through thescanner magazine and then uploading it onto blogger, so therefore it was a very timesaving, time efficient, faster and easier alternative. Microsoft office PowerPoint 2003:Microsoft office PowerPoint 2003 was also piece of softwareI used through mycoursework. This piece of technology was effective as it allowed me to put imagesonto my coursework and to write text about the topic. Microsoft office PowerPoint isvery similar to Microsoft word 2003 expect this allowed me to use images whichlooked more visually clear.
  29. 29. Abode Photoshop Cs3:I used this piece of software to make my front cover of my magazine. From using itpiece of software I have learnt:• How to use and search for different fonts• How to edit images• How to add effects onto my images• How to add a background colour onto my page• How to separate an image for the background
  30. 30. Computer:The ‘stone’ computer is a piece of hardware I used for all tasks in my courseworkexpect for the making drafts of my magazine. Which the computer I would be unableto use it’s software such as the Internet and Abode Photoshop CS3 and thereforecould not make my magazine. Abode In Design CS3:Another piece of software is used was Abode In Design CS3 which was effective asit allowed me to construct my contents page and double page spreads. For me thiswas the most challenging piece of software as I had not used it every much andtherefore only knew how to use a few out of it’s many tools.. However, eventually Idid learn how to use this program which allowed my to create my contents and
  31. 31. Memory stick:This is the memory stick I used to transport files I had done onto othercomputers to upload them to my blog. Lumix Panasonic DMC – FS62 digital camera:This is the camera I used to take all of my original images to use on myfront cover, contents page and double page spreads.
  32. 32. Slide share:I used slide share to convert my PowerPoints onto my blog. This was effective aswithout this piece of software I would be unable to post PowerPoints onto my blogcould therefore not complete sessions of my coursework. Blogger:I used blogger in order to post my coursework onto the internet so that the examinerand mark my coursework. This was effective as without it I would be unable to presentmy coursework to him/her and could therefore not complete the course.
  33. 33. 7.) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?My skills and knowledge on the software and hardware have improved since thepreliminary. When using Photoshop for the preliminary task I did know have to use a fewtools but not as much as I now know, it I believe it is accurate to say that my knowledge ofPhotoshop and my skills of using it’s tools have improved.
  34. 34. Extract tool: A tool which I learnt whilst constructing my music magazine with the extract tool. This allowed me to easilyand quickly remove a section of the image I wanted from the background by simply highlighting the outline ofthe image I wanted to be remove I believe it is evident that not only have I expanded on my knowledge ofPhotoshop but I have also developed my skills since the preliminary as I was able to find this tool myself anduse it correctly for the first time which I believe shows that I generally have a good understanding of how touse Photoshop and it’s programs. This tool is very accurate and the tool corrects itself if you have made amistake therefore eliminating any chances of error to occur.
  35. 35. Artist Tool:Another tool I learnt how to use effectively and accurately was the artistic tool. I already knew how to use thistool as I used it on when constructing my college magazine for my preliminary and used it my music magazinehowever, I did not know you could use it on images. Above is an example of how I used it on my artist as hisface and clothing has an affect which I achieved by using the artistic tool and clicking on poster edges out ofthe many other different affects. I believe this shows my knowledge has improved as I am now able to usetools on a variety of thing which now include images, text and background.
  36. 36. Adjustments Tool:Another tool I have learnt since my constructing my preliminary task is the adjustments tool. This toolallows you to selected an image, background or text of your choosing and to change it’s colour whilstsince making it have a realistic effect. I never knew this tool existed when making my college magazineat the preliminary so for me to now discover it shows that I have experimented with different tools andtherefore my skills and knowledge of Photoshop excelled. The images above show what the image ofmy artist have originally looked like before I used the adjustments tool to change the colour andappearance and I my opinion it makes the image become more noticeable and looks more visiblyappealing


Cleu Alarm App

SoundCloud intergration feature.

Live site: Cleu App

Tools used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Axure, MixPanel, HTML, CSS, jQuery.

Description: I designed a solution to integrate SoundCloud into the Cleu Alarm app in order to allow the user to wake up to new music everyday. After researching a large cross-section of Cleu's users, I discovered that one of their main pain-points was that they could not stay awake after the alarm activated and would fall back to sleep.

SoundCloud would be used to discover new music for the user based on their favorites stored in their account. When a user wakes up to newly discovered music, their intended motivation would be to stay awake in order to find out who the artist is and to continue listening to the song.

The MVP for this solution, however, was to simply attach SoundCloud to the alarm app so that a user could select a song from their SoundCloud account. The UX process included research, wireframing and a clickable prototype to show how this integration could be acheived. Additionally I designed and built a jQuery Parallax desktop site to launch the app for iOS8.

Advertising for the app launch, 2014.

Mixpanel Analytics

The Alarm's features were recorded by a cusomtized analytics dashboard to track the user's preferences. The most useful data I obtained was the user's preference of wake-up time, snooze button hits per day, when the alarm was disabled and what alarm sound was used. I used the analytics to determine which pathway the users currently take to set an alarm which in turn would help me determine how they might prefer to navigate to their SoundCloud library.

Measuring KPIs with Mixpanel.

API Hooks

In order to retrieve the kind of useful information from the User's SoundCloud account that I needed in order to allow the user to access their library, I needed to research the API of the source. I found a lot of useful hooks that I could pass on to the developer to aid in our discussion about the possibilities and challenges of my project.

Identifying key APIs for relevant info retrieval.

Designing a Solution

Using a Task Analysis and results of the Analytics, I determined how the user would access SoundCloud. By wireframing user flows from my discovery phase and conducting extensive user testing on these wires, I discovered the most popular path a user could follow in order to select sounds from the SoundCloud library and add them the Cleu App Sound Library. After the user has added the sound/music to the library, they can then play that sound/music or select it as their alarm sound. This is all acomplished using native iOS gestures.

Creating wireframes to visualize my research.

Prototyping the Interactions

In order to show the client how the user flow interactions worked, I made an interactive prototype in Axure. To show realism in the navigation I simulated slide and tap gestures using Axure's Javascript cases. Additionally, I incorporated variables to manipulate data collected from the user's naviagation path. After more user testing and feedback analysis on the prototype I discovered how the user prefers to choose a sound from their sound/music source. The sound library is updated with the name of the new sound using variables and the user's personal details were also collected via introductory onboarding screens and used to persoanlize the user's experience.

Using an interactive prototype to test my assumptions.

Building a Parallax site to showcase the App's features

As an addition to the intergration of SoundCloud I designed and built a promotional website to show off the main features of the app in anticipation of the iOS8 release. I designed a single page site that was unique in the way that it displayed information. As the user scrolls down the page, jQuery (Skrollr) and CSS3 move images and text up from the bottom of the site to display the features of the app. This style of animation relies heavily on timing and a heavy use of CSS3. To give the site a calm and serene visual aesthetic, I edited and embeded a full screen video into the background that loops over in a seemless fashion. Since the animation is controlled with CSS and jQuery, I was able to fix the video background to be stationary while the animate images and text moves over the top of the video throughout the entire site.

I built a Parallax site to market the app in time for Apple's iOS8 release.


Discovery of Sodium in the Atmosphere of Mercury

+ See all authors and affiliations

Science  16 Aug 1985:
Vol. 229, Issue 4714, pp. 651-653
DOI: 10.1126/science.229.4714.651

The spectrum of Mercury at the Fraunhofer sodium D lines shows strong emission features that are attributed to resonant scattering of sunlight from sodium vapor in the atmosphere of the planet. The total column abundance of sodium was estimated to be 8.1 x 1011 atoms per square centimeter, which corresponds to a surface density at the subsolar point of about 1.5 x 105 atoms per cubic centimeter. The most abundant atmospheric species found by the Mariner 10 mission to Mercury was helium, with a surface density of 4.5 x 103 atoms per cubic centimeter. It now appears that sodium vapor is a major constituent of Mercury's atmosphere.