Why do metals conduct heat and electricity so well? What metals conduct the best?

Structure of Metals

The structures of pure metals are simple to describe since the atoms that form these metals can be thought of as identical perfect spheres. More specifically the metallic structure consists of 'aligned positive ions' (cations) in a "sea" of delocalized electrons. This means that the electrons are free to move throughout the structure, and gives rise to properties such as conductivity.

What are different types of bonds?

Covalent Bonds

A covalent bond is a bond that is formed when two atoms share electrons. Examples of compounds with covalent bonds are water, sugar and carbon dioxide.

Ionic Bonds

Ionic bonding is the complete transfer of valence electron(s) between a metal and non-metal. This results in two oppositely charged ions which attract each other. In ionic bonds, the metal loses electrons to become a positively charged cation, whereas the nonmetal accepts those electrons to become a negatively charged anion. An example of an Ionic bond would be salt (NaCl).

Metallic bonds

Delocalized Moving electrons in Metals --

Electrical conductivity

Metals contain free moving delocalized electrons. When electric voltage is applied, an electric field within the metal triggers the movement of the electrons, making them shift from one end to another end of the conductor. Electrons will move toward the positive side.

Electrons flow toward the positive terminal

Heat Conduction

Why do metals conduct heat so well?

The electrons in metal are delocalised electrons and are free moving electrons so when they gain energy (heat) they vibrate more quickly and can move around, this means that they can pass on the energy more quickly.

Which metals conduct the best?

atomic configuration for gold
atomic configuration for silver
atomic configuration for copper
atomic configuration forzinc
Above: Electron shells Gold (au), Silver (Ag), Copper(Cu) and Zinc (Zn). Logic would have one think that Gold is the best conductor having a single s-orbital electron in the last shell (above chart) ... so why are Silver and Copper actually better (see table below).

Conductivity of Metals
Silver 6.30×10  7
Copper 5.96×10 7
Gold 4.10×10 7
Aluminum 3.50×10 7
Zinc 1.69×10 7

Silver has a larger atomic radius (160 pm) than gold (135 pm), despite the fact that gold has more electrons that silver! For a reason for this see the comment below.

Note: Silver is a better conductor than gold, but gold is more desirable because it doesn't corrode. (Copper is the most common because it is the most cost effective) The answer is a bit complicated and we site here one of the best answers we have seen for those familiar with the material..

"Silver sits in the middle of the transistion metals approximately 1/2 way between the noble gasses and the alkali metals. In column 11 of the periodic table, all of these elements (copper, silver, and gold) have a single s-orbital electron outer shell electron (platinum does also, in column 10).

The orbital structure of the electrons of these elements neither has a particular affinity to gain an electron or lose an electron toward the noble gasses that are heavier or lighter, because they sit 1/2 way in between. In general this means that it doesn't take much energy to knock an electron off temporarily, or add one temporarily. The specific electron affinities and ionization potentials are varied, and concerning conduction, having relative low energies for these two criteria is somewhat important.

If those were the only criteria, than gold would be a better conductor than silver, but gold has an extra 14 f-orbital electrons underneath the 10 d-orbital electrons and the single s-orbital electron. The 14 f electrons are due to the extra atoms in the Actinide series. With 14 extra electrons apparently pushing out on the d and s electrons you'd think that s-electron was just sitting out there 'ripe' for conduction (hardly any energy was necessary to bump it off), but NOOO. The f-orbital electrons are packed in, in such a manner, that it causes the atomic radius of gold to be actually SMALLER than the atomic radius of silver -- not by much, but it is smaller. A smaller radius, means more force from the nucleus on the outer electrons, so silver wins in the conductivity 'contest'. Remember, force due to electric charge is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. The closer 2 charges are together., the higher the force between them.

Both copper and platinum have even smaller diameters; hence more pull from the nucleus, hence more energy to knock off that lone s-electron, hence lower conductivity.

Other elements with a single s-orbital electron sitting out there "ripe for the conduction picker to come along", also have lower atomic radii (molybdenum, niobium, chromium, ruthenium, rhodium) than silver.

So, it is mainly where it sits -- where 'mother nature' put silver in the periodic table, that dictates its excellent conductivity."

Source from tlbs101 Yahoo

Structure and Physical Properties of Metals

Why do some metals conduct heat better than other metals?

How is heat transferred?

Heat Conduction in Metals


Lesson Plan

“Cotton Candy” by Edward Hirsch

A young boy walks over a bridge with his grandfather, not knowing it would be the last time. The memory of that event is the central moment of Edward Hirsch’s poem “Cotton Candy.” Hirsch uses his sensory memory to bring that moment to life and to remind us of the special place older people, as bridges to personal and community history, hold in our lives.

This lesson plan provides a sequence of activities that you can use with your students before, during, and after reading “Cotton Candy.” Use the whole sequence, or any of the activities, to help your diverse learners enter, experience, and explore the meaning of the poem. Feel free to adjust each activity to meet the needs of your particular students. This lesson can be adapted for secondary students in grades 6–12.

This lesson is an adaptation of an original lesson by the Academy of American Poet’s Educator in Residence, Madeleine Fuchs Holzer.

Guiding Questions

How are we connected to the past?

Learning Objectives

Students will compare the experience of reading a poem on a page to hearing and seeing a poet read a poem on video.

Students will explore a poet’s use of sensory imagery to bring a poem to life.

Students will explore how poetry can serve as a bridge between people of different ages and as a bridge between the past and the present.

Students will distinguish between what a poem is telling us literally and figuratively.

Students will write an original poem using vivid language, metaphor, and/or sound to help them emphasize meaning “beyond the words.”


Controller error sends plane from LAX in wrong direction

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday was investigating a jetliner's turn in the wrong direction after departing from Los Angeles International Airport.

The EVA Airways Boeing 777 flew north instead of south after departing from LAX early Friday morning, according to the FAA's Ian Gregor.

"At the time, aircraft were departing from LAX to the east,'' Gregor said, adding that the EVA flight departed from the airport's south runway complex.

The 777's flight crew switched from the LAX control tower to the approach control in San Diego right after takeoff, Gregor explained.

"The air traffic controller at the approach control who was handling EVA instructed the pilot to make a left turn to a 180-degree heading,'' Gregor said.

"She meant to tell the pilot to make a right turn to a 180-degree heading. The pilot turned to the left. The controller quickly realized EVA was turning in the wrong direction. She took immediate action to keep EVA safely separated from an Air Canada jet that had departed LAX off the north runway complex.''

The jetliners "remained the required distance'' from one another, he said.

"The controller then turned her attention to getting EVA to turn south,'' Gregor said.

"The controller issued the EVA pilot a series of instructions to get him to turn south. The controller wanted to make sure the EVA aircraft was safely above or away from nearby terrain.''

Gregor said that FAA regulations require aircraft to be at least three miles away laterally or 2,000 feet vertically above obstacles such as mountains.

The EVA flight was bound for Taipei, Taiwan, according to news reports.


© 2023 by Yixi (Rosie) Wang.

yixi.wang.work@gmail.com  |  Tel: 219-299-3391

001.    [OBJECTIVE]

To investigate ways to communicate content and the meaning of text. The booklet is a promotional book for a certain typeface. Research a typeface and its designer. Then use different formats and design a booklet to represent this typeface.

Rainbow Stairs

“Minion Pro" Type Promotion Booklet

002.    [CONCEPT]

The Minion Pro typeface is a popular and beautiful typeface. It can be used in many different ways. In order to make each chapter easy for audiences to navigate, I created a format that resembles stairs. I used different colors that poped for each chapter. The catalog became part of the cover, which adds more fun for the reader.


In silico design, synthesis, and characterization of new spebrutinib analogues
عمر فاروق عبد الرشيد
Authors : Zaid M. Jaber Al-Obaidi, Omar F. Abdul- Rasheed, Monther F. Mahdi, Ayad M.R. Raauf
Background: Recently, in silico or computer-aided drug design has emerged as a cornerstone on the harbor of modern drug discovery. One of the approaches to treat cancer is the inhibition of tyrosine kinase, which is considered as a key enzyme in the survival of the cancerous cells. Spebrutinib, as a member of the tyrosine kinase inhibitors, has few unwanted side effects due to its off-target bindings. In this work, the GOLD program was employed to predict the bindings and thus the inhibitory activity toward the tyrosine kinase. Methodology: After the design and docking processes, the chemical synthesis of three spebrutinib analogues was achieved. Results: The percent yields of the chemical syntheses were ranged from 81% to 89%. These analogues were characterized utilizing; FT-IR, DSC, CHN, and 1H NMR. In conclusion, these new spebrutinib analogues were successfully designed, synthesized, and characterized. However, these analogues are potential anticancer agents and biological activity against cancerous and toxicity pattern against normal cells are crucial to affirm the present findings.

(FULL ARTICLE LINK) Read more ...
20/ 8/ 2019


Milky Way weighs about 1.5 trillion solar masses

Milky Way weighs about 1.5 trillion solar masses

Milky Way weighs about 1.5 trillion solar masses

Now scientists have done just that, using new data from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with the Gaia spacecraft. The results are in: Our galaxy weighs about 1.54 trillion solar masses, according to a new study scheduled for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

Previous estimates of the Milky Way's mass ranged from 500 billion to 3 trillion solar masses.

"Because of their great distances, globular star clusters are some of the best tracers astronomers have to measure the mass of the vast envelope of dark matter surrounding our galaxy far beyond the spiral disk of stars", said Tony Sohn of STScI, who led the Hubble measurements. "That's what leads to the present uncertainty in the Milky Way's mass - you can't measure accurately what you can't see". The faster the clusters move, the more massive the galaxy.

Scientists have previously been able to measure the speed at which a globular cluster approaches or recedes from Earth along our line of sight but this information alone is quite limiting.

Variation comes from disagreements and discrepancies in techniques used to measure and weigh dark matter, which make sup to 90 per cent of the galaxy. "With this method, we can measure the total mass of everything inside the Milky Way (the dark matter, gas, stars, planets, black holes), all added together". Gaia was specially designed to create a precise 3-dimensional map of astronomical objects throughout the Milky Way and track their motions and made challenging all-sky measurements that included several globular clusters. Due to their great distances, globular star clusters allow astronomers to trace the mass of the vast envelope of dark matter surrounding our galaxy far beyond the spiral disk.

Kelly dismisses need for wall along full US-Mexico border
In one question, Kelly was asked what advice he would give to his successor, to which he quickly replied, "Run for it". Kelly told the audience "If Hillary Clinton had called me, I would have done it".

The project involved global collaboration between scientists working for NASA and ESA on the Hubble and Gaia telescopes. "We could pin down the Milky Way's mass in a way that would be impossible without these two space telescopes".

Hanging over the scruff of Ursa Major's neck some 12 million light-years from Earth, a cluster of young stars known as the Cigar Galaxy is puffing epic amounts of wind into deep space. That means there's a pretty large margin of error in the estimate, meaning the true mass of the Milky Way may be somewhere between 0.79 and 2.29 trillion solar masses-but the current estimate is a good start. So the team looked at 34 distant clusters measured over 22 months by ESA's Gaia star survey satellite ranging from 6,500 to 70,000 light years away. "The Milky Way is the closest galaxy to us so it is the one we can study in most detail". Since Hubble has been observing some of these objects for ten years, it was also possible to accurately track the velocities of these clusters as well. Gaia was launched on 19 December 2013 and is located at the L2 Lagrange point - the same location that the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will have.

If you have ever been to a school fete and seen a large, glass jar filled with candies, labelled "guess how many jelly beans there are", chances are you have studied it meticulously to try and work out that magic number.

The mass of the Milky Way is one of the most fundamental measurements astronomers can make about our galactic home. "We're inside the Milky Way, stuck about halfway out from the center, and everything we learn about it we learn from right here".

Roeland P. van der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute calls the team lucky for having access to informative data from two different sources.

Recommended News

Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.


A budget allows you to track your income and your expenses. By writing down your monthly income and expenses, you can SEE how much money you have earned or gained each month and can figure out a comfortable amount to be spent.

Homeschooling can truly affect your budget if you’re not keeping track of how much you’re spending on supplies, trips, curriculums and other expenses. Before spending anything on your homeschool, it’s wise to sit down and write out a household budget so you can better determine how much is a comfortable amount to spend on homeschool supplies and other expenses.

The first rule of budgeting is an easy one: Spend Less than you earn!

For example, if you earn $2,000 per month from your job and gain $50 per interest each month from a savings account, you have an income of exactly $2,050. Now you know that you must spend less than $2,050 per month.

Structuring Your Budget

  1. Determine your income.

Estimate all of your incoming money, including Salary, Bonuses, Commissions, Child Support, Alimony and any other sources.

  • Estimate Required Expenses.

Required expenses include, taxes, bills, groceries, rent, mortgage, groceries, utilities, insurance, car maintenance, gas, credit card payments, loan payments and medical expenses. You should also require a contribution to your savings account. You should strive to save at least three months’ worth of living expenses for emergencies.  You can also put money in savings towards vacations and/or Christmas gifts. It is critical that you get into the habit of paying yourself first! Even a few dollars a month will help to grow your savings.

  • Estimate discretionary expenses and homeschooling expenses.

After you have paid the required expenses, you can use the money left over for some discretionary expenses, like dining out or going to the movies. This is also a great place to start allocating funds for your homeschooling expenses (curriculum, out of town trips, special supplies like a microscope or telescope.)

If you’re in a position where you don’t have any income left over after paying your expenses, it’s a good idea to take a hard look at your bills and find a way to reduce your current expenses so you’re in a more comfortable positon. There are numerous resources online that can help you work out a payoff plan or reallocation plan so that you’re in a more comfortable financial situation.

On the following page you can make your own monthly budget. Remember! Stay within your budget, pay yourself first and PLAN for all of the upcoming homeschool expenses and you will always be in control of your finances!


A tale of two cellphones: Python on Android and iOS

04:00 PM - 04:25 PM on July 16, 2016, Room CR4

Russell Keith-Magee

Audience level:

It has been possible to write mobile applications in Python for a couple of years; there have been various iOS and Android libraries and apps that allow you to run and write Python on your mobile device. However, the idea of writing mobile applications in Python has never really gone mainstream. This is a major challenge for Python as a language; if Python isn't able to service this major new platform, it risks obsolescence in favour of languages that can.

Over the last two years, the BeeWare project has been developing tools that allow developers to write mobile applications in Python. The goal of this work is to make it as easy to develop a mobile application as it is to develop web applications or data analysis tools. The process of developing these tools requires some deep diving into the internals of Python and it's implementations, a lot of dead ends, and (unfortuantely) writing a lot of code in languages other than Python.

This talk will be an "under the hood", deep technical dive into the tools and techniques that are needed to achieve support for Python on iOS and Android (as well as looking at a few techniques that don't work).

Along the way, it will hopefully inspire you to see the possibilities for Python on Mobile as a platform, and expose you to some interesting features of Python that you may not have encountered previously, like descriptors, metaclasses, bytecode manipulation, and type annotations.


Gastritis (CDC, 2016; Elliot, 2007). Education about preventive measures

is a GI disorder in in which there is an inflammation of lining of the stomach
making it to produce less acid, less enzymes, and less mucus needed to protect
the stomach lining. Gastritis can be acute or chronic, but it can also be
erosive or nonerosive. The most common causes of gastritis include H. pylori, infection, damage to the lining
of the stomach due to usage of NSAIDS, alcohol, cocaine, radiation, stress
caused by traumatic injuries (CDC & NIH,  2016).  Also, an autoimmune
response can also be one of main causes of gastritis. People with gastritis usually
present with symptoms of pain or discomfort in the upper abdomen. Also, other symptoms
may include nausea and vomiting. Sometimes, some people may have Signs and
symptoms of bleeding in the stomach including difficulty breathing, dizziness, hematemesis,
black, tarry stools, hematochezia, weakness, and paleness. When gastritis is
not treated appropriately, some complications can occur due to chronic
gastritis, such as peptic ulcers, anemia, vitamin B12 deficiency and pernicious anemia(CDC
& NIH, 2016).

gastritis can be done based on a good medical history, physical exam, upper
endoscopy along other tests such as upper GI series, blood tests, stool test
for H pylori and blood, and urea breath test to help detect H. pylori infection. Once
gastritis is detected, there are many measures and treatments that a health
care provider can use. First, it is suggested to treat the underlying cause
first, and decrease the amount of acid in the stomach by prescribing medications
like antacids, H2 blockers and PPI to help curing of the stomach lining (CDC,
2016; Elliot, 2007).
Education about preventive measures can also important factors in treatment.
For instance, health care providers can advise people to help preventing the
infection by washing their hands with soap and water before eating or after
using bathroom, eat food are washed well and well cooked, and clean drinking
water from safe source (CDC & NIH, 2016).

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Whereas, gastroenteritis, as another GI system disorder,
is considered as an inflammation of the lining of the intestines that is often caused
by either a virus, bacteria or parasites. The most common causes of viral
gastroenteritis are norovirus and rotavirus
infections that can be spread
through contaminated food and water and contact with an infected person. People
who are more prone to gastroenteritis are children in daycare, military and
traveler persons, and people with weak immune system. Symptoms of
gastroenteritis often include diarrhea, abdominal pain,
vomiting, headache, fever, nausea and vomiting, and chills. Other symptoms are diarrhea,
poor feeding in infants, extreme sweating, damp skin, muscle pain or joint
stiffness (CDC, 2016; Elliot, 2007). People with gastritis may become
dehydrated rapidly due to vomiting and diarrhea. Therefore, signs of
dehydration are important factors in physical exam. Nevertheless, people
usually recover from gastroenteritis with no treatment. Diagnosing of
gastroenteritis can be made based on medical history and physical examination.
One of the most important treatment in gastroenteritis is to keep the patients
dehydrated. the replacement of fluids and electrolytes that are lost due to
diarrhea and vomiting in gastroenteritis is the most vital factor when treating
gastroenteritis (CDC, 2016; Elliot, 2007). Antibiotics are usually not advised
since the disease is mostly caused by virus. Antiemetics are
often not recommended because the vomiting related to gastroenteritis disorder
is usually self-limited, and giving an antiemetic such as Zofran can increase
the possibility of dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, pulmonary aspiration, IV
hydration or hospitalization.

 Also, further
preventions such as proper hygiene by washing hands frequently before and
after, eat washed and well coked food are as well important. According to research
studies, the best prevention is frequent hand washing (CDC,
2016; Elliot, 2007).

Finally, cholecystitis is
another GI disease, is
caused due to inflammation of the gallbladder, which may become a serious
condition later. There are two main causes of cholecystitis: calculous
cholecystitis and acalculous cholecystitis. Calculous cholecystitis, the most
common but less serious, often develops when the cystic duct is blocked by a
gallstone or a biliary sludge, which is a mix of bile and cholesterol crystals
and salt (Huffman & Schenker, 2010). Once the cystic duct is blocked,
there is a building up of that biliary sludge in the gallbladder causing an
increase in pressure and causing also the inflammation of the gallbladder.
However, acalculous cholecystitis, which is less seen but have more serious
effect, occurs because of an infection or injury that damages the gallbladder.
Common diseases causing acalculous cholecystitis are burns, sepsis, severe
malnutrition, AIDS, major damage associated with a surgery (Huffman & Schenker, 2010).

People with cholecystitis often
present with signs and symptoms of upper right quadrant sudden sharp pain radiating
to right shoulder that can be constant or non-constant,  abdomen tenderness, breathing difficulty, fever,
nausea and vomiting, perspiration, diminished of appetite, and jaundice. History
and physical along physical examination are important aspects in helping to
diagnosing cholecystitis. Also, some tests that should be considered are blood
tests ERS and CRP, an ultrasound of abdomen to check for stone, X-ray, Ct scan
or MRI to examine the gallbladder (Huffman
& Schenker, 2010).
As compare to the above GI disorders, people who are diagnosed with cholecystitis
should be treated in a hospital setting. Treatments are as followed: keep
patient NPO to help straining off the gallbladder, give IV fluids to prevent
dehydration, pain medication. If an infection is suspected, it is advised that
antibiotics should be administered. However, sometimes those treatments may not
be sufficient, and there is a need for surgery, like the removal of the
gallbladder to prevent complications. Surgery can be done in two ways: laparoscopic cholecystectomy and open cholecystectomy. Cholecystitis can be prevented by adopting
a healthy and balanced diet with low cholesterol food to prevent gallstones
formation, but also avoiding a low calorie and rapid weight loss (Huffman & Schenker, 2010).

Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Norovirus Accessed 4/7/2016.

Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Viral Gastroenteritis Accessed

Elliott EJ. Acute
gastroenteritis in children. BMJ. 2007;334(7583):35–40.

Huffman, Jason L. & Schenker,
Steven (2010). Acute Acalculous Cholecystitis: A Review.

        Journal of Clinical
Gastroenterology and hepatology, Volume
8, Issue 1, Pages 15–22.


Rapid flow oscillation between hydraulically close tanks

Product(s): WaterGEMS, WaterCAD
Version(s): 10.XX.XX.XX, 08.11.XX.XX
Area: Modeling

How do I model hydraulically close tanks?

Flow oscillates rapidly between two nearby tanks.

In general, tanks that are hydraulically close should typically be modeled as a single equivalent tank, particularly if they are close in proximity. Oscillations can be caused by having one tank in a model at a higher HGL than the other, in one time step. This would cause the flow to go towards the lower tank. Then in the next time step, the low HGL tank is at a higher HGL (from the filling in the previous timestep), so the flow reverses the other direction, and this process repeats.

Option 1 - Combine tanks into a hydraulically equivalent composite tank

If the tanks are spatially close to one another, they could be combined into a single composite tank with a diameter that provides the same volume as the individual tanks. This would avoid oscillating flows that may occur in cases where the tanks are modeled individually.

  • Suppose there are two tanks with a diameter of 141.4ft.
  • The following equation could be used to find an equivalent diameter.
  • 2 * PI * (141.4/2)^2 = PI * (D/2)^2
  • D = 200.0 ft

Option 2 - Use a smaller hydraulic time step

Using a smaller hydraulic time step, in the Calculation Options, may improve the results. The default value is 1 hour. Try setting this to 1 minute, and if results are improved, it can be increased to find an appropriate value that provides acceptable results and a fast computation time.


TODO in new NCG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Are we being careful enough about narrowing those out-of-range CmmInts? - Register allocator: - fixup code - keep track of free stack slots Optimisations: - picking the assignment on entry to a block: better to defer this until we know all the assignments. In a loop, we should pick the assignment from the looping jump (fixpointing?), so that any fixup code ends up *outside* the loop. Otherwise, we should pick the assignment that results in the least fixup code. - splitting? -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- x86 ToDos - x86 genCCall needs to tack on the @size for stdcalls (might not be in the foreignlabel). - x86: should really clean up that IMUL64 stuff, and tell the code gen about Intel imul instructions. - x86: we're not careful enough about making sure that we only use byte-addressable registers in byte instructions. Should we do it this way, or stick to using 32-bit registers everywhere? - Use SSE for floating point, optionally. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Further optimisations: - We might be able to extend the scope of the inlining phase so it can skip over more statements that don't affect the value of the inlined expr.


Briefing: Apple assesses moving up to 30% of production out of China

1 min read

Apple weighs 15%-30% capacity shift out of China amid trade war – Nikkei Asian Review

What happened: Apple has asked its major suppliers to evaluate the cost implications of moving 15% to 30% of their production capacity from China to Southeast Asia as it prepares to restructure its supply chain. People cited by Nikkei said that the decision was made by Apple as a result of the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, but things won’t change even if the disputes were settled. Apple has decided the risks of relying heavily on manufacturing in China are too great and even rising.

Why it’s important: It’s claimed that 90% of Apple’s products, including popular iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks, are assembled in China. Apple supplier Wistron has already been assembling cheaper iPhones in India since 2017 and key iPhone assemblers Foxconn said last week that 25% of the company’s production capacity is outside China. Analysts said moving iPhone production entirely outside of China is not impossible but would be difficult considering the cost and the difficulty of finding new component suppliers in a new country.


UK Newly qualified - Now what?

Aug 23, 2018
Reaction score
United Kingdom
Hi everyone,

I'm after a bit of career advice as I'm not exactly sure what the right direction I should take is.

Here's my current situation. Currently working within an Academy Trust, have been told that I am being promoted to Finance Manager. Expecting a salary of c£35k to come with it, although nothing formally agreed just yet.

As I can see it here are my options:
- Stay where I am, I'm comfortable (too comfortable?) confident, good at the job etc. However things are becoming a bit 'samey' and stale.
- Look elsewhere for another job in education, I've seen a job I'm qualified for for c£45k, more responsibility, more money, more senior position. However, I can't help but feel I'm restricting myself to this niche sector as I have no experience of either private or practice accounting. This is the safe option, as it basically ensures a good work life balance and it's relatively secure.
- Look for a job in the private sector, more risk, more reward, broadening of skill set whilst I'm still relatively young. I'm assuming I'll have to start at a lower position in order to gain the experience needed though. I would like to work in a well known international company that's fast paced, dynamic, a bit of travel etc. However not sure what effect this would have on work life balance, workload, pressures etc.
- Look for a job in practice, same as above.

In terms of a rewarding career which way would you guys go? I know everyone has their different areas of expertise and enjoyment but I'd like to hear what others would do. I am kind of leaning to private/practice however I have my sights set on £45k+ - am I being too optimistic for this?

Thanks in advance!

VIP Member
Jul 18, 2016
Reaction score
This has come up a couple of times on this forum, and if I could go back in my career, I would have definitely done a stint in public accounting, for at least a few years. Public accounting experience can not only give you an extensive amount of pure accounting experience, it is surprising how easily this kind of background can transition to a senior role in the private sector (controller, VP, etc) even though you may lack experience running those kinds of departments. However, staying within the private sector (like I did, with a software specialty) you are limiting yourself from many jobs. Where I live, many of the firms are manufacturing, so I'm kind of stuck, as I do not quality (experience based) in a manufacturing environment. However, this is less relevant if you have been a public accountant, auditing manufacturers, as you can leverage this experience in a role like this.

Sorry that I've been rambling, but take risks while you are young, as it becomes harder to take those risks when you get older.

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Rib Fractures in Older Adults – What’s the Big Deal?

By |2016-11-11T19:37:08-08:00Jun 3, 2015|Geriatrics, Trauma|

Geriatric Emergency Medicine for Students, Residents, and Physicians

geriatricsWe all know the population of the United States is aging. We know emergency physicians need to be prepared and trained to care for older adults. But how can you dive into the world of geriatric EM to learn more, to research, to gain additional training? In this post, we have gathered the wisdom of leaders in geriatric EM across the country, to share their recommendations, inspiration, and motivation.

By |2019-02-19T18:25:22-08:00Mar 31, 2015|Geriatrics, Medical Education|

Sepsis in Older Adults: The Presentation May Be Subtle

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Palliative Care in the ED – The Time is Now

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Transitions of Care: Top 10 things admitting providers wish we did for older adults

connection“Transitions of care” has become a hot topic in the care of older adults. It is usually applied to the transition from the hospital to home or the hospital to a nursing facility. But what about the transition from the ED to an inpatient service? It turns out there are plenty of things we could be doing (or not doing) to help smooth that transition and improve patient care. Here are some thoughts from admitting physicians with geriatrics training.

By |2016-11-11T19:21:04-08:00Jun 2, 2014|Geriatrics|

Geriatric Emergency Departments: Coming to a Hospital Near You?

senior ERWe are all familiar with the concept of pediatric EDs. We see them as medical students, we train in them as residents, and we work alongside pediatric EM fellows. It is generally clear what pediatric EDs have to offer: smaller sized beds and equipment, nurses trained in pediatric triage and assessment who know how to put IVs in babies and calm crying kids, and physicians with training in pediatric Emergency Medicine. But what about the other end of the age spectrum? Over the last 10 years geriatric EDs, also called Senior EDs, have been popping up around the country. You may have been wondering why that is, and what they have to offer. Here are a few thoughts.

Uncomplicated Urinary Tract Infections in Older Adults: Diagnosis and Treatment (Part 2)

abxIt seems like a simple enough question: How do you diagnose and treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) in older adults? The answer is: It depends. In Part 1 of this post we discussed the diagnosis of UTIs in cognitively intact older adults and those with underlying cognitive impairment. This post will discuss treatment options.

By |2018-01-30T02:47:20-08:00Apr 2, 2014|Genitourinary, Geriatrics|


Four ways to guess the age of a buck

Four ways to guess the age of a buck

1. The rack. A buck’s antlers change significantly with age, especially after the age of 3. Most mature bucks will have more antler mass, non-typical points and larger racks until they pass their prime.

2. The body type. Aging deer on the hoof is a popular discussion point today among hunters. After a buck makes it to 3½ years of age, its head begins to widen and its neck and shoulders become more massive.

3. The tracks. Although track length can play a role in determining the maturity level of a buck, I’ve found that track width is a far better indicator of age because hoof tips break and wear off, especially in country with rocky gravel soils. In most cases, a buck’s hoof widens with age, therefore track width tells me more about age than length. A yearling buck’s hoof is roughly 2 inches wide, about the same as a mature doe. A 2½-year-old buck’s track will be anywhere from 2¼ to 2½ inches wide. With age, a buck’s track will increase slightly as it becomes heavier. Also, as a buck ages, its front hoofs tend to show more of an indent on the back of the hoof’s pad than the hoof’s toe when it walks and makes a track. In addition, after a buck passes 4½ years old, its front hoofs begin to toe out as it walks.

4. The behavior. As a buck ages, it will most certainly become more and more nocturnal, especially in populated areas. Any buck that reaches 4 years of age is the ultimate survivor and knows that nighttime is the best time to move around because it’s quieter and void of human activity.


If I had been born in a different country, it’s very likely that I would have been a beggar. I was reminded of this on the metro in Mexico City, when a deaf person would occasionally put a piece of paper into my hand without a word. “Soy sordo/a…” (I am deaf…) it would begin. I wondered if they ever saw my hearing aid, and realized that we had more in common than they thought. Probably not. I was almost always the only gringa squeezed on the metro with the millions and millions of Mexicans living in the capital. All they could see were my blue eyes and pale skin, which stood out in a sea of brown.

That could be me, I thought. It was a startling revelation. What if my parents had been extremely poor, and never bought me a hearing aid? What if I hadn’t grown up in the United States? It certainly isn’t perfect here, but I was still able to make it through school all the way to college, thanks to disability laws and support for people with disabilities. And not only that, but I excelled too. Instead of seeing with a critical eye as to what was lacking, this was the first time I was humbled with appreciation for what I did have, and continue to have, in the U.S. And I was afforded this privilege simply because I was born on the other side of the line.

I am completely deaf in one ear, and with use of an aid in the other, my hearing is improved to a moderate loss on that side. My understanding of speech hovers around 62 percent, give or take, based on my hearing exam every year (when I was little I was naive enough to think that if I concentrated hard enough I could improve my listening score – later I realized that was one “grade” I would never be able to improve).

I grew up mainstreamed in a hearing world. Aside from my sister, who also has a hearing impairment, I had brief interactions with other “deaf” playmates, but was never aware of Deaf culture until my college years. ASL was never my primary language, although my mom used a combination of ASL and signed English when my sister and I were in the critical language development years, because of our delayed diagnoses (I was 8 months old, my older sister was almost 2 years). In a lot of ways, I struggled with this isolation in a hearing world. I struggled to find my way, not quite here or there, always unsure of myself and my footing, but fiercely independent. Probably the biggest challenge has been convincing people that “YES. I CAN.” From language teachers to potential employers, I realized I had to believe it myself first before I could convince others, and that has been a struggle for me.

I’ve had to forge my way alone, and learn to solve seemingly mundane situations suddenly made more complex by my disability, such as how to communicate with a woman wearing a full-facial hijab when I can’t read her lips, and also can’t ask her to remove it. Other hearing people don’t have to solve those kinds of problems. My brain is in constant problem-solving mode, and I’ve come to recognize this as an asset that I’ve gained through having a disability. An asset that will also be one of my strengths as a lawyer, when I need to find legal solutions to people’s problems.

And sometimes, there are no solutions. The law is often frustratingly convoluted and confining. No other experience illustrated this as painstakingly to me as my husband’s immigration process. After two years of living in Mexico while he was completing his Master’s degree, I was finally ready to come home and begin my own journey back to school. When I took our two young children and we said our goodbyes in the Benito Juarez International airport, I had no idea it would take over a year for his paperwork to go through and our family to be reunited. Everything came so terribly close to falling apart that year.

But, here I am. Applying to law school some four years after the notion first came into my head that I wanted to be a lawyer. Because despite the barriers I may come up against practicing law, I remember this:

I could have ended up a beggar, by circumstance. But I choose to be a lawyer, because I can.

Phoenix Defense Lawyer

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Black Ants 10g

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Outcomes for graduates

Outcomes 3 - Professional knowledge

We expect newly qualified doctors to demonstrate their knowledge through scholarly application to the care of patients in practice. Newly qualified doctors must recognise biomedical, psychological and social science principles of health and disease, and integrate and apply scholarly principles to the care of patients. Newly qualified doctors must understand the patient journey through the full range of health and social care settings.

The health service and healthcare systems in the four countries

20 Newly qualified doctors must demonstrate how patient care is delivered in the health service.

They must be able to:

  1. Describe and illustrate from their own professional experience the range of settings in which patients receive care, including in the community, in patients' homes and in primary and secondary care provider settings
  2. Explain and illustrate from their own professional experience the importance of integrating patients' care across different settings to ensure person-centred care
  3. Describe emerging trends in settings where care is provided, for example the shift for more care to be delivered in the community rather than in secondary care settings
  4. Describe the relationship between healthcare and social care and how they interact.

21 Newly qualified doctors must recognise that there are differences in healthcare systems across the four nations of the UK and know how to access information about the different systems, including the role of private medical services in the UK.

Applying biomedical scientific principles

22 Newly qualified doctors must be able to apply biomedical scientific principles, methods and knowledge to medical practice and integrate these into patient care. This must include principles and knowledge relating to anatomy, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, genomics and personalised medicine, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, nutrition, pathology, pharmacology and clinical pharmacology, and physiology.

They must be able to:

  1. Explain how normal human structure and function and physiological processes applies, including at the extremes of age, in children and young people and during pregnancy and childbirth
  2. Explain the relevant scientific processes underlying common and important disease processes
  3. Justify, through an explanation of the underlying fundamental principles and clinical reasoning, the selection of appropriate investigations for common clinical conditions and diseases
  4. Select appropriate forms of management for common diseases, and ways of preventing common diseases, and explain their modes of action and their risks from first principles
  5. Describe medications and medication actions: therapeutics and pharmacokinetics; medication side effects and interactions, including for multiple treatments, long term physical and mental conditions and non-prescribed drugs; the role of pharmacogenomics and antimicrobial stewardship
  6. Analyse clinical phenomena and conduct appropriate critical appraisal and analysis of clinical data, and explain clinical reasoning in action and how they formulate a differential diagnosis and management plan.

Applying psychological principles

23 Newly qualified doctors must explain and illustrate by professional experience the principles for the identification, safe management and referral of patients with mental health conditions.

They must be able to:

  1. Describe and illustrate from examples the spectrum of normal human behaviour at an individual level
  2. Integrate psychological concepts of health, illness and disease into patient care and apply theoretical frameworks of psychology to explain the varied responses of individuals, groups and societies to disease
  3. Explain the relationship between psychological and medical conditions and how psychological factors impact on risk and treatment outcome
  4. Describe the impact of patients' behaviours on treatment and care and how these are influenced by psychological factors
  5. Describe how patients adapt to major life changes, such as bereavement, and the adjustments that might occur in these situations
  6. Identify appropriate strategies for managing patients with substance misuse or risk of self-harm or suicide
  7. Explain how psychological aspects of behaviour, such as response to error, can influence behaviour in the workplace in a way that can affect health and safety and apply this understanding to their personal behaviours and those of colleagues.

Applying social science principles

24 Newly qualified doctors must be able to apply social science principles, methods and knowledge to medical practice and integrate these into patient care.

They must be able to:

  1. Recognise how society influences and determines the behaviour of individuals and groups and apply this to the care of patients
  2. Review the sociological concepts of health, illness and disease and apply these to the care of patients
  3. Apply theoretical frameworks of sociology to explain the varied responses of individuals, groups and societies to disease
  4. Recognise sociological factors that contribute to illness, the course of the disease and the success of treatment and apply these to the care of patients - including issues relating to health inequalities and the social determinants of health, the links between occupation and health, and the effects of poverty and affluence
  5. Explain the sociological aspects of behavioural change and treatment concordance and compliance, and apply these models to the care of patients as part of person-centred decision making.

Health promotion and illness prevention

They must be able to:

  1. Explain the concept of wellness or wellbeing as well as illness, and be able to help and empower people to achieve the best health possible, including promoting lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation, avoiding substance misuse and maintaining a healthy weight through physical activity and diet
  2. Describe the health of a population using basic epidemiological techniques and measurements
  3. Evaluate the environmental, social, behavioural and cultural factors which influence health and disease in different populations
  4. Assess, by taking a history, the environmental, social, psychological, behavioural and cultural factors influencing a patient's presentation, and identify options to address these, including advocacy for those who are disempowered
  5. Apply epidemiological data to manage healthcare for the individual and the community and evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of interventions
  6. Outline the principles underlying the development of health, health service policy, and clinical guidelines, including principles of health economics, equity, and sustainable healthcare
  7. Apply the principles of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of disease, including immunisation and screening
  8. Evaluate the role of ecological, environmental and occupational hazards in ill-health and discuss ways to mitigate their effects
  9. Apply the basic principles of communicable disease control in hospital and community settings, including disease surveillance
  10. Discuss the role and impact of nutrition to the health of individual patients and societies
  11. Evaluate the determinants of health and disease and variations in healthcare delivery and medical practice from a global perspective and explain the impact that global changes may have on local health and wellbeing.

Clinical research and scholarship

26 Newly qualified doctors must be able to apply scientific method and approaches to medical research and integrate these with a range of sources of information used to make decisions for care.

They must be able to:

  1. Explain the role and hierarchy of evidence in clinical practice and decision making with patients
  2. Interpret and communicate research evidence in a meaningful way for patients to support them in making informed decisions about treatment and management
  3. Describe the role and value of qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches to scientific enquiry
  4. Interpret common statistical tests used in medical research publications
  5. Critically appraise a range of research information including study design, the results of relevant diagnostic, prognostic and treatment trials, and other qualitative and quantitative studies as reported in the medical and scientific literature.
  6. Formulate simple relevant research questions in biomedical science, psychosocial science or population science, and design appropriate studies or experiments to address the questions
  7. Describe basic principles and ethical implications of research governance including recruitment into trials and research programmes
  8. Describe stratified risk
  9. Describe the concept of personalised medicine to deliver care tailored to the needs of individual patients
  10. Use evidence from large scale public health reviews and other sources of public health data to inform decisions about the care of individual patients.


Digital Marketing: The Ultimate Cure for Healthcare Revenue Condition

"While there are evangelists and advocates of digital marketing within the healthcare industry who will continue lending their support to new technologies and tools, it will be the adoption by local caregivers and clinics that will add more to the transformation."

Before I get down to discussing the titular topic, I'd like to point out how digital disruption has changed the dynamics of nearly all imaginable industries. I remember how our parents warned us against getting into unknown people's vehicles, which was like was many, many moons ago. Today, I ask my kids to book an Uber or Ola cab if I'm unable to pick or drop them. This is in stark contrast to what my parents told me! It's incredible how these two players have revolutionized the transportation industry and are giving the local transit a serious run for their money!

This shows us how industries no longer work the way they used to a decade ago. The same holds true for the healthcare industry. Have you noticed how our dependence on Google search has increased over the years? It's funny how we rely on Google search more than people! We do all our research online, check the websites, read blogs and reviews, and decide for ourselves. Whether it's checking the symptoms of a disease or finding a doctor in your neighborhood, you type in your query and go on about your search.

Here are a few three crucial statistics that are worth your attention and marketing outlay -

- Way back in 2012, Google had observed that about 77% of people used online resources before making an appointment to the doctor/healthcare provider.

- Also, 44% of those who search for hospitals actually wind up scheduling an appointment.

- Likewise, in a report released by Infographics Archive, it was stated that about 60% of social media users believed in the posts put by doctors than any other professionals.

So from both the patient as well as the caregiver viewpoint, digital marketing is crucial and here's how healthcare providers can stay ahead of the digital curve -

#1: Make yourself searchable

digital marketing company in india

Given that people turn to search engines to inquire about health conditions or clinics, both SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) become indispensable for healthcare marketers. With Google's micro-moments' snowballing in popularity (for the uninitiated, it's a concept that pinpoints the times when people automatically whip out their smartphones to find, learn, purchase or do something), local healthcare organizations and professionals must invest in SEO and SEM to capture these 'moments' and be out there when patients are ready to take the action. Google local listing is a good place to start with.

#2: Be socially active

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Apart from enabling users from sharing information and updates via their platforms, social media also works effectively as digital word-of-mouth. Visitor posts, reviews, patient testimonial videos, infographics, etc. are some of the content formats that can be worked upon by healthcare professionals to stay engaged with their followers and attract new ones.

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#3: Keep your website updated

There's no saying that the websites which frequently update their content snag top spots on the Google SERP. Think about this - say someone is looking for information on skin care treatment and in their research, your website pops up on the first page because your website has the updated and relevant information they want, wouldn't that make everything easier for you? Also, videos centering around treatment procedures and patient experience work really well. Make sure you leverage them on your website.

#4: Measure your performance

digital marketing company in india

The fact that you can monitor your digital campaigns in itself is so empowering. Without knowing how your ads are faring, healthcare marketers would be shooting in the dark at best and wasting their marketing budget at worst! Google Analytics is one powerful tool that helps marketers track the performance of digital campaigns and uncover a wealth of insights that can further help fine-tune marketing initiatives. Whether it is knowing where the majority of the traffic is coming from (mobile/desktop) or how visitors are turning from one web page to another to just about anything, Google Analytics is super critical.

#5: Encourage patients to review

I can't stress enough on this. In any business, a good reputation is what that really counts. In the healthcare industry, that's the ONLY thing that matters - whether online or offline. In this industry, however, the stakes are higher than any other as the professionals are dealing with something far more valuable - their patients' lives. Positive reviews help build a positive reputation which is why healthcare professionals must encourage their patients to share their experience, be it on social media or Google. Reviews on the local listing are REALLY important as they boost local search rankings.

If you are looking for a digital marketing company in Pune that will work with you as a part of your team, we think you need to get in touch with us super soon. Please feel free to call us +91 88888 66110 or email us at and we'll be more than happy to help.


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Nord Stream 2: Pay your money, take your choice

The pipeline faces a tough financing climate and continued opposition

The Nord Stream 2 project is either the answer to Europe's prayers or one huge nightmare, depending on who you're talking to. Polish lawyers are trying to block it, while Gazprom is hell-bent on getting the strategic pipeline project built, despite the impact of US sanctions.

The two-string pipeline project would take Russian gas across the Baltic Sea floor and inject it into Germany and its neighbours. It would add 55bn cubic metres a year of much-needed and relatively cheap gas to a region faced with declining North Sea production.

A consortium of industry heavy hitters clubbed together to back the pipeline, with Shell, Austria's OMV, France's Engie and Germany's Uniper and Wintershall each pledging to provide €950m ($1.1bn) of the project's estimated €9bn cost, some of which has already been spent. If the wheels run smoothly, first gas could be running through the pipeline towards the end of 2019.

However, Poland and some its neighbours, trying to shake off their reliance on Russian energy supplyand, in some cases, protect their own domestic energy production continue to argue that Nord Stream 2 works against the European Union's aim of creating a more integrated and harmonised energy network. German leader Angela Merkel is also believed to be less than enthusiastic about the pipeline strategic merits. Nevertheless, she has been convinced of the economic benefits at home.

Monopoly fears

The lobbying of Poland and its allies contributed to a push by the European Commissionthe EU's central administration—to establish an EU-Russia agreement to cover supply passing through the non-Russian section of the pipeline across the Baltic. This would effectively prevent Gazprom having a monopoly over what passes through it. The EC argues that the pipeline could be used by Gazprom to create a near supply monopoly and could kill off one alternative pipeline routethat through Ukraine.

However, a 27 September report on the EC's request by the EU Council's legal service—leaked by the Politico websitesuggests there may be no legal basis for the EC to become involved in drawing up a legal framework for the sub-Baltic stretch of the pipeline. The report also says that, in any case, Germany, as the recipient of the gas, may have a right to veto any political mandate, given that the EU was not permitted to block a member state's choice of energy supplier.

Whatever the legal ins and outs of the EC's position, Nord Stream 2 developers also have to cope with the impact of the US government's beefed up sanctions. These were initially put in place after Russia's annexation of Crimea. The US threatens to penalise financial institutions doing business with the US if they fund a swathe of Russian energy projects.

The effect on the project is already tangible. OMV's chief executive Rainer Seele said in September that his company's funding for Nord Stream 2 would probably need to be reviewed in light of the US sanctions, which had made the financing of such projects in international markets "almost impossible". He was quoted by Interfax as saying that the partners would need to rely on their own capital to fund the project.

Staying upbeat

Gazprom has responded to this gloom with an upbeat assessment of the project's chances of being fully funded. The company's chairman, Viktor Zubkov, indicated in late September that the company would rely on its own resources and may turn to lenders in the Asia-Pacific region, if European institutions refused to invest.

Also upbeatperhaps unsurprisinglyis an analysis of the economic effects of Nord Stream 2, (commissioned by the Nord Steam 2 company itself). The report, written by management consultancy Arthur D Little and published in October, concluded that, as of July 2017, total economic benefit for the EU, where 59% of total investment is going, would be over €5.15bn, with the equivalent of around 31,000 full-time jobs created over a five-year period and the addition of €2.26bn to GDP. Most benefits would be felt in Russia, Germany, Finland and Sweden, the report said.

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China targets Singapore bunkering
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IMO 2020 promises widespread disruption
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Electricity production is on a sustained charge
13 January 2020
Renewable cost reductions and increasing storage availability will fuel exponential electricity growth


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A massive experiment in Taiwan aims to reveal landslides’ surprising effect on the climate

By Katherine Kornei

TAROKO NATIONAL PARK, TAIWAN—The frequent crackle of tumbling rocks overhead is unnerving, especially when you’re picking your way through a pile of jagged debris. “I hate walking down roads like this,” says Niels Hovius, a geomorphologist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. “I know what can happen here.”

Taroko National Park, famous for a precipitous marble gorge that cuts through it, is in a futile fight with gravity. Rockfalls litter the park’s serpentine main highway. The scars of at least a dozen landslides punctuate the view in all directions. Maintenance crews are perpetually spraying concrete on slopes in a last-ditch effort to stabilize them. The park gives out safety helmets for free, and strongly encourages visitors to wear them.

For Hovius, all this moving rock and soil makes for a perfect laboratory. For the past 3 years, he and his colleagues have scrambled and rappelled across the park, installing dozens of instruments in what will end up being Taiwan’s most comprehensive landscape dynamics observatory. One goal is to monitor landslides and understand their triggers. A bigger aim is to investigate their hidden impact on the climate: As massive chemical reactors, landslides draw carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the sky and sometimes belch it out, too. Understanding their role as both carbon source and sink could help researchers better model the carbon cycle that ultimately controls our planet’s climate and habitability.

The recipe for landslides requires three basic ingredients: steep hillslopes, earthquakes to weaken them, and water to make them slick. Taiwan has all three in spades, making it one of the most landslide-prone countries in the world. The island was born 6 million years ago in an ongoing collision of tectonic plates that lifts mountains and generates a drumbeat of earthquakes. And its location in the tropical western Pacific Ocean means typhoons come regularly, occasionally dumping meters of rain in just days. “You can learn a lot by looking at extremes,” says Susan Brantley, a geochemist at Pennsylvania State University in State College.

Hovius first visited Taiwan to do fieldwork in the late 1990s, lured by the island’s extreme climatic and tectonic forcing and its extensive scientific records. A few years ago, he and GFZ physicist Jens Turowski, working with collaborators at Taiwanese institutions, began to plan something more ambitious. By 2021, their observatory, built with roughly $600,000 in research funds from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, will consist of more than 120 instruments spread across hundreds of square kilometers. Solar powered and autonomous, they will relay data once per hour to servers in Germany and Taiwan.

A technician installs a data-logging station for instruments placed in a stream. Water chemistry holds clues to the effect of landslides on the carbon cycle.

Many of the instruments will work as sensitive landslide detectors. Seismometers will pick up ground shaking from tumbling rocks, and cameras will record fresh landslide deposits and scars. The continuous monitoring is a step up from patchy satellite observations and sporadic reports from tourists and park rangers, Hovius says. He and Turowski plan to share their data with Taroko officials, who can use the near–real-time detections to decide whether to close trails or roads—or search for stranded hikers.

Monitoring landslides will also help the team understand what triggers them and how landscapes recover. In 1999, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake struck central Taiwan, killing thousands of people. A few months later, researchers measured a roughly 20-fold increase in the landslide rate near the earthquake’s epicenter. The uptick makes sense: Ground shaking presumably primes the slopes to give way. The surprise was that landslide rates returned to normal after a few years: The landscape somehow knitted itself back together. Rocks settling, fractures filling in, and plant roots binding the soil might all play a role in stabilizing the terrain, Hovius says. To test those ideas, the team might use “crack meters” to monitor how fissures open and close and laser scanners to detect small changes in topography. The observatory’s 10-year life span should be long enough to record several large earthquakes, giving the researchers a chance to witness the rise and fall of landslide rates.

The team will also tackle a deeper mystery: the invisible influence of landslides on the atmosphere. The exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, the surface, and the oceans ultimately regulates Earth’s habitability. For now, humanity—through industrial and agricultural emissions—is a dominant force in the carbon cycle. But over geologic time, the interaction of water with rocks freshly exposed by erosion—so-called chemical weathering—is another powerful player. And landslides are catalysts that speed up chemical weathering. They exhume fresh rock and grind it down into smaller pieces, creating more surface area for reactions. They also carve depressions in slopes that funnel rainwater into the rock.

Here in Taroko, Hovius and his team hope to learn whether landslide-driven weathering is releasing CO2 into the atmosphere or drawing it down, doing a small part to counter humanity’s influence.

It all depends on the rocks and acids available. When atmospheric CO2 dissolves in rainwater, it forms carbonic acid, a weak acid that reacts with silicate rocks—the sandstones, granites, and others that form the majority of Earth’s crustal rocks. The reaction liberates bicarbonate ions, which wash down rivers and into the ocean. There, the ions are taken up as calcium carbonate by shell-forming marine organisms. When these die, their skeletons sink to the sea floor, locking up carbon for millions of years in deposits of limestone. Were it not for this steady drawdown of carbon, the carbon emissions from volcanoes would, over the long term, turn Earth into a hothouse, says Jérôme Gaillardet, a geochemist at the Institute of Geophysics in Paris. “Life is possible because we have this process.”

When limestone and other carbonate rocks are present, however, they can have the opposite effect, providing sulfide minerals like pyrite also exist nearby. Sulfides react with water and oxygen to form sulfuric acid, which in turn dissolves carbonate rocks to release CO2. About one-quarter of the rocks in Taroko are carbonates.

By analyzing river water and landslide seepage for ions let loose by these two kinds of weathering, scientists can see which one dominates. Hovius and his colleagues plan to sample water from recent landslide scars, slopes that appear to be close to failing, and landscapes that haven’t budged in hundreds or even thousands of years. The results, they hope, will show how chemical weathering varies across different settings.

Robert Emberson, a landslide researcher at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has studied fresh landslides in Taiwan and shown that they are sources of CO2—right now. He notes that carbonate rocks and sulfuric acid react thousands of times faster than silicate rocks and carbonic acid. But over centuries the reactions can deplete the sulfide minerals or carbonates, paving the way for silicate weathering to take over, although the transition is gradual, says Kuo-Fang Huang, an isotope geochemist at Academia Sinica in Taipei who is involved in the observatory. “It’s much more complicated.” To see how weathering changes over time, Aaron Bufe, a GFZ earth scientist, plans to gauge the net weathering effect of landslides of different ages—in Taroko and elsewhere—that occurred in similar rock types and climates.

Whether Taroko National Park, and Taiwan as a whole, is a net source or sink of carbon hinges on other factors, too. For instance, landslides mobilize tree trunks and other plant material, kick-starting their journey toward rivers and ultimately the ocean. Rapid burial of this organic matter, before it can decay, removes carbon from the atmosphere. Hovius and his colleagues may monitor this process by recording logs washing downstream after landslides. “The full [carbon] budget remains to be determined,” he says.

Hovius is eating a takeout lunch next to the Liwu River, the familiar scarred mountainsides towering overhead. He doesn’t mind the prospect of more time in this grand outdoor laboratory. He points to where he lost an underwater acoustic sensor after a storm buried it in 5 meters of sediment. He runs his hand over the rocks he’s sitting on and finds evenly spaced holes, relics of a study he did here 20 years ago. Studying this stretch of the river alone could yield 10 papers, he says. But he’s got loftier goals. “I really want to understand the whole thing at once.”

Source: Science Mag


Marta Czerwinska

Alumni Case Studies

Marta Czerwinska

Marta, a BA Law and Management student at RGU, is a recipient of the Access RGU Barbara Rae Scholarship in Business sponsored by CNR.

Why did you apply for the scholarship?

I applied for the scholarship as I knew it would give me the financial backing required. The application was a simple process overall; like writing a personal statement.

What are the benefits of the scholarship?

Knowing that an organisation has awarded me financial support makes me want to try harder to achieve good grades and do well. I feel like I’m more involved in everything, like being a Class Representative.

As part of my scholarship I received placement experience with the firm. The people were really friendly and helpful. I now know what I want to do when I finish university because of them.

What advice would you give to those interested in applying for the scholarship?

Go for it. Don’t think that there are people who deserve it more than you, just focus on yourself and how you would benefit from the support.

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All 8 Harry Potter Movies, Ranked From Worst to Best

July 11, 2018
9 min read

By now, you already know how many Harry Potter movies are there. Today, we are going to rank all Harry Potter films. For as long as there have been movies there have been those adapted from books. But what usually bothered most fans of the books was that the movies strayed from their source material or did not live up to the books. There were quite a few movies that were exceptions too like ‘Gone with the Wind’, ‘To kill a mockingbird’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, and ‘Lolita’ but the large number of movies that weren’t very good made it a popular notion that, “The book is better than the movie.” All of these were also usually based on books with deep subject matter with a very serious tone. But in 2001, to the delight of bibliophiles as well as cinephiles, two incredible movies were made based on widely popular books; J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ and J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’.

While LOTR was a massive book with complex characters and a word count so large it had to be divided into three volumes, ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ was truly a children’s book. It was a hugely successful franchise with every book besting its predecessor’s record. In 1998, riding on the immense success of her first two books Rowling sold the movie rights for her books. And under Chris Columbus, we got the movie everyone was waiting for. In 2011, the series came to an end with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’ which became one of 28 movies to earn more than a billion dollars. Here is the list of all Harry Potter movies, ranked from worst to best.

8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

The second movie in the franchise, Chamber of Secrets had to take a darker turn, closely following the book, which alienated a portion of the young audience. While it was directed by the same director, they started work on it just three days after the release of the ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ and with a smaller budget than before. The movie suffered having a weak ending but it portrayed new characters like Gilderoy Lockhart very well. It was a good movie in most regards especially staying true to the books. But it’s a good movie in a series of much better ones.

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7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

As the first movie in a very popular series, it had a tough job to establish itself as not just a faithful adaptation but also as an entertaining movie. It did the job very well indeed. The casting was impressive given that the protagonists were children and had to be cast for a role they would embody for a decade, growing up. The movie had really good special effects that don’t feel dated even after 16 years in the 21st century. In staying faithful to the book, it had a very simple story to work with whereas the later movies had complex, deeply layered stories to tell. The performances by Tom Felton and Emma Watson overshadowed the title character, played by Daniel Radcliffe which is a little absurd. Nevertheless, Chris Columbus did a great job in making a strong first impression and made every child wish to attend Hogwarts.

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This movie had a lot of elements of the story to put in place for the final part to run with. The concept of Horcruxes, that would be at the heart of the overall story had to be explained as well as the background of Lord Voldemort as a young Tom Riddle. The movie grappled with concepts of ego and enmity while showing the coming-of-age of the lead characters as they dealt with love and jealousy. Alan Rickman was it his best as the movie set up Severus Snape as the eponymous Half-Blood Prince and a cruel antagonist. The movie culminates in one of the most heart-wrenching character deaths in movies which is a testament to the aura the movie builds around itself.

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5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

The fourth book in the series was much bigger than its predecessors, which meant that the movie had to include a lot of content without being completely cramped with exposition. This meant that the movie had to omit parts of the book but Mike Newell and Steve Kloves handled it skilfully. They did not shy away from delving into complex characters like Victor Krum, and Mad-Eye Moody as well as fleshing the protagonists out more. Daniel Radcliffe gave a great performance battling it out in a deadly competition he shouldn’t have been a part of while dealing with darker going-ons in the underbelly of the magical world. This was also the first time that we came face-to-face with You-Know-Who who had grown stronger. The portrayal of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by Ralph Fiennes was scarier than anybody could have imagined. The movie for the first time made us feel relieved that we weren’t attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

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4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

This was the first time that a movie had to be split into two which has become a trend these days. Unlike the others, ‘Deathly Hallows’ was split not only as a cash-grab but because a lot of the elements of the story had to be told well. There was not a lot of material that could be removed from a huge book which meant that two long movies had to be made. The first half of it was mainly the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione trying to find and destroy as many Horcruxes as they could while Voldemort was growing stronger and building his army. We get the story behind the Deathly Hallows and learn the importance of the Elder wand which Voldemort finally gets his hands on. The movie ends with the death of another beloved character warning us of what is in store for the ultimate end of the journey in the second part.

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‘The Order of Phoenix’ is when the series comes into a stride of its own. It sets a ball rolling that crescendos till the final Battle of Hogwarts. The Headmaster of the school has been suspended which means that the students and teachers are left vulnerable to the full wrath of the Ministry of Magic. The movie gives us a character so purely evil that Voldemort fades in comparison. Dolores Umbridge is the personification of an authority that indulges in thwarting any unorthodox thinking from the students, delivering us a metaphorical ruler as infuriating as Big Brother from Orwell’s 1984. But the film ends up pushing in a lot of scenes into a montage and does omit a lot of material. That was justified though being made on the longest book in the series.

Read More: Best Planet of The Apes Movies

The final chapter in the series starts with a melancholy tone set by the death of Dobby but the pace grows exponentially up to the Battle that takes place. The movie holds onto the themes of good versus evil and brings them to the forefront. The revelation that Harry contains a bit of Voldemort’s soul brings forth the idea that maybe the struggle between good and bad is an introspective one. Many characters grow stronger in the dark atmosphere. In a brilliant portrayal by Mathew Lewis, the frail Neville Longbottom who received lesser appreciation in the movies than in the books leads the battle by leading his fellow students. The movie ended the series very strongly with great storytelling and conflict resolution which earned the movie great acclaim and love from fans.

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1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Similar to the book, this movie marked a transition from a lighter children’s entertainment to a deeper story with complex motivations for characters. Maybe the transition is what lost some viewers for this phase in the franchise making this the lowest earning movie in the series. But the movie was made under dire circumstances. Chris Columbus who had directed the first two parts cited his exhaustion as the reason to step down from the director’s position leaving a vacuum that needed to be filled. The studio gave the reins of the third film to Alfonso Cuaron a director who at the time was famous for his ‘Y Mama Tu Tambien’ which was an unconventional coming-of-age movie which dealt with sexual empowerment.

This made him quite unsuitable to make a children’s movie but the leap of faith paid off. Cuaron brought to the series, a maturity that was needed for it to succeed. The dark tone of the movie was complimented by the darker colour grading for it. The movie also utilizes a constantly moving camera which amplifies the terror looming in the background. The time traveling portions of the book also translated very well into the movie, ending in a great performance by Daniel Radcliffe alongside the legend, Gary Oldman. The CGI used for the majestic hippogriff, Buckbeak as well as the soul-sucking Dementors is incredible and will certainly age well. Let’s hope we get visited by Buckbeak in our dreams and not the terrifying Dementors.

Read More: Best Fantasy Movies of All Time


YOLY Challenge #47: Taming the Fire of Summer

As summer approaches and things begin to heat up, it’s a good time to return to the concept of Ayurveda and discover what the Pitta (fire) dosha has in store for us.

If you are new to the sister science of yoga called Ayurveda, please look back to my Warm Up to Ayurveda post for an introduction to its principles and the doshas called vata, pitta & kapha.

Warmer temperatures tend to aggravate or even initiate a pitta constitution. In general, pitta types are fiery in nature and tend to exhibit the main characteristics of a strong metabolism, good appetite, oily skin and hair, irritability, intensity, and inflammation. Emotionally, when there is too much heat or passion in the system, pittas demonstrate anger and aggression. However, when balanced, the pitta constitution is capable of forming dynamic, focused and determined individuals.

Because pitta is the fiery or transformative force responsible for digestion, warmth and inflammation, the small intestine is its main site in the disease process. Therefore, pittas should watch their habits and attempt to balance their food choices (especially in the summer months).

Pittas tend to eat lots of food and get irritable if a meal is missed. They are drawn to hot, oily, and spicy foods which aggravate their already heated dispositions.

To balance the extreme inclinations in diet, pittas should take in more raw foods and salads (particularly in late spring and summer). In general, cooling, nutritive, lacto-vegetarian diets should be consumed. Sweeter oils such as sunflower, coconut and ghee oils are recommended. Spices that are balancing to pittas include: coriander, cloves, cinnamon, cumin and turmeric.  Herbs such as aloe gel/juice, shatavari and licorice are also good items to incorporate into the pitta diet.

Yoga is effective for pacifying the heat of a pitta. Specific practices should include postures to cool the head, calm the heart and relieve tension. Pittas should not push too hard in practice because it only increases their irritability. Heat and tension can be alleviated if the body and mind are kept cool and relaxed with asanas that generate openness and surrender.

To reduce excess pitta, yogis should practice in an effortless, non-goal oriented way, working at about 75% of capacity. Rest assured that when a pitta person practices effortlessly they will still be working harder that everyone else!

Begin a pitta-balancing yoga practice with a slow and easy form of Sun Salutation. Use the breath to monitor the level of work involved. Continue to employ breath awareness in seated forward bends, gentle back bends (focusing on extending the spine) and twists (which are very effective in reducing excess pitta). Limit time in positions that invert the head. Supported shoulderstand is most effective. A longer savasana may irritate this dosha so end practice with a short 5 minute Savasana (you can gradually lengthen it over time).

Pittas need to realize that they can use their powerful will to maintain a soft and gentle approach. When a pitta constitution is balanced properly, one should feel a sense of coolness, calmness, openness, patience and tolerance.

YOLY Challenge #31: Warm Up to Ayurveda

The term ayurveda means the “science of life.” Its practice utilizes diet, herbs, bodywork, breathing and meditation in a holistic fashion for healing the body. Ayurveda teaches us how to harmonize ourselves with sunrise and sunset, the seasons of the year, and the stages of life. Ayurveda and yoga are sister sciences that grew up from the same root in ancient India.

Ayurveda recognizes that we all possess individual constitutional types or doshas in mind and body. Vata, Pitta and Kapha are the specific doshas and the categories by which the science of ayurveda is designated. Someone’s dosha can be determined by their body type, their temperament or even by the kind of food, exercise and lifestyle they gravitate toward. In the weeks to come, we will discover how ayurveda can give us a better understanding of our unique nature. We will use these discoveries to see how our yoga practice can help to balance our individual constitutions.

For this challenge, I would like to introduce you to the vata dosha.

Vata types are airy in nature. This quality is expressed in the bones and joints where vata accumulates in the body. These types have the weakest build and stamina, but also have the greatest capacity for change and adaptation. Vata is the energetic force responsible for movement, expression and the discharge of all impulses. It acts primarily through the nervous system. The colon is its main site in the disease process, in which waste gases or toxins accumulate and spread to the blood, bones and other parts of the body. Psychologically, feelings of ungroundedness and instability signify too much vata or wind and create fear and anxiety. Balanced, vata can be expressive and creative.

Although periods of change and disruption come easy for the vata types, it is not a healthy path. During the holidays, many of us were over stimulated by excess noise, crowded shopping malls and unsettled in our eating and drinking habits. We also tend to travel more and get less sleep during this season. In general the holidays, while being a wonderful time for gathering with family and friends, tend to create havoc in our systems and bring about an increase in vata.

January is an opportune time for reestablishing stability and routine for your body and mind. The way in which you practice your yoga is an excellent place to begin.

To reduce excess vata energies, you should practice in a quiet, grounded and structured way. Your challenge is to try one or two of these suggestions each day this week:

It is best for vatas to work the poses with the breath and hold the standing, seated, forward bends and twists longer than they are inclined to do. Seated lateral bends or Sun Salutations should be done expressly while focusing on the breath.  Pause in Uttanasana and feel your connection to the earth.

Back bends tend to increase the vata dosha if done excessively or unconsciously. Done gently, they keep the spine supple preventing excess Vata from accumulating in the vertebrae. Try Sphinx pose or a fully supported back bend such as Mountain Brook Pose.

Vatas should think of building core strength in the body while maintaining flexibility. Practice Navasana in stages so that you can sustain your time in the pose with balance and poise.

Savasana is the best pose for pacifying vata and should be practiced daily for 15-20 minutes as a conclusion to the asana practice. Be sure to stay warm.

Remaining still will be the vata’s challenge as well as the reward.


Anxiety  and Chronic Stress Therapy

cycle of anxiety edited
Anxiety and panic attacks can be resolved in as little as 1-3 sessions... Anxiety symptoms affect many people. Its natural to be anxious at times, but when the anxiety is constant or when anxiety and panic attacks are frequent then it needs to be managed and dealt with. But how?

My hypnotic approach to treating anxiety disorders incorporates two aspects:

◦    treating the symptoms

◦    uncovering the root   causes

I address the symptoms by getting instantly to the source of the problem, your mind.You see the subconcious has many functions, its where "habits" get formed or programs , but its also in direct communication with your body.So the subconcious effect the way you feel emotionally and how your physical body responds.So in treating your anxiety at a subconcious level, we can stop those ruminating thoughts, release anxiety, slow down a rapid beating heart, sooth gurgling stomachs and add additional external anchors to reinforce CALM.Through the power of hypnosis we can imbue deep subconcious cues so you have  instant relaxation  to help you cope with stress, tension, and anxiety episodes on the fly, immediately, wherever they occur. These skills include refocusing, distraction, cognitive reframing, thought interruption & deep breathing.

Fears, generalized anxiety, panic and phobias can be controlled using Clinical Hypnosis, Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Relaxation Therapy. Through the use of hypnosis, you can learn to "un-install" anxious thoughts and in their place, "install" positive, realistic coping thoughts into your subconscious and conscious minds.

Anxiety can be a result of genetic predisposition or situational caused by events in your life and or a cumulative series of events.Often when anxiety comes into your life it is a sign that you need to observe yourself , some how you haven't been micromanaging YOU .This lack of looking after you even when you don't think you need it, and pushing down your voice, feelings, feeling powerless, creates emotional bricks.As these bricks accumulate your body and your mind become walled in creating a physiological response.

Added to this overwhelment is that internal switch that is then easily "revved" from 0-100 producing a multitude of umcomfortable feelings'breathlessness,knot in stomach, ruminations,fears,powerlessness,foggy brain, negative mindset and  more.

Hypnosis  effectively  imprints coping skills into your Subconscious Mind in a way that is FAST, INSTANT and PERMANENT. When you learn and practice Self Hypnosis, you can mentally practice and rehearse effective cognitive, behavioral and relaxation coping skills so that they become conscious AND subconscious habits. This is a very important component of your healing.

Also available are sessions to help with Stress & Phobias

Phobias;fear of flying,fear of water,fear of vomiting,fear of driving,dear of public speaking.

Imagine how good it would feel to be anxiety free and in control... once and for all!

Submerge your mind in total CALM  Calm Down by Sugarock99

The first law of wellness is to Calm the Turbulence. By “turbulence,” I mean chronic psychological stress.

Chronic stress is much different than acute stress. Acute stress is our natural reaction to danger. Like other mammals, we have evolved to be constantly on guard for possible external threats. And when we perceive a threat, our body reacts immediately. This reaction is called the stress response.

For example, suppose you’re hiking in the woods and see a bear (or agressive Male Kangaroo) on the trail in front of you. Your body immediately responds by pumping a host of hormones into your blood. These hormones cause a number of physiological reactions. Your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate increase. Your cells pump out extra energy. Your sensory acuity increases. Other physiological changes also take place. This stress response to perceived threat is natural. It helps you prepare for a dangerous situation very quickly. Once the danger has passed,your body returns to its normal state.

Chronic stress is different. Chronic stress can develop from continually worrying about finances, relationships, health, or countless other life issues. In today’s world, we may feel under stress from the time we get up in the morning until we lay our heads down at night.

It starts in the morning with finding you’re out of your favorite cereal. Then you get stuck in traffic and arrive late to work. You find your computer is down. The girl in the cubicle down the hall says something snide to you. At lunch, your order is late. The meat loaf is cold. Back at the office, phone calls keep interrupting your work. You have to stay late to finish up. You get stuck in traffic again on the way home. You arrive at 8:30. The kids are irritable. Dinner is cold. Having felt stress almost constantly throughout the day, you just want to go to bed.

The Toll of Chronic Stress

The problem with chronic stress is that the stress response occurs again and again, sometimes without letup. Your body doesn’t return to its normal state. The extra hormones—such as cortisol, catecholamines, and vasopressin—continue circulating in your blood, gradually doing damage.

The excess cortisol suppresses the immune system, which is so crucial to fighting off bodily threats such as dangerous bacteria and cancer.

Both cortisol and catecholamines contribute to type 2 diabetes by elevating blood glucose levels.

Catecholamines and vasopressin increase blood pressure, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

In addition to overproducing stress hormones, psychological stress increases the activation of blood platelets, which play an important role in the evolution of plaques and the arterial clotting that leads to strokes. Research also shows that chronic stress increases the risk of asthma, gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer.

In a word, over time, chronic stress can be a killer.

Chronic stress also takes a large toll in the other three dimensions of our lives. It decreases our enjoyment of life. It interferes with our problem-solving abilities. It can impair our social relationships and detract from the spiritual dimension of our lives. It has been called “the ailment of our time.” Its prevalence in today’s society and the damage it does to our lives is why Calm the Turbulence is one of the Seven Laws of Wellness. In today’s world, it is crucial to learn strategies for dealing successfully with chronic stress so we can stay calm in stormy seas.

Strategies for Dealing with Chronic Stress

Hypnosis can help you acess that deeper part of you, to calm the storm,reframe your perpective and imbue deep coping mechanisms to allow you to have continual good health and quality fo life , create a protective self micromanaging system within keeping you blanced and quieting the turbulence within.

Book now and take the first step to creating the New YOU!

1 Session 1 hour $150
Call - 0412106496

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Jordan Craw
Jordan Craw

It’s funny how old clichés often ring true, but then again I guess that’s how they become clichés in the first place. As with most walks of life, we as human beings often need hands on experience, or in many cases pain, to realise the value of advice contained within clichés.

One such cliché in trading circles goes something like, “It’s not when you enter, but when you exit that really counts.” With this in mind, let’s take a look at a couple of exit stop strategies that can help protect profit once it’s on the table.

Static stops like an 8% stop loss or 30% profit target definitely have their place, however for profit targets especially, there are few things more frustrating than setting your target only to watch the market trade to within one tick of it, then to reverse and take out your stop loss. Chart 1 below shows an example of a stop loss and profit target.

Chart 1 - Static Stop Examples
click chart for more detail
click chart for more detail

There are a variety of ways to implement money management rules to avoid this situation. One of these is to use a trailing stop that will move with the market as it advances, but stay static if the trade moves against you. A popular method is to trail the stop based on the low for long trades and the high for short trades. However, the close or open can also be used. Whether the stock is moving with or against the trade is determined by the field the stop is trailing behind. For example, if a long trade was taken with a trailing stop based on the low, the stop would move higher when the low moves higher than the low of the bar previous and stay static when the low is less than or equal to the low of the bar previous.

Chart 2 - Trailing Stop Examples
click chart for more detail
click chart for more detail

There are a variety of different types of trailing stops available including price trailing , percentage trailing and volatility (Average True Range based) trailing.

Both price and percentage trailing stops have their place in certain areas, but both need to be tuned to an individual market or stock. This is because $5 may be a very large move on one stock, but an average move on another. The same can be said for percentage moves, 10% may be a drastic move for a low volatility stock, but a fairly typical move for a high volatility stock.

For this reason, volatility trailing stops are often a better approach. Volatility stops work by using prior price movements of that stock to establish stop distances. Using the Stock’s Average True Range (ATR) is one popular method of calculating this stop distance. ATR is calculated first by establishing the stock’s True Range. True Range can be defined as the greatest of either of the following:

  • Today’s High minus Today’s Low, OR
  • The difference between Yesterday’s Close and Today’s High, OR
  • The difference between Yesterday’s Close and Today’s Low

When the True Range level for each interval is known, the level for each interval is then averaged over prior days to produce the Average True Range (ATR).

Based on this, typically ATR stops have two key parameters - the average period to be used and the number of times the ATR stop will be away from the current prices – known as the ATR multiple.

An example of these two is a 9-period average with an ATR multiple of 2. This effectively takes the average true range of the last nine trading periods and then projects the stop by twice this figure behind the current price.

Coming back to the comparison between different trailing stops, the real strength of volatility trailing stops is that they adjust themselves to a market’s current behaviour. This ensures that the exit strategy you are using is tuned to the market in question.

So next time you go to take a trade, it may be worth asking yourself whether you are paying attention to the old cliché and ensuring your exit strategy is sound and clearly defined.

Happy Trading!

Jordan Craw