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Statement: Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, on Baucus-Grassley "HIRE" Act

CBPP Statement: February 12, 2010 - For Immediate Release

The Baucus-Grassley “HIRE” Act recognizes the need for further steps to boost the economy and create jobs beyond what Congress enacted last year in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  It falls short of what’s needed, however, because it lacks additional fiscal relief for hard-pressed states and provides an inadequate extension of emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for jobless workers.  Fiscal relief and UI are among the most effective steps available to policymakers, providing a high “bang for the buck” in terms of boosting the fragile economy as well as preventing layoffs and preserving or creating jobs.  Congress should add significant fiscal relief and extend the length of additional UI benefits to the recovery legislation it enacts.

The lack of additional fiscal relief is particularly glaring.  States face an estimated $300 billion in total deficits over the next two fiscal years, and many states have already begun to draft their budget for 2011, which starts July 1 in most states.  Governors are proposing deep program cuts that, if adopted by their legislatures in the coming weeks, will reduce demand in the economy, increasing unemployment and raising the risk of a double-dip recession.  If Congress does not act – and act quickly – to provide more fiscal relief, states will have to take steps to close their budget gaps that could cost the economy up to 900,000 jobs.  They will likely cut education, leading to teacher lay-offs; cut Medicaid, throwing more working-class people into the ranks of the uninsured, and cut aid to local governments, leading to cutbacks in local services like police and fire protection.  All of these actions will mean less money for families and small businesses to spend in their communities, further depressing economic growth.  Federal aid to states produces $1.41 in economic activity for each $1 in federal spending, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's  Thus, the Baucus-Grassley legislation omits one of the best “bangs for the buck” available.

Congress also should extend the emergency UI benefits for unemployed workers that it enacted in ARRA through the end of the year.  Most forecasters believe that unemployment will remain close to 10 percent through 2010, and that means long-term unemployment will also likely remain very high.  Regular UI benefits typically run out after 26 weeks but, as of last month, more than 40 percent of unemployed workers had been looking for a job for 27 weeks or more.  The percentage of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than half a year and still can’t find a job is the highest on record in data that go back to 1948, and much higher than in past recessions. Providing temporary additional benefits to unemployed workers in such a weak labor market not only helps the workers and their families but it’s also one of the most effective ways to boost the nascent economic recovery.  The Congressional Budget Office listed it among the most effective policies for boosting output and employment in its recent analysis of measures that Congress will likely consider, and it consistently ranks very high in other analysts’ rankings of economic stimulus "bang-for-the-buck.”

As Congress considers legislation to further boost the economy and create jobs, lawmakers should include the critical steps of significant fiscal relief and an extension of emergency UI benefits through the end of 2010.


CFD Online Discussion Forums

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PeterDoings April 15, 2013 18:22

Spalart-Allmaras and "Non-Conservative Diffusion"

I'm an undergrad student and I'm implementing the S-A model for incompressible flow in a FV solver;

I have access to STAR-CCM+'s documentation and there I found an entry explaining that they did not discretize explicitly one of parcels of the diffusion term but that they combined it with the conservative diffusion one. I tried to get to the formula on my own using the identity:

\nabla\cdot(\phi\nabla\psi)=\phi\nabla^{2}\psi + \nabla\phi\cdot\nabla\psi

And got a very similar result to STAR's:

\frac{1}{\sigma_\nu}[\int_S(\nu+\tilde{\nu})\nabla\nu \cdot dS + \int_V C_{b2} (\nabla \nu \cdot \nabla \nu)dV] = \frac{1+C_{b2}}{\sigma_\nu}  \int(\nu+\tilde{\nu})\nabla\tilde{\nu} \cdot dS -  \int_V\frac{C_{b2}}{\sigma_\nu}(\nu+\tilde{\nu})\nabla^2\tilde{\nu}dV

Except that in the documentation it appears as a \approx and the last term has, instead of the Laplacian, a \nabla\tilde{\nu}^2 which I assume is their mistake (is it?).
My questions are: a) is this common practice? and b) I'll treat the first term as a regular diffusion term with the diffusivity given by last iteration's \tilde{\nu}, but how can I best discretize the last one? Explicitly calculate the laplacian on a cell by cell basis, multiply by \nu+\tilde{\nu} and put the result in the right-hand side?

Any help apreciated.


Wax works

Where can you find Paul McCartney, Mark Twain and Harriet Tubman all in the same place?

Chandler Elementary School, of course. Well, sort of.

These historic figures and many more could be found in the hallways of Chandler recently as fourth-grade Excel teacher Nancy Lidy put on "Lidy's Wax Museum." The project gave students the opportunity to portray a historically significant figure. Characters ranged from famous jurist Sandra Day O'Connor to frontier explorer Meriwether Lewis.

The children in Lidy's class were expected to create and memorize a 55-second speech on their characters. Participants were also expected to dress accordingly and bring in props to help set the scene for audience members, who included parents and other students at the school.

The presentations were given in a style similar to that of a "wax museum." Five "characters" were placed at each of four different stations in the school's foyer and hallways. Each character would begin and end a speech in a totally frozen state. Lidy would then release characters from their trance with the words, "Lidy's Wax Museum preparing to open" and the clapping of a clapboard.

Lidy believes the unique approach to the presentations helped engage the audience.

"It's moving so fast that boredom doesn't have a chance to set in," Lidy said. "The audience is constantly alert."

McKenna Peach, a student in Lidy's Excel class, chose civil rights activist Rosa Parks as the subject of her presentation.

"I think what she did was great," Peach said. "I just thought they treated black people differently and it wasn't right. She stood up for her rights and did the right thing. She really inspired me."

Wardrobe was another appealing part of the presentations

Peach's outfit included a colorful dress with a knitted shawl and hat. Maria Fruit, acting as the famous Native American Sacagawea, had a detailed costume and wore a longhaired whig to go along with her Indian dress.

This was the second time Lidy has done the "wax museum" project with her students and she considers it to be a great educational tool.

"They go from not knowing what a speech is at all to developing a 55-second speech," she said.

Like many adults, the prospect of public speaking was daunting to many students.

"When she first said we were giving speeches, I was scared," Peach said. "(But) we kept practicing and it got easier."

Students had lots of time to prepare their presentations, but due to the many snow days Warrick County has encountered recently they were given just one dress rehearsal before their first performance. Lidy was impressed with how her students responded to the adversity.

"They only had one dress rehearsal," Lidy said. "But when it was showtime everyone had it down pat."

The goal of the project was to help the fourth grade students gain experience in researching certain topics and to develop a sense of ease while speaking in front of their peers, something Lidy feels was accomplished.

"They are very comfortable talking in front of each other by this point," she said.

The students may have developed that sense of comfort Lidy was hoping for, but some learned even more than that.

Sam Huff, a youth baseball player and student of Lidy's, decided to personify baseball pitcher Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand. Abbott was best known for his overcoming a disability to pitch in the major leagues. Huff, an aspiring big league pitcher, was influenced by Abbott's achievements.

"I learned that if you try hard, you can overcome anything," Huff said.

Lidy enjoys hearing that. She said those moments when students use lessons not only to gain knowledge of specific topics but also to learn life skills are particularly gratifying.

"I love my job," said Lidy. "We present them their education and they become the active doers. They go from teacher-driven to studentdriven."

Lidy has been involved in education since 1970 and has been the Excel teacher at Chandler since 1993. She is the wife of former Castle football coach John Lidy.

Her tenure as an educator has been long, but Lidy has treasured each moment.

"I love the journey," she said. "Sometimes I don't know who is having more fun, the students or me."

"It's like what I always tell my colleagues," she said. "I have the best job in Warrick County."

And a lot of celebrities in her classroom.


American Society For Nutrition

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Breakfast Consumption and Weight Loss

Student Blogger
By Caitlin Dow, PhD

Breakfast is often considered the “most important meal of the day,” and if you are looking to lose weight, you mustn't skip breakfast… or so the story goes. This idea is widely believed in popular culture as well as by many nutrition scientists and government bodies and is repeated so often that many in the field consider it health dogma. Indeed, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans even recommend breakfast consumption as an important tool for weight loss.  But what does the science say?

            Observational studies indicate that breakfast consumption is linked to lower weight.  Data from the National Weight Control Registry demonstrated that 78% of the nearly 3,000 subjects included in the analysis (adults who had lost at least 13 kg and kept the weight off for a year or more) reported eating breakfast everyday and only 4% reported never eating breakfast [1]. Further, a recent meta-analysis of observational studies that have evaluated the relation between weight and breakfast consumption found that skipping breakfast was associated with a 55% increased odds of having overweight or obesity [2]. These findings are likely the reason many tout breakfast consumption as an important weight loss modality, despite these studies not actually testing that outcome.

Observational studies can only describe associations, but are not appropriate to determine causation.  Thus, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have sought to test whether breakfast consumption directly impacts weight.  In one of the first RCTs to evaluate the role of breakfast in weight loss, Schlundt et al. [3]studied women with obesity who were self-reported breakfast eaters or skippers.Within each group, women were randomized to eat or skip breakfast in addition to following a 1200 kcal/day diet for 12 weeks. All groups lost at least 6 kg, but interestingly, those who were randomized to switch their breakfast condition (e.g. ate breakfast at baseline, then started skipping) lost more weight than those who maintained their breakfast habit. These results suggest that changing an eating behavior in addition to following a reduced calorie diet may accelerate weight loss. However, the results from a study by Dhurandhar et al. did not corroborate those findings. Adults with overweight and obesity were randomized to one of three conditions in which all groups received a USDA pamphlet on healthy eating practices: the control group received no other information, one group received additional instructions to consume breakfast, and the third group was instructed to not eat breakfast [4]. After 16 weeks, there was no observed effect of treatment assignment on weight loss.Contrary to the results from the Schlundt study, baseline breakfast eating habit was not related to weight change, though this study didn't evaluate breakfast consumption in conjunction with a reduced calorie diet.Finally, in a recently published 4-week study, adults with overweight and obesity were randomized to three different breakfast conditions: water (control), frosted flakes, or oatmeal [5].Interestingly, skipping breakfast resulted in an average weight loss of 1.2 kg, while those randomized to either breakfast condition demonstrated no significant weight change.However, total cholesterol also increased in the control group, suggesting that skipping breakfast may result in slight weight loss, but have detrimental effects on cardiometabolic health.

Thus, the results from the few RCTs completed in adults with overweight and obesity, to date, do not support the notion that breakfast consumption should be part of a weight loss regimen. Importantly, though, the results are also not compelling to suggest that eating breakfast hinders weight loss.  This field is still young and many questions remain unanswered. I look forward to more RCTs evaluating breakfast consumption (and potentially, breakfast quality) on various facets of weight and metabolic health.

1.Wyatt, H.R., et al., Long-term weight loss and breakfast in subjects in the National Weight Control Registry. Obes Res, 2002. 10(2): p. 78-82.

2.Brown, A.W., M.M. Bohan Brown, and D.B. Allison, Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show 2 practices that distort scientific evidence. Am J Clin Nutr, 2013. 98(5): p. 1298-308.

3.Schlundt, D.G., et al., The role of breakfast in the treatment of obesity: a randomized clinical trial. Am J Clin Nutr, 1992. 55(3): p. 645-51.

4.Dhurandhar, E.J., et al., The effectiveness of breakfast recommendations on weight loss: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr, 2014. 100(2): p. 507-13.

5.Geliebter, A., et al., Skipping breakfast leads to weight loss but also elevated cholesterol compared with consuming daily breakfasts of oat porridge or frosted cornflakes in overweight individuals: a randomised controlled trial. J Nutr Sci, 2014. 3: p. e56.

Green Tea: Who Does it Help, and How?

Student Blogger
By: Emma Partridge, MS Candidate

Green tea contains a high concentration of polyphenols, most of which are flavanols. Flavanols are commonly known as catechins, the most active catechin being epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG).1 Within the world of nutrition, green tea is consistently touted as a beverage with a plethora of health benefits. These benefits are far-reaching and specific roles of green tea have been identified to improve symptoms or reverse disease damage amongst people with autoimmune disease, heart disease, cancer, liver disorders, smoking complications, chronic inflammation, and more. The roles of green tea often overlap and while green tea consumption is important for those with various diseases, the consumption of green tea by healthy individuals may be integral in the prevention of many of the following diseases.

Chronic Inflammatory Disease
EGCG may be most important flavanol when it comes to inflammation control.2 EGCG has been shown to suppress the production of cytokines, pro-inflammatory mediators. Suppressing cytokines decreases long-term inflammation and has been shown to improve inflammation-related symptoms in arthritis models.3,4

Autoimmune Disease
In addition to helping to control the chronic inflammation associated with most autoimmune diseases, EGCG has been shown to suppress auto-reactive T cell proliferation. Auto-reactive T cells act against the body, resulting in various forms of autoimmune diseases. EGCG may also help to regulate T-helper cell balance, which may decrease the pathogenesis of arthritic diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis.3

Type 2 Diabetes Risk
Type 2 Diabetes is sweeping America, and food production practices, availability, and affordability are making it harder for people to access healthy options. The ease of accessing and affording unhealthy foods is increasing the risk of diabetes among populations. Green tea, as well as coffee, has been associated with lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes, though the mechanism is unknown and the data inconsistent. However, in a study of 40,000+ people followed for 10 years, researchers found that daily consumption of at least three cups of coffee or tea may lower type 2 diabetes risk.5

Heart Disease & Stroke Risk
In an article published by the American Heart Association, researchers found that people who drank two to three cups of green tea per day had a 14% lower risk of stoke.6 The research on green tea and stroke risk comes on the wake of multiple studies finding links between green tea and heart health. Multiple studies found green tea consumption to lower risk of death from heart attacks by 26% and lower risk of coronary artery disease by 28%.7

Cancer & Tumor Growth
Cancer is a leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease. Green tea has already been shown to be beneficial in preventing the leading cause of death; now studies have now shown that the EGCG may affect transformed cells by inhibiting the growth of certain cell lines, inducing apoptosis, and altering gene expression to prevent transformed cells from becoming cancerous.8

The polyphenols in green tea have shown to work against carcinogens, while the antioxidant effects may reverse endothelial dysfunction in healthy smokers.8 The reversal of endothelial dysfunction in smokers is important because it plays a role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.9

Liver Disease
Green tea's aforementioned anti-carcinogenic affect may play a role in preventing liver disease. Active polyphenols detoxify reactive oxygen species, preventing oxygen free radicals from destroying hepatocytes and causing oxidative DNA damage. Multiple studies have shown that, most likely via this method, green tea intake can attenuate liver disease or liver cancer.10

Weight Loss & Weight Maintenance
Green tea's affect on weight loss may be attributed to two components: EGCG and caffeine. Caffeine alone does play some role in increasing energy expenditure, but when combined with EGCG, the mixture stimulates energy expenditure and fat oxidation to a greater degree. This may trigger weight loss, and additional evidence reveals that continual green tea consumption can further help to maintain weight.11

In determining whether or not green tea is for you, the answer is likely yes. While there are risks by way of overconsumption, a few glasses a day has been shown to be beneficial for the all-around healthy person in preventing disease and for the person suffering from various diseases or ailments.

1.Ehrlich SD. Green Tea. 2011;
2.Hamer M. The beneficial effects of tea on immune function and inflammation: a review of evidence from in vitro, animal, and human research. Nutrition Research. 2007;27(7):373-379.
3.Wu DY, Wang JP, Pae M, Meydani SN. Green tea EGCG, T cells, and T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases. Molecular Aspects of Medicine. 2012;33(1):107-118.
4.Kim HR, Rajaiah R, Wu QL, et al. Green Tea Protects Rats against Autoimmune Arthritis by Modulating Disease-Related Immune Events. Journal of Nutrition. 2008;138(11):2111-2116.
5.van Dieren S, Uiterwaal C, van der Schouw YT, et al. Coffee and tea consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes. Diabetologia. 2009;52(12):2561-2569.
6.Green tea, coffee may help lower stroke risk. 2013;
7.Green tea may lower heart disease risk. Harvard Heart Letter 2012;
8.Chen ZP, Schell JB, Ho CT, Chen KY. Green tea epigallocatechin gallate shows a pronounced growth inhibitory effect on cancerous cells but not on their normal counterparts. Cancer Letters. 1998;129(2):173-179.
9.Nagaya N, Yamamoto H, Uematsu M, et al. Green tea reverses endothelial dysfunction in healthy smokers. Heart. 2004;90(12):1485-1486.
10.Jin X, Zheng R-h, Li Y-m. Green tea consumption and liver disease: a systematic review. Liver International. 2008;28(7):990-996.
11.Hursel R, Viechtbauer W, Westerterp-Plantenga MS. The effects of green tea on weight loss and weight maintenance: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Obesity. 2009;33(9):956-961.

Uganda and Food Security: Thoughts from a Personal Experience

Student Blogger
By Amber Furrer, MS

The term “food security” at a basic level was defined by the World Food Summit of 1996 as “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” (FAO 1996).  This is obviously a key element in success and well-being of any people, though its realization will look a little bit different in America, where we do still have food insecure, compared to other parts of the world.

There are many facets to the problem: poor infrastructure and organization, poverty, limited education, social injustice and gender inequality, conflict, and lack of natural resources.  Solutions also cannot generally be broadly applied because each country experiences these issues differently.  Despite the successes of the Green Revolution in agriculture and food research implementation and nutrition interventions since the 1960's, around 850 million people (or about 15% of the world's population) remain malnourished.  For children specifically, this jumps to 20%. The enormity of the problem can leave a person wondering what possible difference one person or one organization could make.
On May 8, I traveled to Uganda on 3-week assignment with a United States-based NGO whose mission is to serve the vulnerable in developing countries with development and relief efforts.  Uganda, like the surrounding countries, is given a “low human development” score in the 2014 Human Development Report by the United Nations.  In 2006, 38% of Ugandan children experienced chronic malnutrition, or stunting.  Vitamin A and iron deficiency remain critical problems in population health, especially for mother and children (FAO 2010).

The broad focus of my assignment was nutrition education and recipe development for a small-holder farmer cooperative.  In general, farmers are an important target for nutrition education because they are able to impact the local food supply and most farmers are women of reproductive age.
Preparing for my trip, I wasn't sure what kind of impact I would have.  A semi-tropical climate allows Ugandans to grow and consume a variety of foods, and on paper I thought their diet seemed pretty adequate.  But of course things on paper are always a bit different than what you find in reality.

I spent two days with each group of farmers, the first day communicating (through a translator) the basic, important concepts of nutrition and the second explaining and demonstrating foods and preparation methods that could improve the diet quality of people in their district.  I shared the kind of information that we take for granted: the role of carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals in our bodies and the importance of consuming a balanced diet including a variety of foods in addition to other simple but important tidbits like “don't feed tea and coffee to your children.”  When it came to recipe demonstrations, I explained things that most people in the US could look up on a computer whenever they wanted, but for these women and men was not accessible.

Along the way, I began to recognize that consumption patterns, while related to economic factors, often have more to do with cultural practices and preferences and societal barriers.  A visitor to Uganda immediately notices the huge amount of carbohydrate sources consumed at every meal.  There are several, including Irish potatoes, (white) sweet potatoes, cassava, green banana, rice, corn and millet-based pastes, and wheat-based chapatti.  Ugandans also grow a variety of beans, ground and tree nuts, vegetables, and fruits, so it is not that nutritious foods are totally absent, but are consumed in skewed proportions.

Fruit is considered child's food, and vegetables (including beans) are consumed in very small amounts.  Meat, dairy, and eggs are not widely affordable, and insects and fish have an undesirable “poor food” stigma attached.  Influences and perceptions of a Western diet have made white bread and other packaged foods sought-after commodities, rather than the native whole grain millet, avocadoes, mangos, and other naturally nutritious foods that Americans are ironically trending towards.

In lacking a strong education system and broad computer access, Ugandan people live in an information desert.  Despite the agricultural potential for variety, many dishes are made and consumed the same way day after day with the same ingredients because knowledge on nutrition and food preparation is lacking. There are countries with enough conflict and natural resource struggles that educating on the benefits of vegetable and dairy/animal protein consumption might be a moot point, but in Uganda these things are more achievable.  Timing seems critical: these farmers were at a point where they requested this training, and that makes the potential impact far greater.

Easily-modified agricultural factors can have broad influence on the diet.  For example, simple introduction of orange-fleshed, rather than white-fleshed, sweet potatoes can vastly improve vitamin A intake.  Increasing use of fertilizers or crop rotation practices can ensure that minerals which foods like peanuts should theoretically contain are actually present.
Gender-related issues can also impact diet quality. Women are responsible for feeding themselves and their children, but the money, even money they earned, is not always in their hands. Men may have a nice meal at a restaurant while women eat cassava and potatoes at home.  In addition, the common practice of multiple wives and the perception of children as a status symbol often make families quite large.

Overall, while economic, agricultural, and societal factors do play a role in food security, in countries such as Uganda I think nutrition education has strong potential to directly provide needed knowledge and indirectly change practices and prejudices that impede diet quality.  My personal experience fully supports UNICEF recommendations for future nutrition education programs, including starting young, investing in women and girls, and collaborating across ministries to support integrated approaches to improving the diet (Unicef 2014).  These integrated approaches address other strong nutrition influencers such as food safety and hygiene and health and disease, in addition to agricultural production.

FAO. 1996. “Declaration on World Food Security.” World Food Summit, Rome: FAO.
FAO. 2010. “Uganda.” United Nations.
Unicef. 2014. “Multi-Sectoral Approaches to Nutrition: The Case for Investment by Educational Programmes.”

FDA’s Proposal to Update Nutrition Facts label

Student Blogger
By Emily Roberts

For nutrition professionals, deciphering the Nutrition Facts labels on food packages may be second nature. However, for the general public it is often difficult to understand and interpret this information. The FDA took this into consideration when proposing new requirements for Nutrition Facts labels in 2014 (1). Two main changes were proposed: new information on labels as well as design changes and new serving and package size requirements (2). The appearance of the label will be quite different if they are accepted.

This is of course to be the biggest change since 1993. The only alteration in the past 20 years has been the requirement of the amount of trans fat to the label in 2006 (1). This month the FDA proposed two more changes to the label. The one getting the most attention is the percent daily value of added sugars.

The most notable changes issued in March 2014 were (1):
•    increased font size of calories
•    changing of serving size requirements
•    placement and update of percent daily value
•    including added sugars
•    removing calories from fat
•    including the gram amount of micronutrients
•    including vitamin d and potassium
•    making vitamin C and vitamin A voluntary

As of this July 2015, two new changes were proposed (1):
•    require the percent daily value of added sugars
•    change the footnote to help consumers understand daily values

What are considered added sugars?
Simply stated added sugars are not naturally occurring and are added to the product. ChooseMyPlate says they are sugars that are added when processed or prepared. USDA lists some common sources of added sugars seen on ingredient lists including corn syrup, honey, fructose and lactose.  However, for many manufactures this can be quite difficult to quantify because fructose and lactose are naturally occurring in fruits and milk. Yet, when they are added during processing they are now considered an “added sugar”. The current requirements from the FDA states in The Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 (101.60 c) that manufactures can use the claim “No added sugars” if “no sugar or sugar-containing ingredient is added during processing” (3).

Why does the FDA want percent daily value of added sugars?
Currently, there is no percent daily value of sugars because the FDA recommends that consumers limit their sugar intake to as low as possible. Things changed this month when the FDA argued that the percent daily value helps consumers understand how much is too much added sugars. Added sugars provide no nutrient value, increase caloric intake and replace nutrient dense foods. Susan Mayne, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, argued this change will help consumers reduce their intake of added sugars (4).

How much is too much of added sugars?
FDA recommends that daily intake of added sugars should not exceed 10% of total calories (1). If you are eating a 2,000 calorie diet you can easily exceed this 10% mark by consuming one 20 fl oz Minute Maid Lemonade.

How are food manufacturers reacting?
Food companies argue that including added sugars and a percent daily value could be misleading because the body utilizes added sugars the same as natural sugars and question the amount and quality of scientific evidence the FDA used to support their new proposal. Manufacturers claim that nutrition information seldom alters consumer's food intake, so these changes would be more costly than they would be beneficial (5).

When can the public see these new changes?
The two new proposed changes will go through a comment period before they are accepted.

The Path to Policy: ODS Interview

Student Blogger
Interview with NIH Office of Dietary Supplements Director Dr. Paul Coates
By: R. Alex Coots

Academia is changing.

Today's universities increasingly rely on adjunct faculty to teach courses and reserve the coveted full-time academic position for the science superstars.  This phenomenon, coupled with decreasing paylines from funding agencies, makes a science career especially challenging to pursue. And that's not even considering the project difficulties!

The problem has become so pressing that even the NIH has realized it. New initiatives, such as the BEST Innovation Award, aim to ensure that graduate students and post-docs have increased opportunities to expand their skill sets for a future outside of academia.

Policy is one of the many areas that nutrition experts can serve. The current Director of the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), Dr. Paul Coates, successfully made the transition from bench research as a geneticist to a career in science policy. He spoke with me about his career and transition to ODS.

What motivated your interest into policy?
I was curious. For all these years, I had been funded to do research by the NIH and other organizations, but what I concentrated most on was my own research. I was pretty naïve when I came to the NIH, not knowing what life was like for people who worked on the government side. There were plenty of them like me, PhD's in one setting or another, who had come to the NIH to work as extramural program directors.

What are the important skills or knowledge that someone should have when moving into policy?
One of the things I understood was the importance of making connections. My first job at the NIH was focusing on diabetes research efforts. I learned how to work with other people within an institute, and then gradually in other institutes and beyond to achieve common goals. I think the art of science policy is knowing who else works in this field that you can benefit from, and flip it around and ask “How can I help other people benefit from working together with them?” Recognize the talent that's out there in other organizations.

What advice would you give to students?
You need to pay your dues as a scientist first. You need to understand the scientific method. You don't have to spend an eternity in science, but you must have spent some time doing it. Author publications and write grants. My observation is that the people best prepared for this kind of experience “get it” about what a scientist does. They must be prepared to critically analyze data and know what to look for in the literature to inform policy.

What types of projects do the AAAS and Milner fellows work on?
The AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship is beautifully designed to encourage people at different levels of experience in science to work closely with federal agencies to learn about the science-to-policy transition. In ODS, we're recent partners in that program. Fellows are engaged in projects that my office works on. We have a very active role in translating science into policy, but also in identifying research needs.

The Milner fellowship has a different side to it. Jointly funded by ODS and the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, the Milner fellowship brings in one or two people per year for a two-year stint that will allow them to conduct research in one of the labs at Beltsville. At the same time, they participate at ODS in work on science policy.

How do you see ODS changing in the future?
ODS is getting a little older. A fairly urgent challenge is identifying people who can come up behind us and continue to identify opportunities for research—particularly those that have public health implications— and be committed to help tackle them.

ASN Focused on Collaboration to Solve Nutrition’s Complex Problems

John Courtney
By John E. Courtney, PhD

As a society, ASN highlights the very best scientific research that promotes healthy people and communities; we recognize that nutrition research is conducted within and across the public, private and government sectors of our society. ASN members understand that the nutrition challenges facing the world are multi-faceted and require research-based solutions. The Society also understands that public confidence in scientific research and integrity is essential to translate scientific evidence into improved dietary practices by consumers.

ASN's professional activities allow members to come together and share information and research findings that accelerates discoveries that allow us to better understand the connections among diets and health. As a broad member-based organization, we are transparent about the fact that industry, government, trade groups and other scientific organizations contribute funding to help our society support the research enterprise for all of our members.  ASN is committed to openness, objective science, and disclosure of potential conflicts. The Society's Conflict of Interest attestation and “guiding principles for working with external groups and addressing COI” can be found on our website. All of the Editors for ASN's three journals have publicly-available conflict of interest statements, which is not a required process and is an example of our commitment to transparency.
ASN promotes rigorous research that highlights the very best dietary practices, policies and guidance. Because issues of nutrition impact virtually every aspect of the food supply chain, involvement of all informed stakeholders in the scientific enterprise is essential. Furthermore, in today's extremely competitive research environment, industry support helps progress research that might otherwise be impossible due to limited federal funding.  ASN, like all scientific societies, remains vigilant in safeguarding the integrity of the scientific process from the biases and influences that can be associated with research funding from all sources. Without scientific integrity, there can be no public trust.

ASN does not have small goals, and therefore we cannot work in a vacuum. We believe that scientists in academia, government, and industry can partner to solve the world's nutrition challenges. Our members work with moms and dads, children, the elderly, the sick, the under- and over- nourished, foundations, companies, governments, and media. We look forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders who are passionate about nutrition and committed to the highest ethical standards for research that advances the public health to achieve a healthier world.

ASN welcomes all to the table to learn from one other and to make progress on continuing to solve today's complex nutrition challenges. These challenges include improving mechanisms and processes to fund, conduct and review nutrition research that improves global health.

Dietary Guidelines Committee Focuses on the Diet-Health-Environment Trilemma

Student Blogger
By Banaz Al-khalidi

First released in 1980, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are updated and jointly published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) every 5 years. These guidelines provide recommendations on nutrition and physical activity for Americans aged 2 and older, and are the driving force behind Federal nutrition policies, nutrition education and food procurement programs. As such, these guidelines are used by both the public and industry, and by a wide variety of audiences including educators, health professionals and government agencies.

Earlier the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released a Scientific Report based on the latest evidence, which will shape the finalized guidelines later this year. The committee's work was influenced by two fundamental connections between nutrition and lifestyle-related health issues facing the U.S population:

1) Chronic diseases, overweight and obesity: about half of all American adults (~117 million) have one or more preventable chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and diet related cancers, and about two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are overweight or obese due to poor dietary habits and physical inactivity.
2) Food environment and settings: diet and lifestyle behaviors are strongly influenced by personal, social, organizational, and environmental context and systems. As such, the DGAC developed their recommendations based on a conceptual model of socio-ecological framework to provide recommendations at the individual, social, organizational, and environmental level.

What does the DGAC's report say about the latest research on diet and lifestyle-related health outcomes?

The DGAC found that the current average American diet is low in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains and too high in refined grains, added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. Furthermore, inadequate consumption of vitamin D, calcium, fiber, and potassium were categorized as nutrients of public health concern for the majority of the U.S population. Lifestyle-related health problems in the U.S. have persisted for more than 2 decades and the DGAC's report calls for urgent preventative actions at the national, state, and local community levels. The DGAC recommended a shift in focus to a more environmentally friendly, sustainable plant-based diet that focuses on whole foods rather than specific nutrients. The overall body of evidence examined by the committee is summarized below:

“A diet higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in calories and animal based foods is more health promoting and is associated with less environmental impact than is the current U.S. diet.”

This is not to say that any food groups need to be eliminated completely to improve health and sustainability outcomes. In fact, the DGAC recommended three dietary patterns to provide options that can be adopted by the U.S. population and are also aligned with lower environmental impacts. These dietary patterns include the Healthy U.S. style Pattern, the Healthy Mediterranean style Pattern, and the Healthy Vegetarian Pattern.  Furthermore, the 2015 DGAC left out cholesterol restrictions where previously, the 2010 DGAs recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300 mg/day. The up-to-date evidence on cholesterol showed no substantial relationship between dietary consumption of cholesterol and blood cholesterol. Thus, the 2015 DGAC concluded, “Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”

The message is clear—the 2015 DGAC recommends the U.S population consume dietary patterns that are rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seafood, legumes, and nuts; moderate in low- and non-fat dairy products and alcohol; lower in red and processed meat; and low in saturated fat (less than 10% of total calories consumed per day), added sugars (maximum of 10% of total calories consumed per day), and sodium (2,300 mg per day or age-appropriate Dietary Reference Intake amount). Whether the USDA and the HHS will choose to adopt or ignore these recommendations put forth by the 2015 DGAC remains uncertain at this point. Meanwhile, dozens of health and environmental groups support the committee's recommendations regarding sustainability, as viewed in the open letter found at My Plate My Planet, Food for a Sustainable Nation.

The advisory recommendations put forth by the 2015 DGAC are also closely aligned with recent research highlighting the urgency of shifting global diets, where healthy dietary patterns (i.e. Vegetarian, Pescetarian, and Mediterranean diets) are found to be associated with more favorable health as well as environmental outcomes. Thus, the available data strongly suggest that diets that are higher in plant-based foods will not only improve personal and public health, but also boost our planet's health via “weight” reduction in greenhouse gases mainly due to reduction in livestock production.

Food for Health

Suzanne Price
By Sarah Ohlhorst, MS, RD and John Courtney, PhD

While nutrition scientists in academia and industry seek to increase research and inquiry with respect to the potential value and role of foods and nutrition-based products in improving health, the current regulatory framework appears to limit research on the health benefits of foods. Is it not time for a renewed discussion of the role of food in health? It appears to be necessary, especially related to risk reduction for noncommunicable diseases, given research that consistently shows the role of food in reducing risk of or managing a range of acute and chronic conditions.  Read the full guest blog posted at the Altarum Health Policy Forum.

Rethinking the problem of long-term weight management

Student Blogger
By Banaz Al-khalidi

Losing weight is hard enough. Keeping it off is even harder. Despite decades of scientific advancement in our understanding of energy intake and energy expenditure, weight regain after weight loss remains a major issue in obesity treatment. What could we be missing in this energy balance equation? Rethinking this problem, I think it is worth asking ourselves whether we live to eat or eat to live. There is a huge difference. Given the abundance of food in our environment, the majority of us will live to eat. But what drives this motivation or simply put, what are the determinants of healthy versus unhealthy behaviors?

Generally, healthy lifestyle interventions including diet, exercise, and behavioral strategies, such as keeping a food log, have proven to be effective for weight loss in the short term. However, participants' lack of adherence to the intervention coupled with subsistence of unhealthy behaviors result in weight regain in the long term. According to a research on cardiovascular health behaviors and health factor changes in the US population from 1988 to 2008, healthy diet scores changed minimally (from 0.3% to 1.4% between 1999 and 2008), and physical inactivity levels decreased by only 7-10% from 1999 to 2006. Furthermore, by 2020, it is estimated that 43% of American men and 42% of American women will have a BMI of ≥ 30 kg/m2 (i.e., obese category). Despite the established risks and benefits associated with diet and physical activity, it seems that health behaviors tend to be incredibly resistant to change.
A recent report from a panel of obesity experts convened at the National Institutes of Health discussed the issue of weight regain after weight loss. The authors highlighted the problem of behavioral fatigue, in which patients grow weary of strict lifestyle regimens, especially when weight loss declines after the first 6 months. Specifically, the authors mentioned that “Initially, the positive consequences of weight loss (e.g., sense of accomplishment, better fit of clothes) outweigh the cognitive and the physical effort needed to lose the weight. Later, when the goal is to maintain lost weight, the positive feedback is less compared to the effort required to keep adhering to the same regimen. Thus, the benefits no longer seem to justify the costs”. In other words, the costs of adherence to these interventions exceed the benefits as time progresses, and patients seem to justify their behavior by re-thinking about the cost/benefit ratio in the long run. How can we then increase the long-term benefits while decrease the costs associated with weight maintenance?

There is a need to understand what factors allow people to successfully maintain a behavior over a long period of time. In recent years, obesity and behavioral scientists have started to explore strategies that involve incorporating ‘mindfulness' to promote the sustainability of healthy behaviors. Mindfulness is defined as: awareness of the present moment, and paying attention to one's moment-to-moment experiences non-judgmentally. This attention leads to a clear awareness of one's own thoughts as well as one's environment in that one observes what is happening, but instead of reacting, the mind views these thoughts as inconsequential. This does not mean disconnection from life; rather, the mind is actively engaged and flexible. Mindfulness is not a technique but it is a way of being.

You might ask, what does this have to do with obesity and health behaviors? They're all related. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have recently become a focus for the treatment of obesity-related eating behaviors. A recent review paper examined the effectiveness of MBIs for changing obesity-related eating behaviors. Of the 21 studies included in the review, 18 studies reported positive results for obesity related eating behavior outcomes. Specifically, mindfulness enhanced self-awareness and self-regulation (i.e. long lasting self-motivation) by improving awareness of emotional and sensory cues, which may be effective for sustaining a behavior in the long term. It's about acceptance of the moment we're in and feeling whatever we feel (accepting both positive and negative emotions) without trying to resist, change or control it. Under emotional stress, most of us will try to comfort ourselves by putting something into our mouths, but being aware of the negative emotions, and having greater self-control skills may help us resist the urge to eat large quantities of food or unhealthy food. Thus, greater awareness and self-control skills may help an individual to better monitor and regulate their dietary intake as well as their engagement in physical activity.

When we live to eat, we tend to engage in the act of mindless eating because we tend to see food as a source of reward or entertainment, and we shovel food into our mouths without paying attention to what we're eating and whether we feel full. However, when we're more mindful or self-aware (i.e. eating to live), we become more conscious of what goes into our bodies by focusing fully on the act of eating and eating related decisions. The bottom line is mindfulness may help patients identify internal and external eating cues, manage food cravings, and enhance self-regulation and resilience- all factors important to counteract the behavioral fatigue that tends to occur in lifestyle interventions over time. Perhaps, when we're more mindful, we'll tune into our bodies instead of our thoughts (i.e., thinking about the costs/benefits), and will start to look at food as nourishment rather than as emotional comfort blanket. It is important to note that research in this area is still preliminary but exploring and understanding the relationship between mindfulness and health behaviors may hold promise for long-term weight management.

New Focus on Reducing Anemia in Adolescent Girls

Student Blogger
By Marion Roche, PhD

The target set out by the World Health Assembly is to reduce the anemia in all women of reproductive age by 50% by 2025. Women make up about 3.5 billion in population on our planet. In order to reach this World Health Assembly target, it will be essential to address anemia in the 600 million adolescent girls in the world and recently their nutrition has been getting more attention.

The global birth rate has declined over the past decade, except when analyzing the rate for adolescent girls, with 17-20 million adolescent pregnancies per year. Eleven percent of all pregnancies are to adolescents and 95% of these adolescent pregnancies are occurring in developing countries.

Complications from pregnancy and child birth are the second greatest contributor to mortality for girls 15-19 years of age. Young maternal age increases the risk for anemia during pregnancy, yet adolescent women are less likely to be covered by health services, including micronutrient supplementation, than older women. Compared with older mothers, pregnancy during adolescence is associated with a 50% increased risk of stillbirths and neonatal deaths, and greater risk of preterm birth, low birth weight and small for gestational age (SGA) (Bhutta et al, 2013; Kozuki et al, 2013; Gibbs et al, 2012).

Reducing anemia in adolescents is often motivated by efforts to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes for pregnant adolescents; however, benefits for improving adolescent school performance and productivity at work and in their personal lives should also be valued.

Globally, iron deficiency anaemia is the third most important cause of lost disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in adolescents worldwide at 3%, behind alcohol and unsafe sex (Sawyer et al, 2012).

Adolescents have among the highest energy needs in their diets, yet in developing countries many of them struggle to meet their micronutrient needs. The World Health Organization recommends intermittent or weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplements for non-pregnant women of reproductive age, including adolescent girls. IFA supplementation programs have often been designed to be delivered through the existing health systems, without specific strategies for reaching adolescent girls.

I have heard adolescence referred to as “the awkward years” when individuals explore self-expression and autonomy, but it is also definitely an awkward period for public health services in terms of delivering nutrition, as we often fail to reach this age group.

There have been examples of programs going beyond the health system to reach adolescent girls, such as through schools, peer outreach, factory settings where adolescents work in some countries and even sales in private pharmacies to target middle and upper income adolescent girls.
The Micronutrient Initiative implemented a pilot project with promising results in Chhattisgarh, India where teachers distributed the IFA supplements to 66,709 female students once per week during the school year over a 2 year pilot.

It was new for the schools to become involved in distribution of health commodities, but engaged teachers proved to be effective advocates. There were also efforts to reach the even more vulnerable out of school girls through the integrated child development centers, yet this proved to be a more challenging group of adolescents to reach. Peer to peer outreach by the school girls offered a potential strategy. The current project is being scaled up to reach over 3.5 million school girls.

Adolescent girls have much to offer to their friends, families and communities beyond being potential future mothers. It is time to get them the nutrients they need to thrive in school, work and life.


File Path Function Arguments

A Pygame function or method which takes a file path argument will accept either an Unicode or a byte — 8-bit or ASCII character — string. Unicode strings are translated to Python’s default file system encoding, as returned by sys.getfilesystemencoding(). An Unicode code point above U+FFFF — ’uFFFF’ — can be coded directly with a 32-bit escape sequences — ’Uxxxxxxxx’ — , even for Python interpreters built with an UCS-2 (16-bit character) unicode type. Byte strings are passed to the operating system unchanged.

Null characters — ’x00’ — are not permitted in the path, raising an exception. An exception is also raised if an Unicode file path cannot be encoded. How UTF-16 surrogate codes are handled is Python interpreter dependent. Use UTF-32 code points and 32-bit escape sequences instead. The exception types are function dependent.


Finance Annual Closing List

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									This is a template for a checklist that can be used by a business to help organize and
coordinate year-end financial closing objectives. Financial closing at the end of the year
can be a tedious and burdensome process where any small detail that is overlooked
can ripple into a massive problem for the business. This document should be used by
small businesses or other entities to ensure that all of the required year-end financial
objectives are completed in an organized and timely fashion.
                   Year-End Checklist

                      1. ___ Accrue any year-end costs associated with payroll and post to payroll
                          expense and payroll liabilities.
                              a. Review your fringe benefits to ensure they are accurately reported
                                  for the year.
                              b. Ensure all your employee information is correct for year-end
                                  reporting (W-2, W-3, 940, 941).
                      2. ___ Ensure all your vendor bills are posted by the year-end close date.
                      3. ___ Invoice your clients to finalize any outstanding unbillable revenue to
                              a. Adjust outstanding receivables that are deemed to be uncollectible
                                  against bad debt expense.
                              b. Review if any should be sent to an outside collection agency for
                      4. ___ Review your 1099 vendor information to make sure it is complete.
                          (Check for Name, Address, Tax Id, Accurate coding of expenses as to
                          whether they are eligible for 1099 tracking, etc.)
                      5. ___ Reconcile
                              a. Your bank accounts.
                              b. Your credit card accounts.
                              c. Your loan accounts.
                      6. ___ Conduct a physical inventory count and record adjustments within
                          ERP inventory.
                      7. ___ Adjust any prepaid items, such as insurance, that need to be
                      8. ___ Journalize any other accruals for year-end that won’t be paid until the
                          following year.
                      9. ___ Calculate and record amortization, depreciation, and any other
                          necessary year-end adjusting journal entries.
                      10. ___ Review your asset and expense balances to ensure that all fixed
                          assets have been accurately recorded for any purchases or selling of
                      11. ___ Update any changes in employee or sales tax rates for the New Year.
                      12. ___ Ensure any prepaid deposits received from clients throughout the
                          year are adjusted to earned revenue.
                      13. ___ Review and update the business plan to include changes anticipated
                          for the upcoming year as needed.
                      14. ___ Prepare the budget for the New Year if not done so previously.
                      15. ___ Prepare year-end reports, W-2, W-3, 940, 941, 1096, 1099 and any
                          other applicable forms and remit to appropriate parties.
                      16. ___ Check to see if any local licensing or permits need to be filed with
                          year-end data.
                      17. ___ Review memorized transactions to ensure they are still applicable for
                          the New Year.

© Copyright 2013 Docstoc Inc.                                                  2
                      18. ___ Print your year-end reports, which should include
                              a. Profit & Loss Statement
                              b. Balance Sheet
                              c. Accounts Receivable Aging
                              d. Accounts Payable Aging
                              e. Budgeted vs. Actual
                      19. ___ Schedule a time to review the information with your client to see if the
                          information seems reasonable to them. While we can prepare various
                          data, it is always wise for us to review the information with them and
                          discuss any variances we find.
                      20. ___ Ensure you have a regular backup process that includes verifying the
                          data to help minimize any data loss. Consolidate and condense if needed
                          for performance.

© Copyright 2013 Docstoc Inc.                                                     2

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New concept art from Harry Potter's ending shows off a different fate for Voldemort

Think there were too many characters turning into flaky bits and floating off into the sky in the Battle of Hogwarts? Concept artist Andrei Riabovitchev has released some stills from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 that show a slightly different Voldemort departure. Plus, check out a few close-up shots of… » 1/31/12 6:45am 1/31/12 6:45am


The United States is already supplying weapons to Peshmerga fighters from Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, who are struggling to stem advances by militants from the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot.

France and the Czech Republic have said they will send weapons to the Kurds. Britain and the Netherlands have said they would consider doing so.


Rangers have added to the protests over the post-split SPL fixtures by hitting out at the decision to hand them three consecutive away games. Despite having a double-figures lead at the top of the table, Rangers chief executive Martin Bain argued that his club had been placed at a "competitive disadvantage" by being given trips to Hibernian, Dundee United and Celtic in succession.

Bain has also criticised the decision to give Celtic a third home match against Motherwell, whose pitch suffered badly in the harsh winter.

Bain told the club's official website: "We find it very disappointing and surprising that we have been asked to play three consecutive away matches in the space of 10 days at such a crucial stage of the season.

"We know we have work to do in our efforts to win the championship but it is maybe just as well we have a good lead given the schedule we are faced with.

"It is certainly our understanding that clubs are never forced to play three away games in a row before the split so we don't know why we are being asked to do so now."


Autism – What will I gain from being diagnosed later in life? It won’t change anything for me, so why should I bother?”

People often ask me: “What will I gain from being diagnosed later in life? It won’t change anything for me, so why should I bother?”

Well, my answer as to whether or not anyone should “bother” to get diagnosed is this.

Firstly, on a purely personal level, it depends entirely on what your personal circumstances are and what the biggest issues are that you’re facing at any given point in time.

If you’re a person who’s main problem is that you’re always feeling misunderstood or blamed by your family member for being the way that you are, then perhaps receiving a formal diagnosis may help your family members to comprehend and accept that some of the onus for understanding both who and how you are, falls upon them to make more of an effort to accept you as you are, rather than allowing them to continue to always view you as being the one who needs to change.

Secondly, if you find that you may be in need of some form of formal support or assistance, then receiving a diagnosis may help you to better be able to access whatever support systems are in place within your area.

A diagnosis should also, at the very least, help others around you to become aware that you are genuinely more in need of care, understanding and support than they had previously thought.

Thirdly, if you want to increase your own levels self-understanding and awareness or further seek to validate your own understandings of yourself as being both true and accurate, then receiving a diagnosis may also provide these assurances for you.

But, if you are a strong-willed person who is confident enough to be able to self-identify with having Asperger’s, without feeling any twinges of doubt about it what so ever, then you’ll most likely feel that either the seeking out, or the receiving a diagnosis, is not for you as it holds little potential to offer you any great benefits.

And that’s okay.

But for me, I have found that those who benefit the most from older women such as myself coming forward and being diagnosed, are the generations of girls who are yet to come and the generation of girls and women who are still today, young enough to incorporate this deeper understanding of themselves as females who are Autistic,  into their daily lives and move on.

At my age, receiving a formal diagnosis offers me purely the ability to understand myself better and enables me to finally ask for the things I’ve known for so long that I’ve needed all of my life, things such as solitude, peace and quiet, but have never been made to feel as if it were okay for me to ask for these things, because I am a woman and women are supposed to love company and to always want to be social creatures.

I had no way of explaining to anyone, let alone myself, why I’ve always felt that I needed so much time alone.

Yet for girls of my daughter’s age, receiving a diagnosis is offering them so much more.

It is offering them the opportunity of being able to grow up with the gift of truly knowing not only who they are, but also understanding how they are, and that they’re okay.

That it’s okay to be different.

And this to me, as both a woman and a mother, is the gift of understanding that I truly believe is worth fighting for.

I am so glad that there were women in the past who had the strength, courage and forethought, to lead the way forward and to lay the foundations that so many of us today are now standing on, by arguing, on our behalf’s, that High Functioning Female Autism is a very real phenomenon.
Believe me when I tell you that I am all too aware that if no woman had ever dared challenge the male based status quo of the understandings of Asperger’s Syndrome of the past, that neither my daughter nor I, would now be diagnosed.

So how exactly does receiving a diagnosis later in life help anyone and what does it solve anyway even if you do get one?

Well, for one thing, it is likely to allow many women to make sense of their pasts.

To knit all of the previously unresolved elements of their lives, their personalities, their characteristics and their traits, into some semblance of a perspective that will finally make sense to them.

So if that one singular perspective that makes sense of your life is the one thing that you’ve been missing, then getting a diagnosis, even at a much later stage in life, can still provide you with a huge feeling of relief.

In terms of gaining greater access to benefits and assistance, if you are already financially secure or successfully working, then no, receiving a diagnosis later in life, may not help you in any way in terms of on the job support training and alike.

But what it will do, is benefit your children, and your children’s children.

And if you’re not a mother yourself, then please understand that your actions and your choices, may end up benefiting your sister’s or your brother’s children.

The knowledge and validity that we as women gain from receiving a formal diagnosis, could well prevent future generations of girls from having to put up with the kinds of constant bullying that are caused by male bias ignorance.

This will enable them to grow up holding all of the answers to all of the questions that we once, as children held locked inside of our own heads, like fragile eggs, and were too afraid to ask why it was that we were so different from everybody else.

If being diagnosed later in life can help to take away from another child, that awful sense of confusion and self-loathing that comes from knowing that they don’t belong, without ever fully knowing or understanding why, then I’m all for it.

So whilst a formal diagnosis may not seem to be such an important deal individually, in the grand scheme of things, I can see how each and every woman and girl, diagnosed today, can help create a stronger, better defined and more brightly lit path, for our Autistic girls of the future to walk upon.

Unlike us, they won’t have to spend over half of their lifetimes stumbling around in the deep and uncertain dark, and that’s a good thing.

I’m not sure whether holding ideas like these makes me a dreamer, or simply yet another deluded fool.

Either way, the more women and girls who are diagnosed today, the harder it will be for the powers that be, to dismiss the needs of Autistic Women in the future.

I understand that this way of looking at things is not everybody’s cup of tea, but it certainly is mine. So comment and let me know whether or not you agree.

Yes – Asperger’s may present differently in women – but…

And yet..

Asperger Syndrome – Grappling and Grasping

Artwork by Linzi Lynn

They simply seem to just escape me.

It’s a genuinely, real, experience.

Yet give me a keyboard and I’m perfectly fine.

There’s no effort, no strain, no awkward silences.

There is only the freedom of expression.

The freedom of being me.

digital 4

Today these same workers are called ‘Carers’.

Now where is the genuine care in that?

To my mind families are the real ‘carers’.

They don’t get paid and they never clock off.

They are never off call.

Women and Autism – How one woman’s letter to a psychologist finally helped her receive an ASD diagnosis after years of personal invalidation.

This amazing letter was written by a woman who suspected that she may be on the Autism Spectrum, prior to meeting her psychologist for the first time. Here’s what she had to say.

“Dear Dr L—

I hope in this letter I can give you a more thorough explanation of how I feel, the way these feelings affect me and why I think a diagnosis and continued support would be beneficial to me.

I have an over-active mind and experience high anxiety.

I constantly see things at multiple levels, including thinking processes and analyse my existence, the meaning of life, the meaning of everything continually.

Nothing is taken for granted, simplified, or easy.

Everything is complex.

Being serious and matter-of-fact has caused me many problems and I have been told on numerous occasions that I come across as rude and/or abrupt.

Every year my work progress development report says that I would benefit from some kind of people management course, which to date has never happened.

Making friends or developing relationships has always been and still is very difficult for me.

As a child, I was convinced that I was away the day everyone decided who they would be friends with.

This has always been an area that has caused me confusion.

I still have a constant feeling that I am misplaced, isolated, overwhelmed, and have been plopped down in the wrong universe.

If I had friends, my tendency was to blindly follow wherever they went and to escape my own identity by taking on theirs.

I dressed like them, spoke like and adapted myself to his/her likes and dislikes.

I have had a couple of “friends” in my life for a very long time but I mostly talk to them online as I do not like leaving the comfort of my safe environment.

Even with people I know well I do not like being in their houses as my anxiety levels hit the roof.

I get agitated and uncomfortable not knowing what to say, what to do, if I’ve over stayed my welcome or would it be rude if I left now, have I stayed long enough.

This leads to seriously high stress levels, nasty thoughts in my head, sweating, increased heart rate and a sudden urgency to flee.

When I know I don’t have to be anywhere, talk to anyone, answer any calls, or leave the house, I can take a deep breath and relax.

Even something as simple as a self-imposed obligation, such as leaving the house to walk the dog can cause extreme anxiety.

It’s more than just going out into society; it’s all the steps that are involved in leaving–all the rules, routines, and norms.

I struggle when I’m out with sounds, textures, smells and tastes, which in turn creates a sense of generalized anxiety and/or the sense that I am always unsafe or in pending danger, particularly in crowded public places.

There have been times in crowded places like shops where the confusion and anxiety has gotten so high that I have had to just say “I need to go” and have walked out and straight to the car to gather my thoughts and calm down.

Counting, categorizing, organizing, rearranging, numbers brings me some ease and has been with me ever since I can remember.

Over the years I have sought out answers as to why I seemed to see the world differently than others, only to be told I’m an attention seeker, paranoid, hypochondriac, or too focused on diagnoses and labels.

My personhood was challenged on the sole basis that I “knew” I was different but couldn’t prove it to the world.

My personhood was further oppressed as I attempted to be and act like someone I’m not.

I have children diagnosed with ASD and am concerned that I am not doing the best for them due to my own inhibitions.

Still I question my place in the world, even more so now that my son has a diagnosis of ASD and I see so many similarities between what he’s going through and my own personal experiences.

How can I help them to adapt and learn when I don’t know myself how to deal with the situations that are causing them the most problems?

I would really benefit from help in learning to deal with my issues.

Now that I understand the Autism Spectrum and am convinced I am well within the spectrum, the hope is that I will get support and advice can benefit me and allow me to help my children.

My hope is that through diagnosis and the support that should follow; I will be able to work on the areas that I lack the necessary skills for dealing with society, in.

If I can get help for myself it will put me in a better position to guide and help my children.

Apologies for the lengthy explanation, I hope I have given you the information you were seeking. If not please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Amanda is sharing this letter in the hope that it may help other woman avoid some of the pain and confusion she’s experienced in her own life. Thank you so much for your willingness to help others Amanda <3

The Gendering of Autism – How a few deliberately biased questions turned Autism into a men’s only club.

Since the 1980s, the prevalence of those with Autism associated with science, computing and other hi-tech industries, has once again singled out Autism as being a primarily male condition.

Diagnosing famous scientists, engineers, and computer scientists with autism has become both a parlour game and a cottage industry—Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac, Bill Gates, and Isaac Newton are among the most commonly cited in this category.

Contemporary understandings of geek masculinity have become one of the more common, gendered screens through which autism is now understood.

According to the Extreme Male Brain (EMB) theory of autism, people with autism possess hyper-male brains, therefore the existence and/or severity of their Autism, can be graded based on a scale that views those who are less adept at systemizing tasks (mostly women) as non-autistic, and those with extremely high systemizing abilities (mainly men) as being people with Autism.

To achieve this male and female interests are categorized as either “systemizing” or its opposite, “empathizing,” and then placed along a scale that grades from female to male to the extreme male (or autistic).

In particular, the EMB theory takes the form of a “double hierarchy,” in which an established series (e.g., male-female) forms the basis for a second series (systemizing-empathizing).

In a 2009 study Baron-Cohen co-authored with Bonnie Auyeung, et al., the authors provide these points of evidence for their extreme male brain theory:

-“The typical male brain is heavier than the female brain and individuals with autism have heavier brains than typical males”.

-“The amygdala is also disproportionately large in boys compared to girls … and children with autism have enlarged amygdala”.

Not only does this evidentiary criteria over emphasize differences between those with autism and those without; but it also forces males and females further apart by exaggerating the differences between average women, average men, and autistic people.

Further to this Baron-Cohen claims men are more interested in systemizing tasks, such as engineering, computer programming, and mathematics, or hobbies based on mechanics, construction, and categorizing—metalworking, boat-building, crafting musical instruments, even bird-spotting.

Whereas women tend to enjoy “having supper with friends, advising them on relationship problems, or caring for people or pets, or working for volunteer phone-lines listening to depressed, hurt, needy, or even suicidal anonymous callers”.

Based on these insights, Baron-Cohen devised a series of three tests:

-The systemizing quotient (SQ),

-The empathizing quotient (EQ),

-The Autism quotient (AQ).

All of which reflect his predetermined, gendered notions of male and female-appropriate activities.

On the Systemizing Quotient Test, testers are asked to rank their answers on a Likert scale to such questions as -“If I were buying a car, I would want to obtain specific information about its engine capacity” and “If there was a problem with the electrical wiring in my home, I’d be able to fix it myself”.

Meanwhile, the Empathy Quotient test includes such prompts as “I try to keep up with the current trends and fashions” and “When I talk to people, I tend to talk about their experiences rather than my own”.

In these prompts it can be seen that stereotypically masculine activities are assumed to reflect systemizing, while stereotypically feminine activities are assumed to reflect empathizing.

Clearly, these questions can easily be seen to reflect socialization as well as biology.

Therefore changing even a small number of the questions to more gender-neutral issues could have easily reduced or removed the sex differences found within SQ scores.

In 2006, Sally Wheelwright, Baron-Cohen, and their collaborators published a revised version of the SQ, the SQ-R, which included a wider range of questions about systemizing.

The original SQ, the authors admitted, “Were drawn primarily from traditionally male domains.” For this reason, the SQ-R included “more items that might be relevant to females in the general population,” a feature that would allow the researchers to determine whether men would continue to score higher on the SQ “even with the inclusion of items selected from traditionally female domains” (Wheelwright et al).

Some of the new prompts included “When I have a lot of shopping to do, I like to plan which shops I am going to visit and in what order” and “My clothes are not carefully organised into different types in my wardrobe” (answering “no” on this prompt presumably indicates an SQ type of brain).

The SQ-R successfully shifted the results. In the original SQ, men had a higher mean score on 86 percent of the questions, while women had a higher mean on only 13.2 percent. In the revised version, men scored higher on 68 percent and women on 32 percent—a rather dramatic shift in the sex ratio.

The SQ-R itself demonstrates that these sex differences may largely be an artefact of the testing prompts and the specific mix of questions applied.

One might therefore, hypothesize that the SQ could be revised even further in ways that would more drastically equalize the scores.

This article consists of excerpts form an academic paper written by J. Jack and published in 2011.

Tony Attwood – The Pattern of Abilities and Development for Girls with Asperger’s Syndrome

The overwhelming majority of referrals for a diagnostic assessment for Asperger’s Syndrome are boys. The ratio of males to females is around 10:1, yet the epidemiological research for Autistic Spectrum Disorders suggests that the ratio should be 4:1. Why are girls less likely to be identified as having the characteristics indicative of Asperger’s Syndrome? The following are some tentative suggestions that have yet to be validated by academic research, but they provide some plausible explanations based on preliminary clinical experience.

It appears that many girls with Asperger’s Syndrome have the same profile of abilities as boys but a subtler or less severe expression of the characteristics. Parents may be reluctant to seek a diagnostic assessment if the child appears to be coping reasonably well and clinicians may be hesitant to commit themselves to a diagnosis unless the signs are conspicuously different to the normal range of behaviour and abilities.

We have a stereotype of typical female and male behaviour. Girls are more able to verbalise their emotions and less likely to use physically aggressive acts in response to negative emotions such as confusion, frustration and anger. We do not know whether this is a cultural or constitutional characteristic but we recognise that children who are aggressive are more likely to be referred for a diagnostic assessment to determine whether the behaviour is due to a specific developmental disorder and for advice on behaviour management. Hence boys with Asperger’s Syndrome are more often referred to a psychologists or psychiatrist because their aggression has become a concern for their parents or schoolteacher. A consequence of this referral bias is that not only are more boys referred, clinicians and academics can have a false impression of the incidence of aggression in this population.

One must always consider the personality of the person with Asperger’s Syndrome and how they cope with the difficulties they experience in social reasoning, empathy and cognition. Some individuals are overtly active participants in social situations. Their unusual profile of abilities in social situations is quite obvious. However, some are reluctant to socialize with others and their personality can be described as passive. They can become quite adept at camouflaging their difficulties and clinical experience suggests that the passive personality is more common in girls.

Each person with Asperger’s Syndrome develops their own techniques and strategies to learn how to acquire specific skills and develop coping mechanisms. One technique is to have practical guidance and moral support from one’s peers. We know that children with Asperger’s Syndrome elicit from others, either strong maternal or ‘predatory’ behaviour. If the person’s natural peer group is girls, they are more likely to be supported and included by a greater majority of their peers. Thus girls with Asperger’s Syndrome are often ‘mothered’ by other girls. They may prompt the child when they are unsure what to do or say in social situations and comfort them when they are distressed. In contrast, boys are notorious for their intolerance of children who are different and are more prone to be ‘predatory’. This can have an unfortunate effect on the behaviour of a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome and many complain of being teased, ignored and bullied by other boys. It is interesting to note that some boys with Asperger’s Syndrome actually prefer to play with girls who are often kinder and more tolerant than their male peers.

The author has conducted both individual and group social skills training with boys and girls with Asperger’s Syndrome. Experience has indicated that, in general, the girls are more motivated to learn and quicker to understand key concepts in comparison to boys with Asperger’s Syndrome of equivalent intellectual ability. Thus, they may have a better long-term prognosis in terms of becoming more fluent in their social skills. This may explain why women with Asperger’s Syndrome are often less conspicuous than men with the syndrome and less likely to be referred for a diagnostic assessment. The author has also noted that, in general, mothers with Asperger’s Syndrome appear to have more ‘maternal’ and empathic abilities with their own children than men with Asperger’s Syndrome, who can have great difficulty understanding and relating to their children.

Some individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome can be quite ingenious in using imitation and modelling to camouflage their difficulties in social situations. One strategy that has been used by many girls and some boys is to observe people who are socially skilled and to copy their mannerisms, voice and persona. This is a form of social echolalia or mirroring where the person acquires a superficial social competence by acting the part of another person. This is illustrated in Liane Holliday-Willeys intriguing new autobiography, titled, “Pretending to be Normal’.

“I could take part in the world as an observer. I was an avid observer. I was enthralled with the nuances of people’s actions. In fact, I often found it desirable to become the other person. Not that I consciously set out to do that, rather it came as something I simply did. As if I had no choice in the matter. My mother tells me I was very good at capturing the essence and persona of people. At times I literally copied someone’s looks and their actions. I was uncanny in my ability to copy accents, vocal inflections, facial expressions, hand movements, gaits and tiny gestures. It was as if I became the person I was emulating. (p.22)”

Girls are more likely to be enrolled in speech and drama lessons and this provides an ideal and socially acceptable opportunity for coaching in body language. Many people with Asperger’s Syndrome have a prodigious memory and this can include reciting the dialogue for all characters in a play and memorizing the dialogue or ‘script’ of real life conversations. Knowing the script also means the child does not have to worry about what to say. Acting can subsequently become a successful career option although there can be some confusion when adults with Asperger’s Syndrome act another persona in real life as this can be misconstrued as Multiple Personality Disorder rather than a constructive means of coping with Asperger’s Syndrome.

When a child would like more friends but clearly has little success in this area, one option is to create imaginary friends. This often occurs with young girls who visualise friends in their solitary play or use dolls as a substitute for real people. Girls with Asperger’s Syndrome can create imaginary friends and elaborate doll play which superficially resembles the play of other girls but there can be several qualitative differences. They often lack reciprocity in their natural social play and can be too controlling when playing with their peers. This is illustrated in Liane Holliday-Willey’s autobiography.

“The fun came from setting up and arranging things. Maybe this desire to organise things rather than play with things, is the reason I never had a great interest in my peers. They always wanted to use the things I had so carefully arranged. They would want to rearrange and redo. They did not let me control the environment.”

When involved in solitary play with dolls, the girl with Asperger’s Syndrome has total control and can script and direct the play without interference and having to accept outcomes suggested by others. The script and actions can be an almost perfect reproduction of a real event or scene from a book or film. While the special interest in collecting and playing with dolls can be assumed to be an age appropriate activity and not indicative of psychopathology, the dominance and intensity of the interest is unusual. Playing with and talking to imaginary friends and dolls can also continue into the teenage years when the person would have been expected to mature beyond such play. This quality can be misinterpreted as evidence of hallucinations and delusions and a diagnostic assessment for schizophrenia rather than Asperger’s Syndrome.

The most popular special interests of boys with Asperger’s Syndrome are types of transport, specialist areas of science and electronics, particularly computers. It has now become a more common reaction of clinicians to consider whether a boy with an encyclopaedic knowledge in these areas has Asperger’s Syndrome. Girls with Asperger’s Syndrome can be interested in the same topics but clinical experience suggests their special interest can be animals and classic literature. These interests are not typically associated with boys with Asperger’s Syndrome. The interest in animals can be focussed on horses or native animals and this characteristic dismissed as simply typical of young girls. However, the intensity and qualitative aspects of the interest are unusual. Teenage girls with Asperger’s Syndrome can also develop a fascination with classic literature such as the plays of Shakespeare and poetry. Both have an intrinsic rhythm that they find entrancing and some develop their writing skills and fascination with words to become a successful author, poet or academic in English literature. Some adults with Asperger’s Syndrome are now examining the works of famous authors for indications of the unusual perception and reasoning associated with Asperger’s Syndrome. One example is the short story, “Cold” in ‘Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice’ by A.S. Byatt.

Finally, the author has noted that some ladies with Asperger’s Syndrome can be unusual in their tone of voice. Their tone resembles a much younger person, having an almost child like quality. Many are concerned about the physiological changes during puberty and prefer to maintain the characteristics of childhood. As with boys with Asperger’s Syndrome, they may see no value in being fashionable, preferring practical clothing and not using cosmetics or deodorants. This latter characteristic can be quite conspicuous.

These tentative explanations for the apparent under representation of girls with Asperger’s Syndrome have yet to be examined by objective research studies. It is clear that we need more epidemiological studies to establish the true incidence in girls and for research on the clinical signs, cognitive abilities and adaptive behaviour to include an examination of any quantitative and qualitative differences between male and female subjects. In the meantime, girls with Asperger’s Syndrome are likely to continue to be overlooked and not to receive the degree of understanding and resources they need.

Originally sourced from

Holliday-Willey, L. (1999) Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger’s Syndrome. London. Jessica Kingsley Publications.


Movie posters take a new look with artist Patrik Svensson’s simple typography posters to very popular movies. Can you guess the movie by looking just at the type? This approach to movie posters almost makes looking at them a fun challenging, mind game as to what the movie is before actually looking at the name.


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Nels Cline (born in Los Angeles in 1956) is an American guitarist and composer.

He began to play guitar at age 12 when his twin brother, Alex Cline took up the drums. He is noted for his use of effects pedals and looping devices which give his music a distinct sound.

Cline is known for his improvisational work and for the diversity of his musical projects. He has played with jazz musicians Charlie Haden, Gregg Bendian,…

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Why “Star Trek” — and Mr. Spock — matter ARTICLE

Why “Star Trek” — and Mr. Spock — matter

The ongoing cultural influence of the “Star Trek” phenomenon is incalculable, and Leonard Nimoy’s contributions are an immense part of that. Nimoy wasn’t just an actor doing a job; in a real sense he was a co-creator who helped to define his character in many ways.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

The Search for Spock may be the unappreciated middle child of the Trek franchise, but it’s still one of better and more indispensable episodes.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

(Written by Jimmy Akin) The main cast is no longer trapped in amber — never changing their relationships, never getting promoted, never leaving the Enterprise. They’ve become unstuck. It’s a sign of things to come.


A stolen vehicle investigation Saturday in Colorado Springs turned into a drug bust and landed six people in jail.

A police officer was patrolling the area of East Pikes Peak Avenue, east of Memorial Park, around 5 p.m. when he spotted a stolen vehicle in the parking lot of Days Inn, 2409 E. Pikes Peak Ave. Two people were found inside the vehicle with warrants, according to police. Through investigation, police identified a hotel room associated with the two people.

Police contacted the people in the hotel room and found methamphetamine, two handguns, "large" amounts of identity theft evidence and money, according to a police news release.

Six people were jailed, including the two in the vehicle. Bobby Martin, Brent Bury, Stephen Robbins, Derek Smith, Danyiel Zimmerman and Stephanie Celusta were all taken into custody.

The four in the hotel room were arrested on suspicion of identity theft, narcotics charges, possession of a weapon by a previous offender and motor vehicle theft.

The news release didn't specify who was in the hotel room or in the vehicle.

For updates, stay with Gazette.com.


binary tree definition

A binary tree is a method of placing and locating files (called records or keys) in a database, especially when all the data is known to be in random access memory (RAM). The algorithm finds data by repeatedly dividing the number of ultimately accessible records in half until only one remains.

In a tree, records are stored in locations called leaves. This name derives from the fact that records always exist at end points; there is nothing beyond them. Branch points are called nodes. The order of a tree is the number of branches (called children) per node. In a binary tree, there are always two children per node, so the order is 2. The number of leaves in a binary tree is always a power of 2. The number of access operations required to reach the desired record is called the depth of the tree. The image to the left shows a binary tree for locating a particular record among seven records in a set of eight leaves. The depth of this tree is 4.

binary tree

In a practical tree, there can be thousands, millions, or billions of records. Not all leaves necessarily contain a record, but more than half do. A leaf that does not contain a record is called a null. In the example shown here, the eighth leaf is a null, indicated by an open circle.

Binary trees are used when all the data is in random-access memory (RAM). The search algorithm is simple, but it does not minimize the number of database accesses required to reach a desired record. When the entire tree is contained in RAM, which is a fast-read, fast-write medium, the number of required accesses is of little concern. But when some or all of the data is on disk, which is slow-read, slow-write, it is advantageous to minimize the number of accesses (the tree depth). Alternative algorithms such as the B-tree accomplish this.

Also see binary search and tree structure. Compare B-tree, M-tree, splay tree, and X-tree.

This was first published in September 2005

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