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Widen your view—and move it too! Configure this compact, height-adjustable computer cart to your needs: Flexible open architecture supports a wide range of displays and a fleet of accessories. With the optional separately ordered Camera Shelf accessory, it's perfect for web conferencing or other image-intensive applications like telemedicine.
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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
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The region's most massive multi-continental race has gone round the world and back again - for you! Asia's most amazing adventure and reality show is calling for racers - in the highly-awaited third season of AXN's biggest Original Production, The Amazing Race Asia 3. And if you think that Season 2 was a tough race, be prepared for a harder race yet in Season 3! The Amazing Race Asia, the Asian version of the Emmy Award-winning The Amazing Race, will once again send teams of two through the planet's most exciting locales and experiences and straight to starlet status. A host of exciting pit-stop prizes and of course, the grand prize of US$100,000 awaits the first couple that crosses the finishing line. Who among us can aspire to this winner's status? Answer: anyone at all!
Says Ricky Ow, General Manager of SPE Networks - Asia, "The cast of Season 2 has clearly shown that this is not a race for the faint-hearted. The drama you see on TV are all real - the crying, shouting, fighting, and panic attacks - nothing is scripted or planned. These are real people showing real emotions, whether they are experienced showbiz people or not, nothing prepared them for such intensity in front of the camera." He continues, "But what they gain out of the whole experience is something that money cannot buy. The adrenaline rush, the chance to travel around the world, doing things they never thought they would ever attempt, conquering their lifelong fears... this Race has it all. We are looking for people with the drive, determination and curiosity to explore this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And to make it even more exciting, we are making the new Race the hardest one yet, so only the team with the most perseverance will triumph." So what are you waiting for? Here is your chance to get out of the rat race into a real amazing race. Register for The Amazing Race Asia 3 NOW! Registration is from 23 January to 25 February 2008. All interested participants are to submit their applications in teams of two, and must be living and/or working in Asia (excluding Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East). All contestants are required to be aged 21 and above, must speak English, as well as possess both a valid international driving licence and an international passport. How to register? Entry forms can be downloaded from www.axn-asia.com from 23 January 2008, 6.00pm Singapore time, and need to be sent in together with a 3-minute video to the address stated on the website. All information on the race can be found on www.axn-asia.com, and enquiries can be addressed to email@example.com. All applications must be submitted by 25 February 2008, 6.00pm Singapore time. There will be strictly no extension after that date, so hurry and sign up now for the most thrilling adventure of your lifetime!
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|Oracle® Call Interface Programmer's Guide
10g Release 1 (10.1)
Part Number B10779-01
|View PDF
This chapter describes the OCI Any Type and Data functions.
|See Also:
For code examples, see the demonstration programs included with your Oracle installation. For additional information, refer to Appendix B, "OCI Demonstration Programs".
This chapter contains these topics:


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Barack Obama is a product of the Saul Alinsky radical socialism and redistribution of wealth. For Alinsky, the mantra was "change," as outlined in his book "Reveille for Radicals."
For Obama, this is the same. He has avoided being exposed until "Joe the Plumber" came along and questioned him.
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I just found out that there is quite a not insignificant amount of variants of 'The Pass'. While I'm scouring the Internet for a suitable variant, does anyone know of any difficult or weird variants of The Pass?
I just found out that there is quite a not insignificant amount of variants of 'The Pass'. While I'm scouring the Internet for a suitable variant, does anyone know of any difficult or weird variants of The Pass?
There are a bunch out there for sure... To be honest, I really only use the classic pass or Hermann style pass.
Steve Draun's Midnight Shift is also pretty excellent but if you would like to explore an interesting pass that is a little weird, I would look into Erdnase for the One-Handed Shift.
Check here under cards, sleights, passes:
Beware, most passes shown on the internet are poorly executed and poorly taught. My preference for the pass is Roberto Giobbi's description in Card College. And, just to add, the audience will never know haw difficult or quark a pass is. With that in mind, I do like the jiggle pass.
~ David
Perception of reality is a selection of reality which results in a distortion of reality.
The HP Lovecraft of Bizarre Magic
I'm looking at ITunes and there are 5 Erdnase 'expert at the card table' books of varying prices and I don't want to get the wrong one. Is there a specific one that HAS the one handed shift?
Expert At The Card Table by S.W. Erdnase is public domain at this point. Anyone can put together a version and sell it - as far as I know, they don't even have to make changes to it. You can even find free, legal copies online if you don't go in for the whole real-book thing.
As long as it's actually the whole book, it'll have the One Handed Shift in it.
The HP Lovecraft of Bizarre Magic
A few of my favorites include:
The False Cut Pass by Derek Dingle
The Dribble Pass or The Riffle Pass
The Bluff Pass
I mentioned to Brad that I'd be willing to do a download on the pass as it's one of the two moves I've spent the last 10 years working on and refining. Is this the kind of thing you guys would enjoy? I'd focus on the basic mechanics first and a few variations including my own Shadow Pass.
Card College is a great resource for passes btw!
Have more magic questions? Keep up with me on Twitter too! [url]http://twitter.com/lukedancy[/url]
Card College is an incredible resource!
Does card college have a lot of one handed material? I ask because I want to really gone in on one handed magic, as I originally believed that the only one handed stuff you could do was flourishes. I just found some Rene Lavand DVDs online that have some one handed stuff strewn about 5 DVDs. But man, it seems like I'm going to be doing a lot of digging.
Last edited by Mr. Anagram; 10-29-2014 at 12:05 AM.
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PALS sponsors Step Afrika
Tuesday, January 29, 2013 2:00 AM
Pittsburg, KS
The Pittsburg State University Performing Arts and Lecture Series will sponsor a performance by Step Afrika at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, in Pittsburg's Memorial Auditorium.
Step Afrika, the first professional company dedicated to the tradition of stepping, has performed across the U.S. and around the world since its founding in 1994.
Stepping was created by African American college students and grew out of the song and dance rituals practiced by historically African American fraternities and sororities in the early 1900s. Stepping comes from a long and rich tradition in African-based communities that use movement, words and sounds to communicate allegiance to a group. Today, stepping can be found in high, middle and elementary schools across the US as well as in churches and community-based organizations.
In stepping, the body is used as an instrument to create intricate rhythms and sounds through a combination of footsteps, claps and spoken word.
The company conducts an annual 50-city tour of colleges and theaters across the U.S. and is a national model for the use of stepping in education, espousing themes such as teamwork, academic achievement and cross-cultural understanding.
Tickets for Step Afrika's Pittsburg Performance are $10 for the general public and $7 for persons 17 and under or 65 and older. PSU Students are admitted free. All seating on the floor is reserved and balcony seating is general admission.


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Cardiff are set to equal their transfer record with the signing of Josh Murphy from Norwich...
Classy, original football t-shirts with arty, vintage, European, International, World Cup themes. Loads of classic footballers plus weird, comical, grungey..... Designed for the football intelligentsia....
Leicester are in pole position to sign Norwich's £20million-rated midfielder James Maddison...
Two years after being compared to Lionel Messi, Marcus Edwards has a loan at Norwich cut short.
We spoke to Chris Hughton about how he dealt with the two sackings of his managerial career.
There are currently 139 players in the Championship whose contracts expire this summer. Fancy any?
Forty-one players won a major tournament with England in 2017. How are they doing?
Chris Sutton might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is something to be said about a man who speaks his mind.
Will Glenn Murray be overlooked just like Ian Wright in 1996 and Grant Holt and Danny Graham in 2012?
The average age of football fans has increased, but who comes next? Nobody, unless something is done.
Wolves feature heavily, of course. While there may be a few in the list that surprise you.
Featuring Neymar taking the p*ss again, and a brilliant celebration from Mick McCarthy.
"If I had had £300m... I think I could have them languishing in 13th place in the Championship, to be honest."
James Maddison showed at the weekend why he has been linked with Liverpool, Spurs and West Ham.
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June 02, 2005
LOS ANGELES — The Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA Anderson School of Management announced the winners of the 24th annual Knapp Venture Competition, held Thursday, May 26, 2005. Team Auditude, a media tracking technology company, won the competition and received a grand prize of $10,000. Team Mujisan, an advanced drug delivery company, came in second place and received a $4,000 prize. The competition consisted of five finalist teams who presented their business plans to a judging panel of distinguished entrepreneurs and investors.
Auditude, the winning UCLA Anderson team, is composed of Nicholas Seet ('05), Johanna Wright ('05), and Erik Haus ('05). This team also came in first place recently at Rice University Business Plan Competition open to entrants from around the country. "The Knapp Competition was phenomenal, the level of entrants and judges was world class," said Nicholas Seet, a Fully Employed Anderson MBA student.
Auditude's proprietary technology allows tracking of advertisements on television and radio to ensure that ads are executed correctly. Currently up to 10% of ads are incorrectly executed, costing the broadcast industry $6 billion per year. Auditude's technology detects ad errors allowing broadcasters to replay ads instead of issuing refunds and allowing advertisers to validate their ad purchases. In 2004, Auditude licensed its technology to Premiere Radio Networks, the syndication division of Clear Channel Communications, Inc., and is engaged in discussions with other national broadcasters.
"Even before I came to UCLA Anderson, I wanted to be in this competition," said Johanna Wright. "I am really thankful to have been able to participate this year, and winning was unbelievable."
Team Mujisan, who received second place honors, includes team members Peter Catalino ('05), Bassel Rifai, Karoon Monfared, David Wang and Jane Lee. Mujisan is an advanced drug delivery company based on groundbreaking proprietary drug polymer technology, PolyRx. PolyRx represents a novel sustained-release (SR) formulation that forms polymers using individual drug molecules as the building blocks. The company's first reduction of the PolyRx technology, PolyOxy, is an abuse-resistant, SR opioid that targets the $3B US market for Oxycontin.
Teams receiving honorable mention, A-List Magazine, AsiaCard and Ocelot each received $2,000 in prize money. (See team descriptions below). Additionally, A-List Magazine won the Epson America, Inc. People's Choice Award and received a $1,000 prize.
The Knapp Venture Competition is designed to provide UCLA Anderson students with an intensive learning experience involving the entrepreneurial process. The competition prepares students to excel in their own ventures by simulating the process of starting and evaluating a business.
More than 200 students, potential students, faculty, staff and special guests attended the final round of the 2005 Knapp Venture Competition. In the Knapp Venture Competition, at least one member of each team is a current UCLA Anderson student. The students have discovered the incredible resources that are available to them at UCLA and throughout the greater Los Angeles community. Fellow UCLA Anderson classmates and alumni, as well as graduate students in the other technical and professional schools, are all potential partners and sources of ideas.
The honorable mention teams of the 2005 Knapp Venture Competition are as follows:
A-List Magazine — A-List Magazine is a general-interest, monthly publication that takes the ranking, such a dominant and lucrative editorial device across the newsstand, and exploits it as a cover-to-cover format. In other words, a magazine of lists. Team: Ronnie Gul, UCLA Anderson MBA '06; Andrew Lenchewski
AsiaCard — AsiaCard is the first national consumer loyalty program targeting the 900,000 Asian merchants and 13 million Asian-American consumers who represent $363 billion in annual purchasing power. Through its electronic payment-based loyalty program, AsiaCard will help both local and national businesses acquire, retain and understand the Asian consumer segment. Team: Jason Lee, Lynn Wang, Nikao Yang, Eleanor Hsu and Amy Chiou, all of whom are members of the UCLA Anderson MBA Class of 2006.
Ocelot — Ocelot enables consumer electronics leasing by connecting existing value chain participants and providing the single missing capability: predicting future device resale values. Initially, Ocelot enables retailers to offer consumers flexible leases on notebook computers, digital music players and digital cameras. Team: Jade Van Doren, Jeremy Milo, Marc Lebovitz and Courtney Cochran, all of whom are members of the UCLA Anderson MBA Class of 2005.
The Knapp Venture Competition is named for Bud and Betsy Knapp, whose $2 million gift to UCLA Anderson supports the annual event and several other entrepreneurial initiatives. The couple serves on UCLA Anderson's Board of Visitors.
Below is the list of judges who evaluated the business plans and presentations of the five finalist teams:
- Betsy Wood Knapp, founder and CEO, BigPicture Investors, LLC
- Cleon T. "Bud" Knapp, trustee, The Knapp Foundation
- Abbott Brown, vice president, Ridgestone Corp.
- Lee Bailey, partner, Rustic Canyon
- Christine A. Bubser, consultant
- Josh Empson, vice president, corporate development, United Online, Inc.
- Robert Goldberg, executive VP and managing director, venture operations, Idealab
About the Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
The Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, a recognized leader in entrepreneurial education, oversees all teaching, research, extracurricular and community activities related to entrepreneurship at UCLA Anderson School of Management. The Price Center strives to provide academic and extracurricular experiences that advance both the theory and practice of entrepreneurship.
About UCLA Anderson School of Management
UCLA Anderson School of Management is perennially ranked among the top-tier business schools in the world. Award-winning faculty renowned for their research and teaching, highly selective admissions, successful alumni and world-class facilities combine to provide an extraordinary learning environment. Established in 1935, UCLA Anderson provides management education to more than 1,400 students enrolled in full-time, part-time and executive MBA programs and doctoral programs.
UCLA Anderson's faculty includes outstanding educators and researchers who share their scholarship and expertise in such fundamental areas as finance, marketing, accounting, business economics, decision sciences, operations and technology management, human resources and organizational behavior, information systems, strategy and policy.
Recognizing that the school offers unparalleled expertise in management education, the world's business community turns to UCLA Anderson School of Management as a center of influence for the ideas, innovations, strategies and talent that will shape the future.


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The Supreme Court ruled today in Florida v. Jardines that "use of trained police dogs to investigate the home and its immediate surroundings is a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment."
It's the right result. The Court was divided 5-4, though, and the case shows some of the same fissures around Fourth Amendment doctrine that U.S. v. Jones did last year.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Scalia, won't clear up the doctrinal debates, which are sure to continue. Instead, it retreats to the home. The specific protection for "houses" in the Fourth Amendment, he wrote:
renders this case a straightforward one. The officers were gathering information in an area belonging to Jardines and immediately surrounding his house—in the curtilage of the house, which we have held enjoys protection as part of the home itself. And they gathered that information by physically entering and occupying the area to engage in conduct not explicitly or implicitly permitted by the homeowner.
Property law gives strangers an implied license to approach a house for the variety of purposes they may have. "But introducing a trained police dog to explore the area around the home in hopes of discovering incriminating evidence is something else. There is no customary invitation to do that."
Justice Scalia did use the case to answer a question left open by Jones. He emphasized that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test from Katz v. United States (1967) built upon, and did not supplant, the Fourth Amendment's foundation in property. He specifically declined to use that test in the holding.
The dissent objected vigorously to the idea that approaching the front door of a home via the walk was a trespass.
"[G]athering evidence—even damning evidence—is a lawful activity that falls within the scope of the license to approach," Justice Alito wrote. "And when officers walk up to the front door of a house, they are permitted to see, hear, and smell whatever can be detected from a lawful vantage point."
The dissent also rejected an argument put forward by the concurrence: that the reasonable expectation of privacy test is an alternative ground for the holding.
Yes, Justice Kagan would also have used "reasonable expectations" to decide the case, but her concurrence covers more important ground than that. As she did at oral argument, she fixed on the government's use of the dog to perceive things that couldn't otherwise be perceived. That's what searching is.
"[P]olice officers came to Joelis Jardines' door with a super-sensitive instrument, which they deployed to detect things inside that they could not perceive unassisted." And later: "[A] drug-detection dog is a specialized device for discovering objects not in plain view (or plain smell)."
In the Cato Institute's brief in the case, I emphasized that drug-dog detection was but one form of chromatography, the use of which the court should treat as searching because it "look[s] for or seek[s] out that which is otherwise concealed from view" (quoting Black's Law Dictionary).


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|Dec 21, 2012
How molecular transports change gear
|(Nanowerk News) The motor protein myosin-V, which hauls molecular cargoes around cells by ratcheting along filaments of actin, switches between two different molecular mechanisms of movement depending on the environment. This finding by a research group led by Toshio Yanagida of the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center, Osaka, and Osaka University, could form the basis for designing energy-saving artificial nano-motors ("Switching of myosin-V motion between the lever-arm swing and Brownian search-and-catch").
|As the molecular load on myosin-V increases, lever-arm swing motion (left) switches to Brownian search-and-catch (right).
|Previous work by other researchers showed that myosin-V typically uses the two mechanismslever-arm swing and Brownian search-and-catchalternately to propel itself along a filament hand-over-hand. Myosin-V possesses two arm-like projections, the heads of which bind to actin. When myosin-V links to the energy storage molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) the rear head detaches from the actin filament. As ATP releases energy by losing a phosphate, the front head then goes through a lever-arm swing motion pulling forward on the filament like an oar through water, dragging the rear projection with it. The rear head then swings over and forward while buffeted by passing molecules in random Brownian motion. As it nears the filament in front, it catches onto it.
|Yanagida and his colleagues, including Keisuke Fujita and Mitsuhiro Iwaki, were able to attach a fluorescent polystyrene bead to the rear projection of myosin-V with a strand of DNA. This allowed them to measure the motions of the motor molecule accurately by tracking the displacement of the bead. They could also measure the force each head exerted by trapping the bead and holding it steady using the laser light mechanism known as optical tweezers under different loads and environmental conditions.
|The results showed that for low loads along filaments where there are no obstacles, the bulk of the work of myosin-Vs motion is executed by the lever-arm swing mechanism. But at higher loads, and in less predictable environments, the force capable of being exerted by lever-arm swing reaches a maximum and Brownian search-and-catch motion automatically takes over (Fig. 1). Cells contain a meshwork of crisscrossing actin filaments and there is always the possibility of colliding with moving molecules and vesicles to hinder the transport of myosin-Vs molecular cargoes. Under these circumstances the high-stepping Brownian search-and-catch motion comes into its own.
|We are hopeful that the studies of other biological actuators or simulations will show that our theory for myosin-V movement is universal and therefore adds a much more concrete paradigm to the design of artificial nano-machines, says Yanagida.
|Source: RIKEN
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June 2009
Fly fisherman above Ojo Calenti Bend on the Firehole River, Wyoming, USA, October 2007. Photo: Mike Cline.
North America has a broad array of freshwater ecosystems because of the continent's complex geography and geological history. Within a multitude of habitats—that include streams, large rivers, natural lakes, springs, and wetlands—rich assemblages of fishes reside, representing diverse taxonomic groups with unique ecological requirements. They face an unprecedented conservation crisis.1 In the last few decades, the proportion of inland fishes of North America, which are considered imperiled or extinct, increased from 20 to 40%.2 Although extinctions have occurred, many species and populations are declining in range size and abundance. The fish biota of the continent as a whole remains diverse; however, we can take action to stem any further declines.
Globally, fishes outnumber all other vertebrates combined and have the highest rate of discovery of new species.3 Fishes exhibit a remarkable diversity of morphological attributes and biological adaptations and occur in most aquatic habitats on Earth. Even in North America, where scientific knowledge of the fauna is advanced, new species are described every year. These discoveries are the combination of applied technologies, such as gene sequencing, which increase recognition of biodiversity at all levels, and the documentation of new, morphologically distinct forms and populations. Biological taxonomy is the discipline of classifying and naming organisms using an internationally accepted system or code. Because of the dynamic nature of fish taxonomy, and the extent of unexplored areas of the planet with potentially many undescribed species, statements or conclusions about numbers and percentages of species occurring in particular habitats or geographical regions are but rough approximations. Published information reveals the following:
A conservative estimate is that as many as 32,500 extant (living) fish species may exist in the world.3 This number may eventually prove greater, however, with approximately 30,000 currently recognized as valid and over 300 new species described each year.4
Fresh water constitutes only about 1% of the Earth's surface area and less than 0.01% of its water by volume.
About 12,000 species, or approximately 43% of all currently named fishes, occur exclusively in fresh waters. A small number are diadromous, regularly living part of their lives in rivers, streams, or lakes, and part in the oceans.
North America has the greatest taxonomic richness of freshwater fishes among temperate regions of the world,1 although it is greatly surpassed in number of species by less documented areas of the tropics—especially the biological hotspots of South America, Africa, and southeast Asia.5,6 Currently, there are approximately 1,200 recognized fish species that occur in inland waters of the continental United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Collectively, the fish fauna (ichthyofauna) of North America's freshwater ecosystems has at least 435 imperiled species, another 72 species with distinct populations in trouble, and 36 species that are extinct from the wild.2
Worldwide, historical, and emerging trends in the conservation of fishes and fishery stocks portray continued or even accelerated population decreases; yet, there are reasons for optimism, as well as potential for recovery and protection of these declining resources given societal resolve.7
Threats to freshwater fishes and habitats
Threats to freshwater ecosystems are so widespread that many endemic species—those naturally restricted to a single drainage or ecoregion—are imperiled simply because restricted geographic distribution makes them more vulnerable to human modification of landscapes. The most important documented threats to fishes in freshwater habitats include:1,7,8,9
Destruction or modification of habitat resulting in reduced range size and/or loss of populations. Examples include dam construction, channelization, mining, clearing of natural forests for agriculture, urban development, and other intensive land-use practices.
Water depletion. Some desert fishes have become extinct because of human exploitation of limited groundwater resources.
Pollution from point and non-point source contaminants. Runoff from urban areas, and the compound effects of multiple pollutants, often reduces water quality to the point that only the most tolerant species remain in receiving water bodies.
Erosion and sedimentation. Fine sediments can smother bottom substrates, to the detriment of many bottom-dwelling (benthic) species, whose prey and reproductive success are dependent on clean substrates and good water quality.
Overexploitation for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes. Examples of fishes that have been overharvested include salmons, whitefishes, trouts, striped bass, and sturgeons.
Disease or parasitism. For instance, whirling disease, a microscopic parasite introduced from Europe, has ravaged many wild and hatchery populations of trouts and salmons in the U.S. and Canada.
Other anthropogenic factors—including introduction of non-native species—which may result in hybridization, competition, and predation. Numerous introductions of fishes and other aquatic organisms, both from outside of North America and intracontinental transplants, have had severe negative impacts on native species,including some that have caused extinction.10
Climate change. Regional variation in rainfall patterns, storm events, and droughts can affect habitats and potentially have negative consequences for rare species.
Conservation status
Media coverage of conservation issues about the world's animals is often greatest for species that are particularly endearing to humans, such as mammals and birds, whereas perils to aquatic faunas, including fishes, are often much less publicized. This disparity is due, in part, to taxonomic bias in research and funding in the field of conservation biology.11 Based on published scientific literature, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates are greatly underrepresented in conservation studies relative to the proportion of species of each group known worldwide,11 and organisms in the freshwater and marine realms receive much less coverage than those in terrestrial environments.12 Among invertebrates, however, it is notable that mollusks and crustaceans, of which many species are aquatic, are generally better studied than the vast diversity of arthropods—especially insects, with the exception of butterflies and moths. Even within freshwater fishes, game, and commercial species often receive greater attention than non-game species.
Major deficits in funding for faunal surveys, monitoring, basic research, and the general lack of public awareness about the conservation status of fishes across taxonomic groups and ecosystems is a significant problem. Given the myriad of threats to aquatic habitats throughout the world; the degree to which degradation of these habitats is accelerating; and the overall proportion of biodiversity represented, exceptional natural resources are at risk of being severely diminished or lost. In particular, freshwater habitats are some of the most threatened in the world.8,9,13 Moreover, aquatic systems are inextricably linked to terrestrial habitats, and pollutants and sediments from perturbed landscapes flow into lakes, streams, and rivers.
The Endangered Species Committee of the American Fisheries Society (AFS-ESC) has tracked the plight of imperiled fishes in North America for over 30 years, with the explicit aim of providing objective and unbiased status assessments independent of the influence of policy or regulatory considerations. Recently, the AFS-ESC—represented by 16 scientists from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with the assistance of numerous colleagues— evaluated the conservation status of the entire continental fish fauna.2 In the latest assessment, approximately 40% of described North American freshwater and diadromous fish species are documented as imperiled or extinct, representing a substantial increase over previous assessments. Past conservation assessments by the AFS were limited to determining the status of distinct species and subspecies. Undescribed forms, or those not named in the scientific literature using classic Linnaean binomial nomenclature, were included where sufficient data were available to document taxonomic distinctiveness, as evidenced by unique morphological, genetic, or other attributes.
In the most recent assessment, additional infraspecific taxa were included in the form of distinctive populations, or what are sometimes referred to in the scientific community as evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) or distinct population segments (DPSs, although this term has certain legal connotations under the Endangered Species Act within the U.S.).14 A taxon (taxa, plural) is a unit used in biological classification and is defined based on a natural relationship, formally recognized as one or more lineages (= clades) of descendants sharing a common ancestry.
Seven hundred fish taxa are considered imperiled in North America's inland waters, currently, which represent 133 genera in 36 families (see Figure 1).2 The majority of taxa are named species (63%), followed by named subspecies (13%), populations (12%), undescribed species (7%), and undescribed subspecies (5%). Previous lists from 1979 and 1989 also had about 63% listed species and 37% infraspecific taxa. Of the total taxa currently listed,
- 280 taxa are endangered (E), i.e., in imminent (fewer than 50 years) danger of extinction, or extirpation (loss of populations) throughout most portions of a taxon's range.
- 190 are threatened (T), or in imminent danger of becoming endangered.
- 230 are vulnerable (V), that is, in imminent danger of becoming threatened, which is comparable to a designation of "Special Concern" by many agencies and conservation organizations.
- 61 are presumed extinct (X), meaning a taxon that has not been observed for over 50 years. Two subcategories are included: Possibly Extinct (Xp), a taxon suspected to be extinct, as evidenced by more than 20 but less than 50 years since living representatives were observed, and Extirpated in Nature (Xn), where all populations in natural habitats are presumed eliminated but surviving individuals are maintained in captivity.
Figure 1
Chronological increase in the number of fish taxa imperiled in North American freshwater ecosystems, as assessed by the American Fisheries Society Endangered Species Committee.2 Assessments were conducted in 1979, 1989, and 2008. Delisted taxa are those that appeared on a previous list but were removed due to improved status, taxonomic invalidity, or extralimital distributions.
The number of imperiled fishes represents a 92% increase over a nearly 20-year period dating to 1989. The list of imperiled taxa encompasses fishes that span a remarkable diversity of lineages, morphologies, life histories, and habitats. A taxonomic breakdown of the list and comparison to known, described species reveals disparities by family.
- Nearly one quarter of all imperiled taxa belong to the most species-rich family of North American freshwater fishes, the Cyprinidae, represented by the minnows and their allies.
The Candy Darter is a vulnerable species found in the New River system of Virginia and West Virginia. Darters are a colorful, species-rich group of small-bodied fishes limited in distribution to North America; their greatest diversity is in uplands of central and eastern U.S. Photograph by N.M. Burkhead.
Another 15% is represented by the second-most diverse family—the Percidae—that includes a large number of darters—small, colorful fishes that have their greatest diversity and abundance in clear-flowing streams of the central and eastern U.S.
The Salmonidae—trouts, salmons, ciscoes, and their allies—comprise nearly 12% of all imperiled taxa, but are disproportionally represented in comparison to other families by large numbers of infraspecific taxa.
There are distinct geographic trends evident for imperiled North American fishes based on distributions within natural hydrologic units or ecoregions (defined by a combination of physical drainage features and faunal similarity, see Figure 2).12 Concentrations of at-risk fishes occur in the southeastern U.S., the mid-Pacific coast, the lower Rio Grande, and coastal and south-central inland regions of Mexico.1 Of particular note is the distribution of imperiled fishes in North America within ecoregions; 80% of all taxa are confined (endemic) to a single ecoregion, and another 10% are limited to two ecoregions. Much of the imperilment of the inland continental fish fauna is attributed to a combination of limited range sizes of many species and broad-scale habitat degradation.
Figure 2
Numbers of imperiled freshwater and diadromous fishes by ecoregions, within North America, based on the most recent conservation assessment by the American Fisheries Society's Endangered Species Committee.2
Why be concerned about the decline?
Loss of biodiversity on planet Earth is thought by some to be the greatest impending environmental crisis currently facing humanity.15 The decline of North American fish species and populations, as with elements of biodiversity throughout the world, directly or indirectly impacts other faunas, is detrimental to freshwater ecosystems in general, and affects humankind in a variety of ways. Freshwater fishes are important sentinels of environmental conditions and play a crucial role in the ecology and sustainability of natural ecosystems.
The natural balance of both aquatic and terrestrial communities, including birds, mammals, reptiles, and other fishes, is dependent on fish populations that provide critical functions, such as cycling nutrients and serving as prey to a large variety of carnivores. The larvae of native freshwater mussels, called glochidia, require fish hosts in order to complete their life cycles. Some migratory fishes—such as shads, smelts, chars, and salmons—serve as keystone species of entire ecosystems. For instance, a variety of predators and scavengers feed on adults of migrating and spawning salmon, their eggs, fry, and their decaying carcasses. The nutrients that are transferred from the sea and incorporated into the food chain contribute to the health of forests adjacent to streams in which salmon spawn, thereby illustrating the linkage between terrestrial and aquatic habitats.7,16,17
Herbivorous species provide important functions in terms of cropping algae and plants or disseminating seeds and fruits. Humans derive extensive recreational, commercial, and intangible benefits from fish and fishery resources; and our welfare is linked directly to their protection and sustainability. Conversely, degraded aquatic ecosystems—with simplified communities and altered food webs—can lead to an increase in vectors, such as mosquitoes and snails, water-related diseases like malaria, schistosomiasis, and cholera.18
These are but a few examples of the global importance of freshwater fishes, their habitats, and the need for the conservation of both. Overall, fish species, and communities in the inland streams, rivers, lakes, and wetlands of North America, provide countless ecosystem services. Beyond the economic value of fish, fisheries, and freshwater habitats, healthy natural aquatic ecosystems may have profound positive effects on the human spirit and well-being.
What can be done to ensure effective conservation?
Although the status and future prospects for many North American fishes may be discouraging, many actions can reverse declining trends, recover populations, and provide solutions. In a review of a number of studies, G.S. Helfman summarized the following solutions to environmental problems associated with the conservation of fishes and their habitats7:
Enforce existing laws that protect native assemblages and habitats.
Create reserves, protected land areas, and water bodies. Large reserves provide the greatest impact for protecting multiple species and communities.
Promote ecosystem-based management.
Be precautionary and proactive. Act despite uncertainty and without waiting for scientific consensus. Conservation crises may become irreversible, and management actions may be required before supporting scientific data are available.
Monitor results and manage adaptively. Make adjustments to improve conservation actions and implement successful ones for the long term.


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So, this inbox item caught my eye recently:
Engineered Systems magazine's August 2019 issue examines the sustainable strategies behind a successful health care design, how to achieve variable condenser flow using VFDs, tips to help engineers prepare for the unexpected, an overview of NFPA 99, and much more.
Copyright ©2019. All Rights Reserved BNP Media.
Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing


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What Guests Want...at Hotels
Hotels.com has released the 2013 version of their Global Hotel Amenities Survey, summarized in the infographic What Guests Want. Part of an ongoing series from Hotels.com on their press site, the infographic takes a fun look at what hotel-stayers value most. Apparently everyone wants free WiFi!
You just checked into your favorite hotel and are ready to enjoy all it has to offer. What kind of amenities inspire you? We surveyed travelers from all over the world to see what perks they valued most when spending a night away from home.
The infographic is an additional content piece to the release of the complete survey, Global Travelers Want To Stay Connected And Comfy. The Hotels.com press site is primarily targeted at an audience of hotel industry executives and the news media, and they maintain a dedicated infographics page. The addition of the infographic to the press release helps to make the often dry survey data more engaging, and additional press releases were also published to highlight some of the hidden gems in the data: Danish Hotel Guests Most Honest; Americans Come In 23rd Place
Designed by Jeremy Yingling with InfoNewt, the infographic is essentially an executive summary of the much larger survey report that Hotels.com publishes each year.
I've posted a short, behind-the-scenes Q&A with Hotels.com about their experiences using infographics on the InfoNewt blog.


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In a PostGIS view i have a field of data type "timestamp with time zone". In GeoServer this field is show with datatype "Timestamp"
My problem is that i want the Timestamp to be show in my application exactly as it is in my Database as UTM. +00.
What i get back from GeoServer via WFS request is:
What is stored in the PostGIS database is:
2010-08-20 20:56:15.095+00
How do i tell GeoServer not to convert the time so that i see the time exactly how it is in the database as UTM? Is it on Apache, System Time, GeoServer config?
Running GeoServer on latest stable Suse linux Ent.


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Since cancer has become the plague and one of the greatest fears of the modern technological, chemical age and, overall, cancer treatment, other than for certain malignancies, has not to date been very successful, prevention of cancer is the only sensible approach. The relationship of diet to cancer came of age in the 1980s. With our new knowledge, we can clearly now do something about the threats of cancer and our future. Caring for ourselves and others as if we really love life and have a desire to live will win over all possible disease!
Chapter 11, Environmental Aspects of Nutrition, contains a fairly detailed discussion of cancer—its genesis, potential offending agents, dietary concepts, prevention ideas, and so on. Here I want to focus more on general nutrition and supplements and their importance in preventing cancer.
Two decades ago, it was difficult to find any major institutions, doctors, or groups like the medical associations or the American Cancer Society, that would admit that there were any ties between cancer and nutrition. Now the nutritional and environmental influences on the genesis of cancer, the second biggest killer of the American adult population, have been fairly well accepted as key components in this disease. A big breakthrough came with the 1977 Senate Select Committee's Dietary Goals for the United States, listing cancer as one of the major degenerative diseases (cardiovascular disease and diabetes are others) that are linked to improper diet. The committee's suggestions of lower fat, higher fiber, and more natural foods are definitely a part of the cancer-prevention diet. An important report called Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, compiled by the National Academy of Sciences and released in 1982, gave further credence to the relationship between diet and cancer and offered more specific dietary suggestions. And in 1988, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a major manuscript by C. Everett Koop, M.D., entitled The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. It discusses the relationships between nutrition and our common degenerative diseases, including cancer.
But cancer is a multifactorial, multidimensional disease. While nutritional and environmental influences are definite components, physiological, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual factors are also important. Therefore, the prevention and treatment of cancer must deal with all of these aspects of life.
The aging process itself increases cancer risk, but particularly if we do not take good care of ourselves. Poor nutrition can lead to many functional problems, such as lowered immunity and slower cell repair. The increased exposure to carcinogens is no help either. (See more on this in the Anti-Aging Program). To much of the medical profession, cancer prevention means primarily early detection—more exams, x-rays, mammograms, and biopsies—so that the necessary surgery, drugs, and radiation can be applied sooner to prevent an untimely death. However, prevention of cancer is much more than early detection—it means not creating the disease. A good diet and stress management are important cancer preventives. A strong, healthy immune (defense) system is also an essential part of this plan (see the preceding program on Immune Enhancement). With a strong immune system, even the few cancer cells that might be regularly generated would be easily removed from the body. Put simply (according to current thinking), it takes both the disease of the cells and the failure of the immune system together to create cancer—in other words, the effect of potential carcinogens on an already unstable body.
Michio Kushi, author of the in-depth text The Cancer Prevention Diet, believes that cancer is caused not so much by carcinogens per se as by the imbalance in the body caused by improprieties of diet that allows the agents to create problems. He advocates the "unified theory of disease," which sees the internal imbalance between yin and yang as the primary cause of cancer and most diseases. It is the "duality," or seeing of body parts or diseases as separate from our entire being, that allows us to treat even the mildest of symptoms as an enemy and not as an ally trying to guide us in a new direction. As we continue to approach our health in this way, we create further diversions from unity and manifest more-difficult-to-treat acute and chronic problems. Cancer itself, as is true of most disease, can be seen as a lack of harmony with our environment and a diversion from our inner truth.
This program is suitable for most everyone, especially those in a high-cancer-risk group. That includes men and women over 40 or 50 years old and people with a family history of cancer, especially women with a family history of breast cancer. Smokers, people with a dietary history that includes cancer risks, and those who have been exposed to known carcinogens will also benefit.
What really causes cancer? Is it a virus or genetic code, the effect of carcinogens on cellular growth, or a weakened immune system? Is it a poor, "cancer-promoting" diet? Or does it have to do with the psychological factors influenced by stress, poor attitude, or low self-esteem? We do not really know; cancer seems to be linked to all of these factors. Family history is definitely a factor, and if someone in our families has had cancer, that should increase our watchfulness for this disease as well as encourage us to use early detection procedures.
Discussion of cancer risks and promoting factors could easily fill a book. I want to keep it simple. Below I list the eleven main cancer risks, followed by a more extensive discussion of various factors that may add to our chances of developing cancer sometime in our lives. One of the difficult tasks in researching many cancer risks is that cancer can often take 30–40 years from the time of exposure to a carcinogen for it to manifest as a physical tumor. But the following list clearly shows that the promotion of cancer involves almost exclusively diet, environment, and lifestyle. Problems that result from pharmaceutical medicines or viral conditions that weaken immunity and allow cancer to develop more easily are probably rarer, and usually even the factors that predispose us to these conditions are areas over which we have some control.
Smoking, mainly of cigarettes, is a primary cancer risk and is correlated with nearly all lung cancer. It is also a factor in cancers of the mouth, throat, and larynx and possibly others. Pipe and cigar smoking produces higher incidences of mouth cancer but less of lung. Cigarette smoke acts synergistically with alcohol, asbestos, and other carcinogens in air, water, and food to further increase cancer risk and rates. It is likely that naturally grown tobacco rolled in untreated paper poses less cancer risk; the chemical production and treatment processes involved in manufacturing a pack of cigarettes are definitely an added cause for concern. Regular marijuana smoking may also be a factor in cancer, though more research on this is needed. Cigarette smoking is clearly the largest and most preventable cancer risk.
Excess fats in the diet definitely increase the incidence of breast, colon, and prostate cancer and possibly others, such as uterine or ovarian cancer. The fats of most concern include saturated animal fats, as found in meats and dairy products; fried or rancid oils; hydrogenated and refined oils, and cooked polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Rancid oils and foods cooked in oils cause more free-radical irritation (as do high amounts of PUFAs), mainly from lipid peroxides, and these act as mutagens and carcinogens. Excess protein in some studies correlates with cancer rates, but most of the higher protein foods also contribute to higher fat levels and this type of diet will often lead to more general body congestive and degenerative processes.
Obesity is definitely correlated with higher cancer rates. Colon, rectum, and prostate cancer rates are higher in obese men, while obese women have increased risks of cancer of the breast, cervix, uterus, ovary and gallbladder. It is not totally clear whether the risk is posed by the obesity itself, higher caloric intake, or by the many associated factors, both nutritional and psychological (overweight people tend to hold things in).
Deficiencies of many nutrients are implicated in some cancers. Low fiber in the diet is probably the biggest culprit, mainly in the increasing problem of colon cancer. Slow transit time through the intestinal tract, allowing more contact to carcinogens, may be the main factor here. Many specific nutrient deficiencies have been correlated with various cancers. Vitamin A and beta-carotene deficits increase the incidence of lung and mouth cancer, especially among cigarette smokers, and are also implicated in cancers of the skin, throat, prostate, bladder, cervix, colon, esophagus, and stomach. Also of concern is selenium deficiency, which we now know may increase the risk of many cancers, mainly of the breast, lungs, colon, rectum, and prostate, as well as skin, pancreas, and intestinal cancer and leukemia. Vitamin C may reduce the carcinogenicity of nitrosamines and other chemicals; vitamin C deficits may increase cervical, bladder, stomach and esophageal cancers, as well as the general carcinogenic process. Vitamin E deficiency definitely weakens the body's ability to balance rancid oils and free radicals, and this increases cancer risk. Other mineral deficiencies implicated in cancer include molybdenum deficiency in esophageal and stomach cancer; zinc deficiency in cancer of the prostate, colon, esophagus, and bronchi and general immune system weakening; and possibly iodine and iron deficiencies.
Occupational chemicals are a topic of great concern. Many workers at home or in jobs are exposed to a wide range of chemicals with varying carcinogenicity. Possible agents include nuclear radiation and fallout, chemicals used in dry cleaning and other cleaning supplies, benzene, coal tar and its derivatives, asbestos, arsenic, PVC, gasoline and petroleum products and other hydrocarbons, pesticides, cosmetic chemicals, and many others. A more detailed discussion is included in Chapter 11, Environmental Aspects of Nutrition. Cigarette smoking also increases the risks from these occupational hazards.
Food chemicals are another big topic. There are many possible carcinogens, most of minimum risk but often cumulative, and we have much to learn about possible interactions of multiple carcinogens. Chemicals may be added to food during growth, manufacture, or preparation, and some are even made by the foods themselves or in combination with other microorganisms.


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Looking at the specs for the head angle and fork offset (71 deg and 38mm according to Cotic) I'm not too surprised at the slow steering. The fork needs more offset to reduce trail and quicken up steering. Most cross bikes tend to have both a steeper head angle and more fork offset, both of which reduce trail.
The Cotic >X< was born because mountain bike racer Kate Potter (Cotic/Bontrager Race Team) wanted a bike to race during the cyclo-cross season while mountain bike competition was quiet. This bike is the production model of that request. Cotic have a passionate fan-base for their mountain bikes and their steel Roadrat has many commuting devotees, so their new 'cross bike has a lofty reputation to live up to.
The >X< frame wears its mountain bike heritage on its sleeve. If the sloping top tube, wishbone seatstays, 135mm spaced rear end and disc compatibility weren't enough, it further tips more than a wink to its fat-tyred genes with strengthening 'Hexten' gussets on the down tube and chainstays. With its skinny steel tubes it looks very svelte and elegant in these days of bulging carbon and swoopy aluminium. It's like a mid-'90s mountain bike but with the right size wheels, which will please people of a certain age and specific tint of spectacle.
The Cotic FX cromoly frame is custom butted and heat-treated. It has 'an Ovalform top tube for handling accuracy and compliance', it says here. The seatstays are straight but the chainstays are gently curved for heel clearance. Being bridgeless they give increased mud clearance as well as leaving plenty of space in there for a 700x42 tyre. Gussets on the outside of the chainstays by the bottom-bracket allow lighter gauge tubes to be used without sacrificing frame integrity.
The >X< is cantilever and disc brake compliant. The disc-mount on the rear has a strengthening strut between the seatstay and chainstay to cope with the extra braking forces. If you do want to ride disked-up, the cantilever mounts are removable to give the frame a clean look.
Twin bottle-cage mounts pierce the down tube for those days when you just want to go epic: a 500ml bottle will fit up top with a 750mm bottle sitting on the lower mount. Or you can just use one if you want a drink when racing, sliding a small bottle in by the head tube and still having plenty of triangle space for shouldering the bike.
The Ovalform top tube is supposed to help shoulder comfort, although I didn't feel much difference from a basic round tube when it was bouncing off the collarbone. A replaceable mech-hanger bolts onto the trademark Cotic cowled dropouts. All cable guides are slotted for ease of cable care, the top tube ones routed along the top to aid in carrying the bike. The front gear-cable stops are mounted on the head tube, and although they were plain on my test model they will be threaded with adjusters in the future.
For the commuterati the fork has eyelets by the dropouts and a hole through the crown for mounting a mudguard, and possibly a much-needed cable-stop (more on that later). At the rear, the frame has eyelets at the dropouts and a single hole underneath the seatstay wishbone. There's a mudguard eye in the middle of the bottom bracket, right between the chainstays, which would be an innovative touch if the hole weren't perfectly bisected by the front-mech cable as it exits its bottom bracket guide. Ah.
Running gear is Tiagra-based but downgraded to Sora 9-spd for the STIs. Sora shifters are a little different from the usual Shimano units in that instead of the two 'brake' levers handling the gears, one lever blade pulls the cable and a little 'mouse's ear' thumb button on the inside of the brake hood releases it a click at a time. It's like a Campagnolo Ergo shifter, so if you've used Campag it will be all too familiar. If not, it's not much of a brain-strain to get used to the action of a lever and a separate button.
Unfortunately the mouse ear is too small and impossibly placed to reach with a thumb when you're in the drops. It's a royal pain in the arse, to be frank, especially if you're one of those that likes to ride the drops for the extra security and braking control it gives when riding a 'cross bike off-road, or if you're clicking through the gears in a speedy 'I'm A Roadie God' tuck.
Shifting is at the clunkier end of Shimano's smoothness but still within the boundaries of slick. The front shifter requires a couple of throws to shift between rings, which takes time but does mean there's enough wiggle-room to trim the front mech to avoid chain rub. The shape of the lever body is quite thin in the hand and can dig in when piloting the bike over bumpy terrain. This can get rather painful after a while.
The 50/34 chainrings on the 175mm Tiagra cranks are an ultimately useless chainring pairing for a bike of this type. It's not just Cotic's fault; it's a gearing set-up I've experienced on other 'cross bikes and I've hated it then too. The 50-tooth outer is great if you're using the >X< as a commuting vehicle and you're tooling along a long straight flat High Street with a tailwind and green lights all the way, but as soon as you take the bike off-road it gets to be hard work. With even CX pro racers running a 46 or 48T big chainring, it's no surprise that a 50 tooth is going to be a knee cruncher for us mere mortals in the mud.
The gap between the 50 and 34 chainrings is also very annoying – I've said that before as well. It's fine if you're one of those riders who like to mash a big gear until your legs implode and then dump the chain onto the easiest gear to twiddle up a hill. But if you're a cyclist who likes to maintain some kind of pedalling rhythm, changing between the inner and outer chainrings involves a lot of rear derailleur action to maintain what riders of an experienced persuasion would call a cadence. You're never going to be bored taking the bike off-road, or riding undulating tarmac, as you'll be forever changing between chainrings to maintain forward momentum.
Thanks to this chainset combo the bike's smallest three cogs on the 11-25 cassette remained resolutely untouched throughout the test, and are still very shiny and new. They're too harsh for the 50T chainring and give too much chain crossover and gear replication for the inner 34. I'd like to see a less road-based cassette range, as in the big ring I only used the easier half of the block, and in the 34 ring the 25 sprocket at the back isn't enough when winching up a leafy off-road climb. If you're just going to ride it on the road or on easy tracks you should be fine. If you want to use the bike off-road, changing the front chainrings to something smaller or the rear cassette to an overall toothier cluster would help things enormously.
The disc-ready hubs ran smooth throughout the test, despite me dragging the bike through some big puddles. When they do die the cartridge bearings will be cheap and easy to replace. The Alex R450 rims stood up well to my clumsy handing but did need a bit of a bedding-in tweak after a few sessions. Continental Cyclocross Race 700x35C tyres are pretty speedy for a knobbled tyre on road, with no cornering wander either. They're really well behaved off-road as well, providing more confidence than their meagre knobs would suggest, and only getting out of their depth when things get proper muddy. The shallow tread and open design means that thorn punctures can be a problem, though, and sadly the rear tyre started to show wear after less than a dozen rides. The wheel quick-releases have removable levers, which is a handy security feature if you're locking the bike outside the office.
The Cotic Component branded seatpost, saddle and handlebar are as good as any big name products. The seatpost has a comfortable amount of flex in it and the saddle has raised no issues or boils in my usually quite discerning derriere area. The Cotic handlebar is rangy wide at 44cm centre-to-centre, which gives a good level of control. I felt that the drop was a bit too much, as the stance of the bike is pretty arse-high/nose down as it is, and the drop of the handlebar exacerbates this.
The Tektro CR520 cantilevers, while not in any way glamorous, do a fine job, better even than some brakes with bling. They're simple to fettle and adjust, the V-style pads easy to play with using an Allen-key so that they hit the rim right.
The Cane Creek headset did its job perfectly with no notchiness or gritty noises. Bearings are easily available and easy to replace if needed at the end of a unfair winter. The Shimano chain, meanwhile, comes with a SRAM split-link in there for ease of removal and cleaning, which shows forethought on a bike that's likely to get grubby every time it goes out.
The Cotic Components carbon-fibre fork comes with both disc mounts and cantilever studs as standard. According to Cotic, the carbon fork keeps the front end of the >X< 'light and lively'. What I noticed most was horrendous brake judder. Initially, I got the most frightening chatter under braking I've ever experienced. I tried the usual tricks of raising the too low straddle-cable, replacing the brake blocks to some of better quality, and toeing them in madly to try and minimise the problem. But it never really went away.
The cause of the problem might be the diameter of the fork legs, which is the same from crown to dropout; less juddery forks are significantly beefier at the crown and taper gently to the drop out. Anyhow, you can fix the brake judder in two ways. You can go to the mountain bike dark side and fit disc brakes. Or you can take advantage of the hole in the top of the fork and fit a fork-mounted brake-hanger instead of a steerer-mounted brake hanger.
Although the fork does lots of lovely swoopy things to spread out from headset width to axle width, the clearance at the top of the fork either side of the tyre isn't the gapiest I've seen. It's fine if you're just going to use the >X< mainly on road or on gentle dirt, but it becomes an issue if you steer the bike into extremes. I had a frustrating cyclo-cross race where the fork had to be frequently cleared of mud and grass whilst other racers ground past clog-free. (It was so annoying I left the race early and went home.) The rear triangle, on the other hand, has plenty of mud clearance.
As an aesthetic aside: the interlocking 'C's of the Cotic Components logo on the fork looks like a reversed out 'S' in a white oval and had most people confused as to the make of the fork.
My first ride on the Weekday wasn't a success. There was the aforementioned chronic brake-judder, and something was binding in the headset area to make steering rather porridgy. So five miles in I was at the bike shop, with a new straddle-cable fitted to raise the yoke in hope of lessening the judder. The sticky headset issue was tracked down to the steerer-mounted brake hanger sitting unevenly on top of the headset. A shuffle around of the hanger and the spacers solved things.
I began again. Fifteen miles later on top of a hill, a strange clunking noise was attributed to the front-mech slipping down into the chainset. I set it up correctly, did the bolt up tighter and went home.
Heading out the next day, I found that despite the >X< being a little over a centimetre shorter in the top tube than my favoured length for a 'cross bike, the reach to the brake hoods was still quite a stretch. I think that the combination of the width and reach of the bars and the length of the Sora STI bodies were to blame for this. It's something to bear in mind, or play with to fit.
A bigger issue was the steering, which never felt quite right. It seemed a little lazy and uncertain. Swapping bikes with another rider and riding the same bit of twisty trail back to back brought this slow steering trait into sharp focus. The other bike felt like it was laser-guided, with tight steering taking me right where I wanted it to. In contrast, the Weekday would go where I wanted only after thinking about it for a bit, its ponderous line through corners visible to the rider behind.
Such slow steering is a real, real shame as the back end of the bike wanted to play all the time. The frame has that clichéd classic steel feel, all springy and lively, and the compact frame allowed the bike to be thrown about between the legs with smiley abandon. But your enthusiasm is kept in check by the vague steering, especially when descending off-road where the bike never felt confident up-front. Tracks that the frame wanted to blat down were minced down instead. Every rider that had a go on the >X< came back asking what the problem with the steering was. It just felt a bit off. If this bike were a dog, it would have the body of a cheeky terrier and the head of an old Labrador.
I tried riding it like a mountain bike instead of a road bike, pretending I was on one of Cotic's long-travel hardtails. It helped a bit, although it was a quick way to find the performance limits of a cyclo-cross tyre and rigid carbon fork (and a brake-fluttery one at that).
The >X< Weekday is obviously built to hit that magic Bike2Work £1K price-point, but for £300 more you can get the >X< Sunday, with the same frame and wheels as the Weekday but upgraded to a Shimano 105 10-speed drivetrain with a larger spread 12-27 cassette. You're also treated to a KCNC stem and seatpost. Optional upgrades for both the Weekday and Sunday are a Hope headset fitted for £63, Tektro drop-bar-lever compatible cable disc callipers for £75, and Nutrak 700x28C slick tyres (with tubes) for £20.
Unfortunately I think the Weekday is going to struggle in the crowded £1,000 market. In terms of value and spec, it gets beaten up behind the bike sheds by the Big Boys with their volume-buying clout and economies of scale. What you are paying extra for here is: the steel frame that's adaptable for discs and cantilevers; a certain amount of 'designed in the UK by a man in a shed' cachet; and maybe the 'I'm on a 'cross bike but I'm a mountain biker really' Cotic sticker on the down tube. Another option is to buy a frame and fork package for £450, giving you the opportunity to build it up with your favourite parts.
I was really looking forward to riding the >X< Weekday, as Cotic's steel mountain bikes have a reputation as fun and skippy machines. But I was generally a little disappointed. Like many bikes of this ilk, it's a'cyclo-cross' bike that tries to cover all of the race/commute/play bases but ends up compromised in each of them.
For commuting you'll want to swap the tyres, and maybe upgrade to discs for all-weather performance and reliability. For racing you're going to want to change the gearing so you don't get bogged down, and maybe swap the tyres for something chunkier when it gets proper cyclo-cross muddy. Oh, and you'll want a fork with better clearance and less judder. For general tooling around on- and off-road, which I did a lot of on the >X< as it's something it's particularly good at, I'd change the gearing straightaway: a 46 or 48 to replace the 50-tooth outer ring would make all the difference. I'd also fit a short-reach shallow-drop bar. As well as helping comfort it might make reaching that elusive Sora gear button easier.
Ultimately, I was disappointed with how the bike behaved. It's like it has a split personality. The rear end is all keen and eager – the Cotic MTB heritage and experience shining through there – while the front end is gently ponderous, which subtly smothers the potential of the bike. It's not enough to make the bike handle like a tank, just to take the edge off things and make a bike that wants and needs to be sharp into something a little fuzzy. I'd love to try a different fork in there, to see if it tightens up the handling and gives less judder.
Cotic's foray into cyclo-cross is, ironically, missing the X-factor. Its excitable frame is really, really let down by dreary steering.
If you're thinking of buying this product using a cashback deal why not use the road.cc Top Cashback page and get some top cashback while helping to support your favourite independent cycling website
road.cc test report
Make and model: Cotic >X< Weekday
Size tested: Black
About the bike
State the frame and fork material and method of construction. List the components used to build up the bike.
Frame: Cotic FX custom butted cromoly
Size: 52, 54, 56 (tested), 58.
Colour: Powdercoated Bright Orange or Super Gloss Black
Fork: Cotic Components Carbon
Brakes: Tektro CR520 Cantilever
Headset: FSA
Stem: Cotic Components 100mm OS
Handle bar: Cotic Components OS 44cm
Shift Levers: Shimano Sora 9spd
Front Derailleur: Shimano Tiagra
Rear Derailleur: Shimano Tiagra
Chain: Shimano
Crankset: Shimano Tiagra 34/50 Compact
Bottom Bracket: Shimano
Cassette: Shimano Tiagra 11-25 9spd
Rims: Alex R450
Tires: Continental Cyclocross Race 700x35c
Front Hub: Cotic Components Disc
Rear Hub: Cotic Components Disc
Saddle: Cotic Components
Seatpost: Cotic Components 27.2mm
Seat Clamp: Steel Collar
Extras: Cotic chainstay protector
Tell us what the bike is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about the bike?
Cotic say the >X< is your perfect winter partner-in-grime, zingy, responsive and durable in the way that only the best steel frames are, with involving handling, huge tyre clearance and minimised weight. One of the few cyclo-cross bikes out there with a full disc-brake option and practical mudguard mounting eyes it's a bike that can be commuted on all week and then ridden off-road or raced at the weekends. As a do-it-all bike it does quite well, although steering it towards any one speciality is going to require some changes.
Frame and fork
Tell us about the build quality and finish of the frame and fork?
Build was fine, good for the money and certainly no glaring faults.
Tell us about the geometry of the frame and fork?
Size - 56
Seat Tube (centre-top) - 52cm
Top Tube Length - 54.8cm
Head Angle - 71°
Seat Angle - 73°
How was the bike in terms of height and reach? How did it compare to other bikes of the same stated size?
For the size of the frame we thought the top-tube was a little short, but everything else felt fine.
Riding the bike
Was the bike comfortable to ride? Tell us how you felt about the ride quality.
Yes, skinny steel tubes built in a compact frame leaving a lot of seatpost showing added up to a comfy rear, and the flexy carbon fork sucked up the bumps as much as a rigid fork can.
Did the bike feel stiff in the right places? Did any part of the bike feel too stiff or too flexible?
It all felt good, tight enough for the road, absorbent enough for dirt.
How did the bike transfer power? Did it feel efficient?
Well enough for a 'cross bike, it happily skipped along.
Was there any toe-clip overlap with the front wheel? If so, was it a problem?
No problems here.
How would you describe the steering? Was it lively, neutral or unresponsive? Delayed responsivity.
Tell us some more about the handling. How did the bike feel overall? Did it do particular things well or badly?
See above. Something up front wasn't right and the handling as a result was a little off.
The drivetrain
Tell us some more about the drivetrain. Anything you particularly did or didn't like? Any components which didn't work well together?
Being Shimano throughout it all worked with Big S reliability and efficiency, not as slick or as light as the higher rent offerings but still perfectly acceptable. That Sora shift button is a pain and those gear ratios need changing.
Wheels and tyres
Tell us some more about the wheels and tyres.Did they work well in the conditions you encountered? Would you change the wheels or tyres? If so, what for?
For the mix of applications that this bike could be used for the wheels and tyres were just right. The disc-ready wheels should last a good time and being good old-fashioned spokes and rims can be easily and cheaply replaced and upgraded as things wear out. The Conti tyres performed remarkably well over a variety of terrains, but longevity isn't their forté.
Tell us some more about the controls. Any particularly good or bad components? How would the controls work for larger or smaller riders?
Although it's a personal thing we'd change the bar, and the shifters, which would probably make a big difference to the feel of the bike.
Your summary
Did you enjoy riding the bike? Sort of, yes, mostly, but that steering issue began to get on our nerves as we knew the bike could do so much more.
Would you consider buying the bike? No. Well, I could buy it but I'd have to change too many things to make it worthwhile, and the £1,000 arena has plenty of other likely offerings to peruse. The frame-only deal might be a punt and a considered shed-raid build.
Would you recommend the bike to a friend? Maybe, with caveats.
Anything further to say about the bike in conclusion?
We're not angry, just disappointed.
About the tester
Age: 42 Height: 180cm Weight: 73kg
I usually ride: It varies as to the season. My best bike is: The one I\'m on at the time
I've been riding for: Over 20 years I ride: Most days I would class myself as: Experienced
I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, cyclo cross, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Fun
Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.
6 comments
Excellent review, thorough, well written, well considered by someone who obviously knows what they're on about. Love the terrier rear end, old Labrador head analogy.
I was thinking about buying one of these. Downsides for me were largely trivial: the unknown make of tubing, nasty looking rear bolt on cantilever studs, two bottle mounts on same tube, don't much care for the 'wishbone' design seatstays. Look heavy and not as stable as a more trad design, but that's just me. Plus you'd have difficulty mounting a rack if you wanted to take in on the odd tour.
What's seriously putting me off, though, is the fork, especially after reading the above. I didn't like the same diameter all the way down the leg idea anyway. I've got an old Kona Explosif with this feature (although in Tange Prestige), I'm convinced it gives a 'dead' feel. On the Cotic, I wonder if the flared sideways fork design adds to the deadness, and possibly exaggerates the judder? The fork sounds like it might be a real issue, I think I'll wait for the mark 2 >X<, see if Cotic change the fork.
Thanks for an excellent review.
I too was pretty keen on this until I saw the fork geometry. It's a shame really since if they'd carry the Roadrat fork geometry over it'd probably have been a cracking ride. I'm suspecting that they may have had construction issues with running the fork with both types of brake and retaining the offset. You could of course swap out the fork but buying a bike knowing for fork will need swapping isn't exactly fiscally astute.


text:
ORA-04091: table ... is mutating, trigger/function may not see it
We know (and understand) by now that a row trigger cannot read a mutating table, but what's the /function all about in above message text? Well there is a completely different scenario that has nothing to do with triggers, where you can run into this error. I thought to spend a short post on that first, so that you really fully understand that ORA-04091 is your friend. And again in this scenario it prevents you from coding logic that might work differently tomorrow than from what it did today.
Let's quickly show you this scenario. We create the EMP table again and insert some test data into it.
drop table EMP;
create table EMP
(EMPNO number(3,0) not null primary key
,ENAME varchar2(20) not null
,SAL number(4,0) not null)
insert into emp(empno,ename,sal) values(100,'Toon',4000);
insert into emp(empno,ename,sal) values(101,'Izaak',5000);
insert into emp(empno,ename,sal) values(102,'Marcel',7000);
insert into emp(empno,ename,sal) values(103,'Rene',8000);
Our HR department decided that above salaries should be aligned a bit more in the year 2012. And in their wisdom they decided that the following update should be run at the end of the year:
update EMP e1 set e1.SAL =
e1.SAL + ((select avg(e2.SAL) from EMP e2) - e1.SAL)/2
Here come the QA department though: they need to 'ok' the running of this script in production too. So they inspect the script with all QC guidelines in mind. Result of their review is that they won't allow this. There is distinct 'business logic' in there that needs to be removed from the statement and implemented in a stored function, so that it 'can be reused sometime in the future' (I've seen this happen in real companies...). They mandate that a function be implemented such that the update statement will be of the following form:
update EMP e set e.SAL = f_new_sal(e.SAL)
So the developers pump out the following function for this:
create or replace function f_new_sal
(p_current_sal in number) return number as
pl_avg_sal number;
select avg(SAL) into pl_avg_sal
from EMP;
return p_current_sal + (pl_avg_sal - p_current_sal)/2;
Everybody is happy. The dba executes the testrun again:
WTF? Oracle throws a mutating table error? But there's no trigger involved here...
Why is this happening?
If you understood the explanation of this error in my previous posts sofar, you should be able to figure this one out. Oracle again detects that we seem to be selecting from a table that's currently mutating. Think about what is happening here:
- The update starts identifying the rows that need their SAL column value changed;
- It does this in some undetermined order (!);
- When the first rows is found, it invokes our function to determine the new SAL column value for it;
- Our function queries the EMP table, which is currently mutating: bingo we hit the error.
When Oracle steps out of the SQL-engine that's currently executing the update statement, and invokes the function, then this function -- just like an after row update trigger would -- sees the intermediate states of EMP as they exist during execution of the update statement. This implies that the return value of our function invocations heavily depend on the order in which the rows happen to be updated.


text:
Solve the clues and complete crossword GO10. Click on the Play button to start or if you have tried this crossword before, the Continue From Last Save button will be enabled allowing you to carry on from where you left off.
Date Added: 2016-05-22
Category: Puzzle Games
Played 261 times
Tags: None