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In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontier—restless souls who no sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which to-day we should call indigence than impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature they abandoned all and pushed farther westward, to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meagre comforts which they had voluntarily renounced.
Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remoter settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence he seemed a part, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the river town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of "improvement"—a few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the ax. Apparently the man's zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes.
The little log house, with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards weighted with traversing poles and its "chinking" of clay, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The latter, however, was boarded up—nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living to-day who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you shall see.
The man's name was said to be Murlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his aging. His hair and long, full beard were white, his gray, lustreless eyes sunken, his face singularly seamed with wrinkles which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall and spare, with a stoop of the shoulders—a burden bearer. I never saw him; these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the man's story when I was a lad. He had known him when living near by in that early day.
One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story—excepting, indeed, the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot. But there is an earlier chapter—that supplied by my grandfather.
When Murlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his ax to hew out a farm—the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support—he was young, strong and full of hope. In that eastern country whence he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman in all ways worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. There is no known record of her name; of her charms of mind and person tradition is silent and the doubter is at liberty to entertain his doubt; but God forbid that I should share it! Of their affection and happiness there is abundant assurance in every added day of the man's widowed life; for what but the magnetism of a blessed memory could have chained that venturesome spirit to a lot like that?
One day Murlock returned from gunning in a distant part of the forest to find his wife prostrate with fever, and delirious. There was no physician within miles, no neighbor; nor was she in a condition to be left, to summon help. So he set about the task of nursing her back to health, but at the end of the third day she fell into unconsciousness and so passed away, apparently, with never a gleam of returning reason.
From what we know of a nature like his we may venture to sketch in some of the details of the outline picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Murlock had sense enough to remember that the dead must be prepared for burial. In performance of this sacred duty he blundered now and again, did certain things incorrectly, and others which he did correctly were done over and over. His occasional failures to accomplish some simple and ordinary act filled him with astonishment, like that of a drunken man who wonders at the suspension of familiar natural laws. He was surprised, too, that he did not weep—surprised and a little ashamed; surely it is unkind not to weep for the dead. "To-morrow," he said aloud, "I shall have to make the coffin and dig the grave; and then I shall miss her, when she is no longer in sight; but now—she is dead, of course, but it is all right—it must be all right, somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem."
He stood over the body in the fading light, adjusting the hair and putting the finishing touches to the simple toilet, doing all mechanically, with soulless care. And still through his consciousness ran an undersense of conviction that all was right—that he should have her again as before, and everything explained. He had had no experience in grief; his capacity had not been enlarged by use. His heart could not contain it all, nor his imagination rightly conceive it. He did not know he was so hard struck; that knowledge would come later, and never go. Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom, he laid his arms upon the table's edge, and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. At that moment came in through the open window a long, wailing sound like the cry of a lost child in the far deeps of the darkening wood! But the man did not move. Again, and nearer than before, sounded that unearthly cry upon his failing sense. Perhaps it was a wild beast; perhaps it was a dream. For Murlock was asleep.
Some hours later, as it afterward appeared, this unfaithful watcher awoke and lifting his head from his arms intently listened—he knew not why. There in the black darkness by the side of the dead, recalling all without a shock, he strained his eyes to see—he knew not what. His senses were all alert, his breath was suspended, his blood had stilled its tides as if to assist the silence. Who—what had waked him, and where was it?
Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms, and at the same moment he heard, or fancied that he heard, a light, soft step—another—sounds as of bare feet upon the floor!
He was terrified beyond the power to cry out or move. Perforce he waited—waited there in the darkness through seeming centuries of such dread as one may know, yet live to tell. He tried vainly to speak the dead woman's name, vainly to stretch forth his hand across the table to learn if she were there. His throat was powerless, his arms and hands were like lead. Then occurred something most frightful. Some heavy body seemed hurled against the table with an impetus that pushed it against his breast so sharply as nearly to overthrow him, and at the same instant he heard and felt the fall of something upon the floor with so violent a thump that the whole house was shaken by the impact. A scuffling ensued, and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe. Murlock had risen to his feet. Fear had by excess forfeited control of his faculties. He flung his hands upon the table. Nothing was there!
There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. By the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat! Then there were darkness blacker than before, and silence; and when he returned to consciousness the sun was high and the wood vocal with songs of birds.
The body lay near the window, where the beast had left it when frightened away by the flash and report of the rifle. The clothing was deranged, the long hair in disorder, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lacerated, had issued a pool of blood not yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal's ear.


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Log In
Many of you believe that having a car on campus is necessary. The truth is, it's just more convenient. Since many schools implement parking restrictions for students unless they are resident assistants or until they earn a certain number of credits, many of you won't even have the option to bring a car to campus. Thankfully, there are other ways to get around.
If you have a car and meet your school's requirements, go ahead and bring it to campus if you want but keep in mind that it's another cost you must endure on top of tuition, books and living expenses. Consider if parking permits, gas, maintenance, insurance and potential tickets are worth the expense.
If you don't have a car or if you can't afford to bring yours to campus, you'll still be able to get around just fine. Most schools have bus services – either a private service or public transit – that students can utilize for little to no money. Schools will typically issue an ID card sticker, denoting the student's fee bill has been paid.
Buses are not the only way to go, though. Depending on where you go to school, there's light rail, cable cars or the subway. These options are not usually free but students can get tickets and monthly passes as discounted prices.
Other ways of getting around on campus are bicycles and scooters. They are very popular modes of transportation in less populous areas but if your campus is a more urban one, take the time to familiarize yourself with the city's hustle, bustle and traffic rules before taking to the streets on two wheels. Walking, jogging and running are also reliable...and always free!
However you decide to get around campus, do so carefully. You may be running late for class or exam but there's always time for safety!
Radha Jhatakia is a communications major who will be transferring to San Jose State University this fall. She's had some ups and downs in school and many obstacles to face; these challenges – plus support from family, friends and cat – have only made Radha stronger and have given her the experience to help others with the same issues. In her spare time, she enjoys writing, reading, cooking, sewing and designing. A social butterfly, Radha hopes to work in public relations and marketing upon graduation.

subset: commoncrawl


text: In the modern industrialized world, construction usually involves the translation of designs into reality. A formal design team may be assembled to plan the physical proceedings, and to integrate those proceedings with the other parts. The design usually consists of drawings and specifications, usually prepared by a design team including Architect, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, structural engineers, fire protection engineers, planning consultants, architectural consultants, and archaeological consultants. The design team is most commonly employed by (i.e. in contract with) the property owner. Under this system, once the design is completed by the design team, a number of construction companies or construction management companies may then be asked to make a bid for the work, either based directly on the design, or on the basis of drawings and a bill of quantities provided by a quantity surveyor. Following evaluation of bids, the owner typically awards a contract to the most cost efficient bidder.


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Vinyl records deliver the best possible sound for the reproduction of audio media. Here at GZ, we share the passion in creating the perfect sound for musicians, record labels and music lovers worldwide
With the wide portfolio of packaging options available at GZ, you can really highlight your final product. Whether you choose a standard record, coloured record, Picture Disc or Shaped Vinyl - we have a packaging solution perfectly tailored for your vinyl record format.
Since the 1st record was pressed in GZ more than 70 years ago, we have transformed our team's experience and passion for vinyl into a truly unique and valuable service for our customers.


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Space weather impacts radio communication in a number of ways. At frequencies in the 1 to 30 mega Hertz range (known as "High Frequency" or HF radio), the changes in ionospheric density and structure modify the transmission path and even block transmission of HF radio signals completely. These frequencies are used by amateur (ham) radio operators and many industries such as commercial airlines. They are also used by a number of government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense.
There are several types of space weather that can impact HF radio communication. In a typical sequence of space weather storms, the first impacts are felt during the solar flare itself. The solar x-rays from the sun penetrate to the bottom of the ionosphere (to around 80 km). There the x-ray photons ionize the atmosphere and create an enhancement of the D layer of the ionosphere. This enhanced D-layer acts both as a reflector of radio waves at some frequencies and an absorber of waves at other frequencies. The Radio Blackout associated with solar flares occurs on the dayside region of Earth and is most intense when the sun is directly overhead.
Another type of space weather, the Radiation Storm caused by energetic solar protons, can also disrupt HF radio communication. The protons are guided by Earth's magnetic field such that they collide with the upper atmosphere near the north and south poles. The fast-moving protons have an affect similar to the x-ray photons and create an enhanced D-Layer thus blocking HF radio communication at high latitudes. During auroral displays, the precipitating electrons can enhance other layers of the ionosphere and have similar disrupting and blocking effects on radio communication. This occurs mostly on the night side of the polar regions of Earth where the aurora is most intense and most frequent.
More information on solar activity from an amateur radio operator's perspective is available at https://www.qrparci.org/resource/FDIM81.pdf


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By Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court has upheld the right of a Marilyn Monroe photo library to license images of the film star taken by a celebrity photographer who was one of her business partners.
Milton H. Greene Archives Inc has been in a long-running court battle with Anna Strasberg, widow of Monroe's acting coach, Lee Strasberg, and her licensing agent CMG Worldwide, which controlled use of Monroe's image for years.
In a ruling on Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California backed a lower court decision that allowed Greene Archives to license its images of Monroe.
The star's estate, however, said it still retained exclusive rights to the film star's likeness under federal law.
Greene was a fashion and celebrity photographer who became friends with Monroe during a photo shoot, and the two formed a film production company. At one point, Monroe lived with Greene and his family at their Connecticut farmhouse, where he produced several photographs of the star. Greene died in 1985.
The legal battle over Greene's images hinged on where Monroe was living at the time of her death on August 5, 1962 at age 36. The court ruled Monroe resided in New York and therefore she did not have the posthumous right of publicity based on the state's law.
"Because no such right exists under New York law, Monroe LLC did not inherit it ... and cannot enforce it against Milton Greene or others similarly situated," Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the court.
Strasberg's Marilyn Monroe LLC sold its rights to the film star's persona in September 2010 to The Estate of Marilyn Monroe LLC, and Strasberg maintained a minority role.
In a statement on Thursday, the estate said the appeals court decision affected only publicity rights under state law and that its federal rights remained valid. "The Estate still enjoys the exclusive right to use Marilyn Monroe's signature, name, likeness, image, voice, or anything else associated with her persona," it said.
An attorney for Milton H. Greene Archives could not immediately be reached.
Interest in Monroe remains high. She is the subject of NBC television drama "Smash," a story about the making of a Broadway musical about the blonde bombshell, and last year's film, "My Week with Marilyn." Several books about her were released around the anniversary of her death.
Forbes magazine ranked Monroe as the third-highest money-maker in its annual ranking of "The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities," with income of $27 million in 2011, according to the court ruling.
Wardlaw wrote that the lengthy dispute over Monroe's persona "has ended in exactly the way that Monroe herself predicted more that 50 years ago," pointing to Monroe's quote: "I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else."
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Lisa Shumaker)
© Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved.


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Today we want to talk about a very important system in our cars – the cooling system. It's one of those things that you don't give much thought to until it fails and then you're stranded by the side of the road.
Cooling systems fail more often than any other mechanical system – usually because of neglect. Don't you hate it when something breaks, and you could have done something to prevent it?
The good news is that if you take care of your cooling system it can keep working for the life of your car.
Here at Camarillo Car Care, we emphasize preventive maintenance services like replacing your coolant according to the factory schedule. But the various parts that make up the cooling system need attention too. The major components of the cooling system are the water pump, freeze plugs, the thermostat, the radiator, cooling fans, the heater core, the pressure cap, the overflow tank and the hoses.
It sounds complicated, but we don't have to be experts – we can leave that to our friendly service technicians at Camarillo Car Care Center. But, having an overview will help us remember to take care of our cooling systems.
Most people would be surprised to know that burning fuel in your engine produces up to 4,500 degrees of heat. And all that heat has to be dealt with. If the heat can't be drawn off the engine, the pistons will literally weld themselves to the inside of the cylinders – then you just have to throw the engine away and get a new one. That would cost thousands of dollars.
Now the water pump is what forces the coolant through passages in the engine to absorb heat. The pump is driven by a belt that needs replacement from time to time. And the water pump will eventually wear out and need to be replaced. Spending some money on replacing the belts and water pump is much less than the cost of repairing the massive damage that can be done when an engine seizes.
There's another little part of the coolant system that protects the engine. It's called a freeze plug. If you remember from high school chemistry, water expands when it freezes. In very cold areas, the coolant can actually freeze when the vehicle is left sitting.
It is hard to believe, but the expanding frozen coolant can actually crack the engine block. The freeze plugs fit into the engine block. They fit tight enough to withstand the pressure of a running engine, but can expand or pop out if the coolant freezes. These little things save a lot of engine blocks.
That brings up a good point. An engine has to work in all kinds of temperatures – extremely hot as well as very cold. How does the cooling system adapt to external temperatures as well as varying operating conditions?
Well, it's much like the way you keep your house at a comfortable temperature all year round – with a thermostat. The thermostat in your car controls how much coolant flows through your engine. When the engine is cold, it restricts coolant flow until the engine comes up to an efficient operating temperature. Then it starts opening up to move more coolant to keep the temperature within a specified range.
The thermostat needs to be replaced from time to time as well. It's easy to diagnose a failed thermostat and is fairly inexpensive to replace. We can do this for you at Camarillo Car Care Center in Camarillo, just give us a call: 805-482-2853. Now we've been talking about all this heat we've got to get rid of, but haven't really talked about where it goes. That's where the radiator comes in. The hot coolant passes through the radiator. Air flows past the cooling fins and cools the coolant.
The radiator has two tanks that hold coolant: sometimes one the top and bottom or one on either side. If you have an automatic transmission, one of the tanks will also contain a second tank that cools the transmission fluid. Large SUV's and trucks often have a separate transmission cooler. So when you drive around Camarillo, the air is forced past the radiator. But driving doesn't produce enough air flow. So the radiator has cooling fans that force fresh air over the radiator. These fans may be powered by a belt or by electric motors.
Now, you also have something called a heater core. The heater core is like a mini radiator. A small fan blows air over the heater core and into the passenger compartment of your vehicle. That's how you warm your car when it's cold out.
Next is the radiator cap. With most newer cars around Camarillo, you never remove the radiator cap, except to replace it. You add coolant through the overflow tank. The radiator cap is also called a pressure cap, because its job is to maintain pressure in the cooling system.
High pressure raises the boiling point of the coolant, so it cools more effectively even in very demanding conditions. That is why you need to replace the cap from time to time. They recommend changing it out every time you replace your coolant.
Coming back to the overflow tank, it is needed because when the coolant gets hot it expands and the overflow holds the extra volume. The tank helps maintain the proper level of coolant and keeps air out of the system. You should never open the radiator cap or overflow tank when the engine is hot. This could lead to serious burns.
What else do we need to do to keep our cooling systems working well? Well, there are the hoses that hook all of these pieces together. They're obviously very tough to deal with the pressure and high temperatures. But they do get worn. Sometimes they get spongy from the heat. Sometimes they lose their connection to the radiator, water pump, etc. It's a great idea to have your Camarillo service center inspect your hoses at least once a year and replace them, if needed, before they break.
Camarillo Car Care Center can help you check your cooling system and make any necessary adjustments or repairs. Give us a call at 805-482-2853.


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Deck Art 2017 Kicks off May 11 & 12 This year, over 450 artists from all over metro Detroit, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania as well as over 55 downtown Rochester businesses are participating in Deck Art 2017. In its seventh installment, Deck Art 2017 is a skateboard art competition and exhibition. Artists submit one-of-a-kind artwork using skateboard decks as a canvas. These decks will be on display in downtown Rochester businesses beginning May 11, and will be celebrated with a … [Read more...]
Downtown Rochester Hosts Deck Art 2017 with the Kick Off on May 11 & 12
Filed Under: Rochester, The Community Edge Tagged With: @ Home Furniture, 4th Street Boutique, 4th Street Chiropractic, Aurum Design Jewelry, Bean & Leaf Café, Bologna Via Cucina, Chase Bank, ché bella, Chomp Deli & Grill, Deck Art 2017, Designhaus p.l.l.c Architecture, Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters, Downtown Rochester, Envoy Mortgage, Fieldstone Winery, Framer's Workshop, Georgio's Pizza & Pasta, Greens Art Supply, Haig's of Rochester, Holland's Floral & Gifts, Holy Cannoli's, James & Olive, Kabin Krusers Oyster Bar, Kimi K Salon & Spa, Kruse & Muer on Main, Main Street Billiards, MI State of Mind, Mr. B's Food & Spirits, O'Connor's Public House, Painting with a Twist, Penn Station East Coast Subs, Penny Black, Re/Max Defined, Red Knapp's Dairy Bar, Reno Chiropractic, Rochester Downtown Development Authority, Rochester Mills Beer Co, Rochester Principal Shopping District, Rochester Sports Cards & Memorabilia, Rojo Mexican Bistro, Royal Park Hotel, rush antiques, Sanders, SEE, Simply the Best Boutiques, Smith Jewelers, Sole Sisters, South Street Skateshop, Studio One Salon, Sumo Sushi, Talulah Belle, Tasco Family Chiropractic, The Cupcake Station, The Funky Frog Children's Resale Boutique, The Home Bakery, The Meeting House


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Rob Schreiber (2007), Scholarpedia, 2(7):2929. | doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.2929 | revision #91469 [link to/cite this article] |
MATLAB is an interactive programming environment for scientific computing.
MATLAB is heavily used in many technical fields for data analysis, problem solving, and for experimentation and algorithm development.
Discipline-specific software written in MATLAB, organized into libraries of functions called toolboxes, is widely used as well.
MATLAB has found extensive use as the basis for computational laboratory work in technical education;
more than 1000 textbooks use MATLAB as a teaching vehicle.
MATLAB is a product of The Mathworks of Natick, Massachusetts, USA.
There is general agreement in the technical computing community that the main reasons for MATLAB's success are its intuitive, concise syntax, the use of complex matrices as the default numeric data object, the power of the built-in operators, easily used graphics, and its simple and friendly programming environment, allowing easy extension of the language. To this one can add the reliability of the numerical methods on which the operators are based.
Contents |
The MATLAB language
MATLAB has a number of features that distinguish it from standard scientific programming languages (C and FORTRAN). It is interactive, interpreted rather than compiled. There are no variable declarations; any value can be assigned to any variable:
>> a = 'i am a string' a = i am a string >> a = sqrt(-[1 2; 3 4]) a = 0 +1.0000e+000i 0 +1.4142e+000i 0 +1.7321e+000i 0 +2.0000e+000i
First a string, then a 2 by 2 matrix of complex numbers are assigned to the variable "a". Numbers are, by default, represented as complex, double precision floating point values. Numeric values are, by default, two-dimensional arrays (matrices). Thus one may ask for the eigenvalues of an integer constant ( eig(3) ) with no consideration of type conversion to double or to matrix. Vectors and scalars are not separate types, but rather arrays with one or both dimensions equal to one. When appropriate, a matrix that has one (or both) dimensions equal to one is treated as a vector; one may ask for example for the inner product of a 1 by n and an n by 1 array. The methods that MATLAB offers as built-in functions include computation of the matrix inverse, the rank, the eigenvalues, the singular value decomposition, the Moore-Penrose generalized inverse, the LU and QR factorizations, and other standard operations of linear algebra.
MATLAB notation
MATLAB introduced some notational conveniences that make it easy to express ideas about matrices more compactly than had been possible. Most notable are the concatenation operations: [A, B] (the matrix whose columns are the columns of A followed by those of B) and [A; B] (the vertical concatenation, whose rows are the rows of A followed by those of B). Other notational innovations include A' for the transpose of the matrix A, A .* B for the Hadamard (element by element) product of two matrices, and A\b for the computation of the product of the inverse of a matrix (A) with a vector (b). MATLAB allows a function to have several outputs, with the syntax [x,y,z] = f(a,b,c). The m by n matrix all of whose elements are 1 is generated by the function ones(m,n), while zeros(m,n) and rand(m,n) generate the zero matrix and a matrix with independent uniform random elements. The identity of order n is known in MATLAB as eye(n).
Avoiding exceptions
Certain common bugs that cause early termination or unpredictable behavior in FORTRAN and C programs do not do so in MATLAB. Plus and minus infinity are supported values in MATLAB; they can be the result of a computation and can be written as literal values (Inf, -Inf). Taking advantage of features in the IEEE-754 standard for floating point, MATLAB returns appropriate values on divide by zero ( 1 / 0 yields positive infinity, -1 / 0 yields negative infinity, and 0 / 0 yields Not a Number. ) Writing "past the end" of a matrix does not cause an error in and of itself, rather the matrix is enlarged (with zeros) to make it big enough.
Empty matrices
A matrix may have no rows, or no columns, or neither rows nor columns:
>> a = ones(0,3) a = Empty matrix: 0-by-3 >> size(a) ans = 0 3
The sum of the zero elements in each of the three columns of a is:
>> sum(a, 1) ans = 0 0 0
The sum of the three elements in each of the zero rows of a is
>> sum(a, 2) ans = Empty matrix: 0-by-1
Empty matrices are natural stating points when a large matrix is created by the accretion of rows or columns.
Sparse matrices
A MATLAB matrix may be stored internally as a full matrix or as a sparse matrix. An m by n real, full matrix takes mn 8-byte words to store the elements (twice this if its imaginary part is nonzero) in addition to a few dozen bytes to store its other attributes, such as its size. If stored internally as a sparse matrix, then the storage requirement for a real matrix that has z nonzero elements is z 8-byte words for the nonzero values, and z + n + 1 integer values for indices and pointers that encode the locations of these nonzeros. The matrix is stored using a compressed sparse columns storage scheme that is common for sparse matrix software. If only a small fraction of the elements differ from zero, use of the sparse form can yield a substantial savings in storage. Moreover, MATLAB's operators take advantage of sparsity and can be far faster when applied to sparse operands. This is particularly true for the matrix factorization and inversion operators. Some MATLAB functions produce sparse outputs in all cases:
>> a = speye(3) a = (1,1) 1 (2,2) 1 (3,3) 1 >> full(a) ans = 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Note that sparse matrices are displayed as a list of the nonzero elements with their (row, column) coordinates. The choice of storage format is made by the MATLAB user or programmer rather than by the MATLAB implementation. The default is full. A matrix can be coerced to full or to sparse form by use of the functions full and sparse. The nonzeros can be explicitly listed using ( [row_index, column_index, value] = find(A) ).
Other supported data objects
Signed and unsigned integer data can be created and manipulated. Some operators are, however, only implemented for doubles. Matrices of short integer types require less storage than the default 64-bit floating point types.
Multidimensional (more than two dimensions), strings, and lists of arbitrary MATLAB objects are also supported:
>> c = cell(1,3) c = [] [] [] >> c{1} = 1 c = [1] [] [] >> c{2} = [1 2; 3 4] c = [1] [2x2 double] [] >> c{3} = cell(2,1) c = [1] [2x2 double] {2x1 cell} >> c{4} = 'four' c = [1] [2x2 double] {2x1 cell} 'four'
User-defined data types (classes, objects) can be defined.
MATLAB includes a variety of plotting and visualization tools for datasets and functions.
History of MATLAB
Cleve Moler is the creator of MATLAB. Moler was a numerical analyst specializing in matrix computation. In the early 1970s, Moler participated in an effort organized by Argonne National Laboratory to produce a library of reliable, efficient FORTRAN subroutines for computing the eigenvalues of matrices (EISPACK) and solving systems of linear equations (LINPACK). In order to make these packages easier for students to use, Moler created MATLAB, whose name is a contraction of "Matrix Laboratory." The original MATLAB was a FORTRAN program, designed for the era of timesharing and ASCII terminals. It had only one data type (the matrix of complex doubles) and a fixed collection of 80 functions. Moler used the FORTRAN MATLAB in teaching numerical analysis at Stanford in 1979. Word of the program reached Jack Little, who grasped the potential of MATLAB in signal processing and control, and the possibility of making a successful software product based on MATLAB for the new IBM PC.
Little and Steve Bangert developed PC MATLAB by porting Moler's code from FORTRAN to C, adding user-defined functions (in effect making MATLAB into a programming language rather than a calculator), improved graphics, and libraries of MATLAB routines, the toolboxes. Moler, Little, and Bangert formed the Mathworks in 1984, with PC MATLAB as the first product. Their first sale was an order for ten copies placed by Professor Nick Trefethen at MIT.
Growth and Development
Jack Little's 100-word, 1983 business plan predicted that the new product would do for the technical world what Lotus 1-2-3 had done in the business world. MATLAB has indeed been a commercial success from the beginning, growing to more than 1,000,000 users and by 2006 to 1,200 Mathworkers, as the employees of Mathworks are known. MATLAB has, in effect, become the common language for the informal exchange of software and for algorithmic experiment in technical computing. The company remains privately held.
There have been several major revisions and enhancements to MATLAB, including an extended set of graphics tools and primitives, multidimensional arrays and lists (known in MATLAB as cell arrays), classes and objects, economical storage schemes and algorithms for sparse matrices, a debugger, a profiler, a GUI builder, a lower cost student edition, and Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation for improved performance. The computational core has been upgraded through the incorporation LAPACK (a state-of-the-art library for matrix computation), as well as software for computation of definite integrals, integration of ordinary differential equations, and root finders. Toolboxes created by the Mathworks and other contributors have expanded the scope of MATLAB, adding capabilities in areas such as optimization, signal and image processing, fuzzy logic, splines, wavelets, statistics, partial differential equations, bioinformatics, and mathematical finance. SIMULINK, an extensible block diagram environment for simulation and model-based design appeared as a second Mathworks product in 1990.
The Mathworks logo is a picture (generated by MATLAB) of a numerical approximation to the fundamental mode of a vibrating L-shaped membrane, a topic that Moler discussed in his Stanford Ph.D. thesis in 1965.
Interpretation, just-in-time compilation, and performance
A simple experiment reveals the performance implications of the MATLAB interpreter and the improvement possible with JIT compilation. Consider the MATLAB code snippet
>> n = 10^6; a = rand(n,1); >> tic; a = a + a; toc Elapsed time is 0.018469 seconds.
This indicates that the library routine used by MATLAB to add two vectors performs this operation at a rate of about 54 million elements per second (a rate determined by the memory bandwidth of the machine on which the experiment was run). When the code is rewritten as a MATLAB loop, the rate is reduced:
>> tic; for i = 1:length(a), a(i) = a(i) + a(i); end, toc Elapsed time is 0.964865 seconds.
So the interpreter runs this code roughly 50 times slower. When the vector add is placed in an M-file, however, the JIT compiler is invoked, and the runtime drops to roughly 1.5 times the time taken by the library code.
Naively written MATLAB code can suffer a performance meltdown. Consider
>> clear b; tic; for i = 1:10^5, b(i) = a(i) + a(i); end, toc Elapsed time is 34.178847 seconds.
Here, the array b is extended by every assignment statement. There being no room in the previously allocated value to store the new element b(i), the entire array is copied into a new and larger space. The number of bytes copied grows as the square of the length of the vectors, a performance disaster. Adding the space allocating statement b = zeros(size(a)) just before the loop avoids this trap. In MATLAB version 7.4.0 (release R2007a), current at the time this article was written, the JIT was not powerful enough to automate this optimization.
In writing a function definition, an input variable can be recycled as an output, providing preallocated space. Thus, one can write
function a = double(a) for i = 1:length(a), a(i) = a(i) + a(i); end
and achieve reuse of the storage space of the input variable, avoiding even a single allocation and an explicit preallocation statement such as result = zeros(size(a)).
Similar software
There are a number of popular, competitive alternatives to MATLAB that offer a similar interactive environment for numerical computation, for example: GNU Octave (free), Scilab (semi-free), and Mathematica (non-free).
MATLAB and parallel computers
With the shift to multi-core processor chips, parallel computers, long in use for demanding scientific applications, have become the norm in servers, desktops, and laptops. Programmers have found them quite difficult to use, and there has been widespread speculation that a parallel version of MATLAB would make parallel machines easier to use. Many research efforts have aimed at architecting and implementing a parallel MATLAB-like programming environment (there is an online survey of these). Mathworks has recently moved to incorporate first a distributed computing model (of loosely coupled parallel tasks) and now a more complete, parallel version of MATLAB in which multiple copies of MATLAB, each with its own workspace, can communicate via message passing and can also cooperatively carry out operation of shared arrays whose elements are distributed among them.
- Cleve Moler. The Origins of MATLAB. Cleve's Corner (in the Mathworks Newsletter), December 2004.
- Cleve Moler. The Growth of MATLAB and MathWorks over Two Decades. Cleve's Corner (in The Mathworks Newsletter), January 2006.
- John R. Gilbert, Cleve Moler, and Robert Schreiber. Sparse Matrices in MATLAB: Design and Implementation. SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications: 13:1, pp. 333-356 (1992).
Internal references
- Willy Govaerts, Yuri A. Kuznetsov, Bart Sautois (2006) MATCONT. Scholarpedia, 1(9):1375.
- Kendall E. Atkinson (2007) Numerical analysis. Scholarpedia, 2(8):3163.
- Bard Ermentrout (2007) XPPAUT. Scholarpedia, 2(1):1399.


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197 hp
241 hp
44 hp
347 ft-lb
465 ft-lb
118 ft-lb
CRD-Flash tuning is THE state of the art way of improving both power and torque for your modern common rail diesel engine. By re-calibrating the factory engine computer unit (ECU) we are able to optimize the engine power and torque output as well as improve the vehicle's fuel economy by as much as 10%*. Reprogramming the vehicle's ECU has a number of advantages not at least is that we can retain all of the manufacturers inbuilt safety features as we are not tricking or going behind the ECU's back. Additionally, reprogramming the ECU gives us the unparalleled ability to alter torque management tables, throttle mapping, boost pressure, fuel pressure & injector timing to name just a few… something no individual chip or module can come close to claiming. Real world average gains of around 20%* more power and 20%* more torque with no degradation to reliability or drivability shows that with CRD-Flash tuning technology you really can have your cake and eat it too!
The process typically takes a period of one day, where our specialist tuners set the vehicle up on our All Wheel Dyno for a baseline dyno run. The vehicle is then connected to our state of the art ECU reading and writing hardware. Our tuner then continues by adjusting the ECU parameters, all the time monitoring the progress on the dyno screen and via our ECU logging devices and EGT sensors.
After the tuning process each vehicle is returned to the customer along with a dyno graph showing the baseline dyno run and the final run, this graph will display the gains in both Power and Torque for comparison.
Package Includes
1 x Custom ECU - reprogram
1 x Before and after dyno graph
Key Features
"You never thought a diesel could be this good, much better throttle response, much improved power whilst keeping reliability as the primary focus"
- *Power figures listed are estimated kilowatts at the flywheel based on results typically obtained by HPF on HPF's dynos. Typically these are based of a manual vehicle with standard driveline and standard wheels and tyres. Actual power can vary based on each specific vehicle.
- We advise against increasing the power output substantially on high kilometer engines, if your engine has in excessive of 150,000kms please contact us to discuss options.
- Whilst every attempt is made to ensure prices listed online are correct, they are subject to change at any time.
- Additional parts may be required in some cases depending on the condition of the vehicle. Cost of these parts and additional labor required may incur additional cost.
- Images are for illustration purposes only.


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Shandong Baisheng Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd.
CopyRight©2018 山东百盛环保科技有限公司
卧式储罐 Horizontal storage tank
Good product quality, production technology is very important!!!
FR PNC plastic vertical and horizontal vacuum metering tanks are non-toxic, odorless, highly crystalline polymeric materials. It can conceal various acids and alkalis, has excellent corrosion resistance, and can store most organic and inorganic acids, alkali salts and some organic solvents. It is the most commonly used name material for anti-corrosion. Compared with many materials, it has excellent chemical resistance, good long-term use and high stress resistance, especially at higher temperature applications.
PR, PYC type material vertical, horizontal vacuum measurement is often used in the production process of the measurement vacuum love full height storage lotus.
PP PNC plastic vertical and horizontal vacuum metering tanks are mainly used for vacuum measurement of materials in the production process of chemical, pharmaceutical and petroleum industries. It has the advantages of light weight, convenient installation and maintenance, and simple operation. Operating pressure: 0.04-0.1 MPa. Operating temperature setting PP-100-120C.PIC 40'C-60TC
Wide range of applications
Polypropylene and PVC plastic vacuum measuring tanks are mainly used in chemical, metallurgy, electroplating, chemical rod, printing and dyeing, environmental protection, petroleum, electronics, medicine, food, grease, light industry, acid, pickling, battery materials and other industries.
C for pressure
Atmospheric pressure
Reassembly method
Level gauge selection
Ordering, installation instructions bestsun
The diameter of the metering tank is fixed due to the mold.
The volume and structure of the measuring tank, flange orientation, etc. can be customized according to customer requirements. Please submit the working condition parameters to Parkson's design team as much as possible when ordering the metering tank.
Plastics have different shrinkage rates due to temperature. The detailed dimensions of the equipment and the basic dimensions of the installation are subject to the actual product. Taking into account the production error, the equipment foundation, pipelines, etc. must wait for the product to be poured into the site and then watered and connected. If you have special requirements for the equipment, please ask at the time of ordering.
When the flange is connected, do not tighten it on one side to avoid deformation of the flange surface.
Do not pass the weight of pipes, valves, etc. on the flange of the tank to avoid cracking of the flange.


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Investment Calculator
The Investment Calculator page and related information is provided by a third party service. B&G Foods does not maintain this page and is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of the information. The results are for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied on for investment purposes. The timing and price of taxes, commissions and other factors may affect the values shown. Please note that historical investment performance is not intended to indicate future performance.


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I have always heard reminders about the importance of checking labels for not just food but everything: soaps, bird feed, fertilizer, chalk, drugs. And I thought I had always been good about reading through labels. However, while checking my Facebook feed, I scanned over a status update from Allergic Living that highlighted its feature on milk protein in asthma medication. I stopped. I reread the sentence. Uh oh. I've never questioned whether my own asthma management medication could be a source of danger for my kids!!
In our emergency med pack, I was toting Auvi-Q epinephrine injectors for my kids and an inhaler for me. Little did I know my inhaler contained milk protein that could put my kids' lives at risk. |
After reading through the whole article and scouring through more information online, I discovered that Advair and Ventolin do in fact contain milk protein in the form of lactose dry milk powder. In addition to these two products, milk derivatives are also present in popular allergy and asthma relief drugs such as Singulair, Flovent, Claritin tablets, and Prednisone -- yes, Prednisone, the drug that is often given to prevent a biphasic reaction after anaphylaxis. Seriously, how did I not know this?? How did I miss this all these years?
Here's how: While 2004's Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) made it mandatory for all food products to be properly labeled to identify the presence of the top 8 food allergens, the same rules do not pertain to non-food products. Prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, health and beauty products, and pet supplies (including pet food) are just several of "non-food products" that fall outside of the FDA's regulatory net. (For a more in-depth look at what the act affects, check out Kid with Food Allergies summary on FALCPA.)
So drug manufacturers are not required to label food allergens on their packaging. The FDA does require medications to be accompanied by patient package inserts. These inserts are written in microscopic font on a one-page, single-spaced, double-sided document that is notoriously lengthy and technical. This information is nearly impossible to get through without a medical degree and magnifying glass, even if you are looking for your kids' allergen buzz words with eagle eyes. What's more, patient package inserts do not have to list ingredients or food allergens. The inserts include sections on how the drug works, indications, contraindications, warnings and side effects, and dosage recommendations, and it is the drug manufacturer's discretion to list food allergens.
I checked the package labels of my asthma management meds which I last filled in spring, the time of the year when I endure a full-on attack by grass and tree pollens. No mention of milk ingredients. There was a mention of a mysterious white aerosol and instructions to rinse my mouth thoroughly after each use...These warnings should have been red flags to me to dig deeper over the ingredients.
How to find out if your asthma medication contains milk:
- Check out this list of asthma medications that contain lactose (milk) compiled by the Allergy Asthma Information Association (AAIA). Please keep in mind that this list is from 2006 -- most certainly there is updated information out there.
- Remind your physician or child's pediatrician about their food allergies when they are about to be prescribed medication. Contact your allergist about medications you or your kids are prescribed. Are they free of your (children's) allergens?
- Do your homework online. Search your medication by name to see if it is milk-free.
- Please, please have your kids wear some sort of allergy alert identification (medical bracelets, wristbands, dog tags). If an emergency occurs and you or they cannot advocate for themselves, these medical alerts could prevent them from receiving treatment that will make an asthma attack or anaphylactic reaction even worse.
Do you manage asthma and a milk allergy? When did you find out that asthma treatment medications contain milk products?


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April 1 Update: No April Fooling, the high monthly average temperature records are confirmed by the preliminary March climate summaries. These are all double-digit departures from normal, and in the case of Chicago and Minneapolis, they are in excess of 15°:
Avg Temp Departure9 PM Update: Corrected historical data from the National Weather Service shows that the March 1945 average was 56.2°, so the Washington record was actually broken by 0.6°.
Washington 56.8 +10.0
Albany 45.9 +10.9
Chicago 53.5 +15.6
Minneapolis 48.3 +15.5
Original post:
As noted in earlier posts, all-time March monthly average temperature records were being broken over a wide area of the eastern and central U.S. Preliminary National Weather Service reports through this afternoon confirm that records were broken by wide margins at such major cities as Washington, Albany, Chicago, and Minneapolis. The records were each broken by over 1°; in the case of Chicago, it was by the incredible amount of nearly 5°. Thanks to a cloudy, damp March 31, New York missed the record by a small margin. The story in CapitalClimate charts from National Weather Service data:


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Passenger traffic at Jacksonville International Airport was down more than 8 percent in September, according to a recent report.
JIA had a total of 389,510 passengers pass through the airport in September, down 8.64 percent from September 2011, according to a Jacksonville Aviation Authority news release. That is also down from August's total passenger count of 449,123.
Daily departures were also down 8.79 percent and cargo traffic was down 4 percent.
Visit our airport system websites


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Paul Abel
1926 - 2016
United States of Amerca, MS
Paul Louis [Paul] Abel (23/11/1926 - 12/01/2016), an American teacher and composer from Clarksdale (Mississippi), United States of America. Paul Louis Abel II, was born on November 23rd 1926, in the northern Mississippi delta town of Clarksdale, and he peacefully passed to the Lord on January 12, 2016. Paul was a jovial, fun loving man who loved life. He enjoyed people, good food, and a wide range of activities, but was best known as a gifted musician. Mr. Abel matriculated from the Eastman School of Music in 1950 where he studied trumpet, music theory, and composition. Upon the completion of his studies he embarked on an academic and performing career at the University of Montana in Missoula. In 1954 Abel arrived at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge to serve as Assistant Professor of trumpet and theory. He served as the Assistant Dean for the School of Music from 1969-1971, and as a member of the Athletic Counsel c. 1981-1985. While at LSU, he joined the Baton Rouge Symphony where he performed as first trumpeter for fourteen years. After thirty-three years teaching music theory, orchestration, composition, and trumpet, Mr. Abel retired in 1987 as a full professor. During his career, Paul Abel was renowned for selecting and refining music as part of the worship services on Sundays and other important ecclesiastical feasts. His churches included St. Aloysius, Broadmoor Presbyterian and St. Thomas More. In addition, Abel composed numerous orchestral works including the Vignette for Orchestra for which he won the prestigious Edward Benjamin Prize. His works were also performed by the Timm Woodwind Quintet, and the University Brass Ensemble. Abel's Misa brevis pro defunctis performed by the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and Choral Society conducted by Victor Klimash, is his most auspicious work. His composition, Idyll, written in memory of his eldest son Paul III, was featured in a celebratory performance of the Baton Rouge Symphony on November 19, 2009. A partial collection of his works can be found at www.paullouisabel.comwww.paullouisabel.com>. Paul Louis Abel II was a dedicated and nurturing father who had five sons: Paul Louis III, Mark (Jean), Charles, Andrew, and Leo (Kimberly), and he was also a loving father to his step daughter, Lisa (Ben). He was pre-deceased by Paul III, and Andrew, but his beloved wife of forty-eight years, Genevieve, and his living children and grandchildren survive to celebrate and remember his life. In all, Paul Louis Abel II had eleven grandchildren: Christopher Dudley, Matthew (Elaine) and Brian Abel, Paul Louis Abel IV, Jason and Michael Abel, Amanda and Emily Hattaway, Matthew Alexander, Ian, and Estelle Abel. His eight great grandchildren are Julia, Charlie, Alexis, Grayson, and Gaston Dudley, Marshall Moore, Cynthia and Shaun Abel. He will be remembered for his ebullient spirit, his wit, intelligence and for his unwavering dedication to family and of course, for his enduring contributions to music in the form of original compositions, pedagogy, directorships and performances.
Missa brevis pro Defunctis
Missa brevis pro Defunctis - Requiem (1979) for choir and orchestra.
Missa brevis pro Defunctis Requiem contains:
01. Introit: Requiem aeternam, segue Kyrie eleison (6'23) 02. Offertorium Allegro molto (6'03) 03. Sanctus, segue Hosanna, segue Benedictus (10'07) 04. Agnus dei Andante (6'36) |


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Article Text
Background Analysis of injury and illness prevalence in elite sport provides the basis for the development of prevention programmes.
Objectives To analyse the frequency and characteristics of injuries and illnesses occurring during the 13th Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) World Championships 2009.
Design Prospective recording of newly incurred injuries and illnesses.
Methods The 13th FINA World Championships hosted 2592 athletes from 172 countries in the disciplines of swimming, diving, synchronised swimming water polo and open water swimming. All team physicians or physiotherapists were asked to complete daily a standardised reporting form for all newly incurred injuries and illnesses for their teams. To cover teams without medical staff, the physicians of the Local Organizing Committee also submitted daily report forms.
Results 171 injuries were reported resulting in an incidence of 66.0 per 1000 registered athletes. The most affected body parts were the shoulder (n=25; 14.6%), and head (n=21; 12.3%). Half of the injuries occurred during training. The most common cause of injury was overuse (n=61; 37.5%). 184 illnesses were reported resulting in an incidence of 71.0 per 1000 registered athletes. The respiratory tract was most commonly affected (n=91; 50.3%) and the most frequently classified cause was infection (n=81; 49.2%). The incidence of injuries and illnesses varied substantially among the five disciplines, with the highest incidence of injury in diving and the lowest in swimming.
Conclusions As the risk of injury varied with the discipline, preventive measures should be discipline specific and focused on minimising the potential for overuse. As most of the illnesses were caused by infection of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract, preventive interventions should focus on eliminating common modes of transmission.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Aquatic sports are enjoyed around the world from the recreational level to the elite level. The Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA), which was founded in 1908, was one of the original sports in the modern Olympic Games with the inclusion of swimming in 1896.1 FINA has global representation with a total of 202 member National Federations. FINA has organised multidisciplinary aquatic World Championships since 1973 which are now held biannually. The 13th FINA World Championships held in Rome in 2009 was the largest aquatic event in the world with 2592 athletes participating from 172 countries.
Injury surveillance during elite events is a duty of care to ensure safety for future athletes.2 3 FINA is increasingly emphasising the protection of the health of the athlete. FINA Medical Rules: Preamble Item 1.0: "FINA, in accomplishing its mission, should take care that sport is practised without danger to the health of the athletes… To that end, it takes the measures necessary to preserve the health of athletes and to minimise the risks of physical injury."4
Although the aquatic sports enjoy worldwide participation, little is known of the incidence of injury for its participants at the elite level. Injury surveillance studies have been conducted in single sport events including football,5,–,10 rugby,11,–,14 handball,15 athletics,16 karate,17,–,19 ice hockey,20 21 volleyball,22 beach volleyball,23 cycling24 and tennis.25 Injury surveillance studies have occurred in large multi-sport events at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games for team sports and for all sports at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.26 27 To the authors' knowledge, no studies have been published on injuries incurred during major events in elite aquatics. One prospective 5 year study on National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmers has been published in the scientific literature on injury incidence.28 Injury prevalence in aquatic sports is published from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games27 and for water polo in 2004 Athens Olympic Games.26
Although there are a limited number of publications on illness surveillance data at elite multi-sport events,29,–,31 aquatic specific illness incidence does not exist. Based on a previously standardised injury reporting system by the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) in football,6,–,9 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) implemented an injury surveillance programme during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games for team sports26 and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games for all sports.27 32 In follow-up of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the IOC decided to add illness surveillance for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. FINA conducted this current study to establish the feasibility of illness surveillance component as a pilot project for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
The objectives of the current study were to record and analyse injuries and illnesses incurred during the 13th FINA World Championships 2009.
In this study, the IOC Injury Surveillance system32 was implemented with the extension to also survey illness. All five disciplines of the 13th FINA World Championships 2009 (swimming, water polo, diving, synchronised swimming and open water swimming) were included as the study population. In preparation for the study, an information booklet was circulated 1 month in advance to the medical representatives of all participating countries. A site visit occurred 1 month before the event by a member of the study group (MM) to educate the medical team of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) on the logistics of the study. On-site in Rome, a voluntary information meeting was held for the medical teams of the visiting countries 2 days before the commencement of the Championships. These information sessions included instructions on completion and submission of the reporting forms. Instructional booklets and reporting forms were distributed. The team physicians or, in their absence, a team physiotherapist were asked to report daily on the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of all newly incurred injuries and illnesses. Reporting forms could be submitted at a confidential mailbox adjacent to swimming pools. Reporting forms were also accepted by fax and by electronic submission. Additional reporting forms were completed daily by the LOC medical team from each of the medical stations at the venues. Compliance was encouraged by regular visits to the National Federation and LOC medical staff by members of the FINA Sports Medicine Committee.
Definitions of injury and illness
The definition of injury was the same definition as is used in the IOC Injury Surveillance system,32 thus allowing comparison with previous studies.26 27 An injury was defined as any musculoskeletal complaint and/or concussion newly incurred due to competition and/or training during the 13th FINA World Championships that received medical attention regardless of the consequences with respect to absence from competition and/or training. Pre-existing injuries were not included unless there was an acute exacerbation during the time period of the Championships. Injuries occurring not during training or competition were also excluded.
The definition of an illness was developed based on the injury definition to ensure compatibility with the existing injury protocol and ease of understanding for the participating physicians. An illness was defined as any physical complaint (not related to injury) newly incurred during the 13th FINA World Championships that received medical attention regardless of the consequences with respect to absence from competition or training. Chronic pre-existing illnesses were not included unless there was an exacerbation requiring medical attention during the Championships.
Injury and illness report form
The injury part of the report form was identical in design to the IOC Injury Surveillance System utilised during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.27 32 The following information was required for documentation: athlete's accreditation number, sport/event, heat/training, date and time of injury, injured body part/side, type and cause of injury, and estimated duration of the subsequent absence from competition and/or training. The illness part of the report form was located directly below the injury part on the same page. The following information was required for documentation: athlete's accreditation number, sport/event, diagnosis, date, main symptoms, cause of illness, and estimated duration of the subsequent absence from competition and/or training. Definitions of injury and illness parameters were stated on the back of the form. Examples of injuries and illnesses to be included on the report form were illustrated in the instructional booklet. The injury and illness report form was available in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian).
Confidentiality and ethical approval
Completed injury and illness report forms were stored during the Championships in a locked storage cabinet. The accreditation number of the athlete was used to ensure that duplication of reporting was avoided from the team doctor and the LOC physicians, and to facilitate the determination of age and gender of the athlete from the FINA database. After the Championships, the forms were made anonymous to ensure that no individual athlete or National Federation could be identified. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethical Committee of the Oslo University School of Medicine.
Data analysis
All data were processed using Excel and SPSS. Response rate, coverage and incidences were calculated in accordance with the IOC approach for injury surveillance.32 Statistical methods applied were descriptive statistics, frequencies and cross-tabulations. For incidence rates, 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated as the incidence ± 1.96 times the incidence divided by the square root of the number of injuries.
Response rate and coverage
A total of 2592 athletes from 173 registered countries participated in the 13th FINA World Championships. The medical staff from 73 countries (42.2%) with a total of 1745 athletes (67.3%) participated in the project and returned at least one report form, resulting in a total of 495 report forms. Since some countries did not compete in all five disciplines of the FINA World Championships, response rates were calculated separately (table 1).
The response rate and coverage of athletes by team physician's reports were highest for water polo (53.4%) and lowest for swimming (21.8%).
Acute injuries and illnesses were reported daily by the physicians at the medical stations at the different venues. The majority of injuries (140; 82.5%) were reported by the team physicians; 32 (17.5%) injuries were reported by the LOC physicians. Only one injury was reported by both sources. About three quarters of the illnesses (n=133, 72.3%) were reported only by the team physician, one quarter (n=41, 22.3%) only from venues, and 10 (5.4%) by both sources.
Frequency and characteristics of injury
There were 171 newly incurred acute injuries reported during the Championships, equivalent to an injury rate of 65.6/1000 athletes. Female athletes had a higher risk of injury (n=88; 68.4 per 1000 athletes, 95% CI 54.1 to 82.7) than male athletes (n=68; 52.1 per 1000 athletes, 95% CI 39.7 to 64.5). The oldest injured athlete was 37 years old, the youngest 14 (in 57 cases age was missing). Most injuries affected the upper extremity (n=63; 36.8%), followed by the lower extremity (n=47; 27.5%), head/neck (n=33; 19.3%) and trunk (n=28; 16.4%). The most frequently injured body parts were the shoulder (n=25; 14.6%) and head (n=21; 12.3%). The most common types of injury were sprains (n=41; 24.0%) and skin lesions (n=32; 18.7%) (table 2).
Approximately half of the injuries (n=79; 49.7%) were incurred during training or in competition (n=78; 49.1%), and two injuries during warm-up for competition (in 12 cases the information was missing). On average, 7.2 in-competition injuries per 1000 starting athletes were reported. In most cases, the injury was caused by overuse (n=61; 37.5%). Other frequent causes of injury were non-contact trauma (n=25; 15.3%) and contact with another athlete (n=24; 14.7%).
Only 21 of the reported injuries (13.4%, 14 missing values) resulted in time loss, which is equivalent to an 8.1 time loss injury per 1000 registered athletes or <1% of the registered athletes. The five most severe injuries (estimated absence ≥14 days) were a shoulder sprain, a ligamentous rupture in the thoracic spine, a patellar subluxation, a tendon rupture in the hand, and a broken finger.
The general injury risk was highest for diving (134.1/1000 female athletes) and lowest for swimming (21.8/1000 female athletes); the risk of an in-competition injury was highest in open water swimming (57.7/1000 starts of female athletes) and water polo (23.8/1000 starts of male athletes). There were no time loss injuries incurred in women's open water swimming and women's diving. Injuries expecting a time loss of >14 days occurred in male water polo, swimming and in male open water swimming (table 3). While in swimming, synchronised swimming and diving most injuries were incurred during training, in open water swimming, synchronised swimming and water polo the majority of injuries occurred during competitions.
Frequency and characteristics of illness
A total of 184 acute illnesses were reported, which is equivalent to 7.1% of the registered athletes suffering an illness during the Championships. About half of the illnesses affected the respiratory system (n=91; 50.3%) and a fifth the gastrointestinal system (n=36; 19.9%). The most commonly reported symptom was pain. The most frequent diagnosis affected the upper respiratory tract including 'otitis' (n=31; 16.8%) and 'tonsillitis' (n=18; 9.8%). Consequently, the cause was most frequently classified as infection (n=89; 49.2%) or environmental (n=50; 27.6%).
Thirty (16.3%) of the illnesses were expected to result in time loss from sport inferring that only 1.2% of all registered athletes incurred a time loss illness. However, time loss illnesses were only reported from swimmers and male water polo players (table 3). No illness was expected to result in absence from sport longer than a week.
The aim of this study was to register and analyse all newly incurred injuries and illnesses in athletes participating in the 13th FINA World Championships 2009. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first injury and illness survey during an international aquatic event. The results indicate that the surveillance system was feasible and accepted by both the team physicians and the local medical staff. In all disciplines (except swimming) over 50% of all athletes were covered by the team physicians' reports. Although medical reports were also received from LOC medical team at the medical stations at each competitive and training venues, the incidence of injuries and illnesses may be underestimated due to the response rate indicated above.
On average, <7% of all registered athletes incurred injuries during the Championships. This injury rate is consistent with the injury incidence in aquatics reported during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (4.25%).27 The incidence of acute injury in swimming during the World Championships was substantially lower than in a 5 year longitudinal study in NCAA Division I Colleges in the USA (4/1000 exposures),28 which includes chronic injuries in addition to acute new onset injuries.
Most injuries incurred during the FINA World Aquatic Championships affected the upper extremity followed by the lower extremity, trunk and head/neck. The most frequently injured body regions were the shoulder, low back and head. These findings are consistent with other published data in swimming where the shoulder was the most affected joint.31 33,–,36 These findings differ, however, from the 2008 Olympic Games where about half of the injuries affected the lower extremity,27 and the 2007 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships where 80% of all injuries affected the lower extremity.16 This discrepancy is not surprising given the obvious differences in biomechanics between swimming and athletic disciplines. The injury location data obtained in this study illustrate the need in aquatic sport to focus injury prevention programmes on the shoulder.
In most cases, overuse injuries were reported as the cause of injury (37.5%). Other causes identified were non-contact trauma (15.3%) and contact with another athlete (14.7%). All five time loss injuries in water polo were caused by contact with another player, while seven time loss injuries in swimming were caused by overuse and the other five by non-contact trauma. Attention to the prevention of overuse injuries should be a focus of aquatic injury prevention programmes.
In the present study the proportion of in-competition injuries (50%) was lower than in team sports during the 2004 Olympic Games (75%),26 in athletics during the 2007 IAAF World Championships (74%),16 and all sports during the 2008 Olympic Games (75%).27 Only 21 injuries (13.4%) reported in the present study were expected to result in time loss from sport. This proportion is substantially lower than that reported from the 2008 Olympic Games (49.6%),27 the 2007 Athletics World Championships (56%),16 and the recent FIFA World Cups (63–67%).8 The data from the present study indicate that, on average, <1% of the registered athletes incurred a time loss injury during the FINA World Championships 2009. Even if this result may be an underestimation due to the moderate response rate, these data would suggest a relative low risk of serious time loss injury in aquatic sports in comparison with other sports.
During the FINA World Championships in Rome 2009 slightly more illnesses than injuries were reported. These data contrast with the findings at the 1996 Olympic Games where more athletes were treated for injury (52%) than for illness (43%).31 The overall rate of illness from the Rome data was 7.1% of registered athletes. Approximately half of the illnesses reported affected the respiratory system. These findings are consistent with prevalence data from other elite sporting events such as the Olympic Games in 1996,31 200029 and 2004.30 Results published from a prospective analysis of upper respiratory tract infections (URI) in athletes during training and in-competition shows that URI are more common in elite athletes than in non-competitive athletes.37 This is thought to be due to the increased risk of infection from such factors as over training induced 'immunosuppression' and from crowding at competition venues.38 This is supported by the data from Rome where the highest incidence of illness was reported in swimming, with the highest number of competitors exposed to more crowding in warm-up areas and event call rooms. The most frequent diagnosis of illness was otitis (n=31). Beck38 reports that ear infections are common in aquatic sports relating to exposure to water borne pathogens. No illness was expected to result in absence from sport longer than 1 week. Very few illnesses were related to exercise induced causes or environmental causes. This is in contrast to the data reported in the literature on other elite sporting events such as marathon running.39
At future FINA World Championships, attention to strategies to encourage compliance with reporting will improve the quality of the injury and illness surveillance programme. The institution of injury prevention programmes based on the findings from this study will be implemented and evaluated at future FINA World Championships.
The injury and illness surveillance system was accepted by the majority of the medical personnel at the 13th FINA World Championships, demonstrating its feasibility for any large international multidisciplinary event. Attention to improving compliance in reporting at future FINA World Championships will strengthen the quality of the results. The findings are consistent with studies in other sports using a similar methodology. Less than 7% of the registered athletes were injured during the Championships, with most injuries caused by overuse. The most commonly affected body part was the upper extremity. The incidence and characteristics of injury varied by discipline, with the lowest injury risk in swimming and the highest in water polo and open water swimming. Approximately 7% of all registered athletes suffered an illness during the Championships, with about half affecting the respiratory system. In swimming, prevention studies should focus on overuse injuries with emphasis on the upper extremity. Medical care at future FINA World Championships should institute measures to decrease the incidence of respiratory illnesses.
What is already known on this topic
The Federation Internationale de Natation injury and illness surveillance project is the first study in the scientific literature to address the incidence of injuries and illness during a large international swimming event.
Injury surveillance has occurred in aquatics during the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 and in water polo during the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
Results from these relatively smaller events show that the aquatic sports are at low risk for acute traumatic injuries. Illness surveillance at large international swimming events has not been reported in the scientific literature.
What this study adds
This study reveals the incidence of injury and illness of the five aquatic disciplines during a Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) World Championships event.
The findings show that the shoulder is the most often injured body region. In most cases, the injury was caused by overuse.
More illnesses were recorded than injuries during the 13th FINA World Championships. The most common reported illness was infection of the respiratory tract.
This study is helpful identifying areas for the development and implementation of both injury and illness prevention projects
The authors highly appreciate the cooperation of all team physicians and the medical staff of the FINA World Aquatic Championships 2009 who volunteered their time to collect the data for this project. We gratefully acknowledge the FINA, the IOC and the FIFA for their support and the funding of the study. We thank Ms Agnes Gaillard very much for her valuable assistance in data collection.
Competing interests None.
Patient consent Not required.
Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the University of Oslo.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.


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Photo - Multivu |
return on June 2nd. Same format with having the same mentors, but I noticed this year it didn't say the winner would get a show produced by their mentor after last years ordeal. A new twist this year is an eliminated contestant will have the chance to come back for another chance at victory (sounds like the idea is taken from Top Chef). Also, viewers will get to vote again this year for the winner.
I will link to the press release, with photos of the contestants and details of the changes for the show this year below. However I wanted to take a look some of the contestants set to appear on the show. You will notice a lot of recycled talent that have appeared on the Food Network or other shows. Lets take a look:
- Rodney Henry has been on Throwdown, Chopped (Halloween episode 2011 - eliminated after first round), Paula Deen, and Down Home with the Neelys (pictured right)
- Chris Hodgson was on the Great Food Truck Race Season 2- Truck Hodge Podge (Link)
- Viet Pham competed on Extreme Chef and also defeated Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America (pictured right).
- Stacey Poon-Kinney was on Restaurant Impossible. She is the owner of The Trails in San Diego, which appeared in Season 2 of the show. I guess she wants more than $10,000 from the Food Network.
- Connie "Lovely" Jackson was on Fox's Hells Kitchen.
- Russell Jackson went against Jose Garces in Iron Chef America this season, and lost 71-62 (Link)
- Danushka Lysek appeared on 24-Hour Restaurant Battle on Food Network a few years ago (Link). Also appeared on Chopped on 7/31/2012 and was chopped after the entree round.
Recognize anyone else that I missed? Rooting for any of the the people above? Let me know in the comments.
*Nikki Dinki has also done some acting including appearing on an episode of Sopranos, but has not been on any food related shows.
*Danushka has also been on The Bachelor and Fear Factor
Video Preview of the Season:
Press Release Below (link to photos of contestants plus video):
New Roster Of Hopefuls Vie For Culinary Stardom In Season Nine Of Primetime Competition Series Food Network Star
Alton Brown, Giada De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay Return as Mentors/Judges in Season Premiere on Sunday, June 2nd at 9pm ET/PT Audience Vote Will Determine Winner, To Be Announced in Season Finale on Sunday, August 11th at 9pm E/PT
NEW YORK, April 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Food Network's long-running competition series Food Network Star returns for a ninth season this summer with fresh talent, intense challenges, and culinary icons Alton Brown, Giada De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay leading the charge to discover the best and brightest new faces in food television. In the one-hour season premiere on Sunday, June 2(nd) at 9pm ET/PT, the twelve contestants arrive in Los Angeles, ready to kick off the biggest audition of their lives to find out who has the personality, on-camera charisma and kitchen chops to follow in their idols' footsteps and helm their own show. In new twists, focus groups of Food Network fans will also have their say on contestant performances and one finalist will be brought back after elimination for another chance at victory. Viewers will again be able to vote online or via phone before the August 11(th) finale to determine who will win the ultimate prize: their own show on Food Network.
"Alton, Bobby and Giada are not only enduring stars, but also star-makers, so they are the ideal mentors to bring out the best in our talented cast," said Bob Tuschman, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Food Network. "These newcomers are competing to achieve their dream, and their journey is fascinating to watch."
The finalists are: Nikki Dinki (New York); Andres Guillama (Waynesville, NC); Rodney Henry (Baltimore); Chris Hodgson (Cleveland); Connie "Lovely" Jackson (Los Angeles); Russell Jackson (San Francisco); Danushka Lysek (New York); Daniela Perez-Reyes (Haleiwa, Haw.); Viet Pham (Salt Lake City); Damaris Phillips (Louisville, Ky.); Stacey Poon-Kinney (San Diego) and Chad Rosenthal (Ambler, Penn.).
Each episode before the finale features a first-round Mentor Challenge, second-round Star Challenge and an elimination determined by the selection committee, including returning judges Food Network executives Susie Fogelson and Bob Tuschman.
In the season premiere, Alton, Giada and Bobby greet the finalists and immediately kick off their life-changing Star journey. Each finalist is challenged to refine their personal point of view and film a pitch tape in the season's first Mentor Challenge, and convincingly explain why they are the best person to win their own show. In the second round Star Challenge, each contestant must prepare and present one dish to Food Network executives Susie Fogelson and Bob Tuschman and a focus group of Food Network fans.
Upcoming episodes feature a Chopped-themed mystery ingredient challenge before Chopped judge Alex Guarnaschelli; an anything-can-happen live, on-camera test with E! News co-host Terrence Jenkins; a fresh Italian-themed challenge with a twist using Buitoni(R) products; a pantry cook-off with Kellogg's(R) Special K(R) Cereals and Snacks; a Star-making screening evaluated by The Hollywood Reporter Editorial Director Janice Min and Senior Writers Gary Baum and Leslie Bruce; and guest appearances by Guy Fieri and Robert Irvine.
For more Food Network Star, fans can visit www.foodnetwork.com/star all season long for on-set video, exclusive interviews and insider blogs, behind-the-scenes footage, photo galleries, peeks into finalists' personal journals, online polls, interactive quizzes, sweepstakes and more. Launching Memorial Day Weekend, fans can vote in the "Star Summer Showdown," pitting summer recipes from Star winners and judges against recipes from Chopped. Fans can also connect with one another and the show's stars on Facebook at facebook.com/foodnetwork and on Twitter with the hashtag #FoodNetworkStar.
All season long, Food Network will offer the Food Network Star TV SYNC EXPERIENCE. Partnering with Yahoo!'s second-screen mobile application, IntoNow, Food Network is creating a custom experience that will bring fans into the world of Food Network Star like never before. This unique two screen offering will allow viewers access to exclusive content from the set including commentary, photos, exclusive video, behind the scenes details, live polls, interactive trivia and special culinary tips. Fans can download the IntoNow app from the iTunes App Store or Google Play, then sync the app with the broadcast. The experience will also work when synced with encores and when watching the episode on DVR, VOD or online streaming.
Food Network Star is produced by LEG/Triage Entertainment.
FOOD NETWORK (www.foodnetwork.com) is a unique lifestyle network, website and magazine that connects viewers to the power and joy of food. The network strives to be viewers' best friend in food and is committed to leading by teaching, inspiring and empowering through its talent and expertise. Food Network is distributed to more than 100 million U.S. households and averages more than 9.9 million unique web users monthly. Since launching in 2009, Food Network Magazine has tripled its rate base and delivers a circulation of 1.5 million. Headquartered in New York, Food Network has a growing international presence with programming in more than 150 countries, including 24 hour networks in Great Britain, India, Asia and Africa. Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI), which also owns and operates Cooking Channel (www.cookingchanneltv.com), DIY Network (www.diynetwork.com), Great American Country (www.gactv.com), HGTV (www.hgtv.com), and Travel Channel (www.travelchannel.com), is the manager and general partner.
SOURCE Food Network


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Civil Rights Organizations Urge Eighth Circuit to Accept Appeal of Man Who May Have Been Sentenced to Death Because He is Gay
August 2, 2018
New evidence shows some jurors may have voted for death for Charles Rhines because they believed he would enjoy life in prison with other men
(St. Louis, Missouri) Six civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, Lambda Legal, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and National LGBT Bar Association, filed an amici brief today urging the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the appeal of Charles Rhines, a gay man on death row in South Dakota. According to the filing, new evidence "suggests that at least some members of the jury accepted the notion that life in prison without parole would be fun for a gay person – so much so that they felt it was necessary to impose the death penalty instead. In other words, significant evidence suggests that the jury may have sentenced Mr. Rhines to death based not on the facts of his case, but because he is gay." "Mr. Rhines's case represents one of the most extreme forms anti-LGBT bias can take. Evidence suggests that he has been on death row for the past 25 years because he is a gay man. The constitutional right to a fair trial must include the right to establish whether a verdict or sentence was imposed due to jury bias," said Lambda Legal Fair Courts Project Attorney Ethan Rice. "Lambda Legal is proud to work with the ACLU, the ACLU of South Dakota, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National LGBT Bar Association to provide important information to the Eighth Circuit on the history of bias against LGBT people and how that bias impacts LGBT rights in the criminal legal system." The amicus brief can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/y8eslggc Mr. Rhines's Application for Certificate of Appealability can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/y778msud and its exhibits at https://tinyurl.com/y8bz8jor. During jury deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge that indicated that Mr. Rhines's status as a gay man had become a focal point for deliberations. The note asked whether, if sentenced to life without parole, Mr. Rhines would "be allowed to mix with the general inmate population," be able to "brag about his crime to other inmates, especially new and/or young men," enjoy "conjugal visits" and asked other questions about Mr. Rhines's access to other men while in prison. (Application at p. 6.) The new evidence comes in the form of three statements from jurors who served at Mr. Rhines's capital trial and sentencing. One juror stated that the jury "knew that [Mr. Rhines] was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison." Another juror recalled a juror commenting that "if he's gay we'd be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for [life without parole]." A third juror confirmed that "[t]here was lots of discussion of homosexuality. There was a lot of disgust." (Application at p. 8.) (See also Amici brief at p. 1). The new evidence confirms what the jury's note strongly indicated at the time of Mr. Rhines's sentencing: anti-gay bias played a role in some jurors' decisions to impose the death penalty on Mr. Rhines. The brief of the amici documents America's long and painful history of discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, which persisted at the time of trial and continues in the present day. The amici wrote to the court: "Well into the twentieth century, gay people were 'prohibited from most government employment, barred from military service, excluded under immigration laws, targeted by police, and burdened in their rights to associate.'" (Amici Brief at p. 5 quoting Obergefell v. Hodges) In 2017, in Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the U.S. Supreme Court held that states must consider evidence that jurors relied on racial stereotypes or animus to convict a defendant in a non-capital case. As Ria Tabacco Mar has previously discussed, "juror deliberations are considered sacrosanct, but last year the Supreme Court carved out an important exception for cases of racial bias in the jury room." Attorneys for Mr. Rhines argue that since the principles underlying Peña-Rodriguez apply to anti-gay prejudice, the Eighth Circuit should allow Mr. Rhines the opportunity to present evidence that anti-gay bias was a factor in some jurors' decisions to sentence him to death. The need for review is especially compelling because the anti-gay bias in Mr. Rhines's case may have made the difference between life and death. Charles Rhines Case Overview Charles Rhines is a gay man on death row in South Dakota. New evidence shows that some of the jurors who sentenced him to death "knew that he was a homosexual and thought he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison" and thought that "if he's gay we'd be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for [life in prison]." The jury's anti-gay bias deprived him of his rights to a fair trial and due process under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Before trial, Mr. Rhines's attorneys asked prospective jurors if they had any anti-gay bias that would prevent them from giving Mr. Rhines a fair trial. The jurors selected to hear his case said they could be fair and free of prejudice. This turned out not to be true. At trial, the jury heard through witnesses presented by the state that Mr. Rhines was gay and had relationships with other men. They were asked to choose between life in prison without parole and the death penalty for a murder committed when an employee surprised Mr. Rhines in the course of a commercial burglary. During their deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge indicating that deliberations had become infected with anti-gay stereotypes and prejudices. (Application at p. 6.) The judge did not address these questions and failed to head off the anti-gay bias that the questions revealed. The same day, about eight hours later, the jury voted to sentence Mr. Rhines to death. (Application at pp. 5-6.) New evidence confirms that some of the jurors who voted to impose the death penalty on Mr. Rhines did so because they thought the alternative – a life sentence in a men's prison – was something he would enjoy as a gay man. Three jurors have made statements indicating that anti-gay prejudices played a significant role in the jury's decision-making. (Amici brief at p. 1.) As Chief Justice Roberts has explained, the core premise of our criminal justice system is that "[o]ur law punishes people for what they do, not who they are." (Buck v. Davis) Bias based on a characteristic that cannot be changed, such as race or sexual orientation, goes against this foundational principle. Allowing bias to play any role in sentencing is especially alarming when the bias may have made the difference between life and death. After a verdict and sentencing, the courts do not usually inquire into jury deliberations. However, in 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized an exception to this rule and directed states to consider evidence that jurors relied on racial stereotypes or prejudice in convicting a defendant. (Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado) In Peña-Rodriguez, after the jury voted to convict a person in a non-death penalty case, two jurors said that another juror believed that the defendant was guilty of unlawful sexual contact and harassment "because he's Mexican and Mexican men take whatever they want." (Amici brief at pp. 2-3.) The Court found that evidence of anti-Mexican bias "cast serious doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the jury's deliberations and resulting verdict" and set the verdict aside. (Amici brief at p. 3, quoting Peña-Rodriguez.) On July 26, 2018, Mr. Rhines filed an Application for Certificate of Appealability with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit asserting that Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado applies to his evidence that at least one juror relied on anti-gay stereotypes and animus to sentence him to death. On August 2, 2018, six civil rights groups with a vital interest in eradicating anti-gay bias from America's legal system filed an amici brief with the Eighth Circuit urging the court to afford Mr. Rhines the opportunity to establish whether bias based on his sexual orientation was a motivation for some jurors in sentencing him to death. As the amici document explains, the jury's decision to allow Mr. Rhines to live or die occurred in the context of the history of discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in the United States. (Amici brief at pp. 7- 9.) While many of the laws that allowed or required discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were repealed or found unconstitutional after Mr. Rhines's trial, recent years have seen renewed efforts to ban same-sex couples from adopting children, allow discrimination against them by public and private actors, and otherwise maintain their inferior status under the law. (Amici brief at p. 5.) Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people continue to experience negative consequences because of their sexual orientation. Despite significant progress, eliminating bias based on sexual orientation on the part of the government and private individuals continues to be difficult. For example, the current Attorney General of the United States has argued that employers should be able to fire lesbian, gay, and bisexual people because of their sexuality under federal law and that businesses open to the public should be able to discriminate against same-sex couples. (Amici brief at pp. 11-12.) Today, the federal government and 28 states have no laws that expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, leaving lesbian, gay, and bisexual people at risk for discrimination in jobs, housing, education, credit, healthcare, jury service, retail stores, and other aspects of public life. (Amici brief at p. 12.) In 2017, 46 percent of LGBTQ employees reported remaining closeted at work. (Amici brief at p. 13.) 2016 was the deadliest year on record for hate crimes against this community with more than 1,000 incidents of hate violence reported. (Amici brief at p. 15.) Historic and present-day anti-gay bias infects the justice system, just as it does other aspects of life. In a 2008 study, a majority of police chiefs said they believed that being gay constitutes "moral turpitude" and a "perversion." This continuing bias helps explain why gay men are still targeted for lewdness offenses and why young lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are more likely to get stopped by police or arrested than their heterosexual peers. (Amici brief at pp. 14-15.) Research shows that discriminatory attitudes against lesbians, gays, and bisexual people negatively affect their experiences in the civil and criminal courts as jurors, litigants, court employees, and other participants. For example, in a 2001 study of the California court system, more than a third of lesbian, gay, and bisexual court users "felt threatened in the court setting because of their sexual orientation." (Amici brief at p. 17.) (See also Application at p. 12.) Of jurors who participated in mock trials between 2002 and 2008, a jury research firm found that 45 percent believed that being gay "is not an acceptable lifestyle." (Amici brief at p. 19.) These persistent attitudes open the door to a gay defendant who is convicted of murder to receive the death penalty, instead of a sentence of life without parole, because of his sexual orientation, rather than the nature of the crime. Punishing people based on who they are is fundamentally "inconsistent with our commitment to the equal dignity of all persons." (Amici brief at p. 4, quoting Peña-Rodriguez.) The court should accept Mr. Rhines's case to allow him to show whether anti-gay prejudice factored into the jury's decision to sentence him to death. ### For more information, or to speak with Mr. Rhines's attorneys or one of the amici civil rights organizations, please contact Margot Friedman at email@example.com or 202-332-5550 or 202-330-9295 (c).


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It's our final week of our Skin Sketching Promotion offer! We have two fabulous offers to celebrate Skin Sketching, which are available on all Illamasqua counters Australia-wide.
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Bella Top - Rosa
Stand out from the crowd with our Bella top in Rosa.
Pair this with our matching Bella bottoms in Rosa or feel free to mix and match.
This option is currently sold out.
- Bandeau top
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- Fabrication: 85% Nylon & 15% Spandex
- Colour shown on above may look slightly different to real life due to the photography shooting and monitors screen
- View our Size Guide
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If you need help, please email us at email@example.com
- Rinse after direct contact with chlorine or salt water
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- Do not iron, do not bleach, do not machine wash
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- Colour may fade with direct sunlight, salt/chlorine/liquid exposure
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- Please refer to our Care Instructions page for full care details