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How Nyumba ya Sanaa venture changed hands
By Ray Naluyaga
A founder member of Nyumba Ya Sanaa, a cultural heritage centre bequeathed by founding President Julius Nyerere says no efforts should be spared to redeem it and restore its lost glory.
In an interview with Sunday Citizen, Sister Jean Pruitt said the centre was about to lose all its rich history if reported plan to sell what remains of it to private investors went through.
Reacting to an exclusive report by The Citizen on Wednesday, that revealed that the management of the Nyumba Ya Sanaa and Culture Limited was planning to privatise the venture in a joint venture worth billions of shillings, Sister Pruitt said the centre should preserve its rich heritage and glory by reverting to its original mandate.
She said she was perturbed that Nyerere�s vision for the artists, who benefited at the centre, was being sacrificed for the interest of big business.
As founding member of Nyumba ya Sanaa Cultural Centre, she has campaigned endlessly, albeit unsuccessfully, to bring the plight of the centre in the limelight.
"I read The Citizen story in tears because finally someone was seeing things that others have refused to see," she said of the reports on the privatisation deal. Ms Jean is also the director of Dogo Dogo Children Centre that cares for orphans.
Sister Pruitt said Nyerere gave the land at the junction of Ohio Street and Ali Hassan Mwinyi road in the city centre for creation of a trust to promote arts under small-scale industries scheme. The scheme was then supported by Small Industry Development Organisasstion (SIDO).
The centre attracted many donors including Norwegian Agency for Development (Norad) that accounted for about 80 per cent of the donor support. The donors have also since withdrawn due to mismanagement concerns and lack of focus.
Sister Pruitt says the centre at its glory days hosted many international dignitaries ranging from queens, princes, Presidents and other high ranking personalities in the world who are associated with culture.
"It was a big tourist attraction place and played a priceless role to sell Tanzania's name in the international stage." Some of the people who marveled at the centre�s activities were Prince Charles of Wales, Crown Prince and Princes Sonja of Norway, Nancy Kissinger, wife of former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger while Nyerere hosted various dignitaries there.
According to her, vocational training in art and craft, fine art painting, sculpture and wood curving, molding plaster or cutting metals and training performers, musicians, dancers in traditional culture and folklore were some of the things that made the centre tick.
She noted that these activities were meant for youth, the disabled of all ages, interested persons of all races as well as to teach in producing, selling and marketing of their products.
According to the trust deed of Nyumba ya Sanaa, profits and income emanating from the activities were to be used for its socially oriented objectives.
"Nyerere held Nyumba ya Sanaa so dear to his heart to the extent that he told me to fight for it when bidding him farewell at Dar Es Salaam Airport in July 1999 when he was going for treatment in London, unfortunately he never came back alive," she revealed.
She said Nyumba ya Sanaa activities were officially launched way back in 1972 before Nyerere in appreciation to the good work bequeathed the current plot.
She says the journey since then was filled with nostalgia and remembers the first largest shipment of artifacts worth $ 40,000 to Carolina in the US.
The centre took part in Saba Saba shows and also took part in fashion shows in many cities in Germany, Japan, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Norway among others.
In 1979 Nyumba ya Sanaa commissioned its own handmade paper mill, the only one in Sub Saharan Africa at SIDO Industrial Estates with the funding of USAID. The project has since doomed.
She said the current plot was allocated by Nyerere when the centre faced eviction from Mansfield premises by the ministry of Industry.
She said in 1981 construction at the plot commenced with NORAD giving $ 1.2 million. It further remitted another $ 200,000 for purchasing a bus and furniture for the art and culture centre. The last recorded fund from NORAD to Nyumba ya Sanaa was Sh18 million in 1993.
Speaking to the Sunday Citizen, the Norwegian Ambassador to Tanzania Mr Jon Lomoy said Norway had to withdraw its support because in late 90s it had stopped doing what it was meant to.
�We are quite worried by the developments at Nyumba ya Sanaa, it was supposed to be a place where Tanzanian artists meet and get support to perfect their work, it was purely a public place to help youth create employment,� he said.
He continued to say that he was surprised to see that Nyumba ya Sanaa is now a private company and is involved in the process of doing business with its proceeds ending in private pockets.
He said as the major donor to the centre, Norway is following the unfolding of events very closely but unfortunately there is little it could do at the moment.
Sister Pruitt says smallscale industry is what Nyerere was passionate about and Nyumba Ya Sanaa should not have lost this vision.
She said she resigned from the administration in 1984 and vested all the properties to the board of directors while she continued with art and cultural works associated with Nyumba ya Sanaa, in 1994, she closed the chapter of her contribution to Nyumba ya Sanaa as its founder but carried on with art works.
She said she was shocked when the incumbent Board Chairman Mr Alipo Antukolepo and others who were the trustees accused her and the board of directors for allegedly going against the purpose of establishing the centre.
"They went to court seeking to revoke the trust on grounds that I am treating the trust as my own property and benefiting from its proceeds contrary to the provisions of the trust deed," she said.
She noted that she has absolutely no problem with the decision if Mr Antunkolepo and his colleagues could have the passion to promote art and culture through the proceeds of the trust.
"Since they took over Nyumba ya Sanaa, all art and cultural works which took place slowly came to an end, now there is a bar and a night club, there is a casino. Is this how Tanzanian culture is promoted and protected?" She questioned.
Sister Pruitt said during its days, Nyumba ya Sanaa had created 180 direct jobs and another 600 indirect ones.
She noted that if used properly, Nyumba ya Sanaa could be a big support to CCM party Manifesto and President Jakaya Kikwete's promise to create jobs for youths.
"I heard the President talking about building an open art gallery in Bagamoyo in order to create employment for youth recently but there is one already right at the middle of the city which a few individuals are benefiting from. Nyumba Ya Sanaa is the place for President Kikwete to start."
Author: Ray Naluyaga


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Head on over to New York Magazine and check out Steve Fishman's takeout piece on Alex Rodriguez:
Since his character is part of the story, Rodriguez wanted me to talk to a character witness, and his choice was an odd one: Cynthia, his ex-wife. "You're going to love her. She's an amazing lady. I love her to pieces," he said, "and she's one of my best friends."
Cynthia met me in a café in Coconut Grove and then a second time in the elegant though hardly ostentatious home she designed on Biscayne Bay. She's not just toned but muscular, an attractive, petite blonde with smooth skin and piercing eyes and two bright diamond earrings. She met Rodriguez when he was 21 and she was 22. She wasn't a sports fan. He told her he played baseball. "That's great, but what do you really do?" she'd said. Cynthia is a traditional girl from a close-knit, religious family who lived a few blocks from her parents for a time—and she was a college graduate, which impressed Rodriguez. She'd earned a master's degree in psychology and had practiced as a therapist.
She had every reason in the world to dislike Rodriguez. He'd humiliated her in the press; there were reports of Madonna and Rodriguez together shortly after the birth of their second child. But five years later—they divorced in 2008—she simply said, "I was disappointed." She still esteems him. In the aftermath of the separation, he was generous and thoughtful. "He really made sure that everything was taken care of," she told me. "It was a very nurturing process." For her, that wasn't an exception. "I saw something in him that I still see in him, and what I see is still very good."
But she also sees damage. She spooled out the now-familiar story as to its causes. His father left the family when Alex was 10; he lived with his mother and lost touch with his father. The absence of a father made him the man of the house, big pressure for a teenager. "I was in a full sprint to make sure my mother never worked again," he said.
Rodriguez's success added to the emotional distortion. "Everything was about growing him as a baseball player," Cynthia said. "He wasn't learning anything but how to hit the fastball.
"What happens to everything else? It's stunted, completely." Without an authority figure, he listened willy-nilly to the advice of whoever was with him at the time.
"I used to say to Alex, 'Don't you just know what to do? Don't you just have that voice in your head that tells you?' He said, 'No. I don't.' I think, looking back, he was probably uncomfortable with his place in the world."
Later, when their marriage was crumbling, Cynthia thought a lot about Rodriguez's issues. One day, she ran into Cal Ripken, one of his baseball heroes and a friend.
"What is it about Alex that I'm not seeing?" she asked Ripken. "What is it that I don't get?"
"Cynthia, let me tell you the problem," he said, and told her a story. "I might be wearing a suit, and Alex will see me and say, 'Cal, I love your suit. Where did you get that suit?' Then somebody else might walk in the locker room, and they have a completely different kind of suit on. And Alex might say, 'Hey, I love your suit.'
"Cynthia, he tries to please everyone. That's the problem."
Rodriguez would often be charged with insincerity, but Cynthia didn't see it that way. "He's trying to say the right thing, trying to fit in. I would say immature, not insincere."
[Photo Via: USA Today]

subset: commoncrawl


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25 Feb 2011: Lundh A, Barbateskovic M, Hróbjartsson A, Gøtzsche PC (2011) Correction: Conflicts of Interest at Medical Journals: The Influence of Industry-Supported Randomised Trials on Journal Impact Factors and Revenue – Cohort Study. PLOS Medicine 8(2): 10.1371/annotation/7e5c299c-2db7-4ddf-8eff-ab793511eccd. https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/7e5c299c-2db7-4ddf-8eff-ab793511eccd View correction
Transparency in reporting of conflict of interest is an increasingly important aspect of publication in medical journals. Publication of large industry-supported trials may generate many citations and journal income through reprint sales and thereby be a source of conflicts of interest for journals. We investigated industry-supported trials' influence on journal impact factors and revenue.
Methods and Findings
We sampled six major medical journals (Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM]). For each journal, we identified randomised trials published in 1996–1997 and 2005–2006 using PubMed, and categorized the type of financial support. Using Web of Science, we investigated citations of industry-supported trials and the influence on journal impact factors over a ten-year period. We contacted journal editors and retrieved tax information on income from industry sources. The proportion of trials with sole industry support varied between journals, from 7% in BMJ to 32% in NEJM in 2005–2006. Industry-supported trials were more frequently cited than trials with other types of support, and omitting them from the impact factor calculation decreased journal impact factors. The decrease varied considerably between journals, with 1% for BMJ to 15% for NEJM in 2007. For the two journals disclosing data, income from the sales of reprints contributed to 3% and 41% of the total income for BMJ and The Lancet in 2005–2006.
Publication of industry-supported trials was associated with an increase in journal impact factors. Sales of reprints may provide a substantial income. We suggest that journals disclose financial information in the same way that they require them from their authors, so that readers can assess the potential effect of different types of papers on journals' revenue and impact.
Citation: Lundh A, Barbateskovic M, Hróbjartsson A, Gøtzsche PC (2010) Conflicts of Interest at Medical Journals: The Influence of Industry-Supported Randomised Trials on Journal Impact Factors and Revenue – Cohort Study. PLoS Med 7(10): e1000354. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000354
Received: March 26, 2010; Accepted: September 14, 2010; Published: October 26, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Lundh et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: No direct funding was received for this study. The authors were personally salaried by their institutions during the period of writing (though no specific salary was set aside or given for the writing of this paper).
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Abbreviations: ACP, American College of Physicians; AMA, American Medical Association; MMS, Massachusetts Medical Society; RCT, randomised controlled trial
Editors' Summary
Medical journals publish many different types of papers that inform doctors about the latest research advances and the latest treatments for their patients. They publish articles that describe laboratory-based research into the causes of diseases and the identification of potential new drugs. They publish the results of early clinical trials in which a few patients are given a potential new drug to check its safety. Finally and most importantly, they publish the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). RCTs are studies in which large numbers of patients are randomly allocated to different treatments without the patient or the clinician knowing the allocation and the efficacy of the various treatments compared. RCTs are best way of determining whether a new drug is effective and have to be completed before a drug can be marketed. Because RCTs are very expensive, they are often supported by drug companies. That is, drug companies provide grants or drugs for the trial or assist with data analysis and/or article preparation.
Why Was This Study Done?
Whenever a medical journal publishes an article, the article's authors have to declare any conflicts of interest such as financial gain from the paper's publication. Conflict of interest statements help readers assess papers—an author who owns the patent for a drug, for example, might put an unduly positive spin on his/her results. The experts who review papers for journals before publication provide similar conflict of interest statements. But what about the journal editors who ultimately decide which papers get published? The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which produces medical publishing guidelines, states that: "Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts must have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the issues that they might judge." However, the publication of industry-supported RCTs might create "indirect" conflicts of interest for journals by boosting the journal's impact factor (a measure of a journal's importance based on how often its articles are cited) and its income through the sale of reprints to drug companies. In this study, the researchers investigate whether the publication of industry-supported RCTs influences the impact factors and finances of six major medical journals.
What Did the Researchers Do and Find?
The researchers determined which RCTs published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, and three other major medical journals in 1996–1997 and 2005–2006 were supported wholly, partly, or not at all by industry. They then used the online academic citation index Web of Science to calculate an approximate impact factor for each journal for 1998 and 2007 and calculated the effect of the published RCTs on the impact factor. The proportion of RCTs with sole industry support varied between journals. Thus, 32% of the RCTs published in the NEJM during both two-year periods had industry support whereas only 7% of the RCTs published in the BMJ in 2005–2006 had industry support. Industry-supported trials were more frequently cited than RCTs with other types of support and omitting industry-supported RCTs from impact factor calculations decreased all the approximate journal impact factors. For example, omitting all RCTs with industry or mixed support decreased the 2007 BMJ and NEJM impact factors by 1% and 15%, respectively. Finally, the researchers asked each journal's editor about their journal's income from industry sources. For the BMJ and The Lancet, the only journals that provided this information, income from reprint sales was 3% and 41%, respectively, of total income in 2005–2006.
What Do These Findings Mean?
These findings show that the publication of industry-supported RCTs was associated with an increase in the approximate impact factors of these six major medical journals. Because these journals publish numerous RCTs, this result may not be generalizable to other journals. These findings also indicate that income from reprint sales can be a substantial proportion of a journal's total income. Importantly, these findings do not imply that the decisions of editors are affected by the possibility that the publication of an industry-supported trial might improve their journal's impact factor or income. Nevertheless, the researchers suggest, journals should live up to the same principles related to conflicts of interest as those that they require from their authors and should routinely disclose information on the source and amount of income that they receive.
Additional Information
Please access these Web sites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000354.
- This study is further discussed in a PLoS Medicine Perspective by Harvey Marcovitch
- The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides information about the publication of medical research, including conflicts of interest
- The World Association of Medical Editors also provides information on conflicts of interest in medical journals
- Information about impact factors is provided by Thomson Reuters, a provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals; Thomson Reuters also runs Web of Science
Many medical journals require that authors and peer reviewers declare whether they have any conflicts of interest. Such knowledge can be important for readers when assessing the paper and for editors when assessing the peer review comments.
Editors can also have conflicts of interest, and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors states that: "Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts must have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge" [1]. Furthermore, editors are advised to "publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interest related to the commitments of journal staff" [1].
Journals may have other conflicts of interest than those of their editors, and the most important of these is likely related to the publication of industry-supported clinical trials. It is important for the industry to publish reports of large trials in prestigious journals, as such reports are essential for clinical decision making and for the sales of drugs and devices [2],[3]. However, journals not only stand to gain financially through the sales of reprints, but also publication of such trials may increase their impact factors, as a large number of reprints distributed to key clinicians by drug companies will likely increase citation rates. For example, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) sold about one million reprints to Merck of its paper on the VIGOR trial of rofecoxib [4].
One survey found that the policies on conflicts of interest for individual editors vary between journals [5], but we have not been able to identify any empirical studies on conflicts of interest at medical journals.
We investigated the influence of industry-supported randomised trials on impact factors for major general medical journals and describe the relative income from the sales of advertisements, reprints, and industry-supported supplements.
The impact factor for a given year is calculated as the number of citations in that year to papers published in the two previous years, divided by the number of citable papers published in the two previous years [6]. We focused on two time periods, citations in 1998 for randomised clinical trials (RCTs) published in 1996–1997 and citations in 2007 for RCTs published in 2005–2006, and retrieved citation data using Web of Science on the ISI Web of Knowledge [7].
On the basis of a pilot (see Text S1) that included journals categorised as "Medicine, General & Internal" in Journal Citation Reports on the ISI Web of Knowledge [8] with an impact factor of five or higher in 2007, which identified ten journals, we decided to include six major general medical journals: Annals of Internal Medicine (Annals), Archives of Internal Medicine (Archives), BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet (Lancet), and NEJM. Trials published in these journals in the two time periods were identified using PubMed's limits function for journal name, publication date, and the publication type Randomized Controlled Trial. Papers that were not full reports of trials (e.g., letters, commentaries, and editorials) were excluded. We extracted information on journal name, title, publication year, and type of support into a standardised data sheet. Data extraction and retrieval of citation data were done independently by two authors (AL, MB), and discrepancies were resolved by discussion.
Type of Support
We categorised the support as industry support, mixed support, nonindustry support, or no statement about support. We defined industry support as any financial support, whether direct or indirect (e.g., grants, industry-employed authors, assistance with data analysis or writing of the manuscript, or provision of study medication or devices by a company that produces drugs or medical devices). We did not regard a study as industry-supported if the only interaction with industry was author conflicts of interest (e.g., honorariums, consultancies, and membership of advisory boards). We defined nonindustry support as any other type of financial support. Mixed support was any support provided by both industry and nonindustry sources, and no statement about support if nothing was stated in the paper.
Citations of Individual Trials and of All Papers
We identified the number of citations for each identified RCT using the function "refine by publication year" in Web of Science. This was done in July and August 2009, blinded to the study support of the individual trials. We also identified the total number of citations (the numerator of the impact factor) using the function "create citation report" in Web of Science.
In our pilot study we compared the number of citations using Web of Science with the numbers used for the "official" impact factor calculation published in Journal Citation Reports and we discovered that the numbers of citations in Web of Science were lower (see Text S1). Correspondence with the publisher, Thomson Reuters, revealed that the citations from Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports are not similar, as they are not based on the same data. For example, studies that are referenced incorrectly are only included in Journal Citation Reports. But determinants leading to a citation not being identified in Web of Science can be assumed to be random and unrelated to study type and support. As our aim was to look at the relative contribution of industry-supported trials to the impact factor, we proceeded with our planned analyses, calculating an approximate impact factor.
Denominator of Impact Factor
We identified the number of citable papers (denominator of impact factor) published in 1996–1997 and 2005–2006 for each journal using the most recent Journal Citation Report with available data.
Financial Income and Reprint Sales
In November 2009, we contacted the Editor-in-Chief of each of the six journals by e-mail and requested data on income from sales of advertisements, reprints, and industry-supported supplements (if any), as percentage of total income for the journal, and the total number of reprints sold, in both cases in 2005 and 2006.
BMJ and Lancet provided the data, but the editors of Archives, JAMA, and NEJM did not provide the data, as it was their policy not to disclose financial information. Annals forwarded our request to the publisher who declined for similar reasons.
For these four American journals, we therefore needed to use proxy data. We obtained the publicly available tax information stated in the Internal Revenue Service Form 990 (tax form required for nonprofit organizations) for 2005 and 2006 for the journal owners: American College of Physicians (ACP) for Annals, American Medical Association (AMA) for Archives and JAMA, and Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) for NEJM. These data report on the total income from all types of publishing by the societies, and as all societies publish more than one journal, we could not obtain data for individual journals. ACP publishes three other journals in the ACP series and books; AMA publishes eight other journals in the Archives series, an additional journal, and Web-based material; and MMS publishes various article summaries in their Journal Watch series. We contacted the journal owners for confirmation of our calculations for the relative income from industry sources based on tax information. ACP confirmed our calculations, but AMA and MMS did not reply, despite numerous e-mails.
Statistical Analyses
For each journal, we compared the distribution of support of trials published in the two time periods with the Mann-Whitney U-test (two-sided). In an a priori stated sensitivity analysis, we recategorised trials with no statement about support as nonindustry supported.
On the basis of our own citation data derived from the individual trials, we compared the number of citations of trials with industry support with those with mixed support and those with nonindustry support using the Jonckheere-Terpstra test for trend (two-sided). As the category "not stated" is a mix of the three other categories we did not include this in our test. To test the robustness of our findings, we did various a priori stated sensitivity analyses (e.g., change in criteria used for industry support) (see Text S1).
We calculated what an approximate impact factor would have been, for each of the six journals for each time period, if no trials with industry support had been published; this calculation was done by excluding trials with industry support from the numerator and the denominator. We did the same calculations using a broader category of industry-supported trials that also included those with mixed support. We estimated the percentage reduction in impact factor that resulted from exclusion of these trials.
We had intended to study the association between mean number of citations to trials and percent income from reprints, but this was not possible as only the two European journals provided the data we requested.
We identified 1,429 papers indexed as Randomized Controlled Trials in PubMed (see Text S1) and excluded 61 letters, three editorials, five commentaries, and seven papers that were e-published ahead of print, which yielded a total sample size of 1,353 included RCTs (651 from 1996–1997 and 702 from 2005–2006).
For Annals and Lancet, the number of trials decreased over time, whereas it increased for the other journals (see Table 1). The total number of citable papers decreased for all journals, except Archives. Hence, there was an increase in the proportion of trials out of all citable papers for all journals over time, with BMJ and JAMA having around a 3-fold increase and NEJM having the highest proportion of trials in both periods.
Type of Support
The type of support varied markedly across journals (see Table 1). In 2005–2006, NEJM had the highest proportion of trials with industry support (32%) and BMJ the lowest (7%). The proportion of trials that were industry-supported declined from 1996 to 2005 for all journals except NEJM, where it was constant. The decline was statistically significant for Annals and Archives; for BMJ, the proportion declined by nearly half (from 13% to 7%), but this was not statistically significant.
Citations of Individual Trials
For trials published in 1996–1997, there was a significant relation between the number of citations and the degree of industry support (three categories on a ranking scale) for Lancet (p = 0.003) and NEJM (p = 0.003), whereas for trials published in 2005–2006, the relation was statistically significant for all journals (see Table 2). Industry-supported trials published in Annals, Archives, and Lancet in 2005–2006 were cited more than twice as often as nonindustry trials, and one and a half times more in BMJ, JAMA, and NEJM.
Our a priori defined sensitivity analyses found minor discrepancies, but overall the results were robust (see Text S1).
Approximate Impact Factor
The approximate impact factor we calculated decreased for all journals when industry-supported trials were excluded from the calculation, and the decrease was larger when trials with mixed support were also excluded (see Table 2). The decrease was highest for NEJM, followed by Lancet, whereas the impact factor of BMJ was barely affected. The decrease in approximate impact factor varied minimally between the two time periods for all journals, except for Lancet, where the decrease was 11% in 1996–1997 and 6% in 2005–2006 when trials with industry and mixed support were excluded.
Financial Income and Reprint Sales
In 2005–2006, 16% of the income for BMJ was from display advertisements, 3% from reprints, and 0% from supplements, and 967,930 reprints were sold (see Table 3). For Lancet, the percentages were 1% from display advertisements, 41% from reprints, and 0% from supplements, and 11,514,137 reprints were sold. For ACP, the Internal Revenue Service data did not specify the income, for AMA 53% of the income was from advertisements and 12% from reprints (no data on supplements), and for MMS 23% of the income was from advertisements, whereas there were no data on reprints and supplements.
We found that the proportion of industry-supported trials varied widely across journals but changed very little for each journal within the studied time period. Industry-supported trials boosted the approximate impact factor we calculated for all six journals—the most for NEJM and the least for BMJ. Only the two European journals disclosed their main sources of income, and the income from selling reprints was hugely different, as it comprised 41% of the total income for Lancet and only 3% for BMJ.
We believe this is the first study that investigates potential conflicts of interest at medical journals in relation to citations and financial income from publication of industry-supported trials. Our data collection was systematic and thorough, but there are also limitations. First, we selected major general medical journals that publish many trials, and our findings may therefore not be generalisable to other journals. Second, our assumption that trials with no statement of support, or with nonindustry support, were not industry supported may have led to an underestimation, as undeclared industry involvement is common, e.g., in relation to ghost authorship by medical writers' agencies [9]. However, the proportion of trials with no statement of support was very small in the second period. Third, owing to the nature of the Web of Science database, our identified citations were not the same as those used when calculating journal impact factors in the Journal Citation Reports. But as our aim was to study the relative influence of industry-supported trials on the impact factor, this discrepancy is likely not so important, as errors in citing studies would be expected to be unrelated to the type of support they received.
A problem related to the impact factor is that so-called noncitable papers such as editorials, news pieces, and letters to the editor contribute to the numerator, but not to the denominator [10],[11]. Because of this serious deficiency in the calculation, we believe we have underestimated considerably the true influence of industry-supported trials on the approximate impact factor. For example, if we only include citations to citable papers (i.e., original research and reviews) in an analysis of trials with industry and mixed support, we find that the 2007 impact factor of NEJM decreases by 24% instead of 15%.
There are several reasons why industry-supported trials are generally more cited than other trials and other types of research. They are often large and the most used interventions are drugs, which are known to increase citations [12],[13]. One explanation might be that industry-supported trials are of higher quality than nonindustry supported trials, though there is little evidence to support this [14]. Interestingly, industry trials more often have positive results than nonindustry trials [14], the conclusions in negative trials are often presented in such a way that they appear to be more positive than they actually are [15], and positive industry trials are more cited than negative ones [12],[13]. Furthermore, sponsoring companies may employ various strategies to increase the awareness of their studies, including ghost authored reviews that cite them [16]–[19], purchase and dissemination of reprints [20], and creation of media attention [12],[21],[22]. Such strategies are likely to be predominantly used for trials favourable to the sponsors' products, and this may put editors under pressure, as they know which papers are especially attractive for the companies [3].
Editors have an interest in increasing the impact factor for their journal [23], whereas journal finances are generally regarded to be in the hands of the publisher. However, editors also have an interest in this, as they might be forced to fire staff if the journal does not remain profitable, or at least viable. The former editor of the BMJ, Richard Smith, reported that a single trial may lead to an income of US$1 million for a journal from reprint sales [21], and with a large profit margin of around 70% [3]. Journal publishers therefore have an incentive to advertise the benefits of reprints. As examples, the BMJ Group states that "Medical specialists determine the success of your product or service. They influence teaching, practice and purchase decisions within their workplace and the whole specialty. Reach them through the BMJ Group reprints service" [24], and NEJM states that "Article reprints from the New England influence treatment decisions" [25]. The editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, has described how companies sometimes offer journals to purchase a large number of reprints and may threaten to pull a paper if the peer review is too critical [26]. For Lancet, a little less than half of the journal income came from reprints, and though this applied to only 12% of AMA's income, it could be more for its most prestigious journal, JAMA. Large incomes from reprint sales would also be expected for NEJM, as it publishes more industry-supported trials than the other journals.
This area warrants further research. Speciality journals could also be investigated, particularly as conflicts of interest there could be more pronounced as editors are often investigators themselves and the degree of industry support may vary across specialities. Influence from other types of industry-sponsored papers could also be investigated. It would also be interesting to examine whether income from advertisements can affect editorial decisions; for example, one could compare the number of advertisements from specific companies with the number of publications from the same companies in a sample of journals. Such income can be substantial for some journals [27]. When Annals published a study that was critical of industry advertisements [28], it resulted in the loss of an estimated US$1–1.5 million in advertising revenue [29]. Another source of income that should be investigated is sponsored subscriptions whereby companies pay for subscriptions for clinicians, sometimes with a cover wrap displaying a company product [30].
Although publication of industry-supported trials is favourable for medical journals we cannot tell from our results whether industry-supported trials have affected editorial decisions. The high number of industry-supported trials in NEJM could merely result from the fact that it has the highest impact factor and therefore also receives more trial reports than other journals. Nevertheless, disclosure of conflicts of interest is not about whether relationships have actually influenced decisions, but whether they potentially could have [1]. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors requires authors to "disclose interactions with ANY entity that could be considered broadly relevant to the work" [31]. We suggest that journals abide by the same standards related to conflicts of interest, which they rightly require from their authors, and that the sources and the amount of income are disclosed to improve transparency.
Supporting Information
Text S1.
Appendix. Additional information on the methods used and results of study inclusion and sensitivity analyses.
Author Contributions
ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: AL MB AH PCG. Agree with the manuscript's results and conclusions: AL MB AH PCG. Designed the experiments/the study: AL AH PCG. Analyzed the data: AL. Collected data/did experiments for the study: AL MB. Wrote the first draft of the paper: AL. Contributed to the writing of the paper: AL MB AH PCG. Conceived the study: AH PCG.
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2016 Insurer of the Year
We are honored to announce that Corp America, a magazine reaching over 135,000 subscribers in the business landscape, has named Insurance Services of America as 2016 Insurer of the Year. The magazine's directors have bestowed this award to just one insurance firm in each state. Corp America reviewed thousands of insurance firms, brokerages and companies, and of those located in Arizona, ISA has come out on top! Read More »


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Big Four Ice Caves
The Site
The Big Four area lies along the South Fork Stillaguamish River east of Granite Falls. The trailhead is located at the site of the former Big Four Inn, which burned down in 1949. There is nothing left except the fireplace, which is located in the picnic area that has spectacular views of Big Four Mountain and Hall Peak. The one-mile trail to the Big Four ice caves takes you on a boardwalk across a freshwater marsh, across a bridge over the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River, into the predominately silver fir forest, and eventually to a huge cirque that ends at a lookout area. The alpine wildflowers that are present here would normally be encountered at elevations of 4,000 feet or more, although the elevation is actually only 1,700 feet.
The Birds
With its diverse habitat, the Big Four area is one of the best bird-watching locales in the North Cascades. The trail is unique because it allows the bird-watcher/hiker to pass almost effortlessly from lowland marsh, meadow, and river habitats through classic Canadian and Hudsonian forests, into the bleak Arctic-Alpine Zone. The birding is exceptional in June; expect to see a variety of birds in the picnic and marsh area, including Red-breasted Sapsuckers, Vaux's Swifts, Willow Flycatchers, Common Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers, and Warbling Vireos. Look for American Dippers, Common Mergansers, Harlequin Ducks, and Spotted Sandpipers on the river. Winter Wrens, Brown Creepers, Western Wood-Pewees, and Varied Thrushes are common in the forest.
Directions and Suggestions
From I-5 north, exit #194. Take Route 2 east for two miles. Follow Route 204 northeast to Lake Stevens and head north on Route 9. Go 1.7 miles and turn right (east) on Route 92 toward Granite Falls. Cross through town and take a left on the Mountain Loop Highway. Go 14.5 miles to the Big Four picnic area trailhead on the right. The trail can be reached May through December (depending on snow level). A Northwest Forest Pass is required for parking at the trailhead. There is a restroom, and part of the trail is handicapped-accessible. Because of the popularity of this trail, it is best to go on a weekday.
Warning: The ice caves are very dangerous. Avalanches are a constant threat in winter and early spring. The ice caves are exceptionally dangerous to enter or climb on.
Note: Some information found in Big Four Ice Caves by Harry M. Majors (Northwest Press, 1998)


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Three Days Grace Still Feel Like 'Outsiders'
Can you still feel like an "outsider" when you're in an extremely successful rock band? Three Days Grace -- bassist Brad Walst, drummer Neil Sanderson, guitarist Barry Stock and singer Matt Walst -- say "yes," on their new song, "I Am an Outsider," from their new album, also called Outsider. We spoke to the band about that song, "Right Left Wrong" and their upcoming tour with Avenged Sevenfold and Prophets of Rage.
Talk about "I Am an Outsider." I think everybody in a band has been an outsider of some type.
Neil Sanderson: "I Am an Outsider" kind of set the tone for some of the themes on the album. It's kind of [about] being tired of outside influences, trying to tell you or influence you what to believe and buy and hate and love and all that kind of stuff. And I think that song is just a confrontation, saying like, "I don't wanna be influenced by whatever is being force-fed," and wanting to just take a great big step back and observe all the absurdity, if you will, from a distance, so you can make more sense of it.
Your band is really successful. Do you still feel like an outsider?
Brad Walst: I still feel like an outsider. I think we always kind of look forward and are not worried about what anybody thinks of us. And I think over the years that's shown in the music. We're all a bit introverted. I know I am, and I go home and I hide. So yeah, I think we still feel that way. I do. I know I do for sure.
Can you still walk around un-accosted?
Neil Sanderson: No. It's a good problem to have, I suppose. The craziest is, we've been to Russia three times in the last three years. And for some reason they know every train we're on, every airport we're at, every hotel we're staying. It's like, "How do you know this information? I don't even know what hotel I'm at!"
The title of "Right Left Wrong," seems like it might be a political song, but it isn't.
Neil Sanderson: The song is the leadoff track to Outsider, and it's the beginning of a journey. It's basically the realization that whatever reality you're looking at at a given moment, you've decided that you want to escape that. You're not sure how to do it, where you're going, but you just feel the need to remove yourself from the current situation.
Matt Walst: I feel like everybody at one point in time has felt like they just wanna run away from everything. And the first line of the song is, "Sometimes I just wanna run away."
I was reading the lyrics and thinking, it's not really political, but it sort of fits into where we are in the world today. You may have a different perspective being from Canada.
Neil Sanderson: Yeah. It's more of an inner feeling I think, more than any sort of political symbolism. We talked about how every day you wake up and one day you feel like you're on, you're good, gonna wake up, put your feet on the ground and everything's gonna be great. And then the next day you wake up and you just feel like everything is completely wrong, and you can't explain why. I guess that's part of the modern psyche, and I think we touched on that on not only that song, on a lot of the songs on the album.
You guys are going out on an interesting tour, with Avenged Sevenfold, Prophets of Rage and Ho99o9. That's an unusual combination of bands.
Matt Walst: Yeah, I think the Family Values tour was like that too. It had Ice Cube on it, Orgy, Rammstein, Korn, Limp Bizkit. And I think it brings out different people, but they're all out to have a great time and have fun. I can't wait to watch Prophets of Rage and Avenged Sevenfold.
Do you have favorite songs by either of the bands?
Neil Sanderson: Avenged Sevenfold's "Welcome to the Family." When they kick into that, that's just killer. They're great guys; they're a great band. Avenged Sevenfold's a great band. We're huge Rage fans; we're huge Audioslave fans; we're huge Cypress Hill fans, and Prophets of Rage bust all that out. So yeah. It's gonna be really rad.
Three Days Grace's 'Outsider' album is out now. You can pick up the disc in standard or deluxe editions. Look for Three Days Grace on tour at these locations.
Three Days Grace, "I Am an Outsider"
Three Days Grace Albums Ranked
Three Days Grace Play 'Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?'


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Sunday, December 9, 2012
Seattle Man Pleads Guilty In Plot To Attack Seattle Military Processing Center
The U.S Justice Department released the below on December 6th:
SEATTLE—A Seattle man pleaded guilty today in connection with the June 2011 plot to attack a military installation in Seattle, U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan announced. Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, aka Joseph Anthony Davis, 34, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder officers and agents of the United States and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. If the plea agreement is accepted by the court, Abdul-Latif will be sentenced to between 17 and 19 years in prison, under the terms of the agreement. Following the prison term, Abdul-Latif will be on federal supervised release for a term to be decided by the court. Abdul-Latif will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge James L. Robart on March 25, 2013.
"This defendant plotted to kill American servicemen and women and other innocent people in furtherance of his extremist views," said U.S. Attorney Durkan. "The continued vigilance of the community and the work of law enforcement ensured that we were able to successfully disrupt his deadly plan and bring Mr. Abdul-Latif to justice. My thanks go again to the many leaders of the Muslim community who have worked tirelessly with my office to make clear that acts of extremists cannot and should not be used to condemn the faith of many. I want to thank the FBI, Seattle Police Department, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force for their work and determination to keep our community safe."
"The FBI is pleased that Mr. Abdul-Latif accepted responsibility for his actions," said Laura M. Laughlin, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle Office. "Combating terrorism is the highest priority of the FBI, and, as this case demonstrates, also a commitment of the American people. Because Seattle's Muslim community was alert to and rejected extremist plotting, a cowardly act of violence was prevented. In addition, working with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Seattle Police Department together moved quickly and effectively on critical intelligence. Today, we see Mr. Abdul-Latif face justice as a result of many vital partnerships."
"This joint SPD-FBI investigation showcases the excellent working relationship we have with our federal partners and sends a strong signal to society's enemies that we will continue to combine our efforts in both enforcement and prosecution to bring them to justice and hold them accountable," said Chief John Diaz of the Seattle Police Department.
The other defendant in the case, Walli Mujahidh, 33, of Los Angeles, previously entered a guilty plea in the case on December 8, 2011.
Law enforcement first became aware of the plot when a citizen alerted them that he/she had been approached by Abdul-Latif about participating in the attack and supplying firearms to the conspirators. The person then agreed to work with law enforcement, which began monitoring Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh. Beginning in early June 2011, the conspirators were captured on audio and videotape discussing a violent assault on the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS). The MEPS is where each branch of the military screens and processes enlistees. In addition to housing many civilian and military employees, the building houses a federal daycare center.
In his plea agreement, Abdul-Latif admits that he agreed to carry out the planned attack and that he made plans for Mujahidh to travel to Seattle from Los Angeles to participate in the attack. Mujahidh arrived in Seattle on June 21, 2011. On that same day, during a meeting between Abdul-Latif, Mujahidh, and a person who was working with law enforcement, Abdul-Latif outlined the plan of attacking the MEPS with machine guns and grenades and took steps to purchase weapons and further the plot. In accordance with the defendants' plan, the next day, the person working with police brought three machine guns to a meeting with Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh. The men were arrested after they took possession of the weapons, which had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement.
The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division. The investigation is being conducted by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which has investigators from federal, state, and local law enforcement, and the Seattle Police Department. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) contributed significant expertise to this investigation.
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Childhood is a critical time for vision development. Nearly 80% of what a child learns in school is presented visually, arguably making vision the most important of the five senses. Visual skills start developing during pregnancy and continue to evolve and develop as a child grows. Undetected vision problems can cause developmental and educational delays in children.
Infant vision development
Your infant's vision starts developing during pregnancy. It is crucial that toxins are not consumed during pregnancy as they can cause serious vision problems. At birth, babies only see black, white, and shades of gray. Infants are unable to focus on objects for several months and can only see the outline of objects.
As infants grow, they can distinguish between high-contrast colors. By six months your child can see color, has sharper vision, and has begun developing hand-eye coordination skills. Schedule your child's first eye exam at six months to make sure their eyes are healthy and on the right developmental track. Detection of eye health issues and vision problems at this stage in development can help to ensure your child does not experience setbacks in learning and growth.
When your infant begins to crawl and potentially walk, they are learning to coordinate their body movements and their vision. Over time, your child will become better at judging distances. However, this is also a time when your child may grow more injury-prone because they are exploring their environment. Bumps, bruises, eye injuries, and other injuries can occur which is why it is so vital to ensure that your infant's vision is on track to prevent these injuries as much as possible.
Early childhood vision development
During these years, your child will be growing, developing, and improving their visual skills. It is recommended to schedule your child's eye exam at three years old. Even if you don't think your child has vision problems, your child is growing and changing. A comprehensive eye exam before your child enters school provides enough time to catch and correct any vision problems.
They are discovering how to integrate their vision and body position to complete new tasks. They learn this through playing games, throwing a ball, and riding a bike. Children are also working on developing their fine motor skills. The primary way preschool-age children learn this is through writing their name and the alphabet.
Between the ages of 3 to 6 is when you, as a parent, may begin to notice signs of a vision problem. If your child complains about headaches or tired eyes, this could potentially be due to a vision problem. Signs of vision problems include squinting, tilting the head, frequently rubbing eyes, and closing one eye to see. Additionally, look for sitting too close to a TV, holding a book too close, or avoiding activities that require near or distance vision. Some of these activities include coloring, reading, and playing ball or tag. If you notice these signs in your child, schedule an eye exam as soon as possible. Correct their vision before any learning is delayed!


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EDGE: So you're having a crisis.
FOREMAN: A crisis that I purposely brought upon myself, because I've been making a peculiar kind of theatre for what? 42 years, officially. And it's worn out for me. And for various reasons, I started being interested in film. Of course, a very different kind of film than what other people are making, including the underground filmmakers who both, John, you and I grew up with, many years ago. It means a total re framing or rediscovering of my aesthetic, and I am purposely cutting myself off from many of the techniques that I've been able to exploit for so many years, and this is scary, because I have no assurance that what I do will interest anybody, will be of any value, and yet I'm absolutely aware of some inner necessity that says this is what I have to do, no matter what happens with this activity.
EDGE: Maybe the crisis is that you've been Richard Foreman for too many years.
FOREMAN: Yes, though I'm afraid I am still Richard Foreman. Even though I grew up with many filmmaker friends, I always thought that my particular talent was not for film; it was for theatre. And within the last ten years, I started, for various reasons, putting some films in my play. And as I was rehearsing these plays, with continual filmic backgrounds, I started thinking, I just want to watch what's going on, on the screen; I don't want to be distracted by these actors.
But I do notice, and I was aware, that the difference is that theatre, for me — creating theatre, both writing it, directing it, designing it — was being an active person. A general in an army, who was moving these troops around. And for more than ten years, I've started being bored with having to give everybody orders and moving them around.
Film, for me, is not doing, is not being active. It's just watching what happens, not trying to control it. Now, it's true, the way I film, I very quickly set up a tableau, and within that tableau I give people a few lines, and then we film very fast. And I don't correct it. I accept mistakes. I'm telling people, as we're filming, what to do, which I may then cut out of the soundtrack, in the end. But I get raw material that's almost like filming a riot. And then the task that I have, and the aesthetic task, and the spiritual task, as I see it, is just studying this, in a certain way, bad material that is not carefully wrought, like my theatre is wrought; looking at it again and again and again, to try and discover, uncover, and present the necessity, the spiritual ground that underlies what is not well articulated, just as powerfully as it underlies something that is very sculpted; very well articulated. So it's a whole different process, and it's taking a whole different kind of risk for me. And that's what excites me now.
EDGE: Sitting alone, looking at film?
FOREMAN: Sitting alone, reprocessing it. Because I do it in video. And it seems to me that video is not filming things. I'm not interested in filming a beautiful vista. I'm interested in letting things simply register on the tape, or on the disc, or whatever it is. And then the work is continually changing, electronically manipulating that, with different exposures, different colors, and combining all of this stuff. Let me put it this way. Meditation. I don't meditate very well. I've tried. And like most people, my mind wanders and I don't have the patience to stay with it. Nevertheless, I will take a tableau that changes not too much, and you'll look at it. And then I have to find techniques that, as your mind starts to wander, there's just a little adjustment, so you wake up to look at it again. And then you start to wander. Wake up to look at it again. And it's that activity that, forcing yourself to reiterate your looking, to concentrate again on your looking, that interests me. That's one of the aspects of it that interests me.
EDGE: But that's what you've been playing with in theatre, as well.
FOREMAN: To a certain extent, yes, but not as much as I was in the early days. I have been corrupted, to a certain extent, by the theatre. I think the theatre is vulgar, is corrupt, and I think that without wanting it to happen, I've slowly been pulled into realizing the theatre is always vulgar, and I always start out with something much more concentrated, and then I think, well, since the theatre's vulgar, we need a little more circusy stuff.
EDGE: When the New York Times and The New Yorker give you great reviews, don't you think it's time to pack it in?
FOREMAN: Well, of course. But I have been getting pretty good reviews, for many years. But pack it in to do what? And it's only with the discovery of this new filmic approach — which, ironically, allows me to do things much closer to the plays that I was doing when I began, in the late sixties.
Elina Lowensohn and Willem Dafoe in Idiot Savant |
EDGE: Let's talk about what you started out trying to accomplish and how it's changed. And, of course, you conveniently forget that in the mid-60s I was in rehearsals with you, for weeks, playing a "kinetic lamp post". This was for your first play, but you don't even remember.
FOREMAN: No, I don't. I have no record.
EDGE: And there goes my place in theatrical history.
FOREMAN: Theatrical history. What I was trying to do, at the beginning, was to present — to make present onstage the performers, the objectives as sort of found objectives. I would use non-actors, such as yourself. And I would want them mostly to just confront the audience, to perform certain actions.
And the idea of confronting the audience was as if to say, okay, audience, here you have somebody saying a word, maybe getting undressed, presenting a body, and the performers would be staring at the audience, so that the whole play seemed to be saying, here's an aesthetic moment, audience, what do you do with it? What do you make of it? Rather than pulling you into narrative concerns, empathetic concerns. And, as time went on, that was still sort of the basis of my technique, and people still look at the audience a lot, but I surround it with a lot more, oh, theatrical razzle-dazzle. Staging where a lot of people are swirling around the stage, lights are changing, scenery is changing, new funny props are coming onstage. So it becomes more like if people will remember Hellzapoppin'; Olsen & Johnson, back in the thirties would do these sort of Dadaistic, vaudevillian things like that.
To return to my sources is to try to find a way to purge my material of a lot of that razzle-dazzle, but still confront the audience, saying what's going on here. Staring at the audience in film is a little different than staring at the audience in the theatre. Staring at the audience in film, I have been thinking a lot about the tradition of icon painting, where, in having people looking out from the frame of the icon, it's almost as if the subject matter then becomes you, and when you're seeing Christ or whoever it is stare at you, you are somehow internalizing that stare, and it's as if, no, you're not looking into the canvas or into the icon, to disappear into it romantically and to dream; no, it is being brought out to you. And it is again, as I was doing in the early days, questioning you or trying to evoke in you some other level of yourself that is more interested in just attentiveness, observation, noticing what the ground of the experience is. And that's what I've always been interested in. What's really going on here? What's the ground of the experience? Don't disappear into a dream.
EDGE: The Ontological-Hysterical Theatre. Where does that name come from?
FOREMAN: Oh, that's not too interesting. In the early days, when I was just starting my theatre, I was working for Jonas Mekas, who you used to work for. And I was programming events in his theatre that were not filmic events, since he was the founder of the underground film movement in New York. I was programming theatrical events, which meant Jonas came up with the people, then I would just deal with them.
EDGE: Which theatre was this?
FOREMAN: Well, in the early days, it was on 80 Wooster Street, his first cinematheque, his first permanent theatre, though he had been in a lot of different theatres, moving around. But, at this point, he invited a man, who's still active, by the name of Hermann Nitsch, an Austrian, who did sort of black masses in which, with a lot of loud noise, he would cut up a lot of dead carcasses, a lot of dead bodies, pour buckets of blood — real blood — over them. Pour blood over people. And he had a great poster. And it was some naked person with a big penis, and it said, "Hermann Nitsch, Orgies, Mysteries, Theatre." And I thought, wow, I'm starting a theatre; I need a name. A great name. Orgies, mysteries. Orgies, mysteries. And for some reason, Ontologic-Hysteric popped into my head. Now, it was appropriate because, especially in those days, I was basically taking classical theatre syndromes from the 19th century, like a menage a trois which I think, in psychoanalytical terms, was part of a hysteric syndrome. I was trying to redeem it with this sense of presence, with this ontological sense of what underlies all this trivial stuff of daily life. I was making ontological-hysteric theatre.
EDGE: When did you come up with the concept of the audience? Because, in those days, at the expanded cinema festival in 1965, which probably followed you.
FOREMAN: Well, it preceded me, then. I didn't start making my plays 'til '68.
EDGE: But as you recall, more often than we were pulling the rug out from the idea of audience. For example, take Lamonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music and the realization that you're the instrument, that there was a nonlinear relationship between input and output. But, in your theatre, there's always been seats and you're always sitting there.
FOREMAN: That's because I come from the theatre. As a kid, I started making theatre. I went to the Yale Drama School, to be a playwright. I acted in college, in every play. So I come from the theatre. Now, Lamonte especially had a profound influence on me, when I first saw him. He made long, sustained tones over long periods of time. I remember thinking how could I put something like that into the theatre.
As to my relationship to the audience, I started out writing plays in imitation of Brecht, or Arthur Miller, or Gertrude Stein, or whoever it was. But when I started writing the kind of plays I'm writing, I specifically said — and believe me, it was true — I was not writing for an audience. I was writing for myself. I was making something for myself. And then just hoping that maybe somebody else had similar interests. But of course, in the early days, 75 percent of my audience would walk out after 20 minutes. And, of course, being a young Turk, I thought that was great, because it proved I was making real stuff. But I still have a very ambivalent attitude towards the audience, which is one of the things I've always hated about the theatre, because I believe that people, en masse, always have a reaction that is lower and less interesting than any individual person that you can confront and have a relationship with. So I shouldn't be in the theatre.
EDGE: Or you could do productions for one person.
FOREMAN: Yes. Yes. But that's difficult, because I want a lot of stuff. Scenery and stuff. So to finance it is a little difficult. But with film, my first idea when I started making film — and it was a good idea, but I'm not courageous enough to pull it off — I thought, okay, I'm going to put an ad in the paper, saying Richard Foreman is no longer making theatre, he's making film, and all of these films will be viewed for the first time on the day of his death. That's when they'll be available. And I do, spiritually and philosophically, like that idea, because I am sick of audiences.
EDGE: At the very beginning of Idiot Savant, there's a great moment when a voice issues instructions to the actors.
FOREMAN: "Instructions to the actors: Do not try to carry this play forward", do not — just let it happen; don't try to move it. And that was because, in rehearsals, though I like the actors that I'm dealing with, they had a tendency always to want to turn it too much into a real play that seemed to have a narrative, that seemed to have developing relationships between the characters. And I'd have to remind them, all the time, no, no, no, that's not what it's about. I thought, why the hell not just say it, at the beginning of the play, to remind them; which is also, to a certain extent, keying the audience into perhaps watching in a different way.
EDGE: It was interesting to see the actors lapse into acting.
FOREMAN: Yes. It happens. It happens. It's something you have to accept in the theatre.
EDGE: But in your previous plays, have you used real actors?
FOREMAN: Oh, yes, for many years, I have. But, oftentimes, they would be actors that I would force them — I would drain them of a lot of the more normal responses. I have no interest in navigating the stresses and strains of daily life, and the psychology of that relationship. In this play, I thought, what the hell, I've done so many plays; here I'm working with a star, a person very easy to work with, and I like him as a person. I am not going to sit on him and make him be a mannequin, like some of the actors are in some of my other plays. I knew what I was getting into. And I know both the pros and the cons of that. But it's my last play, perhaps. I thought, why the hell not let it happen and see what happens.
EDGE: Several years ago Edge publish your ideas about "The Pancake People". (See "The Pancake People Or, The Gods Are Pounding My Head", 3.8.05). Can we revisit?
FOREMAN: I remember thinking that with the computers, which I use a lot, you don't have to maintain, inside of your head, material, in the same way that you used to. If you were Goethe, you made of yourself a kind of cathedral of all this knowledge that was stacked and built and organized within you. And it gave a certain verticality to your being.
My thought, at the time I talked about Pancake People was, with the Internet, no, we don't have to know much, any more, because it's all available to us, spread out like a flat pancake, and we can access over here, over here, over here, whatever we want, and that spreads us thin. So, in a way, we have much more available to us, in a way we know more in a surface way, but we no longer have this cathedral-like structure.
It's very interesting, because, just two days ago, I got interested again, after many years, in Norbert Weiner. And I just started reading the latest biography of him, which talked about how he was very worried that with feedback mechanisms that he invented himself, along with Bateson, that it was going to destroy people's intelligence, because they were no longer going to have to rely on their own internalized knowledge, that it was going to just make them forget how to deal with all of that. So I've got to read further. But, yes, I think that's true.
EDGE: You mention Bateson. He once said to me that that the idea of cybernetics (as opposed to the scientific discipline of cybernetics, which petered out) — is the most important idea since Jesus Christ, as far as the havoc that it presents to language, to sense of self, other — and to the idea of being who you are.
FOREMAN: That may be true. And I think I've always felt that was true, except, there's always something else happening. It's still vaguely possible that these pancake people, these people in whom a certain level and function of the mind, a certain structure of the mind, is being destroyed, maybe out of that something we can't imagine will arise, who's to say? I don't know. But on the surface of things, based on my life experience, sure, I would agree. Sure.
EDGE: And where do you see it going?
For the past three or four years, I've been dealing with film, dealing with another thinker who is probably disreputable but somebody I have been reading again and again for the last five years, my attitude towards a lot of this has changed. And I don't think about where it's going, because I think that where it's going is just more illusionary structures. And I think that, for me, it's the ground of all of this that counts, and that doesn't change. And I'm trying to access that, and that will never change.
The thinker I am reading is Peter Kingsley, a scholar of the Greeks who specialized in the pre-Socratics. In 1997, he wrote a book entitled Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition, about the pre-Socratics for OUP, which was very much accepted as a new but scholarly and acceptable book, by all the experts about the pre-Socratics. After that, he sort of went off the deep end, and started writing two books, the first was In the Dark Places of Wisdom. His most recent is a big, 900-page book called Reality, in which he talks primarily about Parmenides and Empedocles.
His thesis is that they who are looked upon as the founders of Western logic were not that at all, that they were really magicians who were teaching a spiritual message that has been misinterpreted, and misinterpreted many times over the years, and they were really teaching that this life that we are living is just nothing but deception and continual reinvention of false facades, and that really they were trying to provide access to something else, which has been denied by all the great thinkers, even, over the last 800 years. I find it a very powerful book. It's had a lot of influence on me.
It's a simple book to read — it's not like reading Heidegger. But it is totally elusive. I find that very interesting. You keep forgetting where you've just been taken by him, and you have to go back. I've read a little section of it, every morning, for the last five years.
I just assume that many people may think he's some kind of wacky, new-age thinker, which I don't think is the case. That's because I have no interest in wacky, new-age thinkers.
EDGE: What's going to happen to the culture that produces people like Richard Foreman, erudite people that have libraries; cathedral people? And what of the future of reading? Because I don't know if people are reading as much as before.
FOREMAN: No, they're clearly not. My first simple answer is, I couldn't care less. I still read every day. I still read a great deal.
My more officially responsible answer is what I said before. It's impossible to say if some other modality is going to arise that will replace that kind of rigor with some other kind of exploratory rigor. I have no idea. I tend to think, oh, all the things I'm interested in life are vanishing. Cities are changing, even the architecture of cities. I do like some advanced modern architecture, but everything — obviously, in our culture, there is a general lowering of the level, mostly controlled by market considerations. And to me that's horrible. But I know that when I was a young man, starting out, all the artists who were reaching my age were saying the same thing about people in my generation. So what the hell.
Of course, this kind of talk may all be conditioned by the fact that death is approaching. And when death is approaching, you do think about things differently. I'll die soon, and I'm well aware of that. And this play that you just saw, I'm amazed that a lot of people don't seem to see that it's about Willem Defoe playing a figure standing in for me, dealing with his own approaching death. And nobody talks about that.
EDGE: I had no idea.
FOREMAN: No? Really? Okay. Well, there you are. But did you have any idea that he was dealing with the specter of death or the specter of getting old?
EDGE: No.
FOREMAN: No? Okay. Okay. Well, then, you know what?
EDGE: Watching your plays, I don't try to think too much.
FOREMAN: Yes, you shouldn't. But what I can say in my defense is then I will claim that it's there and, in an insidious fashion, it's like a worm burrowing into you, and you're not aware of it consciously. That serves me okay.
EDGE: What if you live another 20 years? How are you thinking differently?
FOREMAN: We will find out how I will deal with that. I don't really expect to, but I hope I do. The way I've been thinking about making art now is that I'm not really interested in giving you an experience, What I'm interested in is a certain mental activity, a certain spiritual activity that I'm engaged in. My art is as if I were Spinoza, and instead of polishing lenses, I was polishing these big mirrors. These mirrors are my art, and they are trying to reflect and concentrate the untouchable, undefinable thrust that I'm trying to use with my head and heart, pursuing something. That is not the subject of my plays, but the energy of that activity I'm trying to reflect with these mirrors that are either play or film. That's the most I can say about it.
The final statement should be that in the realm of art the most important characteristic is courage. Courage to pursue what some voice inside of you, against the tidal wave of everything that's happening in the society, says go this way. Courage to pursue what you know you really have to pursue. That's what counts.


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Rivenmaster's Place is always happy to find youngsters at the beginning of their musical careers. For this site, there is no greater pleasure than following and observing their development from young budding musicians into real super stars. Today's featured guests are more than just amazing young musicians and vocalists. They are wonderful human beings who are making a difference in the world through their music and moral character.
When I first discovered Daves Highway's music, they were just young kids doing their thing on YouTube. However, it was not hard to see from their first cover songs that these young people had a special relationship with God, family, and life in general. Their cheerful dispositions, warm personalities, polite responses to comments, and willingness to share with others, convinced me to become a loyal follower and fan for life.
Apparently I was not alone, as it was shortly after the release of our first article about them entitled "Mississippi Music Magic†published to Theskykid.com, that Chris Tomlin took notice of their first cover of his song "Jesus Messiahâ€â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.the rest is history.
Now in their first years of College, Daves Highway has grown into a famous professional young adult singing group. While this website will always remember them as cute little preteens just staring out, what we now hear is one of the most unique and amazing Christian crossover singing groups this country has ever produced.
It is with great pleasure that today I offer their full update presented exactly as it was given to me for your reading pleasure.
I trust, if you have not already joined their thousands of fans that you will by the end of this article.
"It's been so long since we were "discovered†by our friend Rivenmaster. He posted our story from the very beginning way back in 2009. Since then, so much has changed for us. We've gone from a home school to attending college. We're approaching 200,000 Facebook fans and have over 15 million video views, 4 studio CDs, and have written lots of songs.  And, now we're kind of waiting to see where our music career might take us next. We're hoping for a quick departure from college and onto a tour bus, but you never know.
We've played for thousands of people across the country, primarily in the southeast and have visited 12 states so far. We're about to head up to New York to play a concert at "The Brooklyn Tabernacleâ€, which is very exciting for us.
Our journey has enabled us to reach a lot of people and hopefully has demonstrated that the best life is one of character, morals, and honesty. There are shortcuts you can take, but in the end God just wants us to know and honor Him. And, that's what we plan to do.
All 4 of our studio CDs are quite unique and different. We've experimented a lot with our sound learning who we want to be musically and it shows differently on each recording.  Our CDs are all available through our website and we have some other cool stuff there, too.  We also have iTunes, Amazon, and other internet sites selling our songs as well.
Our current CD was released on November 11 and is titled Daves Highway- An Acoustic Christmas. We believe this is our best work thus far. Even though we didn't write the songs, our interpretation and arrangements of these classic tunes are pure Daves Highway. We recorded the entire record in about a week in a studio tucked away in the mountains near Asheville, NC. The songs were produced By Andrew Reed who made them just the way we wanted them, and we think you'll love every song!
As for the immediate future, we are going to release several new videos from 'An Acoustic Christmas' between now and Christmas. Here's a new video of one of our favorites "Little Drummer Boyâ€
Daves Highway New Music Video "Little Drummer Boyâ€
We also have a live DVD/CD in the can and ready to distribute. We made the live set back in 2011 at the Altamont Theatre in Asheville, too. It will be neat to look back at the fun we had back then.
We can't write another word without saying a big THANKS to all of you who have read, liked, subscribed, and shared our posts on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.    Please know that we do our best to read every post.  Without you, we can't continue to do what we love to do….and that's making music!
Keep following us! We're going to take a positive message to everyone who will listen. And most of all, may God bless you."
Daves Highway – Erika, Zachary, and Delaney Daves


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Deidre McCloskey's important new book serves to establish that if we want to explain the industrial revolution we need to explain why so much innovation occurred in England from the late 18th century and through the 19th century. She suggests that we should dismiss attempts to explain the industrial revolution in terms of such factors as thrift, accumulation of capital (physical or human), transport, geography, natural resources, the slave trade, business organization, imperialism, eugenics and even foreign trade.
The style of the exposition suggests, at times, that Deidre may not suffer fools gladly (or has a wicked sense of humour): 'If someone claims that foreign trade made possible, say, economies of scale in cotton textiles or shipping services she owes it to her readers (as I have already said twice: I wish you would pay attention) to explain why the gains on the swings are not lost on the roundabouts. Why do not the industries made smaller by the large extension of British foreign trade end up on the negative side of the account?' (p 221).
Well, I'm not sure Deidre, perhaps there is a link between international trade, specialization and scale economies - but you may have discussed that possibility somewhere else in the book when I wasn't paying attention. In any case, I agree with you that innovation must have been a lot more important than scale economies.
I was a little more concerned that I didn't see any recognition of the possibility, as discussed in Eric Jones' recent book (reviewed here), that clustering of manufacturing in the north of England – as a result of trade and specialization within England - provided an economic environment conducive to subsequent innovations. Perhaps middle class enrichment resulting from trade and specialization could also help to explain why the bourgeois revaluation occurred when and where it did. (The bourgeois revaluation is the greater approval of the middle classes - and of innovation and markets - that began to occur in thought and talk in Holland and England three centuries ago.)
My main concern, Deidre, is that in attempting to clear the field prior to sowing a new crop of ideas (or the old ideas you want to propagate anew) you may be inadvertently slashing and burning some other ideas that are worth preserving. This applies, in particular, to the relationship between institutional change and economic performance as discussed by Douglass North ('Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance', 1990). I agree with you that North could not have been correct in attributing the industrial revolution to more secure property rights following the Glorious Revolution. There is, however, more to institutional change than more secure property rights. I reject your attempt to dismiss appeals to institutional change as 'still another attempt to reduce one of the greatest surprises in human history to a materialist routine' and to claim that changes in institutions did not have much to do with the industrial revolution (p. 354).
In fact, evidence that you cite in your book seems to conflict with your claim that changes in institutions – the rules of the game - had little to do with the industrial revolution. You acknowledge that 'the norms of antibourgeois aristocrats and clerics did discourage innovation' (p. 267). You also suggest: 'Had the Ottoman or the Qing empires or the Japanese Shogunate admired trade and innovation sufficiently to overcome their worries about the maintenance of state power – encouraging innovation and having a go rather than crushing it – then they, not the Europeans, would have come first' (p. 371). You note that in France and Spain in the 18th century a nobleman caught engaging in commerce could be stripped on his rank' (p. 387) and that in France it was necessary to apply to the state for permission to open a factory (p. 395).
I think your true position may be that bourgeois dignity and institutions (economic freedom) are both important in explaining the industrial revolution. This comes through fairly clearly when you write: 'By adopting the respect for deal-making and innovation and the liberty to carry out the deals that Amsterdam and London pioneered around 1700, the modern world was born' (p. 397). In such passages you seem to be offering an encompassing theory incorporating both bourgeois dignity and institutional change.
So far so good. I can understand that ideology (an amalgam of perceptions and values) influences the climate of opinion toward commerce and innovation which in turn influences both informal institutions (conventions and codes of behaviour) and formal institutions (regulations, laws, constitutions) which may or may not provide a climate conducive to innovation. Is that all there is to understand?
Perhaps not. The missing element is a sense of personal identity. As you say: 'In truth, the agent wants to act because she attributes meaning to her life ... She is a human with an identity, not a Max U calculating machine like grass or bacteria or rats' (p. 307).
That gets me thinking again about identity economics – the idea of George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton that people gain utility when their actions conform to the norms and ideals of their identity (which I first discussed here). Even a person with great potential to be innovative might find that difficult if the norms and ideals of their identity dictated that any attempt to innovate would be futile. If we start thinking in terms of identity economics, however, we might have to question the sub-title of your book – perhaps economics can explain the modern world after all.


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Villa SSK by Tokyo Bay
When we first saw the images of Villa SSK by Takeshi Hirobe Architects, we had mixed feelings. On one hand, the house is made of wood which usually helps us become interested, and it does afford the inhabitants many beautiful vistas.
On the other, the structure seemed somewhat out of place among its very plain-looking neighbours, and we could not shake the feeling that it was slightly Darth Vaderish, dropped from beyond the Outer Rim.
But the longer we looked, the more we liked this villa by Tokyo Bay. It reads like a thoroughfare between the mountain and the sea. The vistas are clear and beautiful from many angles, and each viewpoint is different. By combining rigid timber veneer walls and truss arches, the tunnel-like space is achieved without almost no right-angle walls, all of which adds to the feel of the unexpected.
The residence includes spacious living, dining and kitchen areas, a bathroom overlooking the ocean, and one guest room. It also boasts a special room that can be used to display the owner's beloved car.
What we like most is the way the tiled central courtyard functions as an outdoor living room, where the owners' dogs can play and where larger parties can be held. Water also flows into the courtyard to create a pond. The bathroom, with its round tub, has possibly the best view in the house.
When the residence is lit at night, the impression from both the inside and outside is that of lightness and tranquility. Great qualities for a home. – Tuija Seipell (Photos: Koichi Torimura)
Via: The Cool Hunter


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ASHRAE Reaches Highest Membership in 14 Years
ASHRAE, long known for its contributions to the built environment technology industry, now boasts more than 56,000 members. ASHRAE membership is individual based, reflecting the Society's diverse representation of building system design and industrial processes professionals around the world.
"This growth reflects ASHRAE's influence on building standards and best practices around the world," Tim Wentz, ASHRAE president, said. "Our members recognize that the Society increasingly provides opportunities to network with the global built environment's best and brightest."
In 2016, ASHRAE reached 56,105 members, its highest in 14 years. ASHRAE currently has 181 chapters, 41 sections and 234 student branches around the globe, with members in 130 countries.
Seventy nine percent of ASHRAE's total membership is based in the U.S. and Canada, while 21 percent is from other countries, an increase from 18 percent from two years ago.
ASHRAE's Region-at-Large, which encompasses the Middle East, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Africa and Europe, had the largest percent gain in membership in the Society year of 2015-16.
"From expansion into residential markets to providing resources for the quickly changing refrigerant industry, ASHRAE will continue to use the expertise of its members to further the technology of tomorrow," Wentz said. "At the same time, ASHRAE is partnering with other organizations dedicated to working toward a more sustainable environment, creating a worldwide best-practices databank of innovative and successful technologies that will serve the built environment community."
ASHRAE currently has more than 130 published standards and guidelines and is one of only six standards-developing organizations in the U.S. that can self-certify that its standards have followed American National Standards Institute's standards development procedures.
The Society is also one of the only HVAC&R organizations that maintains its own research program, which currently has 56 active research projects with a combined value of more than $9 million. That research is overseen by some 100 technical committees representing 4,200 people.
ASHRAE produces hundreds of publications, including the ASHRAE Handbook, books on specialized topics within the field, and various CDs and DVDs. The Society also publishes the peer-reviewed monthly ASHRAE Journal, quarterly High Performing Buildings and bimonthly Science and Technology for the Built Environment.
Through the ASHRAE Learning Institute, ASHRAE offers more than 100 courses in a variety of formats, including eLearning, professional development seminars, short courses and self-directed learning courses. In addition, ASHRAE offers six certification programs for individuals.
ASHRAE, founded in 1894, is a global society advancing human well-being through sustainable technology for the built environment. The Society and its more than 55,000 members worldwide focus on building systems, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, refrigeration and sustainability. Through research, standards writing, publishing, certification and continuing education, ASHRAE shapes tomorrow's built environment today. More information can be found at www.ashrae.org/news.


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13 December 2018
Manege to Become Venue for King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Championships
Competition to take place in Saint Petersburg on December 25-31.
The King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Championships-2018 will be held in Saint Petersburg on December 25-31.
The venue is Manege, the largest exhibition space in central Saint Petersburg. Address: 1, St. Isaac's Square.
A classical building of Manege was constructed by Giacomo Quarenghi in the beginning of the 19th century for the Imperial Horse Guards. Then it was used for various purposes depending on the epoch. In 1970s, the Saint Petersburg Manege housed the Central exhibition hall. Now Manege is a modern platform which is capable to host all kinds of projects.
Real chess stars are going to take part in the events. Thus, the open starting lists are headed by the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway), world strongest grandmasters Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Viswanathan Anand (India), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Peter Svidler (all from Russia), and other top players.
In the women's events, the reigning Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun (China), Anna and Mariya Muzychuk (both from Ukraine), Kateryna Lagno, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Valentina Gunina, Olga Girya (all from Russia), Humpy Koneru (India), Nana Dzagnidze (Georgia), Tan Zhongyi (China), and other well-known players will fight for the titles.
An extensive additional programme, which will include tournaments for children and adults, solving contests, simultaneous exhibitions and master classes, acquaintance with the RCF Chess Museum's exhibits and many other activities, will be organized during the Championships. The entrance is free for guests.
Schedule: December 25 – Pre-start press conference, Opening Ceremony, Technical meeting, December 26-28 – World Rapid Championships, December 29-30 – World Blitz Championships and Closing Ceremony.
Tournament page