text:
Active substance(s): FLUMAZENIL
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Type of Packaging:
Material number:
M0xxxxx/xx UK
Pharma-Code (Laetus)
180 x 588 mm
2-D-Matrix Code
M0xxxxx/xx UK
Code: –
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1. Draft
1. Corr
2. Corr
3. Corr
4. Corr
25.07.2014, 11:00
25.03.2015, 13:15
27.03.2015, 13:45
01.04.2015, 12:00
28.04.2016, 18:00
Variable Data:
Operator: Roberto Grill +43(0) 699-17181288
Smallest Size: 8
Flumazenil 0.1 mg/ml Solution for Injection
Read all of this leaflet carefully before you start
using this medicine because it contains important
information for you
- Keep this leaflet. You may need to read it again.
- If you have any further questions, ask your doctor,
pharmacist, nurse or healthcare personnel.
- If you get any side effects talk to your doctor,
pharmacist, nurse or healthcare personnel. This
includes any possible side effects not listed in this
leaflet. See section 4.
What is in this leaflet
1. What Flumazenil is and what it is used for
2. What you need to know before you use Flumazenil
3. How to use Flumazenil
4. Possible side effects
5. How to store Flumazenil
6. Contents of the pack and other information
1. What Flumazenil is and what it is used for
Flumazenil is a counteragent (antidote) for the complete
or partial reversal of the central sedative effects of
benzodiazepines (specific group with sedative, sleep inducing,
muscle relaxing and anxiolytic properties).
It may therefore be used in anaesthesia to wake you up
after certain diagnostic tests or in intensive care if you have
been held under sedative conditions. Flumazenil may also
be used for the diagnosis and treatment of intoxications or
overdose with benzodiazepines.
Flumazenil is also used in children (more than 1 year
old) to wake them up after they have been given a
'benzodiazepine' medicine to make them sleepy during a
medical procedure.
2. What you need to know before you use Flumazenil
Do not use Flumazenil
- if you are allergic (hypersensitive) to flumazenil or any
of the other ingredients (listed in section 6).
- if benzodiazepines have been administered to you to
control a potentially life-threatening situation (for
example control of pressure in the brain or a serious
epileptic seizure).
- in mixed intoxications with benzodiazepines and
certain types of other antidepressants (so called
tricyclic and tetracyclic antidepressants like Imipramine,
Clomipramine, Mirtazapine or Mianserin). The toxicity
of these antidepressants can be masked by protective
benzodiazepine effects. If you are showing signs of
a significant overdose of these antidepressants,
Flumazenil must not be used to reverse
benzodiazepine effects.
time within the weeks preceding flumazenil
administration, rapid injection of high doses of
flumazenil (more than 1 mg) should be avoided since
this may cause withdrawal symptoms (see section
4. Possible side effects).
If you have been treated for long periods with high
doses of benzodiazepines, the advantages of the use
of Flumazenil should be carefully weighed against the
risk of withdrawal symptoms.
In children previously sedated with midazolam.
These children should be closely observed in intensive
care units for at least 2 hours after administration
of Flumazenil because repeated sedation or
difficulty with breathing can occur. In case of
sedation by other benzodiazepines, the monitoring
must be adjusted according to their expected
If you are epileptic and have received benzodiazepine
treatment for a long period of time, the administration
of flumazenil is not recommended as flumazenil can
cause seizures.
Seizures or other toxic effects can be more severe in
cases of mixed drug overdose (e.g. intoxication with
benzodiazepines and cyclic antidepressents)
If you have serious brain injury (and/or instable
pressure in your brain) care willl be taken as Flumazenil
can cause an increased pressure in your brain.
As Flumazenil is not recommended for the treatment of
benzodiazepine-dependence or for the treatment of
If you have experienced panic attacks in the past
Flumazenil can cause new attacks.
If you are dependent on alcohol or medicines as you
have a higher risk of benzodiazepine tolerance and
if your liver is not working well flumazenil
elimination can be delayed.
- Children should only receive Flumazenil after deliberate
sedation. There are unsufficient data for any other
indications. The same applies for children below the
age of 1 year
Other medicines and Flumazenil
Tell your doctor if you are taking or have recently taken any
other medicines, including medicines obtained without a
When using Flumazenil in cases of an accidental overdose it
has to be taken into account that the toxic effects of other
psychotropic medicinal products (especially tricyclic
anti-depressants like Imipramine) taken concurrently, may
increase with the subsidence of the benzodiazepine effect.
Interaction with other central nervous system depressants
has not been observed.
Flumazenil with alcohol
There is no known interaction between ethanol and flumazenil.
Warnings and precautions
- If you do not wake up after Flumazenil is
administered, another reason for this will be considered
because Flumazenil specifically reverses the effects of
- If Flumazenil is administered to you at the end of your
operation to wake you up, it should not be given until
the effects of muscle relaxants have gone away.
- As the action of flumazenil is usually shorter than that
of benzodiazepines, sedation may possibly recur. You
will be closely observed, possibly in the intensive care
unit until the effects of flumazenil have gone away.
- If you have received high dose and/or long-term
(chronic) treatment with benzodiazepines, at any
Pregnancy, breast-feeding and fertility
If you are pregnant or breast-feeding, think you may be
pregnant or are planning to have a baby, ask your doctor
or pharmacist for advice before taking this medicine.
Driving and using machines
After receiving Flumazenil for the reversal of the sedative
effects of benzodiazepines you must not drive a car, operate
machinery or engage in any other physically or mentally
demanding activity for at least 24 hours since sedation may
possibly recur.
Flumazenil contains sodium chloride
This medicinal product contains 3.7 mg sodium per ml (18.5
mg / 5 ml ampoule size or 37 mg / 10 ml ampoule size)
solution for injection. To be taken into consideration by
patients on a controlled sodium diet.
Patients with renal (kidney) or hepatic (liver)
In patients with impaired liver function, the elimination of
flumazenil may be delayed and therefore careful titration
of dosage is recommended.
Because of insufficient experience during pregnanacy
Flumazenil should only be used if the advantage for you
is higher than the potential risk for the unborn baby.
The administration of Flumazenil during pregnancy is not
contraindicated in an emergency situation.
It is not known whether flumazenil is excreted in breast
milk. Therefore it is recommended not to breast-feed 24
hours after administration of Flumazenil
No dosage adjustments are required in patients with
impaired kidney function.
Use in Children
Children above 1 year of age
Reversal of deliberate sedation
3. How to use Flumazenil
Flumazenil is administered as intravenous injection (into
a vein) or diluted as intravenous infusion (over a longer
Flumazenil will be given by your anaesthetist or experienced
physician. Flumazenil may be used at the same time as other
resuscitative measures.
This medicinal product is for single use only. Any unused
solution should be discarded. The solution should be
inspected visually prior to use. It should only be used if the
solution is clear, colourless and practically free from particles.
The recommended dose is described as follows:
Intensive Care
Dosage level:
Starting dose:
Starting dose:
0.2 mg administered
0.3 mg administered
intravenously over a period intravenously over a period
of 15 seconds.
of 15 seconds.
A further dose of 0.1 mg
A further dose of 0.1 mg can
can be injected and
be injected and repeated at
repeated at 60 second
60 second intervals, if required
level of consciousness is not
intervals, if required level of
consciousness is not obtained obtained within 60 seconds,
within 60 seconds, up to a
up to a maximum dose of
maximum dose of 1.0 mg.
2.0 mg.
If drowsiness recurs a second
The usual dose required
bolus injection may be
lies between 0.3 and
administered. An intravenous
0.6 mg, but may deviate
infusion of 0.1- 0.4 mg/h has
depending on the patients
also been shown useful. The
characteristics and the
dosage and rate of infusion
benzodiazepine used.
should be adjusted individually
to achieve the desired level of
The infusion can be given
additionally to the maximum
dose of 2 mg by injection.
Dosage level:
The recommended initial dose is 10 micrograms/kg (up
to 200 micrograms), administered intravenously over 15
seconds. If the desired level of consciousness is not obtained
after waiting an additional 45 seconds, further injection
of 10 micrograms//kg may be administered (up to 200
micrograms) and repeated at 60 second intervals where
necessary (a maximum of 4 times) to a maximum total dose
of 50 micrograms/kg or 1 mg, whichever is lower.
Children under the age of 1 year
There are insufficient data on the use of Flumazenil in
children under 1 year. Therefore Flumazenil should only
be administered in children under 1 year if the potential
benefits to the patient outweigh the possible risk.
If you have any further questions on the use of this product,
ask your doctor or pharmacist.
For information intended for healthcare professionals please
see accordant section below.
4. Possible side effects
Like all medicines, this medicine can cause side effects,
although not everybody gets them.
Very common (may affect more than 1 in 10 people)
Common (may affect up to 1 in 10 people)
hypersensitivity reactions (allergic reactions), anxiety
(after rapid injection, not requiring treatment), emotional
lability, having problems in initiating and maintaining sleep
(insomnia), feeling sleepy (somnolence), vertigo, headache,
agitation (after rapid injection, not requiring treatment),
unvoluntary trembling or quivering (tremor), dry mouth,
abnormal rapid and deep respiration (hyperventilation),
speech disorder, subjective cutaneous sensations (e.g.
cold, warmth, tingling, pressure, etc.) in the absence
of stimulation (paresthesia), double vision, strabismus
(squinting), lacrimation (production of tear fluid) increased,
heart palpitations (after rapid injection, not requiring
treatment), reddening of the skin (flushing), low blood
pressure on transition from lying to standing, transient
increased blood pressure (on awaking), vomitting, hiccup,
sweating, fatigue, injection site pain
M0xxxxx/00 UK
Uncommon (may affect up to 1 in 100 people)
Fear (after rapid injection, not requiring treatment),
convulsions (in patients suffering from epilepsy or severe
liver insufficiency, mainly after long-term treatment with
benzodiazepines or mixed drug overdose (see section 2
warnings and precautions), abnormal hearing, slow or rapid
heart rate, premature beat of your heart (extrasystole),
difficulty breathing (dyspnoea), cough, nasal congestion,
chest pain, shivering (after rapid injection, not requiring
Do not throw away any medicines via wastewater or
household waste. Ask your pharmacist how to throw away
medicines you no longer use. These measures will help
protect the environment.
6. Contents of the pack and other information.
What Flumazenil contains
The active substance is flumazenil.
Not known (frequency cannot be estimated from the
available data)
Withdrawal symptoms (see below); panic attacks (in patients
with a history of panic reactions); abnormal crying, agitation,
aggressive reactions, severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis).
If you were treated for a long period with benzodiazepines
flumazenil can induce withdrawal symptoms. The
symptoms are: tension, agitation, anxiety, emotional
lability, confusion, hallucinations, involuntary trembling or
quivering (tremor) and convulsions.
In general the undesirable effects in children do not
differ much from that in adults. When using Flumazenil to
awaken a child from sedation, abnormal crying, agitation
and aggressive reactions have been reported.
Reporting of side effects
If you get any side effects, talk to your doctor. This includes
any possible side effects not listed in this leaflet. You can
also report side effects directly (see details below).
Each millilitre contains 0.1 mg = 100 micrograms flumazenil.
Each ampoule with 5 ml contains 0.5 mg = 500 micrograms
Each ampoule with 10 ml contains 1.0 mg = 1000
micrograms flumazenil.
The other ingredients are disodium edetate, glacial acetic
acid, sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide solution 4%, water
for injections.
What Flumazenil looks like and contents of the pack
Flumazenil is a clear and colourless solution for injection
and concentrate for solution for infusion in colourless glass
Following packaging sizes are available:
Carton boxes with 5 or 10 ampoules containing 5 ml
Carton boxes with 5 or 10 ampoules containing 10 ml
United Kingdom
Yellow Card Scheme
Website: www.mhra.gov.uk/yellowcard
Not all packaging sizes may be marked.
HPRA Pharmacovigilance
Earlsfort Terrace
IRL - Dublin 2
Tel: +353 1 6764971
Fax: +353 1 6762517
Website: www.hpra.ie
e-mail: email@example.com
Fresenius Kabi Limited
Cestrian Court, Eastgate Way, Manor Park, Runcorn
Cheshire WA7 1NT
United Kingdom
Marketing Authorisation Holder and Manufacturer
This leaflet was last revised 05/2016
By reporting side effects you can help provide more
information on the safety of this medicine.
5. How to store Flumazenil
Keep this medicine out of the sight and reach of children.
Do not use this medicine after the expiry date which is
stated on the label and carton. The expiry date refers to the
last day of that month.
Do not store above 25°C
This medicinal product is for single use only.
Shelf life after first opening: the medicinal product should
be used immediately.
Shelf life after dilution: 24 hours.
Chemical and physical in-use stability has been
demonstrated for 24 hours at 25°C.
From a microbiological point of view, the product should be
used immediately. If not used immediately, in-use storage
times and conditions prior to use are the responsibility of
the user and would normally not be longer than 24 hours at
2 to 8 °C, unless dilution has taken place in controlled and
validated aseptic conditions.
Do not use this medicine if the solution is not clear and free
from particles.
Any unused solution should be discarded in accordance with
local requirements.
The following information is intended for healthcare professionals only:
Detailed storage conditions can be found in section 5. How to store Flumazenil.
When Flumazenil is to be used in infusion, it must be diluted prior to infusion. Flumazenil should only be diluted with sodium
chloride 9 mg/ml (0.9% w/v) solution, glucose 50 mg/ml (5% w/v) or sodium chloride 4.5 mg/ml (0.45% w/v) + glucose 25 mg/ml
(2.5% w/v) solution. Compatibility between flumazenil and other solutions for injection has not been established.
This medicinal product must not be mixed with other medicinal products except for those mentioned in this section.
For further information on dosage instructions please see section 3 of the Package Information Leaflet.
Further information
Always consult your healthcare provider to ensure the information displayed on this page applies to your personal circumstances.


text:
"1. Proposals in renewal will be inescapably theological in content. They will presuppose some sort of ecclesial picture of what the church is supposed to be and to do. It is all too easy to forget this, not least because Christians in the West are woefully weak in their thinking about ecclesiology. Either they refuse to think about it at all, or they simply accept uncritically the conception of the church that they have inherited. Yet ecclesiological considerations are crucial in any deep conception of ecclesial renewal. Our conceptions of renewal depend in part on some governing model of what the life and work of the church should be. We operate with some picture of how things really ought to be in the church at large" (3).
· If Presbyterians, Anglicans and Lutherans, with their professedly meaty ecclesiology and sacramentology, imbibe in a renewing-resurging paradigm that is Restorationist (specifically, Baptistic and Zwinglian) in its undercurrent, what will the result be?
· Will this renewal plan create cognitive dissonance in their parishioners ("Why do we act like Baptists, but sprinkle babies?")?
· Will we be turning our churches into parachurch organizations or Tupperware parties with a cross, instead of an intentionally Christian Church that is unashamedly Trinitarian and is nurtured in Word and Sacrament, with Prayer?
· By following this or that model will we be segregating our fellowship across ethnic/economic/political/chronological lines? In other words, does this particular program market to specific age groups, economic groups, racial groups etc, and exclude others who are followers of Christ (see my post on that here)?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The dates and venues for the SP Tools Junior Sprockets Days to be held throughout Queensland and New South Wales during the remainder of 2017 have been confirmed.
The Junior Sprockets program is an opportunity for youngsters between the ages of 6 and 14 years to get behind the wheel of a kart.
The Junior Sprockets beginners program is designed to provide budding young karters with the thrill and excitement of kart racing in a safe and controlled environment while being educated by professional instructors and drivers.
All karts and safety equipment are provided for the participants in the beginners section.
For the drivers who are already involved in the sport, a new element of Junior Sprockets has been developed – Junior Sprockets Plus. This element has been designed to provide those drivers who may have been in the sport for a short period of time and already understand the basics of karting.
This element focuses on driving techniques and skills to ensure to provide current licence holders with a boost in their racing while learning in their own equipment.
A total of six events across Queensland and New South Wales are scheduled throughout the remaining school holiday periods.
The Norwell Motorplex on the Gold Coast will host the opening day of the Queensland tour on Tuesday June 27. This venue will be dedicated to the beginners section of the program, no Junior Sprockets Plus section will be conducted at this day.
On Thursday June 29 the Gladstone Kart Club will host the program before the program heads further north to Townsville on Wednesday July 5.
The program will head to New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory in the September/October School Holidays at Coffs Harbour (September 26), Newcastle (September 28) and Canberra (October 3).
The cost per driver is $195, each participant in the beginners section receive a free Karting Australia practice licence. Places are limited, to secure the opportunity for your Child to be a part of the Junior Sprockets program please click here.
2017 SP Tools Junior Sprockets Program
June/July School Holidays
Tuesday 27th June – Norwell Motorplex, Gold Coast, QLD*
Thursday 29th June – Gladstone Kart Club, Gladstone, QLD
Wednesday 5th July – Townsville Kart Club, Townsville, QLD
*Junior Sprockets beginners only – no Junior Sprockets Plus
September/October School Holidays
Tuesday 26th September – Coffs Harbour Kart Racing Club, Coffs Harbour, NSW
Thursday 28th September – Newcastle Kart Racing Club, Newcastle, NSW
Tuesday 3rd October – Canberra Kart Racing Club, Canberra, ACT


text:
Santa Fe Wridgways approached Contevo with the need to increase the ROI they were receiving from their current agency and marketing budget.
Following a detailed audit, Contevo found the following key challenges:
Santa Fe Wridgways required a complete clean-up of their Google Adwords account, with a highly targeted PPC management strategy in tow. Each of the challenges identified snow-balled into the other. The small keyword list, which featured broad search terms, lacked targeting and, as a result, was causing a very high cost per lead. In addition, failure to split test terms and groups was leaving them with an inability to fully understand the performance of their search terms.
The objective presented was to increase Santa Fe Wridgway's lead generation ROI through strategic PPC management with Adwords Pay-Per-Click by at least 20%.
To meet the presented objective, the Contevo team strategised the following solutions:
The overall aim being to optimise the Adwords campaign and minimise CPA (cost per acquisition) and increase the number of qualified leads.
To implement and fulfil the solution, Contevo undertook a PPC management account refresh, with a focus on removing underperforming terms and refining the high conversion terms. The initial stages of the campaign saw the execution of Contevo's 4 step account management principles, which involve setup, campaign creation, implementation, and optimisation.
The campaign was approached with a thorough dimensional analysis, keyword expansion and refinement, creative A/B testing, and ROI focused bid adjustments.
After 4 weeks of optimisation we observed large improvements across the board.
"The team at Contevo have superseded all of our expectations since we started our engagement for a PPC strategy. We were investing a 6 digit media budget with a large digital agency and were getting OK results. Contevo were able to increase our leads by 5X for the same budget, all within a few months."
Antonino Rawbone – National Marketing Manager, Santa Fe Wridgways


text:
The dirt men are hard at work and the hole is getting deeper. The tuxedo store which served as Martin Chavez's campaign headquarters is nothing but a pile of rubble waiting to be carted off.
According to the foreman, the excavation will go down 15 feet and will be an underground parking garage for the lofts upstairs. Access will be in the rear through the alley. He estimated this phase of the project should take about 2 weeks.
These lofts, located as they are in the very heart of Nob Hill, are destined to become the benchmark to which other lofts in the area are compared. These units will set the standard and everyone else will follow.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Construction Begins on Tulane and Central
Posted by johnny_mango at 1:40 PM
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text:
after sharing his amazing photo of a young girl doffing her krampus mask in austria — one of the best kid-empowerment, female-empowerment photos i have seen in a long time — i received two wonderful e mails from the photo's maker, wolfgang böhm.
"Hi there,
I am a photo journalist and graphic designer from Austria – the very home of the Krampus as you all know. I did a lot of Krampuslauf photo series during the last weeks and while researching on the web, I came across the Philadelphia Krampuslauf.
I really really love what you are doing! It makes me happy and proud, that the Krampus inspires people so far away. Since my earliest childhood the Krampus tradition has always been a very important part of my life and I always found new approaches to participate in these wonderful tradition. Lately it has been photography. Through my work I also came in touch with various photographers in the US and when they saw my Krampus images, they all wanted an event like this in the States. So I know there are people just waiting for this to happen….
So thank you all for making the Krampus known in the US and keep on that great work!
…After reading only half way through this interview (the interview with janet and amber from Many Mouths One Stomach),I realized that you have understood the spirit of this tradition better, than most folks here in Austria who organize a Krampuslauf.
It is – or at least it should be – about community and not about show! That is how it started and this is the very core of the custom."
what an amazing start to the day.


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What To Bring
What should I bring for my child under the age of 2?
When packing a diaper bag for your child, please include the following items:
- Two or three disposable diapers (no cloth diapers please)
- Pacifier or other soothing security item
- An extra set of clothes
- Bottle of milk, formula, juice or water (This is a good practice even for mothers who nurse)
Please label all personal items with child's first and last name before arriving to child's class. This helps keep track of your child's items.


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Hot Topic: Neuroplasticity
Posted on: June 12, 2013 by Dennis Doyle, CAT(C), BAHSc, BComm
I was very fortunate to be present at the 30th International Osteopathic Symposium in Montreal last weekend, for the presentation on the topic of neuroplasticity by Dr. Michael M. Patterson, PhD.
Dr. Patterson is a prominent and internationally renowned osteopathic researcher, who previously worked in the spheres of experimental psychology and psychobiology. He has been a teacher in osteopathy since 1971, and has been engaged in neurological research since 1963. Dr. Patterson is has received a number of awards from the American Academy of Osteopathy for his contributions to osteopathic research, and is the author of over 160 publications.
In his presentation, titled "Neuroplasticity: from the synapse to the personality", Dr. Patterson spoke about the adaptability of the brain and spinal cord. He talked about the potential of our nervous system to adapt in positive and negative ways, about how this affects our pain perception, and about what it means for members of the osteopathic community. I am pleased to share it!
- Dennis Doyle, CAT(C), BAHSc, BComm
May 31, 2013 presentation by Dr. Michael Patterson, PhD on the topic of neuroplasticity:
Good morning! What a wonderful day! It is just like Florida here, same temperature, same humidity. I want to talk to you a little bit about Neuroplasticity. First, though, I wanted to remind Jean-Pierre Barral of a symposium we attended together. This was in Europe in 2005 (photo). It was a wonderful time, it was held at a winery. And then, another picture. This symposium is honouring Viola Frymann. This picture was taken in Montreal in 2002 at the gala. The theme was obviously Harry Potter. It was also a good time.
What is neuroplasticity? It is the ability of the nervous system to alter its function through alterations in its structure. Now this alteration in structure can be at a molecular level, at a whole neuron level, or at a complete system level in the brain. Let's start in the peripheral nervous system. In the peripheral nervous system, we see examples of neuroplasticity. When we have a wound, damage to the skin for example, various things are released from the damaged tissue. They cause the nociceptors, the pain receptors, to become active and send signals into the spinal cord. These nerve impulses travel in, but they also travel back out at the branches to other nociceptors. And that causes these nociceptors to become sensitized. That's why when you have a cut on your finger and you wait a little while and you tap it, it hurts. Usually that increased sensitization of the nociceptors goes away after a little while. But it can be long-lasting and lead to permanent changes in those nociceptors. But let's leave the peripheral nervous system and go into the spinal cord. There are a series of neuroplastic changes that occur in the spinal cord with sensory input. The first are habituation and sensitization. And then, a longer term change is long-term sensitization, then fixation, then cell death and neural sprouting. Most of these changes occur in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord.
Sensitization and habituation, what are they? Well, habituation (we all experience it) is the lessening of input with repeated stimulation. And sensitization is exactly the opposite, with repeated inputs, the neural activity increases. These changes occur pretty rapidly. They should occur within a few seconds of repeated inputs, and they happen within the spinal cord. What happens is, as repeated inputs occur, either there is less neurotransmitter release with each successive input, or there is more neurotransmitter release with each successive input. In the case of habituation, the interneurons lose their excitability, and so less information is transmitted into the pathways going into the brain. Each of you is now experiencing habituation. I want you to think about the feeling of the clothes on your back. Before I said that, how many of you were feeling the clothes on your back? How many of you are feeling them now? That is a process of habituation. It stops input from overwhelming us. Sensitization on the other hand, is the opposite process, where sudden inputs or repeated high level inputs cause more neurotransmitter to be released and hence more information going into the central nervous system. I'll give you an example of that: "BAM!" You're all sensitized.
I began with my post-doctoral mentor, studying these processes in the late 1960's, and this is sensitization: in a spinalized animal, with no information coming down from the brain, repeated noxious stimulation, ankle stimulation, caused the interneurons to increase their firing rate, sometimes two or three times their initial firing rate. And as long as the stimulation continues, the interneuron firing rate remains high. Once the input is stopped, the excitability of those neurons in the spinal cord decreases pretty rapidly. So this is basically a temporary process. But there is another process that begins to occur when there is this repeated noxious stimulation. This is called long-term sensitization. This occurs when you have a stimulation going on for several minutes. Once you put the input in for several minutes, and stop it, the excitability does not go back to baseline. It will drop, but it will stay above its original baseline for hours, and this is a different process. It is a cellular process in the interneurons that changes the excitability of the membranes receiving neurotransmitter. The next process is fixation. This was first described in 1939 by an Italian researcher. She found that if she made a lesion in the cerebellum of a dog, the hind limbs would draw up in a flexed position. If she let the dogs remain like that for three or four hours and then transected the spinal cord, the hind limb would remain flexed. Now, you see, when you transect the spinal cord, you cut off the descending influence from the injured cerebellum. So what has happened is, the interneurons in the spinal cord have become so hyper-excitable that they fire by themselves. And that causes the limb to remain in a flexed position. Not many people believe that this really happened, because when you transect the spinal cord, you should get a flaccid paralysis.
This phenomenon was worked on by a couple of people over the years, and I began working on it in 1979. A graduate student of mine and I looked at the data, and constructed a study to show, we thought, that it really wouldn't happen. We used a rat model, because rats are a lot less expensive than dogs, making a lesion in the cerebellum, and then waiting awhile, then sectioning the spinal cord and measuring the amount of tension generated in the hind limb. We published our first paper in 1981. We found that in these rats, the lesion in the cerebellum would cause about 20 to 25 grams of force in the hind limb. If we waited only 20 minutes before we cut the spinal cord, essentially the limb dropped to a flaccid paralysis. If we waited only 45 minutes and then cut the cord, the limb remained with a high degree of tension. Very simple study, but it showed the effect. I spent the next 20 years working on this fixation effect, and showed that it was indeed happening within the spinal cord, and we could produce it within spinalized animals, that is, with their cord already transected, by stimulating the skin of the hind limb. Not only that, but with a very high level of stimulation, we could show the effect within 15-20 minutes. So this was a neuroplasticity that occurred pretty rapidly.
Others working on this kind of phenomenon have shown that the effect is caused by gene changes within the cells of the spinal cord; that there is an upregulation of certain genes within the nerve cell that cause more receptors to be put in the cell membrane. Thus the cells become much more sensitive to any neurotransmitter that is in the area. This effect, by the way, can last for weeks, so it is a really long-term change. There is another phenomenon that we know of in the spinal cord called sprouting. When certain events happen, stimulation and so on, we can have actual shoots coming up from neurons in one level of the cord coming up and making synapses onto the cells in other levels of the cord. This primarily happens when cells in areas of the cord that receive mechanostimulation, that is stimulation from stroking or movement sprout up into the level of the cells that receive pain input. When this happens, you begin to get crosstalk between mechanoreceptor pathways and the pain pathways going up to the brain. Then, when the patient moves, he feels not only the mechanical movement but also pain. This may be a permanent change in neuroplasticity.
There is another thing that happens in the spinal cord, actually two. One is classical conditioning in the spinal cord. Classical conditioning is when you pair, put together two stimuli, one that causes essentially no reaction in the organism, and the other that causes a definite reaction in the organism. Pavlov invented classical conditioning, and he would sound a bell and then put food powder in a dog's mouth. The bell wouldn't cause any reaction in the mouth, but the food powder would cause the dog to salivate. After awhile, when you pair the bell with the food powder, the bell begins to elicit salivation. This is a very primitive form of learning. Well, a number of people before I started looking at it had tried to show that this process occurred in the spinal cord. In 1970, I began with my mentor, looking at spinal conditioning. In cats, we had a small stimulus to the paw, followed very quickly by a strong stimulus. The strong stimulus elicited a reflex response, and these were in spinalized cats where the spinal cord is cut. In 1973, we published this paper. It shows the rapid increase in response to the small stimulus when it is paired with the large stimulus. When you present the same two stimuli, but not together, you get no such increase. When you present just the small stimulus, you also get no increase. Well, that shows learning in the spinal cord, a definite neuroplasticity.
Another way of doing that is instrumental conditioning. In instrumental conditioning, you shock the paw whenever it comes down to a certain level, using an electrode that contacts the water. When the paw gets shocked, it goes back up. Pretty soon, the spinalized animal learns to hold the paw up; another example of neuroplasticity of learning in the spinal cord. So, in the spinal cord itself, we can have simple and fairly complex neuroplastic changes. But really, the question that we should ask is, can the brain be altered? Traditional thought is that no, the brain cannot be altered, it is hard-wired. While we can certainly learn things, a form of neuroplasticity, the basic function of the brain is not changeable. I want to talk about the pioneers in this area, and if you want to read some good literature on these areas, "The Telltale Brain" is a wonderful book. Ramachandran, who wrote it, is one of the pioneers I'm going to talk about. Another one is "The Brain that Changes Itself". The third book "The Mind and the Brain" is by Schwarz and Begley.
The first real pioneer that started this whole area of neuroplasticity was Edward Taub. In experiments with monkeys, he showed that by cutting the nerves from the arm of the monkey, so you take away the sensory input, the sensory cortex would undergo changes. So he really began the process of changing our thinking about how the brain functions. Another pioneer I'm going to talk about is Paul Bach-y-Rita. He was an MD, PhD. Early in his career, his father had a bad stroke. He was paralyzed; he couldn't talk, and had all kinds of other problems. Bach-y-Rita gave him intense rehabilitation over years, and he regained practically all of his function. When he died, the autopsy showed that there was tremendous permanent damage to various areas of his brain. But the rehabilitation process had allowed other areas of the brain to take over the necessary functions and allowed him to be practically normal.
One of the most interesting cases that Bach-y-Rita did was the "wobbler" case. A patient named Cheryl had an infection and was given the drug gentamicin for a long time. This drug destroyed her vestibular system. She couldn't stand up without holding onto things, she was dizzy, depressed, and it was permanent. The vestibular system, after all, is what gives us our orientation in space. Bach-y-Rita made a helmet that she put on her head, and it had an accelerometer in it. The accelerometer gave information about the position of the head. That was connected to a computer that was connected to a little plate that Bach-y-Rita had her put on her tongue. The plate had little electrodes that stimulated the various areas of her tongue. When her head was upright and still, the middle of her tongue was stimulated. When her head tilted to one side, the stimulation moved to that side of her tongue. This is the information basically that is supplied by the vestibular system. Almost immediately, she could stand up without wobbling. After wearing the helmet for a few minutes, she took it off, and she could still stand up straight for about a minute and a half. Over many sessions of wearing this helmet, the stimulation of her tongue and then taking it off, she was able to maintain the upright position steadily for hours without the helmet. They finally did away with the helmet and put the accelerometer on the tongue plate. Then people could wear this little computer and the wobbling went away.
Bach-y-Rita did the same thing with blind people. Basically he built that plate for the tongue and had a camera that was mounted on glasses. Now you see the plate, with the electrodes, stimulates the tongue with a picture of what the camera sees, and the people don't anymore sense the stimulation on the tongue, they "see" things in front of them. Brain scans show that when the tongue was stimulated in this way, the visual cortex was activated, and the people could walk along a line, they could reach out and grab things and so on. They saw. Bach-y-Rita called this "sensory substitution", and he realized the tongue was an ideal portal into the nervous system. Either vestibular, vision, or other senses could be substituted with tongue stimulation. There is a blind person with the tongue sensor (photo).
The next person is Ramachandran, who wrote one of the books that I mentioned. Ramachandran worked a lot with various disease entities, but he also worked with amputees. He realized that when you have an amputation, the sensory input from that amputated limb no longer exists. Now, in the brain, in both the sensory and motor areas, the body is mapped out on the sensory cortex. Note here (picture of sensory homunculus) the hand area is right next to the face. In an amputation situation, there is practically always a phantom limb. The person "feels" that limb. That isn't too bad, but sometimes the limb that's amputated develops pain. How do you treat that? Well, there were various types of treatments, successive amputations, and drugs, nothing worked. Go back to the diagram, and again note the face and the hand. This gentleman (photo) had an amputated forearm, and he developed a phantom on his face, of his hand. When this part of his face was touched, he felt in the amputated hand that the thumb was being touched. Ramachandran hypothesized that neurons from the face area grew into the hand area, because it wasn't being used. So he hypothesized that phantom limb pain develops because the brain is mapping the amputated hand onto a body image. Well, in looking at that, he decided that perhaps he could fool the brain and get rid of that phantom. He developed the mirror box. The box has a mirror, and you see there is the stump (photo), but you put your other hand in, and the patient sees the mirror image of that hand as though it was his amputated hand. That fools the brain into thinking there is a hand, because you see it move when you move the other hand. It appears that the pain then goes away. Again, Ramachandran's hypothesis is that because consciousness is always behind reality, because it takes about 1/16th of a second to process sensory information, the brain projects things onto a body image, not onto the actual body. By fooling the brain in the mirror box, the brain alters that image. The brain, then, believes that it has the hand.
The last pioneer I want to talk about is Pasqual- Leone. He's a fairly young guy, born in 1961. He had subjects practice playing the piano, and he did brain scans of the sensory and motor cortices. He found that with practice, the amount of cortex devoted to the fingers increased. But more startlingly, he had subjects just think about playing the piano, and they had the same increases in cortex devoted to the fingers. Again, remember the cortical maps. He found that the key ingredient for having that change in cortical area was paying attention to the task, whether you were doing it or thinking about it. So the human brain can be altered. Well, he found a school where blind people were taught by sighted teachers. The teachers, in order to experience what the blind people experienced, had blindfolds put on for five days. These were very good blindfolds, no visual information coming in. What he found with these teachers was that over that time, the visual cortex began processing tactile and auditory information. So the visual cortex, you see, can process all sorts of information, not just visual input. With humans, the visual sense is so overwhelmingly powerful, that other information is not processed in the visual cortex unless it is not receiving visual information.
How did these changes occur? We don't know for sure. But what Pasqual- Leone has found is that the changes start, and if the blindfold is taken off, they go away. But, each time the blindfold is put on and the changes occur again, they become more permanent. So it is sort of like spinal fixation. There are a couple of ways that this could occur. One is that there are pathways that are not generally used, but if you force their use, they become powerful enough to transfer information to another area of the brain. Another possibility, of course, is that we build new pathways. But some of these changes occur so rapidly that there is no way the sprouting could occur in that time. But again, with repeated trials, certainly the effect increases. So really, the changes in cortical processing power are sort of like short and long-term memory. The actual picture of our brains is that our brain processing is very plastic. It is undergoing changes all the time that we are not aware of, and our cortex is not made up of completely hard-wired and unchangeable processing centers. Our cortex is made up of sets of operational processors that can process any kind of information.
What does this mean for osteopathy? Well our sense of touch is really an overlooked sense in science, but it is very important in many functions and physiological processes in our bodies. When you palpate, you are receiving information from your patient. I think what we are seeing with this neuroplasticity of brain function suggests that your students should mentally practice palpation and the moves for manipulation. After all, they can do that at home, alone. The more they do it, the more they will be in touch with that information and processing it better in all kinds of areas of the brain. Interestingly enough, a rather radical suggestion, would be to teach students palpation blindfolded so that they begin to route this tactile information to more areas of the brain and increase the processing power.
Our brains change, but I don't! Thank you very much.


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In a seminar course required of students in my doctoral program, we spent a day on problem solving and creativity. Professor John Nash took us through an exercise that originated with the Stanford d.school where we used problem solving and then design thinking to create the perfect wallet for a student partner.
Our exercise included:
- Interviewing a partner to engage them and gather insights about wallet use
- Defining and articulating a point of view based on the interview insights
- Sketching new alternatives based on the point of view
- Testing ideas with our partner to gather feedback
- Acting on the feedback and building a wallet prototype from art supplies


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Every Filipino aspires to have a financially secured future. We doubt that there's anyone here who wants to be plagued by debt and unpaid bills. Indeed, parents encourage their kids to save as much as they can to avoid this situation. But for one angry netizen, all the hard-earned money she saved was stolen from her.
Paying for our family's basic needs, like food, water, electricity, and clothes, is a tough responsibility. This is why this angry netizen decided to save PHP 4,000 from her monthly income. She hid her savings inside a bamboo alkansya or piggy bank that would only be broken in case of an emergency.
MORE FROM OUR WEBSITE: Boyfriend's heart-rending letter to this girlfriend will leave you in tears
This woman named "Krissel" became financially responsible after watching an episode from "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho." She used the PHP 5,000 she found in her wallet as the "initial deposit," then added PHP 2,000 every payday. The discipline this woman showed was admirable because she didn't allow herself to open it under any circumstance.
"I suffered many times. Pag kinakapos ako, natutukso akong buksan pero I stopped myself as much as I can."
MORE FROM OUR WEBSITE: Ellie Jones had pioneering jaw and dental surgery, it changed her life
But when the time came to open the piggy bank, this unfortunate netizen was heartbroken to find out that it was all gone. Someone stole her money and only left PHP 120 in its place. The angry netizen shared how upsetting the situation was. It was as if her pain and suffering benefitted someone else instead of her.
"Halos di na ako kumakaen sa trabaho para makaipon. Hindi bumibili ng mga luho pero sana ginastos ko na lang. Iyak na lang ang nagagawa ko. Nakakasama ng loob! Nagipon pala ako para sa ibang tao!"
Check out her full Facebook post below:
Here are also some of the netizens' reactions to her post:
MORE FROM OUR WEBSITE: Heart Evangelista was supposed to have twins! Here's what happened!


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Today is a good day to make some gloves. I'm hoping for similar weather next week for the show, I have a feeling people will be more willing to buy knit items when it's chilly out rather than 70 degrees.
I do finish the rainbow shawlette and will post picks once I get the ends woven in. So until then here are some shots of the yellow gloves from the past two days.


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Latest Writings
As my newest book (((Semitism))) heads to market, look here for my most recent work, especially on Judaism, hate, and the rise of white nationalism in the era of Trump.
Moment Magazine interview:
Did you intend the book to sound critical of Jews?
This book is very hard on Jews, and I did that intentionally. There are too many Jews who have taken themselves out of the public sphere. They are so comfortable in their upper-middle-class to affluent positions that they have chosen to rationalize away the hatred or the bigotry surrounding them because they don't want to make waves. I dedicated an entire chapter to what I call "the Israel diversion." Jews love to argue, but most of our arguments are now about Israel. There are liberal Jews and conservative Jews, there is J Street and there is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—they all sit around and argue about Israel. Meanwhile, many Jews don't even see what has happened in the society that we live in. We've lost touch with our obligations to it.
What's your advice for the American Jewish community to fight the pervasive hatred?
Stop obsessing about Israel. Start looking around at what is happening in your own country. Reach out to Muslim groups, immigrant groups, civil rights groups. Use the muscle, know-how and resources of the Jewish community to thwart the rise of this new Internet-savvy hate.
When the Right Pushes Fake Jews
Bernie Bernstein pretty much fits the mold of a Jew — at least as the alt-right sees us.
A strange Northeastern accent, somewhere between New York and Boston? Check. Tossing money, but not too much money, around to no good end (remember, we're rich, but cheap)? Check. Pursuing the agenda of the liberal fake-news media? Check. Riling the worst instincts of the South's conservative base? Check.
But there was something a little too on the nose, forgive me please, about those robocalls in Alabama from a mythical Washington Post reporter named Bernstein seeking women to dish dirt on Roy Moore, something too "Jewy" to be actually Jewish. And that's where the rising anti-Semitism of the new white nationalists loses its punch.
The Nazi Tweets of 'Trump God Emperor'
THE first tweet arrived as cryptic code, a signal to the army of the "alt-right" that I barely knew existed: "Hello ((Weisman))." @CyberTrump was responding to my recent tweet of an essay by Robert Kagan on the emergence of fascism in the United States.
"Care to explain?" I answered, intuiting that my last name in brackets denoted my Jewish faith.
"What, ho, the vaunted Ashkenazi intelligence, hahaha!" CyberTrump came back. "It's a dog whistle, fool. Belling the cat for my fellow goyim." With the cat belled, the horde was unleashed.
The anti-Semitic hate, much of it from self-identified Donald J. Trump supporters, hasn't stopped since.


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Many people assume that receiving care in their own home could be beyond their financial means. By carrying out a little research and utilising resources available, your options will become easier to understand.
You may be eligible to receive help with funding care in your own home from the Government. You have the right to request a free care assessment from your local Social Services department; this can include a community care assessment and a means-tested financial assessment to see if you are eligible to receive support with the cost of your care.
Be aware that you are not obliged to use Social Services choice of provider if you do qualify for funding and can request Direct Payment funding at any time. This allows you the freedom to choose your preferred supplier of care.
If you have been assessed as needing care services, you may be offered Direct Payments; if not then you are entitled to request Direct Payments. As part of this arrangement you will receive payments directly from your local council which will allow you to choose your own care provider. These payments are designed to support you to remain living at home as well as encourage independence and social inclusion in areas such as employment, education, leisure activities and accessing the community.
Central Government is looking to increase the number of people who receive direct payments, allowing more people access to the benefits that they bring. If you are considered eligible for support with funding your local council are duty bound to consider direct payments as an option, instead of making decisions on your behalf.
The direct payment system allows you to:
Your first point of contact should be your local social services dept, which will send a social worker to assess your care needs. Provided they find that you are eligible to receive help from social services, you are then entitled to ask to receive direct payments to choose your own care provider rather than social services deciding for you.Eligible individuals include:
As well as giving you the option of receiving a direct payment, social services may offer their own in-house support services.They may also refer you to an independent living support group to help you set your care up.
The type of services recommended by the council will likely be from a list of local domiciliary care providers approved list that can be obtained online or from your council's 'adult social care team.
You are also entitled to enlist the help of a responsible individual of your choosing, which may be a close friend or relative, to help you manage the direct payment scheme.
As you are effectively choosing and purchasing your own services you can top up your direct payment to receive additional services. This allows you to, buy your care from the organisation you prefer and organise services in addition to those your local council assessed for.
For further information on Direct Payments you can talk to us, or download the Dept. of Health's guide to Direct Payments.
Funded by Central Government, the Independent Living Fund supports people with disabilities to live independently in their own homes, rather than in residential care.
Payments are made to people with disabilities so they can afford the employment costs, or associated employment costs of a personal assistant or care agency to provide the support they need to remain living at home.
If you are not eligible for state funding, or would simply prefer to fund your care privately, you will need to source your care independently. Faced with so many different options this can become both a time-consuming and overwhelming task.
Please be aware that even though you don't qualify for state funding, Social Services may offer to organise care on your behalf.
You may end up paying Social Services more per hour than if you engaged an independent care provider direct.
For example one London Borough in the South West charges its citizens £18.20 per hour and then contracts out to the independent sector at £13.50 per hour. If you went straight to the independent provider it would only cost you between £14.50 and £15.50 per hour.
If you are looking for support with financial planning, we would recommend that you contact a Financial Advisor (FA) specialising in Care advice. They can discuss options such as:
Whether your care is funded through private or public funds, Safehands Care makes no distinction and will deliver the highest quality home care service tailored to your individual requirements.
If you would like to receive a quote for your care at home service based on your individual care needs, please contact your local office.
Safehands can help you click here


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No new voters inclusion after March 22
Haryana chief electoral officer Shrikant Walgad on Friday said that the law did not allow inclusion of names in the electoral roll after 3 pm on the last date of filing of nominations - March 22, 2014 - till the electoral process would be complete in the state.punjab Updated: Mar 07, 2014 21:04 IST
Haryana chief electoral officer Shrikant Walgad on Friday said that the law did not allow inclusion of names in the electoral roll after 3 pm on the last date of filing of nominations - March 22, 2014 - till the electoral process would be complete in the state.
He said that elector photo identity card (EPIC) was only an identity document and did not confer the right of vote on a person whose name was not there in the electoral roll. He said that all persons were advised that they must check their names in electoral rolls and the facility of checking was provided on the website of chief electoral officer, Haryana, www.ceoharyana.nic.in.
The facility to check the names in electoral rolls through SMS had also been provided by typing SMS VOTEHRY <space>voter card number and sending it to 9215156503, he added.
He said that as per the directions of the Election Commission of India, a special camp would be organised at all polling stations in Haryana on March 9, 2014 (Sunday) between 9 am to 5 pm for this purpose.
He said that in this camp, booth level officers (BLOs) would be present in their booth along with electoral rolls, so that people could check their names in the electoral rolls. If the name of any person eligible to be enrolled was left out for some reason or had been wrongly deleted, he could immediately fill application Form-6 for inclusion of name in electoral roll and hand it over to the BLO. All persons who attained 18 years on January 1, 2014 were eligible to register as voters, he added.
Candidates can carry cash upto Rs 50,000: Walgad
Walgad held a meeting with representatives of various political parties to discuss issues concerning model code of conduct, limit and procedure to incur election expenditure and other related details to be followed during elections.
Walgad apprised the representatives of political parties that the contesting candidates would have to open a separate bank account for elections. All transactions of election expenditure would have to be carried out through cheques using the same account.
During elections, the limit in cash dealing with any person, firm or organisation was up to Rs 20,000 for the candidates, he said and added that besides, the candidate would have to maintain a shadow register for each and every transaction.
He said that a candidate could carry cash up to only Rs 50,000 and election material amounting up to `10,000. The cash or material exceeding these limits would be confiscated. Apart from candidate, if any other person carries cash or expensive goods related to his business or trade then he should have necessary documents otherwise it would also be confiscated by the Commission, he added.
First Published: Mar 07, 2014 21:00 IST


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Naperville, Illinois
Naperville Fire Department
c/o IOS Recruitment
Phone: 800-343-HIRE
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: http://recruitment.iosolutions.com
Starting Salary: $62,323.34
Population: approx 150,000
Sworn Officers: 200+
Application Deadline: 9/1/16 @ 4:00 PM
The City of Naperville will be conducting an open, competitive examination for the position of Firefighter/Paramedic on October 1, 2016.
The City of Naperville, Illinois is a dynamic community of approximately 150,000 residents, located 28 miles west of Chicago. Money Magazine named Naperville as the second best city in the United States in which to live. We have gained national recognition for our family-friendly environment, excellent schools and library system, low crime rate and vibrant downtown area. Our municipal government employs nearly 1,000 dedicated individuals in a wide range of job categories.
The Naperville Fire Department is responsible for protecting approximately 150,000 residents (daytime population of 200,000) living in a 50 square mile area. A nationally accredited agency, the Naperville Fire Department's mission is to safeguard the lives and property of the citizens of Naperville. This is accomplished by providing professional, quality fire prevention and public education programs as well as effective and efficient fire suppression, emergency medical, rescue and other emergency services.
Over the past two decades, the Naperville Fire Department has experienced rapid growth. The fire department has ten fire stations in operation. Currently, the department employs more than 200 personnel. The department is manned 24 hours per day and operates six front line engines, one heavy rescue squad, eight front line paramedic ambulances, three front line ladder trucks, and two front line battalion chief vehicles.
The Naperville Fire Department expects to hire approximately 15 - 20 firefighter/paramedics in the next two years.
The annual starting salary for a Naperville firefighter/paramedic is currently $62,323.34.
Firefighter Minimum Requirements:
Testing Information:
Attend Orientation and Written Exam:
Saturday, October 1, 2016
North Central College
171 E. Chicago Avenue
Naperville, IL 60540
Candidates should arrive with valid photo identification (valid Driver's License or State ID) to sign in no later than 8:00 a.m.
To Apply:
Click on Job Applications,
then Fire Job Applications to find Naperville FD's application.
A $32.00 non-refundable fee is required to purchase the application.
Any questions please contact IOS Recruitment at:
Do you need to finish your degree?
Click Here for a list of all our college programs
Return to the Featured Department List
6289 6/6/16-9/1/16


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SOURCE: Cloud Sherpas
December 18, 2013 07:30 ET
Confirmation Creates New Opportunities for Cloud Sherpas With UK Government Agencies
Confirmation Creates New Opportunities for Cloud Sherpas With UK Government Agencies
ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired - Dec 18, 2013) - Cloud Sherpas has been selected for the UK government G-cloud iv initiative. This will enable Cloud Sherpas to help more UK government agencies transition to and use cloud-based business software. Cloud Sherpas has been selected for the G-cloud iv Specialist Cloud Services category.
G-cloud was founded three years ago as part of the UK government's ICT strategy. Public sector organizations can procure cloud software and services directly through the CloudStore, which today includes over 13,000 services from 1,183 suppliers in categories such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, Software as a Service and Specialist Cloud Services. According to a G-Cloud blog post from mid October, the G-Cloud Store had processed over 50 million GBP in sales, one of the highest monthly marks to date.
A global cloud advisory and technology services firm, Cloud Sherpas has experienced tremendous growth in the UK over the past year. The company, which offers a range of services built around enterprise cloud software products from salesforce.com, Google and ServiceNow, announced in September that it had over 70 full-time employees in the UK and planned to double that number within 12 months. Cloud Sherpas has contracts with dozens of UK enterprise clients. Selection for the G-cloud iv framework will enable the firm to grow its UK public sector business.
"Cloud Sherpas is very excited to have achieved this prestigious recognition and to expand our relationships with UK government agencies," said Colin Robinson, VP Consulting at Cloud Sherpas. "There is a growing realization that cloud technologies can be leveraged effectively by government, and our experience with government agencies already in UK, Australia, and US has demonstrated how these technologies can be rapidly deployed. Participation within the G-cloud iv framework will make it simpler for government agencies to work with Cloud Sherpas."
About Cloud Sherpas
Cloud Sherpas is a global cloud advisory and technology services company, with over 700 people serving Fortune 500 clients and thousands of other businesses around the world. Our experts provide unrivaled cloud strategy, implementation and integration capabilities, having successfully worked with clients across all industries. Cloud Sherpas is a Platinum salesforce.com partner, the two-time Google Enterprise Partner of the Year for Google Apps and a ServiceNow Preferred partner, making the firm one of the world's leading cloud services brokerages. With a track record of over 5,000 successful cloud implementations, Cloud Sherpas has helped businesses become more connected and collaborative, better manage their customer relationships, and streamline their IT processes. Cloud Sherpas is headquartered in Atlanta, GA with offices throughout the United States and operations in Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. For more information visit www.cloudsherpas.com.
Media contact:
Kevin Wolf
TGPR+1-650-327-1641Email Contact
Media contact:
Kevin Wolf
TGPR+1-650-327-1641Email Contact
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Okowa Advocates New Approach to Information Dissemination
29 October 2016 National
Delta State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa has advocated a new approach to the process of disseminating government information.
Governor Okowa who spoke at the 46th National Council on Information held in Asaba on Friday said he has observed that while Ministry of Information is the officially designated mouth piece of government, other government appointees give out contradictory pronouncements.
The Delta Governor said such practice leads to confusion in the minds of the public and loss of confidence in government information machinery.
In a related development, the Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed has charged State Ministries of information to be proactive in promoting the change Mantra of the Federal government.
The Minister disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the 46th National Council on information which ends in Asaba today.
He enjoined his colleagues in the information management to use their skills to correct the worry perception of the international communities about Nigeria.
Lai Mohammed said perception is not the realistic way of life and appealed to Nigerians to embrace 'The Change Beings with Me' Campaign of the Buhari administration.
The 46th National Council on information Council Meeting is being attended by Commissioners and Directors of Information from the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
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Quest 93.1 FM Delta Stae, Lai Mohammed, Ministry of Information, National Council on Information, Okowa


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This tour is the first to be played under England's triple captaincy system and Cook hands over the leadership to Stuart Broad for the three-match Twenty20 series against Pakistan, which begins here on Thursday and ends in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Cook was added to the Twenty20 squad at the end of the 50-over series as cover for an injury to Ravi Bopara, but his two centuries in the one-day matches against Pakistan must have made his form impossible to ignore with so many batsmen still struggling to come to terms with the conditions.
Broad insisted he did not feel threatened by Cook's presence and reiterated he is here as cover. Bopara, who missed the final one-dayer with back and hamstring injuries, took a full part in a voluntary net session on Wednesday, suggesting he is fit to play. Broad revealed other players were suffering from niggles but refused to give further details, an obtuseness which suggests England are trying to figure out how to balance a team featuring Cook.
If he plays it makes sense that he opens but Alex Hales, the Nottinghamshire batsman, has travelled with the team for the past couple of weeks simply to play in the Twenty20 matches. He has opened the innings four times with Craig Kieswetter, a powerful strokeplayer briefed to provide a flying start. England could be tempted to shift Kieswetter down to bat at five, where he played a crucial knock in the final one-day match, which would open the opportunity to play Cook at the top of the order.
Broad admitted England are considering asking Kevin Pietersen to reprise his role as an opener which he performed so successfully in the one-day series.
"Cooky is keen to play T20 cricket and he has made that pretty obvious," said Broad. "Whatever you challenge him with he can adapt his game and change his style. He has not played a huge amount of Twenty20 cricket for Essex so it is hard to gauge whether he is a good Twenty20 player but you can see from his ODI form he has developed scoring areas and shots and he has played some fantastic one-day innings for us. A lot of this game is mental and he is a strong mental character who can adjust his game to any format."
Cook has played 33 matches in the shorter format, four for England, and has a strike rate in county cricket of 129.90, only five below Twenty20 specialist Hales. He has adapted his game this winter and, as a player who has consistently proved critics wrong and shown a determination to succeed, England have realised it would be foolish to rule him out of a particular format of the game.
The split captaincy model was a result of initial concerns over Cook's suitability for Twenty20 cricket. Andy Flower, the team director, realises the situation is not ideal and if Cook had proved his Twenty20 mettle in the past Broad would not be captain of this team.
But Flower's presence ensures the transition from one captain to another should be smooth. Injury has restricted Broad to only two matches as captain since taking over at the start of last summer and with just seven competitive Twenty20 games before England defend their World Cup title in Sri Lanka in September, this series offers a brief window to work on tactics.


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Screenplay by James Lapine; musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim
By Neil Gaiman
A publisher told me, over 25 years ago, that she and her friend had attended "Into The Woods" on Broadway, but left at the interval. Given that all the stories had ended happily, she said, what point was there in staying?
The point was that in James Lapine's cunning story, he and Stephen Sondheim took a handful of fairy tales and then followed those stories past the Ever After into the world of consequences and adulthood, and they repeat the journey here. British peasants, New York aristocrats, Meryl Streep witching it.
I miss a little of the stage production's darkness. The wolf's "Hello Little Girl" is no longer a song of seduction: I don't know what things Red Riding Hood knows that she didn't know before, for she and Jack are children from start to finish.
When treated with respect, fairy tales tell great truths, and mean whatever you need them to mean: In 1987, I saw the nuclear clock in the giant's wife and "The Last Midnight;" this time I saw the Twin Towers falling.
Fairy tales are magic mirrors, and so are Sondheim's songs, and so is Lapine's wise confection, which is better than it needs to be and better than we deserve.
Neil Gaiman is an internationally bestselling author of books for adults and children. The recipient of numerous awards, his works, among them "Stardust" and "Coraline," have been adapted for film, television, stage and radio.
Screenplay: Andrew Bovell; novel: John Le Carre
By Valerie Plame
The smoky haze of too many cigarettes. Booze at hand and used too often. Bone-chilling damp endured under leaden skies. The constant calculating to outwit colleagues and opponents alike. Chronic stress and waiting — always the waiting.
The melancholy atmosphere of "A Most Wanted Man" captures the essence of real-life intelligence operations in ways that other films claiming to depict spy stories never can, with their heavy reliance on guns, slick technology and seductive women. As spymaster of an off-the-books German intelligence team tasked with finding radical Islamic terrorists and a disastrous operation in his past, Philip Seymour Hoffman embodies the world-weary and morally conflicted spy that Le Carre depicts so brilliantly in his novels. (This film was based on Le Carre's 2008 novel of the same name.)
As a former covert CIA ops officer with experience working at the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons, I watched "A Most Wanted Man" as I do all spy movies — waiting for the moment when the film veers off into the ridiculous and unreal. To my astonishment, it never happened. Intelligence collection from human sources is fraught with judgment calls, collateral damage, and the gnawing fear that you are somehow missing a critical piece of the mosaic. When pressed for the operation's ultimate objective, Hoffman's character gives the only acceptable answer "to make the world a safer place." But at what cost to both the soul and the state?
Valerie Plame is a former covert CIA ops officer. She is author (with Sarah Lovett) of the Vanessa Pierson spy thrillers, including "Burned," which was published in October.
Screenplay by Damien Chazelle
By Lars Ulrich
Like all great movies, "Whiplash" has a universal theme, one which most people can bend into something they relate to on a personal level. The story is set against a Juilliard-like music school in Manhattan. The apprentice, Andrew, ends up going one-on-one with his music teacher, Fletcher.
"Whiplash" is, at heart, a story about the love/hate relationships that all of us continuously walk on edge with in most aspects of our life. Andrew is you and me in any situation where we want to succeed. Fletcher is fear and inspiration, your dream and nightmare. It is seasoned versus green, master and apprentice, the future and the past.
The dramatic arc and the choice of Damien Chazelle's words leave everything that these characters are articulating feeling inherently natural, organic and impulsive. Nothing feels labored over or contrived and the dialogue has an improvised feel to it. In Andrew, Chazelle has given realization to a character born of his own real-life experiences. He has lived many of these scenes, and through his character, Chazelle speaks for the many who still do. It is the brilliance of his writing, the clarity in bringing Andrew from his own adolescence to the movie screen, which makes "Whiplash" so refreshingly visceral and the most vital film of 2014.
Drummer Lars Ulrich is co-founder of Metallica and co-writer of most of the band's most ubiquitous hits, including "Enter Sandman," "Master of Puppets," "One" and "Fade to Black."
Screenplay by Richard Linklater
By Jay and Mark Duplass
We've committed much shameless fawning over Richard Linklater throughout our career, and just when we thought we'd grown up and maybe figured it's time to slow down, "Boyhood" happened. Rick did nothing less than invent a new cinematic form by shooting over the course of 12 years, but what makes him so special is that he's not simply rebelling against classical cinema. Rick studies the rules, and breaks them just right.
Never before have we experienced such a profound impact from scenes that are as banal as in "Boyhood," and therein lies the genius: a boy nervously changes schools and his new classmate is friendly with him, a boy plays chase with his sister and father without tragic consequence, a boy hikes to a potentially dangerous cliff's edge and simply comes to a disillusioning observation.
Why do we care so deeply about a collection of scenes flying well under the radar of typical cinematic high stakes? Perhaps because Linklater has sneakily lowered the dramatic bar to the scale of everyday American life. What's at stake throughout 180 pages of "Boyhood" is the well-being of a child, and for us, it turns out nothing else is quite as epic.
Jay and Mark Duplass's previous film credits include "Baghead," "The Puffy Chair," "Cyrus" and "Jeff, Who Lives at Home."
Screenplay by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
By John Ridley
While no act of violence can ever truly considered to be minor, writers E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman have taken an odd, forgotten corner of sporting history and rendered it in the most vibrant of manners.
There is a confidence in the writing of "Foxcatcher." It is not a script that is in love with the sound of its own voice. Rather, it feels as though it is truly rendered by writers who understand the potency of carefully chosen words. It allows space for the nuance of performance when needed, but is equally prosaic when required.
There is a cohesion of voice presented on the page fashioned by expert writers who are both passionate about the subject matter, but who present it with a studied objectivity. The viewer is asked not to judge, but to experience.
And in what is shaping up to be yet another strong year in cinematic storytelling, the experience Frye and Futterman have crafted in their screenplay — the foundation from which the film was made — is nothing short of compelling from start to finish.
Novelist and screenwriter John Ridley is in production on "American Crime," a drama series he created, that will premiere on ABC next spring. He wrote and directed Jimi Hendrix biopic "All Is by My Side." His screen adaptation of "12 Years a Slave" received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award.
Screenplay by Alejandro G. Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bo
By Richard Greenberg
In "Birdman" the theater as a physical plant is an impossible construction, largely subterranean, a dank, confounding catacombs with rooms off it. Try one door and you're blasted into the Times Square darkness; look to the side and there's a guy playing the movie's drum score. Another door shoots you into the middle of a scene, mid-rehearsal or mid-performance — either way, you're unprepared for it.
"Birdman" is as disobliging with transitions as your dreams are.
It's a witty conceit of this thoroughly witty, vertigo-inducing movie that the play in fevered rehearsal is an adaptation of short stories by Raymond Carver and seems to be aiming for what used to be called "kitchen-sink naturalism." And the story without the story, when you get to it, turns out to be a pretty classic backstage tale: Slightly defunct movie superstar looks to the theater for redemption. He has a wry but fond ex-wife on whom he cheated; a sullen, neglected daughter with whom he's trying to rebuild a relationship; and, as savior/nemesis, a last-minute hotshot co-star who is hilariously and terrifyingly the incarnation of every clinical narcissist who ever set foot on a stage, right down to those strategically timed moments when he wins your sympathy by revealing that he, too, is a Lost and Frightened Soul.
There are times when working in the theater is delightful: the people surrounding you kind and brilliant, the work stimulating, the result well-received. "Birdman" is about those other times, when grandiosity consorts with shame and the option seems transfiguration or death. Desperation and weariness and ambition infuse the movie's every dazzling performance—and every performance in the movie is dazzling.
Richard Greenberg won the Tony Award for best play for "Take Me Out." His other plays include "Eastern Standard," "Three Days of Rain," and the Broadway adaptation of "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
Screenplay by David Ayer
By Nick Stafford
What stays with me is a protracted sequence — not one of the visceral battle scenes — set in a German town conquered by the tank crew with whom we empathize.
Some of the crew are luring a German woman in to the tank for sex in exchange for chocolate and cigarettes.
Their leader — who is publicly pragmatic but privately tortured about the dehumanizing toll of combat brutality — spots a movement at an upstairs window. He grabs his gun and his naïve protégé and they head up there.
The German female they find may be terrified of being raped, or she may be hiding someone; it's an ambush. We fear that one of our characters will be killed. But no, what they unearth is a younger, prettier German woman. Now we fear that the leader may force the women to have sex, or even commit an atrocity. To our relief, he instead instigates a surprising outbreak of civilization.
But then the rest of our empathetic characters arrive, drunk, and we fear the worst; for the women, but also for the men, because if they succumb to brutality off the battlefield as well as on it, then they are lost. Masterful drama.
Nick Stafford adapted "War Horse" for the stage. He is working with Jerome Salle and Eric Jehelmann on "Miracle Hands," a WWII film about a healer forced to work for the SS. His spec "Sonia" made Screen Daily's 2014 Brit List and has been picked up by Francois Ivernel.
Screenplay by Wes Anderson; story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
By Jan Novak
Wes Anderson builds his Grand Budapest Hotel in an imaginary land. Zubrowka does not seem to be product placement for the eponymous Polish vodka, the urine-colored Bison Grass hooch. This Zubrowka, once the seat of a great empire, has survived the Nazis and nationalizations and lies "on the Eastern rim of the European continent," which could be rough, but thankfully Zubrowka encompasses the Alps and English is warbled there with scary eloquence.
In "Budapest," Anderson meticulously erects his artifice and ravishes reality with similar abandon.
He moves from one movie template to another, a prison break, a paintings swap, a chase so playful two characters pursue an Alpine skier on a sled, follow him down a ski jump and stick the landing. There is a relay of narrators passing the story baton along flawlessly and, periodically, pure literature erupts as the narrator du jour describes the action, pausing just long enough for the characters to chime in their lines.
Anderson credits Stefan Zweig with the inspiration for his screenplay, but the spirit loitering around the Grand Budapest Hotel is not the Austrian psychologist of elegant regret, rather it's Charlie Chaplin, one eye watching out for cigar butts, the other for Gustave H., the concierge's concierge, "who is the reason people come to the Grand Budapest Hotel," especially the lovelorn ladies in their 80s and 90s.
Jan Novak is a Czech-born writer and documentary filmmaker whose voice broke in Chicago. He lives in Prague where he commutes between languages and media.
Screenplay by Jason Dean Hall; book by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen, Jim DeFelice
By David Finkel
I write books, not screenplays. But movies, and especially war movies, have taught me some things I try to bring to my work, the most important of which is that the best war stories aren't about war. Rather, they use war to tell an even larger story about the people within it. Those are the war stories that might achieve greatness.
I say this as I am in the midst of watching "American Sniper." It's on pause because I know that what comes next is going to tell me whether this is a good movie or a bad movie, and by bad I mean sentimental, romanticized, and ultimately dishonest. The first 28 minutes have been exquisite. I like the characters, and I like the writing. I like the moment the movie has arrived at and the way it has arrived here. I don't want to give away what has just happened. Suffice it to say that the main character has just had to make a decision about whether to pull a trigger and kill someone for the first time, and I know from my own reporting, from being with soldiers as they have decided to do something or to not do something, that the consequences will be profound and begin immediately. So goes the truth of war on the people within it.
But what happens to truth in a movie — this movie — in which the main character has arrived at that critical moment afterward, the moment of a first uttered word, or maybe just a first breath because no word is yet possible? What will the writer's decision be to describe such a moment? Will this be a good movie or a dishonest one?
As they say in the worst movies — another lesson I've learned — I'll be right back.
I'm back. It was better than good. The "American Sniper" turns out to be not just a sniper.
It was greatness.
David Finkel is a journalist whose awards include a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur "genius" fellowship. He is the author of two books about war, "The Good Soldiers" and "Thank You for Your Service."
Screenplay by Dan Gilroy
By Scott Frank
I could listen to this movie all day long. Every time Lou Bloom opens his mouth, I want to rewind and hear him say it again. Bloom is one of those characters that you watch and nod your head, not just because his psychopathy reminds you of someone you know, but because you can't help it. And while it's easy to compare him to Travis Bickle or Rupert Pupkin, I would argue that Bloom is more musical.There is a kind of rhythm to every exchange in this movie that delivers a pleasure that is increasingly rare in movies these days: it's as much fun to listen to as it is to watch. I'm not talking about "jokes," but some of the tangiest dialogue I've heard in a long time.
There's a scene in the middle of it all that is both a set piece and a kind of template for the entire film. Just two people sitting at a table in a restaurant having dinner. Sure, one of them happens to be trying to extort sex out of the other one, but more than the f***ed up audacity of what Bloom is saying, the scene plays like a cinematic "Freebird." When it starts, you think you're slow dancing, but by the end of it, you're just standing there listening to the insane, hypnotic riffs.
Good stuff.
Scott Frank's screenplays include "Out of Sight" and "Get Shorty." He recently adapted and directed "A Walk Among the Tombstones."
Screenplay by Anthony McCarten; book by Jane Hawking ("Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen")
By David Seidler
William Makepeace Thackeray — admittedly no longer a household name — wrote "Bravery never goes out of fashion." In terms of a film industry dependent on the safe and familiar, he was wrong.
That's why it's exhilarating to see a truly adult film, "The Theory of Everything" with an elegant, witty, compassionate script by Anthony McCarten that centers on the complex relationship between Stephen and Jane Hawking.
Everyone thought I was bonkers for writing a movie about a man who stuttered. But I can't imagine being confronted with the challenge of "Everything."
All right, McCarten, your leading man is a world famous physicist no one can understand. He's also bloody difficult to watch. For the second half he's a quadriplegic who cannot speak without using a robotic voice. But he has a lot of love scenes.
Any writer who tackles that is brave. Or daft. With oak leaf clusters.
The resulting film avoids being mawkish and is immensely satisfying.
Absence of fear is not bravery, merely lack of imagination. True bravery is being afraid, but proceeding anyway. I'm sure everyone involved in "The Theory of Everything" was terrified.
Hopefully they'll be rewarded for their bravery.
David Seidler is a screenwriter, playwright and TV writer. He won a BAFTA and an Academy Award for his original screenplay "The King's Speech."
Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan
By Michio Kaku
"Interstellar" is not your typical swashbuckling space opera, which thrills audiences by gleefully trampling over the laws of physics. No, like "2001: A Space Odyssey" before it, "Interstellar" asks haunting, almost existential questions about humanity and our final destiny, writ large on the canvas of space and time.
The movie begins with a bleak Midwestern landscape, where the last vestiges of a near-extinct humanity scratch a pitiful existence from the soil. The last hope for this dying race is to find astronauts brave enough to enter a mysterious wormhole, a gateway through space-time, to reboot humanity in another galaxy. But at the movie's core lies a question: "Can a man's love for his daughter survive a journey through time? What if they are separated not by continents, but by decades, each aging at different rates?"
Masterfully, Jonathan and Christopher Nolan do not sacrifice any of the Einsteinian science while treating the audience to stunning visual effects. (Wormholes are becoming a staple of sci-fi movies, but this is the first movie to give us the most mathematically faithful portrayal of a journey through one.) At the end, the Nolans even go beyond Einstein, entering the bizarre world of higher dimensions, hyperspace and string theory (my specialty).
For me, as a physicist, this was one movie I could enjoy without cringing. For the moviegoer, it will be a cosmic journey that will dazzle the imagination and our senses.
Michio Kaku — theoretical physicist, bestselling author, acclaimed public speaker, renowned futurist, and popularizer of science. As co-founder of String Field Theory, Kaku carries on Einstein's quest to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into a single grand unified theory of everything.
Screenplay by Nick Hornby; book by Cheryl Strayed
By Jess Walter
This "Wild" is a beautiful thing: haunting, honest, profound.
And it gave me an idea: I should write a book in which I propose there are two ways to adapt a book into a film.
The first I'll call the Bob Seger ("What to leave in; what to leave out" — "Against the Wind"), where a team of writers cuts a lot, adds a little, combines some characters, changes the "slightly doughty housewife" to "a sexy ex-spy," and answers endless rounds of notes ("What if she's still a spy?").
The second I'll call the Bob Dylan ("Behind every beautiful thing, there's been some kind of pain." — "Not Dark Yet"). In the workshops I'll teach ($4,000 per person, no refunds) I will admit I don't have a clue how to do the Dylan, except to convey the actual pain (or joy) behind the beautiful thing.
Thankfully, I will have an example of the Dylan Method to show: "Wild."
"Wild" features most of the elements those endless notes are supposed to weed out — solitude, regret, obsession, subtlety, memory. Time swirls and loops, and emotion is expressed in monologue, in voiceover, in the quiet contemplation of nature. "Finish the sentence," Cheryl tells her ex-husband, launching the story. "Why do I have to walk a thousand miles?"
That's the kind of suspense that drives real life, and which comes to us in this film through moments of unexpected kindness, revelations of sorrow, songs that stick in our heads, and ultimately, an earned grace.
We use the word "faithful" to describe a proper adaptation. Faith isn't a thing to screw around with. People loved the book because they connected with Cheryl Strayed's journey, with her self-destruction and salvation. This script and film take that journey along a new, vital and lovely path.
"You can put yourself in the way of beauty," Cheryl's mother says to her in the film. Which brings me back to my first thought: This "Wild" is a beautiful thing.
Jess Walter is the author of eight books, most recently, the New York Times No. 1 bestseller, "Beautiful Ruins," and the story collection "We Live in Water."
Screenplay by Joel & Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson; book by Laura Hillenbrand
By Graham Yost
A third of the way into "Unbroken," a B-24 crashes into the ocean and the three survivors of the crash — Louis Zamperini (the hero of this true WWII story), his buddy Phil and another man, Mac — are adrift in life rafts on the immense and pitiless Pacific. It's clear from the first that Mac will be the problem — the one who says, "We're all going to die!" then eats the rest of their precious chocolate while the other two sleep. We've seen that guy before, that situation. But, as Mac's story unfolds, it becomes a remarkable story of betrayal, forgiveness and redemption.
Despite the persistent urging of family and friends, I didn't read Laura Hillenbrand's celebrated book (when it came out I'd had my fill of reading true WWII stories, especially ones set in the Pacific), so I don't know if Mac's story, as presented in the movie, is factual, or indeed whether Mac existed or is one of those "composite" characters writers create when dramatizing reality. And it doesn't matter. Factual or not, his story is true.
Besides, it isn't Mac's story anyway, it's Louis Zamperini's. It's what he does that counts — it's his strength, his resilience, his humanity, his forgiveness that allows for Mac's redemption.
There's not a lot of dialogue in this movie, very little speechifying. But every scene reveals character. And that's the best kind of screenwriting.
Graham Yost won Emmy Awards for "The Pacific" and "From the Earth to the Moon." He is the showrunner of "Justified."
Screenplay by Gillian Flynn; book by Gillian Flynn
By Alan Jacobson
Nick Dunne returns home to find his wife Amy missing amidst signs of a violent struggle. Did Nick kill Amy? If so, where's her body?
"Gone Girl's" screenwriter, Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the source novel), spoon-feeds us enough doubt about Nick that we begin seeing things as the police do: he's been having an affair and was about to hit Amy with a divorce. But things don't quite add up. Halfway in we discover why, as the film transitions from a whodunit to one of psychological suspense.
From a writer's perspective, the story is well-paced. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike are more than credible, Pike channeling Sharon Stone in 1992's "Basic Instinct" with chilling skill. To prevent the audience from turning irreversibly against her main character, Flynn uses a clever tool to prop up Nick and give him credibility: Margo, Nick's sister, is crafted to be an extension of the audience: she's in the dark, like us, when Nick's lies and deceits are revealed. Yet despite being angry with him, Margo still loves him — so we should, too. It's not unlike an author giving a dog to a character of questionable integrity and then showing us how he cares for that dog, and how much the animal loves him: if the dog likes this guy, we can, too.
The film's weakness, however, is the ending, which peters out despite a minor twist that most experienced suspense writers (and readers) will have seen coming. Otherwise, "Gone Girl" is a fun ride that holds our attention from the first minute to—almost—the last.
Alan Jacobson is the national bestselling author of nine thrillers, six of which feature FBI profiler Karen Vail. "Spectrum," Jacobson's latest Vail novel, was named one of Suspense Magazine's Best Books of 2014


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With one foot planted firmly on the Kiss Me Deadly era of film noir and the other closer to The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Blast of Silence begins with a brutal, uncompromising invocation of birth and ends with an almost mystically sensitive death. The story of socially isolated hit man Frankie (Allen Baron) who comes to terms with his deferred need for human connection just in time for a) Christmas, and b) a job that will require him to be especially cold-hearted, Blast of Silence is less a manifestation of the labrynthine plot trajectories of great noir than a early harbinger to the DIY moxie of the American independent movement.
Shot on a shoestring, director/writer/lead actor Baron's blunt, almost perfunctory story doesn't reveal much about the inner workings of its central character but instead takes advantage of the downright dull aspects of New York City, a city films (especially films noir) often depict with mythic reverence as a succession of places you'd want to visit but aren't even sure you could live therein. So far as the movies are concerned, New York is as artificially engineered an environment as Disneyland or Stepford, Connecticut (or Hollywood). What Blast of Silence gets and gets right is the sense that New York, for all its "top of the world" potential, is also a working metropolis with accompanying concessions, mediocrities, and isolations.
Much like Val Lewton's unnerving The Seventh Victim, the tension of Blast of Silence doesn't so much revolve around the antihero's job, redemption, or ultimate fate but rather the disconnect between its mundane milieu and the grandiose flourishes they're meant to convey. Frankie spends the entire film looking schlubbish and constipated, far from the suave operator the film's narrator coolly informs us is in the top five percentile earnings-wise. (The film's narration, incidentally, is often cited for its use of the rare second-person address, but my take on it is that it's really transposed first-person from within the protagonist's overstressed psyche, that the instructions Frankie takes his cues from are actually coming from inside the house, so to speak.)
For all the narrator's insistence on stressing the dangers around every corner, the film's bland images suggest the world truly couldn't care less about Frankie's dogged pursuit of a gun with a silencer; at one point a headline screams one of his crimes, but he's the only character shown actually reading the article. Haunting, remote, and workmanlike, Blast of Silence may be the only film I've ever seen with a trip on the Station Island Ferry in which I expected a tumbleweed to flit across the deck.
The film looks like it may have been shot, in part, using short ends. The quality of the film stock varies pretty radically from shot to shot. For every carefully filmed study in high contrast (the silhouettes of caged rats that serve as prelude to a murder) comes another hand-held exterior with hazy, gray black levels and bland whites. Don't expect much better from the sound; gunshots sound more like rubber bands.
Just as Allen Baron is pretty much the whole show in the feature film, he's given the Criterion disc's meatiest bonus feature: a one-hour retrospective in which the renaissance man is filmed returning to the film's locations to reminisce (though one gets the sense that he's spent many of his days there, even though a title indicates he's relocated to Beverly Hills). Baron is good-spirited and offers plenty of insight, and at times seems almost bemused that his film even has any reputation to speak of. He also looks, sounds, and acts like a second cousin of Martin Scorsese. A collection of photos juxtaposing Baron in the film and, over 45 years later, revisiting the same locations seems a tad beside the point, but offers some text background information. A collection of old Polaroids from the shoot has the gratuitously mottled look absent from the actual film.
The neglected standing of Blast of Silence is the film's own best proof of its uniquely wallflowerish take on film noir tropes.


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Yesterday's movie was Mountains and Clouds, an IV injection of inside-baseball maneuvering for political junkies about the start-and-stop process of trying to legislate immigration reform just before and after September 11. For my review, part of Slant's coverage of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, click here.
A Movie a Day, Day 33: Mountains and Clouds
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