text: Linked in or Left Out: 'Supercharge' Your Interactions Through Social Networking July 17, 2008 Janet Ellen Raasch A strong and targeted social network – or "who you know" – has always been essential to a lawyer's professional success. But face-to-face networking has its limits. A lawyer's ability to network with clients and potential clients in a face-to-face setting is limited by geographical location and a shortage of time. In addition, it is limited by the fact that many potential referral relationships are "hidden" – and unlikely to come up in the course of casual conversation. "Social networking sites bring the kind of interaction that lawyers and other professionals enjoy in 'live' business, industry, professional, civic, religious, charitable and personal interest groups onto the Internet – and supercharge it," says Kevin O'Keefe, president of Lexblog (www.lexblog.com). "In addition, they reveal 'hidden' relationships." "With a broadband connection, a lawyer can reach his or her social network from anywhere," says Toronto-based technology business lawyer and blogger Rob Hyndman (www.robhyndman.com). "Traditionally, lawyers have congregated in the downtowns of large cities. Online social networking will potentially reduce our dependence on large cities as the only environment where we can meet and interact with each other. "In addition, online social networking is an example of the power of the Internet to equalize the impression that can be created by a small versus a large law firm," says Hyndman. "It is now possible for a very small law firm – even a sole practitioner – to create a strong, professional brand. A great website and professional online identity go a very long way. Social networking extends and leverages that brand." Increasingly, lawyers and law firms are making use of popular social networks like LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com). All social networks allow a user to do three basic things – create an online profile, build a personal network of connections, and search both personal networks and the entire network to find individuals who share professional or personal interests. Most allow these networks to form and interact through groups. Create a Professional Profile The first use of an online social network is to create a detailed professional profile to serve as your digital identity. Each social network site has a different profile format. A LinkedIn profile is straight-forward and businesslike. A Facebook or MySpace profile is more creative, and can be customized by "mashing up" a wide range of applications – like music, photos, video and text messaging. Different kinds of profiles appeal to different kinds of clients. "A profile is a lawyer's online personality," says Mike O'Neil, president of Denver-based Integrated Alliances (www.integratedalliances.com), a firm that teaches executives to network using LinkedIn. "A profile serves as an online resume, an advertisement and a web page. As such, it should be carefully crafted and marketing-oriented." Every word in a social network profile is indexed by search engines, so be sure to include relevant keywords in the content. If you have a website or a blog, your social networking profile can be linked to either one – or both. A link to your profile in your e-mail signature allows others to easily view your professional skills and expertise. Boston-area-based patent and trademark attorney Erik J. Heels is a Canadian trade mark agent who has a complex online identity. He collects all of his digital activities into a single "metapage" (http://clocktowerlaw.com/ejh/LinkedIn). On this page, visitors can find his law firm Website, profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace, newsletter, The Legal List (the first book ever published simultaneously on the Internet and in print), blog, book reviews written for Amazon, and the website of his band. Unlike a biography on a law firm website or contacts in a law firm CRM system, your digital identity and connections on a social network site are owned by you. Even if you change firms or employers, your digital identity stays online, working for you. Build Your Professional Network A second use of an online social network is to build a network of your connections. "I like to call LinkedIn a Rolodex of your entire life—on steroids," says O'Keefe. In LinkedIn, you can opt to keep all or some of your network private. "I know some lawyers who keep their connections private," says Heels. "But if you do this, you're less useful to your prospective connections. If you are afraid that other lawyers will steal your clients simply by virtue of knowing who they are, then you've got big problems. If you would try to steal clients from another, then you've got even bigger problems." LinkedIn has a tool that will scan your existing contact files (in Outlook, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and others) to let you know which individuals you know are already in the social network you have joined. If a contact is in the network, you can ask this contact to be your "connection." If a contact is not in the network, you can "invite" the person to join, create a profile and become your connection. "The LinkedIn add-in for Outlook helps me enlarge my contact list by accessing my network's contacts," says Dominic Jaar, in-house counsel at Bell Canada. "Moreover, it reminds me of the last time I contacted someone," says Jaar. "This feature can prove very useful to maintain high-quality service and to show that you care about your client. If I ever go back to private practice, LinkedIn is going to be one of my key business development, maintenance and marketing tools." With permission, LinkedIn tracks your connections (people you know), their connections, and the connections of their connections – to three degrees of separation. "Prompted by a client, I started using LinkedIn a couple of years ago," says Brock Smith, a partner with the technology and intellectual property group of Clark Wilson (www.cwilson.com) in Vancouver. "At least a dozen of my colleagues have since joined. We like that we can track relationships – who knows whom among clients and other business partners, especially venture capitalists and bankers in a global marketplace." A person who is invited to be a connection has a number of choices. After reviewing your profile, the person can accept the invitation, reject it or archive it for future consideration. To preserve the integrity of the network, it is recommended that you only accept invitations for someone you know and trust – or invitations that are mediated by someone you know and trust. Search Your Social Network A third use of an online social network is to search for individuals who share your professional and personal interests. You can search for research purposes or you can search in order to expand your network. "I can search for LinkedIn members located in Toronto, where my office is," says civil litigator Lloyd Hoffer, (www.hofferadler.com). "By reviewing profiles, I can identify people who are potential clients or other contacts and ask to meet them – in person or via email or phone. Not everyone accepts, but I have made new and useful contacts." Lawyers and law firms can also use social networking sites to research parties in the course of legal and criminal investigations. "I often search LinkedIn members by business names and domain types," says Bell Canada's Jaar. "I mostly do this to identify expertise when I need a court expert." LinkedIn recently added the ability for a user to "ask a question" of his or her network – or post an answer to someone else's question. "The Q&A feature serves a triple purpose," says Hoffer, "one, to facilitate useful exchanges of information; two, to enable new connections; and three, to provide public exposure of your skills and expertise. In fact, quite a few of the quotes for this article were based to the author's question posted on LinkedIn and individual lawyers' answers to the question. Professional online social networks are popular with recruiters, who pay extra in order to post jobs and search the network for individuals with particular job skills. "I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't been a major law student recruiting initiative before now," says Steve Matthews, principal at Stem Legal Web Enterprises (www.stemlegal.com), a Canada-based Web-profile-building service for law firms. "Students get this type of communication – in a way that makes firm brochures and even websites seem outdated." While job boards like Monster.ca feature the resumes of individuals who are actively looking for work, online social networks are rich with the profiles of successful experts who are not actively looking for work, but might be willing to consider the right offer. Recruiters can search LinkedIn to find the names of connections who worked with a job candidate at a particular time and contact them for references. Job seekers who are considering a firm or a company can search the network to find the names of people who work or once worked there – and gain valuable information about the culture at the employer they are considering. Join or Create a Group On an online social network, you can join a group of others who share a professional or personal interest. These can be public groups, where anyone can join, or private groups, where participation must be approved by a "group manager" before access is granted. "It is a one-click process to affiliate your profile with a group in Facebook," says Matthews, "so while the time investment is almost nothing, demonstrating your affiliation can be a real positive." An existing group can be put into an online social network. The online social network platform allows group organizers to manage the roster, communicate with members and provide group members with valuable online professional networking tools. If no group exists, one can be created. "If I was trying to build my network of referral sources, and I practiced in Patent law," says Matthews, "I might be tempted to create a Patent attorney's group. "In this group, I would welcome each new member with a nice group introduction email," says Matthews. "That could be followed up by an exchange on some specifics about my practice, and then an invitation to join my personal network. See how this works? It's not just the tool, it's about working the tool in a strategic way." Denise Howell, Dennis Kennedy, Tom Mighell, Marty Schwimmer and Ernie Svenson are co-authors of Between Lawyers (http://betweenlawyers.corante.com), a popular blog. To improve communication with each other and their readers, the authors created a Between Lawyers Facebook group (www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2418383995). According to the site, "Because the Between Lawyers authors spend more time gabbing with each other via email than posting to their blog, they decided to try moving those discussions to a Facebook group – where their friends/readers(s) can play along." In early 2007, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen launched Ning (www.ning.com), a tool that allows people to create custom social-networking communities. Users can select from a menu of additional features they want to "mash up" with their social network, like videos, photos, discussion forums or blogs. Ning is free to groups that accept ads on their home pages and $20 (U.S.) a month for those that wish to remain ad-free. The Social Elite LinkedIn LinkedIn was created in 2003 specifically as an online social network for business professionals. Its demographics are older and wealthier than those of other sites. By mid-2007, the site had 13 million participants and had received two prestigious Webby Awards (www.webbyawards.com). Some of the larger law firms in Canada have 100 or more LinkedIn members indicating a connection to the firm. "LinkedIn caters to the white-collar crowd, hungry for leads, recommendations and job opportunities," says Rick Aristotle Munarriz at investment site The Motley Fool (www.fool.com). "Let's call it a networking social site instead of a social-networking site, because LinkedIn is really all about corporate networking." Although a basic account is free, LinkedIn earns significant income by selling a range of premium subscription levels (with additional features), targeted advertising, and advanced search privileges for large employers and corporate recruiters. A leading lawyer-user of LinkedIn is Toronto-based lawyer Chris Koressis (www.koressis.com), who has 355 first-degree connections (and tens of thousands of second and hundreds of thousands third-degree connections). Koressis has successfully used this network to make contacts and build a book of business among his target market – mid-sized companies. Koressis also hosts his own online social network (www.thelegalnet.com) in order to promote networking among the executives in his network. The group interacts online, but also holds regular face-to-face gatherings. Facebook Facebook launched in 2004 as an online version of the traditional Harvard University facebook – a publication to help incoming students to get to know each other. It quickly spread to other schools in the Ivy League, then to all colleges, then to high school students, then, in Sept. 2006, to the world at large. Because of its origins, Facebook is a popular site for reaching and influencing college graduates. It is the fastest-growing online social network—as of November 2007 Facebook boasted over 51 million active users, including over six million in Canada. It is the most popular Web destination in the country. Toronto is second only to London in number of Facebook users. Facebook is especially distinguished by its ability to create useful groups. Of the ten largest law firms in the United States, eight have created groups in Facebook with hundreds of members organized around a wide variety of topics. Among the top ten law firms in Canada, seven have Facebook groups – mostly for summer associates. In May 2007, London-based Allen & Overy (www.allenovery.com) issued a firm-wide ban on Facebook – which was quickly revoked after a strong reaction from the firm's 932 Facebook users. In a press release, firm IT director Dave Burwell says: "We now realize that Facebook is used by many people for networking – for business purposes as well as social. As a result, we are going to open up access to the site again." MySpace With 115 million users, MySpace is the largest and oldest mainstream social networking site. In 2005, MySpace was purchased by NewsCorp for $580 million (U.S.). In 2006, Google paid $900 million (U.S.) for the exclusive rights to place text-based ads on MySpace (and other News Corp. sites). Obviously, big business sees an opportunity. Because of its youthful demographics, MySpace is a good site for lawyers with a youthful, consumer-based target market. MySpace members are much more likely to communicate with each other using social networks, text messaging, blogs and YouTube (www.youtube.com) than via any other means. It is a potential location for lawyers in the entertainment industry as well as lawyers who practice family, personal injury and DUI law. Baltimore-based entertainment lawyer Paul Gardner (www.thegardnerlawgroup.com), for example, set up a page on MySpace – and has acquired work from it. With a social network – as with any business development tool – you get out of it what you put into it. If you simply create a profile and never go back, you are not likely to generate new business. That would be like joining a face-to-face group and never going to a meeting. However, if you add connections and use them to meet business contacts and research business opportunities, social networking can help savvy lawyers and law firms further enhance their practice and their bottom line. Second Life Second Life (www.secondlife.com) takes online social networking to a new level by creating a complete parallel world in which residents can live and socialize, and do business, including legal business. Launched in 2003 by a California-based Linden Lab (www.lindenlab.com), Second Life has more than 9 million residents and promotes itself as "a 3-D online digital world – imagined, created and owned by its residents." Basic membership is free, although residents can upgrade to a premium package for $72 (U.S.) a year which allows them to rent private and commercial space. Second Life has its own currency and economy. Creative businesses around the world, including law firms, are looking for ways to build a brand in Second Life, as well as ways to use Second Life as a tool for training, marketing or product development. Vancouver's Davis LLP boasts that it was the first Canadian law firm to open a branch office in the virtual online world of Second Life, as an offshoot of its video game law and interactive entertainment group. Intellectual property attorney Benjamin Duranske has created the Second Life Bar Association and is the group's current president. President-elect is British attorney David Naylor, whose firm Field Fisher Waterhouse (www.ffw.com) has an office in Second Life. The group is developing a system of attorney verification so that clients know if their Second Life attorney is qualified to practice in the real world. Duranske advises all members to operate within the constraints of "real world" codes of professional conduct. Since residents of Second Life are from all over the world, there is currently no actual legal system within the "metaverse", although one is being created. As a result, transactions must take place and disputes must be resolved in real world courts. Duranske's Web site/blog (www.virtuallyblind.com) provides a primer on the legal issues that impact virtual worlds. In addition, a class in Internet law is offered at a Second Life university, taught by the avatar of Charles Nesson. Nesson is founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. For the most part, lawyers with offices in Second Life seem to be those with cutting-edge technology and IP practices. Like other residents, Second Life lawyers create avatars (personal animated characters) to serve as their digital identities. They buy or rent real estate; they design, equip and staff digital offices. They participate in groups. Second Life is quite sophisticated and (although it is not a game) it can be daunting for individuals with no computer gaming experience. Those lacking the talent or time can hire one of 200 consulting firms that have sprung up to help businesses build and maintain a presence in Second Life. Omar Khuri, an immigration lawyer in Evanston, Illinois, used one of these consultants to open a law office in Second Life. In this office, Khuri's avatar serves people from around the globe who might need a visa or help with other immigration issues. Greenberg & Lieberman, an intellectual property boutique located in Washington, D.C., also operates a law office in Second Life. Amazingly, the firm claims to land real clients, file real trademark applications and make real money—nearly $20,000 in the past year—through its presence in the virtual world. Los Angeles law firm Praxis (www.praxisllp.com) operates real world offices in California and Colorado, specializing in intellectual property and corporate transactions. The firm has opened one office in Second Life and has plans to open more. "It doesn't make sense to be in just one place," said Michael Leventhal, a firm partner. "We'll locate offices in areas like biotechnology, digital technology and space commerce." In Second Life as well as other social networks, online connections can lead to real world opportunities. Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer and ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers, law firms and other professional services providers – to help them achieve name recognition and new business through publication of articles and books for print and rich content for the Internet. She can be reached at (303) 399-5041 or email@example.com.


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Egg donation
Egg donation
Egg donation is the process by which a woman donates eggs for purposes of assisted reproduction or biomedical research. For assisted reproduction purposes, egg donation typically involves in vitro fertilization technology, with the eggs being fertilized in the laboratory; more rarely, unfertilized eggs may be frozen and stored for later use. Egg donation is a third party reproduction as part of assisted reproductive technology (ART).
In the United States, ASRM (American Society of Reproductive Medicine) has issued guidelines for these procedures, and the FDA has a number of guidelines as well. There are boards in countries outside of the US who have the same regulations. However, egg donation agencies in the U.S. can legally choose whether to abide by ASRM regulations or not.
The first child born from egg donation was reported in Australia in 1983 at the Monash IVF clinic.[1] In July 1983, a clinic in Southern California reported a pregnancy using egg donation, which led to the birth of the first American child born from egg donation on February 3, 1984.[2] This procedure was performed at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine.[3] In the procedure, which is no longer used today, a fertilized egg that was just beginning to develop was transferred from one woman in whom it had been conceived by artificial insemination to another woman who gave birth to the infant 38 weeks later. The sperm used in the artificial insemination came from the husband of the woman who bore the baby.[4][5]
Prior to this, thousands of infertile women, single men and gay male couples had adoption as the only path to parenthood. Advances in IVF and egg donation set the stage to allow open and candid discussion of oocyte and embryo donation as a common practice.[4][5] This breakthrough has given way to the donation of human oocytes and embryos as a common practice similar to other donations such as blood and major organ donations. At the time of this announcement the event was captured by major news carriers and fueled healthy debate and discussion on this practice which impacted the future of reproductive medicine by creating a platform for further advancements in woman's health.
This scientific breakthrough changed the outlook for those who were unable to have children due to female infertility and for women who are at high risk for passing on genetic disorders. As IVF developed, the procedures used in egg donation paralleled that development: the egg donor's eggs are now harvested from her ovaries in an outpatient surgical procedure and fertilized in the laboratory, the same procedure used on IVF patients, but the resulting embryo or embryos is then transferred into the intended mother instead of into the woman who provided the egg. Donor oocytes thus give women a mechanism to become pregnant and give birth to a child that will be their biological child (assuming that the recipient woman carries the baby), but not their genetic child. In cases where the recipient's womb is absent or unable to carry a pregnancy, or in cases involving gay male couples, a gestational surrogate is used and the embryos are implanted into her per an agreement with the recipients. The combination of egg donation and surrogacy has enabled gay men, including singer Elton John and his partner, to have biological children.[6] Oocyte and embryo donation now account for approximately 18% of in vitro fertilization recorded births in the US.[7][8]
This work established the technical foundation and legal-ethical framework surrounding the clinical use of human oocyte and embryo donation, a mainstream clinical practice, which has evolved over the past 25 years.[4][9] Building upon this groundbreaking research and since the initial birth announcement in 1984, well over 47,000 live births resulting from donor oocyte embryo transfer have been and continue to be recorded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)[10][11] in the United States to infertile women, who otherwise would not have had children by any other existing method.
The legal status and cost/compensation models of egg donation vary significantly by country. It may be totally illegal (e.g., Italy, Germany, Austria);[12][13] legal only if anonymous and gratuitous—that is, without any compensation for the egg donor (e.g., France);[14] legal only if non-anonymous and gratuitous (e.g., Canada); legal only if anonymous, but egg donors may be compensated (the compensation is often described as being to offset her inconvenience and expenses) (e.g., Spain, Czech Republic, South Africa, Greece);[15][16][17][18] legal only if non-anonymous, but egg donors may be compensated (e.g., the UK);[19] or legal whether or not it is anonymous, and egg donors may be compensated (e.g., the US).
Since this process is so invasive (much more so than its counterpart, sperm donation), in countries that prohibit compensation there is an extreme dearth of young women willing to go through this procedure. Additionally, in most countries where it is legal and compensated, the law places a cap on the compensation and that cap tends to be in the vicinity of $1000–$2000. In the US, no law caps the compensation but the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) requires member clinics to abide by ASRM standards, which provide that "sums of $5,000 or more require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate."[20] The "justification" for payments over $5000 may include previous successful donations, unusually good family health history, or membership in minority ethnicities for which it is more difficult to find donors.
As a result of these legal and financial differences around the world, egg donation in the US is far more expensive than it is in other countries. For instance, at one top US clinic it costs more than $26,000 plus the donor's medications (another several thousand dollars).[21] In contrast, at a top Czech clinic it costs 4500 Euros (approximately $6000) including the donor's medication.[22] However, in the US the recipient's ability to choose donors with the desired characteristics (e.g., strong physical resemblance to recipient; same ethnicity and/or religion as recipient; excellent academic background; musical or athletic talent; etc.) is unparalleled. Thus, many patients come to the US in order to benefit from that range of options. In contrast, many US patients travel abroad for egg donation, sacrificing their ability to hand-pick a donor in exchange for significantly lower costs.
A need for egg donation may arise for a number of reasons. Infertile couples may resort to egg donation when the female partner cannot have genetic children because her own eggs cannot generate a viable pregnancy, or because they could generate a viable pregnancy but the chances are so low that it is not advisable or not financially feasible to do IVF with her own eggs. This situation is often, but not always based on advanced reproductive age. It can also be due to early onset of menopause, which can occur as early as their 20s. In addition, some women are born without ovaries, while some women's reproductive organs have been damaged or surgically removed due to disease or other circumstances. Another indication would be a genetic disorder on part of the woman that either renders her infertile or would be dangerous for any offspring, problems that can be circumvented by using eggs from another woman. Many women have none of these issues, but continue to be unsuccessful using their own eggs—in other words, they have undiagnosed infertility—and thus turn to donor eggs or donor embryos. As stated above, egg donation is also helpful for gay male couples using surrogacy (see LGBT parenting).
In the US and UK, if desired (and if the egg donor agrees), the couple can meet and get acquainted with the egg donor, her children and family members. More often, egg donations are anonymous or semi-anonymous (i.e. the egg donor may provide personal and medical information, photographs of herself and/or family members, and an email or third party willing to convey communications between the donor and recipients). In some countries, the law requires non-anonymity (e.g., the UK). In other countries, the law requires anonymity (e.g., France, Spain, the Czech Republic, South Africa). In the US the choice between anonymity, semi-anonymity and non-anonymity is made by the donor and recipient, although some IVF clinics that maintain their own databases of egg donors strongly encourage or require anonymity.
• Congenital absence of eggs
o Turner syndrome
o Gonadal dysgenesis
• Acquired reduced egg quantity / quality
o Oophorectomy
o Premature menopause
o Chemotherapy
o Radiation therapy
o Autoimmunity
o Advanced maternal age
o Compromised ovarian reserve
• Other
o Diseases of X-Sex linkage
o Repetitive fertilization or pregnancy failure
o Ovaries inaccessible for egg retrieval
Types of donors
Donors includes the following types:
• Donors unrelated to the recipients who do it for altruistic and/or monetary reasons. In the US they are anonymous donors or semi-anonymous donors recruited by egg donor agencies or IVF clinics. Such donors may also be non-anonymous donors, i.e., they may exchange identifying and contact information with the recipients. In most countries other than the US and UK, the law requires such donors to remain anonymous.
• Designated donors, e.g. a friend or relative brought by the patients to serve as a donor specifically to help them. In Sweden and France, couples who can bring such a donor still get another person as a donor, but instead get advanced on the waiting list for the procedure, and that donor rather becomes a "cross donor".[23] In other words, the couple brings a designated donor, she donates anonymously to another couple, and the couple that brought her receives eggs from another anonymous donor much more quickly than they would have if they had not been able to provide a designated donor.
• Patients taking part in shared oocyte programmes. Women who go through in vitro fertilization may be willing to donate unused eggs to such a program, where the egg recipients together help paying the cost of the In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) procedure.[24] It is very cost-effective compared to other alternatives.[25] The pregnancy rate with use of shared oocytes is similar to that with altruistic donors.[26]
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Egg donors are first recruited, screened, and give consent prior to participation in the IVF process. Once the egg donor is recruited, she undergoes IVF stimulation therapy, followed by the egg retrieval procedure. After retrieval, the ova are fertilized by the sperm of the male partner (or sperm donor) in the laboratory, and, after several days, the best resulting embryo(s) is/are placed in the uterus of the recipient, whose uterine lining has been appropriately prepared for embryo transfer beforehand. The recipient is usually, but not always, the person who requested the service and then will carry and deliver the pregnancy and keep the baby.
Why people proceed with egg donation?
Some women whose own eggs do not result in a viable pregnancy choose to proceed with egg donation. Some of the reasons why a woman's own eggs cannot be used and lot more information about this procedure explained here. Some women whose own eggs do not result in a viable pregnancy choose this treatment. There are various reasons why a woman's own eggs cannot be used:
Premature ovarian failure is a leading cause where women stop producing eggs at an early age. There are cases where women go into early menopause in their early 20s. Women suffering from premature ovarian failure can no longer produce healthy eggs that can lead to pregnancy. Some women are born without ovaries, in which case the only possibility of having a baby is through egg donation. Women who go through chemotherapy or radiotherapy whose ovaries may have been damaged by the treatment may also need this procedure Women who produce eggs but have genetic diseases could also choose egg donation to ensure healthy children. Older women with diminished ovarian reserves or older women who are going through menopause could also become pregnant with egg donation.[27]
The egg donor's process in detail
Before any intensive medical, psychological, or genetic testing is done on a donor, they must first be chosen by a recipient from the profiles on agency or clinic databases (or, in countries where donors are required to remain anonymous, they are chosen by the recipient's doctor based on their physical and temperamental resemblance to the recipient woman). This is due to the fact that all of the mentioned examinations are expensive and the agencies must first confirm that a match is possible or guaranteed before investing in the process.[28] Each egg donor is first referred to a psychologist who will evaluate if she is mentally prepared to undertake and complete the donation process. These evaluations are necessary to ensure that the donor is fully prepared and capable of completing the donation cycle safely and successfully.[29] The donor is then required to undergo a thorough medical examination, including a pelvic exam, blood draw to check hormone levels and to test for infectious diseases, Rh factor, blood type, and drugs and an ultrasound to examine her ovaries, uterus and other pelvic organs. A family history of approximately the past three generations is also required, meaning that adoptees are usually not accepted because of the lack of past health knowledge.[28] Genetic testing is also usually done on donors to ensure that they do not carry mutations (e.g., cystic fibrosis) that could harm the resulting children; however, not all clinics automatically perform such testing and thus recipients must clarify with their clinics whether such testing will be done.
Once the screening is complete and a legal contract signed, the donor will begin the donation cycle, which typically takes between three and six weeks. An egg retrieval procedure comprises both the Egg Donor's Cycle and the Recipient's Cycle. Birth control pills are administered during the first few weeks of the egg donation[30] process to synchronize the donor's cycle with the recipient's, followed by a series of injections which halt the normal functioning of the donor's ovaries. These injections may be self-administered on a daily basis for a period of one to three weeks. Next, follicle-stimulating hormones (FSH) are given to the donor to stimulate egg production and increases the number of mature eggs produced by the ovaries. Throughout the cycle the donor is monitored often by a physician using blood tests and ultrasound exams to determine the donor's reaction to the hormones and the progress of follicle growth.[29]
Once the doctor decides the follicles are mature, he/she will establish the date and time for the egg retrieval procedure. Approximately 36 hours before retrieval, the donor must administer one last injection of HCG hormone to ensure that her eggs are ready to be harvested. The egg retrieval itself is a minimally invasive surgical procedure lasting 20–30 minutes, performed under sedation. A small ultrasound-guided needle is inserted through the vagina to aspirate the follicles in both ovaries, which extracts the eggs. After resting in a recovery room for an hour or two, the donor is released. Most donors resume regular activities by the next day.[29]
In the United States, egg donor cycles have a success rate of over 60%. (See SART statistics at http://www.sart.org.) When a "fresh cycle" is followed by a "frozen cycle", the success rate with donor eggs is approximately 80%.
With egg donation, women who are past their reproductive years or menopause can still become pregnant. Adriana Iliescu held the record as the oldest woman to give birth using IVF and donated egg, when she gave birth in 2004 at the age of 66, a record passed in 2006.
Donor motivation and compensation
An egg donor may be motivated by a number of reasons to provide eggs. Some egg donors may be altruistic and feel that participation in the reproductive process provides a benefit for another person, sometimes a person they know or are related to. A survey of 80 American women showed that 30% were motivated by altruism alone. Others, 20%, were attracted only by monetary compensation, while 40% of donors were motivated by both reasons. The same study reported that 45% of egg donors were students the first time they donated and averaged $4,000 for each donation.[31] Although the donors may be motivated by both monetary and altruistic reasons, egg agencies desire and prefer to choose donors that are strictly providing eggs for altruistic reasons, as it portrays the traditional gendered definitions of females in a more positive light.[28] In the European Union the standard for reimbursement is based on compensation, not payment limiting egg donation to, at most, $1500. In some countries, most notably Spain and Cyprus this has limited donors to the poorest segments of society.[32] In the United States, the donors are paid regardless of how many eggs she produces and for each additional cycle, especially if it results in the recipient's pregnancy, the fee that the donors are paid will increase.[28]
Egg-broker agencies are known for advertising to college students in publications such-as campus newspapers and on Craigslist. Although by the terms of use posting ads recruiting for egg donors on the message forums and other areas of the Craigslist site are not permitted paid advertisements on Craigslist do allow the posting of Donor Egg Recruitment.
Egg donor
The procedures for the donor and the medication given to her are identical to the procedures and medications used in autologous IVF (i.e., IVF on patients who are using their own eggs). The egg donor thus has the same low risk of complications from IVF as an autologous IVF patient would, such as bleeding from the oocyte recovery procedure and reaction to the hormones used to induce hyperovulation (producing more than one egg), including ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) and, rarely, liver failure.[33]
According to Jansen and Tucker, writing in the same ART (assisted reproductive technologies) textbook referenced above,[33] the risk of OHSS varies with the clinic administering the hormones, from 6.6 to 8.4% of cycles, half of them "severe." The most severe form of OHSS is life-threatening. Recent studies have found that donors were at less risk of OHSS when the final maturation of oocytes was induced by GnRH agonist than with recombinant hCG. Both hormones were comparable in the number of mature oocytes produced and fertilization rates.[34][35] A larger study in the Netherlands found 10 documented cases of deaths from IVF, with a rate of 1:10,000. "All of these patients were treated with GnRH agonists and none of these cases have been published in the scientific literature."
The long-term impact of egg donation on donors has not been well studied, but because the same medications and procedures are used, it should be essentially the same as the long-term impact (if any) of IVF on patients using their own eggs. The evidence of increased cancer risk is equivocal; some studies have pointed to a slightly increased risk while other studies have found no such risk or even a slightly reduced risk in most patients (women with a family history of breast cancer, however, may have a higher risk).[36][37] 1 in 5 women report psychological effects—which may be positive or negative—from donating their eggs, and two-thirds of egg donors were happy with the decision to donate their eggs. The same study found that 20% of women did not recall being aware of any physical risks.[31] In accordance with the ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine) guidelines, female donors are given a limit of 6 cycles that they may donate in order to minimize the possible health risks.[28]
However, it appears that repetitive oocyte donation cycles does not cause accelerated ovarian aging, evidenced by absence of decreased anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) in such women.[38]
The recipient has a minimal risk of contracting a transmittable disease. While the donor may test negative for HIV, such testing does not exclude the possibility that the donor has contracted HIV very recently, so the recipient faces a residual risk of exposure. However, the FDA governs this and requires full infectious disease testing no more than 30 days prior to retrieval and/or transfer. Most clinics now require, however, that donors be retested a few days prior to retrieval so the risk to the recipient is minimal. Intimate partners of both the egg donor and the recipient are also tested.
The recipient also trusts that the medical history of the donor and her family is accurate. This factor of trust should not be underestimated in importance. Donors in the US are paid thousands of dollars; such compensation may attract unscrupulous individuals inclined to conceal their true motivations. However, a full psychological evaluation is required by most IVF clinics, giving an indication if the donor is trustworthy or not.
In more cases than not, there is no ongoing relationship between the donor and recipient following the cycle. Both the donor and recipient agree in formal legal documents that the donation of the eggs is final at the time of retrieval, and typically both parties would like any "relationship" to conclude at that point; if they prefer continued contact, they may provide for that in the contract. Even if they prefer anonymity, however, it remains theoretically possible that in the future, some children may be able to identify their donor(s)using DNA databanks and/or registries (e.g., if the donor submits her DNA to a genealogy site and a child born from her donation later submits its DNA to the same site).
Multiple birth is a common complication. Incidence of twin births is very high. At the present time, the ASRM recommends that no more than 1 or 2 embryos be transferred in any given cycle. Remaining embryos are frozen, whether for future transfers if the first one fails, for siblings, or for eventual embryo donation.
There appears to be a slightly higher risk of pregnancy-induced hypertension in pregnancies of egg donation.[39]
Pregnancies with egg donation are associated with a slightly increased risk of placental pathology.[39] The local and systemic immunologic changes are also more pronounced than in natural pregnancies, so it has been suggested that the association is caused by reduced maternal immune tolerance towards the fetus, as the genetic similarity between the carrier and fetus from an egg donation is less than in a natural pregnancy.[39] In contrast, the incidence of other perinatal complications, such as intrauterine growth restriction, preterm birth and congenital malformations, is comparable to conventional IVF without egg donation.[39]
Generally legal documents are signed renouncing rights and responsibilities of custody on the part of the donor. Most IVF doctors will not proceed with administering medication to any donor until these documents are in place and a legal "clearance letter" confirming this understanding is provided to the doctor.
Legality and financial issues
The legal status and cost/compensation models of egg donation vary significantly by country. It may be totally illegal (e.g., Italy, Germany, Austria);[12][13] legal only if anonymous and gratuitous—that is, without any compensation for the egg donor (e.g., France);[14] legal only if non-anonymous and gratuitous (e.g., Canada);[40] legal only if anonymous, but egg donors may be compensated (the compensation is often described as being to offset her inconvenience and expenses) (e.g., Spain, Czech Republic, South Africa);[15][16][17] legal only if non-anonymous, but egg donors may be compensated (e.g., the UK);[19] or legal whether or not it is anonymous, and egg donors may be compensated (e.g., the US). Because most countries prohibit the sale of body parts, egg donors generally are paid for undergoing the necessary medical procedures rather than for their eggs. In other words, if they complete the cycle, they will be paid the agreed price regardless of how many (or how few) eggs are retrieved.
Since this process is so invasive (much more so than its counterpart, sperm donation), in countries that prohibit compensation there is an extreme dearth of young women willing to go through this procedure. Additionally, in most countries where it is legal and compensated, the law places a cap on the compensation and that cap tends to be in the vicinity of $1000–$2000. In the US, no law caps the compensation but the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) requires member clinics to abide by ASRM standards, which provide that "sums of $5,000 or more require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate."[20] The "justification" for payments over $5000 may include previous successful donations, unusually good family health history, or membership in minority ethnicities for which it is more difficult to find donors.
As a result of these legal and financial differences around the world, egg donation in the US is far more expensive than it is in other countries. For instance, at one top US clinic it costs more than $26,000 plus the donor's medications (another several thousand dollars).[21] In contrast, at a top Czech clinic it costs 4500 Euros (approximately $6000) including the donor's medication.[22] However, in the US the recipient's ability to choose donors with the desired characteristics (e.g., strong physical resemblance to recipient; same ethnicity and/or religion as recipient; excellent academic background; musical or athletic talent; etc.) is unparalleled. Thus, many patients come to the US in order to benefit from that range of options. In contrast, many US patients travel abroad for egg donation, sacrificing their ability to hand-pick a donor in exchange for significantly lower costs.
Having an attorney draft a contract is recommended in order to ensure that the donor has no possible legal rights or responsibilities over the child or any frozen embryos. Hiring an attorney who specializes in reproductive law is thus strongly recommended, at least in the United States; other countries may have other procedures for clarifying the parties' rights, or may simply have legislation that defines the parties' rights. In the US, before the egg donor's IVF cycle begins she typically must sign the Egg Donor Contract, which specifies the rights of the donor and the recipient(s) with respect to the retrieved eggs, the embryos, and any children conceived from the donation. Such contracts should specify that the recipients are the legal parents of the child and the legal owners of any eggs or embryos resulting from the cycle; in other words, while the donor has the right to cancel the cycle at any time prior to egg donation (although if she does so the contract generally provides that she will not be paid), once the eggs are retrieved they belong to the recipient(s). In individual cases the donors and parents may also wish to negotiate terms relating to any unused embryos (e.g., some donors would prefer that unused embryos be destroyed or donated to science, while others would prefer or allow them to be donated to another infertile couple). Some states have also adopted the Uniform Parentage Act, which provides that the recipient or recipients have complete parental responsibility of the conceived child.
In Buzzanca v. Buzzanca, 72 Cal. Rptr.2d 280 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998), the court held that both the recipient and the father of a child conceived through anonymous sperm and egg donation and carried by a surrogate were the legal parents of the child by virtue of their procreative intent. Therefore, the father was required to pay child support even though he sought a divorce before the child was born.[41]
Donor registries
A donor registry is a registry to facilitate donor conceived people, sperm donors and egg donors to establish contact with genetic kindred. They are mostly used by donor conceived people to find genetic half-siblings from the same egg- or sperm donor.
Some donors are non-anonymous, but most are anonymous, i.e. the donor conceived person doesn't know the true identity of the donor. Still, he/she may get the donor number from the fertility clinic. If that donor had donated before, then other donor conceived people with the same donor number are thus genetic half-siblings. In short, donor registries match people who type in the same donor number.
Alternatively, if the donor number isn't available, then known donor characteristics, e.g. hair, eye and skin color may be used in matching.
Donors may also register, and therefore, donor registries may also match donors with their genetic children.
The largest registry is the Donor Sibling Registry- with more than 25,000 members, the DSR has matched almost 7,000 donor conceived people with their egg and sperm donors, as well as with their half siblings. Alternate methods of providing an information link between the donor and recipient (both agreeing to stay registered on the DSR) are often provided for in the legal document (referred to as the "Egg Donor Agreement".)
Embryo donation
An alternative to egg donation in some couples, especially those in whom the male partner cannot provide viable sperm, is embryo donation, sometimes called "embryo adoption". Embryo donation is, as its name implies, the donation of embryos remaining after one couple's IVF treatments have been completed, to another individual or couple, followed by the placement of those embryos into the recipient woman's uterus, to facilitate pregnancy and childbirth. Embryo donation has been shown in a recent study to be more cost-effective than egg donation on a "per live birth" basis.[42] Another study has found that embryos created for one couple, using an egg donor, are often made available for donation to another couple if the first couple chooses not to use them.[43]
Psychological and social issues
Common reasons to donate are to help childless couples and receive monetary compensation. Reluctance to donate may be caused by a sense of ownership and responsibility for the well-being of the offspring.[44]
Most psychological and social issues of egg donation are likely comparable to those of sperm donation.
Telling the child
Most psychologists recommend being open and honest with children from an early age. Groups for donor conceived children make a strong case for the rights of children to have access to information about their genetic background. For donor conceived children who find out after a long period of secrecy, their main grief is usually not the fact that they are not the genetic child of the mother who raised (and, usually, gave birth to) them, but the fact that their parents lied to them, causing loss of trust.[45] Furthermore, assuming that egg-donor conceived children have essentially the same reaction as sperm-donor conceived children, the overturning of one's lifelong understanding of who one's genetic parents were may cause a lasting sense of imbalance and loss of control.[46]
Telling the children that they were donor conceived is recommended, based on decades of experience with adoption (and more recent feedback from donor-conceived children) showing that not telling children is harmful to the parent-child relationship and to the child psychologically.[47][48] Even parents who would normally be extremely reluctant to tell the child should consider telling if any of the following scenarios applies:
• When anyone other than the parents know about the donation, such that the child might find it out from somebody else.[45]
• When the recipient carries a significant genetic disease, since telling the child will reassure the child that he or she does not carry the disease.[45]
• Where the child is found to suffer from a genetically-transmitted disorder and it is necessary to take legal action which then identifies the donor.
Conversely, when the child is being raised in a religion or a culture that strongly disapproves of donor conception (e.g., a Catholic country where egg donation is illegal), that may counsel against telling the child, at least until the child is much older and clearly capable of understanding why he or she was not told earlier and of keeping that information to him or herself.
The parents' decision-making process of telling the child is influenced by many intrapersonal factors (e.g., some mothers feel ashamed that they were not able to use their own eggs), interpersonal factors (e.g., approving or disapproving family members), as well as social and family life cycle factors.[49] Health care staff and support groups have been demonstrated to have an impact on the decision to disclose the procedure.[49] It is generally recommended that parents who disclose should do so in age-appropriate ways, ideally starting well before the age of five with a discussion of the fact that their parents needed help to have a child because certain things are needed to make a child—namely, sperm and eggs—and because the parents did not have one of those things, a nice woman gave it to them.
Families sharing same donor
Having contact and meeting among families sharing the same donor generally has positive effects.[51][52] It gives the child an additional extended family and may help give the child a sense of identity[52] by answering questions about the donor.[51] It is more common among open identity-families headed by single men/women.[51] Less than 1% of those seeking donor-siblings find it a negative experience, and in such cases it is mostly where the parents disagree with each other about how the relationship should proceed.[53]
Other family members
Grandparents of donors may regard the donated eggs as a family asset and may regard the donor conceived people as grandchildren.[54]
Sociological perspectives on the donor
Although an embryo is created by equal shares of an egg and sperm, these bodily goods are seen and respectfully treated differently in the social process of donation. These separate treatments are based on the cultural norms credited to the biological differences between males and females.[28] "Women, love, altruism and the family are, as a group, [viewed as] radically separate and opposite from men, self-interested rationality, work and market exchange" (Nelson and England, 2002).[55] Women donors with altruistic motives are preferred. In some cases, staff identify the donor's responsibilities as being like those in a job, but in the case of egg donation, it is understood to be much more meaningful than any regular job. Women who try to make careers out of egg donations "disgust" the staff by going against the altruistic and caring frame of donation.[28] In accordance with the culturally expected norms of women, egg donors that are highly educated and physically attractive or are caring and have motherly instincts are the most vied for. It stems from cultural validation that is anticipated from motherhood.[28]
Donor marketing
For a donor to be accepted by an agency and repeatedly used she must be marketable and appealing to the recipients. Although egg donation is a significant, life-giving act, the companies participating in this industry still have to operate with an economical mind-set. Matches between egg recipients and egg donors are what make the profit for the company and achievable to continue these processes for others. The most sought-after donors tend to be those who are (1) proven (i.e., have donated before and produced a pregnancy from it, proving themselves both fertile and reliable); (2) conventionally attractive; (3) healthy, with good family health histories; and (4) smart, well educated.
Donor profiles presented on agency websites are their primary marketing tool to find recipients and learn what these future consumers want. On the donor profiles listed on the agency website for recipients, or "clients", to peruse for their desired egg match, "physical characteristics, family health history, educational attainment (in some cases, standardized test scores, GPA, and IQ scores are requested), as well as open-ended questions about hobbies, likes and dislikes, and motivations for donating" (Almeling) are included. Donors are encouraged to submit attractive photos and are advised of what the recipient finds as desirable. Profiles that are at some point deemed unacceptable are deleted, whether it be because their personalities did not stand out or their portrayals were viewed as negative in some way. Overweight volunteers for donation are also most often not accepted, not just because of conventional views on physical attractiveness but also because women with a higher body-mass index tend to respond differently (less well) to ovarian stimulation drugs and IVF clinics thus generally recommend that patients not use donors with higher BMIs.[56] Egg donors also have a higher standard of physical appearance than sperm donors; many sperm donors are not required to provide adult photographs of themselves, or in some cases, any photographs.
Religious views
Some Christian leaders indicate that IVF is acceptable (but they should ensure that no fertilized embryos are discarded in the process). Many Christian couples who cannot have children thus can go for IVF, with both the husband's sperm and the wife's egg and this is in line with the church's teaching.
However the question gets trickier with donor eggs.
There are also some Christian leaders (especially Catholic) who are concerned about all in vitro fertility therapies because they disrupt the natural act of conceiving a child where gamete donations, both egg and sperm donations, are seen to "compromise the marital bond and family integrity".[57] and they encourage infertile couples to consider adoption instead.
In the Muslim community, Sunnis are allowed fertility treatments that do not involve third parties. This rule does not allow for the donation of gametes. Shi'ite Muslims on the other hand are allowed to accept egg donations, although there are some details that prevent egg donation in some countries and regions.[58]
In the Jewish community there is no consensus as to whether an egg donor needs to be Jewish in order for the child to be considered Jewish from birth.[59] This is not an issue in the reform community for two reasons. First, only one parent must be Jewish for the child to be considered Jewish; thus, if the father is Jewish, the mother's religion is irrelevant. Second, if the mother who carries the pregnancy and gives birth is Jewish, reform Jews will generally consider that child to be Jewish from birth because it was born of a Jewish mother. In the Orthodox community the situation is different because the mother must be Jewish for the child to be Jewish—a father married to a non-Jew cannot transmit Judaism—and most Orthodox Jewish rabbis consider that the child must be genetically Jewish in order to be Jewish. Thus, among Orthodox Jews, not only the mother but also the egg donor must be Jewish.


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Former ambassador to the United States Ali Jahangir Siddiqui, who served in Washington from May-Dec 2018 ─ a period when Pak-US ties went from cold to frigid ─ spoke to Dawn about the complexities in relations between the two countries, the challenges he faced as an envoy, and whether Pakistan can contribute to normalcy in Afghanistan.
Siddiqui, who left Washington yesterday, told Dawn that he could have been more effectual serving a full three-year term, but maintained that he had contributed to an improvement in bilateral ties during his short seven-month tenure.
Q: How did America's demand for Pakistan to do more impact bilateral ties?
Siddiqui: I cannot say whether they recognise that it was an unfair demand i.e. Pakistan had done a lot at a great cost to herself. But it is clear that the US South Asia strategy was not successful.
I think that Pakistan has gained from standing its ground. Of course, in the interim, there was a lot of pressure on the relationship but we sustained it.
Q: What do you believe is preventing Pak-US relations from taking off?
Siddiqui: The lack of clarity on both sides. Pakistan has not had broad-based strategic dialogue with the US for a long time and that has held things back.
But when we did have the strategic dialogue in the Obama years, that was precisely when the relationship was worsening rapidly. So, the problem is deeper than a structured engagement.
There is mistrust on both sides that needs to be unwound and that will take effort, whereby the leadership on both sides needs to be engaged by their respective diplomats and historical issues are discussed, and we clear and put the last 20 years of history behind us.
Q: The common perception is that both sides fail to understand each other. Instead of talking to each other, do they talk across each other?
Siddiqui: I don't think this perception is correct. The bureaucracies on both sides are sophisticated. But the US political system has much more influence in its bureaucracy compared to ours ─ many US bureaucrats at the Assistant Secretary and higher levels are political appointees. So there is a strong political dimension in their system, which means that the direction that the US President wants is where the system goes.
Both sides have an understanding of each other and of their own historical positions. It is true that both sides don't spend enough time understanding where the other is coming from and frequently miss the considerations and pressures the other side has to manage. From our foreign policy perspective, I would say that I observed that since we are busy dealing with short term issues and crises, there is limited long term policy planning at least vis a vis the US.
For example, an answer to the question 'Where do we want the Pak-US relationship to be in 15 years?' will dictate whether the next generations of our students will study in the US, whether our scientists will collaborate with US scientific institutions, whether our economy will have significant linkages to the US economy etc. The answer vis-a-vis China is clear, but with the US it is not so.
Q: Can Pakistan help create a semblance of normalcy in Afghanistan as the Americans demand?
Siddiqui: There is a lot of focus on Pakistan here but we have already done everything we can. We used every ounce of security and diplomatic goodwill we had to get all parties to the table.
The outcome of these talks will be determined by the Americans and the Afghan people, not Pakistan.
The Americans understand that and we are facilitating the process as best we can because not only is peace in Afghanistan a noble goal but Pakistan has been the second-worst sufferer in this conflict and we want a peaceful Afghanistan.
Q: Pakistanis often say that they want trade, not aid. Are they serious about it?
Siddiqui: I sometimes think that our policy planners missed something here. Trade not aid is quite dated, by some decades. The adage about teaching a man to fish, instead of giving him fish has been replaced by teaching a man to change fishing!
In the same way, trade not aid is no longer applicable. There is a role for aid, there is a role for trade, but with all the evolution in technology and other change in the world, we need to look for something new. Perhaps technology, not trade. Although I would repeat that trade and aid are both relevant.
Q: Pakistanis often boast about their strategic location, arguing that they cannot be ignored because of this. Was this strategic location an asset for you or an obstacle?
Siddiqui: Saying we have a strategic location, like saying we have a young population, is taking a one-sided position on what is a fact. A one-sided position, while correct on its own, ignores the disadvantages. A youthful population also means a struggle to get them employed while a strategic location means geopolitical complexity.
So, I dealt with our strategic location as a fact. Sometimes there were advantages and other times there was complexity. But all complexity is an opportunity to clear matters. For example, we were caught up in the US-China competition as a result of our strategic location, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and closeness to China.
There were statements made both on Capitol Hill and by the US administration that money Pakistan may get from the International Monetary Fund may end up repaying China but we have been successful in explaining to all US departments of government and this is not how IMF and our loans to China are structured.
Having dealt with this complexity due to our strategic location, we have created a better understanding of Pakistan and our positions with these stakeholders.
Q: Do you think your performance would have been better if you had a full term? Would you like to return with a full term?
Siddiqui: Of course. Diplomatic results are a function of skills and time. If I had three years rather than seven months, we would have achieved 10 times the results.
I'm not being simplistic as its not linear. It takes time to build relationships and access and, in the end, Washington, like Islamabad is a small town. There are a few hundred relevant people in leadership and they are split between the White House, Congress, departments of government, the security establishment, business, scientific establishment etc.
We have lost a lot of ground over the last two decades and more hard work and time are what is needed to regain it.
As for me, I haven't given much thought to returning if ever offered. I spent 18 months in government between Islamabad and Washington at great personal cost in terms of opportunity, family life etc. My wife Saira has been a pillar of support both in going along with my transition to government and in her capacity as the wife of an ambassador, particularly in Washington where the spouse has a major role in diplomacy. So, it would have to be a 'team-decision'!


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Research Director CNRS
Leader of the group Mediacoding
Marc ANTONINI received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1991 and the "Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches" in 2003, both from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (France). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES, Toulouse, France), in 1991 and 1992. He joined the CNRS in 1993 at the I3S laboratory both from University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and CNRS and he is "Directeur de Recherche CNRS" since 2004. He is leading the MediaCoding research team at I3S laboratory (www.i3s.unice.fr/mediacoding).
He is a co-founder of Cintoo3D (www.cintoo3d.com) a Start-Up he created in July 2013, spin-off from University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and CNRS and specialized in 3D streaming solutions.
He was prize-winner in 2013 for the French national innovation prize for the creation of start-ups, CREADEV Emergence. He received the 'Médaille de l'Université' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis in 2013.
Marc Antonini is the author of more than 200 papers, 7 book chapters and 10 patents. His research activities cover in particular image and video coding as well as geometric processing and compression of static surface meshes and animations. He is also interested in the analysis of the information contained by the neural code in the visual system, with bio-inspired applications in image and video compression. His works on wavelet transform have been included in the JPEG2000 image coding standard. From 1995 to 2001, he was involved with CNES Toulouse in the Earth Observation program 'Pléiades' for the definition of the on-board image coder. The image analysis solution he developed with his research group has been implemented inside the satellite (first launch in 2011).
He supervised 24 Ph.D. and is currently supervising 2 Ph.D. students.
He is a scientific co-director of the French GDR ISIS since 2003 and is responsible in this GDR of the scientific organization and chairing of the research group: 'Telecommunications: compression, transmission, protection'. He is also coordinator of the working group 'Coding and Perception' of the GDR ISIS since 2008.
He is Associate Editor for the Eurasip Journal on Image and Video Processing (JIVP), member of the Technical Committee IEEE IVMSP (Image Video and Multidimensional Signal Processing) and member of the Technical Committee IEEE Image, Video and Mesh coding Interest Group.
He was Technical Program Chair for the conferences IEEE ICIP 2014 in Paris (France) and Eusipco 2015 in Nice (France), Finance Chair for the IEEE Workshop Multimedia and Signal Processing 2001 in Cannes (France) and participated to the organization of the IEEE Workshop Multimedia and Signal Processing 2010 in Saint-Malo (France). Currently, he is organizing the National French Conference on Image and Signal Processing (GRETSI 2017), which will be held in Juan-Les-Pins in September 2017.
He was coordinator of the specialty 'Vision, Image, MultiMedia' of the Master "Informatique: Fondements et Ingénierie' of Polytech Nice-Sophia of University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis from 2008 to 2012
He was a member of the CNRS expert committee "Multidimensional and Multimodal Signal Processing" from 2005 to 2008.
He also participates to several national research and development projects with French industries, and in several international academic collaborations.
He is a member IEEE.


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Paper accepted at URSW2008 Workshop (colocated with ISWC2008)
Fuzzy Description Logics have been studied in recent years as a formalism for reasoning under uncertainty in the context of the Semantic Web. Fuzzy Description Logics extend classical DLs and enable DLs to deal with vague knowledge, i.e. concepts and relations which can not be naturally defined in a classical (crisp) way, e.g. all persons that are old. Assertions about the properties of individuals are fuzzy, i.e. they are "true" to a certain extent that is specified by a value in the interval [0;1]. This allows to represent statements such as John is an old person to degree 0.8 or john and marry know each other to degree 0.3. Further, FDLs are para-consistent (to a certain extent): a statement and its negation can hold at the same time without causing an inference system to infer every possible statement about a domain model.
The following paper introduces a new method for performing reasoning with FDLs:
Uwe Keller and Stijn Heymans:
Deciding Fuzzy Description Logics by Type Elimination
The paper received very positive feedback and has been accepted at the 4th International Workshop on Uncertainty Reasoning for the Semantic Web (URSW 2008), October 26, 2008, co-located with the 7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2008), Karlsruhe, Germany.


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Tuesday, August 29, 2017
4 Comments
merle1971 August 29th, 2017 at 11:17 am
This is literally from over FOUR YEARS AGO. And you guys stole it from IFLScience. And, again, it's from FOUR YEARS AGO.
Lol, I doubt this guy stole it from IFLScience, considering this has existed since long, long before IFLS came into fruition. This is at least ten years old, probably well more. This Facebook poster is BS.
The Beast Among Us August 29th, 2017 at 1:10 pm
Fucking M&Ms.
Ripley August 29th, 2017 at 7:46 pm
"Newer blue ones" came out in like '95. That's how long this has been circulating.
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Weather Matters: Hurricane Center watching new disturbance in Atlantic
A system off the coast of Africa has a chance of becoming a tropical cyclone. (Credit: NOAA/ NHC)
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami are tracking a new tropical wave that rolled off the coast of Africa and has begun moving west over the eastern Atlantic. They gave it a 20 percent chance of developing into a depression or tropical storm over the next five days.
"Environmental conditions are expected to be marginally conducive for gradual development," Senior Hurricane Specialist Stacy Stewart said in an early morning tropical weather analysis.
Forecast track models aren't available yet for the system, but the NHC graphical forecast shows a continued westward movement at low latitudes through the Central Atlantic. That may be one way for it to avoid the dry air that killed off its predecessor, Tropical Depression Two, earlier in the week.
This is the second Cape Verde system of the season to get the attention of the Hurricane Center. TD Two fell apart as it approached the Lesser Antilles. Hurricane Arthur was not a Cape Verde storm and formed from a low pressure system off the East Coast of Florida earlier this month.
* * *
COLD FRONT UPDATE: The major summertime cold front that's expected to drop temperatures in the Midwest late this weekend may make it as far south as the Lake Okeechobee region around mid-week, National Weather Service forecasters said this morning. Don't look for any cool air, but it should mean a return to rainy weather as July wraps up and August begins.
Forecasters in Miami put rain chances at 40 percent for Palm Beach today, falling to 30 percent Sunday through Tuesday, and then rising to 50 percent by Wednesday with winds out of the southwest.


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As the amount of methamphetamine seized along the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border continues to surge, the amount of cocaine being captured continues to plummet, according to a new Drug Enforcement Administration report.
The trend, noted in the DEA's 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment released Wednesday speaks in part to how drug fighters have warned in recent years. Mexico-based drug cartels have realized they can make big money pushing meth. They don't need to depend on crops for producing cocaine and don't have to be at the mercy of Colombian growers for livelihood.
Much of the report is classified, but the agency Wednesday released the largest unclassified portion ever in creating a 148-page "summary" for the public. It is all posted below.
There is plenty of information in the report about a range of illegal drug use in the United States and law enforcement's assessment of what is in store for the coming year.
"The most significant drug trafficking organizations operating in the United States today are the dangerous
and highly sophisticated Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that continue to be the
principal suppliers of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana," the DEA's acting chief Chuck Rosenberg said in a letter published at the front of the report.
"These organizations are responsible for the extreme violence seen in Mexico, as these groups battle for turf and attack public officials and innocent civilians," he continued. "Domestically, affiliated and violent gangs are increasingly a threat to the safety and security of our communities. They profit primarily by putting drugs on the street and have become crucial to the Mexican cartels."
As the report notes, methamphetamine is now readily available across the United States, and the supply is increasing, the report notes.
The finding supports a 2014 report the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a coalition of local and federal law enforcement agencies, that described methamphetamine as being the "greatest threat" in this region.
"We are finding that with meth use there are increasingly more violent crimes by abusers in the form of home invasion and aggravated robberies," coalition director Mike McDaniel has said. "The drug is making them more crazy."
The amount of cocaine caught by law enforcement dropped in nearly every significant smuggling corridor along the entire U.S. Mexico border.
That includes a 20 percent drop in South Texas's Rio Grande Valley and 12 percent drop in San Diego – two places that have traditionally been the hottest for cocaine trafficking.
Meanwhile, the amount of meth being taken down is skyrocketing, with seizures climbing 90 percent in the Rio Grande Valley and 245 percent in El Paso.


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The Zetter Townhouse Marylebone Cocktail Lounge
Feel as though you're in the home of a quirky uncle at The Zetter Townhouse Marylebone's cocktail lounge.
Set on the ground floor of boutique hotel, The Zetter Townhouse Marylebone, Seymour's Parlour cocktail lounge is open from breakfast until late. Explore the unique drinks menu, created by drinks connoisseur Tony Conigliaro, and accompanied by sharing platters, supper bowls and light bites by chef Bruno Loubet. The décor is eclectic and is focused around the life and belongings of the fictitious wicked Uncle Seymour.
Venue Details & Map
The Zetter Townhouse Marylebone Cocktail Lounge
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It has never been my aim to be fearless nor was it to be brave. I just wanted to live in the most unrestricted way possible. I just wanted to live.
How do you do it they ask, weren't you scared? ABSOLUTELY!Most of the time when doing something new I get all the jitters and bubble guts. But I've learnt how to direct that nervous energy. I find it focuses me because due to my state of mind I don't have room in my brain for all the usual traffic. I knew that life would change tremendously after Sanaa was born and with university out for the summer I thought I have to make the most of it.
All the places I've wanted to see and all the things I've wanted to do. Instead of waiting until "next year" I chose to do them now. The idea of being as free as I have been over the summer, especially with a baby was alien to me before and I still wouldn't call myself adventurous.
What I would call myself is gobby.
That's been the trick to my summer with Sans; to tell people my plans. Procrastinating is my favourite past time and chickening out of plans is a close second. However, if I tell people what I'm going to do I feel like it'd be embarrassing to say well actually I flaked out: so I could have a duvet day. There's an air of accountability I adhere to once I've solidified plans in conversation. My aim was to experience things now so I don't regret it then. My aim was to lead by example and if you think it's easier now seeing as I'm always doing something new guess again.
I perspire like a chargrilled hog at the thought of some outings. It's a good thing though it means I'm getting outside my comfort zone and doing what I set out to.
But, it has never been my aim to be fearless I just wanted to live.


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AKA André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu, Jr.
Born: 1-Oct-1949Birthplace: Maastricht, Netherlands
Gender: MaleRace or Ethnicity: WhiteSexual orientation: StraightOccupation: Violinist, Conductor
Nationality: NetherlandsExecutive summary: Waltz King of Europe
Andrť Rieu grew up surrounded by music -- his father conducted the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Opera -- but he says he never understood the somber atmosphere at classical concerts. Now a conductor himself, he encourages his audiences to enjoy the music, which often means clapping in rhythm or waving their hands. Dashingly handsome, he leads his band while facing the audience instead of the orchestra, and of course, while playing the violin. Critics are sometimes put off by his public persona, which is more akin to a rock star than symphony maestro, but Rieu's performances are consistently sold out, his CDs top the classical charts, and his stylish performances are irresistible.
He began playing the violin at the age of five, became an accomplished professional, and played for years, as he has said, "for one conductor after another who did everything wrong, and I knew I could do it better." He started his own orchestra in 1987, and had immediate success playing the music of Johann Strauss and other popular waltzes, polkas, and everything from movie music to "Hava Nagila". On his first visit to Australia, he performed for free at a mall, without his orchestra, charming shoppers with such treats as a sing-along of "Waltzing Matilda".
Father: André Rieu (conductor, Limberg Symphony Orchestra, d. 1992)Brother: Jean Philippe RieuWife: Marjorie Rieu (m. 1975)Son: Marc Rieu (b. 1978)Son: Pierre Rieu (b. 1981)
University: Royal Conservatory of Brussels
Dutch Ancestry
Official Website:http://www.andrerieu.com/
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Our Clinic
Advantages for Clients
- One-on-one therapy sessions, as frequently as desired
- Group therapy to improve social communication skills
- Speech-language pathologists with expertise in specific areas of practice
- Supplemental therapy beyond what is received through public schools or other agencies
- Opportunities for parent training and consultation
- Professional clinic in a handicap accessible building
- Free, convenient parking
- Insurance filing for all clients
Professional Credibility
- All clinicians have the Certificate of Clinical Competence
- All clinicians have Nebraska Licensure
- Board Certified Child Language Specialist on staff
- Orofacial Myology Specialist on staff
In-Network Provider
- Aetna, including First Health and Coventry
- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska
- Midlands Choice, including QualChoice, Cigna, Medica, Preferred One and Auxiant
- United Health Care, including UMR and GEHA
Our Founders
Speech-language pathologists Toni B. Morehouse and Carol Bowen had a long-time dream of opening a private practice. They wanted to provide unique professional opportunities for other speech-language pathologists in the Lincoln area. Equally important, they were committed to providing quality speech and language services to clients of all ages in a professional setting at a reasonable cost. In 2014 Carol and Toni realized their dream when they opened Communication Works.


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Café Scientifique Asks if Scientists Should Speak Out
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Dr Laura Waters visited the school to give a Café Scientifique presentation to Boys' and Girls' Division pupils in Years 11 to 13. Her talk addressed the question, "Should scientists speak out or stay quiet?"
Dr Waters joined Huddersfield University as a lecturer in pharmaceutical science in 2003, and is currently a Principal Enterprise Fellow in the School of Applied Sciences. She has also worked on documentaries for the BBC. She recently ran tests on men's armpits to see if seventy-two-hour deodorants actually work!
She talked about whether people should believe everything they read, using articles in the Daily Mail as an example. Often claims are made about what people should or should not be doing, eating or drinking based on recent science; however, it is rare for the general public to get the whole story.
The importance of communication in science was also discussed, alongside the benefits of that the internet has brought in helping to spread information.
Dr Waters went on to talk about her team's aims to develop alternatives to animal testing, including what further research is needed and what alternatives that are already in place. She described the various stages involved in the testing and showed a special polymer that can be used instead of skin to test creams.
Year 12 pupil Saamin Cheema attended and said, "I found it very interesting and intriguing. The discussion on alternatives for animal testing was very inspiring and enlightened me on different ways of seeing this controversial topic. Overall the talk encouraged me to research more into this topic area. I would really recommend these talks to other pupils."
Laura Daly in Year 13 also found the talk really informative. She said, "I found the talk by Dr Waters very interesting and enjoyed hearing about the kind of work she does and the route she took to get to where she is in her career today. I found the section of her talk on animal testing particularly interesting as we are studying the ethics of animal testing in Religious Studies at the moment so learning about the different alternatives available was very useful."
Café Scientifique is a series of lunchtime lectures arranged by Miss Pealing, one of the Girls' Division chemistry teachers. These enrichment events bring together boys and girls throughout the year and provide insight into a variety of scientific topics.


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On one end of Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday, administration staffers were busy making preparations for an event that will likely determine whether comprehensive health care reform goes forward. And on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, their counterparts in Congress were busy making the case for why it should.
For several hours, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled the chief executive officer of Wellpoint, to see why the company's California subsidiary was raising health insurance premiums by nearly 40 percent for some customers. The testimony, combined with documents that the Committee had obtained, painted an illuminating if unsurprising picture. It appears that Anthem Blue Cross, Wellpoint's subsidiary, was trying to protect profit margins at a time of rising medical costs. That meant, among other things, charging more money to people that were running up higher medical expenses--people who, because of their pre-existing medical conditions, would have tremendous difficulty finding comparable coverage elsewhere.
That's pretty much the way the market works. And, combined with a new report showing that similar things are happening all over the country, the message could not be clearer: The American health care system is fundamentally broken. Around a sixth of the population has no health insurance at all; that much we've all known for a while. But even among the majority of working-age Americans who have private health insurance, security turns out to be precarious.
You might think you're safe--that your insurance will always be there, at a price you can afford, covering whatever medical treatments you need. But if you get sick, you may discover your plan has loopholes and limits, so that you owe tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses. And if you buy coverage on your own, you could end up trapped in a plan that, eventually, you won't be able to afford--just like many of those Anthem Blue Cross customers.
Thursday's summit is about how best to solve this problem. And, ostensibly, there are two basic approaches on the table. There is the comprehensive plan that President Obama put forward on Monday, which is a compromise between the measures Democrats in the House and Senate passed late last year. And there is the approach that leaders of the Republican Party have articulated--a set of familiar conservative hobbyhorses that, at best, might lower insurance premiums for the healthy only by making the sick pay more.
But there is also a third option, one that's been lurking in the background ever since last summer, when the push for comprehensive reform got bogged down on Capitol Hill. It's the administration's Plan B or, as the insiders have been calling it, the "skinny bill." Back in January, after the Massachsuetts election eliminated the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, Robert Pear and David Herzenhorn of the New York Times described the basic outline of such a scheme--primarily, a more modest expansion of public programs to cover children and their families. On Wednesday, Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House stood ready to pursue Plan B if the push for Plan A fails.
This isn't surprising: Of course the administration has a Plan B. (It would be political malpractice to do otherwise.) But the timing of the story is rather unfortunate: Just in the last 36 hours, the signs from Capitol Hill have been unambiguously positive: Conservative Democrats in the Senate are indicating their willingness to take up final amendments to the health care bill via the budget reconciliation process, while House Democrats are, according to multiple sources, warming to the Obama compromise. Exactly who leaked this and why is not clear, but sources close to the administration were quick to say that any impression of presidential mixed feelings would be wrong.
Says one senior Democrat in close contact with the White House over this issue:
The truth here is that this proposal was developed because the president wanted to know what the impact would be if he had to go smaller after the Massachusetts setback. He wants to pass comprehensive health reform and is fighting hard to make that happen.
A senior administration official e-mails with similar thoughts:
The President is not at all ambivalent. He understands that the only way to solve the problem is comprehensive reform. You can't guarantee affordable coverage for people with preexisting conditions, you can't really rein in costs, etc, unless you do this.
The account of Obama's sentiments is consistent with my own reporting--and Meckler's story, for that matter. It's also consistent with the pattern we've seen for more than a year now. Top administration officials and congressional allies have frequently urged Obama to step back from comprehensive reform, given its political difficulty. Obama has rejected the option repeatedly, arguing that the nation's health care problems require a comprehensive solution--that piecemeal measures just won't do the job.
And he's right. The Republican bill would, if anything, accentuate and accelerate the dysfunctions of the status quo. People with medical conditions would struggle to find decent coverage; people too poor to buy insurance wouldn't get the financial assistance they need. The vulnerable, in other words, would remain vulnerable if not more so.
The skinny bill, if enacted, would surely be an improvement. Sources confirm it would bring insurance to an additional 16 million total, or about a third of the uninsured, primarily through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It would also cost around a quarter of what comprehensive reform would, which means it could be paid for mostly through cuts to Medicare Advantage plans and other financing tweaks. That might appeal to some skittish Democrats, who want nothing except a face- (and job-) saving way out.
But the politics of the skinny plan aren't as simple as they might seem. It would give the administration an accomplishment, yes, but nobody would mistake it for "success." It's also not clear--to me, anyway--that the political optics are so appealing. Republicans have been known to demagogue expansions of Medicaid and S-CHIP, after all; financing them with reductions to Medicare Advantage plans will, undoubtedly, produce the exact same attacks the comprehensive bill already has (and for which most Democrats have already voted). It's easy to imagine negotiations dragging out, which is the last thing Democrats need right now. And that's to say nothing about the broader impact on Obama's ability to drive an agenda.
Most important of all, though, the skinny bill doesn't actually fix the broken system. It doesn't re-engineer the insurance market, so that anybody can get insurance regardless of pre-existing condition; it doesn't strengthen requirements on existing coverage, so that the insured can be safe in the knowledge that they'll be protected if they get sick; and it doesn't make as much progress towards cost control, which means neither individuals nor employers nor the government will get relief from the huge financial burden health care costs are placing on them.
However opaque the campaign for health care reform has seemed, it really does come down to those three goals: Making sure that everybody has insurance, making sure the coverage is good, and making sure, over time, that health care costs less. The fallback options, Democrat or Republican, don't accomplish those goals. Only comprehensive reform does.
The president knows this. The Democrats in Congress know this. And they have the power to act on it. The only question is whether they will.
Update: A senior administration official got back to me just after the article posted initially; I've now added the quote. Also, Ezra Klein has some even stronger (and compelling) warnings against the fallback plans:
...there's no political upside in starting over. The right will still cry "death panels!" and let loose the dogs of tea, and the left will savage them for failing to pass health-care reform despite controlling the second-largest congressional majority since the 70s. There's a policy argument here in that a fallback plan will cover more people than no plan will cover, but if covering people is what the Democrats want to do, they'll pass the comprehensive plan, which both covers more people and actually gives them a major accomplishment.
At this point, health-care reform either passes or it dies. Democrats are all in on this one. They know it, Republicans know it, and maybe more importantly, they know the Republicans know it. Letting health-care reform fail is indistinguishable from conceding the 2010 election. There's no real fallback plan. If Democrats fall back, they fall.


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You don't see things as they are, you see them as you are.
From film to SLR. From nature to urban. From the street to the portrait. Since a long time.
Photography is a love affair with life. B. Uzzle
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Full screen desktop app
RedSpecial62 last edited by
So in Windows 10, is there really no way to make the standalone app appear full screen? It seems such a waste to have the app in such a small window.
brandoncodispoti last edited by
First forum post, completely agree! Bump!
charles.cranfill last edited by
+one million
brandon.esbach last edited by
I have worked on some precision manufacturing tools from the 90's that can be resized to work properly in full 1920x1080 resolution (these are custom, C++ apps from back where 640x480 was king).