text:
Some time ago (not that long, really), customers looking to buy any product really didn't have much choice. In some sectors (for example, services or banking), it wasn't uncommon for there to be monopolies or near monopolies on products; for everyday products (for example, food), consumers were limited to the shops and supermarkets nearby, etc.
The Internet has changed this situation radically. The products and services on offer through the Internet, improved logistics processes and new regulatory frameworks (promoting openness and competition in traditionally closed sectors) have opened up a nearly endless range of possibilities at both ends of the chain: for companies and for final consumers.
No sector is immune to this. Even some that are highly specialised, like insurance.
Opportunities for insurance companies
The digital revolution, consumers of all sorts (for financial and insurance services, too), apps, etc., began to bring new air into the insurance sector some years ago.
The explosion of FinTech companies (with their technology-based financial services) and revolutionary technology (such as artificial intelligence or machine learning) are a challenge for traditional insurance companies. Nevertheless, every challenge brings with it opportunity.
If, on top of all this, we add the concept of Open Banking and the need to apply European directive PSD2 in the financial sector (with all this brings in terms of competition and renewal), as well as putting consumers at the heart of the business strategy, it is clear that new horizons are opening up for insurance companies – as long as they are willing to assume these changes, which are at times disruptive.
Each client wants to be unique
The business structure that existed until just a few years ago made it difficult to put the customer at the centre, setting them apart from the rest.
In large corporations, because it was more profitable to use their machinery for economies of scale. In small ones, because they lacked manoeuvrability. Nevertheless, new technology allows us to change services and the way work is organised; provides data we didn't have before on consumers, anonymous but individualised…
These transformations mean that it is no longer impossible to offer customers personalised solutions.
We've mentioned the possibilities technology is opening up: big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence… These have already begun to transform all branches of the insurance sector, including car and health insurance. For example, according to several studies, in less than two years, one in five cars will be connected to the Internet. And this will allow us (and already does in some cases) to collect data on how cars are driven and how much they are used. Additionally, this will mean insurance companies can offer a product using the usage-based insurance model, rewarding good drivers with better policy conditions.
Something similar is beginning to happen with some health insurance policies. By using apps, companies can verify users' healthy lifestyle habits and give them some type of advantage for, let's say, exercising.
Collect information and calculate risks with our Bank Reader Engine
One of the products in our portfolio for companies is the Bank Reader Engine. This allows our clients to read bank accounts, getting more information on their customers. This is information that, as we've said, allows a company to personalise its insurance policies.
What type of information is collected? Consumption and payment patterns, and possible alternative sources of income, among others. At the same time, it can discover risky behaviour that can help in making better decisions.
Best of all is that the Bank Reader Engine is a very powerful tool that is also extremely easy to use. One of the core principles behind development of all Unnax products is that user experience is just as important as functionality.
You just have to use our widget and you will start, after just a few minutes without being an expert in technology, to get highly valuable information for positioning your company. And you get access to this data in real time. Plus, you'll have our technical support service whenever you need it. Shall we start working for your company?


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The Googlebot visits new hubs within 30-60 minutes while they are in 'Pending' mode and the NOINDEX tag is in place for 24 Hours. This means that the bot does not index the page, and does not return for days or weeks. New pages do not get indexed for days or weeks. This causes lost traffic and lost earnings and leaves the pages open for obvious other consequences. The lost earnings from the delays can never be recovered. Surely this issue needs to be fixed by allowing 'trusted authors' to have their pages by-pass the 'pending' sin bin. Authors could be assigned 'trusted status' by getting 10 hubs through pending without any violations. HP could do random checks on the trusted authors and remove their benefits and reimpose the 'pending' sin bin checks for the next 10.
This Penalty imposed by 'pending' is killing traffic and killing earnings. It is probably contributing to the sustained traffic decline seen on Quantcast. It is also killing the moral of established writers on HP. Surely this would mean that HP's scare resources could be re-allocated to checking new-comers and offenders.
This issue needs to be addressed PLEASE!
Agreed! This is a TERRIBLE idea! It might make sense to apply to newbies, until they are established as quality writers, but to apply it across the board to everyone is ludicrous!
Look how many hubbers here are getting featured within 24 hours.
What is going on, Hubpages?
IzzyM, Can you tell me where you got the link to the latest page? I didn't know that it still existed. And thanks for posting it here btw, very helpful.
I think it is hidden now. It used to be under Explore~Hubs, but the url is easy enough to remember anyway.
Every hub there less than 24 hours old is by-passing the pending mode, and I want to know why.
At first I thought it was just high scoring hubbers, then I noticed a lot of older hubbers (and staff) but recently I have noticed relative newbies with lower scores being featured too.
But still, those are only a fraction of the whole site.
Why some and not others?
The bypassers seem to be staff, apprentices, and people with scores over 95. You'd think HubPages would reveal the secret recipe for bypassing the pending period for newly published hubs, after all, don't they want writers to succeed?
Say you run a business and give your employees incentives for doing things you consider really good for business. Do you keep it a secret what you consider to be good for business? Of course not.
****Note for the reading comprehension-challenged, this is an analogy. I know that contributors are not employees. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy
I am an apprentice who has had a 'score' of over 95 (currently 95) - all my newly published hubs in the last month have gone into idle status.
You must be wondering why, too?
You have been here long enough and are a trusted writer.
Why some and not others?
To be honest it doesn't really bother me - even when there wasn't an idle hub status it could take a few days or longer to get indexed - this really isn't a new issue. Many writers on here are already in the habit of using the webmaster tools to get hubs indexed - it's a bit of a pain, but just part of the writing process.
OK thanks. I am wondering if the 'time published' ie: X number of hours ago, is referring to the 'after pending' time?
No, that is real-time published. If you go to the second page (or even the bottom of the first page) you will see hubs published 24 or more hours ago.
When the idle hubs first came out, all latest hubs had a timeline of 20 odd hours or more.
And it's not all hubbers over 95, apprentices and staff.
I saw someone there with no badges, here only a few months with a hubberscore of 89 and it was a poem. So that doesn't fit any pattern.
My last five new hubs are now getting zero views, and only 2 of them are indexed.
They have missed out on that Google boost which always gave new hubs a chance of gaining natural, organic backlinks.
I'm seriously thinking of giving Wizzley a try.
There is something very wrong, here...and even in skimming the first 5 or so of those listings...in the first few sample sentences, I saw a number of spelling/grammar mistakes... THIS is what HP wants to publish in a hurry as "quality writing??!!"
You're right, there is something very weird about this!
My hubber score is consistently in the high-90s; often enough, it hits 100, yet none of my hubs were in that list...so that can't be the answer, either.
Bow wow, this is all so new to me it stumps me. In fact, I don't even understand the issue completely. I will just let it percolate in my mind for a while, like brewed coffee. Anyway, thanks for the Webmaster tools link, I just used it.
You're obviously not a Cat person with an exclamation like that
Agreed. This is a thumbs down. Will be back when something better happens.
Something like this was rolling around the back of my mind. Will follow this to see what input comes in. Thanks.
Within the last 30 hours I published a hub that went into that free pending parking space...
In the 24th hour that hub went out of pending and into HP's 2nd stage.... It had been crawled during that pending period.
After 24 hours that hub had been indexed in both G and B... My images had been captured by G within that 24 hour pending period and appeared in their serps after 24 hours, but actually stating that they had been captured 17 hours earlier... ie: 7 hours after it went into 'pending'
So.... what does all this mean???
Can I ask how you checked that
"After 24 Hours that hub had been indexed in both G and B" - I think that some people who are using the new tool - see that the bot has visited, and assume that this mean the page is indexed ( careful reading of the information => 'indexable' not indexed). Bot visits do not = indexed. Searching for the title + "hubpages" will show if its indexed or "cache: URL" - Sorry if you already know this stuff but I suspect many people don't.
PS your last hub is indexed - says 2 days ago in SERPS
Nope... I understand completely the points you raise and agree (from experience) with the issues.... so I certainly did not rely on the information provided by HP in that 'tool.'
I checked directly with both G and B (with a section of text) and perused the new image pool on G, which provides details of when all new pics were captured and indexed with them.
I generally find the images when I search the exact title of the hub and switch from web search - image search.
Because I always use excellent images... I know that they always rate well with G....
if they rate well with G and my hub doesn't (for whatever reason) then it indicates that an anomaly exists... and that, sadly tends to come back to HP....
+ within their 'tool' it gives view duration details...
my work always views to the max as I write and construct them to do so....
90% of those which have problems when checked, show that HP have not followed the process fully with them, as they do not indicate any view duration measurement.. even though they may be 2 years old and have gained little traffic.
Every well performing hub has its viewing duration details provided within a month of original publishing... they are represented by up to 5 stars and can be checked via GA also.
Established writers should be treated differently than newcomers. I didn't realise until a few days ago that the pending pages could actually be crawled by search engines. I assumed they were completely invisible until they were published. But my new hubs are getting Google visits within a day or two of going live. I haven't had a situation where I've gone for a long period of time without search engine visits.
I know it's probably not the answer you want, but can't you simply use:
to re-crawl the relevant hub once you know the 'no-index' has been removed?
Yep! I have to do that with every hub - Its such a pain and unreliable!
I was just going to suggest that too. It's what I do and it seems to counteract the pending status.
I get an error message if I do this while hub is 'pending' - It only works reliably after hub is 'featured' and there are still variable delays. Why should every experienced hubber have to do this? HP stuffs it - we have to fix it - not good!
SimeyC, thanks for the Webmaster tools link. I just used it.
What if the URL you submit to Webmaster tools is the link to your profile, where most all of your articles are shown?
This tool is great, but my most recent request has gone unheeded for 35 hours by WebMaster Tools. This is on a hub about Hurricane Sandy that is updated every few hours. Not good at all. So you can not rely upon Webmaster Tools to do a quick index anymore.
Why would a site want to nuke it's own views and income? I don't get it. I do tweet and publicize my articles and they do get views from my other audiences, but why am I publishing them here if they don't go anywhere else?
Why would anyone gripe about losing zero views by being put to sleep?
While the system is not perfect and still needs some work, the idea is to remove hubs that get no traffic from the SE. Why would anyone at care if that happens? It costs them nothing.
If your hub gets views from other audiences (FB, Twitter, etc.) it will still do so - going to sleep won't change that. So what's the problem? That's what I don't get.
This post is about "Pending" and delays to indexing by Google - not "Idle" hubs
My bad. Got to reading through the posts, I guess, and lost sight of the exact topic. Sorry.
Yes, I am interested in this question as well.
Based on other's responses and my own experiences, new hubs go into a pending phase for 24hrs in which they cannot be indexed by Google when they are first published. (thus they cannot show up in SERPs)
This results in at least 24hrs of wasted time as far as getting it indexed and ranked.
Why is this 24hrs so big of a deal? Because of hubs written on time sensitive subjects, such as reviews of sporting events.
I was able to get one of my hubs onto the first page of Google within 24-48 hours after publishing it. (this was several months ago). This generated several thousand views in 3-4 days all from search engines.
If the same situation were to occur today, I don't think I would get nearly as many visitors because of the 24hr delay in ranking my hub.
Anyone else concerned about this type of situation as well?
I like the idea of experienced hubbers being exempted from the 24hr review process because I think the review process is a good thing to help hubpages improve it's credibility.
It seems like every time I flag a poorly written (or any other violation) hub, it is from a newcomer to hubpages anyway.
OK - you maths buffs. Try to work out the net loss of traffic and income associated with delays to indexing under the following scenarios.
1000 hubs added a day - all approved. After being indexed, each hub gets 10 views a day and earns an average of 0.1 cents ( 1000 indexed hubs earns 10 cents every day)
Base scenario Hub is published and indexed on the same day - over two weeks gets 140,000 hits earns $1.40
Scenario A Hub is 'pending' for 24 hours and indexed on the next day. What is the net percentage loss over a two week period => 7% i. e. you lose 1 day in 14. (net loss is 10000 hits ; $0.10)
Scenario B Hub is 'pending' for 24 hours and all indexing is delayed by another day. ( days 1 and 2 lost)
Only 50% of the hubs get indexed on day three, another 25% on day 7 and all are indexed on day 14. This is equivalent to half the pages not being indexed for a week after coming out of pending, and one quarter being delayed for 2 weeks. What is the percentage loss in traffic and income over 14 days => My estimate of the loss is 40% (80,000 hits lost; $0.60). This loss can never be recovered!!!
You lose this income and traffic over the first 14 days for each new batch of 1000 hubs is added.
So the average loss of traffic and income for each new hub added under scenario B is 40%.
So for each hub you add under this scenario you lose a about $0.006 due to delayed indexing. Never to be recovered. If you get 100 hits a day instead of 10, you lose $0.06 for each hub -- etc.
Extreme example BUT it does highlight the losses.
Is this correct!
I want to know this too. I've been here for three years and have nearly 1000 hubs across all my subs, yet I still get the 'pending' stuff like most of us do on newly published hubs.
It matters, because if the Googlebots see the hub, and they do if another hubber sends it to Facebook or Twitter (even if HP 'hides' it), they see the noindex tag and sometimes don't return for ages.
Even when they do come back, we lose out on the promotion Google gives new content.
I have a new subdomain, with 6 hubs each of 1000+ words, that gets NO visits per day.
That worries me, because new subs here always got a boost.
I know I could go to webmasters tools and ask Google to index them, but hey...why should I? This is a high profile site, and the whole point of writing here is that we are spared having to do all that stuff.
What I really want to know is why some hubbers, and there are only 20 or so, get immediate featuring rights while the rest of us don't?
Drop in traffic on Quantcast - Awesome. This means that all those crap Hubs at the bottom of the barrel thats been on here for years is NO Longer getting indexed by Google if those authors are not revising them. Which one will find will be plenty.
John, you intimating that hubs, only ever, get traffic from Google, this is simply not correct.
Drop in traffic on Quantcast - Awesome.
Nope - Idle hubs get very little traffic - 20% of hubs that used to get traffic now get 20% less on average - not Awesome => Devastating!. Google is the major source of traffic and hence income.
The thing that really bugs me about the pending is for news things. Like if I wanted to write a hub about tonights world series game, or immediately following the election, or whatever, nobody will read it until what I wrote is out of date! We need to fix this, before the election! I want to write election night, but I wont be indexed until it's too late, then there's no point.
I agree. It really feels like every time Hubpages brings in a 'solution' it hurts the more experienced and proven writers more than anyone else.
After Panda it was the repeated changes that saw year or older hubs being unpublished for infringements of multiple new rules, or hubbers having to go through and edit hundreds of hubs to meet new rules.
In this case, it means even people who have experience writing quality content on subdomains that Google likes get belted as badly as a newbie with no experience.
I don't know the figures or exact logistics, what I do know is since this new 'pending' status for new hubs I have lost traffic and a lot of revenue. I don't understand the reason for the pending status....do hubs ever get deleted while in pending status? I have to agree with others that 'seasoned' hubbers shouldn't have to have their hubs put into pending status AND it is now impossible to write a timely hub as someone else pointed out.
Hubpages never deletes hubs. They will unpublish them, but that is all.
Pending status was essentially meant to hide low quality or low traffic hubs, which may effect your overall subdomain.
I thought idle hubs was intended to hide the low quality/traffic hubs?
Isn't pending status just a delay to assess quality of hubs prior to official publication?
=>Isn't pending status just a delay to assess quality of hubs prior to official publication?
Yes it is, but I have never had one knocked back - surely established authors can be trusted. The pending causes delays in indexing - instead of 30 minutes it an be days or weeks!! => lost of traffic and earnings.
Yes, Janderson99...I agree entirely and am equally as frustrated as yourself!
My response was specifically to WryLilt's comment that:
=>"Pending status was essentially meant to hide low quality or low traffic hubs, which may effect your overall subdomain".
and intended to distinguish between 'pending' hubs and 'idle' hubs.
I personally see little merit to the the 'pending' process and also believe that established authors should not have to be penalised because of the sub-standard submissions of some authors.
Whilst quality is difficult to assess I have been rather surprised that hubs are allowed to be published with more or less a paragraph. I know that there are some formats such as videos and recipes which may not require many words, but I am not referring to these.
It is AUTHORS who need to go into 'pending' publication mode and not all hubs.
I also note that some authors are already receiving preferential treatment by automatically having their hubs approved i.e. no 'pending' period and others published within a couple of hours. Mine are all 24 hours to the minute, more or less!
What happened to the level playing field?
The lack of staff feedback and transparency concerning this is irksome. All I have read is that they are 'trialling' some changes and nothing further.
Sorry, hadn't had my morning coffee. Yes, I meant to write idle, not pending.
I do agree that trusted authors should be able to bypass this. Or crawlers should be blocked completely from even crawling pending hubs.
Yes! This irks me as well - why is it 24 hours exactly?
To the minute?
If they were actually looking at each hub, it would be checked and passed through on a somewhat variable schedule. BUT that is not what is happening - hubs are going through exactly at the max time, almost as though if they are not checked, they simply pass through after this damaging delay.
To me, the appearance is that Hubpages wanted to implement some moderation, but doesn't have the manpower. So they are hurting many in order to moderate a small sample. Frustrating!
I'm sure they have access to the published time & date, why not moderate retroactively and just inform users that any hub can be sent back for review within the first week?
Agreed, tillsontitan,
While I wasn't making a ton of money, I had finally at least broken the payment threshold...but not yet on a monthly basis..I was at a little over a dollar a day... now, I am behind...it is the 26th of the month, and I'm at 25 bucks instead of the 26 and change I'd started seeing before all this... this... well, this crap!
Signed. It doesn't seem to be doing the platform, it's traffic trends or its' writers any favors. Having Gbot bounce away with a noindex tag has led to crawling rates becoming a desert wasteland among my hubs.
Is HP experimenting with us?
The noindex tag is being applied to most, BUT NOT ALL, writers' new hubs.
The only newly published hubs being featured under hubs> latest are all from the same small group of authors.
I don't see a "latest" section, can you link to it please?
by Yvonne Spence 10 years ago
I love HubPages, I feel that I have learned so much here and my confidence in writing non-fiction took such a huge leap when I was invited onto the Apprenticeship program last year. I have met some wonderful people here - both staff and other Hubbers. But as may other people have said, the idling...
by Dr. John Anderson 10 years ago
As reported in the Forums certain hubbers appear to have "Pet" status and their new hubs get published immediately without the 24-48 hours "pending" delay (orbiting arrows). What's the criteria for this (all had hubber scores above 95). or is it related to what's in the hub -...
by Simon Cook 10 years ago
There is a lot of anger and/or frustration relating to the 'pending' system and most of it is down to the fact that it's not clear why there are exceptions - this is justified and there should be open-ness. (Note this only is aimed at new hubs, not hubs that become un-featured later)One way to do...
by Sophia Angelique 10 years ago
Please can someone explain to me why, if one decides not to wait 24 hours to put up one's hub, one then has to wait three or four weeks for Google to index. This has absolutely nothing to do with Google, but has everything to do with punitive action from HP.
by Joana e Bruno 10 years ago
Why isn't my last published hub showing up in my profile page?Usually, as soon as I publish an hub it shows up in the hubs section (top) of my profile page, but yesterday I published one and nothing... Anyone experiencing the same?
by Dr. John Anderson 11 years ago
Elsewhere on the forums people are reporting very long delays in getting indexed by Google - the delays seem to be increasing. Obviously this has been caused by the NOINDEX tag added to new hubs when under review and to ZZZ hubs while being reconsidered. Surely this is of concern to HP? As a writer...
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
InterDesign Spa Washcloth With Hanging Loop – Gray
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text:
How to Drink Smart on Tequila Sunrise
It's that time again. No, not the approach of Halloween, or fall, or the changing of the leaves. In just one week, it'll be time for Northern Arizona University's annual Homecoming festivities, which will include, inevitably, Tequila Sunrise. If you're not familiar with this time-honored Flagstaff tradition, the unofficial event's festivities take place in the…Read More >


text:
There are actually a lot of posts on this blog.
The problem is you can't see the ones that don't fit on this page.
You can click the tags.... and see everything under that tag....
There used to be an "older posts" button but i somehow deleted it... I've tried just copying the code from other people's buttons but it doesn't work.
Can anyone help out with this? I will give you cherries. The primary currency of my people.


text:
September 22, 2016 – The Florida Times-Union, Guest Column
by Barbara Petersen, First Amendment Foundation President
Florida's extraordinary tradition of open government is founded on the simple but essential concept that the people have a right to know how and why the government makes decisions on their behalf.
After all, it's our government.
So when a government action stems from a process shrouded in secrecy, we have a right not just to ask questions but to demand that the process be changed.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation is currently considering a proposal by a secretive organization that would hike workers' compensation rates by almost 20 percent, yet no one really knows exactly how they arrived at that number.
This process must be changed.
The National Council on Compensation Insurance is a private, state-sanctioned organization responsible for determining how much Florida businesses will pay for workers' comp insurance.
State law requires businesses to carry workers comp, and NCCI recommends rates for approval by the states' insurance commissioner.
Of particular concern is the lack of oversight and transparency in the process used by NCCI in formulating its proposal.
Florida law governing proposed workers compensation rate hikes stipulates that records and meetings relating to determining and proposing rate hikes are subject to Florida's open government laws.
This includes a provision applying the Sunshine Law to committee meetings "of a recognized rating organization with responsibility for workers' compensation and employer's liability insurance rates in this state" when proposed rate hikes are being discussed.
Unfortunately — but perhaps not surprisingly — when it developed its current rate hike proposal, NCCI did not comply with these requirements.
NCCI has unlawfully denied at least one public record request for "supporting information" relating to its recommendation and claims the law does not apply because NCCI does not have a "committee" that meets to determine proposed rate changes.
This assertion shows a complete lack of understanding of the breadth and scope of Florida's Sunshine Law, and NCCI's actions may constitute a violation of law.
The purpose of the disclosure requirement is to provide the public with an opportunity for oversight and accountability, the cornerstones of our state's open government laws.
Florida's courts have repeatedly held that our right of access to the records and meetings of our government, as well as the records and meetings of those acting on behalf of government, is to be broadly construed to favor access to the public.
By denying its legal responsibility to act in the sunshine when proposing a significant rate hike for workers' compensation, NCCI has acted contrary to the intent of the Legislature.
More troubling, it has acted contrary to the express wishes of the people of Florida, who have embraced open government time and time again.
The First Amendment Foundation asks the Office of Insurance Regulation to deny the proposed rate increase and require NCCI to start the process anew — this time in full compliance with Florida's open government laws.
It's the only way the people of Florida can know their interests are being properly protected. [READ MORE]
Barbara Petersen is president of the First Amendment Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works as an advocate for the public's right to oversee its government through application of Florida's open government laws.


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DTV Testing and Building Blues
This month I would like to start with the initial power on tests of IPTV's first solid-state DTV transmitter for facility KRIN in the Cedar Rapids/Waterloo, Iowa, market.
Unfortunately I cannot, because we were unable to get the transmitter connected to the dummy load for testing. The reason is that the precision directional coupler was manufactured using Myat line, which is incompatible with the Dielectric transmission line used throughout the rest of the installation, and line layout didn't allow for the use of adapters. The part shipped March 22 and we continued the install March 25.
The transmitter install otherwise has gone much more smoothly compared to our first install in Des Moines. However, that is not to say we haven't had a few issues come up and I would like to spend some time on a few of those issues. Possibly the most perplexing problem we have had so far was not particularly technical. In fact, it was more biological. Who would have thought that the construction of a rather small addition to our existing transmitter building would necessitate the relocation of the septic system? I know what you're thinking: Bill, why would you build your addition on top of the septic system?
While it is true the DTV conversion has been mired and at times things haven't smelled quite right, there must have been another location. Strangely enough, we didn't build on the septic system, but since it wasn't where the prints showed it to be, the new addition was close enough that there was concern over the footings. Although not initially a major problem, it did become significant when the contractors dragged their feet on the process because it wasn't part of their initial bid. The old system was filled in so that work on the building addition could move on, but then there was much discussion and consternation over where the new septic system could be installed.
By the time the contractors were ready to start, winter had set in and the ground was frozen. The resultant folly necessitated the use of an outhouse through an Iowa winter. Historically, I think Iowa winters were the driving force behind the invention of indoor toilets.
IPTV has selected Harris as the manufacturer of our DTV transmitters. Our network consists of eight stations and although two of our facilities (Des Moines and Iowa City) use IOT-based systems, the remainder use solid-state systems. KRIN is our first installation of the Harris DiamondCD series transmitter. In this case we are installing a DHD90P3 rated at 20.5kW average DTV power. Our construction permit calls for an ERP of 250 kW. From our perspective, solid state was the best way to go for IPTV, given the number and locations of our stations.
When the network was originally built each site was manned by at least one full-time RF engineer and many had two engineers. Over time, like most facilities, we have seen budgets reduced and fewer engineers interested in RF. As a result we have had a difficult time filling vacant RF positions. After a significant period of vacancy it is difficult to hold an open position when we've been able to keep the facilities running with the remaining personnel. It is especially difficult when the choice may come down to eliminating a vacant position or letting an employee go.
By constructing solid-state transmission facilities, in theory we'll increase the reliability of the operations in an environment where there will be fewer and fewer engineers available to service the systems. By standardizing on a single manufacture and model of transmitter we can better service the system with fewer people. It is certainly not the ideal solution but under the given conditions it seems to be the most sensible way to proceed.
Another particularly interesting challenge with this project is that we are working with a commercial partner on the facility. I described this partnership before and I won't go into any real detail other than to say that IPTV has purchased a panel antenna and transmission line that will be shared with KCRG for their DTV service. In exchange for letting them use the antenna and transmission line, they are letting us use their tower. We're splitting the costs of the tower modifications.
This is a pretty straightforward arrangement; however, recently a third station in the market has approached us about also using this antenna for their DTV service. As of this writing, there is still no final agreement on the third station's participation, and with construction slated to begin in less than a month, time is running short. The output of our transmitter must go from our building to KCRG's building, where the combiner will be located and then out to the antenna. Theoretically, the third station will also have to send their feed into the KCRG building for combining. Since KCRG and the third station have adjacent DTV channels, the combining gets a little tricky and the hardware is quite large, so the quicker the decision occurs, the better.
Although the tower work hasn't started yet, I'm already getting concerned about how things are proceeding. The plan from the beginning has been for KCRG's existing antenna to be mounted on top of IPTV's new panel antenna. That stack would then be mounted on the KCRG tower. To prevent any need to change KCRG's operating parameters, the center of radiation for its antenna has been treated as a fixed point in vertical space.
Knowing that point and the length of the stacked antenna, a certain amount of the existing tower would be removed, a new top plate manufactured to mate to the stack and - voila! - project complete. Yes, I know there is more to it, like changing guy points and strengthening the remainder of the tower, but the basic concept is pretty simple.
The first proposal for this was made in May 2000. About a month ago, I was speaking with a rep for the tower company and he informed me that IPTV would need to have our existing analog antenna removed and put up a temporary antenna. This is because our antenna was up higher than the tower company thought it was - which, of course, comes to light after we have already signed an agreement for the work including pricing.
The confusion over the location of our antenna really surprised me because it hadn't moved since this company had built the tower and installed it. One of the reasons for going with the company was that they were intimately familiar with the tower, there would be less room for error. It turns out error is like Jell-O and there's always room for it.
More next month.
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Bill Hayes, director of engineering and technology for Iowa PBS, has been at the forefront of broadcast TV technology for 40 years, 23 of them at Iowa PBS. He's served as president of IEEE's Broadcast Technology Society, is a Partnership Board Member of the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) and has contributed extensively to SMPTE and ATSC. He is a recipient of Future's 2021 Tech Leadership Award.
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A Vision for Open Science by Design
- In the previous chapters we defined the goals, benefits, and motivations of open science, as well as some barriers and concerns. In this chapter we take a closer look at how open science can be implemented "by design." We define Open Science by Design as a set of principles and practices that fosters openness throughout the entire research lifecycle.
- Scientific progress is largely influenced by factors that promote—or constrain—the dissemination of knowledge. These factors may be social, economic, or both, and they contribute directly not only to the amount of time it takes a community to fully understand and embrace the implications of scientific discoveries, but also, in some cases, to the successful conduct of science itself.
- Over the past two decades, a related number of activities that include open publications, open data, and open source code have gradually been adopted and shared by increasing numbers of researchers in multiple fields. Many researchers are responding to evidence that openly sharing articles, code, and data in all phases of the research process is beneficial to the research community, to the broader scientific establishment, to policy makers, and to the public at large.
- The committee's concept of open science by design is by necessity general and idealized. Some discipline-specific nuances cannot be captured in such a broad concept. Also, and importantly, open science by design is intended as a framework to empower the researcher.
The overarching principle of open science by design is that research conducted openly and transparently leads to better science. Claims are more likely to be credible—or found wanting—when they can be reviewed, critiqued, extended, and reproduced by others. All phases of the research process provide opportunities for assessing and improving the reliability and efficacy of scientific research. As an example, even early in the research process, research plans that are made openly available through a preregistration service, such as Registered Reports
(COS, 2018b), allow review and potential revision of the proposed methodology before data are collected and resources are needlessly expended.
A related principle is that integrating open practices at all points in the research process eases the task for the researcher who is committed to open science. Making research results openly available is not an afterthought when the project is over, but, rather, it is an effective way of doing the research itself. That is, in this way of doing science, making research results open is a by-product of the research process, and not a task that needs to be done when the researcher has already turned to the next project. Researchers can take advantage of robust infrastructure and tools to conduct their experiments, and they can use open data techniques to analyze, interpret, validate, and disseminate their findings. Indeed, many researchers have come to believe that open science practices help them succeed.
The enormous changes effected by the Internet and the wide range of digital technologies that are now available have had an immense impact in all areas of life, and scientific research is no exception. Digital computing technologies have enhanced scientific knowledge discovery in open networked environments, including information retrieval and extraction, artificial intelligence, data mining, and distributed computing, as a new paradigm in the conduct of research (NRC, 2012a). These technologies have the potential to accelerate the discovery and communication of knowledge, both within the scientific community and in the broader society. A principle that ensues is that open science by design is a natural consequence of the fact that "digital science" is rapidly supplanting other ways of doing science.
The researcher is at the center of the practice of open science by design. From the very beginning of the research process, the researcher both contributes to open science and takes advantage of the open science practices of other members of the research community. Practicing open science by design means that researchers develop new habits and customs to promote better science. Figure 4-1 illustrates that open science practices in all phases of the research life cycle are essential to the realization of open science by design.1
The research life cycle begins with the Provocation phase. During this phase, researchers have immediate access to the most recent publications and have the freedom to search archives of papers, including preprints, research software code, and other open publications, as well as databases of research results, including digital information related to physical specimens, all without charge or other
1 The committee acknowledges the work groups such as of the Center for Open Science and its Open Science Framework (https://osf.io) and FOSTER (https://www.fosteropenscience.eu/content/what-open-science-introduction) in developing innovative approaches to supporting and conceptualizing openness in the research life cycle. There is a long history of explaining and describing the life cycle of information regarding access to research resources to achieve open science.
barriers. Researchers use the latest database and text mining tools to explore these resources, to identify new concepts embedded in the research, and to identify where novel contributions can be made. Robust collaborative tools are available to network with colleagues in preparation for the Ideation phase of the research.
During the Ideation phase, researchers and their collaborators develop and revise their research plans. During this phase they may collect preliminary data from publicly available data repositories and conduct a pilot study to test their new methods on the existing data. When applying for research funding, they develop the required data management plans, stating where data, workflow, and software code will be archived for use by other researchers. In addition, in some cases, they may decide to preregister their research plans and protocols in an open repository, as has, for example, become common practice in clinical research. Publicly preregistering the experimental design and analysis plan in advance of data collection is an effective means of minimizing bias and enhancing credibility in a number of fields. Throughout this phase, they pay close attention to the methods and tools they will use during the Knowledge Generation phase, in order to ensure that their final research results will be available in accordance with open principles.
During the Knowledge Generation phase, researchers collect data, using tools that guarantee that the dataset will be stored in an interoperable format and includes appropriate documentation and metadata for easy reuse by other interested researchers at some time in the future. Some data are artifacts, physical samples, and specimens, such as rocks, ice core samples, or tissue samples, and researchers develop concrete plans to archive these data according to disciplinary best practices. With the availability of open software, the researcher can document approaches to cleaning and preparing data for analysis in a research notebook. Electronic research notebooks are both human readable and executable documents that can be run to perform data analyses and are useful in the Validation phase.
During the Validation phase, researchers use open data techniques to analyze, interpret, and validate findings. They present their preliminary findings at conferences and other venues and refine their methods based on relevant comments and critiques. They may deposit their initial working paper in a preprint server of their choice and revise the paper based on the open peer review afforded by the service. They prepare their data in standard formats according to disciplinary norms, and they document and describe both their data and the code that generated their results in optimal ways for reuse and replication. Analysis and interpretation of data are key elements of the scientific process, and the algorithms and workflows for data analysis and interpretation are important research objects in their own right. As they prepare for the Dissemination phase, they review and amend, if necessary, their data management plans to ensure that they have met all of the criteria for making their data and code available for broad and open sharing in an appropriate FAIR repository. As discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 5, efforts are ongoing to develop new models of scientific communication that rely on open community review, and where the validation stage follows publication. Implementing such models at a large scale will be an important step forward.
During the Dissemination phase, researchers select the best venue for open publication of their work, including articles, data, code, and other research products. They revise and, in some cases, substantially improve their work based on the comments of the peer reviewers. Journal articles are currently the primary method for summarizing and sharing scientific results, and the journal's impact factor plays a large role in the assessment of academic achievement. In the digital age, compiling articles in journals for distribution is no longer a requirement for broad distribution. New models are appearing, in which authors publish their work, which then goes through open quality review and certification. The article might then be included in a mega-journal, which are essentially online collections of published articles. Proposals for non-article formats for scholarly communication are also appearing. For example, several neuroscientists have proposed the single figure paper as a form of "nano-publication" that would communicate key findings in a manner optimized for machine-readability (Do and Mobley, 2015). Upon acceptance and before final submission of their work, they select a public copyright license, such as the GNU General Public License for software or a Creative Commons license for other works, including scholarly articles. In preparation for the Preservation phase, they make final adjustments to the metadata that describe their research data and code, making sure that these will be reusable by other interested researchers and specific physical samples are preserved and curated for use by other researchers.
During the Preservation phase, researchers deposit the final peer-reviewed articles in an openly accessible university archive, or they deposit the articles in another publicly accessible archive as required by their research funders. They deposit their research data and software in one or more FAIR data archives, with clear and persistent links that interlink the article, data, and software. Publicly accessible data may then be used by others in the Provocation phase to generate new ideas, marking the beginning of a new research life cycle. Note that data are
often most effectively stewarded and preserved if planned for from the outset, and not at publication time.
Also, and importantly, open science by design is intended as a framework to empower the researcher. As expressed in other NASEM work, the principle for openness of data and other information underlying reported results is that they should ordinarily be available no later than the time of publication, or when the researcher is seeking to gain credit for the work (NAS-NAE-IOM, 2009; NRC, 2003). For journal publication, any sharing prior to the point of final publication is up to the researcher, who is in full control of the decision of when to share.
The practice of open science by design means that the researcher plans for openness right from the start of the research project. Researchers can choose from a growing number of tools, technologies, and platforms as they design and conduct their research. These choices include, for example, the most appropriate data mining algorithms for exploring an unfamiliar dataset, the best workflow tools for capturing and sharing computational workflows, and the established standards for preparing their data for optimal use in FAIR archives. A wide variety of organizations are developing these tools, technologies, and platforms, including community-based nonprofits supported by philanthropy or membership dues, nonprofit coalitions that bring together multiple stakeholders, for-profit startups, and large corporations. A first step might be to register for an author identifier through a service such as ORCID, which provides unique, persistent identifiers for researchers (Meadows, 2016; Wilson and Fenner, 2012). Individuals with an ORCID unique identifier can associate their identifier with their research outputs, whether those outputs are articles, datasets, or other scholarly works. ORCID identifiers can also be used to unambiguously identify researchers in manuscript submission systems, grant application systems, and thesis deposit systems. Because the identifier is unique and persistent, it is not affected by changes in an individual's location, name, or affiliation.
ORCID's User Facilities and Publications Working Group brings together "publishers and facilities to better understand research, publication, and reporting workflows" (ORCID, 2018a). ORCID's Reducing Burden and Improving Transparency (ORBIT) project encourages "funders to use persistent identifiers to automate and streamline the flow of research information between systems" (ORCID, 2018b). Since 2015, Crossref has enabled ORCID records to be automatically updated (Hendricks, 2015). Also, FREYA, a 3-year project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020, builds the infrastructure for persistent identifiers as a core component of open science in the EU and globally.
With eventual publication in mind, researchers can choose an openly available system, such as Docear or Zotero (Beel et al., 2011; Docear, 2018; Vanhecke, 2008; Zotero, 2018) to collect, manage, organize, and format their references. These systems serve as traditional reference managers, but with additional features, including searching and downloading from public databases, tagging and
annotation capabilities, and sharing and exchanging data with collaborators or other software applications. These systems also interoperate with BibTeX, another open source reference manager for those working in the TeX public domain document preparation environment (BibTex, 2018; Hefferon and Barry, 2009; Patashnik, 2003).
Researchers can choose among a variety of open tools for exploring and mining existing datasets. Two popular tools are the R programming language and the WEKA machine learning workbench. The R programming language and software environment is designed for statistical analysis and data mining and integrates with the RStudio user interface (Ihaka, 2010; Tippman, 2015; Verzani, 2011). The WEKA workbench is a toolkit implemented in Java, and like the R software suite, it is also designed to support the entire workflow for experimental data mining, including multiple preprocessing tools, machine learning algorithms, and visualization techniques (Holmes et al., 1994; Eibe et al., 2016).
Automated documentation and sharing of workflows is a key aspect of open science by design. Because many, if not most, areas of science now involve computational analysis of often very large datasets, a variety of tools, both general and domain-specific, have been developed to manage computational data processing and workflows. Importantly, these tools allow researchers to publish their methods and algorithms not only in textual form, but also to publish the code itself, enhancing the reproducibility of the results. In the "Science Code Manifesto," Barnes et al. (2018) emphasized, "the code is the only definitive expression of the data-processing methods used: without the code, readers cannot fully consider, criticize, or improve upon the methods." Stodden et al. stated "Access to the computational steps taken to process data and generate findings is as important as access to the data themselves (Stodden et al., 2016; see Box 4-1). Some recently established journals are dedicated to publishing software, including the Journal of Open Source Software and Journal of Open Research Software, allowing authors to receive credit equivalent to "traditional" journal publication for the code they publish (Shamir et al., 2018).
A growing number of scientific journals, including Nature, PNAS, and Science, require authors to make materials, data, code, and associated protocols available to readers (Nature, 2018; PNAS, 2018; Science, 2018). The American Economic Review, the flagship journal of the American Economic Association, has hired a data editor to assist authors with the proper approach to archiving data and code associated with published articles. To incentivize open practices, the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines provide a set of recommended standards for scholarly journals to increase reproducibility of research (COS, 2015; Nosek et al., 2015). The TOP Guidelines consist of eight modular standards, with each guideline including three levels of increasing transparency. For example, for the analytic methods (code) transparency standard, a journal that only encourages code sharing or says nothing about it would be at level 0; a journal that requires authors to state whether and where code is available would qualify for level 1; a journal that requires code to be posted on a trusted repository would qualify for level 2; and to qualify for the most transparent level, level 3, the
journal would require that code not only be posted to a trusted repository, but also that reported analyses be reproduced independently before publication.
Mitchum noted that "many are looking to the culture of software programming as a potential model for a more open world of science" (Mitchum, 2015). GitHub, a startup launched in 2008 and originally intended for and used heavily by the open source software development community, is, in fact, increasingly used by researchers as a public platform for sharing their scientific data and code openly (GitHub, 2018; Perkel, 2016). GitHub agreed to be acquired by Microsoft in June 2018 (Ford, 2018). Project Jupyter is an open source framework for scientific software, standards, and services (Project Jupyter, 2018). Jupyter Notebooks, the project's flagship resource, is a domain-independent, web-based platform for supporting reproducible scientific workflows, from "interactive exploration to publishing a detailed record of computation" (Kluyver et al., 2016). Jupyter works with code in several different programming languages and enables notebook sharing when integrated with the recently developed Binder service that provides a computational environment for users to inspect and execute code, and to publish it seamlessly on GitHub (Forde et al., 2018).
The Center for Open Science's Open Science Framework (OSF) provides a platform for users to design and create projects, engage with collaborators, manage their research using a suite of tools, prepare their research reports, and preserve their research outcomes. (Foster and Deardorff, 2017; see Box 4-2). The OSF can also be integrated with other open tools, including, notably, support for storage of OSF facilitated research outputs in open repositories. Stodden and colleagues have identified many additional research environments, workflow systems, and dissemination platforms that are now available for researchers' use across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines (Stodden, 2017; Stodden et al., 2014). In addition, other groups, such as the Research Data Alliance, and Earth Science Information Partners, work with communities to create and disseminate open science and open data tools.
Curated data are the cornerstone of interoperable systems, allowing others to access, understand, compare, and reuse the data stored within those systems in optimal ways. Curation applies throughout the research lifecycle, from the point of data collection to its eventual deposit in an open repository. Many academic disciplines have established and made available community-driven metadata specifications. The Digital Curation Centre maintains an extensive list of domain-specific metadata standards and, in many cases, includes pointers to tools to help implement those standards (Digital Curation Centre, 2018). For example, the ISA initiative has developed a framework and an open source software suite for creating metadata for -omics-based experiments (Sansone et al., 2012), and the Data Documentation Initiative has developed an international standard and a set of tools for describing data in the social and behavioral sciences (Vardigan, 2013).
There are a variety of efforts underway to ensure that datasets are reliably cited, such that they can be found and appropriately attributed (Altman and Crosas, 2013). Although these practices are not yet as mature as article citation practices, their importance is beginning to be acknowledged. In 2012, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) hosted a workshop that addressed various dimensions of this topic, including technical requirements, legal and socio-cultural aspects, and disciplinary considerations (NRC, 2012b). Recent community-driven efforts have resulted in a set of principles for data citation (Data Citation Synthesis Group, 2014), the Data Citation Implementation Pilot (DCIP) project (Cousijn et al., 2017), as well as implementation guidelines focused more specifically on scholarly data repositories (Fenner et al., 2016). In
addition, the Center for Expanded Data Annotation and Retrieval (CEDAR), a standards-based metadata authoring system developed under the NIH Big Data to Knowledge Program, is a good example of a general-purpose tool for creating standards-based metadata in a domain-independent manner and that fits into the data submission pipeline for open repositories. There is strong agreement that datasets should have a persistent, globally unique method for identification that is both human understandable and machine-actionable.
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a system for identification of content on digital networks. DOI identifiers are persistent, unique, resolvable, and interoperable for management of content on digital networks (Paskin, 2010). The system is implemented through a federation of registration agencies under agreed upon policies and common infrastructure and is now overseen by the Swiss DONA foundation (DONA). The DataCite organization was founded in 2009 to support data archiving through data citation (Neumann and Brace, 2014; DataCite, 2018). The organization provides persistent DOIs for research data, providing data citation support and services to researchers, data centers, journal publishers, and funding agencies. Many general open data repositories, including Dryad, Figshare, and Zenodo, assign DOIs to the data they store.
As the calls for FAIR research archives have increased, a number of European efforts, including the OpenAIRE project and the European Open Science Cloud, have initiated large-scale infrastructure projects. OpenAIRE's focus is on developing a technical infrastructure for an interoperable network of research repositories from throughout Europe through the establishment of common guidelines and shared metadata standards (Schirrwagen et al., 2013; OpenAIRE, 2018). The project involves the collaboration of researchers from several scientific disciplines as well as librarians, data and information technology experts, and legal specialists. OpenAIRE is collaborating with a number of other groups internationally, including the US-based SHARE (SHared Access Research Ecosystem) project. The SHARE project was launched in 2013 by the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of American Universities, and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities to strengthen efforts to identify, discover, and track research outputs (COAR, 2015b; Hudson-Vitale et al., 2017; SHARE, 2018).
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) project grounds its work in the EOSC Declaration, which includes recommendations and implementation suggestions in the areas of data culture and FAIR data, research data services and architecture, and governance and funding. (EC, 2017a). EOSC has expanded its scope beyond Europe, and they, together with many others, acknowledge that because scientific knowledge is not confined within national boundaries, a globally interoperable open research infrastructure is needed (NASEM, 2018c; Wittenburg and Strawn, 2018).
As researchers adopt the habits and practices of open science by design, they may need help in identifying and making use of the most effective tools and approaches to use at various stages of their work.2
Several recent studies have noted that training of researchers early in their careers is critical, suggesting that open science training can be integrated into existing graduate curricula (OECD, 2015; McKiernan et al., 2016). Others have addressed the practical guidance and training that is needed to help researchers learn how to open up their research processes and results (Carvalho, 2017; EC, 2017f; FOSTER, 2018). The FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) project, for example, has developed a suite of open science training materials, including courses on open science policies, practices, and resources, research workflow and design, text and data mining methods, data management, legal issues, and responsible conduct of research (See Box 4-3). As described in Chapter 3, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) also supports educational opportunities for early career researchers.
Librarians and other information professionals who have extensive experience in the preservation, publication, and dissemination of digital scientific materials, may, nonetheless, need additional training to address the challenges of curating large-scale open data resources. Several years ago, NASEM undertook a consensus study that examined the career paths for individuals working in the field of digital curation, which they defined broadly as the "active management and enhancement of digital information assets for current and future use" (NRC, 2015). They concluded that although the number of educational opportunities has grown, the available opportunities are well below what is needed to meet the demands of the current data-rich era. Individuals who have discipline-specific knowledge as well as skills in computer and information science are best suited to meet these demands.
Similarly, a recent report from the EC noted that "there is an alarming shortage of data experts both globally and in the European Union" and that there is a "chasm" that needs to be addressed between those who work on digital infrastructure and scientific domain specialists (EC, 2016). An analogous point is made in the current strategic plan for the National Library of Medicine. In discussing the intersection between biomedical data science and open science, the report suggests that more training is needed that involves "enhancing the computational and statistical skills of researchers with biomedical knowledge, and training computer scientists to apply their work to biomedical problems." (NLM, 2018a). The National Science Foundation's Research Traineeship Program trains graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, including "Harnessing the Data Revolution" (NSF, 2018b).
2 Indeed, the OSTP 2013 memo explicitly highlights the importance of supporting "training, education, and workforce development related to scientific data management, analysis, storage, preservation, and stewardship" (OSTP, 2013).
There are a growing number of collaborative activities among universities, nonprofit organizations, and the philanthropic community related to open science training. The University of California at Riverside and the Center for Open Science (COS) have initiated an NSF-supported randomized trial to evaluate the impact of receiving training on the use of the Open Science Framework for managing, archiving, and sharing lab research materials and data (McKiernan et al., 2016; Nosek, 2017; COS, 2018c). The COS also works with the University of Virginia on an NIH supplemental grant for the Biotechnology Training Program that develops and presents reproducible and open practice curriculum content (COS, 2018d).
Since 2012, the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley has developed coursework to promote open science in social sciences research (BITSS, 2018). The Data Curation Network of nine major academic institutions, supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, provides a cross-institutional staffing model for training data curators to build an innovative community to promote data curation practices (Johnston et al., 2017; Data Curation Network, 2018). The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, in partnership with several universities, have recently created the Data Science Environments project to "advance data-intensive scientific discovery." Among their efforts is the development of educational materials for researchers at all levels of their academic careers (MSDSE, 2018).
Several related areas of education and training might provide opportunities to incorporate content related to open science practices. First, the field of data science is rapidly growing and evolving. According to NASEM (2018a, p. 1), "Data science is a hybrid of multiple disciplines and skill sets, draws on diverse fields (including computer science, statistics, and mathematics), encompasses topics in ethics and privacy, and depends on specifics of the domains to which it is applied." Those trained in data science at the undergraduate and graduate levels will go on to a wide range of careers, many outside of research. Nevertheless, the core skills and capabilities of data science are clearly relevant to the practice of open science.
In addition, several federal research agencies mandate that some subset of students or trainees that they support receive responsible conduct of research (RCR) training (NASEM, 2017b). Progress toward open science by design will certainly affect the treatment of some traditional RCR topics such as data handling and responsible authorship. RCR training and education programs might benefit from new approaches that incorporate more open science content as a way of ensuring that students and other researchers possess the knowledge and skills needed to practice open science by design.
The committee's concept of open science by design is by necessity general and idealized. It is important to note that research methods and processes vary by
field, and that some discipline-specific nuances cannot be captured in such a broad concept. As discussed in Chapter 3, some fields rely on large data resources that are shared by a defined community. In other fields, experimental data are generated by individuals or research groups, and there may or may not be incentives or rewards for making data openly available. Many disciplines are focused on the study of nondigital data and materials, and face the challenge of ensuring long-term availability. In fields that are focused on the study of one-time phenomena such as earthquakes, specific practices such as preregistration may not make sense or add value.
Likewise, publication cultures vary widely. Some fields such as physics and economics have a long history of utilizing preprints, while this practice is just beginning to gain popularity in the life sciences. In computer science, conferences are a central mechanism for the dissemination of results, and conference proceedings are more important publication venues than are journals (Vardi, 2010). Different fields can and should adapt the open science by design concept to fit their practices and circumstances.
In addition, open science by design raises some questions about roles and responsibilities that have not been fully resolved. For example, should the burden of deposition in publicly accessible archives be shouldered by the organization (publisher or otherwise) that provides services for Dissemination and Preservation, as opposed to the researcher? In order to secure researchers' rights and assuage concerns about reuse and credit, should the choice of license be determined as soon as the research is disseminated, even if it allows for downstream changes (with a separate license for preservation)? Should the researcher be solely responsible for semantically linking research products or should this responsibility be shared?
Given that this is a U.S.-based project undertaken by a U.S. committee, much of the report's discussion and analysis reflects the U.S. experience. However, international perspectives and examples are utilized frequently. At first, wide availability of the tools and infrastructure needed to practice open science by design may be limited to researchers working in well-resourced institutions, primarily in developed countries. Over time, as open science by design demonstrates its value, tools and resources will become more widely available. For example, the African Academy of Sciences recently launched AAS Open Research as "a platform for rapid publication and open peer review for researchers supported by AAS…" (AAS, 2018).
Finally, in order to take hold as a core concept for the future of research, open science by design needs to serve the needs of early career researchers. Chapter 2 discusses how a lack of incentives and supportive culture around open practices is a particular problem facing early career researchers. Open principles and practices must demonstrate their value by enabling early career researchers to become more effective, productive scientists than they would be in a closed environment.


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Hello, my name is Mark Emmons.
In addition to serving as the Associate Dean of University Libraries & Learning Sciences, I am the subject librarian for film and the liaison to the Department of Film & Digital Arts.
This guide is designed to help you get started with your library research, as well as point you to useful information outside the library. Click on the tabs for distinguishing movie reviews from film criticism and guides for finding journal articles, books, films, and web sites that will aid your research.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me - the best way to reach me is via e-mail. I am also happy to schedule individual appointments. Note that the Schedule Appointment link works only if you have a UNM NetID; you will otherwise need to contact me via e-mail.
Good luck with your research!


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The Seventh-day Adventist school in Chico was established in 1905 to provide high-quality Christian education to the children in our community. Over the years, the name and location have changed, but our purpose has not.
High Quality Education
Quality education is something all parents look for, but it is sometimes hard to quantify. Here are some indicators we think might help you in evaluating the education your child will receive at Chico Oaks Adventist School.
Positive Learning Environment
Our school environment is safe. Students can concentrate on learning without other distractions.
Accelerated Academic Growth:
Over the last 10 years our students have shown between 1.3 and 1.5 years of growth each year (as shown through our annual Fall Testing with the Iowa Assessments) in the core subjects of Math, Reading and Language Arts.
Low Student-Teacher Ratio:
All our classrooms are under 25 students in size.
Safe Environment:
Our small family atmosphere, attentive teachers and secure campus help make Chico Oaks the safe place you are looking for.
Profound Sense of Community:
Our families work together making our school great. Parents and students become life-long friends.
Christ-like Teachers and Staff:
Our teachers are personally and professionally committed to leading students on the spiritual path to becoming servant-leaders dedicated to God's calling.
One of the Best Music Programs in Butte County:
Our music education program begins in kindergarten and continues through eighth grade for each student.


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"Jessey, Jessey, no."
He rumples his hair. He takes off his glasses. He keeps fidgeting.
I smooth his hair back down. "Come on, Jessey. Please."
He plays with my shoelaces. He plays with his shoelaces. He ties them together. Mine and his. Black and red. "This is us," he says. "This is you and me."
He never holds still.
"Just once more."
He grins. That grin. Doofy and too big. He pretends to lick my shoes. "As you wish, m'dear."
I laugh. I always laugh. He never holds still.
I take his hand and curl the fingers to make a fist. He pretends to punch me. I pretend to bite him. He laughs. He always laughs.
I put his fist under his chin. I make him pull up his feet and hunch forward. His laces are untied. Red laces.
He crosses his eyes. He sticks out his tongue. He never holds still.
I brush his hair across his forehead. Black hair. Darker than mine.
I tell him to hold still. I tell him to hold still. "Please, Jessey."
He never holds still.
I unclasp his fingers. The word "Why?" is written across his knuckles in red pen. It's been there since Saturday.
Saturday I told him to hold still. But he never holds still.
I clasp his fingers around the stem of a rose. It is long and green, but the thorns are black underneath. The petals are red.
"This is you and me," I say. "This is us."
With his other hand, he takes mine. He laces his fingers through mine. Written across my knuckles is the word "Wait." It's been there since Saturday.
Saturday I told him to hold still. Saturday I told him to wait. Saturday the sky was dark. There was no moon and no stars.
Saturday he asked me why.
I curl his fingers again. I put his hand under his chin. The letters "Why?" are upside down. His other hand holds the rose. I put it around his knees. I tell him to hold still.
The shutter clicks.
The shutter never clicked on Saturday.
Saturday I told him to hold still. Saturday I told him to wait.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you never wait." You're missing the night. It's black out. The stars are gone. The moon is dark.
"Jessey, hold still." He never holds still.
I wanted to see the night in his eyes. His eyes are black. Darker than mine.
I kissed him. On Saturday I kissed him.
"Why?" he asked.
I held up a rose. Its stem was long and its petals were folded perfectly.
He rubbed a petal between his fingertips. He couldn't tell that the petals were red. It was too dark.
"This is the only time red and black are indistinguishable," I said. "This night."
"You always hold still," he said. "Waiting."
"I don't want to wait any more."
His eyes were dark. Darker than the night.
"Hold still," he said.
Our shoes we left by the rose. The laces were twisted together. Mine and his. It was impossible to tell red from black.


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A major exhibition of hand-painted signs by the late master of the lettering brush, spanning over 75 years of Bay Area history. In addition to Rey Giese originals, a dozen contemporary sign painters carry on the tradition with several recreations of Giese designs.
Monthly Archives: January 2014
TWO BUCK Tuesday Jan. 21, 2014
TWO BUCK Tuesday Jan. 21st!


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It's Steeler week. I hate the Steelers.
I hate that their city is so unimaginative they have to use black and urine as the colors of all of their sports teams.
I hate the fact that their mostly front running fans believe that they have more championships than the Cleveland Browns.
But I want to know, who is your most hated Steeler of all-time?
Here is a quick run down of my favorites, in no particular order:
1. Terry Bradshaw
Best picture of Mr. Bradshaw I could find.
You may now know him as the fun loving moron on FOX's pregame. Or, you have probably been beaten over the head by the fact that he won four Super Bowls. For his career, he went 22-17 against the Browns while posting a 75.6 QB rating in those games. I hate Bradshaw because I think he was behind the wheel of a team that possessed a great running game and a great defense. It allowed an average QB (212 TDs to 210 INT's career) to be hailed as a great and almighty savior. Ask a Steeler fan to name the greatest QB of all-time and I am willing to bet a horrible tasting Iron City Beer that they will try and work Bradshaws name into the conversation. Save your self the trouble and close your hand in a drawer.
2. Jerome Bettis
Anyone seen these two guys in the same room at the same time?
Hey, did you guys know that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit? If you don't, then you didn't want a single minute of any 2006 NFL Playoff coverage. Plus, I think that chunky campbells soup tastes like crap (Well, during Steeler weeks I do, other weeks, I totally get down on the chicken noodle. But not Steeler week bitches! I fast like Olajuwon!) I hate the fact that Bettis can screw up a coin flip. I REALLY HATE the fact that Bettis has more rushing yards than Jim Brown (even though it took him 74 more games. Yeah, 74. That would be if Jim Brown played almost 5 and half more 14 game seasons. Yet, if you look at the NFL leaderboard, this fat ass is ahead of Jim Brown.) For Bettis' career he went 13-9 against the Browns and had an average of 74 YPG against us.
3. Hines Ward
I wish this was DBN's logo.
We all knew this douchebag was on this list. We have gone over the reasons on why Hines Ward is a coward and dirty player ad nauseum. If you need more info on this boob search the archives. On to the stats, Ward went 20-17 against us while averaging 67 YPG. He only has 8 TDs in those 37 games which actually suprised me. The only thing I like about Ward is that he hates the next player on our list.
4. Ben Roethlisberger
I am 99% sure that this is not photoshopped.
The newest, greatest Steeler QB (He wins games!). Once again, we have touched on
Crash Test Roethlisberger Big Ben. It drives me nuts that every single time this guy has a hang nail it is DEFCON1 in the Roethlisberger household. Was he not hugged enough as a kid? I'm glad to hear that the Steeler locker room is tired of his act, because I as a Browns fan have had my fill of Big Ben's injury fiasco's. Did I mention that he likes to bang ugly chicks? For God sakes man you're a NFL quarterback that is paid over 100 million! Even that fat dude that convinced chicks he was Big Ben was able to hook up with a model! Oh yeah, stats. He has a 14-8 ratio on TD/INTs and averages 223 YPG. Meh.
5. Jeff Reed
I don't know if he is the most hated Steeler, but I know he thinks the show Jersey Shore is cool.
This dude is the best. First of all he is a kicker. Second of all, the dude has the worst case of beer muscles that I have seen in quite sometime. First of all he tackles like this (fast forward to :23 seconds in) and this (2:35 in). Did I mention that this tool has been arrested for assulting police officers, and vandalizing a bathroom in a gas station because they were out of paper towels? All this anger from a kicker who tackles like a woman. I think that Phil Dawson would destroy him in fisticuffs. Did I mention that he is a kicker? He is 23 for 27 on kicks against us.
6. Rod Woodson
Man, I hope my HOF bust has a pornstache.
He played for the Steelers and Ravens, so that kind of makes him a jackass. He then he said something so gross that I had to make sure I got his quote correct, word for word. In his Hall of Fame speech he said the following:
And I hope again, the voters get this right, by putting Art Modell in the Hall of Fame. He belongs there. You can boo him because you disagree with him moving them. But you can't disagree with what he did as an owner.
Burn in Hell Woodson.
Also receiving votes: James Harrison, Franco Harris (It was incomplete!), Greg Lloyd, Kevin Greene, Levon Kirkland, Amos Zeroue (I hate his cookies), Tommy Maddox, Kordell Stewert, Stallworth and Swann (overrated), Joey Porter (I'm glad someone shot him i the ass) and Troy Polamalu.
Did I mention that I hate the Steelers?


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Platelet-Rich Fibrin
Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF) is exactly what its name suggests. The substance is a by-product of blood (plasma) that is rich in platelets. Until very recently, its use has been confined to the hospital setting. This was due mainly to the cost of separating the platelets from the blood (thousands) and the large amount of blood needed (one unit) to produce a suitable quantity of platelets. New technology permits the doctor to harvest and produce a sufficient quantity of platelets from only 10 cc of blood drawn from the patient while they are having outpatient surgery in our office.
Why all the excitement about PRF?
Platelet Rich Fibrin permits the body to take advantage of the normal healing pathways at a greatly accelerated rate. During the healing process, the body rushes many cells and cell-types to the wound in order to initiate the healing process. One of those cell types is platelets. Platelets perform many functions, including formation of a blood clot and release of growth factors (GF) into the wound. These GF (platelet derived growth factors PGDF, transforming growth factor beta TGF, and insulin-like growth factor ILGF) function to assist the body in repairing itself by stimulating stem cells to regenerate new tissue. The more growth factors released sequestered into the wound, the more stem cells stimulated to produce new host tissue. Thus, one can easily see that PRF permits the body to heal faster and more efficiently.
A subfamily of TGF, is bone morphogenic protein (BMP)
MP has been shown to induce the formation of new bone in research studies in animals and humans. This is of great significance to Dr. Etess who places the dental implants. By adding PRF, and thus BMP, to the implant site with bone substitute particles, Dr. Etess can now grow bone more predictably and faster than ever before.
PRF has many clinical applications:
- Bone grafting for dental implants. This includes onlay and inlay bone grafts of the mandible and maxilla, sinus lift procedures, and ridge augmentation procedures
- Repair of bone defects creating by removal of teeth or small cysts.
- Repair of fistulas between the sinus cavity and mouth
PRF also has many advantages:
- PRFis a by-product of the patient's own blood, therefore, disease transmission is not an issue.
- Convenience: PRF can be generated in the doctor's office while the patient is undergoing an outpatient surgical procedure, such as placement of dental implants.
- Faster healing: The supersaturation of the wound with PRF, and thus growth factors, produces an increase of tissue synthesis and thus faster tissue regeneration.
- Cost effectiveness: Since PRF harvesting is done with as little as 10 cc of blood(one tube) in our office, the patient need not incur the expense of the harvesting procedure in hospital or at the blood bank.
- Ease of use: PRF is easy to handle and actually improves the ease of application of bone substitute materials and bone grafting products by making them more gel-like.
Frequently Asked Questions about PRF:
- Is PRF Safe?
- Yes. During the outpatient surgical procedure a small amount of your own blood is drawn out via a small butterfly needlee, the same way it is done when your medical doctor orders a blood test. This blood is then placed in the PRF centrifuge machine and spun down. In less than fifteen minutes, the PRF is formed and ready to use.
- Should PRF be used in bone-grafting cases?
- Not always. In some cases, there is no need for PRF. However, in the majority of cases, application of PRF to the graft will increase the final amount of bone present in addtion to making the wound heal faster and more efficiently.
- Will my insurance cover the costs?
- Unfortunately no. Insurance companies worry about their own financial bottom line, not your welfare. Our office will do everything we can to get your maximum reimbursement of your other procedures associated with your specific treatment though!
- Can PRF be used alone to stimulate bone formation?
- A resounding "YES"! PRF can be used alone or in some situations can be mixed with either the patient's own bone, a bone substitute material such as demineralized, freeze-dried bone, or a synthetic bone-product.
- Are there any contraindications to PRF?
- Very few. Obviously, patients with bleeding disorders or hematologic diseases may not qualify for this in-office procedure.
Call Today: (516) 253-1800
Or Use Our Easy Booking Form & We'll Get In Touch!


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The answer appears to be yes.
MedPage Today reports a study suggesting that, "Most women surgeons would make the same career choice again if given the option," and, "women were somewhat more likely than men to say they would choose the surgical profession again."
What's notable is the general high satisfaction rate among surgeons, as "most surgeons of both sexes would recommend their profession to others, indirectly suggesting a high rate of professional satisfaction and fulfillment." That's something unheard of in primary care.
But, like their primary care counterparts, women reported that they were more likely to prefer alternative schedule options as they prioritized more part-time and shift-based schedules.
General surgery is often described as the "primary care" of specialists, as more students are gravitating towards surgical subspecialties. Although the situation isn't as bad as primary care, yet, leaders in the field best pay attention to these trends that will surely affect surgeon retention in the future.


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Week 24
June 11th
Dylan, Lexie, Lily, and Aubrey spent the morning playing. That afternoon we had storytime at the library, then went grocery shopping. That evening, we had a Thanksgiving in June dinner with our friends. Aubrey ended up coming along. After dropping her off at home, we returned home and put the kids to bed.
June 12th
We spent the day at home, enjoying the gorgeous summer weather. Dylan, Lexie, Lily, and Aubrey had a great time playing in our backyard with the sprinkler, pool, and water table.
June 13th
That morning, we had a playdate picnic indoors at our friend, Amy's house. It was our official kickoff to summer playdates. Dylan ended up spending the afternoon with his friend, Jack. That evening, after Aubrey got picked up, my dad came over to watch the kids. I rode into Pittsburgh with my brother-in-law, Eric, and his girlfriend. We met Grant at PNC park for the Pirates game! Even though they lost, it was a lot of fun!
June 14th
We spent the afternoon visiting my parents. That evening, after dinner, my sister and my nephew stopped by to visit. Dylan ended up going home with them to sleep over.
June 15th
We had a lazy morning at home. That afternoon, Dylan had his last baseball game of the season, followed by an end of the season pizza party at a local pizza/frozen yogurt place. After the party, we went over to our friend's house for a few hours.
June 16th
Happy Father's Day! We spent the day spoiling Grant. That afternoon, Grant's mom stopped by to visit. That evening, we went to visit my dad. On the way home, we picked up Chinese takeout for dinner. We put the kids to bed, and enjoyed a relaxing evening at home.
June 17th
Dylan, Lexie, Lily, and Aubrey spent the morning playing. My dad came over shortly after noon so I could go to my 28 week OB appointment. It was a quick one, so I managed to get a few errands done on the way home. That evening, after Aubrey got picked up, we had dinner and went swimming with our friends. It was the perfect summer night!
Monday, June 24, 2013
The Happenings of Week 24
3 comments:
Cute pics!! Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun, I just hope you had some time to rest in there! I know all I wanted to do when pregnant was sleep.ReplyDelete
Too cute- all the pics! You do pregnancy in an adorable way. I love Lexie's haircut! I missed that! It makes her look grown up. Keep enjoying summer!ReplyDelete
What adorable pics!! It looks like you're having the perfect summer!! Yay for play dates and grandparents too. I hope you're morning sickness starts getting better soon; it's been a long time.ReplyDelete