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Leveraging XSD's for Reflective, Live Dataset Support in Institutional Repositories Mark Sullivan Library Information Technology, University of Florida The University of Florida Libraries are currently adding support for active d atasets into our METS based institutional repository software SobekCM This ongoing project enables the library to be a partner in current, or long running, data driven projects around the university by providing tangible short term and long term benefits to the p rojects. The system assists project teams by storing and providing access to their data, while supporting online filtering and sorting of the data, custom queries, and adding and editing of the data by authorized users. We are also exploring simple data vi sualizations to allow users to perform basic graphical and geographic queries. Several different schemas were explored including DDI and EML, but ultimately the streamlined approach of using XSD's with some custom attributes was chosen, with all other data residing in the METS file portions. Currently the system is being developed using XSD's describing XML datasets, but this model should easily scale to support SQL datasets or large datasets supported by Hadoop or iRODS. This work is being integrated in th e open source SobekCM Digital Content Management System 1 which is built on a pair tree structure of METS resources with rich meta data support including DC, MODS, MARC, VRACore, DarwinCore, IEE LOM, GML/KML, schema.org microdata, and many other standard schemas. The system has emphasized online, distributed creation and maintenance of resources including geo placement and geographic searching of resources, building structure maps (table of contents) visually online, and a broad suite of curator tools. This work is presented as a model which could be implemented in other systems as well. We will demonstrate current support and discuss our upcoming roadmap to provide complete support. 1 http://sobek.ufl.edu


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Yesterday's Google Analytics Summit contained 14 new product releases, with perhaps the most interesting being the ability to view demographic data.
The Google Analytics blog has a rundown of all the new features, but here are a few of the most significant...
Demographic data
This is a big one. You can now view demographic data for your audience by integrating with DoubleClick.
This is new data, and will allow businesses to segment particular visitor groups for the purpose of remarketing, or perhaps to see which products are selling most from a certain age group. The potential uses are interesting.
According to Dan Barker:
This is the big one really from most users' point of view. Something that really gives utterly new data to every website owner. The demographic reports themselves will be useful and interesting.
On top of those though, they're adding demographic segmentation. You will be able to view virtually any report in Google Analytics, segmented down by a particular demographic criteria. The possibilities there are almost endless. There are very simple uses, but also quite sophisticated ones.
Google Tag Manager: auto event tracking
This takes a lot of pain out of the job for analytics users. From now, Auto-Event Tracking allows Google Tag Manager users to 'listen' for events on the page without adding any custom code, before sending data to Google Analytics or other tags.
According to Econsultancy trainer Damion Brown:
Historically, if you wanted something tracked as an event you'd need to manually code it into the html of the page. That's fine in smaller scenarios, but in an enterprise environment it's usually going to means bugging a developer to make a change, and with staging and testing it can be a long and uncomfortable process.
This announcement suggests that GTM will make all that a thing of the past, which will really open things up. You can track a lot more with Google Analytics if you make use of Events.
Tool to migrate from 'classic' analytics to 'universal'
Dan Barker:
Google has hinted about this for a while, and I think some website owners are getting a bit fed up of the mixed messages around classic/universal. It will be great to get to a point where you can migrate across and retain your historic data.
More educational tools
This could be a useful feature for amateurs like me, or for smaller businesses with fewer resources. This essentially encourages people to use Google Analytics and learn 'on the go'.
Every feature in Google Analytics will now have an in-product video that users can watch for more information about how to use a certain feature. Very handy.
BigQuery integration
One for Google Analytics Premium users i.e. firms with lots of data.
This new feature allows user to access their session and use data from Analytics within Google BigQuery for more granular and complex querying of unsampled data.
I'll let Google explain:
For those unfamiliar with Google BigQuery, it's a web service that lets you perform interactive analysis of massive data sets—up to trillions of rows. Scalable and easy to use, BigQuery lets developers and businesses tap into powerful data analytics on demand. Plus, your data is easily exportable.
New acquisition report
This has been available to some already, but will be rolled out to all users over the next few weeks.
It will replace the 'Traffic' Sources' section on the left hand menu of GA, and allows users to see how customers/visitors are acquired, their subsequent behaviour on site, and conversions.
Comments (7)
I think one of the most useful parts of 'age/gender/interest segmentation' will be if people use it along with other tools.
For example, if you can couple it with Google Analytics Remarketing, you can do odd things like ask: "what was the rough demographic makeup of my top 10% of customers?" and then say "ok, which other site visitors matched that profile but *did not* convert?" to set up a remarketing list within analytics itself & reach those people (even segmented further by any other activity they carried out on the site). It also nudges the idea of using regular display ads to say "send me more of these types of people". And, of course, there's no reason they couldn't automate that & turn it into a push-button option if they chose to do so.
As Google build more advertising tools and formats, it would make sense if they position Google Analytics as the central data/insight source to measure their results, and also perhaps to control the ads. For example: The fact that AdWords and Analytics are separate is sort of an odd legacy thing.
I really like the auto event tracking, this is something that will let us build really a lot of custom events in no time.
The other feature I saw "Target profitable geographic areas" which is something I did with custom report.
I`m still unhappy about the removal of keywords from search traffic and replacing it with (not provided) but with the recent changes I hope Google will develop more exiting features in Analytics.
Has the Demographic data feature rolled out yet? I can't yet see any of this data?
Interesting days ahead for Online marketers. First Google completely removes Keyword data from Google analytics, followed by new search algo update Hammingbird, and now new features in Google Analytics.
Digital marketing, this industry is changing like anything and with Google focusing more on providing more quality results to users, these are all steps to improve quality of search results and remove spam completely from search index.
Does anyone know if this is being slowly rolled out as I can't see age/gender etc data yet - just location and language? Or do I need to amend settings?
These look like great updates, I love the closer integration of DoubleClick and Adwords data.
This will also no doubt help Google nudge marketers towards using these platforms.
I dont see it. I`ve asked several of my friends but it`s not available for them yet.

subset: commoncrawl


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Crowded by the competition? Request an RCW
Law reviewed: Revised Code of Washington, Title 18Are you one of those industries who are feeling crowded by the number of competing businesses? Or maybe you are a professional bemoaning the fact that every wet behind the ears college graduate has a Bachelor's or Master's degree in your occupation and the surge of entrants is likely to depress your wages and benefits. Don't worry—our legislature can fix that.With the aid of the Department of Health or Department of Licensing our Washington State legislators can ensure it is harder for people to enter your field and make it unlikely that competing businesses can threaten your monopoly. Now we are not talking about those entities usually considered monopolies like electric companies or cell phone service providers, this misuse of the law applies to occupations like architects, cosmetologists, dental hygienists and East Asian medicine practitioners. All of these professions and a number of others have specific RCWs (Revised Code of Washington or state laws) affirming that working in a certain field requires permission from the government.The problem with these laws is that the public is often unaware what the real motivations are behind the laws. It is not to improve public safety or the credibility of the industry. The real truth is these laws often come from industry itself as it seeks to create barriers to entry and superficially prop up costs by limiting the number of competitors. If this practice seems to be an unfair use of the law, it is. But with the current inattention from citizens regarding the law making process, it is easy and effective.In fact, a recent study from Oxford University Press on government regulation of occupations found that in the last 50 years the proportion of workers whose occupation requires them to have a license from the government has grown nearly six fold, impacting 38 percent of the workforce. In other terms, in 1950 one in 20 U.S. workers needed a license from the government to work, by 2006 that number was one in three.And what is the impact of this licensing? Better quality, lower costs and overall benefits to consumers? The answers are exactly the opposite. The study, "Labor market policy for the 21st Century" by Alex Bryon and Morris Kleiner found that licensing results in negative outcomes for consumers by driving up costs. Limiting the number of dental hygienists, for example, results in a reduced access to dental care. It has also created higher prices without a corresponding increase in the productivity of practitioners.Overall the Byron and Kleiner report found that the relationship between occupational licensing and wages is "consistent with the idea that members of an occupation raise wages by using the powers of government to drive up requirements and capture work for the regulated workers."So professions that want their members to be licensed can benefit from less competition and higher wages while the consumer suffers reduced access and higher costs.At times, this "licensing" game even takes a nearly comical turn when occupations like "Ocularists" need to be licensed. What is an Ocularist? It is the person who makes fake eyeballs. Yes, the person who creates that life-like version of the human eye used by those who have suffered a deformity or injury.In 1980 the state legislature required that Ocularists be licensed through the Department of Health and have 10,000 hours apprenticeship training, pay $125 to take an exam and $200 for license renewal. Why? Because, as the legislative record states, "custom prosthetic eyes are manufactured and fitted by personnel that are not licensed under the law and results in a conflict among professions." So there was not a surge in black-market fake eyeball making, nor was there a number of unsafe optometrists making/fitting eyeballs; instead there was a tussle over who should get to make them.As a result, the State of Washington only has seven Ocularists statewide. An informal Statesman survey also found the average cost of a fake eyeball is around $3,500. Sounds like the regulation met its goal of reducing the number of Ocularists and keeping consumer costs high. If we want this kind of legislative abuse to stop we must do the following three things: 1. Ask your legislators to carefully scrutinize any proposals for occupational licensing for the element of self-interest. 2. Don't ask legislators that government licenses be created for occupations with the false notion it will improve the professionalism of the occupation or its customer service. Instead, look to professional organizations for certifications that assure quality without restricting who can practice in the field. 3. Ask questions, demand quality and do more for yourself. No matter what you are purchasing, from healthcare to automobiles, take the time to be educated what quality means and ask critical questions of the vendor. Also, whenever possible, don't be a consumer and see if you can be your own "service professional" when it comes to carpet cleaning, automobile repair or basic medical needs, for example. However, under no circumstances should you try to make your own fake eyeball. You need a license for that.


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Chicken Tikka Masala is not an Indian Dish. In fact, it is believed to have been created in the U.K. and is considered one of the most popular restaurant dishes. Essentially, it's chicken that has been coated with yogurt, broiled and then served with a tomato based sauce that is seasoned with exotic spices and some hot peppers.
I had never heard of Garam Marsala, but it's a beautiful blend of spices-- cardamon, cinnamon, cumin and a lot more. I purchased mine at my local grocery store, by McCormick Schilling, because Cook's Illustrated gave it a high recommendation. You can blend your own, but I usually don't use some of the spices very often.
The dish takes a bit of prep work and time-- it took almost an hour, and this is the second time I've made it. Ready? Here we go:
First, you want to season chicken breasts (I don't see why you can't use dark meat) with a blend of cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper and salt. There's something wrong with this picture... I cut-up the chicken, rather than keeping it whole. Why? I spaced. Habit. Auto-Mode. Oh well, I'll have to improvise. If the pieces were whole, it would be easier to pat the spices in, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Next, the yogurt-- you'll need to add some vegetable oil, fresh garlic, and freshly grated ginger:
I used Greek yogurt, because it's thick.
Since I cut up the chicken, I decided to coat it in the yogurt but turning it with tongs. Very sanitary, huh? I do take precautions when working with raw chicken. Then, I turned on the broiler.
You're supposed to place the chicken onto a rack. Pretend these are whole pieces. Thank you.
I have to say, that this looks very promising. Into the broiler this goes. I had to pay close attention, because I figured this chicken would cook very fast-- being all cut up, you know.
Start your rice. I meant to use Basmati, but I cooked Jasmine. I spaced again. I love either one of them.
In the meantime, it's time to start the Tikka Masala sauce:
I prepped these ingredients while my chicken was in the fridge. I didn't have crushed tomatoes, so I had to use a can of whole tomatoes and run them through my OXO food mill (love that gadget). You'll also need minced onion, grated ginger, minced garlic, garam marsala, serrano chilis (I used jalapeno, because it's what I had). You'll definitely want these all assembled, because the sauce comes together pretty fast.
The chicken took about 5 minutes per side-- and it tastes so good, that I could stop right here. Really! I think kids would love it.
You'll want to cook the onion for about 6 minutes, until just golden, and then add the rest of the ingredients. Cook for about 3 minutes. The garam marsala smells out of this world. Trust me.
With a lid on, simmer the sauce for about 15 minutes. You'll add heavy cream to the sauce. I was out of heavy cream, so I used half and half. It was good, but I sure wish I had heavy cream. **SIGH**
I ate a few pieces of chicken and moaned. This is good! The cooked chicken is now added to the finished sauce. You don't want to cook the chicken-- just coat it with the sauce.
Serve this dish with rice and fresh cilantro. I love cilantro. Basmatic rice would have photographed better on a white plate. This is Jasmine rice.
This is good. Yes, indeed. You could leave out the peppers if you have kids...or if you're afraid of heat. Personally, I'm a whimp about heat-- but this isn't super hot. I always clean out the seeds and the membranes in jalapenos. I actually love jalapeno, and I'm not afraid of it.
This is not a worknight meal. Neither are meatballs (as I learned last week). This is, however, my lunch for tomorrow. I made extra, because I'm learning to freeze extra food for nights when I don't have the energy to cook. That seems to be happening a lot more, lately!
I hope you give this a try. It's different, and it's delicious.


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People with farsightedness, or hyperopia, usually have difficulty seeing close objects. In severe cases, they can have trouble seeing objects both far and near.
Farsightedness is a type of refractive error, which means the shape of the eye does not bend light correctly, so images are blurred. In farsightedness, the eyeball is too short for light rays to clearly focus on the retina.
Farsightedness is more likely to occur in people who have family members with the same condition.
Symptoms may include:
- Difficulty focusing on objects up close
- Blurred vision
- Headache
- Eyestrain
Young adults with farsightedness often do not have symptoms. However, they may need reading glasses at an earlier age than their peers.
A specialist will ask about your symptoms and medical history. You will be given an eye exam and checked to see if prescription lenses will help improve your vision.
Talk with your doctor about the best treatment plan for you. Options include:
Corrective Lenses
Farsightedness can be treated using corrective lenses, such as eyeglasses or contact lenses. You will be seen at regular intervals to assess your vision and determine if your corrective lenses prescription needs to change.
Refractive Surgery
If you elect to undergo the procedure, certain forms of farsightedness may be treated with refractive surgery. The surgeries used to treat farsightedness focus on changing the shape of the cornea to increase the eye's ability to focus. Many of these procedures are done using lasers.
Call or visit:
Content was created using EBSCO's Health Library. Edits to original content made by Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. This information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.


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Leadership Exchange: Are We Patient-Centric?
Industry experts discuss what it means to truly put patients first, where pharma often falls short and what can be done to rectify this. James Chase chairs the debate
James Chase
Editor in Chief, MM&M (moderator)
Brenda Snow
Founder and CEO, Snow Companies
Nicole Sweeny
US Marketing Dir., Firazyr, Shire HGT
David Wasilewski
Founder and CEO, WhatNext.com
Fatima Scipione
Assoc. Dir., Velcade Nurse and Patient Marketing, Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Lyndi Hirsch
SVP, Havas Life
James Chase (MM&M): What does patient-centricity mean to each of you?
Fatima Scipione (Millennium Pharmaceuticals): I've actually seen an evolution internally with respect to putting the patient in the conversation. For me, patient-centricity is part of your fiber. I see it in my company. It's always at the table. It's about how do we support? How do we educate? How do we empower? How do we inspire?
Lyndi Hirsch (Havas Life): Lots of companies who feel that they have in the past been patient-centric actually have been more focused on how to create that drive into the doctor's office to impact physician's decision-making. But patient-centricity in my experience is about educating and supporting people who are living with diseases so that they are better enabled and empowered to make decisions. Because our area is still highly regulated—and we don't even know what the final regulations will be—I think companies struggle with how much time and money you should spend on educating and supporting patients, what their benefits are going to be by making that investment, and where the line needs to be drawn from a regulatory perspective. Centricity starts with disease education, and what I am seeing is that where there's confidence in providing good disease education by organization, there's less of a concern about investment strictly around who's the market leader. And so we're seeing big changes even on how advertising moves forward and we'll see less direct product and more in the disease arena.
Brenda Snow (Snow Companies): I agree with both of those lenses, but another one is corporate responsibility. And in some cases it really needs to be reputation management. We do a lot of good things in this industry. We do tremendous things. But I have to tell you that in my 15 years, I know that early in my career it was a badge of honor to work in pharma. That has dramatically changed where I have had people basically treat me like I was a criminal when I said I work in pharma. I might as well say that I was a banker. But patient centricity is larger. It should be external. I think if the majority of healthcare consumers, worldwide, could intimately see some of the commitments that Shire has made to their programs that are patient-focused, and Millennium, people would completely understand the value of products and also start to view our industry more favorably than unfortunately it is viewed. In today's healthcare climate, with changes in Obamacare and the payer system, it's even more important that people understand the good work that we do. Taking a novel therapeutic through an R&D pipeline, it's 20-plus years. That's a tremendous amount of money and, yes, you do have to manage to shareholders. You do have to manage the bottom line and it's a for-profit entity, absolutely. But at the end of the day, if people really knew the companies that embrace patients—not those that just say, "Oh, we've got a database of names"—I think it would help our industry tremendously.
James: Do you think, then, we're still suffering as an industry from the hangover of the blockbuster DTC era?
Nicole Sweeny (Shire HGT): I think so and I think it's not just the stakeholders and marketing. There are other members of companies who are like "In 2005, this [incident] happened", and that's fine, but that happened historically and now we need to think of the future and build it the right way. But they're still hung up on those negative associations. I think that limits your thinking and so there's opportunity for all the companies out there to change the perception. But there's a lot that needs to change before you get to the outside world because those people that I'm referring to influence some much of what we try to do. And so if they're not open to it then it's a roadblock, so that nothing changes. No one wants to bring more on.
David Wasilewski (WhatNext.com): I think what patient-centricity means is recognizing that times are different. There's a generational shift where now today more information's available than ever, which is allowing people to be more empowered. Consumers are able to connect more than ever and now they're expecting it. Doing a forum is nothing new. But being able to get to somebody more specific because now there's all this noise out there, it's new and novel but the idea is now that people are looking for this and demanding it.
Brenda: To dovetail on that, I've actually said to companies, "We're probably not going to be a good fit for each other anymore," because patient-centricity meant to them "Let's have a meeting and get two or three patients here, shake their hand, give them a hug, and then we've ticked that box—we did patient-centricity this year," You don't just get somebody to come to a meeting, share their story and then their whole world is solved. They need to engage in lots of different ways. For some that's online. For some that's a webcast. For some that's face-to-face interaction. But the conversation needs to keep going and you have to be invested in it. If you're in it, you need to be in it.
David: And it needs to be balanced.
Lyndi: I've been working with a few organizations that say they want patient-centricity but really don't want to put anything into it. It comes back to helping organizations realize that their loss moving forward isn't a new-patient loss or a share-of-voice loss—it's a true adherence loss. It's going to take some time for companies to not just say the phrase. Picking and choosing to be patient-centric doesn't mean that you necessarily are.
Nicole: It also comes down to leadership at the various companies. We're held to something [at Shire] in terms of our management saying, "If we do what's right by the patient, then we'll succeed," and that's a good litmus test for us. Whatever the initiative is, is it going to support that? And it's just telling them what to do; that's not our goal.
Our goal is to help support them and educate them and provide them with resources to help them along their journey and for them to navigate it, because they are their own advocates. And so, whether that would be assistance or education for reimbursement, with living with their disease, regardless of what it is, is it going to help them? Again, they have to process the information and they have to talk with their family members, other patients as well as with their physician and figure out what they should do next. But if we're living by that standard then I think we can't do wrong. We can't do any harm and they win because that's what the end goal should be—their success.
David: We've been hyper-focused on patient engagement and not worrying too much about monetizing this site. But you know what? We've got a really great model and now we're starting to talk to some pharma companies. But as I'm talking to all these brand managers, there's these silos. Every brand manager is about pushing their drug. And we've done a lot of questioning of patients and they don't even give pharma a second thought. Their attitude was either "They're so expensive" and "They should stop advertising and wasting dollars and save us money" or "They make such big profits." That's what the message about advertising is sending. There's no personality behind the brand that's connecting with the consumers. Every pharma company I've talked to recently has been not terribly inspiring because they're like "Can we run ads on your site?" and I'm like, where's the balance in that? What's the value proposition? Where's the educating?
Nicole: I think you have to look and ask basic business questions because I see that big time. But we also get managed to say okay, how can we find more patients to help? So let's sit and talk about that basic business issue and get out of a brand specific, really niched issue. How can we get patients more empowered? We know there's social media. We know we need to somehow have a presence and leverage it. Let's talk about that.
Fatima: We have the same type of conversations. Certainly we have our forecaster, our sales numbers that we are held accountable to especially in a marketing function, but it's very similar in that manner and I say it's been an evolution.
Nicole: I do think there's a lack of experience with that associated knowledge base. A great example is last week someone said "Nicole, if you put in front of me a physician speaker slide presentation for other HCPs, I can review that right away. I know the clinical data and I know the rules of engagement in terms of regulatory. It's easier for me. However, if you give me anything consumer I stop." It's just this area that's not, I think, not as well understood; it's not well defined in terms of the rules of engagement from FDA and so there's kind of a paralysis that sets in and, unfortunately, I think it slows things down or creates missed opportunities for the patient.
Fatima: You're absolutely right. They're afraid because they don't know where those boundaries are.
James: So how do you break out of that?
Brenda: I think patient-centricity speaks to that. Once they see a compliant patient program or a compliant patient story, it's like "Oh, what were we afraid of? This is great. This is the best thing we've done." So more interesting to me isn't the question of what the FDA is saying about external patient promotion. It's why has every company become so risk adverse and so afraid? It's like something horrible is going to happen if you talk to patients. But if you do it in a compliant fashion, probably nothing.
Nicole: At one of the patient training meetings for ambassadors recently we had individuals from the home office and they were in front of the patients. The patients started to ask questions. This comes up weekly at all our meetings and we say, "These are the questions they have." But it's different when you're in front of the room and you have to address it and you realize it's a sincere question and it's real and it really does need to be addressed. I think we become irresponsible if we decide it's a question not worth answering or we're not sure how to answer it, so let's not.
Brenda: Then we become the big, bad pharma company again. What are they keeping from me? Why don't I get the answer to that question?
James: But is it pharma's responsibility to service patients?
Nicole: I think we have to inform and then let them dialogue with their physician.
James: Do they want to speak to you?
Nicole: Yes.
Brenda: I work on 42 brands and every one of those patients wants to talk to [pharma]. Absolutely.
Lyndi: We who are all involved in this today, we are the foot soldiers trying to make that difference to be able to turn the view [of organizations] and share how the experience of working with patients allows us to have a bigger reach and be able to help people understand what they're going to go through. But when organizations, big or small, make decisions based on a letter an organization has received, then it's like we're starting all over again. We're chipping away little by little, so that people—who haven't had the experience or who are hesitant—start to gain comfort with directly talking to, supporting and educating the patient, which drives us towards patient-centricity.
Fatima: A colleague of mine recently said, "Gosh, your budget's getting pretty big." Yes it is. So I am seeing a shift. I think the Sunshine Act may have something to do with that as well because the ability to do some of the traditional programs that were done in the past are no longer options. But with our company in particular, we've done more, so there's a greater understanding of what the patient needs and a resolve from the company to satisfy that need with respect to education.
Nicole: We're shifting in the same direction. For us it's been more about looking at past performance, how have we been successful, what really had driven the brand? And it's been supporting the patients and the patient really driving that dialogue. So that's been probably the single selling point for us in terms of getting more of a budget.
Brenda: Most of my clients are always fighting hard for these patient dollars. They're not awarded as quickly or in the same amounts as the traditional physician side of the business. Is there a shift or not? I don't know. In traditional pharma marketing, I think the money's been awarded to that physician side because you can say it generated X amount of scripts, here was the end result. You can see readily what the ROI is. Whereas on the patient side it's always a little softer. But we can show it moves the needle.
Lyndi: We were very lucky to establish in year three a budget that was about 10 times the original launch budget. In the patient world, with every program I've worked on, I've had to prove it's worth the investment. I've always been told that we really don't have to justify the physician's spend. But we have to justify every penny of the patient spend and so you're not going to get as much, but if you show you can do something with it then you'll get more. It's like earning your keep, which is fine, especially when you have the confidence to know that things can move and grow. Just recently I was brought on for a project to work across brands within an organization to help them create a patient-centric approach from a corporate perspective. "This is what we're going to do, we're going to work on this program and people are going to know what we stand for as an organization in supporting the needs for patients." But this program has now been put on hold because the brand leadership is saying "No" to the upper leadership of the organization – they're defending where their money should go before it goes into patient support and education.
James: Will this change over time?
Nicole: I think so. It's experience that builds trust and confidence. If we were to fast-forward three to five years, the things that we'll be doing for patients will be vastly different than what we're doing today.
Nicole: It's really back to basics. You know, in terms of letting them share their experiences with others. You just help inform them. They talk to their doctor and then all you do is educate them. When you get your own way—that's when problems arise.
Brenda: I can't tell you how many pitches I've sat in over the years where I've heard "This won't work for my brand" or "This won't work in my category" or "This won't work because Italians are so different than the British." Let me tell you one thing I know, from a patient of 20 years and doing this job for 15 years: disease—whether it's you that's the patient or your family—transcends race, money, language, culture, where you live on the planet. I can tell you that a patient with hereditary angioedema that lives in Wichita, Kansas feels exactly the same as that patient that lives in Tokyo. But people lose sight of that.


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Looking to break away from the mess of news that comes out of CES every year, Asus has taken the normal press release route to announce a new product over the weekend that's sure to have frugal shoppers everywhere delighted: The $150 7-inch MeMo Pad.
The Nexus 7 has impressive internals for $200. So how was Asus able to knock $50 off the price of the incredibly similar MeMo Pad? In short, a downgrade in just about every way imaginable. The MeMo Pad comes with a 7-inch 1024 by 600 display, a 1-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GHz single-core processor, Mali-400 GPU, 1GB of RAM and a base storage of 8GB. A 16GB model is also available. To further differentiate the MeMo Pad from the Nexus 7, it's also a bit thicker and a bit heavier, but comes in multiple colors and features SD expansion.
Asus clearly isn't going to win any spec wars with the MeMo Pad, but price wars are a different story. If Android 4.1 is able to run well enough on the MeMo Pad, specs won't matter. The fact that you just spent $150 on a fully functional Android tablet from a well known manufacturer will.
The Asus MeMo Pad will be released in select markets starting this January, with US availability expected by April.Show Press Release
The new MeMO Padâ"¢ is designed to go wherever you go.
Fremont, CA (January 13, 2013) — ASUS is excited to introduce the MeMO Padâ"¢, a stylish and capable 7-inch Android tablet designed for mobile consumers looking for a high-quality yet remarkably affordable tablet. With a starting MSRP of $149 (US), the ASUS MeMO Padâ"¢ features Androidâ"¢ 4.1 and offers full support for Google Play so you can choose from over 750,000 apps and games, browse the world's largest eBookstore, search millions of songs, watch thousands of the latest and greatest movies and TV shows, and even flip through your favorite magazines*. Available in three colors — Sugar White, Titanium Gray and Cherry Pink — MeMO Padâ"¢ sports an elegant, non-slip diamond-patterned finish in a thin and lightweight design.
Created for both work and play
ASUS MeMO Padâ"¢ runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and is powered by a 1GHz VIA WM8950 CPU and a Mali-400 GPU for a smooth and fluid entertainment experience. It features a 10-point multi-touch LED-backlit display with 1024 x 600 resolution, 140-degree wide viewing angles, and its 350-nit brightness means images remain clear, even outdoors. MeMO Padâ"¢ also features ASUS SonicMaster audio and MaxxAudio for high-quality sound.
ASUS MeMO Padâ"¢ offers up to 16GB of internal storage, which can be supplemented by up to 32GB via the microSD card slot. A suite of ASUS applications are also pre-installed, including SuperNote Lite, BuddyBuzz, ASUS WebStorage with 5GB of online storage space, ASUS Studio and WebStorage Office for enhanced productivity.
ASUS MeMO Pad will be available starting this January in selected markets from authorized ASUS resellers. Please contact your local ASUS representative for more information. The ASUS MeMO Padâ"¢ is a tablet-only product and does not come with a dock like the award winning ASUS Transformer Padâ"¢ series.
VIA WM8950 (1GHz) / Mali-400
Operating system
Androidâ"¢ 4.1 Jelly Bean
7-inch (1024 x 600, 170PPI) LED-backlit
10-point multi-touch
140-degree wide viewing angle
350-nits brightness
Front Camera
1MP back-illuminated sensor, f/2.0, with 720p HD video capture at 30fps
8GB or 16GB storage with microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
5GB free ASUS WebStorage
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
3.5mm headphone/mic
Micro-USB port
Pre-installed ASUS applications
SuperNote Lite
ASUS WebStorage
ASUS WebStorage Online Office
ASUS Studio
7 hours (16Wh Li-polymer, 4270mAh)*
Available colors
Sugar White/Titanium Gray/Cherry Pink
196.2 x 119.2 x 11.2 mm — 7.72 x 4.69 x 0.44″
370g — 13.1oz
*Specifications may vary without prior notice. Options, pricing and availability dependent upon region. Google Play services vary from country to country. Please confirm exact services for each specific region. Check usa.asus.com for further details.


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Girls on the Run draws huge crowd in Steamboat Springs
November 3, 2012
Steamboat Springs — Kayedence Bruner couldn't sleep Friday night.
The South Routt third-grader was filled with excitement and nerves. Saturday marked her first experience with the Girls on the Run 5-kilometer event.
"Oh boy," Kayedence said after her parents Kim and David revealed her anticipation. "It was my first year. I've never done it. I just got really, really nervous."
There was little reason for nerves, however. Kayedence was flanked by her sister Kourtney and about 900 other runners.
Girls on the Run is a national after-school program targeted at girls in third to eighth grades and designed to empower and teach lessons to participants. The 10-week program was capped with Saturday's event.
And what a scene it was. Parking at the start of the race at the Steamboat Springs Middle School filled up hours in advance. Lots at the high school filled up more than an hour before the 11 a.m. start. Shuttles ran to the starting line, but a large contingent of families walked on the sun-soaked November day.
Recommended Stories For You
"This is the most visible way that you see it," said Jill Henwood, the executive director of Girls on the Run in Western Colorado. "You see the girls helping each other out to finish. It's awe inspiring."
There were 600 girls from Eagle, Summit, Moffat, Routt and Eastern Garfield counties. Add in 150 coaches, 100 preregistered runners and day-of runners, and the total count might have crept close to 1,000 runners — all in the name of Girls on the Run, an organization that aims to build confidence through running, teamwork and positive thinking.
"At the beginning of the season, they don't think they can run three miles," said Cheryl Krumrie, one of the local organizers. "At the end, they know they can."
It was the second year the event took place in Steamboat. It seemed a natural fit with the outdoor mindset Steamboat provides. The event, which used to take place in Grand Junction, was moved to Steamboat as the program grew in surrounding counties.
It also helped that local race Director Shannon Casson expressed interest in hosting the event.
"We want to get them out of that girl box as they get into high school," Casson said. "You see a shift in the way they carry themselves. It's tangible."
In Routt County, 150 girls participate in the program. It's become so popular that the program had to turn away some participant hopefuls because it sticks to a 15:1 student-to-coach ratio.
Still, as girls poured across the finish line Saturday, there was evidence of what the program strives for: Smiles were everywhere. Medals were handed out. And all who competed finished.
Even Kayedence. Friday's uneasiness and sleepless night melted away. In fact, she was one of the first participants to cross the finish line.
"I've learned to try your hardest and do your best," she said.
Here's hoping a good night's sleep is on tap for Saturday.
To reach Luke Graham, call 970-871-4229 or email email@example.com


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Hosting or attending a holiday party and looking for something new and delicious to bring? Try these Bleu Cheese, Walnut & Red Grape Lollipops! These lollipops not only taste great, but they are also super easy to make. Stray away from all the basic traditional appetizers and bring something new, your guests will be glad you did!
Makes 12 Lollipops
12 Red Grapes
2.5 Ounces Danish Bleu Cheese
1 Ounce Toasted Walnut Pieces, ground coarse
12 Lollipop Sticks
1. Divide the cheese in 12 equal pieces
2. Make sure the grapes are very dry
3. Place the cheese in the center of you palm and
crust around the entire grape evenly
4. Roll the grape in the ground walnuts
5. Place the lollipop stick into the grape and serve


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The Impossible Art of Deciphering Manuscripts
Robert Frost is hardly the first to give editors trouble.
Where was the greatest damage done? In the minds of documentary editors—the people who prepare historical and literary documents for the press, not documentary film editors—probably on the page, not in the summer cottage. Current editorial standards require print versions of authors' journals to reproduce as faithfully as possible every stroke of the pen, every cross-out or insertion, even sometimes the look of the handwritten page, with ragged margins and random gaps. For dead writers, diary pages are the best evidence scholars have of the ways their minds worked—their first thoughts on a poem or story, their innermost ambitions and fears as human beings. No one wants to get that wrong.
The five years that Claremont-McKenna literature professor Robert Faggen spent transcribing, editing, and proofreading Frost's 48 notebooks for publication by Harvard University Press may seem like a long time. But it pales in comparison with the number of years many scholars—and teams of scholars—have devoted to making sense of the hard-to-decipher handwriting of authors from Thoreau to Henry James to the less-well-known but no less prolific 19th-century American diarist Caroline Healey Dall. The mistakes that have come to light in The Notebooks of Robert Frost speak to the challenges that all such toilers after the truth encounter in learning to read and represent in print a difficult or archaic "hand." And Frost's, cramped and crabbed like the man himself, is certainly one of them.
"Human beings were not meant to be consistent," explains Elizabeth Witherell, director of the Thoreau Edition—an enterprise begun at Princeton in 1966, three years after Robert Frost's death, and now based at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She might have been summing up the spiritual philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, the iconoclastic writer and naturalist, as notorious in documentary editing circles for his terrible handwriting as for the night he spent in jail after refusing to pay taxes in an anti-slavery protest. But no, it is the mistake-prone editor she speaks of: "Every time we force ourselves into consistency, we fail." Accurately rendering authors' jottings, often intended only as notes to self, into regular type verges on the impossible.
The solution is "many eyes." To catch inevitable errors, documentary editors arrange to have as many fresh readings of their transcriptions against the original documents as possible, a process that no doubt would have alarmed the very writers who hastily scribbled their private musings into so many cheap notebooks in the first place. Editors, who sometimes employ graduate students to help with the laborious task, train themselves and their assistants in the idiosyncrasies of a writer's hand, his common phrasings, and the "gestalt" of the era—likely references to people and places, world events and literary allusions, that must be annotated for today's readers.
One such reference seems to have tripped up Robert Faggen. A passage in which Frost alluded to fifth-century Mediterranean voyager Hanno the Carthaginian came out as "Hannof the Carlingian." Context is all. That same sentence mentioned the "coast of West Africa." Carthage, at least, should have popped to mind. In another passage, in which Frost compared a poet's early drafts to a baseball player's trial swings before stepping up to the plate, Faggen offered the phrase "picktie exhibition." Yes, "public" was hard to read—but even a "pickle" exhibition would have made more sense. When you're reduced to "counting humps," as documentary editors refer to those moments of despair when they find themselves decoding words letter by letter, you know you're in trouble. And, as always, the more complete read-throughs, the better. Faggen actually corrected himself on Hanno farther down on the same page, and got the annotation right. But the first mistaken reference remained for critics to pounce on.
Elizabeth Witherell describes the process of reading Thoreau's journals for the press as "like driving over a deeply potholed road—you read along and when you come to a word you can't understand you back up and run at it again with the force of what you do understand as momentum." Drawing on her knowledge of Thoreau's usual subjects and vocabulary, the context of the passage, and the range of word choices in mid-19th-century American English, Witherell finds the passage eventually "resolves into something recognizable." Although graduate students trained by editors like Witherell to help in the process are increasingly unfamiliar with 19th-century script–or even any script at all in the keyboard age–Internet expertise can be a help. Googling "Hanno the Carthaginian" nets pages of hits; "Hannof the Carlingian," none.
These days, university presses can no longer afford to employ the roomful of proofreaders that, at Princeton anyway, examined the earliest volumes put out by the Thoreau Edition. Now it's all up to the project editors. The Massachusetts Historical Society, which houses the long-running Adams Papers project—devoted to the publication of every extant letter by Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams and most of their family members—is one of the few organizations that still does transcribing, editing, proofreading, and formatting for many of its editions all under one roof. MHS archivists still recall the struggle to decipher the handwriting of Massachusetts Bay Colony's founding Gov. John Winthrop for the Society's edition of The Winthrop Papers. Plenty of guesswork was involved, and some go so far as to suggest that if Winthrop's famous "we shall be as a city upon a hill" sermon had been recorded in his own inscrutable hand, rather than that of an unknown 17th-century copyist, politicians today would be lacking some key material for speechifying.
Yet the rewards of the task can be great for a determined researcher. Dean Grodzins, biographer of radical abolitionist minister Theodore Parker, first read a Parker letter as an undergraduate at Williams College in 1982, and he was hooked. The letter, which by a fluke wound up in the college archives, told of Parker's protest against the Fugitive Slave Law—which landed him in jail—but contained so many references to obscure figures of the time that Grodzins was still unraveling the connections nearly 20 years and countless manuscript boxes and microfilm reels later as he prepared American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism for publication. By then, Grodzins was so familiar with Parker's handwriting—often just a shorthand—and his characteristic speech patterns that he could tell when Parker wrote "m. c. h. & s." in his sermon notes he meant "mind, conscience, heart and soul."
Parker, too, had famously bad handwriting. William Lloyd Garrison, hard-line abolitionist and editor of the Liberator, once complained that an essay Parker submitted was so unreadable it would require a dozen assistants to interpret his clotted sentences for the printer "without any serious blunders." Grodzins, nevertheless, found ways to decipher Parker's private journals, even one stunning passage written in code. Grodzins sensed Parker was unhappily married, but he had little direct evidence. Parker's wife, Lydia, often read through her husband's journals when he was out of the house, so the preacher couldn't bare his soul there. Parker sometimes wrote in Greek or Latin, however, languages Lydia didn't know. One such passage, Grodzins divined from its uncharacteristic word spacings, was actually English written with Greek characters. Putting together crossed out words and the Greek alphabet spellings, Grodzins found that Parker had written: "My wife is a DEVIL. I. HAVE. NO. HOPE. in. LIFE."
Most editors of scholarly editions have stories to tell about the one word that stumped them. For decades, the founding editor of the Thoreau Edition, Walter Harding, believed Thoreau had written the word Ecology in a letter of the 1850s, trumping the first known use of the term by eight years. The OED had even changed its entry to include Thoreau's usage on Harding's say-so. But when a botanist pressed him on the claim, Harding searched further and realized that what he'd taken for a capital E was really a G. Geology was the word Thoreau had written.
The 19th-century practice of cross-writing has left many scholars scratching their heads. Trying to fit as many words as possible onto a single sheet of paper, letter-writers filled a page, then turned it 90 degrees and wrote perpendicularly back across their own handwriting. Even with the most regular hand, confusion is inevitable. Elizabeth Peabody, the Transcendentalist philosopher and matchmaker for her two younger sisters, who married Horace Mann and Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote about her realization that she was not in love with Horace Mann in a cross-written letter to her sister Mary—who was. Elizabeth explained her feelings for the 36-year-old, recently widowed politician, whose hair was said to have turned white in a matter of weeks as he mourned his young first wife: "his situation, his grey hair—his sorrow have ever precluded from my imagination" the possibility that she would fall in love. For Elizabeth Peabody, it was sour grapes—she'd been rebuffed. But for scholars, the question was, did Peabody write "grey hair," "grief, loss," or "grave air"?
Pierre Walker and Greg Zacharias, editors of the new edition of Henry James' complete correspondence, puzzled over a word in a cross-written letter James sent to his intimate friend Grace Norton. Was James signing himself "unutterably yours" or "unalterably yours"? The problem was exacerbated by the editors' awareness that James' lowercase u's and a's often looked identical. And the master was sloppy in crossing his t's, turning back to the task only after coming to the end of a line. Ultimately, Walker and Zacharias settled on unutterably, after making a systematic search of all James' letters to Norton and finding a handful of unutterably s sprinkled through, but no unalterably s.
While the difference between unutterably and unalterably may not seem momentous, Walker and Zacharias' edition is an attempt to rectify Faggen-like errors in earlier volumes assembled by Leon Edel, James' biographer—who had the writer crossing the nonexistent "Italvia Pass" between Switzerland and Italy, rather than the Stelvio Pass, in March of 1869. And, to the documentary editor, no quirk of spelling, punctuation, or capitalization is insignificant. "These things aren't minor," says Helen Deese, who spent 20 years editing the diaries of 19th-century women's rights activist Caroline Healey Dall for the MHS' edition, expected to run to four volumes. "They are your stock in trade; you're there to get them right."
Robert Frost observed, in an early notebook transcribed in Faggen's edition, that men are ruled by four fears: "of jail, of the poor house of the insane asylum and of Hell." He might also have added a fifth—the fear of being censured by colleagues for easily avoidable errors in a scholarly edition. Certainly this fear focuses the mind of every scholar devoted to accuracy. Yet would Frost himself really have cared about the mistakes? In his poem "A Passing Glimpse," Frost writes of the ephemeral nature of perception, of beauty itself—themes that are ever-present in his fragmentary, Orphic notebook entries as reproduced by Faggen. A sideways glance yields more than a trained, fixed gaze. The crusty New England bard may be having the last laugh:
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in a position to look too close.
Correction, Feb. 11, 2008: This article originally stated that partying teenagers vandalized Frost's Vermont cabin. In fact, they vandalized his farmhouse. ( Return to the corrected sentence.)


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Study links chemical BPA to obesity in children, teens
Kids with higher levels of the widely used substance BPA in their bodies are more likely to be obese, according to the first large-scale, nationally representative study to link an environmental chemical with obesity in children and teens.
Researchers from NYU School of Medicine acknowledge that their study's design doesn't allow them to definitely conclude that BPA, or bisphenol A, caused the children's obesity. Rates of obesity have been rising for three decades as Americans have become more sedentary.
But the findings, in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, add to a growing body of research -- in both humans and animals -- questioning BPA's safety, says Philip Landrigan, director of Children's Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
STORY: FDA has 'some concern' about chemical BPA
"It's a credible study and it has to be given some attention," says Landrigan, who was not involved with the study.
In particular, the study adds to the notion that certain chemicals are "obesogens" that alter the body's metabolism, making it harder for people to lose weight, even with diet and exercise, says Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who was not involved in the study.
"Are we programming people to fail?" Birnbaum asks. "That's the question we need to ask, instead of blaming people."
Exposure to BPA -- an estrogen-like chemical used in everything from plastic water bottles to the linings of metal cans and even the coatings on certain paper receipts -- is nearly ubiquitous. More than 92% of Americans over age 6 have detectable levels in their blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new study drew on CDC surveys of 2,838 kids and teens, ages 6 to 19. Researchers found that more than 22% of those with the highest BPA level in their urine were obese, compared to 10% of those with the lowest levels.
A study published last year, also based on CDC data, found similar patterns of obesity among American adults exposed to BPA.
To make sure that their results were reliable, authors of the new study factored a number of important considerations into their calculations -- including the children's race, age, income, sex, exposure to tobacco, number of calories consumed each day, number of hours spent watching TV and their caregiver's educational level.
Their results held up only for white children, says Leonardo Trasande, the study's main author, of NYU. In black and Hispanics, further analysis showed that the link between BPA and obesity could be due to chance.
The study's design doesn't allow researchers to definitively conclude that BPA made the children gain weight, Trasande says.
It's possible that obese children consume more BPA, such as through canned soda, Trasande says. It's also possible that obese children have higher BPA levels because the chemical is stored, and later released, from fat.
Taken alone, the study might not make much of a case against BPA, Birnbaum says. But it's more powerful in light of the long list of earlier experiments in animals and cells linking BPA to obesity, diabetes, breast and prostate cancers, behavior problems and other issues, especially in animals exposed before birth.
In recent years, evidence has linked BPA to a variety of human ailments:
-- A study published in Pediatrics last year found that girls exposed before birth to high levels of BPA were more likely to be anxious, depressed and hyperactive at age 3.
-- Men with higher levels of BPA were two to four times more likely than others to have problems with sperm quality and quantity, according to a 2010 study in Fertility and Sterility.
-- A 2008 study in JAMA linked high BPA levels in adults to diabetes, heart disease and abnormal liver function.
The Food and Drug Administration banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups in July. Environmental groups also have pressured the agency to reduce or eliminate other sources of BPA.
Pediatric endocrinologist Larry Deeb says the new study provides enough evidence for parents to act, in spite of its limitations.
He suggests that parents buy only plastic sports bottles that are BPA-free, and avoid buying canned soups and vegetables.
"The conclusion seems to be to avoid BPA as much as possible," says Deeb, who specializes in treating obesity. "Why do we have to expose ourselves to these things? Fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables are probably better for you, if you can afford them, which is always the rub."


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Unit 7 Pretest
Lesson 1 of 19
Objective: SWBAT: • Show what they know about perimeter, area, surface area, and volume.
Big Idea: What do students already know about geometry? What gaps do students have in their understanding? Students take the Unit 7 pretest in order to inform instruction.
Do Now
- I will give this pretest before I begin the Unit 7.
- I want to give myself enough time to review student work and adjust my plans. I will use students' work to inform my instruction. For example, if the majority of students are able to plot points on the coordinate plane, I will not spend as much class time on that skill. Also, I can use the information to identify students who require remediation and extension on particular topics.
See my Do Now video that explains my beginning of class routines.
Often, I create do nows that have problems that connect to the task that students will be working on that day. Here I want students to think about what they already know about geometry concepts. Some students may draw models or create example problems. Students participate in a Think Write Pair Share. I ask students to share out with the class.
Resources (3)
I explain that students will be taking the Unit 7 pretest today. It does not count for a grade. It is a way for me to learn what students know about the topics that I cover in Unit 7 and what we need to work on. I explain that there will probably be problems on the pretest that students don't know how to do, and that is okay. I want students to do their best and show and explain their thinking.
I review testing expectations and students move their desks apart. I pass out the test and students work quietly. Students are engaging in MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
When students finish, I ask them to check their work. Once they have done this they can choose to read quietly, work on other schoolwork, or work on the Geometry Word Search Puzzle.
If students do not finish the test, I set up a time (preferably today or the next day) for them to complete their work.


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Used 2008 Mazda 6
- Fun to drive, smooth power delivery, attractive design inside and out, availability of versatile hatchback body style.
- Engines are less powerful and fuel efficient than competitors, tight rear seat accommodations, stability control not available.
Used 2008 Mazda 6 for Sale
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Edmunds shoppers get on average $235 more for their trade-in.
Receive offers from our dealer partners fast.See your car's value
Edmunds' Expert Review
In its twilight hours, the 2008 Mazda 6 midsize sedan still offers a choice of body styles and an extra shot of driving excitement to a segment typically known for blandness. However, newer rivals have upped the fun factor, while providing more space, more power and more miles per gallon.
vehicle overview
Since it debuted five years ago, the Mazda 6 has been the sports car of the midsize sedan segment. Taught, communicative steering and a poised chassis are hallmarks of a car that begs to be driven with enthusiasm -- even if the destination is the local Wal-Mart. Its stylish design and driver-oriented cockpit exude a visual excitement that others in this staid segment shy away from for fear of turning off more conservative buyers. The 2008 Mazda 6 still happily boasts a sporty personality, yet provides plenty of family-friendly practicality.
For 2008, the 6 provides a little less of that practicality, however. The Sport Wagon has been killed off, the latest casualty in the American purge of the dreaded wagon species. Nevertheless, the unique "five-door" hatchback model remains. This body style is popular in Europe, but rare in America where even the slightest whiff of a hatchback makes consumers go "yuck." Still, the hatchback maintains a very sedanlike profile and to some eyes, its fastback profile is more attractive than the traditional four-door sedan. Plus, its 22 cubic feet of cargo space is the largest available in the family sedan market -- topping even the full-size Ford Taurus.
With so much versatility and driving fun, why not pick a 6? The four- and six-cylinder engines have never been particularly powerful in this class, and newer competitors have made these modest motors seem like Calista Flockhart duking it out on "American Gladiators." The Nissan Altima, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry all offer at least 270-horsepower V6 engines, while at the same time bettering the 212-hp Mazda's fuel economy. The base four-cylinder is pretty much the same story, although the power gap isn't as significant. In this era of gas mileage awareness, less power and higher consumption is a tough sell.
An all-new Mazda 6 will debut next year that will hopefully address the power, fuel economy and rear seat space issues. In the meantime, though, if you can look past the current model's downsides, the 2008 Mazda 6 is still an attractive choice. If buying something other than the Camry-Accord-Altima status quo is appealing, then the 6 should definitely be considered -- especially if a "fun to drive" demeanor is a top priority.
trim levels & features
The 2008 Mazda 6 is a midsize car available as a four-door sedan and a "five-door" sedan with a hatchback. Both are available in "i" and "s" versions, which denote the four- and six-cylinder engines respectively. The versions are further broken down into Sport (four-door only), Sport Value Edition, Touring and Grand Touring. The Sport comes with 17-inch alloy wheels, full power accessories, air-conditioning, cruise control, a tilt-telescoping steering wheel and a six-speaker stereo with a CD player.
The Sport Value Edition adds an eight-way power driver seat, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and an in-dash six-CD changer. The Touring adds heated mirrors, leather upholstery, heated front seats and a seven-speaker Bose stereo. The Grand Touring adds xenon headlights, foglamps, a sunroof, electroluminescent gauges, automatic climate control and an auto-dimming rearview mirror. The s Grand Touring model differs by including 18-inch wheels.
The only factory options are a sunroof on the Sport Value Edition and Touring, and a navigation system on the Grand Touring. Satellite radio is a dealer-installed option on all Mazda 6 models.
performance & mpg
All 2008 Mazda 6 models are front-wheel drive. Standard on the i model is a 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engine that makes 156 hp and 154 pound-feet of torque. The s model upgrades to a 3.0-liter V6 that makes 212 hp and 197 lb-ft. The Sport trim level comes only with a five-speed manual, while the Sport Value Edition offers a five-speed automatic. The Touring and Grand Touring trims are only available with a six-speed automatic. The Mazda 6 s will run to 60 mph in about 8 seconds flat, which is respectable, but at least a second off the pace of the segment speedsters.
Revised 2008 fuel economy figures for the four-cylinder i model are 21 mpg city and 28 mpg highway with the automatic transmission. The six-cylinder s model rates 18 mpg city and 25 mpg highway with the automatic. The Sport trim's manual transmission has a negligible effect on fuel mileage.
All Mazda 6 models come with antilock disc brakes, traction control, front-seat side airbags and full-length side curtain airbags. Stability control is not available. In government crash tests, the 6 scored a perfect five stars in frontal impact testing and four stars in side impact testing. In Insurance Institute for Highway Safety frontal-offset crash testing, the Mazda earned the top rating of "Good."
Like most other Mazdas, the 6 is a thrill behind the wheel and is the sports car of its class. Neither engine is exceptionally powerful, especially off the line, though the V6's smooth, quiet power delivery offsets this. The four-cylinder is also smooth, but it gets a little noisy at higher rpm. Communicative steering goes a long way toward making the 6 fun to drive, whether it's on the highway or from corner to corner on back roads. The well-sorted suspension achieves a superb balance between comfortable ride quality and athletic handling.
Inside, the 2008 Mazda 6 has a clean and contemporary design, with solid build quality and easy-to-operate controls. Most materials are attractive, but they're a step below in quality compared to what's found in the Honda Accord and Nissan Altima. The front seats are supportive, but rear hiproom and shoulder room are tight. The sedan has a 15.2-cubic-foot trunk capacity, while the hatchback boasts a very impressive 22-cubic-foot cargo hold that expands to 59 cubes with the rear seat folded down.
Top consumer reviews
Read what other owners think about the 2008 Mazda 6.
Features & Specs
Used 2008 Mazda 6 Overview
The Used 2008 Mazda 6 is offered in the following submodels: , . Available styles include i Sport 4dr Sedan (2.3L 4cyl 5M), s Sport Value Edition 4dr Sedan (3.0L 6cyl 5M), i Sport Value Edition 4dr Hatchback (2.3L 4cyl 5A), i Sport Value Edition 4dr Sedan (2.3L 4cyl 5A), s Sport Value Edition 4dr Hatchback (3.0L 6cyl 6A), i Grand Touring 4dr Hatchback (2.3L 4cyl 5A), s Sport Value Edition 4dr Sedan (3.0L 6cyl 6A), s Touring 4dr Sedan (3.0L 6cyl 6A), s Touring 4dr Hatchback (3.0L 6cyl 6A), i Touring 4dr Sedan (2.3L 4cyl 5A), s Grand Touring 4dr Hatchback (3.0L 6cyl 6A), s Grand Touring 4dr Sedan (3.0L 6cyl 6A), i Grand Touring 4dr Sedan (2.3L 4cyl 5A), i Sport Value Edition 4dr Sedan (2.3L 4cyl 5M), i Sport Value Edition 4dr Hatchback (2.3L 4cyl 5M), s Sport Value Edition 4dr Hatchback (3.0L 6cyl 5M), and i Touring 4dr Hatchback (2.3L 4cyl 5A).
What's a good price on a Used 2008 Mazda 6?
Price comparisons for Used 2008 Mazda 6 trim styles:
- The Used 2008 Mazda 6 i Sport is priced between $5,450 and$5,450 with odometer readings between 101555 and101555 miles.
- The Used 2008 Mazda 6 i Touring is priced between $4,999 and$4,999 with odometer readings between 124376 and124376 miles.
- The Used 2008 Mazda 6 s Grand Touring is priced between $16,874 and$16,874 with odometer readings between 88126 and88126 miles.
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Spy photographers Brenda Priddy & Company have snapped some more shots of soon-to-be Honda motorcycles, with perhaps the best find being a new CBF model (click here for photos on Motorcycle-USA) that appears to be an automatic unit, possibly a dual-clutch transmission equipped model.
The naked street bike slots in with the middleweight offerings that we've recently seen from a bevy of manufacturers, the most notable of which being the Yamaha Fazer8. Not much is known about the new Honda model, as the Japanese company is notoriously well known for keeping its projects under wraps, though we can likely expect a debut of the new CBF later this autumn.


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Better Homes and Gardens
This bathroom idea from Better Homes and Gardens is a romantic
bathroom design that is easy to achieve with the use of faux painting
techniques, white linens and a few romantic accessories.
Achieve this simple, no-sew, window treatment with the use of a
gauzy white scarf or antique linen material. For an added touch,
you can use simple white sconces to thread the scarf through, or
simply knot the scarf over hooks.
simple, clean mirror is all that is needed in this romantic bathroom
design. No need for frills or heavy wood trims that would only detract
from the simple romantic style. Additionally, the glass shelf continues
with the clean lines. If you have a vanity area instead, paint your
cabinets and countertops white and replace bright brass faucets
with smooth silver.
accessorize your vanity or counter area with a bathroom set like
the Modern
collection from Linenplace. Add white or cream colored candles and
antique perfume bottles. Keep your accessories simple
like the. Plush towels
in white and sage add texture and additional color to this room.
Probably the most striking feature of this romantic bathroom is
the faux wall treatment. With a little time, it is an inexpensive
way to create interest and drama in any room. See our faux painting
page to learn how to achieve this soft, romantic look.
Redecorating your bathroom doesn't have to be costly. With no-sew
swags and a little paint, you can make dramatic changes for less.


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(PECL sphinx >= 0.1.0)
SphinxClient::query — Execute search query
Connects to searchd server, runs the given search query with the current settings, obtains and returns the result set.
Query string.
An index name (or names).
On success, SphinxClient::query() returns a list of found matches and additional per-query statistics. The result set is a hash utilize other structures instead of hash) with the following keys and values:
|Value description
|An array with found document IDs as keys and their weight and attributes values as values
|Total number of matches found and retrieved (depends on your settings)
|Total number of found documents matching the query
|An array with words (case-folded and stemmed) as keys and per-word statistics as values
|Query error message reported by searchd
|Query warning reported by searchd
There is also a "status" key showing in what status query has ended.
Here are codes, taken from searchd.cpp:
/// known status return codes
enum SearchdStatus_e
SEARCHD_OK = 0, ///< general success, command-specific reply follows
SEARCHD_ERROR = 1, ///< general failure, error message follows
SEARCHD_RETRY = 2, ///< temporary failure, error message follows, client should retry later
SEARCHD_WARNING = 3 ///< general success, warning message and command-specific reply follow
It appears that Query() (or the Sphinx program in general) does have some kind of limit imposed on the maximum length of a query submission. Stumbled across this limitation when trying to perform some searches based on content from user-submitted e-mails.
In looking at the returned array, the 'words' portion only accounts for the first 8 or 9 words of the long query. I'm assuming that the rest of the string is being truncated. The number of accepted words appears to change based on the total length of the words. Just a heads-up.


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This document applies to HP desktop PCs that shipped with Windows 95, 98, Me, and XP.
This document explains how to restore an original software program or driver using the HP application recovery process.
note:If you upgraded the operating system, changed the version of Windows on your computer, or removed the recovery partition, you cannot use application recovery.
Figure : Application Recovery Utility screenshots


text:
Avalanche danger high throughout the Eastern Sierra
The latest rounds of new storms were welcome for many people in the Eastern Sierra, but the Mono County Search and Rescue teams are on high alert for avalanches, a spokesman for the county's Sheriff's Department said.
"During the last series of storms to arrive in Mono County, a substantial amount of snow has fallen in the backcountry of Mono County," the spokesperson said in a news release.
"At times, the series of storms produced snowfall rates in excess of one inch per hour for twenty-four hours. Also, the accompanying winds with the storms provided for wind loading on the lee side of the mountains and ridgelines.
"The early season snowfall has crystallized and formed an extremely smooth base for the new snow to rest upon. The recent heavy snowfall, high winds coupled with a smooth hard pack base has significantly increased the avalanche danger in the backcountry areas of Mono County."
The Sheriff's Department issued the following warning and advice:
Backcountry travel is not advised until the snowpack has settled and solidified.
For more information on snow conditions and avalanche warnings, visit www.sierraavalanchecenter.org or www.wrh.noaa.gov/rev/avalanche.


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A while back I was thinking about SQL Server's capabilities of returning data as XML with FOR XML and it occurred to me that maybe returning 10.000 results as xml would be faster that the way SQL server returns them now in Tabular Data Stream (TDS). After 10 seconds I dismissed it as nonsense because if that were so the xml would be used by default. But it piqued my curiosity about what would be the actual size overhead of returning XML compared to TDS. I knew there was overhead but i didn't think it would be so high.
So i decided to test it. I tried 2 queries which got same data from AdventureWorks.Person.Address table and for each I just changed the TOP N value to: 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000 and no TOP N to get all rows.
Query 1:
SELECT * FROM Person.Address
Query 2:
Here I used alias A and root P to minimize the XML size. The AUTO option creates an XML item for each row and columns are treated as attributes the PATH wraps the row items with the root P item. This appears to be the smallest XML you can generate with unchanged column names.
SELECT * FROM Person.Address as A FOR XML AUTO, ROOT('P')
These are the results in table and graph form.
We can see that compared to TDS the XML rises much more exponentially with increasing row numbers.
Print | posted on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 1:18 PM |
Filed Under [
SQL Server
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Copyright © Mladen Prajdić


text:
Beaumont/Port Arthur
Standing next to her budding winter garden of lettuce, collards, turnips and banana peppers, Ethel August pointed to the blue tarp on her roof and lamented.
"The roof is leaking real bad in the kitchen," said August, whose home on Forrest Street still bears a sun-worn blue tarp more than four years after Hurricane Ike damaged her roof in September 2008.
While we harbor no disrespect for the Wall Street Journal who called us "that scrappy little paper from Southeast Texas," we prefer to think of ourselves as simple seekers of the truth. We're of the opinion that headlines and sound bites never tell the whole story. Our readers demand all the facts, facets and flavors of every story or event. And, they expect to be informed, educated and stirred to action.
For this week's New York Times crossword puzzle, pick up a copy of this week's The Examiner on newsstands now.


text:
REUTERS - Global economic growth slowed to a four-month low in February, according to service sector surveys on Tuesday, but China's pledge to boost government spending to achieve 7.5 percent growth this year may help support activity in Europe and the United States also.
Growth was led by the vast U.S. services sector, where it accelerated to its fastest pace in a year in February, helped by a pick-up in new orders and demand for exports.
But France, Spain and Italy dragged the euro zone into a deeper downturn, earlier data showed, highlighting a widening chasm between these countries and prosperous Germany.
Meanwhile, data on China's increasingly important services sector showed that growth cooled in February and was in line with slower factory activity that suggests a modest rebound in the country's economy this year.
"Although the rate of expansion eased to a four-month low, the loss of momentum was only slight and improving inflows of new business raise the chances of a near-term reacceleration," said David Hensley, director of global economics coordination at JPMorgan.
The Global Total Output index, produced by JPMorgan with research and supply management organizations, slipped to 53.0 in February from 53.2 in January, comfortably above the 50 mark that divides growth from contraction.
A global index covering services firms edged down to 53.3 last month from 53.4. A similar manufacturing PMI released on Friday fell to 50.8.
On Wall Street though, China's policy announcement and the good data on the U.S. service sector combined with supportive Federal Reserve monetary policy all combined to lift the Dow Jones industrial average to a record high, eclipsing the previous intraday high reached in October 2007, when the world was heading toward the financial crisis.
Stocks in Europe also surged, with the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index hitting its highest closing level in 4-1/2 years, boosted by corporate outlooks and expectations for continued stimulus from global central banks, even as Europe's troubled economy deteriorated further.
In China, outgoing Premier Wen Jibao, speaking at the opening of the annual session of parliament, announced record-high government spending for 2013. The plan is the blueprint for the incoming administration led by Xi Jinping, who will formally take over as president at the end of the session, with Li Keqiang taking over as premier.
As part of the measures announced on Tuesday to promote growth, the Ministry of Finance said China would boost fiscal spending in 2013, raising the fiscal deficit target to 2.0 percent of gross domestic product, its highest since 2010 and up from 1.6 percent in 2012.
China's economy, the world's second biggest, grew by 7.8 percent in 2012, its slowest pace in 13 years.
The HSBC Services Purchasing Managers' Index for China showed a pullback in growth in February, with the index falling to 52.1 from January's 54.0, after seasonal adjustments. The services sector accounts for 46 percent of China's economy.
Qu Hongbin, HSBC's chief China economist, attributed the pull-back in services growth in part to a clampdown on wasteful state spending by Beijing, such as forbidding officials from hosting extravagant meals.
Distortions from the Lunar New Year holiday, which fell in February this year as opposed to January in 2012, may also have contributed to swings in the PMI data even though the series is seasonally adjusted.
"We expect a continuous modest improvement of service sector growth in coming months, thanks to healthy labor market conditions and the ongoing recovery of manufacturing growth," he said.
In the United States, the services sector, which dominates the economy, posted its fastest pace of growth in a year in February. The expansion came even as the federal government is tightening spending and consumers are adjusting to a decline in disposable income following an increase in the payroll tax at the beginning of the year.
The Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 56 from 55.2 in January, exceeding economists' forecasts for 55. It was the highest level since February 2012. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.
"This was no question a positive number," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at BNY Mellon. "It reflects improvement and reinforces the view that the economy continues to improve and should contribute to gains that have driven the stock market to a new record."
The measure of the backlog of orders was at its highest since May 2011 at 54.5 against 49. But the employment index weakened slightly, edging down to 57.2 from 57.5 in January.
In Europe, economic gloom continued to be the message of the day, however.
Purchasing managers indexes showed that France, Spain and Italy dragged the 17-member euro zone into a deeper downturn in February. Markit's Eurozone Composite PMI, a broad gauge of activity at thousands of companies across the euro zone, fell to 47.9 from 48.6 in January. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.
A reading of 53.3 for Germany's PMI stood in sharp contrast to the reading of 43.1 for the French PMI.
The outlook for the euro zone depends largely on whether Germany can keep up its economic growth and offset weakness in the bloc's next three biggest economies - France, Italy and Spain, according to Chris Williamson, chief economist at PMI compiler Markit.
He said that "seems a tall order, meaning hopes of a return to growth for the region by mid-2013 are now looking too optimistic."
Britain's services PMI, which accounts for the bulk of its economy, hit a five-month high of 51.8 last month from 51.5 in January, beating the median forecast of 51.0 in a Reuters poll. (Reporting by Kevin Yao and Aileen Wang in Beijing, Andy Bruce in London and Leah Schnurr and Steven C. Johnson in New York; Writing by Leslie Adler and Clive McKeef; Editing by James Dalgleish)


text:
Professor David Faigman graduated from the State University of New York, College at Oswego, where he majored in Psychology and History. He then went to the University of Virginia where he received an M.A. in social psychology and a J.D. During law school, he served on the Virginia Law Review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and received the Roger and Madeleine Traynor Prize, awarded to acknowledge the best written work by a graduating student. After law school, Professor Faigman clerked in the chambers of the Honorable Thomas M. Reavley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor Faigman writes in the areas of science and the law, and constitutional law. He has published numerous books and articles concerning the use, or failure to use, scientific research in legal decision-making. His most recent book was published in 2008, entitled Constitutional Fictions: A Unified Theory of Constitutional Facts (Oxford Univ. Press). He is also the author of Laboratory of Justice: The Supreme Court's 200-Year Struggle to Integrate Science and the Law (Henry Holt/Times Books 2004) and Legal Alchemy: The Use and Misuse of Science in the Law (W.H. Freeman 1999). In addition, he is a coauthor of the five-volume treatise, Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony (2008) (with Michael Saks, Joseph Sanders, and Ed Cheng). The treatise has been cited widely by courts, including several times by the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Faigman also lectures widely to judges and lawyers, and served on a panel for the National Academies of Science investigating the scientific validity of the polygraph.
Professor Faigman enjoys a wide range of diversions, including racquetball, golf, reading, and landscaping. He is married to Lisa Faigman and has three wonderful daughters, Sarah, Amanda, and Hannah.
Courses Taught: Constitutional Law I, Constitutional Law II, and Scientific Methods for Lawyers
Expertise: Science Policy, Scientific Evidence, and Constitutional Law
UC Hastings offers you the following unique opportunities... although many law schools provide one or, possibly, a few of the advantages offered by Hastings, none is able to match the wide range of exciting opportunities that a Hastings education represents. UC Hastings is a top tier law school situated in possibly the most beautiful city in the world; it has a first-rate teaching faculty that is deeply committed to scholarship; at its core is a diverse and exciting student body that contributes every day to a rich intellectual environment. In sum, UC Hastings is rich in history, faculty, students, curriculum, extra-curricular activities, geography, and climate.


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Carotid artery angioplasty offers patients alternative to surgery
The image on the left shows the narrowing in the carotid artery of a 54-year-old woman. The image on the right after angioplasty shows the artery opened and blood flowing normally. Images courtesy of Dr. Frank Parker.
GREENVILLE, N.C. (Dec. 20, 2001) — Specialists at Pitt County Memorial Hospital are using a minimally invasive procedure to treat selected cases of carotid artery disease. The disease, in which the carotid artery in the neck becomes clogged, is normally treated with an invasive surgical procedure in which the vessel is opened and cleared.
Vascular surgeons from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University have joined vascular-interventional radiologists from Eastern Radiologists in performing angioplasty and stent placement to treat the stenosis, or narrowing of the artery.
The most recent case completed using minimally invasive carotid artery angioplasty was performed Nov. 27 at PCMH on a woman from Edenton. Carotid angioplasty uses a balloon catheter to treat the narrowing of the carotid artery as a substitute for the surgical approach of carotid endarterectomy.
This surgical approach is still the main course of treatment for carotid artery disease, though less invasive carotid angioplasty and stenting is being performed on selected patients with good results, according to Dr. Karl Chiang, an interventional radiologist with Eastern Radiologists. Chiang did a similar case in May.
Dr. Frank Parker of the medical school's section of vascular surgery said the 54-year-old woman was a good candidate for carotid angioplasty because of the type and location of the blockage in her carotid artery. The carotid artery is a large vessel supplying blood to the head, neck and brain and can become blocked by fatty deposits or blood clots.
"She had a rare form of narrowing in the carotid artery high in her neck going into her head. It was above where traditional surgery can reach safely," he said. Parker, assistant professor of surgery, performed the procedure along with Dr. Steven Powell, professor of surgery and section chief for vascular surgery.
During the procedure, a balloon attached to a catheter - a long tube - is inserted into an artery in the groin and threaded up to the narrowed carotid artery in the neck. Once the catheter is in place, a balloon on the end of the catheter is inflated, pushing the fatty deposits toward the sides of the artery. In most cases a metal stent, which is a mesh tube, is then placed to support the artery walls and keep the blood vessel open. However, in this patient no stent was required because the blockage opened immediately and easily with the balloon dilation, said Parker.
As with the majority of these cases, the patient was awake during the procedure and had local anesthesia in her groin area, where a small incision to insert the catheter was made. "The patient was also kept awake so we could monitor the function of her brain during the procedure and if any stroke-like symptoms were detected, then immediate intervention could be made," Powell said.
The patient spent one night in PCMH for observation and returned to her normal activities at home within days.
"We determined that carotid angioplasty was the best technique to treat this patient"s carotid artery disease," Parker said. "In this patient's case, her rare form of blockage, called fibromuscular dysplasia, which is congenital, is ideally suited to the angioplasty procedure."
Fibromuscular dyplasia is different from atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, that is the most common cause of carotid artery blockage. Ongoing research at a variety of medical centers throughout the United States and Europe is investigating whether angioplasty and stenting can replace traditional surgery for the more common atherosclerotic carotid blockages. So far the centers report a low risk of stroke during the procedure, Powell said.
Like Powell and Parker, Chiang believes "that endarterectomy is still considered the gold standard (to treat carotid artery stenosis). In the past few years, physicians have been using angioplasty and stenting to treat stenos
Jeannine Manning Hutson
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Breaking News Emails
The family of a New York man who is among the 16 people injured in Wednesday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, said their son and brother is strong and will recover from his gunshot wound.
"I know he's going to make it because he's way tougher than that," said Tim Miller, brother of Patrick Miller, an active duty Army Major, stationed at Fort Hood.
According to his family, Patrick Miller, a 32-year-old Iraq War veteran, was shot in the stomach and underwent surgery Wednesday night.
Miller's mother, Carol, described the whirlwind of emotion upon hearing the news Wednesday evening.
"I wanted to sit down all of a sudden. It was like, 'Oh my God!'" Carol Miller said.
An Iraq war vet Wednesday unleashed the rampage that killed three colleagues and wounded 16 others on the base.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the shooting has left Miller's home state "saddened and shocked."
"Among those injured is Maj. Patrick Miller, from Allegany County, who joined the U.S. Army after graduating from St. Bonaventure in 2003," Cuomo said in a statement. "On behalf of all New Yorkers, I send my thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery to the injured victims and their families."
Three of the wounded were still fighting for their lives in the intensive care unit of a nearby civilian hospital, doctors said early Thursday.
Five patients have been discharged from the hospital.


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DIANNE PUGH, Tennessee


text:
Chaos arises in Stinnett
Chaos was the word at the regular meeting of the Stinnett City Council Monday evening Local Stinnett citizen Crystal Irvin spoke her concerns about both the handling of the arson investigation regarding her family as well as the general day-to-day operations of the local law enforcement. While speaking to the city council members and citizens, she asked Chief of Police Marie Farbro to stand in front her and the congregation and stated, "As a person I have nothing against you. I think you're probably a fine person. For what ever reason I don't believe you're competent at your job."Irvin said she believes Farbro is not qualified for the position and the arson investigation surrounding her family was not handled properly. "I have been told that by the Borger city cops, by people in the sheriff's department, by people in the highway patrol department, and by people who came over and investigated my arson," Irvin said. At that time Farbro removed her badge and placed it on the table in front of the council. "That just drives my point home," Irvin said.Farbro left the building and city council member Kim Johnson followed behind her. The day after the meeting Farbro stated that she was not resigning, but at that point she just simply "had enough." She said, "I do my job serving and protecting Stinnett. I still love Stinnett." She also said what Mrs. Irvin did was "very rude, she didn't have to do that."It was confirmed that Johnson left the meeting to talk with Farbro to calm her down and talk things through."She did a good job at it," Farbro said. Later it became a concern that by Johnson abandoning her post was an issue upon her returning with Farbro to the meeting and taking her designated seat. Mayor Billy Murphy stated, " I don't think it was abandonment or a malicious act, she was helping a friend." He said, "I didn't know the rules and I didn't kick her out. I just told her, 'If you are willing to leave, go ahead.'" He continued to say that he was trying to stop an argument by doing so,"but Kim was a better person to leave." he added. Murphy said the meeting was nothing but personal problems" waiting to blow up. An email was sent to The Texas Municipal League in regard to the concerns. Assistant General Counsel Laura Mueller from Texas Municipal League responded by saying," Vacancies in city council seats are hard to come by. For a council member to resign, they must do so in writing, and then it is effective eight days later. Also, even if a council member resigns in writing, they remain a council member as a "holdover" under the Texas Constitution until their replacement is appointed or elected. A council member can also lose their seat if they miss three consecutive regular council meetings or if they violate some ethics statutes. There is no problem with a council member leaving a meeting and then coming back, other than they might have broken the quorum, in which case a break would have been appropriate. Sometimes council meetings in some cities last for an entire day, and these councils take breaks and sometimes council members may come and go, but they don't lose their spot just because they leave a meeting, even if they break quorum by doing so. Unless a council member is disrupting a meeting, he or she arguably cannot be made to leave a meeting. Also, she did not abandon her post on the facts that you gave me." Johnson and Irvin were not available for further comment.