text:
WATSONVILLE -- Ducks paddled by the thicket of willow, coyote brush, tule and yarrow that line Watsonville Slough. An egret rested in the shallows. Nearby, walkers strolled along a trail with leashed dogs.
Karen Christensen stood on the Ohlone Parkway bridge overlooking the slough on Wednesday, taking it all in.
Once, the area was a polluted dumping ground. Today, it shelters wildlife, helps control flooding and provides a place where an urban community can connect with nature.
Christensen played no small part in making the transformation possible, cobbling together nearly $2 million in grants to cover costs.
And that's just one project. As executive director of the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County, she's been helping preserve and restore the natural landscape for the more than a decade. Her work has been noticed.
The James Irvine Foundation will present Christensen with a 2013 Leadership Award in a ceremony Feb. 4 in Sacramento. The award comes with a $125,000 cash prize to further her organization's efforts.
Her joy, Christensen said, comes from taking projects "from conversation to the ground."
Nurturing dialogue is one of the hallmarks of Christensen's success. She's brought together government officials, property owners and nonprofit leaders to further conservation goals. The idea is to have everyone from permitting agencies to landowners involved in the creation of a project rather than providing feedback once the design's in place, Christensen said. That gives everyone the incentive to find solutions to the challenges that crop up.
"That's always the theme," she said. "Who are the people who need to be at the table? How do we engage these groups?"
The James Irvine Foundation presents the awards to showcase solutions that can be models to California's pressing problems, said Program Director Amy Dominguez-Arms.
In 2011, Dori Rose Inda, executive director of the Watsonville Law Center, won the award for spearheading the development of a system that links farmworkers hurt on the job with medical care.
The foundation recognizes "achievement as well as an effective approach," Dominguez-Arms said. "The selection committee was impressed by the way Karen has worked across sectors to achieve great solutions."
Under Christensen's leadership, the conservation district has worked to support struggling steelhead and coho salmon on the North Coast, reduce agricultural runoff in South County, lessen the fuel load in wildfire-prone forests, and help landowners obtain permits to restore streams and riparian areas.
In Watsonville, Christensen worked with the county Regional Transportation Commission and Caltrans to direct funding set aside to mitigate the environmental impact of the Highway 1 widening project in North County to the slough restoration.
Steve Palmisano, Watsonville's interim public works director, said Christensen not only played a crucial role in the wetlands project, but also secured funding for a city project to install a $1 million fish ladder on Corralitos Creek.
"She thinks big picture, and she brings so much to the community," Palmisano said. "We're lucky to have her."
Christensen said she'll use the award to strengthen her own organization and its statewide association. She also wants to develop a plan for a "wellness park," a place where people can explore nature and learn about health and well-being. She's not sure what that would look like. It's just an idea now.
"I want to develop a vision," she said.
Follow Sentinel reporter Donna Jones on Twitter at Twitter.com/DonnaJonesSCS


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BRISTOL, Tenn. – King Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving opened the 2012-13 season with a dual meet on the road at Lindsey Wilson College on Saturday. Reynold Thibideau led the men's team with three event victories while the women's team witness seven individual wins, two relay wins, and one school record fall. The men's team fell 130-87 while the women were defeated 127-112.
The foursome of Kelsey Wiese, Samantha Norman, Rachel Fuller, and Kelsey Copeland broke the school's 200-meter medley relay.
Furthering the women's successes were junior Kelsey Wiese (Gallatin, Tenn.) and freshman Rachel Fuller (North Augusta, S.C.), who combined for four wins between the pair. Wiese won the 50 free, 100 butterfly, and was a part of the first place 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay teams. Fuller won the 100 freestyle, 200 IM, and was a part of the first place 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay teams.
Malorie McBride rounded out the individual women's victories with a win in the 1,000 free.
The women featured two winning relay teams in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays.
On the men's side, freshman Reynold Thibideau (Titusville, Fla.) led the team with three individual victories in the 100 back, 100 free, and 200 IM. Alek Nochowicz took first place in the place 200 backstroke.
More details and final results will be available this week.
The men's and women's team will next compete at Limestone College on Oct. 6. The trip is a part of the next Solid Blue Road Trip that is coupled with men's and women's soccer who also play Limestone. Tickets for the trip will be on sale this week in Maclellan Hall during lunch hours and the Tornado Alley Shoppe.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
|MLB Career Stats
|Salt Lake
|22nd in AL
|17th in AL
|August 17, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers released RHP Matt Palmer.
|August 3, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers activated RHP Matt Palmer from the 7-day disabled list.
|July 27, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers placed RHP Matt Palmer on the 7-day disabled list.
|June 20, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers activated RHP Matt Palmer from the 7-day disabled list.
|June 11, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers placed RHP Matt Palmer on the 7-day disabled list.
|April 3, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers activated RHP Matt Palmer from the 7-day disabled list.
|April 3, 2014
|Tacoma Rainiers placed RHP Matt Palmer on the 7-day disabled list.
|December 14, 2013
|RHP Matt Palmer assigned to Tacoma Rainiers.
|December 13, 2013
|Seattle Mariners signed free agent RHP Matt Palmer to a minor league contract and invited him to spring training.
|November 4, 2013
|RHP Matt Palmer elected free agency.
|April 28, 2013
|RHP Matt Palmer assigned to Albuquerque Isotopes.
|December 18, 2012
|Los Angeles Dodgers signed free agent RHP Matt Palmer to a minor league contract and invited him to spring training.
|October 10, 2012
|RHP Matt Palmer elected free agency.
|June 8, 2012
|San Diego Padres sent RHP Matt Palmer outright to Tucson Padres.
|June 4, 2012
|San Diego Padres designated Matt Palmer for assignment.
|May 20, 2012
|San Diego Padres selected the contract of RHP Matt Palmer from Tucson Padres.
|April 3, 2012
|Matt Palmer assigned to Tucson Padres.
|November 30, 2011
|San Diego Padres signed free agent RHP Matt Palmer to a minor league contract and invited him to spring training.
|September 29, 2011
|RHP Matt Palmer elected free agency.
|September 1, 2011
|Los Angeles Angels sent Matt Palmer outright to Salt Lake Bees.
|May 13, 2011
|Salt Lake Bees activated RHP Matt Palmer from the 7-day disabled list.
|May 8, 2011
|Salt Lake Bees placed RHP Matt Palmer on the 7-day disabled list.
|April 28, 2011
|Los Angeles Angels optioned RHP Matt Palmer to Salt Lake Bees.
|April 9, 2011
|Los Angeles Angels recalled Matt Palmer from Salt Lake Bees.
|March 29, 2011
|Los Angeles Angels optioned Matt Palmer to Salt Lake Bees.
|September 7, 2010
|Los Angeles Angels recalled Matt Palmer from Salt Lake Bees.
|July 26, 2010
|Los Angeles Angels optioned Matt Palmer to Salt Lake Bees.
|July 17, 2010
|AZL Angels sent RHP Matt Palmer on a rehab assignment to Salt Lake Bees.
|June 21, 2010
|Matt Palmer assigned to AZL Angels.
|May 7, 2010
|Los Angeles Angels optioned Matt Palmer to Salt Lake Bees.
|April 23, 2009
|Los Angeles Angels selected the contract of Matt Palmer from Salt Lake Bees.
Jonathan Matthew Palmer…resides in Gilbert, Ariz., with , Michelle, and three children…attended Caruthersville HS (MO), Three Rivers (MO) Community College and Missouri State University…originally selected by the San Francisco Giants in 31st round of 2002 Jue Draft…signed by Giants' scout Todd Thomas.2013
Spent the entire season with AAA Albuquerque in the Dodgers organization going 6-8 with a 3.84 ERA (57 ER, 133.2 IP) with 131 strikeouts in 25 games (22 starts)…was the first time since 2007 that he spent the entire season in the minors with no appearances with the Major League club…he won five of his first eight decisions before losing five of his final six…posted a 3.40 ERA (38 ER, 100.2 IP) from June until the end of the season after posting a 5.18 ERA (19 ER, 33.0 IP) in his first seven starts…was 1-2 with a 4.82 ERA (10 ER, 18.2 IP) in five games (four starts) with Navegantes del Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League.2012
Pitched primarily with AAA Tucson in 21 games (20 starts)…in May went 3-0 with a 2.00 ERA (4 ER, 18.0 IP) with 11 strikeouts in three starts…appeared in three games with San Diego including two scoreless outings.2011 Spent the majority of the season pitching for Triple-A Salt Lake, also making three Major League starts for LAA...Grabbed a win in his second Big League start, working 6.0 innings of one-run ball 4/19 at TEX...Factored in the decision in 20 of his 24 minor league starts, going 9-11...Combined to work 152.2 innings between Salt Lake and LAA, his heaviest work load since 2008 and the fourth-most innings pitched in his 10-year career. 2010 Made first career Opening Day roster...Finished season 1-2 with a 4.54 ERA (33.2 IP - 17 ER) in 14 appearances (one start) with Angels...Allowed 38 hits (1 HR) while walking 20 and striking out 17...Tossed 4.1 innings on April 22 vs. Detroit, marking longest relief outing of career and longest outing of the season by an Angels reliever...Posted a 6.26 ERA (23.0 IP - 16 ER) over his first nine appearances of the season before being placed on the DL, May 6... Missed 76 games (May 6-July 26) with an acute sprain of the right sternoclavicular joint...Was reinstated from disabled list and optioned to Salt Lake, July 26...Went 2-3 with a 2.72 ERA (46.1 IP - 14 ER) in 13 appearances (seven starts) with the Bees...Was recalled by Angels, Sept. 6 and registered a 0.84 ERA (10.2 IP - 1 ER) in final five appearances. 2009 Began season at triple-A Salt Lake where he posted a 1-1 record with an 11.74 ERA (7.2 IP - 10 ER) in two starts...Had contract selected by Angels, April 23...Finished season 11-2 with a 3.93 ERA (121.1 IP - 53 ER) with a complete game in 40 appearances, 13 starts...Allowed 105 hits (12 HR), walked 55 and struck out 69... Was 9-1 with a 4.66 ERA (75.1 IP - 39 ER) as a starter...Recorded first big league win in Angels debut, April 23 vs. Detroit (6 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO,1 HR)...With sixth consecutive victory, June 12 vs. San Diego, joined Jered Weaver as only Halos in club history to start Angels career with six straight wins...Became the first rookie in Major League history over the age of 30 to start a season with six consecutive wins, all as a starter...Also became just the fifth pitcher in Angel history to start a season 6-0...Teammates J. Saunders and E. Santana were the third and fourth players to join that group (both in 2008)...Made first relief appearance, July 1 at Texas (2 IP, 1 BB, 2 SO)...Made spot starts July 25 vs. Minnesota and September 30 vs. Texas...Held right-handed batters to a .196 average. 2008 In 2008, spent majority of season at triple-A Fresno (Giants affiliate)...Led Pacific Coast League with 143 strikeouts and ranked seventh in ERA and fifth in walks (72)...Named PCL Player of Week, May 5-11, 2008... Made Major League debut, Aug. 16, 2008 vs. Atlanta...Made three starts with San Francisco, posting an 0-2 record with an 8.53 ERA (12.2 IP - 12 ER). 2007 In 2007, posted an 11-8 record with one complete game and a 4.32 ERA (150 IP - 72 ER) in 29 appearances, 25 starts, at Fresno...Allowed 155 hits (17 HR), walked 51 and struck out 98...Appeared in one start at double-A Connecticut. 2006 Was impressive following conversion to full-time starter, combining for 11-7 mark and 2.93 ERA (50er, 153.1ip) in 30 games (24 starts) between double-A Connecticut and triple- A Fresno...opened year with Defenders, going 5-3 with 1.30 ERA in 15 outings (9 starts)...was tabbed as club's Pitcher of Month for June...earned mid-summer promotion and acquitted himself well during 1st Pacific Coast League exposure, posting 6-4 mark with 4.05 ERA in 15 opening assignments...made 7 starts for Scottsdale Scorpions in Arizona Fall League, going 0-1 with 4.29 ERA (10er, 21.0ip 2005 Was limited by injuries to just 11 appearances (2 starts) at double-A Norwich...pitched well in limited action, logging 2.67 ERA. 2004 Spent 1st full year at double-A level, going 4-7 with 8 saves and 3.06 ERA in 42 outings (5 starts) with Norwich. 2003 Earned South Atlantic League Rolaids Relief Man of Year Award after dominating campaign as closer for single- A Hagerstown...captured monthly Rolaids honors in May, July and August...All-Star was perfect 5-0 with 25 saves and 1.20 ERA in 44 relief outings, while holding opposition to microscopic .121 avg. against (21-for-174)...was promoted to Norwich, where he made 5 late-season appearances. 2002 Opened professional career in sterling fashion, forging 3-2 record and 1.84 ERA in 16 games (9 starts) for rookie-level Salem-Keizer.


text:
Promise pops up in UK with Drobo-ish box
Empty 4-bay NAS product with Appley flavour
Promise Technology is setting out its stall in the UK with a product line that includes a Drobo-lookalike, the NS4600, which like the Drobo offers media serving functionality.
Both boxes are curved edge black rectangles, with four empty drive bays, FireWire and USB connectivity, and can be upgraded with new disk drives as existing drives fill up. Both are aimed at providing storage for consumers, video and media professionals and small business customers.
The Drobo is an exceedingly easy box to use. It is primarily a block storage device with added NAS and media serving functionality through a DroboShare unit. The NS46000, pictured below, is a media-serving - DLNA and UPnP, RAID'ed (0, 1, 5, 10) network-attached storage box with a more complex feature list and is probably slightly less easy to use, lacking for example the Drobo traffic light-style interface for disk drive health.
The Drobo looks as if would be perfectly at home sitting next to Apple iMacs and MacBooks; so too does the NS4600. Both can be Time Machine targets but Promise actually has a relationship with Apple as its VTrak RAID arrays are supported for Mac servers in the XSAN environment. It also has a relationship with NEC's high-performance computing group to supply storage products to customers.
The NS4600 is an update of the earlier NS4300N which has a significantly quieter fan, more powerful Intel EP80579 (Tolapai) CPU, 256MB of RAM instead of 128MB, and up to twice the performance whilst also being more power-efficient. The product has gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 400 and eSATA support. It is DLNA 1.5-certified and includes an iTunes server.
It also includes a snapshot capability and one NS4600 can replicate its contents to another. Client PCs can be backed up automatically. You can read a datasheet here (pdf).
For comparison, a Drobo plus DroboShare bundle is available for $580 on Amazon, whereas an NS4600 will set you back $421.
The Promise product line includes RAID controller cards, the NS4600 and similar direct-attached storage DS4000 products under a SmartStor brand, as well as VessRAID mid-size company and entry-level enterprise VTrak storage arrays. All the storage products support 3.5-inch SAS and SATA drives with Intel X25E and STEC flash solid state drives (SSDs) available. Promise says it has sold 16 million RAID controllers, making it the world leader by unit volume.
EMEA Marketing director Albrecht Hestermann expects a 24-bay, 2U 2.5-inch drive product to appear by the end of this year. USB 3.0 will come when the market is ready, Hestermann saying Promise is not a trendsetter when it comes to interfaces.
Promise is expanding into the UK from its base in Germany and is opening a serviced virtual office in Wokingham. Hestermann expects and hopes to have both a sales person and technical support person based in the UK in the next 12 - 18 months.
Four distributors have been appointed for the UK and the company is planning a partner support programme. It is hoping to have 60 to 100 certified engineers in a reseller community by Christmas 2011, as well as a presence this year in UK retailers and e-tailers.
The Promise pitch is that, although it's new to the UK it is in fact a world leader in RAID controllers and offers very good value for money products with good margins for resellers. ®


text:
Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
The Niagara River Greenway Commission recently hosted a bicycle tour to identify what they consider to be critical gaps along the Greenway corridor, which runs from Lake Erie to the Lake Ontario along the Niagara River.
Greenway members, stakeholders and New York state agency staff began their Oct. 25 tour at Gallagher Beach in Buffalo, riding along the Shoreline Trail and stopping along to way to meet with municipal leaders who host the Greenway. The tour ended nearly 25 miles later in the City of Niagara Falls. Initial findings from the tour found that, while there are approximately 25 miles of marked trail, there are about 25 more miles of trail that need to be better marked and made more accessible to bikers and other users.
"This bike tour was a real visual way to assess the needs we have along the Greenway in terms of creating a more seamless spine for people to enjoy the river. This tour will help us establish our next steps, which will focus on signage and connecting our trails," said Greg Stevens, chairman of the Niagara River Greenway Commission.
Stevens said once the Niagara River Greenway Trail is truly connected, it will form a critical linkage to regional trail networks, including The Erie Canal Trail, which extends from Canalside in Buffalo to Troy and the Hudson River Greenway; the Canadian trail systems and the Via Bike Train, which will connect in the summer 2015 over the Whirlpool bridge to Toronto; as well as the Seaway Trail and the Niagara Wine Trail. Additionally, the Shore Line Trail will link to the Pennsylvania border, which will connect to a regional trail system being developed from Washington, D.C., to Chicago.
The Niagara River Greenway Commission was adopted and created in 2007. It is charged with creating a continuous, linear park and multiuse trail along the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, while restoring the ecological health of the riparian zone of the Niagara River. It promotes public access to the waterfront while creating and enhancing public amenities that will encourage sustainable activities enhancing awareness and appreciation of the Niagara River.


text:
THE SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
The query optimizer does not always choose an optimal strategy when joining partitioned tables. This post looks at an example, showing how a manual rewrite of the query can almost double performance, while reducing the memory grant to almost nothing.
The two tables in this example use a common partitioning partition scheme. The partition function uses 41 equal-size partitions:
CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION PFT (integer)
125000, 250000, 375000, 500000,
625000, 750000, 875000, 1000000,
1125000, 1250000, 1375000, 1500000,
1625000, 1750000, 1875000, 2000000,
2125000, 2250000, 2375000, 2500000,
2625000, 2750000, 2875000, 3000000,
3125000, 3250000, 3375000, 3500000,
3625000, 3750000, 3875000, 4000000,
4125000, 4250000, 4375000, 4500000,
4625000, 4750000, 4875000, 5000000
There two tables are:
CREATE TABLE dbo.T1
TID integer NOT NULL IDENTITY(0,1),
Column1 integer NOT NULL,
Padding binary(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0x,
CREATE TABLE dbo.T2
TID integer NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (TID, Column1)
The next script loads 5 million rows into T1 with a pseudo-random value between 1 and 5 for Column1. The table is partitioned on the IDENTITY column TID:
INSERT dbo.T1 WITH (TABLOCKX)
FROM dbo.Numbers AS N
WHERE n BETWEEN 1 AND 5000000;
In case you don't already have an auxiliary table of numbers lying around, here's a script to create one with 10 million rows:
CREATE TABLE dbo.Numbers (n bigint PRIMARY KEY);
L0 AS(SELECT 1 AS c UNION ALL SELECT 1),
L1 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L0 AS A CROSS JOIN L0 AS B),
L2 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L1 AS A CROSS JOIN L1 AS B),
L3 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L2 AS A CROSS JOIN L2 AS B),
L4 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L3 AS A CROSS JOIN L3 AS B),
L5 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L4 AS A CROSS JOIN L4 AS B),
Nums AS(SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) AS n FROM L5)
INSERT dbo.Numbers WITH (TABLOCKX)
SELECT TOP (10000000) n
FROM Nums
ORDER BY n
Table T1 contains data like this:
Next we load data into table T2. The relationship between the two tables is that table 2 contains 'n' rows for each row in table 1, where 'n' is determined by the value in Column1 of table T1. There is nothing particularly special about the data or distribution, by the way.
INSERT dbo.T2 WITH (TABLOCKX)
(TID, Column1)
FROM dbo.T1 AS T
JOIN dbo.Numbers AS N
ON N.n >= 1
AND N.n <= T.Column1;
Table T2 ends up containing about 15 million rows:
The primary key for table T2 is a combination of TID and Column1. The data is partitioned according to the value in column TID alone.
The following query shows the number of rows in each partition of table T1:
PartitionID = CA1.P,
NumRows = COUNT_BIG(*)
There are 40 partitions containing 125,000 rows (40 * 125k = 5m rows). The rightmost partition remains empty. The next query shows the distribution for table 2:
FROM dbo.T2 AS T
There are roughly 375,000 rows in each partition (the rightmost partition is also empty):
Ok, that's the test data done.
The task is to count the rows resulting from joining tables 1 and 2 on the TID column:
DECLARE @s datetime2 = SYSUTCDATETIME();
FROM dbo.T1 AS T1
JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2
SELECT DATEDIFF(Millisecond, @s, SYSUTCDATETIME());
The optimizer chooses a plan using parallel hash join, and partial aggregation:
The Plan Explorer plan tree view shows accurate cardinality estimates and an even distribution of rows across threads (click to enlarge the image):
With a warm data cache, the STATISTICS IO output shows that no physical I/O was needed, and all 41 partitions were touched:
Running the query without actual execution plan or STATISTICS IO information for maximum performance, the query returns in around 2600ms.
The first step toward improving on the execution plan produced by the query optimizer is to understand how it works, at least in outline.
The two parallel Clustered Index Scans use multiple threads to read rows from tables T1 and T2. Parallel scan uses a demand-based scheme where threads are given page(s) to scan from the table as needed. This arrangement has certain important advantages, but does result in an unpredictable distribution of rows amongst threads. The point is that multiple threads cooperate to scan the whole table, but it is impossible to predict which rows end up on which threads.
For correct results from the parallel hash join, the execution plan has to ensure that rows from T1 and T2 that might join are processed on the same thread. For example, if a row from T1 with join key value '1234' is placed in thread 5's hash table, the execution plan must guarantee that any rows from T2 that also have join key value '1234' probe thread 5's hash table for matches.
The way this guarantee is enforced in this parallel hash join plan is by repartitioning rows to threads after each parallel scan. The two repartitioning exchanges route rows to threads using a hash function over the hash join keys. The two repartitioning exchanges use the same hash function so rows from T1 and T2 with the same join key must end up on the same hash join thread.
This business of repartitioning rows between threads can be very expensive, especially if a large number of rows is involved. The execution plan selected by the optimizer moves 5 million rows through one repartitioning exchange and around 15 million across the other.
As a first step toward removing these exchanges, consider the execution plan selected by the optimizer if we join just one partition from each table, disallowing parallelism:
The optimizer has chosen a (one-to-many) merge join instead of a hash join. The single-partition query completes in around 100ms. If everything scaled linearly, we would expect that extending this strategy to all 40 populated partitions would result in an execution time around 4000ms. Using parallelism could reduce that further, perhaps to be competitive with the parallel hash join chosen by the optimizer.
This raises a question. If the most efficient way to join one partition from each of the tables is to use a merge join, why does the optimizer not choose a merge join for the full query?
Let's force the optimizer to use a merge join on the test query using a hint:
This is the execution plan selected by the optimizer:
This plan results in the same number of logical reads reported previously, but instead of 2600ms the query takes 5000ms. The natural explanation for this drop in performance is that the merge join plan is only using a single thread, whereas the parallel hash join plan could use multiple threads.
We can get a parallel merge join plan using the same query hint as before, and adding trace flag 8649:
This looks promising. It uses a similar strategy to distribute work across threads as seen for the parallel hash join. In practice though, performance is disappointing. On a typical run, the parallel merge plan runs for around 8400ms; slower than the single-threaded merge join plan (5000ms) and much worse than the 2600ms for the parallel hash join. We seem to be going backwards!
The logical reads for the parallel merge are still exactly the same as before, with no physical IOs. The cardinality estimates and thread distribution are also still very good (click to enlarge):
A big clue to the reason for the poor performance is shown in the wait statistics (captured by Plan Explorer Pro):
CXPACKET waits require careful interpretation, and are most often benign, but in this case excessive waiting occurs at the repartitioning exchanges. Unlike the parallel hash join, the repartitioning exchanges in this plan are order-preserving 'merging' exchanges (because merge join requires ordered inputs):
Parallelism works best when threads can just grab any available unit of work and get on with processing it. Preserving order introduces inter-thread dependencies that can easily lead to significant waits occurring. In extreme cases, these dependencies can result in an intra-query deadlock, though the details of that will have to wait for another time to explore in detail.
The potential for waits and deadlocks leads the query optimizer to cost parallel merge join relatively highly, especially as the degree of parallelism (DOP) increases. This high costing resulted in the optimizer choosing a serial merge join rather than parallel in this case. The test results certainly confirm its reasoning.
The optimizer has another available strategy when joining tables that share a common partition scheme. This strategy is a collocated join, also known as as a per-partition join. It can be applied in both serial and parallel execution plans, though it is limited to 2-way joins in the current optimizer. Whether the optimizer chooses a collocated join or not depends on cost estimation. The primary benefits of a collocated join are that it eliminates an exchange and requires less memory, as we will see next.
The query optimizer did consider a collocated join for our original query, but it was rejected on cost grounds. The parallel hash join with repartitioning exchanges appeared to be a cheaper option. There is no query hint to force a collocated join, so we have to mess with the costing framework to produce one for our test query. Pretending that IOs cost 50 times more than usual is enough to convince the optimizer to use collocated join with our test query:
-- Pretend IOs are 50x cost temporarily
-- Co-located hash join
-- Reset IO costing
The estimated execution plan for the collocated join is:
The Constant Scan contains one row for each partition of the shared partitioning scheme, from 1 to 41. The hash repartitioning exchanges seen previously are replaced by a single Distribute Streams exchange using Demand partitioning. Demand partitioning means that the next partition id is given to the next parallel thread that asks for one.
My test machine has eight logical processors, and all are available for SQL Server to use. As a result, there are eight threads in the single parallel branch in this plan, each processing one partition from each table at a time. Once a thread finishes processing a partition, it grabs a new partition number from the Distribute Streams exchange…and so on until all partitions have been processed.
It is important to understand that the parallel scans in this plan are different from the parallel hash join plan. Although the scans have the same parallelism icon, tables T1 and T2 are not being co-operatively scanned by multiple threads in the same way. Each thread reads a single partition of T1 and performs a hash match join with the same partition from table T2. The properties of the two Clustered Index Scans show a Seek Predicate (unusual for a scan!) limiting the rows to a single partition:
The crucial point is that the join between T1 and T2 is on TID, and TID is the partitioning column for both tables. A thread that processes partition 'n' is guaranteed to see all rows that can possibly join on TID for that partition. In addition, no other thread will see rows from that partition, so this removes the need for repartitioning exchanges.
The collocated join has removed two expensive repartitioning exchanges and added a single exchange processing 41 rows (one for each partition id). Remember, the parallel hash join plan exchanges had to process 5 million and 15 million rows. The amount of processor time spent on exchanges will be much lower in the collocated join plan.
In addition, the collocated join plan has a maximum of 8 threads processing single partitions at any one time. The 41 partitions will all be processed eventually, but a new partition is not started until a thread asks for it. Threads can reuse hash table memory for the new partition.
The parallel hash join plan also had 8 hash tables, but with all 5,000,000 build rows loaded at the same time. The collocated plan needs memory for only 8 * 125,000 = 1,000,000 rows at any one time.
The collated join plan has disappointing performance in this case. The query runs for around 25,300ms despite the same IO statistics as usual. This is much the worst result so far, so what went wrong?
It turns out that cardinality estimation for the single partition scans of table T1 is slightly low. The properties of the Clustered Index Scan of T1 (graphic immediately above) show the estimation was for 121,951 rows. This is a small shortfall compared with the 125,000 rows actually encountered, but it was enough to cause the hash join to spill to physical tempdb:
A level 1 spill doesn't sound too bad, until you realize that the spill to tempdb probably occurs for each of the 41 partitions.
As a side note, the cardinality estimation error is a little surprising because the system tables accurately show there are 125,000 rows in every partition of T1. Unfortunately, the optimizer uses regular column and index statistics to derive cardinality estimates here rather than system table information (e.g. sys.partitions).
We will never know how well the collocated parallel hash join plan might have worked without the cardinality estimation error (and the resulting 41 spills to tempdb) but we do know:
Putting this all together, what we would really like to see is the same collocated join strategy, but using merge join instead of hash join. Unfortunately, the current query optimizers (SQL Server 2008 and later) cannot produce a collocated merge join; it only knows how to do collocated hash join. SQL Server 2005 used an APPLY pattern to join partitioned tables, so a collocated merge join was possible in that version.
So where does this leave us?
We can try to write our own collocated join query. We can use sys.partitions to find the partition numbers, and CROSS APPLY to get a count per partition, with a final step to sum the partial counts. The following query implements this idea:
row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt)
-- Partition numbers
FROM sys.partitions AS p
p.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'T1', N'U')
AND p.index_id = 1
-- Count per collocated join
cnt = COUNT_BIG(*)
FROM dbo.T1 AS T1
JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2
$PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number
AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number
) AS SubTotals;
The estimated plan is:
The cardinality estimates aren't all that good here, especially the estimate for the scan of the system table underlying the sys.partitions view.
Nevertheless, the plan shape is heading toward where we would like to be. Each partition number from the system table results in a per-partition scan of T1 and T2, a one-to-many Merge Join, and a Stream Aggregate to compute the partial counts. The final Stream Aggregate just sums the partial counts.
Execution time for this query is around 3,500ms, with the same IO statistics as always. This compares favourably with 5,000ms for the serial plan produced by the optimizer with the OPTION (MERGE JOIN) hint. This is another case of the sum of the parts being less than the whole – summing 41 partial counts from 41 single-partition merge joins is faster than a single merge join and count over all partitions.
Even so, this single-threaded collocated merge join is not as quick as the original parallel hash join plan, which executed in 2,600ms.
On the positive side, our collocated merge join uses only one logical processor and requires no memory grant. The parallel hash join plan used 16 threads and reserved 569 MB of memory:
Our collocated merge join plan should benefit from parallelism. The reason parallelism is not being used is that the query references a system table. We can work around that by writing the partition numbers to a temporary table (or table variable):
partition_number integer PRIMARY KEY);
INSERT #P (partition_number)
FROM sys.partitions AS p
p.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'T1', N'U')
AND p.index_id = 1;
FROM #P AS p
Using the temporary table adds a few logical reads, but the overall execution time is still around 3500ms, indistinguishable from the same query without the temporary table. The problem is that the query optimizer still doesn't choose a parallel plan for this query, though the removal of the system table reference means that it could if it chose to:
In fact the optimizer did enter the parallel plan phase of query optimization (running search 1 for a second time):
Unfortunately, the parallel plan found seemed to be more expensive than the serial plan. This is a crazy result, caused by the optimizer's cost model not reducing operator CPU costs on the inner side of a nested loops join. Don't get me started on that, we'll be here all night.
In this plan, everything expensive happens on the inner side of a nested loops join. Without a CPU cost reduction to compensate for the added cost of exchange operators, candidate parallel plans always look more expensive to the optimizer than the equivalent serial plan.
We can produce the desired parallel plan using trace flag 8649 again:
) AS SubTotals
The actual execution plan is:
One difference between this plan and the collocated hash join plan is that a Repartition Streams exchange operator is used instead of Distribute Streams. The effect is similar, though not quite identical. The Repartition uses round-robin partitioning, meaning the next partition id is pushed to the next thread in sequence. The Distribute Streams exchange seen earlier used Demand partitioning, meaning the next partition id is pulled across the exchange by the next thread that is ready for more work. There are subtle performance implications for each partitioning option, but going into that would again take us too far off the main point of this post.
The important thing is the performance of this parallel collocated merge join – just 1350ms on a typical run.
The list below shows all the alternatives from this post (all timings include creation, population, and deletion of the temporary table where appropriate) from quickest to slowest:
The parallel collocated merge join requires no memory grant (aside from a paltry 1.2MB used for exchange buffers). This plan uses 16 threads at DOP 8; but 8 of those are (rather pointlessly) allocated to the parallel scan of the temporary table. These are minor concerns, but it turns out there is a way to address them if it bothers you.
This final tweak replaces the temporary table with a hard-coded list of partition ids (dynamic SQL could be used to generate this query from sys.partitions):
) AS P (partition_number)
The parallel collocated hash join plan is reproduced below for comparison:
The manual rewrite has another advantage that has not been mentioned so far: the partial counts (per partition) can be computed earlier than the partial counts (per thread) in the optimizer's collocated join plan. The earlier aggregation is performed by the extra Stream Aggregate under the nested loops join.
The performance of the parallel collocated merge join is unchanged at around 1350ms.
It is a shame that the current query optimizer does not consider a collocated merge join (Connect item closed as Won't Fix). The example used in this post showed an improvement in execution time from 2600ms to 1350ms using a modestly-sized data set and limited parallelism. In addition, the memory requirement for the query was almost completely eliminated – down from 569MB to 1.2MB.
The problem with the parallel hash join selected by the optimizer is that it attempts to process the full data set all at once (albeit using eight threads). It requires a large memory grant to hold all 5 million rows from table T1 across the eight hash tables, and does not take advantage of the divide-and-conquer opportunity offered by the common partitioning.
The great thing about the collocated join strategies is that each parallel thread works on a single partition from both tables, reading rows, performing the join, and computing a per-partition subtotal, before moving on to a new partition.
Note that the general technique is not limited to partitioned tables. Any table that can be naturally segmented using a driver table of values can be written to use a collocated merge join, by substituting a driver value for the partition id.
If you have trouble visualizing what is happening from just looking at the parallel collocated merge join execution plan, let's look at it again, but from the point of view of just one thread operating between the two Parallelism (exchange) operators.
Our thread picks up a single partition id from the Distribute Streams exchange, and starts a merge join using ordered rows from partition 1 of table T1 and partition 1 of table T2. By definition, this is all happening on a single thread. As rows join, they are added to a (per-partition) count in the Stream Aggregate immediately above the Merge Join. Eventually, either T1 (partition 1) or T2 (partition 1) runs out of rows and the merge join stops.
The per-partition count from the aggregate passes on through the Nested Loops join to another Stream Aggregate, which is maintaining a per-thread subtotal. Our same thread now picks up a new partition id from the exchange (say it gets id 9 this time). The count in the per-partition aggregate is reset to zero, and the processing of partition 9 of both tables proceeds just as it did for partition 1, and on the same thread.
Each thread picks up a single partition id and processes all the data for that partition, completely independently from other threads working on other partitions. One thread might eventually process partitions (1, 9, 17, 25, 33, 41) while another is concurrently processing partitions (2, 10, 18, 26, 34) and so on for the other six threads at DOP 8.
The point is that all 8 threads can execute independently and concurrently, continuing to process new partitions until the wider job (of which the thread has no knowledge!) is done. This divide-and-conquer technique can be much more efficient than simply splitting the entire workload across eight threads all at once.
Understanding and Using Parallelism in SQL Server
Parallel Execution Plans Suck
© 2013 Paul White – All Rights Reserved
Twitter: @SQL_Kiwi
Email: email@example.com
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Great post Paul. Wondering if we used a local partition view instead of the built-in table partitioning if we would still be susceptible to the extra parallel scans, and eliminate the need for dynamic sql.
Awesome!!!Always tons of good stuff in your posts that will have me bookmarking it for re-reads....
Hi Jason,
Yes it is possible to do something similar with local partitioned views, though care is needed to get the best from it.
Hi Paul,
I was following your example on my own but the data/content for your numbers table seems to be missing. Can you let me know table design and content?
It's a fairly standard numbers table, I'll update the post to include the code for it.
Again another excellent post, I would really like to see you deliver some training / a pre-con in Europe. Going off at a slight tangent, and I appreciate you data does not fit this scenario, but is it possible to force a parallel few outer rows join ?.
Hi Chris,
If the opportunity presents itself one day, I would certainly consider it - thanks for saying that.
As far as forcing the round-robin repartition for the 'few outer rows optimization' is concerned, I'm not aware of anything (like a specific trace flag) to force it, so we're left with tricks like TOP (@n) with OPTIMIZE FOR to make it look as if the number of rows is in the range where this optimization is applied. It's a hack of course, and vulnerable to future changes in optimizer behaviour, but it's the best we have today, as far as I know. Other T-SQL tricks that don't change the semantics but result in an in-range cardinality estimate are possible too, naturally.
Any clues on why the QO would push the partition elimination predicate into a filter AFTER the scan, instead of using it as a seek predicate on the scan? And how to avoid such issues? (Preferably without any query hints -- I'm trying to pack this into a view.)
The result of the QO's decision in this case means that instead of getting great performance I'm getting one scan of the entire table, per partition. Pretty abysmal :-(
Hi Adam,
I have seen the optimizer choose a separate filter, but not in exactly the circumstances you seem to be describing. Aside from a FORCESEEK hint, it's hard to know what to suggest without seeing the execution plan. Perhaps you are driving the collocated join using partition values instead of ids? Anyway, if you can send me the plan, I'll be happy to take a look.
Hi Paul,
I'm working through your example. I noticed that when I run the test query, it uses a merge join by default rather than the hash match with parallelism repartition streams. Any idea why this would happen? I have double-checked the data is setup the same, similar number of rows in partitions, etc. I have tried this on 2008R2 and 2012 DBs and it's the same behaviour. I've checked settings such as maxdop and it's defaulted to 0.
Hi Tom,
There is an element of chance with the data distribution, and the choice between parallel hash and serial merge plans in this case is also quite finely balanced (according to the cost model anyway).
To see the parallel plan, you have a couple of choices. 'Force' parallelism using an OPTION (QUERYTRACEON 8649) clause on the query, or pretend you have more logical processing units available using DBCC OPTIMIZER_WHATIF(CPUs, 16). More logical processors often tilts plan choice toward parallelism due to its effect on costing.
Either of those should produce the parallel hash plan. If you choose to use the DBCC command, reset it back to the default setting with DBCC OPTIMIZER_WHATIF(CPUs, 0) after you have finished testing.
You're a wizard, Harry ... er, Paul!
I'm not sure what's scarier here, the undocumented dbcc's, or optimizing a partitioned query by referencing partition ids explicitly. Wish I'd ever noticed your description of the SETIOWEIGHT before, could have used that recently, but I expect I'll find more uses for it soon enough.
Of course what's really scary is that SQL Server needs so much coercion to get any of this right, one might have thought this was all going to be baked in when the partitioned tables were introduced ... but one would then have been wrong.
Well I'm off tomorrow to talk to a place using partitioned tables bigtime on about two terabytes (uncompressed) with a heavy daily (monthly?) ETL updated. Apparently they don't trust TSQL to get it at all right, so they (re)process the partitions individually then roll them back in. Maybe some of these tricks would help - but their current strategy is apparently to let SSIS do the hard work. Just making conversation, what do you think of that, using SSIS merge and SCD tasks rather than TSQL, especially in and around partitioned tables?
Hi JRStern,
I agree there is plenty more that could be done regarding query optimization, parallelism, and query plans for partitioned tables in general.
The idea of hiding the complexity of partitioned tables using the query processor is an interesting design choice; it definitely needs more engineering investment to achieve its full potential.
The balance of history is against us here though; features rarely get the sort of incremental improvement in later versions that we might expect. Often, backward compatibility and concern over sudden plan changes are cited reasons. Meh.
It's hard to generalize about a system I haven't seen, but I have come across good implementations using T-SQL and using SSIS (and bad ones for both, naturally). The default SCD component is notoriously inefficient, however. I would be surprised if there weren't scope for you to improve their current process. Processing single partitions and using SWITCH could work very well, the details matter though.
really interesting post
what do you mean by '...the general technique is not limited to partitioned tables...'
I can't think about any other example
Hi Marek,
The same technique can be used where a 'section' of each table can be joined one at a time. The basic idea is to use an APPLY driven by a table that contains section identifiers. So, instead of joining a partition at a time, we join a section at a time.
For example, the driving table might be a list of customer IDs, which is then applied to a join of two or more tables that contain the customer ID as part of the join criteria.
Thank you Paul,
I thought that. Anyway I've seen Adam Machanic Manhandling Paralellism
lecture from PASS Summit and I tried to use it, all techniques that were mentioned and the result is: simple hash match join for me still works better and was almost always choosed by QO, I dont know why.
Only way I was able to force QO to use nested loop was cross apply with TOP, distinct and 0%[primary_key]+[primary_key] on driving table
and top on inner side. It was slower. Yeah and I also thought till I saw it, that cross apply always forces nested loop
Yes, the costing model does discriminate against parallel nested loops join. It can be quite an exercise to write the query in a way that produces the desired plan with *all* the necessary features.
Cross apply is a logical operation that can be transformed to a join (and then implemented by hash or sort-merge) by the optimizer. It so happens that outer apply is much less easily transformed, but it is possible, and that state of affairs could change over time.
If you have a particular query plan you are trying to optimize for parallel execution, I would suggest uploading it for analysis using the SQL Sentry Plan Explorer tool. Post-execution, non-anonymized plans are much easier to analyse.
Well, finally I got it (what can you do without proper indexes).
But funny thing is (and again I don't know why) :
thread 0: 0 rows (that's ok)
threads 1-31 nice distribution around 70k (+/- 1k)
thread 32: 250k
No matter what I do, one thread is still high, on inner side.
Outer side is nicely distributed.
I tried update statistics, changed maxdop, no help.
waaauu and it propably has a lot to do with uniqueness on inner side join column
It might be unavoidable depending on the way outer side rows are being distributed. It sounds like there's a round-robin exchange above the join, and one (or more) correlated values results in more matches on the inner side than for other rows. Impossible to be certain without seeing the plan, but the distribution you have seems 'good enough'.


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Saying Hello To The School Routine
August is here, and soon (if not already), children will begin to head back to school. Whether it is preschool a couple of mornings a week, a traditional grade-school program, college or even homeschooling, establishing a routine can make the next day run so much smoother. The key to the entire process, though, is to start NOW, not the night before.
1. If your child has been staying up later in the summer, chances are he or she is also sleeping in. To adjust Little Timmy's bedtime schedule, do it gradually over a couple of weeks. Put him to bed 10 – 15 minutes earlier one night and for the following 3 -4 nights, then adjust another 10 – 15 minutes every several nights until the desired bedtime is reached. A gradual change is much easier on our bodies than an immediate one (think jet lag!).
2. One of our biggest adjustments is our morning routine when school begins. The summer has been filled with leisurely breakfasts, cuddles under the covers and hours in our pajamas before getting dressed for the day – a stark contrast to the rest of the year! To prepare for the get-up-and-go routine of school, I plan early morning activities for my kids that involved getting up and getting ready. We plan early morning bike rides, watering the plants, taking a walk, or doing our grocery shopping first thing. My kids are dressed and ready, and we're doing something we enjoy to get our day started (okay, not the grocery shopping, but they tolerate it well!).
3. If your child is attending a school that holds a "Meet the Teacher" night, then go MEET THE TEACHER! This is the evening where it finally sinks in for my almost 9 year old. He gets to see his room, his desk his teacher, and his friends, and we get to casually visit where he will spend the next 9 months during the days. In our district, we also drop off our school supplies on Meet the Teacher night so that our son doesn't have to haul all that stuff to school on the first day.
4. For kids that are just getting into a formal education routine, following directions can sometimes be daunting, especially in a group setting. Check with your local library for story times where you can go with him or her and learn how to be a listener in a positive, casual atmosphere. Also check into local museums for programs for children; our local children's museum has a storytime each day that lasts about 15 minutes, which is the perfect length for small children. Parks and Recreation departments also offer similar programs.
5. Begin those healthy habits before school starts. Work with your child on hand-washing, not just after going to the bathroom and before eating, but at other times, too. When children are in a group setting, germs are plentiful; teach your child to wash his or her hands frequently to limit the spreading of germs. Also, evaluate your breakfast menu. If you tend to be the "pop tart mom" or the "sugar cereal queen", consider healthier choices for breakfast, such as yogurt, hard-boiled or scrambled eggs, fruit and whole-grain breads. These choices are great for improving attention spans and limiting that "sugar rush".
6. Don't wait for the homework to head home before working on school work. Establish a reading time now for your kids, and limit the amount of time the television is on in the house. Children of any age enjoy being read to, and what a great bonding time for you and your child.
Here's to a great start to school this year, no matter where or when!


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It's cold outside, but the Smyrna track team is preparing for the winter season and for spring!
Winter Season: prepping Eagle runners for spring track
Coach: Maura Schaefer
Years coaching: 8th
Assistant: Jennifer Suarez
Returning runners:
Raven Luckett, junior
Andrea Davis, senior
Shi'Erra Hilliard, senior
Bonee Johnson, senior
Jasmine Scott, senior
Rolanda Smith, senior
Mariah Vass, senior
Tori Vickers, junior
Rukiayah Warner, senior
Travis Baker, senior
Shateik Dortch, senior
Ludric Francis, senior
Andre French, senior
Juan Mendoza, senior
Benjamin Sanchez, senior
Edil Suarez, senior
Gabe Mojica, sophomore
Team strengths: "We do have a great deal of returning runners, and we are fortunate to have a good mix of new, young runners, as well. I think our depth will help us this winter and as we get into the spring season."
Team Weakness: "I just think that we will be successful if everyone stays healthy and everyone continues to work hard, we should be fine."
Team Outlook: "Our goal is to have a successful winter track program and to try to qualify as many runners as possible for the state meet at the University of Delaware in February. We want every runner to improve from meet to meet, and to improve his or her personal bests in each event. We're also working to get everyone in great shape for the spring track season."


text:
What Is Art Nouveau?
Artsy Editorial
Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman
Framed: 100.3 x 82.5 x 8.2 cm (39 1/2 x 32 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.)
Image rights: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
Renowned Post-Impressionist painter, lithographer, and art nouveau illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is famous for his depictions of French fin de siècle urban life. Working in his characteristic linear style, Lautrec frequently portrayed scenes from brothels and cabaret clubs, including the Moulin Rouge, where he had a seat reserved after producing a series of promotional posters for the club's opening in 1888. Lautrec was influenced by the artists Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet, who shared with them a keen interest in the observation of social culture.
French, 1864-1901, Albi, France, based in Paris, France
What Is Art Nouveau?
Artsy Editorial
Ronin Gallery Highlights the Crucial Influence Japanese Art Had on Toulouse-Lautrec
From Under $1,000 to Over $1 Million, the 16 Best Buys at IFPDA
Artsy Editorial


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|Item Price
|your basket is empty
|sub total
Accelerating the Future of CAE
NAFEMS UK Conference 2014uk14_onsite_brochure_nafems.pdf
Oxford, UK | 10-11 June
What is the future for Computer Aided Engineering (CAE)?
Where is engineering analysis and simulation going?
Where should it be going, and how will we all help get it there?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will carry the past successful developments, applications, and business impact of CAE to higher levels during the next decade and beyond?
NAFEMS, the independent association for the engineering analysis community, held its UK conference on the 10th and 11th of June at the Oxford Belfry Hotel, with the primary aim of helping attendees answer these questions. The 2014 NAFEMS UK Conference explored the extent to which the potential of CAE has been realised, and, more importantly, what more there is to be achieved.
This two-day conference focused on existing best practices as well as state-of-the-art in FEA, CFD and associated technologies –ensuring delegates received a fully comprehensive overview of the technology available to them.
The conference increased awareness and provided a discussion forum for topics that are vital to engineering industrialists and academics, offering attendees an unrivalled combination of industrial knowledge, expertise and forward-thinking to aid their deployment of CAE over the next few years.
As part of the conference, the NAFEMS HPC Working Group organised a session focused on promoting the industrial usage of UK HPC Infrastructure. This track gave the National Centres, Regional Centres and other public/private providers a unique and important opportunity to engage directly with UK engineering firms, large and small, who might use their services.
The conference also included a workshop on Optimisation, as well as free short courses throughout the two-day event.


text:
1985 alumni Suzanne and Robert Stoll with Dean Veryl Miles.
Law School Honors 1985 Alumnus Robert L. Stoll
Catholic University law school graduate Robert Stoll, the commissioner for patents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, was recognized with a reception in his honor at the law school on March 24, 2010.
Stoll is the highest-ranking CUA law alumnus to serve at the USPTO, which employs nearly 10,000 people and is charged with issuing patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.
He was sworn in as commissioner for patents in Oct. 2009, capping a career at the agency that began in 1982 and that saw him serve in various administrative capacities over the years.
Twenty-five years after graduating law school, the memories seemed to rush back for Stoll. His biggest achievement in law school, said Stoll, was meeting and marrying his wife Suzanne, also Class of 1985. Other members of his family have attended CUA law as well.
"What I learned here was fairness," said Stoll. "I highly recommend Catholic. What I found was a warmth and humanity that I don't think is common at many law schools." A prime example: Suzanne Stoll, whose final patent exam at CUA law coincided with the delivery of the couple's first child, was permitted to take it while in her maternity bed.
Many faculty members and former classmates attended the reception. Stoll was presented with a pen and tote bag filled with CUA memorabilia by Professor Elizabeth Winston.


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Reviewed By Donald S (Arnold, MD) Reviewed for a 2002 GMC Sonoma —7/3/2014 10:27 PM
look nice, fit well on my hard to find fit 2002 GMC Sonoma Crew cab. Order process included every question to ensure it was the right fit for my vehicle. Some other sites suggested the extended cab size would work, but AutoAnything differentiated between standard cab, extended cab and crew cab


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Now, after the last 300 jobs at the complex were terminated and 1.9 million square feet of it were razed last year, an out-of-state buyer is close to purchasing about 72 acres of vacant land at the 111-acre site at I-75 and Holbrook Street.
Stuart Lichter, president and chairman of the board for California-based Industrial Realty Group LLC, confirmed to Crain's he expects to close on the purchase this week and plans build-to-suit industrial projects there. Lichter said he has at least one tenant lined up for a build-to-suit building but would not identify who it is.
Lichter's company website says Industrial Realty has developed more than $1 billion in corporate and governmental properties and has more than 80 million square feet under ownership or management. He said Detroit's industrial market is primed for development because of a lack of modern space.
Dan Labes, senior managing director in the Southfield office of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, said he was pleased that Lichter plans build-to-suit projects on the site and called it a departure from Lichter's usual strategy.
"His M.O. is typically to buy buildings at a low price — usually larger, older industrial buildings, and he rents them out at a low cost," Labes said.
According to data from Newmark Grubb, at the end of last year, Detroit's industrial vacancy rate was 25.2 percent. About 305,000 square feet were vacated in the fourth quarter last year. According to Newmark Grubb, the city's industrial market has 44.6 million square feet of space.
Demand exists for new, high-quality space in the city because much of the existing supply is obsolete, Labes said.
Colliers International Inc. is the brokerage representing American Axle on the sales deal. Both Paul Choukourian, managing director of the Colliers Southfield office, and Brent Beshears, the Colliers vice president who is representing American Axle, declined to comment. Beshears referred questions to American Axle.
"We have had discussions in the past with several potential buyers and are in discussions with a potential buyer to explore the potential sale of the site," Chris Son, director of investor relations, corporate communications and marketing for American Axle, wrote in an email to Crain's. "No additional details are available at this time."
About 540,000 square feet of the 2.5 million square feet at the site remain standing, Son said.
Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412, [email protected]. Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB


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Governor Fallin signs into law House Bill 1888, authored by Rep. Pam Peterson and Senator Clark Jolley, and Senate Bill 547, by Senator Anthony Sykes and Rep. Dennis Jordan. HB 1888 bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill exempts situations in which the life of the mother is at risk or when the mother faces serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment.
SB 547 ensures standard health insurance policies sold in Oklahoma or sold through a state health insurance exchange do not include elective abortion coverage.
Governor Fallin is joined by lawmakers during a press conference on two pro-life measures the governor signed into law.


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Javascript color pickers are fun. They make picking colors on web forms an easy task. One of my favorite color pickers is called JSColor. I like it for its simplicity. It's easy to install and use. It's also elegant.
To use JSColor, just download the source and paste this code in your pages:
<script type="text/javascript" src="jscolor/jscolor.js"></script>
Add the "color" class to your input tag:
<input class='color'/>
And you're done. Simple.
This is the main reason why I rated JSColor the best Javascript color picker.
See the demos here.


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CostumeBoom applies the smartest e-commerce technology to make the consumer Halloween shopping experience easy, efficient and fun: find the ideal price for Toddler Boy Girl Matching Halloween Costumes at the ideal Halloween store.
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The allure of a jump scare, that perfectly-timed loud noise that sends a horror movie audience jumping, is hard to ignore. They're easy but effective if you want to shake people up, nothing works as well as a well placed violin screech or slamming door sound effect. Thankfully, the new evil ghost movie Sinister mostly avoids the easy way out by developing its lead character, a novelist with a drinking problem, and exploring an inventive twist on ''found footage'' (the guy actually finds footage). It all works quite well that is, until it starts relying on jump scares.
True crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) hasn't had a hit book in years, but he hopes to change his life around by investigating a set of murders committed in the backyard of a suburban home. To immerse himself in the history, Ellison moves his entire family into the house where the committed murders took place (and without telling them their new home's little secret). He immediately falls down the rabbit hole, discovering a series of Super 8 movies depicting the first killings and a string of other bizarre murders all captured on gritty film. Ellison loses himself to the movies, only flinching when his wife Tracey (Juliet Rylance) begs him to come to bed or his son Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario) wakes up in a fit of terror from an anxiety ailment. But as he watches and rewatches the snuff films, Ellison begins to see a connection between them: a shadowy figure who, it turns out, might be a supernatural entity.
Great horror rides on its lead, and Hawke serves Sinister well. He's ambitious and overly confident of his abilities as he digs deeper and deeper into the history of the Super 8 movies. He makes some poor choices why writers in movies are continually keeping secrets from their families and drinking way more whiskey than their finances would allow is one of Hollywood's great mysteries but Hawke is adept at making the act of watching someone watch something interesting. His obsession with the mystery, his slowly disintegrating mind, is reminiscent of Jack Torrence in The Shining.
But before Sinister gets that involved with its central character, it strays into run-of-the-mill haunted house territory. Vincent D'Onofrio pops up for a quick expositional Skype chat to inform Ellison that the dark being in his home movies might be a Pagan deity that eats the souls of children. That would explain all those pesky kid ghosts that keep whispering in the ear of Ellison's Ashley (Clare Foley) and making creepy bumps in the night.
Sinister's most terrifying material comes from the grainy ''found footage.'' When director Scott Derrickson moves back and forth between Ellison and the films, the writer illuminated only by the flickering projector, it's chilling. But the movie progresses away from that into its own conventional horror movie. Weighed down by explanation and meandering action, Sinister loses track of its character angle in favor of the almighty jump scare. It's exhausting but then again, as the nickname suggests, they never fail to make one jump.
What do you think? Tell Matt Patches directly on Twitter @misterpatches and read more of his reviews on Rotten Tomatoes!
Hollywood.com rated this film 2 1/2 stars.


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Lp Fire Pit
Lp Fire Pit Transforming your home doesn't always need much money. Here are smart tricks to help upgrading your home.
Using decorative mirrors to be placed in small rooms is another clever trick you can use. The mirrors will be able to create optical illusion of the rooms and make them feel larger than their original size. Moreover, the decorative mirrors can also function to add instant and natural light to the rooms and large their dimension.
Another smart tip you can do is to upgrade your rooms is by mixing things up. You can do it by mixing patterns and textures, old and new, as well as cheap and expensive. Not only this trick can help you to beautify your rooms, but it also can show your guests who truly you are from the things you display there.
Using area rugs can also be smart trick to apply. You can use the rugs to soften the Lp Fire Pit and make them look more beautiful and artistic. But, there is something that you need to keep in mind about the hardwood floor. Thought the floor is generally easy to maintain but it is less comfortable on your feet sometimes due to the hard element used. Moreover, the floor can feel really cold during winter. That is why, placing e rugs can be a good choice to take to increase the comfort and upgrade your home interior design.


text:
Breakthrough Research Could Create Sea Change in Global HIV Diagnosis: New Handheld Mobile Device Performs Laboratory-Quality HIV Testing
Jan 18, 2013, 10:42 EST
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- New research appearing online today in Clinical Chemistry, the journal of AACC, shows that a handheld mobile device can check patients' HIV status with just a finger prick, and synchronize the results in real time with electronic health records. This technology takes a step toward providing remote areas of the world with diagnostic services traditionally available only in centralized healthcare settings.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121206/PH25333LOGO )
Of the 34 million people infected with HIV worldwide, 68% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, with South and Southeast Asia bearing the second greatest burden of disease. Many HIV-infected people in these regions are unable to get tested or treated because they can't easily travel to centralized healthcare centers. This creates an extreme economic burden on already-poor nations, with the epidemic estimated to cause a 1.5% annual loss in gross domestic product each year for the worst-affected countries. It has also created 16.6 million AIDS orphans—children who have lost one or both parents to the disease.
A low-cost mobile device that performs HIV testing could help combat these trends, and the overall global epidemic, by enabling the diagnosis and treatment of HIV-infected people in resource-limited settings. In this study, a team including Curtis D. Chin, PhD, and Yuk Kee Cheung, PhD, designed a device that captures all the essential functions of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, the most commonly used laboratory diagnostic for HIV. The authors show that the device performs laboratory-quality HIV testing in 15 minutes using finger-pricked whole blood.
The device also detects weakly positive samples, and uses cellphone and satellite networks to automatically synchronize test results with patient health records from anywhere in the world. Because of this real-time data upload, this mobile device will allow policymakers and epidemiologists to monitor disease prevalence across geographical regions quickly and effectively. This could improve effectiveness in allocating medications to different communities, and patient care in general.
Dr. Nader Rifai, editor in chief of Clinical Chemistry, states, "This is a perfect example of how ingenuity and good science can effectively address a real and serious medical problem."
About AACC
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry, AACC, is a leading international medical society dedicated to improving healthcare through laboratory medicine. With more than 9,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and other members involved in developing tests and directing laboratory operations, AACC brings the laboratory community together with programs that advance knowledge, expertise, and innovation.
Clinical Chemistry is the leading international journal of clinical laboratory science, providing 2,000 pages per year of peer-reviewed papers that advance the science of the field. With an impact factor of 7.9, Clinical Chemistry covers everything from molecular diagnostics to laboratory management.
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text: Hazardous Materials team Genessee County shuts down HAZMAT team By Michigan Radio Newsroom • Mar 29, 2013 Wikimedia Commons MLive's Ron Fonger is reporting that Genesee County has shut down its hazardous materials response team. This comes as state officials are investigating potential problems with the unit.It will be the first time the county has been without a HAZMAT team in over 10 years. Now other counties will be asked to provide assistance when there's a hazardous materials emergency.


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Nina J. Fetters, 84
Nina J. Fetters, 84, of 804 W. Jackson St. in St. Marys, died at 3:22 a.m. Friday, March 15, 2013, at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus.
She was born on Aug. 29, 1928, in Adams County, Ind., to Charles W. and Nora (Machlin) Armantrout.
On Feb. 22, 1947, she married Chancy L. Fetters, who died on Sept. 30, 1963.
Survivors include a daughter, Nina Kay (Stanley) Gerlach of Miamisburg; a son, Alan Fetters of Columbus; two grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by parents Charles and Nora Armantrout; husband Chancy Fetters; son Gary Fetters; daughter Sandra Fetters, sisters Leota Brown, Beulah Morgan and Wilma Armantrout; brother Ruell Armantrout.
She retired from JTDM Hospital in St. Marys, where she worked as a certified nursing assistant.
Her favorite pastimes included attending estate auctions, collecting antiques and growing flowers and vegetables in her garden.
Rites are scheduled to begin at noon Wednesday at Miller-Long and Folk Funeral Home, 314 W. High St. Chapel, in St. Marys.
Burial will follow at Elm Grove Cemetery in St. Marys.
Visitation will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday at the funeral home.
Online condolences may be expressed via MillerFuneralHomes.net.


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Blessed by mountain views, rich in history, and emboldened with plans for the future, Pasadena and nearby cities offer ample cultural and lifestyle opportunities.
Pasadena has a wide variety of single-family homes for sale as well as condominiums, townhouses and apartments. Pasadena real estate can be classic, including many Craftsman, Tudor, and Spanish Revival homes but recent developments have also given the city a modern flair. From the quaint charmers of Bungalow Heaven to massive estate properties along Orange Grove Boulevard, Pasadena real estate truly offers a wide variety of options for any homebuyer.
La Cañada Flintridge is known for its exemplary schools and rests in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. This quiet community rich in small-town appeal is home to both elegant estates on large acreage as well as many single-family homes in tree-lined neighborhoods.
Surrounding areas include South Pasadena, San Marino, Altadena, Glendale, Sunland, Tujunga, La Crescenta, Montrose, Alhambra, and Sierra Madre.
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The only one who knows how T.J. Oshie feels? Jonathan Toews
Like a lot of hockey fans, Team Canada forward Jonathan Toews was glued to a television during the shootout of the Russia-U.S. game Saturday.
One difference for Toews: he knows what it's like to have been in the skates of American forward T.J. Oshie, who was tapped on the shoulder to be the designated American shooter and scored on four of six attempts to win the game for the U.S.
At the world junior championship in 2007, Toews was the hero when Canada beat the U.S. in the semifinal with Toews scoring three times and goaltender Carey Price, who will get the start Sunday for Canada at the Olympics against Finland, stopping American Peter Mueller for the win. They would go on to win the gold.
"Yeah, (Oshie) put on a show. That was pretty cool to watch him," Toews said after Team Canada skated Sunday in preparation for their final preliminary-round game against Finland.
"Not only scoring four out of six and probably could have gone 6-for-6 had he gotten a bounce on the two that he missed. But just watching him with a smile on his face and how relaxed he looked I think he was almost 100% sure every time that he was going to score.
"Pretty amazing with that pressure to send that same guy out six times in a row. Even if the guy's automatic it takes a lot of confidence from the coaches to put a guy like that over the boards that many times. Great kid and pretty cool moment in his career, I'm sure."
Toews admitted he's thought about Canada being in the same situation and getting the call.
"It's scary to think about but who knows? I'll be ready for whatever. I know I've had a lot of confidence in the shootouts this year and in the past as well, so if I'm called upon you just got to go down there thinking, 'find any way you can to score.' If we happen to find ourselves in that situation, I think a lot of guys would be ready for that chance.
So, how deep is Toews's bag of tricks for the shootout?
"I can't comment on that now," he said. "You'll have to wait and find out, I guess."


text:
Imagine if there were a virus that could get inside you and dial up your libido, so that you all of a sudden start mating more (more frequently and with more partners), so that the virus — the tricky, tricky, clever, little virus — could transmit itself through your lovemaking to somebody else, then somebody else, and somebody else after that.
That would be genius, and troubling, and most of all, sci-fi, right? Well, it turns out, Shelley Adamo and her team at Dalhousie University in Halifax have just discovered a virus that seems to have an effect kind of like that ... in crickets. It's called iridovirus and she stumbled across its aphrodisiac qualities accidentally.
When Adamo's whole colony of crickets was accidentally infected with the virus (which also turns their guts blue, and kills them within a matter of weeks), she noticed, in passing, that in the days before they died their mating behavior seemed to increase.
If The Crickets Don't Mate, The Virus Can't Spread
So she set up an experiment and found out that, sure enough, the males were increasing their mating behavior. It took them only three minutes, after a female entered the arena, to start singing their courtship song, as compared with the 10 minutes it usually takes. And the infected females — who usually decrease mating behavior when sick with a virus — were just as raring to go as they usually are.
Interestingly, the virus also appears to sterilize the crickets — which Adamo points out could be advantageous to the virus, because it means that instead of wasting time and energy producing eggs, the female crickets will continue to mate.
The virus (which is highly contagious) seems to need the crickets to mate. Without the mating, the virus can't hop from creature to creature. Interestingly, it isn't actually transmitted through the insemination — instead, the virus seems to pass from one cricket's antennae into the other's mouth.
It's more similar, in that way, to pubic lice, which are passed person to person through intimate touching — but not through sex itself. Crickets, Adamo points out, are usually quite asocial. The only way crickets come into such close contact is during sex. So the virus is, in effect, a sexually transmitted disease — at least among crickets.
It Wouldn't Be The First STD To Control Behavior
In her recent paper, "A viral aphrodisiac in the cricket Gryllus texensis," Adamo points out that she does not yet know how the virus is actually controlling behavior. She says it is not necessarily the sci-fi horror vision of direct, parasitic mind control that you may be picturing (though that kind of direct mind manipulation has been shown in some creatures — for example, in the jewel wasp, which injects venom into a cockroach's brain to control it).
The virus could be indirectly controlling behavior, Adamo says, through influencing the cricket's hormone levels, for example, or influencing immune signals.
Or, it could even be that the cricket itself, sensing it is sick, does a sort of Hail Mary attempt to spread its genes. Adamo says this behavior has been shown in many animals — insects, birds, even a few mammals — and is called "terminal reproductive investment."
"When animals sense that they are very ill, they sometimes increase their reproductive output," Adamo explains. "Basically, because they are about to keel over, they might as well go for gold."
Whatever the explanation for how it happens, there are cases throughout the animal kingdom, it turns out, in which a virus or parasite influences a creature to mate more. In addition to crickets, the effect's been shown in moths, ladybugs, midges and, most recently, rats. There's also a sickness called Dourine — caused by the parasite Trypanosoma equiperdum -- which, some scientists say, seems to increase mating behavior in horses.
So, What About In People?
When I asked Adamo if a virus like this could ever make its way up the food chain and affect the mating behavior of humans, she was clear that no evidence of that has been shown.
Though one thing that struck her, she told me, in reading about sexually transmitted infections, is that so many of them tend to be asymptomatic for years. She can't help but wonder, she says, if that could be evidence of the virus (already, quietly) manipulating us. That is, could it be interfering in some way — preventing us from sending the usual signals of pain, swelling, headache, fever, loss of libido that usually occur when we're sick? Instead, even as we're infected, could it be the virus that's keeping us feeling healthy, up and at 'em and winking at the curious stranger on the street?
Again, that is just speculation, Adamo says. She has no idea how sexually transmitted infections work in humans, but she said a place to start might be to see if there is any evidence of direct manipulation in simpler creatures like her crickets.
Adamo has no intent to continue studying her love virus, though, because, she says, "the virus is so virulent and spreads so quickly through the colony I would be afraid to have them near my now healthy crickets! So I'm afraid, though I'm interested in parasitic manipulation of behavior, I won't be studying it with this virus."
Still, to the grad students of the world who are interested in whatever mysteries of free will may be unlocked with STD-infected crickets, Adamo is encouraging.
"As a matter of fact," she says, "we have some frozen, so if anyone else is interested, I've got a supply."
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
And I'm Robert Siegel. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel: a virus that can manipulate another creature into having more sex. NPR's Lulu Miller brings us this story of some reptiles, crickets and rats and the humans who made a scientific breakthrough.
LULU MILLER, BYLINE: This non-fantasy story about a literal love virus begins with a dragon.
DR. SHELLY ADAMO: It just happened that my student had bearded dragons as a pet, and she had a few of them. So, we brought them into the lab.
MILLER: This is Shelly Adamo, a neuroscientist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who was bringing bearded dragons - which are, OK, just little lizards with a forked tongue and frill around their chin - into her lab because she needed predators - predators to scare the creatures she usually studies.
ADAMO: Which are crickets. We work with crickets.
MILLER: She was trying to measure their stress response.
ADAMO: So, anyway, it just turned out - we had no idea - that one or all three of the bearded dragons was infected with this cricket virus and it gave it to our crickets.
MILLER: A couple weeks after the dragons came in, her whole colony of crickets was infected.
ADAMO: This spread very quickly in the colony, over the matter of, you know, three to four weeks. It just spread like wildfire and...
MILLER: And how many crickets did you have?
ADAMO: Oh, we probably had a couple thousand.
MILLER: All dead. But what was weird was that in the days leading up to their death, the crickets weren't acting sick.
ADAMO: Because even crickets behave a little differently when they get sick. So, as you know, when you get sick, you tend to lose your appetite, you become lethargic, you may not be very sociable. You want to just curl up in your bed and get better. And crickets kind of do the same thing. They also tend to move less. They have a number of changes in their behavior when they get sick. And one of the changes they have is that they tend not to be very interested in mating with other crickets.
MILLER: But these crickets seemed...
MILLER: ...very interested in mating with other crickets.
MILLER: You know what? Let me just translate this into cricket.
MILLER: This is a recording of the actual cricket courtship sound, which basically means let's get it on, let's get it on, let's get it on...
MILLER: And Shelly could swear she was hearing it more and more in the days before the crickets died. Let's get it on, let's get it on...
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Let's get it on, let's get it on, let's get it on, let's get it on, let's get it on...
ADAMO: And that's what started our study because it seemed unusual to me.
MILLER: So, she set up an experiment to see if the infected crickets were indeed mating more than the uninfected crickets.
ADAMO: So, what you do is take males and females into an arena...
MILLER: ...and you measure how long it takes for the male to start singing his courtship song.
ADAMO: That's right, exactly.
MILLER: And usually, it takes him about 10 minutes. But the infected males?
MILLER: ...in just three...
ADAMO: Yes. So, in other words, the virally infected males are more eager to mate.
MILLER: In other, other words? Adamo had stumbled across a virus that seemed to make crickets mate more.
ADAMO: And I had never seen anything that increased sexual behavior in a cricket. Because they're usually pretty avid most of the time, so this was quite surprising.
MILLER: Now, why would it be good for a virus to get its cricket host to start mating more? Well, in evolution, success is getting your genes to spread and live on after you. So, from a virus's point of view, what better way to get your genes into a brand new host than...
MILLER: And once Adamo looked into it, she found that there are other viruses and parasites that manipulate their hosts into having more sex.
ADAMO: So, one is a moth, which is hit by a virus, which causes it to spurt pheromones, increasing their sexual desirability.
MILLER: Similar affects have also been shown in beetles, ladybugs, little mosquito-like creatures called midges, and most recently...
ADAMO: Rats.
MILLER: ...mammals.
SHANTALLA HARIDAS: So, the albino rats, they're white in color.
MILLER: This is the scientist who first observed the effect, Shantalla Haridas(ph).
HARIDAS: At the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
MILLER: And when she infected her white lab rats with the parasite toxoplasma gondii, she found that the males got this surge of testosterone.
HARIDAS: They infected animals. Their testosterone levels are higher.
MILLER: Which in turn made the females mate with them more.
HARIDAS: Which is great for the parasite because it's just increasing its spread.
MILLER: Increasing its spread. I mean, it's kind of genius.
HARIDAS: It's remarkable.
MILLER: So, let me just step through that one more time. If you are a male rat and you get this parasite, you become more attractive to females, which makes the females flock to you, have more sex with you so that you can transmit the parasite to more and more and more hosts. So, Dr. Adamo, to just embody the question that may be dawning in people's mind, like, is there a way this could make it up the food chain?
ADAMO: Like do we have any evidence in humans that sexual behavior is manipulated by infectious agents?
MILLER: Yeah.
ADAMO: No. We don't actually.
MILLER: But now that she knows about what's possible in the animal kingdom, one thing did stand out to her while she was reading about how sexually transmitted infections work in humans.
ADAMO: Unlike most diseases, sexually transmitted infections, people who have them usually have no symptoms.
MILLER: For example, if you have syphilis, you can often have no or minimal symptoms. Same goes for chlamydia, gonorrhea. People can go years without symptoms.
ADAMO: And usually when you have a raging bacterial infection, you show signs of it.
MILLER: And so Adamo can't help but wonder if having no symptoms could be to the advantage of the microbe inside a person. That is, could the lack of symptoms in the host be the result of a very clever evolutionary adaptation in the parasite?
ADAMO: If you're a sexually transmitted organism, there's going to be selection on you, on any mechanism that you may come across that is going to encourage your host to continue to mate. Because if they do not, your transmission is going to be very low.
MILLER: Of course, this is just a hypothesis. But Adamo says the place to start figuring out how and if sexually transmitted organisms could be influencing our behavior is to look at simpler creatures like her crickets. So, are you going to keep studying this?
ADAMO: No. Because the virus is so virulent and spreads so quickly through the colony, I just would be afraid to have them anywhere near my now-healthy crickets. So, I'm afraid, although I'm very interested in parasitic manipulation of behavior, I won't be studying it with this virus.
MILLER: But, to the grad students of the world interested in what mysteries of free will are waiting to be unlocked with STD-infected crickets?
ADAMO: As a matter of fact, we have some frozen. So, if anyone else is interested, I've got a supply.
MILLER: Lulu Miller, NPR News, Washington.
CORNISH: This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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I pay -- in Satin Cash --
You did not state -- your price --
A Petal, for a Paragraph
It near as I can guess --
Poet: Emily Dickinson
Poem: 402.
I pay -- in Satin Cash
Volume: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Year: Published/Written in 1955
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