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White Paper – Electrical Insulation
by Richard Orstad, P.E.
There are hundreds of decisions required when designing mission-critical electro-mechanical components. In every one of these decisions, choosing the right material combinations for a specific application can mean the difference between success and failure. Most of these design decisions are made utilizing the same material choices design after design, sometimes compromising the true intent of the project simply because the designer is unaware of the many other material choices available. With this in mind, a primer in common and not-so-common electrical insulating materials may be helpful.
Polyester films: For simple electrical insulating applications where a thin film is required, polyester films are probably the most common type of electrical insulator material used. Polyester films are commonly characterized as either PET (polyethylene terephthalate) or PEN (polyethylene naphthalate), the differences lying in their chemical composition and their resulting physical and electrical insulating properties. PET films, such as Mylar®
Polyether materials: Where higher temperature environments prevent the use of PEN films, often times the mechanical design engineer will consider the use of poly ether ether ketone (peek) or polyetherimide (PEI) materials such as Ultem®. PEI materials have a significantly higher glass transition temperature than PEN films, at 216°C. A common PEI material, Ultem 1000® film has a continuous operating temperature rating of 171°C with exceptional flame and heat resistance. Another benefit of Ultem 1000® material is its availability in film, sheet, or extruded rod forms, allowing the design engineer greater flexibility in designing critical mechanical components depending on the specifics of the application. Again, just as PEN films are typically more expensive than PET films, the greater performance attributes of the PEI materials lends itself to a higher price point than the PEN or PET films. The specific requirements of the electro-mechanical component, as well as the requirements of the specific application must be weighed when determining what material to choose. Because of the different material forms available, PEI materials are often used in aircraft components, microwave applications, and electric/electrical components.
Polyimide materials: Where even greater temperature resistance is required while maintaining excellent electrical insulating performance, polyimide materials are often called upon. Polyimide films such as DuPontTM KAPTON® have been used for years as an outstanding electrical insulating material, and thicker polyimide materials such as Vespel®, Torlon®, and DuPontTM Cirlex® continue to be utilized as alternatives to PEI materials where mission critical applications require precision engineered materials. Cirlex®, made from 100% KAPTON® polyimide film, has a glass transition temperature of 351°C, far exceeding that of PEI materials, providing exceptional stability at demanding temperatures. Its very low Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (20 ppm/°C) along with its high tensile strength (32000 psi @ 200°C at 9 mil) makes CIRLEX® an exceptionally strong and stable material across its operating temperature range of -269°C to 351°C. A chart comparing these materials is located in Figure 1. Another unique characteristic of CIRLEX® is its availability in increments of 0.001" from 0.004" up to 0.125" or thicker. This allows a tremendous amount of design flexibility for the mechanical engineer, as the engineer can enter the design phase without thinking of material thickness limitations, but rather design specifically for their application knowing the right thickness material is available to them. The availability of CIRLEX® in 0.001" increments also greatly reduces the amount of machining time required to get to final thickness tolerances, which must be considered when designing for manufacturability. Cirlex's® physical and mechanical stability are also evident during and after the machining process, as there are no residual stresses built up in the material leaving the final design in its dead-flat form. In applications where extreme temperature or environmental requirements are needed, the benefits of a polyimide material such as CIRLEX® outweigh other material choices.
Figure 1: Difference in Thermal Properties between different Electrical Insulating Materials
Finally, there are many instances where a mechanical component requires a metal-to-polymer lamination process, such as bonding copper to polyimide. In many cases, an appropriate PSA or B-stage adhesive is chosen to bond the two materials. However, the addition of an adhesive layer provides an opportunity for component failure, introducing potential outgassing or delamination issues at elevated environmental conditions. Eliminate the adhesive layer and the engineer will eliminate the weak link in the application. One solution for these types of applications is the use of Adhesiveless Laminate Technology (ALT). Polyimide is closely matched to the CTE of copper, and using an adhesiveless polyimide laminate allows the seamless marriage of conductor and insulator in an application, allowing the engineer even greater flexibility in design capability. Whereas the use of Copper-clad laminates used to be subjugated to the limits of flexible circuits, the advent of Adhesiveless Laminate Technology with polyimide allows the mechanical engineer seemingly limitless possibilities in advanced mission critical electro-mechanical component design.
Conclusion: Choosing the right material for an electro-mechanical component is a delicate balance between form, fit, function and price. It is important for the engineer to consider all aspects of the functional design of the part as it relates to the physical, electrical, and thermal properties of the environment in which it will be performing. Making certain that the correct electrical insulating material is selected, whether it is a PET, PEN, PEI or polyimide, depends on the specific application the component will be functioning as well as the surrounding temperature and environment of the application. For mission-critical applications, making the correct choice of an electrical insulator is oftentimes less dependent on price than it is on environmental conditions, and therefore selecting the proper material is favored to those that provide the greater environmental resistance and mechanical stability.
About the author: Richard Orstad, P.E., M.B.A., is a Professional Engineer with over 25 years of experience in Engineering, Project and Product Management, Manufacturing Operations, and Sales and Marketing Management. He holds several patents in electrical connector design, has written several white papers on Industrial Automation, and presented these topics at international conferences focused on the Hard Disk Drive Industry.
For additional information about us or to begin discussions on your project, click our Quote Request, or call 1-800-FRALOCK (372-5625)
Mylar®, Melinex®, Teonex®, KAPTON®, Vespel®, and CIRLEX® are registered trade names of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.
Ultem 1000® is a registered tradename of Sabic Innovative Plastics.
Torlon® is a registered tradename of Solvay Advanced Polymers.


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Mar 15, 2012
A charming new orleans
25 comments :
I absolutely love the last photo, bottom right. Love those mailboxes.ReplyDelete
New Orleans looks so beautiful! Makes me want to visit!
Maybe it's just your eye, but it feels like the city has an overall colour scheme, hehe!
SO pretty!! Love it, exactly what I wanted to see :)ReplyDelete
very cute gramsReplyDelete
The architecture there looks beautiful! Your photos are so crisp and the colors are stunning. In love!ReplyDelete
Nice pictures :)ReplyDelete
Beautiful! I've always wanted to visit New Orleans, but I haven't yet. I went to Charleston, SC and Savannah GA, last year though and these pictures remind me of those two cities.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 15, 2012 at 10:45 PM
i could look at these all day long. new orleans has a great character. so many nice details. i have a tendency to photograph buildings quite a lot. i don't even realize it sometimes, until i come back home and look at them.ReplyDelete
How could you not photograph the buildings! So unique and beautiful.ReplyDelete
Oh wow. I've never been to New Orleans but I feel like you've captured its essence in these photos. They are stunning.ReplyDelete
so gorgeous. ah, those colors!!ReplyDelete
Such a beautiful pictures! Now I know that One day I should visit this place )ReplyDelete
those are just so beautiful. makes me want more and more to visit new orleans...ReplyDelete
what gorgeous old buildings & wonderful photosReplyDelete
Just a classy and beautiful set of images. Love it!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 16, 2012 at 1:17 PM
I love love love these shots. New Orleans is awesome. Went there once but wasn't there long enough to walk the town and take photos. Great job with these!ReplyDelete
These shots are great. You captured the city amazingly. Love the one with the scooter -- brings back happy memories of our own rented scooter parked on Canal St. in the sun...ReplyDelete
i love that town... the food is amazing!ReplyDelete
Great Alice! Really great!ReplyDelete
I love how you captured the typical architecture of NO!
I've recently found your blog and work, and I just wanted to say how much I love your photographs. These images of New Orleans are so evocative, just really lovely.ReplyDelete
I've got a hot cup of tea to keep me company, and am looking forward to perusing more of your beautiful photography. Thank you for sharing your work!
These are just gorgeous, I always find myself drawn to taking photos of buildings when I'm walking around, I love the colours too.ReplyDelete
I've read so much about New Orleans. It's the one place I've always wanted to visit if I ever make it across the Atlantic again. I love your composition. Your photos are beautiful and intriguing with such lovely colors.ReplyDelete
Thank you for the tip regarding Canon 50mm lens. I took it to London this saturday and shot a small part of Mayfair. It's an amazing little lens and way under-utilized by me.
oh, how'd i miss this? i love collages like these! that coffee & beignet shot... yum.ReplyDelete
Oh, woooow! Your photography is so lovely. What makes it even more astounding is that you captured everything on film!ReplyDelete
The best and high range of cameras that is perfect for use:-ReplyDelete
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subset: commoncrawl


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At first they came for the smokers but I did not speak out as I did not smoke. Then they came for the binge drinkers but I said nothing as I did not binge. Now they have an obesity strategy.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
On a lighter note ...
Friend or foe?
I do not want to comment on the article itself but to write a very personal take on why I think that this section of the pro-Palestinian left is, in effect, one of the Palestinians' worst enemies. This is because they are not the partisans of peace, but of conflict.
Let me first get this straight. I come from a position sympathetic to the Palestinians. I was a volunteer English teacher on the West Bank in the early eighties. The establishment of the State of Israel did lead to the dispossession of the Palestinians, a bitter experience and a continuing hardship. This was compounded by the occupation following the war of 1967. The reasons for the Palestinian 'catastrophe' was the failure by all parties, including the British and the Arabs, for whatever reasons, to accept and impose the 1947 UN resolution creating both a Jewish and a Palestinian state. This two state solution is still the only practical basis for a just settlement.
However, a one-state settlement remains as a temptation. Far right Zionist nationalism has talked of involuntary population transfers, modelled on the Greek and Turkish population exchanges following on from the Treaty of Lausanne, in order to incorporate the whole of Mandatory Palestine into an enlarged State of Israel. Palestinian rejectionist movements dream of reversing the defeats in successive wars and achieving a final victory over Israel. This has taken several forms from the 'secular democratic state' to the statement in the Hamas Charter that 'the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it' (not very comforting to the significant Palestinian Christian minority). This rejectionism has invariably been accompanied by bloody violence. The latest excrescence of the suicide murder of civilians is the most sickening, squandering the Palestinians' moral and political capital - and that is all they have.
So where does the Pilger inspired pro-Palestinian left go? Do they accept the undeniable legitimacy, or at least the permanence, of Israel and argue for a similar legitimacy for Palestinian national self-determination? To do so would mean engaging with, not boycotting, peace activists on both sides, educationalists and artists, trade unionists and human rights activists. No, they try to define the conflict according to their own lexicon. Zionism becomes racism, it is Apartheid, 'ethnic cleansing', colonialism and an agent of American imperialism. By implication those that struggle against it are the noble heroes of an anti-colonial struggle, regardless of their motivation, actions and purpose. They act as apologists for the partisans of an unwinnable struggle for a single state. And while the dynamics of conflict worsen, they can continue to feel ever more self-righteous in their advocacy.
The Palestine/Israel conflict is not easily reducible to categories, it has a unique and complex history. However, it is not about what this section of the left says it is. It is a struggle over land, self-determination, security and human rights. It is rooted in trauma - for one people genocide, for the other dispossession - and has been mediated by war and terrorism. The choice of peace means a de-escalation of violence, mutual recognition and continuing political engagement. It is hard to see that coming from the rhetoric of the left, as they act as cheerleaders for one side, rather than for the painful, slow and difficult processes that confront violence and seek reconciliation. By apologising for the worst, they betray the best. The Palestinians are ill served by such friends.
Terry Glavin has linked to this post as it appears on the Drink-soaked Trots. He has other links and, in particular, there are two videos that are well worth watching and circulating widely. You can see them here.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Intelligence test
Fisherman A has found fish in his nets that are above his fishing quota. He throws the dead fish back in the sea.
Fisherman B has found fish in his nets that are above his fishing quota. He lands them and sells them.
Explain how leaving fisherman A alone and prosecuting fisherman B and his family will conserve fish stocks.
Read about the Newlyn fishing families here.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Greece - politics and the fires
Greek governments' lack of political will and governing capacity in dealing with the problem of forest fires (including those started deliberately) represents the national disgrace of the entire political and judicial system.
Polychroniou closes with a dramatic plea.
It is a genuine shame that a country that gave form and shape to democracy and civil virtue and once prided itself on the cultivation of aesthetics as the true meaning of life today displays astounding mental perversity in sacrificing the environment and its ecological system on the altar of greed and political clientilism.
This is a true Greek tragedy. May the wind-breathing gods of change come to life and spare my country from the political ecology of disaster. If they do not, even worse is to come.
My Greek friend has made similar points. As for myself, my affection for the country and its people is undimmed and the scenes are heart-rending. The big test will be when the fires are out. Will complacency slip back in? The same question applies to the flooded areas of Britain and I am not hopeful.
Political ecology is a profoundly serious issue that should not be left in the hands of the crystal waving neo-pagans. The political challenges it mounts are complex and increasingly pressing. In Greece and Hull this summer we saw two reasons why wishful thinking is an inadequate response. Surely it should be central to the vision of a reconstructed, anti-totalitarian left.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Hawks and doves
However, our back yard is now a haven for townie birds since a monster bird feeder was installed. This afternoon they scattered more quickly than they usually do when someone walks by and the magpies sounded a raucous alarm. The pigeons that feed on the bits the sparrows discard really took off and one crashed into the window before flying off unharmed. Then we heard some flapping under the window, looked out and saw the reason for the mass panic. A female sparrowhawk had taken a pigeon and was eating its prey. This photo was taken very quietly through the kitchen window.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition
Ian Pindar has a review in Saturday's Guardian of Toby Green's new book, Inquisition: The Reign of Fear. If I am reading him right, the review seems to be a perfect illustration of both the dangers of historical analogy and the intellectual confusion surrounding the struggle against Islamist terrorism. Pindar focuses on what he sees as the book's argument that the Inquisition was 'about power not religion' and the need to 'create a fictitious enemy within to channel the forces of popular unrest away from the throne'. Then, somewhat speculatively, he writes,
Just as Arthur Miller used the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 to comment on McCarthyite America, so in this book Green appears to be using the Inquisition to comment obliquely on the "war on terror". He makes no explicit comparison, leaving the parallels to speak for themselves.
I cannot say whether this was the author's intention or not as I have not read the book, but Pindar seems to have no doubts and uses the rest of his review to draw out what he sees these to be. He quotes Green as writing,
"Propaganda was winning ... Thus soon even reasonable Christians believed in the archetype of the seditious crypto-Muslim and came to believe that these fanatics had to be stopped before they could succeed in their plan of destroying the nation and its way of life."
Is Green drawing a parallel between 16th Century Spain and today? If so there is a big distinction. Far from being a 'fictitious enemy', Islamist terrorism is only too real and addicted to the slaughter of innocent people around the globe - this would be a false analogy if ever I have seen one.
Pindar goes on to write,
Green argues persuasively that the Inquisition's vast bureaucratic reach into the private lives of its citizens makes it a forerunner of the modern totalitarian state, while its obsession with limpieza de sangre or "purity of blood" is an awful forewarning of fascism.
As someone who sees totalitarianism as an historical constant rather than a feature of modernity, I have to agree. However, what is Pindar trying to say? Is he suggesting that the 'war on terror' is turning Western governments into precursors of fascist states? If so, I think he has got his analogies in a terrible tangle.
What the 'war on terror' is actually fighting is the attempt to create a new Inquisition. Islamist terrorism embodies Inquisition values. Just look at theocratic rule today; from the arrest of young men for having the wrong haircut to condemning journalists to death for being 'enemies of God'. Despite some of the egregious aspects - Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, 'extraordinary rendition', the threat to some civil liberties, etc. - all of which I unreservedly condemn, the 'war on terror' was conceived to defend liberal capitalist society against the establishment of a new totalitarianism rather than being a threat to impose one.
I am cautious about dragging out the old cliché, 'the lessons of history', but if there is one to be learnt here, it is that fascism needs opposing. I am not sure that Ian Pindar has learnt it properly.
Greek fires
Compared to Northern Europe, Greece is still a poor country with an underdeveloped infrastructure. I always admire how, through sheer hard work and entrepreneurism, the Greek people manage to enable millions to take their holidays there, especially given the propensity of the Brits to moan about everything. Now, given the scale of the disaster, they need help and I hope that the promises of support from the rest of Europe are forthcoming. The Greeks deserve it.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Fame at last
Thursday, August 23, 2007
I'm back
'You brought the sun with you' … 'Today's the best day of the summer' … so my neighbours tell me. I have put the heating on.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
My carbon footprint
Form is temporary ...
… class is permanent. This is a familiar sporting cliché and, of course, the class it refers to is not social class, yet it could easily do so.
Social class is the great unmentionable in British sport, yet it is a vital feature in the way that sport is played and watched. One of the noticeable traits of today is that the response of the football authorities to the crisis points of the 1980's, the Bradford fire, Heysel and Hillsborough, has been to gentrify the watching of the game through spiralling admission costs in all-seater stadia. Not only that, but there are two tiers of supporters in the ground, the shockingly disinterested corporate guest (the banks of empty seats in sell-out games at the new Wembley Stadium is a bugbear of mine), and the older, quieter and more affluent supporter in the ordinary seats, without the prime view of the corporate hospitality areas. Where has the boisterous working class audience gone? It is predominantly in the pubs where matches are screened, sometimes illegally from Scandinavian TV.
This is not a new phenomenon. In the week leading up to the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at Wembley it is interesting to look back to one of the most blatant attempts to exclude the working classes from any sport; the one that led to the split of Rugby Football into two games, Union and League. I have been reading Tony Collins' book, The Great Split: Class Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football, it is a fine piece of social history and he makes it clear that the divide between the two codes did not occur over the overt issue of professionalism but was the result of an attempt to exclude the working classes from their favourite sport and return it to its public school origins.
In the North of England, Rugby was far more popular than Association Football (soccer), and initially the spreading of the game amongst the working classes was seen as a boon, developing 'manly' and military virtues amongst the unruly. It always cheers me up that any such programme of middle class reform is usually doomed to failure. The new popularity of Rugby Football did not 'civilise' the working classes, but proletarianise the game. My favourite example taken from the book is of one of the leading clubs of the era, Leeds Parish Church. Its origin was in the attempted evangelical promotion of muscular Christianity amongst the masses. The result was somewhat different. As a successful club, it drew big crowds that had a reputation for being the most violent in the country, the team was noted for its foul play, and a large section of its support was actually Jewish, drawn from the nearby Jewish working class community.
Working class culture also brought with it the demand for professionalism against the wishes of the amateur guardians of the game. In reality, players were paid by subterfuge but the split occurred after the Rugby Football Union tried to put forward a new code on amateurism that would effectively drive the working class player out of the game. This was down to both a cultural hostility and to the simple fact that working class players were better and that they were coming to dominate the upper echelons of the sport. The issue that precipitated the break up was the famous 'broken time payments'. This was actually an attempt to preserve amateurism by placing working class and middle class playing expenses on the same basis. The elite Southern clubs paid their players generous expenses but did not compensate lost wages for time taken out of work to play Rugby. That is because they did not lose any. Working class players did, and the loss was crucial. The defeat of the proposal to allow compensation for lost pay led to the 1895 breakaway and the formation of the Northern Union. The working class clubs had been driven out.
The reason for the regional bias of the new Union is that it was in the North that the working classes dominated the game. Though this was also true of Wales, it held to the establishment as a judicious blind eye was turned to illegal payments and their best players had an escape valve; they had often moved North for more money anyway. The response of the Rugby Union to the clubs they had driven out was a visceral hatred, one that was maintained for over one hundred years until Union embraced open professionalism. Any contact with the Northern Union game, or, as it was to be later called, Rugby League was punishable with a life ban. It was a disgraceful episode in sport and a form of institutionalised class hostility.
Once the split had occurred, middle class support and wealthy sponsors withdrew. Leeds Parish Church was simply closed down by a new Scottish and Rugby Union loving curate. As that happened, the sport became increasingly isolated and self-reliant, and overwhelmingly working class in all its aspects. The divide also opened the door to the growth and current dominance of a genuinely national professional sport, soccer, forcing a response. This took the form of a series of rule changes, most notably reducing the teams to thirteen a side and the introduction of the 'play-the-ball'. These opened up the game and the experimentation has continued, most recently with League's conversion from a winter to a summer sport, making it a compelling spectacle. The game spread to New Zealand, Australia and France where similar battles with Union occurred.
Two different games had now emerged, with different rules and styles of play. One was rooted in snobbery (latterly more prominent amongst administrators than players) and a dishonest amateurism that hid payments (Rugby League fans often scoffed that the difference in earnings between League and Union players was that the former paid tax and the latter did not). The other was based on a sense of social justice, class solidarity, and a self-righteousness born from the real persecution it faced. The apogee of this harassment was reached during the Nazi occupation of France when the collaborationist Vichy regime made Rugby League illegal. Now the barriers between the two codes are down, though the legacy remains. Perhaps the greatest hope lies in the fact that a French team is contesting the Challenge Cup Final this weekend, the first signs that the Vichy inheritance is faltering.
Those of us who watch Rugby League are prone to call it 'The Greatest Game'. In doing so, we are not just extolling the courage, skill and excitement on the pitch but the sense of social justice, which was the reason the sport came into existence in the first place. Let's hope its unique ethos can survive and prosper.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Sometimes I dream about finding ways of earning a living here in Greece. The other day I thought of starting a holiday company – Club 18-30 Stone. Holiday heaven for the heavy – and Langmead, you do not qualify.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Forest fires
The exceptionally high temperatures are over and we had some torrential rain last week, but the damage is horrendous and the trend towards hotter summers is concerning for a heavily wooded area like this.
Now a catastrophe is unfolding down south in the Peloponnese. Around 37 people are known to have died. More details here.
Monday, August 13, 2007
The Kite Runner
There is a phrase on the last page of the book, '… when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time …'
I have also been reading troubling press accounts of the fighting in Southern Afghanistan, of British casualties, tactical mistakes, and the awful deaths of civilians. Commentators talk of withdrawal, of defeat, of the failure of 'liberal imperialism'.
Then I turned to the Canadian writer, Terry Glavin's blog. He has been a consistent advocate of the Canadian commitment to Afghanistan. He has posted a report from the Ruxted Group, detailing hundreds and thousands of melting snowflakes.
Millions of girls are back in school with 400,000 new female students starting school for the first time this year; Over 100,000 women benefited from micro finance loans to set up their own business; 83% of the population now has access to medical facilities, compared to 9 percent in 2004; 76% of children under the age of five have been immunized against childhood diseases; income per capita of $355, compared to $180 three years ago; 10 universities are operating around the country, against one (barely functioning) under the Taliban; work has begun on 20,000 new homes for Afghans returning to Kabul; over 1 billion square metres (roughly 32 km X 32 km) of mine contaminated land cleared.
The violence in the South is real, the failures are real, the frailties of the new state are real, but I sense winter in the mouths of the commentators, breathing an icy blast of betrayal. I want the thaw to continue. One snowflake at a time.
Last night ...
Friday, August 10, 2007
Deep materialism
However, Markovits has now given us a category: 'deep materialism',
'… a materialist framework … that explained why, for example, certain forms of agriculture arose in one place and not in another by dint of climate, earth formation, geography and ecological factors apart from and – most important – preceding human interaction and the establishment of what we have come to call societies.'
I like this category and Markovits sees it as an analytical tool to further explore his own interest in historical materialism, and especially his belief in the continued significance of Marx.
Exploring this interface between science, sociology and history is one of the hidden corners of intellectual history. In my own field of Anarchism, thinkers such as Kropotkin, Reclus and Geddes, who were natural scientists by training and profession, all tried, with varying degrees of success, to explain human society in the light of evolutionary science.
There seems to be a growing interest in this type of writing, which goes beyond the Green paradigm of nature and is increasingly sophisticated. One recent book, The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life by Paul Seabright, is similarly intriguing. This tries to explain the question of the unique features of human collaboration – why are we the only animals to co-operate with others outside their immediate kin networks - through the development of markets. I read the book in the context of the early 19th Century understanding of markets as systems of co-operation, rather than purely of competition and domination, that influenced left thinkers, such as the Ricardian Socialists, from whom Marx took much, and eventually produced Proudhon's mutualism. Seabright's study emphasises the natural factors that make market economics work and also render it vulnerable. In many ways, it is a classic study in the 'deep materialism' of markets.
Markovits ended his post by saying that it was 'already far-too-lengthy'. For me it was frustratingly short. I hope he will publish more in the future to elaborate on this important concept.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Food, glorious food
Tim Hayward hates them and described the worst of British barbeques - and I have suffered many like that. He concludes that, 'let's face it, barbequed food tastes rubbish'. Zoe Williams differs for two reasons. First is the 'ancient righteousness of eating items straight from the flames', which apparently makes food taste better 'both literally and morally'. I haven't a clue what on earth that means. But the second reason, her 'barbeque epiphany', also had me in despair. I apologise at this point to any New Zealander who may think this a perfectly reasonable practice, but a New Zealand friend converted her to barbeques by teaching her to boil the food before putting it on the grill. This is apparently to ensure that things are not charred on the outside and raw inside as a result of the high temperature. It sounds disgusting. Hasn't anyone worked out that you can slow cook by raising the grill from the coals?
The smell of cooking on charcoal is ubiquitous in a Greek summer. All the best tavernas have a charcoal grill in action, usually with a vast souvla with huge chunks of meat impaled on it. Whole fish are grilled over the coals to order, as are lamb and pork chops. Hawkers stand on the paraleia with their small barbeques offering grilled corn-on-the-cob as a snack. Melitzanosalata, puréed aubergine salad, gets its smoky flavour from cooking over charcoal and the same goes for the salad made from florinas, the long red peppers. Whilst I won't convince many of the glories of kokoretsi, lamb offal wrapped in intestines, surely the ultimate barbeque is at Easter with the Paschal Lamb. The whole lamb is spit roasted over several hours (try boiling that first Kiwis!) and though some spits are now turned by electric motors, it is still common to see families taking it in turns to rotate the spit high over the blistering coals. Meat cooked this way is tender and juicy, fish is crisp on the outside and succulent inside, vegetables have a unique smoky flavour. This is cuisine at its best.
Every summer I entertain with barbeques on the patio and here are my tips.
First, the wind will change and the smoke will blow over your guests. Tough! It is the price they pay for the glories of your cooking and company.
Second, yes Tim Hayward, you do need to marinate, but not with anything vile. Simply use lemon juice, olive oil, herbs, and seasoning. Remember that the healthy Mediterranean diet is loaded with oil, unafraid of fats and high in salt. This is why it tastes wonderful in the Mediterranean and foul in the homes of British health faddists. It is also best served with chilled cheap wine (kokinelli at seven Euros for five litres goes down pretty well).
Third, cook meat slowly. Lift the grill high above the coals or spit roast, turning frequently. Lower the grill as the heat diminishes. Fish is best cooked a little quicker, whole with the heads left on and the body cavity filled with oregano.
Fourth, buy good quality food. Stick rubbish on the grill and it will become cooked rubbish.
Finally, wait for a warm night with a gentle breeze and a canopy of stars. Ok, I see it won't work. Go to Greece instead. My friends will sell you a great holiday.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Look west fat man
What am I doing living in Hull?
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Metaphors and monism
It is good and proper to be thinking two things at once, to be in suspension, in two places at once. That is the dimension of being human. The stupid and the fanatic are in one place only, with but one thought.
Read it all here – and read the blog regularly.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Mother nature
We need that attentiveness to nature to understand our humanity, and of how we fit, as just one species, into a vast reach of time and space.
She went on, with a characteristic sideswipe at the hoi polloi, to eulogise,
… an aesthetic case for the spectacular beauty that lies beyond their windscreen if they can be bothered to stop the car and get out.
Here in deepest rural Greece I am in profound personal contact with nature and what that means is that a large amount of time and energy needs to be spent in killing it.
One year it was the ants that had nested in the inside walls, filling the house with flying ants. Last year there was the flea infestation, brought on by either some wild animals or Iannis' sheep. Every time I come there are wasps' nests to destroy; they love the space behind the window shutters. This year has been the year of the rat. How I tried to persuade myself that the scuttling in the roof space was a lizard and then that it was only mice. However, as an unmistakable grey shape dashed across the open beams in the living room I had to admit what I knew all along. The poison was acquired, laid and devoured. Tonight all seems quiet; hopefully the rat is no more.
So, with all the ant powder, flea spray and rat poison, my particular 'attentiveness to nature' has taught me to understand the uses of chemical warfare.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Just a thought
In the particular dwells the tawdry. In the conceptual dwells the grand, the transcendent, the everlasting.
It struck me that this encapsulates the appeal of murderous ideologies, reframing one's life as part of a heroic drama, eschewing the particular. Of course, suicide terrorists never have to face the particular - the misery and the carnage they cause to real human beings - others simply excuse the suffering, seeing only their 'noble' cause. It is in the particular, the valuing of all individual lives, that the ideal of universal human rights arises. The right to the tawdry is one of the most noble of our concepts.
Then again, I do have a terrible hangover.


text:
If we ran a video game company, maybe, just maybe, those of us who play video games would be like John Riccitiello. We really could be a boss. We could believe we're the good guy. And we would know things about video games.
We would possess in our core the knowledge absorbed by holding a controller for many minutes of our life.
We would be able to tell anyone what is (obviously) good about being able to have brick walls break in a first-person shooter. We could tell everyone what was (not so obviously) wrong with Mirror's Edge.
We would know these things, because we play video games.
But would knowing things about games make us a better gaming CEO?
That's the John Riccitiello question, the question of what happens when a guy who "gets" games, a guy who can hold his own talking about them, is in charge of one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. It's not that John Riccitiello is some gamer who got lucky. He's a former executive from Pepsi and Sara Lee on his second tour at Electronic Arts. That would be EA, the company that before Riccitiello's return was considered an evil empire, an assembly line for games that could be simultaneously shiny and dull, the company that overworked its employees and never even made the second-best game of the year. That company, gamer John Riccitiello believes, is capable of making the best games in the world.
What The Boss Plays
This is the funny thing: The boss of one of the biggest video game companies on Earth plays video games. The driver of the Electronic Arts behemoth that bellows a new Madden, a Need For Speed and dozens of other games into the gaming market each year is a gamer. Maybe you would find it funny that it is funny. I have interviewed top gaming executives at Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sega during my nine years covering games — many of them smart, insightful men and women — and I can confidently say that few betrayed more symptoms of having played lots of good video games and having thought deeply about them than EA's John Riccitiello.
When we spoke earlier this month, Riccitiello told me that being a gamer wasn't the only thing that matters when proving one's qualifications as a gaming CEO. A boss in his field could maybe even do without it. But, he added, "Could you imagine, say running a book publisher if you didn't read? Or running a movie studio if you don't watch TV or go to the movies?" These are not the words that come from the mouth of Riccitiello's successful chief competitor, Activision boss Bobby Kotick, who had to explain to Kotaku in June that he didn't mean it when he told a crowd of game creators in February that he doesn't play video games.
"I don't consider myself a hardcore gamer," Riccitiello told me during the same interview, threatening to shatter the thesis I had formed from the several lengthy of conversations we have had over the past few years, all conducted during his second and current stint at EA where he serves as CEO. "But I play a lot of products."
Riccitiello used to talk about playing BioShock — about having finished it, but maybe he was just studying it on the eve of trying to buy the company that made it. He has finished Portal, if watching the ending on YouTube counts as finishing the game (It doesn't; but cheating is a gamer tradition). He is a self-professed lapsed Madden player, which means he used to, at least, be there.
Here's some proof of the concentration of video games in his veins. It's the thing he said to me last December when — without warning — I asked him whether EA would make a sequel to the experimental and admired, though critically and commercially shaky, first-person action game Mirror's Edge:
"I think Mirror's Edge was a fascinatingly original world. Fascinatingly original art direction. Music and sound design was great. I think the gameplay mechanic was a blast, but was intermittent and the levels didn't work. You found yourself scratching at walls at times, looking for what to do. Sometimes you had a roll going, downhill, slide, jump, slide, jump and then you just got stopped. It sort of got in the way of the fun…It was like we couldn't quite decide if we were building Portal or a runner."
That sounded to me like someone who is comfortable playing games or at least capable of understanding the gaming experiences of others.
The Impact Of A Player
Riccitiello plays enough to talk the talk and to make a convincing display that he is one of us, a person who just might know where the X button is without looking. That puts a different spin on the truth that, as a gaming CEO, he is determined to please his stockholders by getting the gamers of the world to part with more money.
Gamers can hope that this gaming CEO understands what it's like to play. They can hope he remembers how it feels wielding a controller in a moment when nothing else seems to matter. He seems to. And that appears to infuse him with a restless dissatisfaction with today's video games understood by only the most passionate of gamers — the ones who are hooked but want better-tasting bait.
"When I played games a decade ago or 15 years ago, I was a lot more forgiving," he told me during our interview this month. "Part of it was, if you could sort of simulate [something] in software, almost anything, it was the first time you saw it. If you could just pull off the technology and engineering, you didn't necessarily need the same artful insight, and you certainly didn't need the polish. A lot of it, if you remember games going back to like GoldenEye on the N64, is that we remember them as a lot better than they are."
He sees in his customers, the gamers, some of the same gaming habits he sees in himself. We treat games differently these days, he says: "I think consumers are consuming them differently and I am too. I'm probably playing fewer titles, but spending more time with them — they have to earn my respect to get that time."
Was it something other than his gamer instincts that instilled this idea in Riccitiello? It could be sales trends that inspired Riccitiello to re-engineer the EA factory in the last year or so to make fewer, better games. They've halved the output and will only (!) release 36 games this year that were made in-house. With that they've also shut down studios and laid off many developers, it should be noted, some of the cuts are ascribed to rising cost of doing business in certain regions.
Why make fewer but better games? It could be that it seems less important to make your 37th game of the year after the beating Activision's Modern Warfare 2 and Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. Wii gave most other games last November.
But there's something else to this EA effort for fewer, better games, something articulated by Riccitiello the gamer when he talks about what he wants in a new video game: "I myself realize that ... I have a much higher standard. [A game] needs to be both exceptionally well executed and very artful. If graphics are relevant to the game in a meaningful way, it's gotta be somewhere near the leading edge of what people are able to display on that particular system ... or it feels to me that I'm just accepting something put together too lazily." The old quality standards don't cut it, he says. Surely, gamers nod with him.
The reader of a Riccitiello profile may cry out that every aspect of the EA CEO's quoted gaming habits just so happens to be the expression of an appetite EA's business plan is designed to feed. Skepticism aside, try out his praise for the smaller, portable games EA makes — specifically, Boggle on the iPad during a flight from Vancouver to California — and see if it doesn't resonate with your gaming life or that of someone you know: "I've got room in my life for five-minute games too, when they're well executed. Most of the time I don't like the cheesy easy stuff but if it's well executed it's fine and I'm having a blast with it."
Maybe he does know what a gamer wants.
The Player's Money
John Riccitiello sometimes buys his games in real stores, the way you or I would. That does not keep him in touch with Joe Gamer. "To be fair, I probably have more economic resources than most gamers," he says. "So even if I were buying them at retail — and I do — I don't know that that would accomplish anything."
Money is the breaking point. Money is the matter about which the CEO gamer's experience might most differ from the regular gamer's experience. A $60 credit card charge hasn't stung the CEO in a long time. Should we the gamer be in charge, we would like to think we would remember. And we would be loathe to raise the price of a game higher. Yes? We would remember how it felt to be the little guy, wouldn't we?
As CEO and gamer, Riccitiello is at the forefront of finding new ways for gamers to pay more. He has not advocated higher game prices. But he has pushed for gamers to spend more on the games they buy. He stresses value. Why encourage the player not to pirate? Because, if they pay, they'll get more, he says. Why encourage the player to buy a game new instead of used? Because they'll get more for buying new.
It's all about a transformation Riccitiello has mentioned in most of the interviews I have done with him in the past three years, the transition from selling games (in CEO-speak, he says "packaged goods") to selling services.
Riccitiello, a lover of metaphors, hasn't found one that quite works to explain this transition yet. This month he tried on me the notion that "We don't sell toasters anymore we sell toast." Not quite. True, EA doesn't want to sell you just one thing that you don't replace for a long time, you know, like a toaster. They would rather keep providing you with new slices of content after you buy a loaf. But, well, no, this metaphor crumbles to a crisp.
(More successful is Riccitiello's go-to metaphor about the console wars — "They make the war. We make the bullets. We'll sell to any of them.")
Forget toast metaphors. What feels more correct is Riccitiello's expression of how gamers play in 2010 and how EA is changing its workflow to accommodate them. "I used to buy a whole bunch of titles and play them for three weeks and move on and never look at them again," he said, before switching from what he does to what you or I might do — "Today, firstly everyone goes online" — and then settling on what his developers do — "five years ago, the standard at every game company was when the game goes gold [and is sent to manufacturing], the 60 people on the title or 160 people, depending on the title, all of them [would be done working on that game] except maybe one or two guys who were gonna take a phone call, when you find out there's a video card from some Taiwanese hardware manufacturer you didn't have ideal compatibility with. ... For the most part today, for most games, the entire team remains intact post-ship[ping of the game] for a combination of free and paid [downloadable content], services, server management, code patches, figuring out exactly where people are dying and bunching up in the map, fixing that and improving the experience."
All of that post-release work the developer do after they are "done" with the game provides gamers the new slices of that toast Riccitiello was talking about. That is the new product EA is selling, the thing that would keep a gamer satisfied longer with a game and for which, Riccitiello hopes, they'd be willing in some way to pay. This initiative used to be called Project $10 and some gamers have complained its a rip-off for things the basic price of a game should give them. Riccitiello, proud already of the breadth of post-release content offered for free and for charge across games such as Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age, believes he is selling more value.
What Riccitiello seems to want to do with gamers' money is give them more for it, as sound a pitch as ever there was one. Skepticism again put aside, let's engage in some CEO-dreamed specifics of what a big game company like EA could get you to pay for. "I won't be surprised," he said, "if five years from now we're going to say to somebody, 'Hey look you're a Madden user' — at that point you might have a PS3 and a Wii and a PC and an iPhone and an iPad and a Facebook, and, you know, maybe two other game services, and we say 'Hey, give us this X amount of money, and we'll give you [Madden on] all of these things for a year...
"Right now I make [a] FIFA [game] on Facebook. I've got FIFA on iPad, FIFA on iPhone, three consoles, PC, I've got an online games service, and I don't think many people are going to buy every instance of that game. First off, it just adds up to a boatload of money. But I bet you've got most of that hardware, right? So why wouldn't I license you at some advantageous price all of what I'm making?
"The point I'm making isn't that we're going to do that tomorrow, that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is the fact that the business model needs to evolve and recognize a little bit that there's a big service component." That's one possible Riccitiello future to a present that just had his EA introduce Online Pass, a service paid for either with the purchase of a new game or as an extra charge with the purchase of a used game. The Online Pass system is designed to transition gamers into a service relationship with the EA sports games they buy and to finance that service. Adds Riccitiello, "The model is going to keep evolving in ways that I'm hopeful most gamers are going to find it positive. "
Not a radical enough future? How about this possible use of a gamer's money: "Think about the fact that at our company, I spend a billion dollars a year creating content and most consumers get the benefit of 1/20th of that. Now over time I've got a lot more to offer you than you're getting and I'd like you to get more of it. I've got an opportunity to give you more value for money. As we wind our way through all the changes that are being made in our marketplace I don't know whether we're going to get to a Rhapsody model where it's all-you-can-eat for 10 bucks a month. I don't know that I know the answer to that." Clearly, that would be a good deal on toast.
The EA CEO doesn't see himself only making subscription-based games in the future. He isn't turning his company into a factory of World of Warcraft-wannabes, each and every game something you pay for each and every month. That, any gamer knows, would be ridiculous. But we would pay differently because we now play differently, because, in part, he knows we do since he plays differently too.
The Coke Commercial Revolution
There are times when Riccitiello has snapped at me during interviews, such as when I asked him a couple of years ago about the seemingly low sales of an EA Steven Spielberg game for the Wii called Boom Blox. Referring to my previous employer for whom I was interviewing the EA boss, he said "last time I checked MTV wasn't a financial network."
There are times when he's been aggravated by a fusillade of skeptical questions regarding whether his comments about quality games fueling EA to success would be proven true or discredited as wishful thinking. (He would point at the strong acclaim and sales of Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as realization of his vision.)
There was only one time, however, when Riccitiello heard me out and then said I had just asked "the best question I've had from a journalist in the better part of three years." Let's assume it was not the phrasing that won this praise but the topic, one about the repercussions of the divides among gamers who hate or are threatened by what other gamers play. The Xbox fans have anxiety about the Wii players, who, the worst snobs say, aren't playing real games. The Wii players sigh at the Facebook FarmVille players who, well... are they even playing a video game? What effect does this have?
To answer, Riccitiello recalled his first stint at EA and the purchase of a casual games company called Pogo that made simple puzzle and mystery games designed to be played on computers by moms and kids. "I was involved in the team that bought Pogo in 2001," he said. "For about five years, I swear to God, if they had had leprosy I don't think they could have been a more disdained organization [within EA] because they made cheesy little toy crap from the perspective of people that worked out of Madden or another games title. That prejudice existed up until I'd say a few years ago."
Riccitiello didn't see the snobbery about Pogo hurting gamers but he saw it damaging game development. It made developers look down on each other.
Today at EA, those groups are mixing. Some teams from the recently-EA-purchased Playfish, which makes games for Facebook, and teams that have made big-budget EA games are being forced to make some games together. "You take a team of people that's used to making the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster," Riccitiello says, "and now they're told to report to the guy that makes videos for YouTube. That's the way they think about it and it seems like a step backwards. And what I'm watching here is really fascinating. One thing is that the guy that's making videos from YouTube is saying, 'Hey I can get way better production values if I do this,' because they keep hearing that from the guys who are building it which is how you get a product like [EA Playfish's Facebook game] FIFA Superstars to look so cool. It does look pretty cool. The second thing you get is that the people who are building these [big] products live through one and two year dev cycles and the primary orientation in life is you sort of master it and it's done... Look at a [Playfish] team that publishes and republishes content every single week. And they use the telemetry to tweak and adjust and improve and they think that what they're doing is a service... What Playfish does is every title, every Tuesday gets republished based on the telemetry data from two weeks ago, a week to fix it, a week to publish it, and you do it again."
The cultures clash. And the cultures learn from each other. The big-budget game developers discover the power of updating a game constantly. The Facebook developers discover the power of making better-looking games.
To cap his answer, Riccitiello tried a new metaphor. "What's happening inside of EA for the first time ever feels like the 'I want to teach the world to sing' Coke commercials where people that build mobile games and people that do telemetry and people that are game designers on core games and people that are building MMOs finally — and for the first time — feel like peers. I think maybe we're a little ahead of the game industry consumer relative to that."
Would we as gamers-turned-CEOs be able to get over our snobbery? Would we pair the Wii guy with the PS3 lady? The Facebook expert with the cut-scene crafter? Would we try to teach the gaming world — or at least the game-making world — to sing in perfect harmony?
I don't know.
But I do know that we the gamers and John Riccitiello, the CEO who plays a game or two, would at least probably both say we had the same general goals for our video game behemoth. I think you'd say the kind of thing that any gaming CEO would probably say, of course, because when they offer their grand vision they say appealing things. But if you were a gamer, maybe it would mean a little something extra.
Out of Riccitiello's mouth, the goals sound like this: "I'm a gamer. I'm deeply engaged in the process of making sure we make the world's best games. That's that thing that's most important to me: Making the world's best games and services, stuff I want to be proud of, stuff I want to believe 10 years from now people will still be thinking about, stuff that changes the way the industry perceives what a game can be, new intellectual property, sequels that matter, that aren't just simply the next notch in an annual series of iterations. You don't get it right every single time, but basically we're trying to do great things."
Part two in a series of one-on-one interviews with the most powerful people in gaming.


text:
Customize your JAMA Network experience by selecting one or more topics from the list below.
Schulz R, Beach SR. Caregiving as a Risk Factor for Mortality: The Caregiver Health Effects Study. JAMA. 1999;282(23):2215–2219. doi:10.1001/jama.282.23.2215
© 2023
Author Affiliations: Department of Psychiatry (Dr Schulz) and University Center for Social & Urban Research (Drs Schulz and Beach), University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Context There is strong consensus that caring for an elderly individual with
disability is burdensome and stressful to many family members and contributes
to psychiatric morbidity. Researchers have also suggested that the combination
of loss, prolonged distress, the physical demands of caregiving, and biological
vulnerabilities of older caregivers may compromise their physiological functioning
and increase their risk for physical health problems, leading to increased
Objective To examine the relationship between caregiving demands among older spousal
caregivers and 4-year all-cause mortality, controlling for sociodemographic
factors, prevalent clinical disease, and subclinical disease at baseline.
Design Prospective population-based cohort study, from 1993 through 1998 with
an average of 4.5 years of follow-up.
Setting Four US communities.
Participants A total of 392 caregivers and 427 noncaregivers aged 66 to 96 years
who were living with their spouses.
Main Outcome Measure Four-year mortality, based on level of caregiving: (1) spouse not disabled;
(2) spouse disabled and not helping; (3) spouse disabled and helping with
no strain reported; or (4) spouse disabled and helping with mental or emotional
strain reported.
Results After 4 years of follow-up, 103 participants (12.6%) died. After adjusting
for sociodemographic factors, prevalent disease, and subclinical cardiovascular
disease, participants who were providing care and experiencing caregiver strain
had mortality risks that were 63% higher than noncaregiving controls (relative
risk [RR], 1.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.00-2.65). Participants who
were providing care but not experiencing strain (RR, 1.08; 95% CI, 0.61-1.90)
and those with a disabled spouse who were not providing care (RR, 1.37; 95%
CI, 0.73-2.58) did not have elevated adjusted mortality rates relative to
the noncaregiving controls.
Conclusions Our study suggests that being a caregiver who is experiencing mental
or emotional strain is an independent risk factor for mortality among elderly
spousal caregivers. Caregivers who report strain associated with caregiving
are more likely to die than noncaregiving controls.
One of society's great assets is the many family members who provide
care to ill or disabled relatives. By some estimates, more than 15 million
adults currently provide care to relatives,1,2
saving the formal health care system billions of dollars annually. The majority
of caregivers are middle-aged adult children and older spouses who care for
a parent or spouse with functional limitations. Although family caregivers
perform an important service for society and their relatives, they do so at
considerable cost to themselves. There is strong consensus that caring for
an elderly individual with disability is burdensome and stressful to many
family members,3,4 and contributes
to psychiatric morbidity in the form of increased depression. Researchers
have also suggested that the combination of loss, prolonged distress, physical
demands of caregiving, and biological vulnerabilities of older caregivers
may compromise their physiological functioning and increase their risk for
health problems.4,5 Some support
for this hypothesis is found in studies showing that caregivers are less likely
to engage in preventive health behaviors,6
decrements in immunity measures compared with controls,5,7,8
exhibit greater cardiovascular reactivity,9
and experience slow wound healing.10 Some caregivers
are at increased risk for serious illness.5,11
Overall, these studies show that a subgroup of caregivers is at risk for negative
health outcomes. They are characterized as having high levels of caregiving
demands, experiencing chronic stress associated with caregiving, and being
physiologically compromised. By extension, they may also be at risk for increased
mortality, although researchers have not been able to test this hypothesis
because study samples have been too small and follow-up periods have been
too brief.
The Caregiver Health Effects Study (CHES), an ancillary study of the
Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), a large population-based study of the elderly,
affords an opportunity to test the relationship between caregiving and mortality
because of the relatively large sample size (approximately 400 spousal caregivers
and 400 matched controls), the availability of large numbers of objective
prevalent disease measures as well as subclinical disease indicators, and
a relatively long follow-up period of 4 years. Consistent with other studies
that have examined health outcomes among caregivers, we also explored the
association between caregiving and mortality in subgroups of caregivers who
are physiologically compromised and are exposed to varying levels of caregiving
The sample for this ancillary study was drawn from the CHS, a prospective,
observational study designed to determine the risk factors for and consequences
of cardiovascular disease in older adults. Beginning in 1989, 5201 men and
women aged 65 years or older were recruited in 4 US communities: Forsyth County,
North Carolina; Washington County, Maryland; Sacramento County, California;
and Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. Potential participants were
identified from a random sample stratified by age group (65-74, 75-84, ≥85
years) from the Health Care Financing Administration Medicare Enrollment Lists.
All persons thus identified and age-eligible household members who were planning
to reside in the community for at least 3 years were eligible to participate.
Exclusion criteria included being confined to a wheelchair in the home, being
unable to participate in the examination at the field centers, or undergoing
cancer treatment. Additional sampling and recruitment information has been
published previously.12,13 A supplemental
cohort of 685 black men and women aged 65 years or older was recruited prior
to the fourth wave of CHS data collection using the same sampling methods.
These participants were from all of the CHS communities, except Washington
The CHES ancillary study was initiated before the fourth wave of CHS
data collection with the goal to recruit approximately 400 caregivers and
400 noncaregiver controls matched for age and sex. Caregivers were defined
as individuals whose spouse had difficulty with at least 1 activity of daily
living or instrumental activity of daily living "due to physical or health
problems or problems with confusion." The noncaregiving group included individuals
whose spouse did not have any difficulty with activities of daily living or
instrumental activities of daily living. A total of 819 persons (392 caregivers,
427 noncaregivers) distributed evenly across the 4 recruitment sites were
enrolled into the CHES study.
Sociodemographic and physical health status indicators were collected
as part of the CHS assessment protocol, while caregiving status was assessed
during the CHES interview. Table 1
provides a description of the variables included in these analyses, as well
as descriptive statistics. All CHS data reported were collected during the
fourth wave of the study at approximately the same time as the initial CHES
interview was conducted. Physical health status was measured as the presence
of various prevalent clinical disease and subclinical disease indicators strongly
associated with mortality in the elderly. Three mutually exclusive categories
of physical health status were created: (1) prevalent disease, participants
who entered the CHES study with at least 1 of 6 prevalent disease indicators
present (Table 1); (2) subclinical
disease, participants with no prevalent disease, but with at least 1 of 5
subclinical indicators of prevalent disease present (Table 1); and (3) no prevalent or subclinical disease. Caregiving
status was determined by first asking participants whether their spouse had
difficulty with 6 activity of daily living and 6 instrumental activity of
daily living tasks. For each task with which their spouses had difficulty,
respondents were asked a simple yes or no question: "Do you help your spouse
with this task?" They were also asked, "How much of a mental or emotional
strain is it on you to either provide the help directly, or to arrange for
help to be provided for this activity?" (There was a separate item asking
about physical strain). Response options to the strain questions were "no
strain," "some strain," and "a lot of strain." Based on this battery of questions,
4 mutually exclusive categories of caregiving status were created: (1) spouse
not disabled (control subjects), (2) spouse disabled but not helping, (3)
spouse disabled and helping but with no reports of caregiving strain, and
(4) spouse disabled and helping and reports of caregiving strain (Table 1). This categorization was intended
to capture increasing levels of caregiving demands.
Study participants were followed up for an average of 4.5 years (range,
3.4-5.5 years). Confirmation of deaths was conducted through reviews of obituaries,
medical records, death certificates, and the Health Care Financing Administration
health care utilization database for hospitalizations. As a result, there
was 100% follow-up ascertainment of mortality status.
The major focus of the analyses was the relationship between caregiving
status and 4-year mortality, after controlling for other known demographic
and physical health status predictors. Caregiving status and the other covariates
were assessed at CHES baseline, and Cox regression was used to model their
effects on mortality. Survival time was the number of years between the baseline
interview and the last interview or death. Table 1 presents information for all variables used in the analysis,
including coding schemes and descriptive statistics. Table 2 presents results from the Cox regression model and shows
both adjusted and unadjusted relative risk (RR) ratios (from a Cox model with
only that variable as a predictor). Caregiving status effects were tested
by entering 3 dummy variables (with respondents whose spouses had no disability
serving as control subjects, which also serves as the referent category),
while physical health status effects were tested with 2 dummy variables (with
no prevalent or subclinical disease as the reference category). All variables
were entered on a single step.
Data were missing on several subclinical disease indicators (eg, 45
participants did not have electrocardiogram data). To preserve sample size
and to be cautious, we treated participants with missing data as not having
that particular subclinical disease.
To test the proportional hazards assumption of the Cox model, interactions
between caregiving status and physical health status and survival time were
computed and allowed to enter a model with all covariates. Neither term was
significant, thus the assumption appeared to be met for these predictors.
Table 1 reports descriptive
statistics for all variables. In terms of sociodemographic variables, participants
ranged in age from 66 to 96 years at baseline, with a mean age of approximately
80 years; 51% were women and 49% were men. Among those participants with disabled
spouses, about 81% were providing care and about 56% of those reported caregiver
strain. There was substantial variability on most of the prevalent disease
and subclinical disease indicators. In terms of prevalent disease, there were
particularly high levels of angina pectoris (21.5%), while the most frequent
subclinical disease indicators were carotid stenosis (45.1%) and major electrocardiogram
abnormalities (33.7%). Slightly more than 27% of the sample had at least 1
prevalent disease at CHES baseline, while an additional 41% had at least 1
subclinical disease. Thirty-two percent had neither. The distribution of prevalent
and subclinical disease across the 4 caregiving groups was roughly equal with
the exception of 1 group. Individuals with a disabled spouse who were not
providing care had higher rates of prevalent disease compared with the other
3 caregiving groups (40.0% vs 24.6%, 27.5%, and 27.4% for the control group,
help with no strain, and help with strain groups, respectively; χ26, 13.8, P<.032).
After 4 years of follow-up, 103 deaths (12.6%) occurred among the total
sample. Death occurred in 40 (9.4%) of the 427 participants whose spouses
were not disabled at baseline, in 13 (17.3%) of the 75 subjects whose spouses
were disabled but who were not providing help, in 19 (13.8%) of the 138 subjects
who were providing care but were not strained, and in 31 (17.3%) of the 179
who were providing care and reported caregiver strain ( χ23, 9.38; P<.025). As would be expected,
there was a strong linear trend (χ21, 31.59; P<.001) in mortality rates for physical health status:
no prevalent or subclinical disease (14/261 [5.4%]); subclinical (no prevalent)
disease (39/336 [11.6%]); and prevalent disease (50/222 [22.5%]).
Table 2 shows that after
adjusting for sociodemographic factors (ie, age, sex, race, education, and
stressful life events) and physical health status (ie, prevalent disease and
subclinical disease), participants who were providing care and experiencing
caregiver strain had mortality risks that were 63% higher than those whose
spouse was not disabled (RR, 1.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.00-2.65).
Note that the other 2 groups with disabled spouses did not have significantly
higher adjusted mortality risks. The higher unadjusted mortality rate among
the group whose spouses were disabled but did not help appeared to be explained
by their higher rates of prevalent disease. In addition, participants who
were older, male, black, or had at least 1 prevalent disease had higher 4-year
mortality rates.
To further explore the caregiving status–mortality link and to
test predictions derived from a diathesis-stress model, we examined mortality
rates within each combination of caregiving status and disease status. We
were particularly interested in whether the associations between levels of
caregiving and mortality were stronger among those who were already physically
compromised. We constructed 11 dummy variables that captured membership in
the disease (3 levels) by caregiving (4 levels) cells (participant with no
disease and whose spouse was not disabled served as the referent category).
These were entered as predictors in a Cox regression model that also controlled
for sociodemographic variables. Results from the Cox regression, as well as
crude death rates across cells, are presented in Table 3. Note that, compared with the control group, there were
elevated mortality rates for all participants in the prevalent disease group,
regardless of caregiving status. Although the highest percentage of mortality
(32.7%) and the highest relative RR (7.25; 95% CI, 2.61-20.14) were observed
for the prevalent disease–strained caregiver group, this analysis does
not allow us to conclude that the combination of prevalent disease and caregiver
strain is differentially associated with mortality. A more definitive test
of the diatheses-stress hypothesis will require a larger number of observations.
To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that caregiving is
an independent risk factor for mortality. Controlling for sociodemographic
factors and baseline prevalent and subclinical disease, our data indicate
that caregivers who provide support to their spouse and report caregiving
strain are 63% more likely to die within 4 years than noncaregivers. Those
with disabled spouses but providing no help and those helping a disabled spouse
but reporting no strain did not have significantly higher mortality rates
than noncaregivers. The analyses also revealed that, as expected, mortality
rates were highest among those with prevalent disease (22.5%), followed by
those with subclinical disease (11.6%), and those with no disease (5.4%).
Although the number of deaths in our sample is too few to permit definitive
tests of the combined effects of caregiving and biological vulnerability,
the data are consistent with the notion that strained caregivers with prevalent
disease may be at particular risk of mortality. Thirty-three percent of strained
caregivers with prevalent disease in our sample died within the 4-year follow-up
These findings are consistent with other outcomes reported for this
cohort showing that strained caregivers compared with age- and sex-matched
noncaregiving controls have significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms,
higher levels of anxiety, and lower levels of perceived health. They are also
much less likely to get enough rest in general, have time to rest when they
are sick, or have time to exercise.6 All of
these factors, and others not assessed in this study, are possible mediators
of the association between caregiving and mortality.
It is important to emphasize that the caregiver-mortality link applies
only to a subset of the caregiving population. This study focuses on elderly
caregiving spouses who are living with the care recipient. The literature
consistently shows that caregivers who live with the care recipient experience
higher levels of strain and burden.3 It would
be interesting to see if a caregiving-morality link is also present for nonspousal
caregivers or those not residing with the care recipient. More generally,
larger sample sizes would permit a more thorough exploration of both moderators
(ie, relevant subgroups) and mediators (ie, causal mechanisms) of the association
between caregiving and mortality.
Primary care physicians who care for community-residing older adults
may be in the best position to identify caregivers at risk. Older married
couples should be evaluated as a unit, both in terms of their health status
as well as the caregiving demands that exist in the home environment. To the
extent that caregiving demands are high, opportunities for restorative behaviors
are limited, and the caregiver is physically compromised, an intervention
that reduces caregiving demands such as the provision of respite services
may be needed. Under extreme circumstances, it may be appropriate to relieve
a vulnerable older person from caregiving responsibilities permanently by
finding an alternative caregiver or institutionalizing the care recipient.
In general, it is essential that we develop treatment approaches for older
marital dyads that focus on the needs of both individuals simultaneously.


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Rider gloves for enhanced control and added safety
The Alpha Fuse BMX gloves are designed to protect your palms against crashes while providing you with lots of bar-grip for increased control. They're inspired by the classic Fuse BMX gloves but features a slimmer fit, stronger materials, and a reinforced thumb area.
Technical features
Palm: Synthetic leather
Upper: 2-way mesh material + twill fabric


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Connector Type: LC
Connector Color: Beige
Fiber Type: Multimode 62.5 Micron OM1
Termination Style: Pre-Polished Cam
Ferrule Type: Zirconia Ceramic
Buying in volume? Please contact us about project pricing.
Orders with in-stock items received by 4pm CST will ship out same day from our warehouse in St. Louis Missouri. Orders placed on the weekend will be processed on the next business day. Once your order has been processed you will receive tracking information via email. For non-stock items, tell us when you need them and we will arrange the shipments to meet your requirements with the most economical shipping method.
If you have any questions or comments for us, always feel free to call us at 1-866-958-4499. We are available to take your call between 7:30am to 5pm CST Monday to Friday.
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Good website, easy to access and product was shipped out quickly. I will definitely order from FalconTech again and recommend them
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Today I met with one of my local Facebook team members as we were partnering on a client initiative and our conversation sparked an interesting thought about the future of newsfeed publishing and how brands should be thinking about maximizing their publishing strategies as Facebook's platform continues to evolve.
I have recently written a number of posts on the subject of Facebook publishing from the intersection of Paid & Owned, the importance of visual storytelling and best practices for optimizing content. All of these topics are relevant to this conversation and further frame the importance of the following statement:
"Everything happens in the newsfeed vs brand pages"
This was an incredibly simple statement that all of us who publish on behalf of brands sometimes take for granted. The numbers definitely back up the statement with 115 billion impressions served daily via desktop and 65 billion newsfeed impressions served daily via mobile.
Think about your own behavior when it comes to interacting with brand related content on Facebook. How often are you clicking through to a brands page to consume their content? This divide is even better visualized when it comes to users mobile interactions?
Where do you consume brand messages on the desktop?
This becomes even more apparent via mobile!
The reality is most social interaction happens via the newsfeed. Interactions being likes, comments and shares. Most brands approach content publishing from the perspective that users come to the brands page and consume their content in a linear manner. The reality is brands need to create a publishing strategy that is optimized for Edgerank and based on deliberate content buckets that are relevant & engaging for the brands audience that can be consumed in a non-linear manner but still represent the core social persona of the brand. This requires a detailed strategy that is grounded in the core attributes of the brand that then leads to content pillars that are designed to maximize engagement.
The following graphic represents the % breakdown across interaction types.
With so much consumption happening via the newsfeed, shouldn't the in-stream experience/opportunities be as relevant and compelling as possible? This leads me to what I see as the next step in the evolution of brand publishing and that is going a step beyond visual storytelling and incorporating compelling interactive experiences to enhance the publishing strategy.
The recent announcement and coverage of Stipple's Facebook support and subsequent usage by Justin Timberlake to provide interactive cover art is a glimpse into the future of newsfeed publishing.
Interactive posting is not a new concept. I remember first seeing this executed by Vitrue's platform back in 2011 via the Buffalo Wild Wings example below. Leveraging this type of interactive content publishing was one of the enabling factors that has driven Buffalo Wild Wings to acquire over 9 million fans. Their content strategy has led to an engagement rate of 4.8% over the last 30 days with over 477,000 interactions. Having a point of differentiation in-stream has led to positive results for the brand.
The number of vendors supporting interactive posting in-stream has grown since 2011 with shops such as Shop Igniter providing solutions that are optimized to support rich interactive in-stream campaigns to drive lead generation, giveaways, promotions, etc…
The real key point of differentiation now vs. then is the ability to create immersive newsfeed experiences for both desktop & mobile by leveraging responsive design. Now it becomes easier to publish across both desktop & mobile to drive in-stream & even in-app (Facebook's app) interaction.
The example below shows an example from Shop Igniter's platform that enables in-stream video that then drives to a mobile optimized experience based on responsive design that allows the flexibility of staying within the application, but also allows the addition of an action object in the experience that extends the reach of a users action beyond the newsfeed into the activity ticker. This is a key element to further drive distribution and discoverability of content as well as the fact that the newsfeed does not support action objects directly.
The GoPro example is a great example of a light weight execution that does not rely on driving to an end destination to generate engagement & story creation. This in my mind is the next evolution of content publishing in-stream.
Similar to the evolution of static banners to rich media, creating compelling content that is optimized for EdgeRank, light weight in design and contains the experience within the existing stream and Facebook application across both desktop and mobile that also taps into the social graph to append actions is an ideal addition to an owned content strategy.
This also maximizes the principles of real-time paid amplification that I have discussed in the past because these are actual posts being created on Facebook's platform that can fit seamlessly into a paid media strategy.
The other benefit to this type of publishing is the engagement data on the content level that can drive further optimization of content moving forward. By tracking impressions, engagement rate and social actions, we can directly map to our core KPI's.
When it comes to Facebook, it is not enough to just have a content calendar. It is incredibly important to have a true strategic framework that outlines the brands publishing strategy and how the content will be optimized to drive targeted reach, but it is also important to leverage interactive assets to drive tangible results and activation where appropriate.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360


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I would like to install a program from a PPA that has both Oneiric and Precise versions of the same program. The Precise version of the program is 2.2 whereas the Oneiric version is 2.0
If I try an install the normal way through the software centre or the terminal, the Oneiric 2.0 version will be installed. Is there an easy way to force Ubuntu to install the Precise version?