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The story of the stirrup
Do you know the story of the stirrup? The stirrup was introduced to horsemanship alternately by the Central Asians, Chinese, or tribes in India more than 2,500 years ago. But it was not until combined with the armor-plated knight and a saddle with a backrest that it rose from toe-hold to game-changer in the murderous game that was then medieval warfare. Norman shock combat, featuring riders on horseback with couched lances, high-backed saddles, and stirrups, mounted their charge against faltering Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. England has not been the same since.
The story of the stirrup is not without debate — equestrians lay claim to the lance and archery work sans stirrup — but it is an oft-cited example of the role technology plays in social change. The stirrup not only produced a new war machine, in the mounted knight, but was a part also of an emerging social class: those who could afford the supporting needs of knighthood. Chivalry, nobility, glory in warfare, and the crusades all owe a relation to the stirrup. This simple invention was not alone responsible for these social changes, but was a notable and critical element.
I am not a technological determinist. I think culture paves the way for the use of certain technologies when it anticipates their use in that particular fashion. A similar point is often made about guns — whose introduction in some cultures was met with the unenthusiastic reception of warrior cultures for whom killing at a distance was ignoble.
In more contemporary times, technologies launched too early (the apple Newton), or out of synch with cultural practices and social needs (the video phone), serve as more recent examples of the same relationship between the social and the technical. Cultures invent needs and uses, and technologies fill them. It is unlikely that a technology, requiring the design commitments and resources that it usually does, comes along and out of the blue invents a new and popular way of doing things.
I recently was enjoying Connections, by James Burke, one of my favorite documentary series and in some circles a bit of a cult classic. In the series, Burke traces a dotted and dashed line through history, connecting inventions, discoveries, accidents, and events to trace the lineage of several modern-day technologies. Explosives, electricity, the gasoline engine, television, computing, money, and plastics all receive fascinating treatment.
Among the numerous tales of coincidence and serendipity that footnote the romp through the history of science and technology that is Connections, one recurring theme remains a narrative constant. It is the importance of relations, of the relationships that a new technology had with practices and possibilities, with needs and opportunities, problems solved and new futures created.
And in that not insignificant observation is the more emphatic point that no game-changing technique or technology (for that's really what technology is — application of a rational technique) would have had the impact that it did were it not for its having leveraged and amplified existing relations.
Likewise, today, no social tool makes waves unless it levers and extends current practices, makes implicit connections explicit, surfaces the hidden and renders visible the latent. Relatedness is all, and online more so than "anywhere" else, for the online world has no "material" or "temporal" persistence beyond the connections and relations that weave it together.
Relations, subjective and objective
Two kinds of relations matter in the world of social technologies. Relations among data elements, digital objects, and the operations possible around them. And social relations, including those between a user and his or her social user experiences, communication with others, and social relations made visible in different ways on our many social sites and services. Objective relations and subjective relations.
It used to be that in computing, objective relations expressed a sort of subjective consensus, a choice given computing's constraints, to operationalize and represent functions and interaction in a particular way. It might now be argued that an increasing amount of computing, that behind the social web and related businesses, at least, reflects a subjectiv-izing use of objective data relations. That the relations that matter in social web use are those that socialize the world of information, that renew and re-contextualize the static or objectively-structured world of data.
I am over-simplifying the computing industry and professions here, of course, but for the purpose of extracting the kind of truth that makes its point best beneath the arc-light of exaggeration. In social media use, individual user actions provide subjective taste and preference; communication between users supplies social relatedness; and social interaction among users animates social activiities and practices. Social uses connect the dots and dashes of a multi-threaded world of otherwise binary bits and algorithmic processes.
Social media connections
There are, in Connections, a number of connections made. They vary in their composition and so I thought it might be interesting to tease out some that bear relevance to us. In the vein of a "what if" sort of viewing — an exposition of what a BBC documentary aired in 1978 might have observed about the socializing world of today's internet.
First of all, for a few of the big categories.
- Identifying, locating, positioning, indexing, and categorizing. Historical examples: astrolabe, gridlines, compass, star charts, triangulation.
- Improving the efficiency, effectiveness, application or extension of a process, method, or technique. Historical examples: plow, loom, water wheel, coal-tar, american manufacturing system
- Inventions the revolutionize, change, transform a process, method, technique, or pastime. Historical examples: money and credit, steam power, chemistry, car
- Methods, insights, techniques that give one an advantage over and against competitors. Historical examples: longbow, lateen rigging, gunpowder, synthetics, radar
- Creative innovations that lead to new markets, services, production, and demand in the marketplace and more broadly, socially. Historical examples: printing, double-entry book-keeping, electricity, plastics, wireless
In each of these types of technical innovation, a number of social relations were transformed. These run from the seemingly modest — but in fact transformative impact — of the chimney on dwellings and living spaces (one hall becomes many rooms, social classes divide, intimacies are enervated) to the more obviously revolutionary such as gunpowder, electromagnetism, or the combustion engine. In some cases an invention threatened a change of world view (the telescope and proof of heliocentrism); disruption of social order (industrialism and the worker); competitive dis/advantage (marine navigation, empire, and imperialism); or global repercussions (the atom bomb). And this is but a gloss.
So what do social media amplify?
I hope that I have not strayed too far from the trail, but the force of historical references is far greater than any argument I might muster on behalf of social theoretical insights. That, and Connections is simply such a darned good program(me) that I relish the mental replay.
So, to the point I had in mind to begin with: what power to leverage and amplify social relations might social media represent? And if that's the generic version of the question, the more particular version is aimed at the startups and social tool vendors out there: what social are you changing?
An example, first.
Foursquare awards badges (think Knights — the lineage of liege lies latent, looming largely!) and points for checkins. This creates social visibility out of individual action. It differentiates socially by means of recognizable distinctions (badges). It locates individuals and renders them available by means mobile and in realtime.
- So it extends the position/location series arcing back long ago to maps, star readings, and the astrolabe. Does it extend the navigation series? Yes but not significantly (it's not about going someplace with others as being or having been there).
- By combining places with visits and short messages, does it extend the knowledge/classification/indexing series? Not so much — we still use Yelp for that.
- It is mobile and has messaging — does it extend the signal/communication series (lighthouse; morse; wireless; phone) — it may be on the cusp of social location signaling practices (I'm here, yes, come say hi) but norms are still a check against location-based intrusion. A tweet, (meeting request) is often expected first.
And there are other social relations surfaced, rendered, connected, and amplified by Foursquare that I haven't mentioned. We could run through Buzz, ChatRoulette, Plancast, Quora, or a host of other social tools to tease out the changes they help to introduce. And around which social practices may be forming or might form.
Chain of events
In the series Connections, each chain of events has circumstantial, if not questionable, causal relation. Author James Burke readily admits the numerous chains of connection he might have drawn otherwise: historically, socially, technically. In our universe, that is, the world of social media, we must admit that our chains are not causal, but social. That is, they are signifying chains.
Now I borrow here a bit from 20th century philosophers, and cultural semioticians in particular, but the gist of the signifying chain is quite simply that social media use means something, socially speaking. It goes without saying that nobody but nobody would check in with Foursquare if he or she were the only one doing it. In any given social media tool or application, success is begotten by the social significance with which the technology is met. The greatest power, the most paradigm-changing and transformative social impact, obtains to those services with the greatest social significance.
In Connections, there are moments in history when a certain discovery creates a myriad of possibilities. And moments when a combination of simultaneous but partially-useful discoveries produce something greater than the sum of the parts. In social media we see a similar phenomenon. The browser was game changing, as were the modem, the PC, and the internet. The iPhone, however, is more likely a device whose genius of market timing allowed it to leverage existing social web practices, (mobile) application developer community (some surely with Facebook apps on their CV), and established smart/phone audience habits.
To return to the our example, as the iPhone is helped by twitter, it also helps Foursquare. And it remains to be seen what Foursquare can do to amplify the most out of geolocal social practices. For if history is any fair measure, a host of subcultures and practices might yet take wing on the Foursquare model. (Question for Facebook Places: does the social graph enable or constrain location checkins?)
Or take, instead, Google Buzz. Buzz meant to extend the one-to-many email communication model (itself a time-condensed form of correspondence combined with one-to-many broadcast aspects). Buzz lifts the 140 off short messaging and threads responses for tighter conversationality. But socially it already can't avoid resonating with public social media cultures and practices (high profile users). And with search just an algorithm away (to say nothing of social search), the DNA in Buzz must already be plotting its next evolutionary leap with a small step along the knowledge/indexing/categorizing series. Buzz, after all, was raised in labs more digital Gutenberg than twitter, which is more Edison.
Anticipating the social
All of the technical and social narratives told in Connections involve breakthroughs whose impact spread out like ripples, often far beyond the innovator's original intent, and usually beyond the problem immediately solved. These secondary effects exist because things are related. Territory is related to navigation is related to exploration. Constellations organize the heavens and account for earthly events, setting expectations for the future. Credit mitigates risk which permits investment, thus begetting financiers. The curved plow and scabbard were more efficient, which led to surplus, and thus leisure time.
Technologies amplify along an axis, if not several axes, of relation. Each relational axis may be developed along a series of related and extensive tools and techniques, and corresponding social and cultural practices. Value accrues as a result in areas previously left out of administration. These amplifications may involve the extension of an existing method to new practices within a social group; may connect these new practices to new populations; may complexify and differentiate the domains of action and communication possible along a series; and so on.
Consider, for a moment, some of the series in play with social tools today.
- Personal to social: The differentiation of personal habits and real-world separation of private and public spaces and places is extended in "worlds" (experiences) developed online. Not only Facebook and Google, but all social networking and communication tools extend the personal-social series. Here issues are of containment, separation, mobility, visibility, privacy, intimacy, mediation, image, and so on. Issues concern the increase in options for play and use of personal and social distinctions in tool design as well as its uses; and the protection, respect, and containment of normatively-regulated social practices in which lines between the private and the public are understood. Communication, intentional but as often unintentional, easily leaks between and across today's mediated "spaces" and networks.
- Action and its Consequences: All social actions are coupled to likely and unlikely consequences. We take these into account (consciously or not) in our actions. As tools become more complex, a greater number of actions are coupled to a greater number of consequences. Communication posted in one context but re-contextualized elsewhere (tweets, comments, shares). In some cases the consequences of an action seemingly taken in one domain (use of a webcam to stream a room-mate's private activity?) have consequences transcending the domain in which action was initiated and taken. Inadvertent exposures result from the many audiences through which a recording may travel.
- Associating and signifying: Signs of social status and position are a focal point of today's massively mediated culture, and are developed with great care and precision by our image-makers. Versions of these kinds of image-based distinctions, be they signs, icons, badges, points, or some other kind of representation serve to distinguish people online, too. But insofar as they are used by an audience, not just broadcast through mass media, social signifiers online may have a wider range of ambiguity. Do they mean what they appear to mean, or what they were meant to mean by the user who earns or transacts them? With ambiguities come interpretive skills. Users today possess the ability to read the nuances of meaning not only from signs and their original context of use, but also according to friends who use them, groups they belong to, sites they use them in, and more. There is an enormous amount of design possibility in the rich field of social signifiers — from virtual currencies to leaderboards and even enterprise incentive systems.
And that's just a canvas. Additional series could be found in social tools along axes including: finding and re-finding; discovery and exploration; search and information; trust and loyalties; personas and reputation; mobile and place/location; and so on.
Social media amplify personal and individual uses and practices; extend and connect social practices, and often produce unforeseen common wealth. But how they do so varies, and not just by tool but by insight and foresight. Socially fertile ground can dramatically enhance the impact and spread of a new tool, service, or application. It's not just about api's and scalability, but about social api's and social significance. Did Gutenberg anticipate that within 40 years of his new printing press there would be eight million books in circulation? Or the Vatican foresee that the press would present a real and present threat to the very Church itself? It's all there in history, and changes afoot today portend as remarkable a shift in communication and social and cultural practices as did the printing press more than 500 years ago.


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Junk food. You yearn for it, you stuff yourself with it—salivating with each morsel—then hours later you end up with a sick, empty feeling in your stomach and a funky taste in your mouth. In a strange way, the more I played Diablo II, the more I believed it was interactive junk food.
Diablo II echoes the empty addictiveness of junk food by granting the player near-continuous rewards. It is almost impossible to play a session of Diablo II without earning another level, finding a more powerful item, or completing one of the quests. The constant rewards begin as fulfilling advancement, but over time they end up as an endless drone of slight improvements achieved through repetitive action. Players hack through unending hordes of evil minions while continuously gaining slight advancements, until they almost accidentally complete quests or run into the final boss of an act.
The result of this literally non-stop action is that the game lacks any sort of pacing, preventing the game from building up tension and creating any memorable, magic moments. While this is a strong complaint, it's worth noting Blizzard North's success at turning players into reward junkies, who play through the night for the constant flow of hits. The class-specific skill trees, socketed weapons and armor, and the "gotta catch 'em all" matching armor sets—all propel the addictive nature of Diablo II beyond its narcotic-like predecessor. Combine these addictive qualities with awesome character design of both the five character classes and the wide host of wonderfully imagined creatures that populate the game world, and you have an incredibly compelling game.
In the post-mortem of Diablo, one of the game developers said that Blizzard North tried to make every single action in the game enjoyable—from simply picking up a potion to fighting Diablo in the pits of Hell. They accomplished this lofty goal with ease, something that most game developers are unable to do even once during a game. With this in mind, it's a bizarre situation to find a game in which the basics are so enjoyable, yet is unable to create an overall fulfilling experience.
- True to life: IL-2 Sturmovik Preview - August 15, 2014
- Interview with Danganronpa Producer Yoshinori Terasawa - February 23, 2014
- Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches Review - December 3, 2013

subset: commoncrawl


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A husband in his backyard is trying to fly a kite.
He throws the kite up in the air, the wind catches it for a few seconds, then it comes crashing back down to earth.
He tries this a few more times with no success.
All the while, his wife is watching from the kitchen window, Muttering to herself how men need to be told how to do everything.
She opens the window and yells to her husband,
'You need a piece of tail.'
The man turns with a confused look on his face and says,
'Make up your mind. Last night, you told me to go fly a kite.'


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I wish I had known Mary Anne Schwalbe. Former director of admissions at Harvard, head of a prestigious New York prep school, tireless activist for refugees across the globe, devout Christian, feminist, wife, mother, and book lover, this small speck of a woman loomed large in countless ways. But now, thanks to her son, Will, in a way I do know her.
"The End of Your Life Book Club" is his account of their two years together as she struggled with the pancreatic cancer that killed her at age 75. It is not only a son's heartfelt tribute to her courage and grace but vivid testimony to the enduring power of books to create meaning out of chaos, illuminate values, and connect us with each other. As mother and son rediscovered, "[r]eading isn't the opposite of doing; it's the opposite of dying."
That's not surprising, given that books had long been daily bread in the Schwalbe family, essential to dinner-table discussions and bedtime rituals. Mary Anne and her husband, Douglas, an agent for classical musicians, read voraciously. Young Will followed suit, devouring books about Paul Revere and Alistair MacLean thrillers, and eventually rising to the chair of editor-in-chief at Hyperion.
In the summer of 2007, Mary Anne returned home to New York from yet another trip abroad — she was a frequent visitor to refugee camps in Asia and Africa — to find herself weakened by hepatitis. Then the trap door opened — a terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, with a life expectancy of three to five months. The "book club" evolved as Mary Anne and Will sat in the waiting room before treatments at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center and discussed books they agreed to read.
Talking about novels proved a springboard to talking about everything. "Gilead" prompted questions about God, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" about trust, "Continental Drift" about fate, "Olive Kitteridge" about kindness.
Mary Anne elevated kindness and gratitude to cardinal virtues. She believed in warm smiles, prompt thank-you notes, easy conversation with strangers. She felt blessed that she could afford first-rate cancer care and worried about sick people without health insurance. After reading "The Last Lecture," she mused that she was so much luckier than its author, Randy Pausch, whose early death prevented him from seeing his children grow up.
Memoirs about the dying can be maudlin, but this book, though hardly upbeat, shines with the light of a great soul. While dying, Mary Anne retains the grit and don't-worry-about-me resilience that made her life touch so many. Instead, she prays for journalist David Rohde, captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and devotes her declining energies to raising money for a library in Kabul. And she hangs on for two years following her diagnosis.
Meantime, mother and son plunge into some of life's thorniest questions. "Marjorie Morningstar": religious prejudice. "The Lizard Cage": Burmese political imprisonment. "Suite Française": the Holocaust.
In part, this venture is a Great Books course, or at least a Great Topics course. It's also a way for these two to avoid talking about themselves. "People shared too much, she said, not too little," Will writes, while noting that he, too, keeps putting off telling how much her love has transformed his life. This is a mother, after all, who long ago accepted with aplomb the news of his homosexuality.
Underneath all of Mary Anne's abundant goodness, Will's narrative implies, runs a subtle controlling impulse. Her son describes her as the family manager and quarterback, arranging this event and that. We know how easily "management" can slide into manipulation. Clearly, her unnerving equilibrium could sometimes feel like a reproach to the less capable around her.
Will, continually scolding himself for not being braver, nonetheless, offers himself this consolation: "[Y]ou may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time." His book does all that.
Dan Cryer is author of "Being Alive and Having to Die: The Spiritual Odyssey of Forrest Church." He can be reached at www.dancryer.org.


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Press Release: Carnegie Mellon's Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund Awards Investments to Six "Greenlighting Startups" Companies
Program Benefits 16 Startups in First Year; CMU "Destination of Choice" for Young Innovators
Contact: Ken Walters / 412-268-1151 / email@example.com
PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund (OFEF) has awarded $300,000 to six startup companies to assist them in growing their business ventures. The fund, established by CMU alumnus and Flip Video Camera creator Jonathan Kaplan and his wife, Marci Glazer, provides early-stage business financing and support to alumni who have graduated from CMU in the last five years.
Since June 2012, the OFEF has provided support to 16 startup companies from across the country and a variety of industries. The most recent award recipients operate in medical, technology, consumer and educational fields. The companies' objectives include everything from reducing back pain and improving pediatric heart surgery to creating a premium gluten-free beer and teaching guitar online. (See information on the award recipients below.)
"Open Field is dedicated to helping Carnegie Mellon graduates dream big and create the next great product or service," said Kaplan, CEO of The Melt and five-time entrepreneur. "We are pleased to provide these investments and encouraged by the success previous Open Field recipients have experienced in just a few short months."
OFEF is part of CMU's Greenlighting Startups initiative, which is designed to speed CMU faculty and student innovations from the research lab to the marketplace. Previous OFEF recipients include NoWait, a seating management system used by large restaurant chains including Red Robin, Texas Roadhouse and T.G.I. Friday's. NoWait recently raised $2 million in funding led by Birchmere Ventures.
"I thank Jonathan not only for his generous support, but also for his hands-on approach to helping future entrepreneurs," said CMU President Jared L. Cohon. "In addition to the financial support, Jonathan and many of his colleagues, including some former CMU classmates, are providing guidance to help our students and alumni create the types of companies and jobs that serve as the country's economic engine."
CMU's entrepreneurial culture has helped to create more than 300 companies and 9,000 jobs over the past 15 years, and CMU spinoffs represent 34 percent of the total companies created in Pennsylvania based on university technologies in the past five years.
The OFEF provides $50,000 in matching investment to each recipient, who also gain access to other funding sources, receive personalized mentoring and attend an annual OFEF business workshop. The university will provide legal and accounting support for OFEF recipients. Peter Stern, a CMU classmate of Kaplan, CEO of Bitly and a serial entrepreneur, will be providing advisory support for the fund, as well as serving as a mentor to one of the OFEF award recipients. The fund will select award recipients biannually.
Mentors will be assigned to each OFEF award recipient, including select CMU alumni who are serial entrepreneurs who have helped to create an excess of $1 billion in shareholder value. Mentors also will include entrepreneurs who are based at Carnegie Mellon, including OFEF Managing Director Dave Mawhinney, a professor of entrepreneurship and four-time entrepreneur.
2013 Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund Award Recipients
Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund award recipients are Carnegie Mellon alumni who have graduated from CMU in the last five years. Alumni, their date of graduation and school or college are noted at the end of each company listing.
ActivAided Orthotics, Pittsburgh
ActivAided Orthotics has created a line of postural training apparel to eliminate back pain by training rehabilitative habits and behaviors to address and correct the root causes of spine disorders and back pain. The company developed a product that offers continuous care in a convenient, effective, wearable treatment for long-term relief of back pain. Its first product, "RecoveryAid," was released in July 2012 after beta testing found that 89 percent of users experienced a decrease in back pain. (Kelly Collier, 2011, Engineering)
Aurochs Brewing Company, Pittsburgh
Aurochs Brewing Company uses unique ingredients to provide great tasting craft beers that are naturally gluten-free. The company is commercializing a brewing method that is not currently available in the United States. This technology allows Aurochs to brew with the grains millet, quinoa, buckwheat, and amaranth. The product addresses a void for the millions of Americans who follow a gluten-free diet for medical reasons and those who choose to follow the gluten-free diet for improved health and well being. (Ryan Bove, 2012, Business)
PECA Labs, Pittsburgh
PECA Labs' Masa Valve is the first valved conduit to be specifically designed for pediatric heart conduit reconstruction. The valve is specifically designed with the needs of pediatric patients in mind, unlike current options on the market, and reduces the need for additional surgeries. With implantation in 49 people for more than four years and excellent results, the Masa Valve is fully developed, clinically validated and is currently going through the FDA approval process. Clinical results have shown that the Masa Valve should save children from one-to-two open-heart surgeries over the course of their pediatric years. (Doug Bernstein, 2012, Engineering)
Pixite, San Diego
Pixite is a software development company focusing on delivering high quality photography apps to the market. Pixite is developing a revolutionary service that will provide a seamless photo management and viewing experience across computers, tablets and smartphones. Unlike current solutions, Pixite's app-centric approach will offer an elegant user experience for sharing and organizing albums, ultimately allowing users to do more with their photos, be more organized and save time. (Scott Sykora, 2012, College of Fine Arts)
StatEasy, Pittsburgh
StatEasy provides a free and easy-to-use platform to high school and collegiate teams to manage statistics and video of their sporting events. Current sports information systems and coaching software programs are expensive, difficult to use and labor intensive. StatEasy's platform makes the process more efficient, and the company generates revenue by selling highlight videos to players, parents, recruiters and television stations. StatEasy currently serves more than 120 teams. (Tom Matta, 2007, Business and Engineering; Mike Ressler, 2002, Computer Science)
Tunessence, Pittsburgh
Tunessence offers a virtual guitar teacher in your Web browser. While millions of Americans at any given time are trying to learn how to play the guitar, 70 percent of them quit within two months. To make the learning process more engaging, Tunessence combines advanced audio processing software with instructional video in order to replicate the experience of an in-person lesson in an online setting. The company's software gives note-by-note feedback to the user, tracks progress and generates personalized lesson plans. Lessons are also taught in the context of popular songs as a way to keep users interested. (Alexander Soto, 2011, Engineering; Matthew Bauch, 2012, Engineering)


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The headlines about Facebook's IPO – along with questions about its business model – are now officially cringeworthy. It's an ongoing, rolling study in how society digests important news about our industry, and it's far from played out. But we seem at an interesting tipping point in perception, and now seemed a good time to weigh in with a few words on the subject.
Prior to Facebook's IPO, I drafted a post about its core business model (targeted display advertising), but decided not to publish it. The main thrust of my post is below, but I want to explain why I didn't post right away, and provide you all with something of a "tick tock" of what's happened over the past few days.
The truth is, I didn't post last week because I didn't feel like piling on to what was becoming a media frenzy. Less than 24 hours before the biggest Internet IPO in history, the negative stories questioning Facebook's core revenue model were coming fast and furious. My piece wasn't negative, per se, its intention was to be thoughtful. And in the face of a media scrum, I often pull back until the dust settles. (There's a media business in there somewhere, but I digress).
I figured I'd wait till Monday. Things would have settled down by then…
Well, that didn't happen. Compared to Google's IPO, which was controversial for very different reasons (they ran a "modified auction," remember?), the Facebook IPO is quickly becoming the biggest story in tech so far this year. And unfortunately for the good people at Facebook, it's not a positive one.
The starting gun of Facebook's IPO woes was the news that GM planned to pull its $10 million spend – but would continue to invest around $30 million in maintaining its Facebook "presence." Interestingly, that $30 million was not going to Facebook, but rather to GM's agency and other partners. I'm not sure how that $30 million is spent – that's a lot of cheddar to have a presence anywhere (you could build about 15 Instagrams with that kind of money, for example). But most have speculated it goes to staffing social media experts and working with companies like Buddy Media, buying "likes" through third party ad networks, and maintaining a burgeoning amount of content to feed GM's myriad and increasingly sophisticated presence on the site.
Now, some folks have said the reason GM pulled its ads were because the auto giant failed to understand how to market on Facebook – but if that's true, I'm not sure it's entirely GM's fault. Regardless, since the original WSJ piece came out, a raft of pieces questioning Facebook's money machine have appeared, and they mostly say the same thing. Here's last week's New York Times, for example (titled Ahead of Facebook I.P.O., a Skeptical Madison Ave):
"It's one of the most powerful branding mechanisms in the world, but it's not an advertising mechanism," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the giant advertising agency.
"Facebook's a silo," said Darren Herman, the chief digital media officer at the Media Kitchen, an agency that helps clients on Facebook. "It is very hard to understand the efficacy of what a Facebook like, or fan or follow is worth."
It seems, just ahead of the IPO, folks were realizing that Facebook doesn't work like Google, or the web at large. It's a service layered on top of the Web, and it has its own rules, its own ecosystem, and its own "native advertising platform." In the run up to the IPO, a lot of folks began questioning whether that platform stands the test of time.
I'll have more thoughts on that below, after a quick review of the past few days in FacebookLand.
What Just Happened?!
As I outlined above, Facebook faced a building storyline about the efficacy of its core revenue model, right before the opening bell. Not a good start, but then again, not unusual for a company going public.
One of the inevitabilities of negative news about a company is that it begets more negativity – people start to look for patterns that might prove that the initial bad news was just the tip of an iceberg. When word came out last week that demand for the stock was so high that insiders planned to sell even more shares at the open, many industry folks I spoke to began to wonder if the "greater fool" theory was kicking in. In other words, these people wondered, if the bankers and early investors in Facebook were increasing the number of shares they were selling at the outset, perhaps they knew something the general public didn't – maybe they thought that $38 was as high as the stock was going to get – at least for a while.
Clearly, those industry folks were talking to more than just me. The press started questioning the increase. As Bloomberg reported at the time: "…insiders' decision to pare holdings further may heighten some investors' concern over Facebook's earnings growth, said Greenwood Capital's Walter Todd."
That quote would prove prescient.
As Facebook opened trading last Friday, the stock instantly shot up – always taken as a good sign – but then it began to sink. Were it not for significant supportive buying by the offering's lead banker, the stock would have closed below its opening price, an embarrassing signal that the offering was poorly handled. Facebook closed its first day of trading up marginally – not exactly the rocketship that many expected (a crowdsourced site predicted it would soar to $54, for example).
Then things got really bad. Over the weekend, officials at NASDAQ, the exchange where Facebook debuted, admitted they bungled the stock's opening trades due to the massive demand, citing technical and other issues. Monday, the Wall Street Journal, among many others, questioned Morgan Stanley's support of the stock. To make matters worse, the stock slid to around $34 by the end of the day. A frenzy of media coverage erupted – including a number of extraordinary allegations, first made late Monday evening, around insider information provided verbally to institutional investors but not disclosed to the public. That information included concerns that Facebook's ad revenues were not growing as quickly as first thought, and that mobile usage, where Facebook's monetization is weak, was exploding, exposing another hole in the company's revenue model.
In other words, what my industry sources suspected might have been true – that insiders knew something, and decided to get out when the getting was good – may have been what really happened. True or not, such a story taints the offering considerably.
Predictably, those allegations have spawned calls for investigations by regulatory authorities and lawsuits or subpoenas by individual investors as well as the state of Massachusetts. On Tuesday, the stock sank again, closing at near $31, $7 off its opening price and more than $10 off its high point on opening day.
Not exactly a honeymoon for new public company CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who got married last Sunday to his college sweetheart. Today's early trading must provide at least some comfort – Facebook is trading a bit up, in the $32 range, a price that many financial news outlets reported as the number most sophisticated investors felt was correct in the first place.
Is the worst of it over for Facebook's IPO? I have no idea. But the core of the issue is what's most interesting to me.
Stepping Back: What's This Really All About?
Facebook is a very large, very profitable company and I am sure it will find its feet. I'm not a stock analyst, and I'm not going to try to predict whether or not the company is properly valued at any price.
But I do have a few thoughts about the underlying questions that are driving this whole fracas – Facebook's revenue model.
Facebook makes 82% of its money by selling targeted display advertising – boxes on the top and right side of the site (it's recently added ads at logout, and in newsfeeds). Not a particularly unique model on its face, but certainly unique underneath: Because Facebook knows so much about each person on its service, it can target in ways Google and others can only dream about. Over the years, Facebook has added new advertising products based on the unique identity, interest, and relationship data it owns: Advertisers can incorporate the fact that a friend of a friend "likes" a product, for example. Or they can incorporate their own marketing content into their ads, a practice known as "conversational marketing" that I've been on about for seven or so years (for more on that, see my post Conversational Marketing Is Hot – Again. Thanks Facebook!).
But as many have pointed out, Facebook's approach to advertising has a problem: People don't (yet) come to Facebook with the intention of consuming quality content (as they do with media sites), or finding an answer to a question (as they do at Google search). Yet Facebook's ad system combines both those models – it employs a display ad unit (the foundation of brand-driven media sites) as well as a sophisticated ad-buying platform that'd be familiar to anyone who's ever used Google AdWords.
I'm not sure how many advertisers use Facebook, but it's probably a fair guess to say the number approaches or crosses the hundreds of thousands. That's about how many used Overture and Google a decade ago. The big question is simply this: Do those Facebook ads work as well or better than other approaches? If the answer is yes, the question of valuation is rather moot. If the answer is no…Facebook's got some work to do.
No such question hung over Google upon its stock debut. AdWords worked. People came to search with clear intent, and if you, as an advertiser, could match your product or service to that intent, you won. You'd put as much money as you could into the Google machine, because profit came out the other side. It was an entirely new model for advertising.
I think it's fair to say the same is not yet true for Facebook's native advertising solution. And that's really what Facebook Ads are: the biggest example of a platform-specific "native advertising" play since Google AdWords broke out ten years ago.
But it's not clear that Facebook's ad platform works better than any number of other alternatives. For brand advertisers, those large "rising star" units, replete with video capabilities and rich contextual placements, are a damn good option, and increasingly affordable. And if an advertiser wants to message at the point of intent, well, that's what Google (and Bing) are for.
It's astonishing how quickly Facebook has gotten to $4billion in revenue – but at the end of the day, marketers must justify their spend. Sure, it makes sense to engage on a platform where nearly a billion people spend hours each month. But the question remains – how do you engage, and who do you pay for that engagement? Facebook is huge, and terribly successful at engaging its users. But what GM seems to have realized is that it can engage all day long on Facebook, without having to pay Facebook for the privilege of doing so. Perhaps the question can be rephrased this way: Has Facebook figured out how to deliver marketers long-term value creation? The jury seems out on that one.
Now that Facebook is public, it will face relentless pressure to convince that jury, which now demonstrates its vote via a real time stock price. That pressure could force potentially new and more intrusive ad units, and/or new approaches to monetization we've yet to see, including, as I predicted in January, a web-wide display network driven by Facebook data.
As Chris Dixon wrote earlier in the month:
The key question when trying to value Facebook's stock is: can they find another business model that generates significantly more revenue per user without hurting the user experience?
A good question, and one I can only imagine folks at Facebook are pondering at the moment. Currently, Facebook's ads are, in the majority, stuck in a model that doesn't feel truly native to how people actually use the service. Can Facebook come up with a better solution? Integration of ad units into newsfeeds is one approach that bears watching (it reminds me of Twitter's approach, for example), but I'm not sure that's enough to feed a $4billion beast.
These questions are fascinating to consider – in particular in light of the "native monetization" craze sweeping other platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, and others. As I've argued elsewhere, unique approaches to marketing work only if they prove a return on total investment, including the cost of creating, optimizing, and supporting those native ad units when compared to other marketing approaches. Facebook clearly has the heft, and now the cash, to spend considerable resources to prove its approach. I can't wait to see what happens next.


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Microsoft talked hardware during its address at the Computex 2012 trade show in Taiwan this week, and while most people have been focusing on the future—with Windows 8 and a coming generation of hybrid PCs, tablet PCs, and other non-traditional computing devices—the software giant also took a step back to remind people about how much PCs have evolved over the past year. The resulting promo video, shown here, highlights the evolution of the PC over just three short years.
Interesting stuff. I bet a similar video three years from now will be even more dramatic.
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How to enable touch-pad gestures on Windows 8 laptops
The new Windows 8 release to manufacturing doesn't seem to support touch-pad gestures out of the box, so you may need to download the drivers yourself.
Installing the Windows 8 RTM (release-to-manufacturing) on my two laptops went smoothly yesterday except for one problem -- no gesture support.
Trying to navigate the Start screen and other areas of the new OS, I found that left and right clicking on the touch pad worked fine. But using two fingers or other gestures to scroll or move around had no effect.
A Web search discovered other testers and users bumping into the same obstacle. This is odd, because I ran into no such problems with the Windows 8 Release Preview. So why doesn't Windows 8 RTM handle touch-pad gestures right off the bat?
A Microsoft representative confirmed to CNET that Windows 8 RTM offers a generic driver that recognizes the touch pad as input, but the edge and multitouch gestures are not supported. In contrast, the Windows 8 Release Preview came with Elan alpha drivers to give people a taste of the full multitouch experience.
Elan and Synaptics are both working on updated touch-pad drivers, according to the rep. Those aren't yet public, so Microsoft can't distribute them. Many PC vendors also offer drivers that can enable multitouch gestures, but those aren't yet fully optimized for Windows 8.
I resolved the problem by downloading drivers directly from Synaptics. I first hunted the Web for Windows 8 touch-pad drivers, but that search proved empty. Going directly to the Synaptics Web site, I discovered a page for generic touch-pad drivers for every operating system from Windows 95 to Windows 7, but no Windows 8 yet.
Downloading the Windows 7/Vista/XP drivers did the trick, though. After installing the 64-bit drivers in the Windows 8 RTM, I got my gestures and a full control panel for the touch pad where I could adjust all the settings. The drivers also picked up the red pointing stick on my Lenovo laptop, so I can now tweak that as well as my touch pad.
The Windows 7 Synaptics drivers seem to fill the niche just fine, at least until Windows 8-specific drivers become available.
Update, 10:15 a.m. PT: Adds response from Microsoft.
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Written by OWLFAN
This past week has been a whirlwind for survivors such as myself with the news that House Bill 1947, which passed in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in April, would be going to the Senate for hearings in June. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has begun circling the wagons in anticipation of this bill passing. Last Tuesday, Archbishop Chaput and other archdiocesan officials and "consultants" (aka attorneys), gathered for two meetings at St. Helena parish in Blue Bell – ironically, my registered parish!
According to an article by Matthew Gambino on CatholicPhilly.com, "speakers at the meetings described the dire financial impact upon Catholic parishes, schools and institutions that would likely result from an expected flood of civil lawsuits should the bill be approved by the Senate and signed by the governor."
In coming weeks, parishioners will receive "information about how the legislation might affect them, as well as the parishes, schools, and charitable works they love and support based on what has happened in other states" according to Ken Gavin, spokesman for the archdiocese.
As a survivor, I wanted to give my take on these meetings, the archdiocese response, and the feelings that it has stirred up in me.
First, it is true that the archdiocese and Victims' Assistance has helped me obtain therapy, doctors and medications. They pay for all of these visits. A rough calculation, if I should continue this course of action, until the age of 75, they will spend over $250,000 on my case alone. Not one person is disputing the facts that the Archdiocese is helping victims in this way.
What is infuriating to me is their response to this proposed legislation and the anticipated message that will be sent to Catholics across the archdiocese. I had the opportunity to meet with several archdiocesan officials during the investigation of my case. One on one – they say all the right things. "I'm sorry." "Nobody should go what you went through." "We want to hear you – want your help."
Publically, it is a completely different tact. Articles and statements are written with innuendo of survivors wanting to bankrupt the church – take it down. Just read again the statement from Mr. Gavin – bold for emphasis - "… the legislation might affect them, as well as the parishes, schools, and charitable works they love and support …". Add to the equation the likelihood of long trials, detailed discovery and the possibility of more scandals being revealed, and you can understand the angst.
So imagine me, sitting in Sunday Mass (already a difficult task for me), and listening to how if this law passes, parishes may close, programs for special education and the poor will not be able to be funded, the Catholic School system, founded in Philadelphia by St. John Neumann, being shut down.
If Ford Motor made an automobile that, due to defects in the manufacturing process, caused the wheels to fly off when reaching speeds of 50MPH, would anyone care that victims would sue because they were injured or killed? No – it would be justified. Would anyone care if these suits caused plants to shut down and jobs to be lost? Absolutely but, unfortunately in life, for every cause there is an affect. For every action, there is a reaction.
As I was writing this, I was reading from a book for a 12-Step Program that I attend. I was reading Step 10 – "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it". Perhaps I should send the book down to 222. Sure, I know they can't be happy with this legislation. But, a more proper – more appropriate response to survivors would be this – "Yes, we are alarmed by the potential financial impact that HB1947 will have on the Catholic Church in Philadelphia but we acknowledge that crimes were committed against children in the past and we may have to suffer the consequences. We are confident that, going forward, measures are in place that will insure these crimes will never happen again. In the interim, we will continue to support victims and accept responsibility for the past."
So be prepared for the PR onslaught from your pulpit in the next few weeks. For those of blind faith that don't want to acknowledge the role of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in this scandal, there will be tears and outrage when the PR machine starts churning out the message of victims wanting to bankrupt the Catholic Church – only in it for themselves – driven by greed and money.
And then look over at me, sitting next to you – and there will also be tears. For what my Church did to me – and continues to do to me – for I did nothing wrong.


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The lowest price of broadband internet access is less important than ensuring consumers move as quickly as possible to high-speed fibre-based services, says Telecommunications Minister Amy Adams.
"I don't think the over-arching criteria in this is 'what is the cheapest option'," Adams told BusinessDesk. "If that was the case, we'd be sticking with dial-up. I don't think you'd find any consumer saying 'if dial-up's cheaper, let me have that'."
Her comments followed her announcement the government would accelerate its timetable for reviewing the regulatory regime for telecommunications services. The decision effectively neuters the Commerce Commission, which issued a draft determination late last year that could favour a longer life for the existing copper wire network by pricing it highly competitively with new fibre services.
That draft determination, which Adams described as a "curve ball", sparked protest from the key players in the ultra-fast broadband roll-out, including NZX-listed Chorus, whose share price recovered 12 percent today, immediately following Adams's announcement.
The government is subsidising a national roll-out of UFB and had already signalled it saw the commission's draft determination as "problematic."
"Carrying on the way it was would have changed the landscape in the way telecommunications services were priced and delivered and we saw some real risks around that in terms of market uncertainty and the market not looking to develop and promote high speed fibre products," said Adams.
"What became very clear is that this sort of uncertainty and decisions coming out that have really taken everyone by surprise are the last thing that anyone needs in this space.
"The legislation always provided that he (Telecommunications Commissioner Stephen Gale) would be superceded" in 2014, said Adams. "The question was whether we had this ongoing period of uncertainty and constantly changing rules.
"Given that where he has gone has been a bit of a curve ball for most people in the industry, we've said the time is right now to bring this forward and have a comprehensive look now."
Adams stressed she did not necessarily agree that UFB prices would be higher as a result of the government's intervention, but argued price was not the only factor to take into account in pursuing a policy to improve New Zealand's internet speeds.
"It's not a simple matter of saying 'if the wholesale price is low for the next 12 months, that's a good thing' because as I think what everyone knows is that what consumers end up paying is a factor of a whole lot of other things, chief amongst which is a competitive market in which everyone's in competing for that business," Adams said.
"The over-arching consideration is what is the best long term interests of telecommunications users and certainly when we have the debate about the government's commitment to UFB programmes, we got a very clear message from consumers: we need to move to fibre.
"In any sector, you can't look at one component part without factoring in the cost of moving to new technology. While of course we want to ensure that consumers are paying fair prices and no more than is necessary, it isn't about the cheapest way of connecting."
The government and commission reviews would not necessarily reach different conclusions and Adams said the commission process would continue on its own path while the government review occurred.
"I'm not interfering in his process," she said.
"Now the two are in parallel. He has his process and that's for him to work through and determine how he wants to handle that, but what we need is a much clearer, long term provision around how regulation of telecommunication services work as a whole rather than in disparate parts."


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Yes, you read right: we have 5 pairs of tickets to give away for Maker Faire Bay Area for this weekend, May 19th and 20th, 2012!
This is how it will work:
Enter 3 ways:
- Leave a comment in today's post that is something about making something (surprise us)!
- Head over to the Craftside Facebook page and leave a comment on our Wall.
- Subscribe to our e-newsletter (on the top-right corner of the blog).
Enter by Midnight ET on Wednesday, May 16th. We will select winners at random and will send e-mails to the winners on Thursday morning, so check your e-mail! You will need to respond to the e-mail by 5 PM ET. You will be asked for your name and the tickets will be held at the "will call" entrance at Maker Faire.
Good luck to all and be sure to come by the Craftside booth #220 and say hi!!!!
Now onto some fun crafty links:
Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery
Learn how to make a recycled leather and plastic Steampunk gear cuff.
The Card Album
See how to make a tattoo-style card!
About Family Crafts
Play along with the current Make-It-Over craft challenge! Submit your shrink plastic crafts or links!
Carmi's Art/Life World
A Styrofoam head must be made into an auction-worthy art piece... Carmi's results are now online.
Craft Foxes
Enter the "Mom & Me Knits" Contest to win a $50 gift card plus an assortment of knitting books.
Crafty Princess Diaries
Tammy is catching up on listening to podcasts and explains why she decided not to start one herself, even though she'd like to see more craft related ones available.
Eileen - The Artful Crafter
The Artful Crafter shares free clip art sources to publicize neighborhood fun.
Mixed Media Artist
Cyndi got to film a master glass worker on the Italian island of Murano!
Woodblock Carving: Watch Matthew Hatfield Carve a Masterpiece


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Learn About the Law
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Both Texas and California assert the right to levy state death taxes on the estate of Howard Hughes, the taxing officials of each State claiming that Hughes was domiciled in their State at the time of his death. The administrator of the estate filed an action in Federal District Court under the Federal Interpleader Act, alleging that the respective state officials were seeking to tax the estate on the basis of inconsistent claims. The District Court dismissed the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because of the failure to satisfy the Act's requirement that there be diversity of citizenship between at least two adverse parties. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the requisite diversity was present between the administrator and the County Treasurer of Los Angeles County. The court rejected the State's claim that although the suit was nominally against state officials, it was in effect a suit against two sovereign States barred by the Eleventh Amendment.
The Eleventh Amendment bars the statutory interpleader action. Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U.S. 292 . Contrary to the Court of Appeals' view, Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 , did not overrule Worcester County Trust Co. Pp. 89-91.
629 F.2d 397, reversed.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and BLACKMUN, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 91. POWELL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 92.
Jerome B. Falk, Jr., argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Martin R. Glick, Steven L. Mayer, Paul J. Van Osselaer, and Myron Siedorf.
O. Clayton Lilienstern argued the cause for respondents Lummis et al. With him on the brief were Patricia A. Stevenson, R. James George, Jr., John M. Harmon, and James William Moore. Rick Harrison argued the cause [457 U.S. 85, 86] for respondents White et al. With him on the brief were Mark White, Attorney General of Texas, pro se, Gilbert J. Bernal, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, and David Deaderick.
JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, both Texas and California assert the right to levy state death taxes on the estate of Howard Hughes. The laws of each State impose an inheritance tax on the real and tangible personal property located within its borders, and upon the intangible personalty, wherever, situated, of a person domiciled in the State at the time of death. Under the laws of Texas and California, an individual has but one domicile at any time. Taxing officials in each State assert that Howard Hughes was domiciled in their State at the time of his death. The issue before us is whether the Federal Interpleader Act, 28 U.S.C. 1335, provides a jurisdictional basis for resolution of inconsistent death tax claims by the officials of two States.
This case is the sequel to California v. Texas, 437 U.S. 601 (1978). There, California petitioned for leave to file a complaint against Texas under this Court's original jurisdiction. At that time, we denied the motion. In concurring opinions, however, four Justices suggested that a determination of Hughes' domicile might be obtained in federal district court pursuant to the Federal Interpleader Act, 28 U.S.C. 1335.
Three weeks after the decision in California v. Texas, the administrator of the estate filed a statutory interpleader action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Asserting that the officials of the two States were seeking to tax the estate on the basis of inconsistent claims that each of their respective States was Howard Hughes' domicile at death, it requested the District Court to adjudicate the issue of domicile. The District Court entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting the California and Texas taxing officials from pursuing domicile-based inheritance tax claims in any other forum, including their own state courts.
The District Court then dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction for failure to satisfy the requirement of 1335 that there be diversity of citizenship between at least two adverse claimants. It found that the administrator was not a claimant. Among the claimants, it held that the County Treasurer for Los Angeles County was a citizen of California for diversity purposes, citing Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693 (1973). The court ruled, however, that the State of Texas, rather than its taxing officials, was the opposing claimant and that because a State is not a citizen of itself for diversity purposes, Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. [457 U.S. 85, 88] Alabama, 155 U.S. 482 (1894), the action did not involve two or more adverse claimants of diverse citizenship as required by the statute.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the order of dismissal. Lummis v. White, 629 F.2d 397 (1980). In addition to the County Treasurer, it found the administrator of the estate, a citizen of Nevada, to be a claimant for the purposes of statutory interpleader. It recognized that Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U.S. 66 (1939), held that a citizenship of a disinterested stakeholder could not be considered in determining interpleader jurisdiction. Reasoning, however, that here the administrator's legal duty of preserving the estate's assets from the double death tax liability and his assertion that Hughes was domiciled in Nevada, which has no state death tax, made the administrator an interested stakeholder, the court further held that the citizenship of an interested stakeholder may be considered for purposes of establishing diversity under 1335. The requisite diversity - between the administrator and the County Treasurer of Los Angeles County - was therefore present.
The Court of Appeals went on to reject the States' claim that although the suit was nominally against state officials, it was in effect a suit against two sovereign States barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Recognizing that Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U.S. 292 (1937), had squarely held that an interpleader action in all critical respects similar to this one was barred by the Eleventh Amendment, the Court of Appeals, relying on the concurring views of four Justices in California v. Texas, held that Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974), had silently, but effectively, overruled Worcester, and that the Eleventh Amendment as interpreted in Edelman did not bar the interpleader action.
The California officials petitioned for certiorari and, at the same time, filed a new motion seeking leave to file a complaint [457 U.S. 85, 89] against Texas under this Court's original jurisdiction. Because of the troubling issues involving federal-court jurisdiction in such disputes, we granted certiorari. 452 U.S. 904 .
In Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, supra, the States of California and Massachusetts each claimed to be the domicile of a decedent and to have the right to assess death taxes on his entire intangible estate. A federal interpleader action followed, the estate naming as defendant the revenue officers of California and Massachusetts. This Court unanimously held that the case was in reality a suit against the States and that it was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. In arriving at this conclusion, the Court applied the accepted rules (1) that "a suit nominally against individuals, but restraining or otherwise affecting their action as state officers, may be in substance a suit against the state, which the Constitution forbids," 302 U.S., at 296 , and (2) that "generally, suits to restrain action of state officials can, consistently with the constitutional prohibition, be prosecuted only when the action sought to be restrained is without the authority of state law or contravenes the statutes or Constitution of the United States." Id., at 297. The Court held that there could be no credible claim of a violation of federal law since it was clear from prior cases that inconsistent determinations by the courts of two States as to the domicile of a taxpayer did not raise a substantial federal constitutional question. The Court also concluded that the claim that the officials were acting without authority under state law was insufficient. Hence, "[s]ince the proposed action is the performance of a duty imposed by the statute of the state upon state officials through whom alone a state can act, restraint of their action, which the bill of complaint prays, is restraint of state action, and the suit is in substance one against the State which the Eleventh Amendment forbids." Id., at 299-300. [457 U.S. 85, 90]
The Court of Appeals' opinion that Edelman v. Jordan had overruled Worcester rested on a passage in the Edelman opinion that it interpreted as limiting the bar of the Eleventh Amendment to suits "by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury." 415 U.S., at 663 . Because the interpleader plaintiff, the administrator of the estate, had sought only prospective relief, the appellate court held that the Eleventh Amendment did not bar his suit.
We are unpersuaded by this view of Edelman. That case involved a suit against state officials claiming that their administration of a particular federal-state program was contrary to federal regulations and the Constitution. Among other things, the plaintiffs sought a judgment for benefits that had not been paid them. The case was against individual officers who allegedly were violating federal law, and it therefore arguably fell outside the reach of the Eleventh Amendment under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). Edelman held, however, that the case was in effect a suit against the State itself because a judgment payable from state funds was demanded. It was correctly noted that Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459 (1945), was authority for this result.
Edelman did not hold, however, that the Eleventh Amendment never applies unless a judgment for money payable from the state treasury is sought. 2 It would be a novel proposition indeed that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar a suit to enjoin the State itself simply because no money judgment is sought. The Eleventh Amendment reads: "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to [457 U.S. 85, 91] extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State . . . ." Thus, the Eleventh Amendment by its terms clearly applies to a suit seeking an injunction, a remedy available only from equity. To adopt the suggested rule, limiting the strictures of the Eleventh Amendment to a suit for a money judgment, would ignore the explicit language and contradict the very words of the Amendment itself. Edelman did not embrace, much less imply, any such proposition.
Neither did Edelman deal with a suit naming a state officer as defendant, but not alleging a violation of either federal or state law. Thus, there was no occasion in the opinion to cite or discuss the unanimous opinion in Worcester that the Eleventh Amendment bars suits against state officers unless they are alleged to be acting contrary to federal law or against the authority of state law. Edelman did not hold that suits against state officers who are not alleged to be acting against federal or state law are permissible under the Eleventh Amendment if only prospective relief is sought. Whether or not that would be the preferable rule, Edelman v. Jordan did not adopt it.
Furthermore, if that were to be the law, Worcester must in major part be overruled. We are unwilling, however, to overrule that decision and narrow the scope of the Eleventh Amendment to the extent that action would entail. We hold that the Eleventh Amendment bars the statutory interpleader sought in this case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
[ Footnote 1 ] The Federal Interpleader Act, 28 U.S.C. 1335, provides:
[ Footnote 2 ] The dissent mischaracterizes Edelman as asserting that the Eleventh Amendment bars "only" suits seeking money damages. Post, at 96. Edelman recognized the rule "that a suit by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury is barred by the Eleventh Amendment," 415 U.S., at 663 , but never asserted that such suits were the only ones so barred.
JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring in the judgment.
In California v. Texas, 437 U.S. 601 (1978), I joined in the judgment of the Court denying California's motion for leave to file an original complaint. I was of the view that California's motion should be denied, "at least until such time as it is shown that . . . a statutory interpleader action cannot or will not be brought." Id., at 602. I also stated that I was "not [457 U.S. 85, 92] so sure as" Justice Stewart and JUSTICE POWELL that Texas v. Florida, 306 U.S. 398 (1939), had been wrongly decided. 437 U.S., at 601 . See id., at 606 (Stewart, J., concurring); id., at 615 (POWELL, J., concurring).
Substantially for the reasons set forth in the opinion of the Court, it is now clear to me that so long as Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U.S. 292 (1937), remains good law, an interpleader suit in the district court is not a practical solution to the problem of potential double taxation presented in cases such as these. As JUSTICE POWELL persuasively argues in Part III of his dissenting opinion, later cases, construing the Due Process Clause, have undermined Worcester County's holding that the unfairness of double taxation on the basis of conflicting determinations of domicile does not rise to constitutional dimensions. And JUSTICE POWELL is surely correct in observing that "[t]he threat of multiple taxation based solely on domicile simply is incompatible with the structural principles of a federal system recognizing as `fundamental' a constitutional right to travel." Post, at 101.
But if Worcester County is not to be overruled, and interpleader is not available to provide relief from the possibility of duplicative taxation of this estate, I think it appropriate under Texas v. Florida, supra, to exercise our original jurisdiction to decide the present controversy. I agree with Professor Chafee, quoted post, at 101, that "[s]omewhere within [the] federal system we should be able to find remedies for the frictions which that system creates." Where such a remedy exists - even if only in the narrow class of cases falling within the holding of Texas v. Florida - it should be employed. The exercise of the Court's original jurisdiction in circumstances such as this is both just and prudent, and very likely in accordance with the Framer's original intent.
JUSTICE POWELL, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL and JUSTICE STEVENS join, dissenting.
The Court today decides two cases arising from the same set of facts, the instant case and California v. Texas, post, [457 U.S. 85, 93] p. 164. Both cases involve the efforts of officials of California and Texas to tax the intangible property of the late Howard Hughes. Each State asserts its right to tax the Hughes estate on the basis of Hughes' domicile. Yet both recognize that Hughes could have had only one domicile at the time of his death.
In order to avoid multiple taxation that all agree would be unfair, the administrator of the Hughes estate invoked the Federal Interpleader Act 1 as a means of litigating Hughes' domicile in one federal proceeding. The administrator alleged in his complaint, however, that Hughes was not a domiciliary of either California or Texas, but rather of the State of Nevada. App. 10. 2
In the instant case, the Court holds today that this interpleader action is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The Court does not dispute that multiple taxation based on domicile is unfair. Nor does it deny that the burden of multiple taxation ordinarily would fall, not on one of the claiming States, but solely on the heirs to an estate. But the Court opinion does not address these issues directly. Rigidly applying an aged and indefensible precedent, the Court denies the administrator and heirs of an estate any federal forum in which to resolve incompatible claims of domicile.
Having held in this case that there is no legal bar to both California and Texas taxing the Hughes estate on the basis of domicile, the Court surprisingly concludes in today's decision in California v. Texas, post, p. 164, that there presently exists a justiciable controversy "between" those two States as to which actually was Hughes' domicile. 3 But these two cases - both decided today and both arising from the same set of facts - cannot be reconciled. Under the holding in the instant [457 U.S. 85, 94] case that there is no federal prohibition against two States taxing the Hughes estate on the basis of domicile, the mere assertion of claims by the two States cannot suffice to establish a controversy "between" them. In finding that there is a case ripe for decision, the Court must rely on a double contingency: first, that both States might win judgments in their own courts that Hughes was a domiciliary subject to estate taxation; and second, that in such a case the Hughes estate might not be large enough to satisfy both claims. This is too speculative a foundation to support the conclusion that there is a case or controversy appropriately within our original jurisdiction.
In my view the Court's decisions in these cases rest on a misconception of the rights and obligations created by our federal system, both in its constitutional and in its statutory aspects. Accordingly I dissent.
The issues before the Court today are substantially identical to those presented in California v. Texas, 437 U.S. 601 (1978). In that case the Court unanimously denied California's motion for leave to file an original complaint. The Court's one-sentence order did not explain our decision to decline to exercise our exclusive original jurisdiction over controversies "between" States. Justice Stewart, however, in an opinion that JUSTICE STEVENS and I joined, stated fully his reasons for agreeing that there existed no case or controversy between States. 4 He argued cogently that California's complaint "contain[ed] the seeds of two distinct lawsuits":
In our 1978 decision in California v. Texas, supra, four Justices of this Court suggested that the administrator of the Hughes estate might invoke the Federal Interpleader Act to protect the estate from taxation based on inconsistent claims of domicile. Contradicting the clear message conveyed by our decision in that case, the Court today finds interpleader unavailable on the ground that a suit against the state taxing officials is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. [457 U.S. 85, 96]
The concurring opinions in California v. Texas, supra, all proposed that the administrator of the Hughes estate might invoke the "fiction" of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), as interpreted in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974), to bring an interpleader action naming as defendants the taxing officials of Texas and California. The Court today holds otherwise. According to the Court, it is the lawful function of the state officials to litigate Hughes' domicile. There is accordingly no colorable claim that they are acting in excess of their authority under state law; no constitutional violation is alleged; and Edelman v. Jordan is read narrowly to retain the Eleventh Amendment bar to injunctive suits against state officials not acting unlawfully, even in this case in which no money damages are sought from the state treasury.
There can be no doubt that Edelman will admit of a broader construction. The plain language of that decision asserts that the Eleventh Amendment bars only suits "by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury," id., at 663, and not actions that may have "fiscal consequences to state treasuries . . . [that are] the necessary result of compliance with decrees which by their terms [are] prospective in nature," id., at 667-668. Thus, at least in a case such as this, in which the very controversy is the result of our federal system, I continue to believe that resort to federal interpleader is not proscribed by the Eleventh Amendment as construed by Edelman v. Jordan.
In rejecting this interpretation of Edelman, the Court relies at the last on Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U.S. 292 (1937). If this broader view of Edelman "were to be the law," the Court reasons, "Worcester must in major part be overruled." Ante, at 91. In light of Edelman, however, it must be recognized that the law has changed since 1937, and that the legal assumptions on which Worcester County rested no longer are uniformly valid. See California v. Texas, 437 U.S., at 601 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). If Worcester County cannot be defended on the basis of its internal [457 U.S. 85, 97] logic and adherence to constitutional principles, this Court should not be bound by it.
The Court today continues to reason from the premise, accepted by Worcester County, that multiple taxation on the basis of domicile does not offend the Constitution - even in a case in which both of the taxing States concede that a person may have but one domicile. 6 In my view this premise is wrong. As an alternative to the approach that I embraced in California v. Texas, I now would be prepared to overrule Worcester County on this point and to hold that multiple taxation on the basis of domicile - at least insofar as "domicile" is treated as indivisible, so that a person can be the domiciliary of but one State - is incompatible with the structure of our federal system.
As Justice Stewart demonstrated in California v. Texas, the Court's conclusion in Texas v. Florida, 306 U.S. 398 (1939) - that there was a controversy between States, identifiable by analogy to a suit in the nature of interpleader - can be explained only by its concern for "the plight of the estate, which was indeed confronted with a `substantial likelihood' of [457 U.S. 85, 98] multiple and inconsistent tax claims." 437 U.S., at 606 . Yet this focus of concern found no justification in the principles actually stated in Texas v. Florida, and it finds no justification in the principles on which the Court rests today. If the Constitution and laws provide no direct remedy to a decedent's estate faced with multiple taxation on the basis of domicile, there is no principled reason to protect the estate, before the fact, against the bare possibility that multiple taxation may exhaust the estate completely. See 437 U.S., at 611 . 7 In my view, however, such taxation is not only unfair but offensive to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Our decisions consistently have recognized that state taxation must be rationally related to "`values connected with the taxing state.'" Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Bair, 437 U.S. 267, 273 (1978), quoting Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Missouri State Tax Comm'n, 390 U.S. 317, 325 (1968). As framed by Justice Frankfurter in Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U.S. 435, 444 (1940):
In contrast with real property, intangible personal property is not physically located in any particular place, at least in any simple sense. 9 Moreover, there may be more than one State that has a significant connection with intangible property - for example, the State in which a trust's assets are administered and the State in which the trustee is domiciled. See Curry v. McCanless, supra. Recognizing these differences, this Court has upheld the multiple taxation of intangible property. The decisions in which the Court has done so have not, however, undermined the fundamental principle that a State's levy of a tax must be connected rationally with the values on which the tax is imposed or with protections that the State has afforded.
In this case both California and Texas - as most States - recognize that a person can have but one domicile. And it would appear settled that domicile provides the only adequate basis for taxation of intangible property in a decedent's estate, not located in the State or otherwise dependent on the protection of its laws. See Curry v. McCanless, supra, at [457 U.S. 85, 100] 365-366; cf. Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U.S. 274, 286 -288 (1977) (defining Commerce Clause limits on state taxation in terms of connections to and benefits conferred by the taxing State). Here neither State alleges an entitlement to tax the Hughes estate on any other basis. From these premises it follows that multiple taxation based solely on conflicting determinations of domicile not only is unfair, but that taxation on this basis by at least one of the States must lack the only predicate asserted to justify its levy under the Due Process Clause. 10
It is, of course, true that in 1937 Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U.S. 292 , held that this admitted unfairness did not offend the Constitution. But Worcester County's holding on this point already has been undermined, not only by intervening decisions reiterating due process limits on state taxation of intangible property, see Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Missouri State Tax Comm'n, supra, at 323-326, and of income, see, e. g., Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes, 445 U.S. 425, 436 -442 (1980), but also by cases in which this Court has recognized a fundamental right to travel. See, e. g., Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 [457 U.S. 85, 101] (1972); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969). It is only by moving from State to State that a taxpayer risks incurring multiple taxation based on conflicting determinations of domicile. While no single State can be charged with creating this risk, the fact of its existence cannot be defended. The threat of multiple taxation based solely on domicile simply is incompatible with the structural principles of a federal system recognizing as "fundamental" a constitutional right to travel.
By holding that multiple taxation based on domicile is prohibited by the Due Process Clause, the Court could lay the basis for resolution of disputes such as this one under the interpleader jurisdiction of the federal district courts. By alleging that state taxing officials threatened the estate with multiple liability, an administrator would state a colorable claim that the relevant state officers were acting outside of constitutional limits and thus that they were acting in their individual capacities under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). The Eleventh Amendment thus would not bar the suit under Ex parte Young and Edelman v. Jordan, and the interpleader requirement of competing claimants would be satisfied.
Professor Zechariah Chafee, the father of the federal interpleader statute, argued: "It is our federal system which creates the possibility of double taxation. Somewhere within that federal system we should be able to find remedies for the frictions which that system creates." Federal Interpleader Since the Act of 1936, 49 Yale L. J. 377, 388 (1940).
In my view the Due Process Clause provides the right to be free of multiple taxation of intangibles based on domicile. The Federal Interpleader Act provides the remedy.
As the Court holds otherwise, I respectfully dissent.
[ Footnote 1 ] 28 U.S.C. 1335.
[ Footnote 2 ] Nevada imposes no estate tax and therefore has not appeared as a party.
[ Footnote 3 ] As a result of this decision, the Hughes heirs apparently will not suffer unfair double taxation. Other heirs of other estates presumably will not be so fortunate.
[ Footnote 4 ] JUSTICE BRENNAN also filed a concurring opinion tentatively accepting Justice Stewart's conclusion and stating that he would "deny California's motion, at least until such time as it is shown that . . . a statutory interpleader action cannot or will not be brought." 437 U.S., at 601 , 602. I too filed a concurring opinion. Id., at 615.
[ Footnote 5 ] The Court's main ground for distinguishing the situation in 1978 from the situation today seems to be that "it seemed to several Members of the Court [in 1978] that statutory interpleader might obviate the need to exercise our original jurisdiction." California v. Texas, post, at 168. Yet this argument simply is unresponsive to the question whether there is an actual case of controversy for which our original jurisdiction properly can be invoked. The Court notes that "several other uncertainties" have disappeared. Post, at 169. But its arguments are makeweights. Until the States have obtained conflicting judgments in their own courts, there is no ripe "dispute between two States as to the proper division of [the] finite sum of money" comprising the Hughes estate. California v. Texas, 437 U.S. 601, 610 (1978) (Stewart, J., concurring). See post, at 170 (POWELL, J., dissenting).
[ Footnote 6 ] Worcester County must be viewed in the context of a constitutional history that is hardly one of settled consistency. Only seven years before the Court decided Worcester County, in Farmers Loan & Trust Co. v. Minnesota, 280 U.S. 204 (1930), this Court had overruled Blackstone v. Miller, 188 U.S. 189 (1903), and held that the Due Process Clause forbids the multiple taxation of intangibles. For a time Farmers Loan & Trust Co. appeared to have established that only the single State of a person's domicile could tax intangible property in a decedent's estate. See First National Bank v. Maine, 284 U.S. 312 (1932). But the Court then reached the contrary conclusion in Worcester County, finding that inconsistent state-court adjudications of domicile and consequent assessment of estate taxes did not violate the Due Process Clause. First National Bank v. Maine, supra, then squarely was overruled by State Tax Comm'n v. Aldrich, 316 U.S. 174, 181 (1942), which held that multiple taxation of intangibles did not per se offend the Constitution.
[ Footnote 7 ] "If it is unfair to subject an estate to two domicile-based taxes when all agree that it is possible to have only one domicile, that unfairness is just as great, if not greater, when a decedent's estate is able to pay the taxes to both States." 437 U.S., at 611 .
[ Footnote 8 ] "When we speak of the jurisdiction to tax land or chattels as being exclusively in the state where they are physically located, we mean no more than that the benefit and protection of laws enabling the owner to enjoy the fruits of his ownership . . . are so narrowly restricted to the state in whose [457 U.S. 85, 99] territory the property is physically located as to set practical limits to taxation by others. Other states have been said to be without jurisdiction and so without constitutional power to tax tangibles if, because of their location elsewhere, those states can afford no substantial protection to the rights taxed . . . ." 307 U.S., at 364 .
[ Footnote 9 ] See Curry v. McCanless, 307 U.S. 357, 365 -366 (1939):
[ Footnote 10 ] See Chafee, Federal Interpleader Since the Act of 1936, 49 Yale L. J. 377, 383-384 (1940) (footnotes omitted):
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Reconstruction of high resolution tongue volumes from MRI
Reconstruction of High-Resolution Tongue Volumes From MRI
Jonghye Woo, Emi Z. Murano, Maureen Stone, and Jerry L. Prince
Oral cancer may not have a high mortality rate, but the morbidity in terms of speech, mastication, and swallowing problems is significant and seriously affects the quality of life of the cancer patients. Characterizing the relationship between structure and function in the tongue is becoming a core requirement for both clinical diagnosis and scientific studies in the tongue/speech research community. A key to pursuing our goals is the ability to acquire a single high resolution 3D structural image of the tongue and vocal tract. A major problem with achieving a high resolution 3D structural image is time. A proper acquisition would take at least four to five minutes and after two to three minutes the tongue would start to involuntarily move, so therefore current protocol is to take three orthogonal volumes with axial sagittal and coronal orientations. But current protocol leads to no ideal image stack for 3D volumetric analyses. In particular, since each volume has poorer resolution in the slice-selection direction than in the in-plane direction, it is difficult to observe tongue muscles clearly in any one of the volumes. Therefore, reconstruction of a single high-resolution volumetric tongue MR image from the available orthogonal image stacks will improve our ability to visualize and analyze the tongue in living subjects.
In this study we develop a fully automated and accurate superresolution volume reconstruction method from three orthogonal image stacks of the same subject by extending our preliminary approach. We present a refined preprocessing and reconstruction algorithm design and provide validations on both tongue and brain data. We use a number of preprocessing steps including motion correction, intensity normalization, etc., followed by a region based maximum a posteriori (MAP) Markov random field (MRF) approach. The region based approach allows us to reconstruct the tongue at high resolution, because it resides in the intersection of the image FOVs, as well as other regions around the tongue which are used in the analysis of speech production. In order to preserve important anatomical features such as subtle boundaries of muscle, we use edge preserving regularization. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at superresolution reconstruction applied to in vivo tongue high-resolution MR images for both normal and diseased subjects. The resulting superresolution volume improves both the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and resolution over the source images, thereby approximating an original high-resolution volume whose acquisition would have taken too long for the subject to refrain from swallowing (or making other motions).
In the preprocessing procedure we go through five steps prior to the reconstruction of the superresolution volume. First is a generation of an isotropic volume followed by conversion of the orientation of each volume to the orientation of the target reference volume. Then, padding of zero values to yield the same volume sizes and afterwords registration to correct subject morion between volumes. Finally, matching of the intensities in the overlap region using spline regression is done.
The preprocessing steps are followed by a MAP-MRF reconstruction. Once three preprocessed, orthogonal volumes, regularized reconstruction is carried out. Classical methods including Tikhonov regularization have been used to achieve various image reconstruction objectives. But these methods often create oversmoothing of edges in direct opposition to our superresolution goals. Edge-preserving regularization methods, including total variation (TV), bilateral TV, and half quadratic regularization, have been developed to solve this problem. In this study, we used an edge-preserving regularization method of Villain et al., wherein MAP estimation with a half quadratic approach is used to obtain a high resolution volume.
Algorithm 1 MAP-MRF Reconstruction
1. Initialization
2. For each pixel s on the volume do
3._ Determine overlapping volumes using regions defined in Fig. 2
4._ Calculate according to Eq. 1
5._ Update according to the over-relaxation scheme in Eq. 2
6._ For every clique , including , update according to Eq. 3
7. end for
8. Iterate for loop until convergence
In order to gather our tongue data in this study, fifteen high-resolution MR datasets were used. They came from twelve normal speakers and three patients who had tongue cancer surgically resected. The FOV was 240mm x 240mm with a resolution of 256x256. The proposed method was first evaluated using fifteen simulated datasets. In order to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the proposed method in terms of accuracy of the reconstruction, the final superresolution volume using the proposed method was considered as our ground truth data. The ground truth was constructed with 256x256x256 voxels with a resolution of 0.94mm x 0.94mm x 0.94mm. In what follows, volume reconstruction was carried out in four ways. first, fifth-order B-spline interpolation was performed in each plane independently. Second, averaging of three up-sampled volumes was performed. Third, reconstruction from three up-sampled volumes using Tokhonov regularization was performed. Finally, the proposed method using three upsampled volumes was carried out.
Brain Data was also collected. Three isotropic high-resolution brain MR datasets were used to objectively evaluate and compare the performance of different reconstruction methods. For each subject, two magnetization prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) images were obtained. One challenge in the proposed method is a lack of ground truth available in in vivo volumetric tongue MR data. In order to avoid potential bias in our experiments, we used two high-resolution brain datasets with isotropic resolution to evaluate the performance of different reconstruction methods.
See figs. 3 and 4, two representative results using a normal subject (see fig. 3) and a glossectomy patient (see fig. 4) with different reconstruction methods demonstrated, respectively. The rows show slices of three orthogonal views including axial , sagittal, and coronal, respectively. The first three columns (a)-(c) show three original scans after isotropic resampling in the coronal, sagittal, and axial planes, respectively. Panel (d) shows the reconstruction using averaging, (e) shows reconstruction using Tikhonov regularization and (f) shows reconstruction using the proposed method. Panal (g) hows the original orthogonal volumes.
The proposed method provided better muscle and fine anatomical detail than the other methods. The target reference volume into which the other volumes were registered was the axial volume in both cases. In our experiments, preprocessing steps (e.g., registration) were not validated in a quantitative manner. Instead, the quality of the results was confirmed visually. Notice that the reconstructed images and the original mages shown in the figures may not be exactly the same except in the axial slice, because the data are aligned to the axial stack. In our experimental results, patients have more complex anatomy than controls. They have considerable scar tissue, their muscles are deformed around the scar and missing in the area of resection, and they are asymmetrical. Therefore, it was possible that their datasets would have been more difficult to align. But it is seen from our experimental results that all were reconstructed with equally good success.
In this study, a superresolution reconstruction technique based on the region based MAP-MRF with an edge-preserving regularization and half quadratic approach was developed for volumetric tongue MR images acquired from three orthogonal acquisitions. Experimental results show that the proposed method has superior performance to the interpolation-based method, simple averaging, and Tikhonov regularization. It It also better preserved the anatomical details as quantitatively confirmed. The proposed method allows full 3-D high resolution volumetric data, thereby potentially improving further image/motion and visual analyses.
The authors would like to thank S. Ying, Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University, for sharing brain data in their simulation. They would also like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments
- J. Woo, E.Z. Murano, M. Stone, and J.L. Prince, "Reconstruction of High-Resolution Tongue Volumes From MRI", IEEE Trans. on Biomedical Engineering, 59(12): 3511-3524, 2012. (doi)
- M. Stone, X. Liu, H. Chen, and J.L. Prince, "A preliminary application of principal components and cluster analysis to internal tongue deformation patterns", Comput. Methods Biomech. Biomed. Eng., 13(4):493-503, 2010. (doi)
- J. Woo, Y. Bai, S. Roy, E.Z. Murano, M. Stone, and J.L. Prince, "Super resolution reconstruction for tongue MR images", Proceedings of SPIE Medical Imaging (SPIE-MI 2012), San Diego, CA, February 4-9, 2012. (doi)
- R. Reichard, M. Stone, J. Woo, E.Z. Murano, and J.L. Prince, "Motion of apical and laminal /s/ in normal and post glossectomy speakers", The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 3346, 2012. (doi)
- N. Villain et al., "Three-dimensional edge preserving image enhancement for computed tomography," IEEE Trans. Med. Imag. 22(10): 1275-1287, 2003.
- N. Nguyen et al., "A computationally efficient super-resolution image reconstruction algorithm" IEEE Trans. Imag. Process., 10(4): 573-583, 2001.