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Director's Blog: Are Children Overmedicated?
By Thomas Insel on
A recent symposium at the Carter Center featured a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that as many as 10,000 toddlers may be receiving psychostimulant medication, like methylphenidate (Ritalin).1 The media reports of this, like many past reports, decried the overmedication of children. The numbers are notable.
The latest estimate from the National Center for Health Statistics reports that 7.5 percent of U.S. children between ages 6 and 17 were taking medication for "emotional or behavioral difficulties" in 2011-2012.2 The CDC reports a five-fold increase in the number of children under 18 on psychostimulants from 1988-1994 to 2007–2010, with the most recent rate of 4.2 percent.3 The same report estimates that 1.3 percent of children are on antidepressants. The rate of antipsychotic prescriptions for children has increased six-fold over this same period, according to a study of office visits within the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.4 In children under age 5, psychotropic prescription rates peaked at 1.45 percent in 2002-2005 and declined to 1.00 percent from 2006-2009.5
Taken together, what do these numbers mean? A common interpretation: children with behavioral or emotional problems are being overmedicated by psychiatrists too busy to provide therapy, at the request of parents too busy to provide a healthy home environment. A corollary of this interpretation is to blame schools too busy to provide recess or activities for fidgety boys. And usually the blame extends to the pharmaceutical companies that market medications in pursuit of profits.
While blaming psychiatrists, parents, schools, or drug companies might seem legitimate, some of the facts just don't fit. First, most of the prescriptions for stimulant drugs and antidepressants are not from psychiatrists.6 In fact, outside of a few major cities, families in much of the nation have very limited access to child psychiatrists. Blaming parents is easy, but as Judith Warner argues in her book, We've Got Issues, most parents resist medication rather than request it.7 Schools in many parts of the country have reduced unstructured time, but the increase in medication is now seen in toddlers, years before children begin school. And drug companies, while frequently maligned, have reduced, not increased, their marketing budgets in the US.8
If psychiatrists, parents, schools, or drug companies are not the culprit, who is? The answer is potentially more complicated and more worrisome. Is it possible that the increased use of medication is not the problem but a symptom? What if more children were struggling with severe psychiatric problems and actually the problem was not over-treatment but increased need? Surely, if we discovered more children were being treated for diabetes or immune problems, we wouldn't blame the providers or the parents. We'd be asking what drives the increase in incidence. And, there actually are large increases in the incidence of Type I diabetes and food allergies.9,10,11
Skepticism regarding increased rates of emotional and behavioral difficulties as opposed to increases in other medical disorders can be attributed in part to the absence of biomarkers or laboratory tests for psychiatric diagnosis comparable to glucose tolerance tests for diabetes or anaphylactic reactions for allergies. Absent these kinds of consistent, objective measures for mental disorders, we cannot distinguish between a true increase in the number of children affected or simply changing values or trends in diagnosis. Clearly context matters. What one parent might consider hyperactivity, another parent might consider healthy exuberance. What physicians once called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), often now elicits a diagnosis of childhood bipolar disorder, leading to a 40-fold increase in prevalence from 1994-1995 to 2002-2003.12
No question, in a field without biomarkers, there is a risk of over-diagnosis. No question, subjective diagnosis could invite unnecessary treatment and over-medication. But what if the increased use of medication reflected more children with severe developmental problems and more families in crisis? What if the bigger problem is not over-medication but under-treatment? Hearing that 7.5 percent of children are on medication (4.2 percent on psychostimulants) seems stunning, but knowing that 11 percent of children have a diagnosis of ADHD raises a possibility of under-treatment.
In fact, evidence from nationally representative surveys of youth in the U.S. challenges recent concerns regarding widespread overmedication and misuse of medications, at least in adolescents.13,14,15 Among those with current mental disorders, only 14.2 percent of youth reported psychotropic medication use, and the majority who had been prescribed medications had a mental disorder with severe consequences, functional impairment, suicidality, or associated behavioral or developmental difficulties. In light of the evidence that about 1 in every 12 youth suffer from a severe developmental, behavioral or emotional disorder, under-treatment remains a serious problem.
Of course, the problem may be both over-treatment and under-treatment. It is possible that children with issues that would be resolved by psychotherapy alone are receiving medication. It seems very likely, given the data in adolescents, that many who would benefit from medication and psychotherapy are receiving neither intervention. It is also worth considering that the rates of childhood mental disorders could be stable, but that more children are getting the treatment they need and, for many, detection and intervention is at an early age. If it is your child suffering acutely from anxiety, autism, anorexia, or depression, the problem is certainly not over-treatment. The CDC report showed that parents of more than one-half of those children who used a prescribed medication for emotional or behavioral difficulties had reported that this medication helped the child "a lot."16 What I hear from families in crisis is lack of access, poor quality care, and a desperate need for answers. In the media reports on over-medicating children, this perspective is missing. The possibility that there is a real increase in the number of children suffering with severe emotional problems, just as there is a real increase in the number of children with diabetes and food allergies, is not even considered. Shouldn't we be asking why so many children, at younger ages, are being seen for emotional and behavioral problems?
1 Schwartz A. Thousands of Toddlers Are Medicated for A.D.H.D., Report Finds, Raising Worries. New York Times, May 14, 2014.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/us/among-experts-scrutiny-of-attention-disorder-diagnoses-in-2-and-3-year-olds.html
2 Howie LD, Pastor PN, Lukacs SL. Use of medication prescribed for emotional or behavioral difficulties among children aged 6-17 years in the United States, 2011-2012. NCHS Data Brief. 2014 Apr;(148):1-8.
3 National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2013: With Special Feature on Prescription Drugs. Hyattsville, MD. 2014.
4 Olfson M, et al. National trends in the office-based treatment of children, adolescents, and adults with antipsychotics. 2012 Dec;69(12):1247-56.
5 Chirdkiatgumchai V, et al. National trends in psychotropic medication use in young children: 1994-2009. Pediatrics. 2013 Oct;132(4):615-23.
6 Olfson M, et al. Trends in office-based mental health care provided by psychiatrists and primary care physicians . J Clin Psychiatry. 2014 Mar;75(3):247-53.
7 Warner J. We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. 2010. Riverhead Books, New York.
8 FiercePharmaMarketing. (2014). CEGEDIM STRATEGIC DATA: Worldwide Pharma Industry Marketing investment flat in 2013. [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.fiercepharmamarketing.com/press-releases/cegedim-strategic-data-worldwide-pharma-industry-marketing-investment-flat
9 Dabelia D, et al. Prevalence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents from 2001 to 2009. JAMA. 2014 May 7;311(17):1778-86. doi: 10.1001/jama.2014.3201.
10 Clark S, et al. Frequency of US emergency department visits for food-related actue allergic reactions. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2011 Mar;127(3):682-3.
11 Branum AM, Lukacs SL. Food allergy among U.S. children: trends in prevalence and hospitalizations. NCHS Data Brief. 2008 Oct;(10):1-8.
12 Moreno C, et al. National trends in the outpatient diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder in youth. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007 Sep;64(9):1032-9.
13 Merikangas KR, et al. Medication use in US youth with mental disorders. JAMA Pediatr. 2013 Feb;167(2):141-8.
14 Hacker K, et al. Referral and follow-up after mental health screening in commercially insured adolescents. J Adolesc Health. 2014 Feb 11. pii: S1054-139X(13)00832-X.
15 Jonas BS, Gu Q, Albertorio-Diaz JR. Psychotropic medication use among adolescents: United States, 2005-2010. NCHS Data Brief. 2013 Dec;(135):1-8.


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geoblogosphere that Chuck Bailey at W&M Blogs has recently described another such spot in the somewhat more exotic Wadi Jezzi in Oman - Check it out!).
continuation of a blog series I started before the Christmas holidays). When you cross the Golden Gate Bridge headed north, take the Alexander Avenue offramp and follow Conzelman Road onto the headlands. Immediately you are treated with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge, but the real story is behind you in the roadcuts. There are ribbon cherts (a form of deep ocean sediment derived from myriads of one-celled creatures called diatoms) lying directly on ocean-floor basalt. Lay your hands on the contact between the two and you are touching the surface of what once was part of the greatest mountain range on planet Earth!
The Marin Headlands region is a stunningly beautiful place with a fascinating geological story. The area is protected as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is a level of protection that is more or less equivalent to a national park. It is certainly a popular destination, but it's usually possible to find some quiet corners, especially if you are willing to hike a little. While in the area, don't pass up Muir Woods National Monument. It's one of the most-visited monuments in the country, but wandering through the Redwood forest, it's not hard to see why.

subset: commoncrawl


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Portrait Photography
Nothing says success like a professional portrait. Jonathan has worked with Fortune 500 companies on marketing materials, annual reports and national ad campaigns. Portraits aren't just for your annual report either. A great portrait on your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or Twitter feed goes a long way. Jonathan specializes in contextual and environmental portraits that not only put you in the best light, but highlights your life and environment as well. Click here for more information about Jonathan's corporate and professional head shots.
Click on an image to view the gallery. Use the arrow keys to toggle through the images.
Jonathan November 23, 2010
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The other day I was working on my guitar (Line 6 Variax JTV-89) that had some intonation issues. I noticed that I couldn't move the saddles in a position that would be satisfying (I was at the minimum position available on some saddles), but as the bridge can be moved, I used the screws to move the "high e" side a bit closer to the pickup.
So now my bridge is not parallel to the frets but has a slight angle (not much). Will this be a problem ? Can anything be damaged (neck, bridge, ...) ?
Here's an example of what a JTV-89 bridge looks like (this is not a JTV-89 but the bridge is the same). There are small horizontal screws that you can see on the left and right, near the vertical bridge height screws. So mine is slightly angled, the right part being closer to the pickup that the left part.


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Innovative vendors offering ways to make the transition to a cloud-based world less daunting
Abiquo Redwood City, Calif. Abiquo Enterprise Edition, cloud management software Community Edition: free download. Enterprise Edition: From $211 for 1-49 physical cores to $432 for 1,000 or more cores
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching the company: Abiquo has tackled two problems plaguing just about any IT organization that operates a virtual infrastructure – how to manage it effectively and how to avoid vendor lock-in. Abiquo combines open source software with cloud expertise and support for multiple hypervisors.
"We built our product around where virtual management is going, which is the cloud. We are hypervisor agnostic and can move virtual machine images between any hypervisor. We provide the management glue," said Abiquo CEO Pete Malcolm in an interview for Network World's "Network/Systems Management Alert" newsletter.
IT managers can use the software to create virtual data centers through which they can deploy bundled servers, storage and other physical resources, and applications from public or private virtual image libraries. The Abiquo cloud management software separates the task of managing those physical infrastructure pieces from the creation and management of applications. The software, running on a central server, auto-discovers machine resources, manages existing live virtual machines, and can capture and store "stateful" virtual machines, Malcolm described.
The latest version, Abiquo 1.5, adds policy-based workload management, enforceable resource limits and multi-tenancy capabilities that provide delegated provisioning of virtual enterprises.
What this all means for enterprise IT shops is the grand promise of vendor-neutral, interoperable management of virtual resource pools, be those inside the company or out in the cloud.
Who heads the company: CEO Pete Malcolm, a serial entrepreneur brought in last year to help the company expand internationally. Most recently, he had been CTO at Orchestria, which he founded and CA bought in 2009.
How the company got into cloud computing: Founders initially focused on grid computing but interest in cloud technologies led to development of the AbiCloud open source project in early 2008. AbiCloud was formally released in February.
Boomi Berwyn, Pa. Boomi AtomSphere, a cloud integration platform for enterprises, systems integrators and SaaS players. Monthly fees range from $495 for SMBs to $1,995 for complex, enterprise needs
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching it: SaaS apps are increasingly becoming part of an enterprise's business solutions portfolio, and that gives rise to the thorny issue of integrating the new with the old. A company might, for example, complement a legacy ERP application with an online HR service for acquiring and managing talent. Sharing information between the two could prove highly beneficial – "'but what do you do when you've got the on-premises over here and the cloud over there?'" asks Mike West, a vice president with Saugatuck Technology, a strategic IT advisory firm.
"Integration is probably one of the most significant things companies want to do," West says. "'What are the concerns we hear about cloud solutions, year over year?' They're about integrated processes, data and workflows."
Boomi, West says, has the connectors to make that work. "It offers a powerful set of options for companies that want to manage cloud and on-premises applications or applications in multiple clouds. … It's a complete, trustworthy solution that has high ease of use."
Who heads the company: CEO Bob Moul, who joined the company in late 2005 and shepherded Boomi as it moved from the premises to the cloud. He comes to the company with senior management experience at a variety of consulting and software firms.
How the company got into cloud computing: Boomi began in 2000 as a provider of on-premise application integration technology. As talk of a cloud-computing model gained momentum, it decided to parlay that experience into a position providing integration for SaaS applications – and so in mid-2007 launched its on-demand integration platform.
CloudShare Menlo Park, Calif. An on-demand SaaS collaboration platform for running demonstrations, proofs-of-concept, technical evaluations, and training. CloudShare Pro, for individual users, teams and small- and midsize businesses, enables customers to share simple IT environments comprising multiple virtual machines. CloudShare Enterprise, targeted at large enterprises and value-added resellers, includes advanced user management, channel hierarchy, analytics and collaboration features. All-inclusive pricing is on a per-seat, per-size model.
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching the company: Having extra IT resources ready for the taking is one of the big promises of the cloud, but making that quick and easy – especially for individuals, workgroups or smaller IT shops – can be problematic.
CloudShare, however, seems to have gotten that down to an art.
"This is a great solution if you need a lower entry point on technical expertise or time," says Steven Peltzman, CIO of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), referring to CloudShare Pro and its ease of use in setting up and tearing down IT environments for testing or production support. "This is drag and drop and you're off – lots easier to interface and get started with than with bigger, burlier cloud solutions."
For example, he says, "I could easily whip up a few servers to run a disaster recovery exercise, prove what we need to prove and give the servers back."
Besides the disaster recovery potential, MoMA and other museums could use CloudShare for occasions when they need to share applications.
Who heads the company? Founder Zvi Guterman, formerly CTO of Safend, an endpoint data protection company he co-founded.
How company got into cloud computing: Founders say they launched CloudShare to address the frustration and inefficiencies they encountered in their daily jobs in trying to use IT. The aim was to enable users to spend less time on operational tasks and more on those related to creating business value, they say.
Crosscheck Networks Newton, Mass. CloudPort, a cloud simulation product $4,999
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching the company: Service-oriented architecture (SOA) testing companies have begun rounding out their product lines with tools aimed at giving IT organizations more confidence as they plan for application migrations to the cloud. The product can also ease the infrastructure and cost burdens of building out lab environments.
With CloudPort, developers can profile and measure the impacts of moving to cloud platforms while modeling the risk and cost benefits, the company says. From a central console, the tool provides information about cloud providers such as performance metrics, geographic latency and service initiation times; outages and application error states; and security, capacity and interoperability. Plus, it offers the ability to run what-if modeling scenarios. It leverages cloud instances from Amazon EC2, OpSource Cloud, GoGrid and Rackspace, and says its pay-as-you-go model lets enterprises realize cost savings of up to 60% when compared to reference architectures, while compressing the services life cycle and reducing time-to-market.
Who heads the company: CEO Mamoon Yunus, who founded Forum Systems, where he pioneered Web services security gateways and firewalls.
How the company got into cloud computing: Crosscheck comes from the Web services/SOA testing world. As SOA and virtualization come together in the cloud, adding cloud testing tools to its portfolio was a logical next step.
Egnyte Mountain View, Calif. Egnyte Local Cloud, a hybrid file server service combining local and cloud storage Pricing ranges from $9.99 to $49.99 monthly, plus an additional $4.99 to $19.99 monthly for optional local cloud storage, depending on number of users, services selected and payment term.
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching it: Egnyte initially caught our eye back in late 2008 for its cloud-based file storage service offering a new way to store and back up data, as well as share information. Egnyte has since upped the ante with the Local Cloud hybrid option. With this offering, users can tap into hosted files and store data when online and, when not connected to the 'Net, via a local cloud. When Internet connectivity is restored, the Egnyte Local Cloud synchronizes with the Egnyte Cloud File Server for seamless storage.
"What's interesting about Egnyte is that it embodies a lot of the ideals of the entrepreneurs and pundits around cloud – namely, that it should be pay per use, self-service, and simple to use with easy-to-understand payment," says Frank Gillett vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. "These are the attributes that makes it interesting. Egnyte has standardized and streamlined the whole process."
Egnyte should prove particularly appealing to individuals, workgroups or small companies. One such company is The Law Offices of Ronny Buni, a New York firm that uses Egnyte cloud storage to "release the burden of maintaining a large server and adequate tech support," says Ronny Buni, president.
Who heads the company? Co-founder Vineet Jain, who is CEO. Previously, Jain founded and built Valdero, a supply chain software solution provider since acquired by One Network Enterprises.
How the company got into cloud computing: Founders say they came up with the idea for Egntye when considering how to address a problem they faced in their previous work lives – easy but secure access to files from their familiar computing devices.
Elastra San Francisco Elastra Enterprise Cloud Server (ECS), a software platform that automates the allocation and management of application and related resources in private and public clouds Metered, pay-per-use pricing; an edition of Elastra's Enterprise Cloud Server is available free to Amazon Web Services (AWS) users.
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching it: An IT management technology start-up to watch for 2010, holds the promise of making cloud computing easier to use and more accessible overall, but especially to companies with lightly staffed IT organizations that want to support cloud computing initiatives.
Elastra has gained recognition for its ability to simplify the processes of creating, managing and allocating shared resources. In an April 2009 report, Forrester identified Elastra as one of several "cloud-in-a-box" solutions that help enterprises build on existing resources and provide a quick path to an internal cloud. In particular, the report points out Elastra's ability to combine architecture and life-cycle management with cloud automation tools that help with design and deployment, monitoring, consumption-based metering and management of commercial software licenses.
Elastra offers a version of ECS that supports private clouds based on VMware vCenter or Citrix Xen virtualization environments, and has made available packages for supporting applications for use in the Amazon cloud and, in a trial version released in March, VMware vSphere 4.
Who heads the company: CEO Kirill Sheynkman, a longtime entrepreneur who, prior to launching Elastra, founded Standard Technology Group, a relational OLAP engine maker acquired by Informix/IBM.
How the company got into cloud computing: Sheynkman and others founded the company specifically to address an emerging need in the cloud market.
GoodData San Francisco GoodData On Demand, a cloud-based platform for business intelligence (BI) applications Monthly fees range from $500 per project for a 250MB data warehouse to $2,500 per project for a 20GB data warehouse.
What it offers:
How much it costs:
Why we're watching the company: BI is a hot technology – a business imperative for companies that want to be agile and compete effectively. But BI projects can be notoriously tricky to do well and they don't come cheap, either. Upfront licensing, consultative and ongoing costs can be limiting, if not prohibitive factors for many companies.
Enter BI in the cloud. Available on demand, BI as a service can be far less expensive yet much quicker to implement and easier to use than complex, legacy BI applications. BI in the cloud means no software to buy, licenses to maintain or related infrastructure to support.
In GoodData's case, users place their data within a single instance of the company's secure, hosted BI platform. For simple data files of up to 10MB – or 100,000 rows in an Excel file, the company says – users can upload into the cloud using a comma-separated values wizard. Also available are REST-based APIs and pre-built scripts for loading data directly and securely from any location. Users can automate the upload process to ensure currency of the hosted data. Once their data is safely nestled in the cloud, companies then have the ability to build and manage multidimensional data models, analyze data – collaboratively if desired – and share results via user-friendly dashboards.
Who heads the company: CEO Roman Stanek, a longtime tech entrepreneur; prior to launching GoodData, he founded NetBeans and Systinet.
How the company got into cloud computing: Stanek set out with a mission to provide a platform for collaborative analytics.


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Rules-based Targeting
Instantly target specific groups of site visitors with rules based on concrete, real-time data, like how a visitor reached your site, geographic data and visitor behaviour attributes. Immediately deliver the right content to your visitor segments using out-of-the-box tools — with little or no coding required.
Targeting at the granular level for better user experiences.
You want visitors to spend time on your website — click through the pages, browse content and view ads. But this only happens when users see content that's interesting and relevant. Customers now expect websites to be customised to their needs, but your team doesn't have the time or expertise for complex coding.
With rules-based targeting, you establish targeting parameters and then visitors are shown content based on the criteria. You can group visitors based on information gathered during the site visit, such as mobile device, how they reached the site, browser, operating system, their current location and the actions they take on your website. You also can use audience information, including gender, age, location and spending patterns. By using a simple forms-based interface, you select or build the rules — no need to write a single line of code.
See what makes it work.
Form-based set-up
A simple interface lets you quickly select and activate rules from the largest out-of-the-box rules library. You also can customise an existing rule or create your own from scratch.
Know the location for each visitor and target content based on local trends, activities or weather.
Customer profile targeting
Create more robust and progressive targeting by uploading customer profile data from Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, your CRM and third-party sources.
Adobe Campaign integration
Streamline emails with the Experience Manager integration for Adobe Campaign. Use Experience Manager Assets to create variations of emails for Campaign, so you can easily turn one email into several versions.
Create personalised customer experiences.
Learn how to use Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Target to create experience fragments and use them to enhance personalisation in our Help section.
See related features
Responsive web design
Streamline and reuse content across devices, with elements like layout, text size, content, navigation and images that automatically adjust to fit the device your customer prefers.
Content insights
Use web analytics and SEO recommendations to get performance data on every page you author, so you can make better content decisions with reports on total page views, unique visitors and other related data.
Targeting insights
Understand how your activities are performing by accessing reports on conversion rate, average order value (AOV), revenue per visitor (RPV) and engagement of each audience.


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FAQs for Participants
Each research study is different, and is designed to find answers to a specific question. Researchers must follow strict rules to decide who may take part in research (also known as inclusion/exclusion criteria). Not everyone with the disease or condition being studied can take part in a research study. Each potential candidate is screened for eligibility, and only those who meet all criteria as specified in the research protocol are eligible to participate. An Imaging Nurse or Technologist will discuss participating with you, if you are interested. Once screened for eligibility, you will be provided any preparation instructions required for the study.
|You may consider taking part in a study because:
|You might consider not taking part in a study because:
You have the right to not take part in a research study. You have the right to drop out at anytime. You have the right to be given new information about the study. You have the right to ask questions at any time and have them answered as soon as possible.
You have the responsibility to ask questions about anything you do not understand or simply want to know. As a research participant, unless you formally withdraw from the study, you are responsible for completing all research procedures to the best of your ability. If you are in a study with follow-up activities, it is your responsibility to notify study staff of all changes to your contact information, including your address, phone numbers, and email address.
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Cedars-Sinai protects people involved in research studies. The IRB includes scientists, non-scientists, and community members, and reviews, approves, and monitors all research at Cedars-Sinai in which human subjects take part. This oversight keeps risks to research participants as low as possible. The IRB also keeps track of ongoing studies to make sure they are being done in the right way. The IRB requires that all researchers treat research participants with respect. The IRB protects your rights and welfare if you take part in a research study. If you have a concern, complaint or compliment about research, please contact the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center IRB. The IRB takes all complaints very seriously. The IRB investigates all complaints and concerns. You may contact the IRB at any time by calling (310) 423-3783.
At Cedars-Sinai, only IRB-certified research staff have access to data collected for research purposes. If any of your information is sent to an outside study sponsor (as specified in the Informed Consent Form and HIPAA consent), we will first remove your identifiable information (name, medical record number, etc). Research files are confidential and secured by password-protection and/or locked in restricted areas.
Some studies compensate participants for the time they spent participating in a trial; generally this amount is given to cover expenses for parking, transportation, meals, and possibly for lost work time; however, payment may not be substantial enough to constitute inducement to participate for monetary gain. Study-specific payment information can be found in the study's Informed Consent Form.
What happens when the study is over varies from study to study. In general, at the end of a study, researchers analyze the data collected from all participants throughout the study. Findings from the analyses are reported to the medical community through presentations at scientific meetings and published manuscripts in peer-reviewed medical journals. De-identified data may also be shared with experts and various government agencies responsible for the approval of new drugs, biologics and devices.
Study results are usually not immediately available. After a study is completed, it takes time to analyze the data and communicate results to the medical community. Findings published in peer-reviewed medical journals can be found at PubMed, a biomedical literature search engine run by the US National Institutes of Health (www.pubmed.gov)
Research is a way to answer a question and to gain knowledge. We use knowledge gained from research to come up with new treatments. Medical practice is different from research. The main purpose of medical practice is to care for the health and well being of patients. The main purpose of research is to test new scientific ideas or new treatments. Research may help individual participants, but this is not always the case.
Research that includes humans is clinical research. Clinical research helps researchers understand how best to treat patients or helps them learn more about a particular condition or disease. A common type of clinical research is a clinical trial. In a clinical trial, researchers test new drugs, medical devices or treatments. Clinical trials may seek to discover new drugs, new ways of giving patients approved drugs, new combinations of approved drugs, new surgical techniques, devices, or biological products. Clinical trials are also conducted to test cutting-edge and novel therapies, like studies that involve gene therapy or gene transfer.
"Randomized" is used to describe a research study that hopes to compare two or more different treatments or procedures. In a randomized trial, you will be assigned to a study group by chance, like flipping a coin.
A registry is a database comprised of information and/or tissues obtained from individuals. This information is collected in a standardized way so that it can be used in research; in this way, it is different from information collected typically by the patient's doctor. Registries are established for the purpose of collecting as much information as possible about a particular illness or a group of people.
Informed consent is the process that gives information to people who are thinking about taking part in research. After learning about the research, you should understand:
- the purpose of the study
- the procedures involved in the study
- the possible benefits and risks of taking part in the study
- the rights of people who take part in research
- that taking part in research is your choice
- how the research team will give you any new information that may be learned after you decide to take part in a study that might cause you to change your mind
Informed consent is a process that helps you learn about the research study. After learning about the study, you will be able to ask the researcher or his/her staff questions. You should only agree to take part after you clearly understand the study and feel comfortable. If you agree to take part, you will be asked to sign an "informed consent form". The informed consent form contains a detailed summary of all important points related to a particular research study. It is important to keep a copy of the informed consent form for at least the duration of your participation.
A Privacy Rule was issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services with the enacting of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). The Privacy Rule assures that individuals' health information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public's health and well being.
In research, it may be necessary for a researcher to create new health information about you or to review information in your medical records as part of your participation. Before being able to do this, the researcher must obtain your authorization to access your health information. As part of the informed consent process, you will receive a description of the type of health information to be viewed or created as part of the research, understand who will view the information, for what purposes, and for how long. After reviewing this information, you will be asked to grant permission for the use of your information by providing "authorization."
You have the right to revoke or withdraw your authorization for the researcher to use your identifiable health information. If you wish to revoke or withdraw your authorization, you must do so in writing, and provide that written revocation to the researcher to his/her mailing address. The researcher will no longer be able to allow you to participate in the research study and will stop collecting any additional identifiable health information about you. However, the researcher may, by law, continue to use the health information about you previously collected, as necessary to maintain the integrity of the research study and make reports to oversight agencies.


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Raved – Poppies Pink Oilcloth
This pink oilcloth creates more atmosphere on your table in the house. By ensuring a 15 cm overhang of the tablecloth over your table, you create the best result for your table.
Oilcloth with a PVC top
The pink oilcloth is easy to keep clean. Due to the PVC (plastic) top, you can clean the tablecloth with a wet cloth. The underside of the oilcloth is provided with a non-woven polyester fleece, which protects the table against scratches.
Oilcloth free of phthalates
Our oilcloths are OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 certified, which means that the oilcloths are free of harmful substances that pose a risk to health.
Raved Oilcloth specifications
Color: Pink
Print: Poppies
Dimensions: 160 cm
Thickness: 0,29 mm
Material top: PVC
Material bottom: non-woven polyester fleece
Machine washable: No
Manufacturer: Wicotex / 2Lif
Extreme weather? Get your oilcloth inside!
Of course it is possible to use the oilcloth outside. We recommend bringing the oilcloth inside in case of rain and bright sun. This prevents discoloration and the oilcloth will last longer.


text: 149773_0227 THE GOOD DOCTOR - "Hello" - Shaunâs (Freddie Highmore) proposed treatment for a homeless patient puts him and Jared (Chuku Modu) in Andrewsâ (Hill Harper) crosshairs. Meanwhile, Claire (Antonia Thomas) tries to overcome Melendezâs (Nicholas Gonzalez) reluctance to do a risky heart operation while Glassman (Richard Schiff) must overcome his personal feelings about his oncologist, Dr. Marina Blaize (guest star Lisa Edelstein), and face a difficult decision about his health, on the season premiere of "The Good Doctor," MONDAY, SEPT. 24 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network. (ABC/Jeff Weddell) FREDDIE HIGHMORE


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- 咨询服务
ADFS to Azure AD Migration: 4-Wk Implementation
Undertake a seamless ADFS to Azure AD app migration, improving security, offering up new features, and getting your organisation back on track.
Many organisations who are currently using ADFS are looking to utilise the enhanced functionality of Azure AD and its myriad of advanced threat protection features – but they don't know where to start.
Despite its popularity, organisations using ADFS face a higher risk of vulnerabilities than their peers and competitors – many of whom are benefitting from Password Hash Sync, incorporated with Pass-through authentication where nforcement of on-premise AD policies apply. It's possible, however, to undertake a seamless migration, improving security, offering up new features, and getting organisations back on track. With Azure AD's enhanced functionality, new possibilities also open up for organisations.
Over a typical 4-week elapsed timeframe, our ADFS to Azure AD Migration service will give you a controlled, seamless and secure transition to Azure AD delivering:
This migration service is typically run over four weeks as is shown in the slides attached.


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Those studying composing/arranging and listening in SQA Music exams pretty soon come upon variation form. If you're lucky enough to have an iPhone or iPad you can download a free app containing a recording by Kimiko Ishizaka along with a score (with moving cursor) of one of the best sets of variations of all time, Bach's Goldberg Variations.
You can get the iPhone app here http://www.opengoldbergvariations.org/soundsnips-free-iphone-app-featuring-open-goldberg-variations
and the iPad version here:


text: Are you setting some New Year's resolutions? We want to help you succeed! Whether you are looking to lose weight, get debt-free, get fit, healthy, improve your looks or relationships, we are bound to have some hints that can help. All month long, starting in today's issue, you'll find articles in our special sections to help you along the way. We'd like to hear what types of goals you have, and any tips you can give to others! Log on to our website at cedarspringspost.com and click on "comment" to let us know what you are doing. Let's get a community conversation going and help each other out! In the meantime, click here for this week's "New Year New You" section.


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This post was originally posted on CraftFail!
I was in New York a few weeks ago, and while I was there, I went to this fancy-pants speakeasy where they had old-fashioned snooty cocktails called things like The Old Fashioned. (Right?) I wanted to make fun of the douche-baggery, but honestly, they were the best freaking cocktails I've ever had.
So I returned to my home state eager to try my hand at some of my own cocktail concoctions. The Paloma looked promising on Pinterest, mostly because I had an approximation of all of the ingredients.
Well, approximation. The blog post waxes poetic about reposado tequila that is sucked from the agave leaves by the mouths of virgins and aged in barrels made from Jesus' cross for exactly 17 years and 2 days.
I didn't have any of that shit. I used Jose Cuervo, mayn.
I also did not have any fresh grapefruits or limes. (Big surprise there.) So Ocean Spray came to my rescue.
It's surprisingly difficult to find out how much grapefruit juice is in half a grapefruit. When I Googled it, the response was largely, "OMG, you shitstain! I cannot believe you are too lazy to juice a damn grapefruit! You do not deserve to know the answer! You are dead to me. Dead." So I guessed.
It will be no surprise to you that I guessed wrong and ended up with no room left in the glass for the club soda…
… a problem easily solved by drankin' somma dat shit. So I did and then topped it off with the club soda.
I have to tell you, it wasn't that bad. I mean, I'm sure the Holy Tequila would have made it better and stuff, but you can't really go wrong with juice and tequila. (I might embroider that on a pillow.)


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30-Days of Turbidity at the Oswego Diversion Dam (14207200)
Data are downloaded and processed every 6 hours.
The Oswego Diversion Dam is located in the Tualatin River at river mile 3.4. Data are collected on the half hour. Periods with no data are plotted as grey areas.
These data are provisional and are subject to revision.
Turbidity data are measured in FNU units.
Graph updated: Wednesday - Oct 4, 2023 at 04:59:13 EDT


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Difference between revisions of "Prabir Barooah, May 2012"
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* 10:30: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
* 10:30: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
* 11:00: Seminar, Steele Lab library
* 11:00: Seminar, Steele Lab library
* 12:00: Lunch with faculty: Richard
* 12:00: Lunch with faculty: Richard
* 1:15: Necmiye
* 1:15: Necmiye
* 2:00: Steven Low,
* 2:00: Steven Low,
* 2:45:
* 2:45:
* 3:30:
* 3:30:
* 4:15: Open
* 4:15: Open
* 5:00: Done for the day
* 5:00: Done for the day
Latest revision as of 02:12, 10 May 2012
Prabir Barooah will be visiting Caltech on 10 May (Thu).
- 10:30: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
- 11:00: Seminar, Steele Lab library
- 12:00: Lunch with faculty: Richard, Doug MacMynowski, Joel Burdick
- 1:15: Necmiye Ozay, 130 Steele Lab
- 2:00: Steven Low, 219 Annenberg
- 2:45: Scott Livingston, 331 Annenberg
- 3:30: Stephanie Tsuei
- 4:15: Open
- 5:00: Done for the day
Improving robot localization by using robot-to-robot relative measurements in cooperative multi-robot teams
Thursday, 10 May 2012 - 11:00am, 114 Steele Lab
Localization of robots without GPS (or intermittentGPS) is a capability that is required of autonomous robots in several application domains. These include under water, in urban canyons, with poor line of sight to satellites, with adversarial GPS jamming, etc. Localization by integrating self-motion measurements from on-board sensors such as IMUs/cameras lead to large growth of estimation error. This limits how long a robot can operate effectively without GPS. In a team of collaborative robots, however, there is an opportunity to do better. A robot can occasionally measure another robot's relative pose/position/bearing, usually by using vision-based sensors. This information, when fused with self-motion measurements, can lead to location estimates that are substantially more accurate than what can be obtained with self-motion measurements alone.
In this talk we will describe a class of algorithms for fusing relative measurements to estimate the pose (position and orientation) of robots in a collaborative team. Due to the unknown orientations that are to be estimated, the problem becomes an optimization problem over a Riemannian manifold. A least-squares and (approximate) maximum likelihood estimator are developed. The least-squares version can be made distributed: it requires limited communication between nearby robots, but no centralized data exchange is needed. In each case, a gradient descent on the manifold is used to compute the estimates. Much of the earlier work in collaborative pose estimation was limited to 2-D case, the formulation we adopt allows to handle 3-D scenario with no additional difficulty. As is often the case, a number of unanswered questions remain, some of which will be discussed.
Brief Bio
Prabir Barooah was born in Jorhat, Assam (India). He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2007 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 1999 to 2002 he was a research engineer at United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, CT. He received the M. S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 1999 and the B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1996. Dr. Barooah is the winner of the NSF CAREER award (2010), General Chairs' Recognition Award for Interactive papers at the 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (2009), best paper award at the 2nd Int. Conf. on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing (2005), and NASA group achievement award (2003).


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Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
August 2007
Fishing in Bear Country
And Staying Safe
It was late at night in early July. We were fishing for king salmon on a fast, loud river and I couldn't hear what my friend was yelling to me. I could only see her pointing upriver. I looked upstream to see a brown bear's head bobbing as it swam across the river right at us. We had only seconds to react. The bear emerged from the river and ran towards us. We stood together, yelling and waving. The bear ran off and we stood on the riverbank wondering, what just happened?
Fishing in Alaska means fishing in bear country. Most of the places that you can bank fish are also accessible to bears. An angler should take a moment to think of bear awareness and how to respond to a close encounter before it happens.
Each week in the summer, we fish on the banks of many different streams, and almost every summer we've had to give up our fishing holes for the bears. I have yet to experience a summer fishing in Alaska and not encounter bears.
Just as we all have different levels of tolerance and individual personalities, so do the bears. Some bears are more tolerant of people than others. Every bear has its own comfort zone. If you are fishing on the same river as a bear, chances are they may wish to fish in the same spot as you. Not to worry, rivers can usually provide enough bank access for both humans and wildlife to fish; you may just have to move up or down stream. It is very important to remember not to crowd bears, or become complacent or negligent around bears.
Should you encounter a bear, give it plenty of space. Stop, stand your ground, and decide if you can get to a safe place. If you can, always increase the space. If the bear doesn't see you, leave the area and try to watch the bear. If the bear sees you, identify yourself by waving your arms and calmly talk to the bear. While fishing with others stay close together; there's safety in numbers. Whenever you can do so safely, increase the personal space between you and the bear
If a bear approaches you while you are fishing, there are several things to keep in mind.
Splashing fish attract bears. If you have a fish on your line and a bear approaches, cut your line or give the line some slack to stop the splashing. Never let a bear take anything away from you. It may cause the animal to further associate people and food. If a bear attempts to take fish from you, surrender your catch to the fast moving current.
When you clean your fish, please take a second to chop and throw the carcass into fast moving water along with all the fish waste parts. Fish, dead or alive, attract bears. I keep a fillet knife, zip lock bags, and one plastic bag with handles to transport fish from the river to my car when I am done fishing for the day.
Store all scented items in bear-resistant containers. Remember that your waders, vest, and clothes may smell fishy too!
Keep your eyes open! There are several tell-tale signs that bear traffic around the corner may be inevitable. Watch for bear tracks, fresh scat, trails and disturbed rocks. You may see many birds gathered on the ground or in trees and bushes. In Alaska, that can mean something in the area is dead and the birds are feeding on it, along with potential bears. There may or may not be any foul odors associated with a bear kill. Bears may actively and aggressively protect a kill, so be aware, keep your eyes open and try to avoid such situations.
To lower your risk of a negative interaction while in bear country, try to travel during daylight hours, make noise, and avoid what is called "tunnel vision." Keep a sharp eye to the bushes, upstream, downstream, and behind you at all times. While fishing, it is hard to keep an eye to your back, however, you will want to stop on occasion and look around. Avoid places where geographic factors, such as heavy cover, prevent you from seeing what's ahead. Be alert in noisy areas where the sound of running water may prevent you from hearing bears, and bears from hearing you in the brush.
Bears standing on their hind legs aren't necessarily acting aggressively. They may be curious as to what you are and are just trying to get a better look or smell of you.
The chance of outrunning a bear are slim to none. Don't run unless you are sure you can reach safety nearby. This should not be a forefront thought in your defense process. Think ahead, make sure to use your voice to let the bears know who, what, and where you are. Nothing else sounds like the human voice.
Bears will provide little if any warning before an attack. If you were to come upon a bear at close range, stand your ground. If the bear attacks, play dead and protect your neck and head. If you remain still the bear may no longer view you as a threat and it will most likely leave the area. If you play dead, stay dead! Avoid the temptation to get up immediately. The bear may be watching you to see if you are still a threat. Stay down.
Should you choose to use defense tactics in the event of an attack, you should know how to use your defense mechanism. There are many forms of defense tactics to use on bears. Common sense is the most effective. Avoidance and awareness will decrease your risk of a negative encounter in bear country.
Capsicum sprays have been used with success and must be used at close range. Use extreme caution as wind carrying the spray your direction can debilitate you instead of the bear. If you carry bear spray, keep it accessible, test the spray and know how to properly aim it.
Opinions on firearms vary. You should use the firearm you can shoot the most accurately, adequately, proficiently and safely. Please remember before discharging a firearm that thick and heavy brush may prevent you from seeing what may be behind the bear. Bears often use the same trails as humans, and those trails may not be easily visible in thick brush.
Alaska provides some of the best fishing on the planet. Make sure to take advantage of all our state has to offer and remember to keep both eyes open and take responsibility for yourself while venturing out this summer.
Samantha Oslund is a fish and wildlife technician with the sport fish division, based in Palmer.
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Budget authority and executive titles come in for scrutiny in IT reform debate
Lines of authority need to be clearer in federal IT shops, says federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel.
Government chief information officers without authority over their agencies' technology spending are like "toothless tigers," former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., testified Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he once chaired.
The committee's current chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., plans to introduce legislation this Congress that would give CIOs authority over their agencies' information technology procurement spending and reserve the title of CIO for just one person per agency.
Only Veterans Affairs CIO Roger Baker currently has budget authority. Without that authority, CIOs are handicapped in their ability to reduce wasteful spending by rescoping technology projects for shorter-term deliverables and increasing shared services, Issa has argued.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., the ranking democrat on the Oversight subcommittee that oversees federal IT policy, has endorsed the broad outlines of Issa's proposed bill.
The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council has estimated the government can save up to $20 billion of its $80 billion annual IT budget through smarter purchasing and other reforms, a figure Issa cited during Thursday's hearings.
"It's not the waste of that $20 billion, it's what that $20 billion could do if properly applied," Issa said. "The leverage of $20 billion to save $200 billion is why it's essential we fix this part of government that seems so broken."
The Office of Management and Budget has cited smaller potential savings from specific IT reform initiatives, such as $5 billion in savings from consolidating federal data centers.
Giving agency CIOs budget authority would solve some problems but not all of them, said David Powner, director of information technology management issues at the Government Accountability Office.
Powner's office has consistently faulted agencies for not being sufficiently transparent about their technology spending.
Some federal departments and agencies have more than a dozen employees with the title CIO, Issa said Tuesday. That obscures lines of authority and makes it difficult to hold people accountable for waste, he said.
Issa asked federal CIO Steven VanRoekel during the hearing whether agencies may be leveraging the prestige of the CIO title and the pay it brings to lure higher-qualified people into those positions.
VanRoekel replied that lines of authority ought to be clearer in government technology shops but that the problem was more about governance than titles. One of VanRoekel's first acts in office was issuing a memo clarifying CIO authorities.
Ensuring that specific officials are responsible for specific projects is more important than those officials' titles, Powner said. Powner credited the Federal IT Dashboard, which ranks high-cost projects across the government, with significantly increasing accountability for those projects but noted some agency CIOs are overstating projects' likelihood of success.
Issa's proposed legislation would also create a Commodity IT Acquisition Center tasked with overseeing large, governmentwide IT contracts, as well as agency-based Assisted Acquisition Centers of Excellence to develop expertise and best practices in particular technology purchasing categories.
Some former acquisition officials have expressed concern the new commodity center could duplicate work already being done by the General Services Administration and a coalition of industry groups has demanded assurance the new center won't impinge on the GSA schedules program as a condition of its support.
Schedules are essentially menus of technology goods or services contracts GSA has negotiated with core vendors. Other agencies can buy goods and services off those schedules without doing any negotiating themselves, saving time and money.
Perhaps the greatest barrier to innovation in government technology is the fault of Congress rather than agencies, former Rep. Davis testified. The fact that Congress hasn't passed a budget in the past several years means agencies are less willing to take risks and make long-term plans, he said, a point VanRoekel and Powner agreed with.
"This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue," Davis said. "We can argue that there's too much or not enough government, but we want the government we're paying for and that's really what this is about."


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EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. - An Pennsylvania school bus driver was arrested after police say she drank vodka before getting behind the wheel of a district school bus.
According to court papers, Lourdes Torres, 49, picked up 21 students from East Stroudsburg Area High School South and dropped them off at their designated bus stops.
Torres was then spotted driving erratically on River Road by a district resource officer who then followed her into the Smithfield Elementary parking lot where she was supposed to pick up more students.
Both the resource officer and the elementary school principal witnessed Torres stagger off the bus and into the front door of the school where she asked to use the bathroom.
"These are important things, this is the bus driver. I mean these are the lives of all the kids on the bus," Chris Campea told WNEP.
Police say they could smell alcohol on Torres' breath and her eyes were bloodshot. According to court papers, she admitted to drinking a couple "vodka on the rocks" in the morning.
District officials say the bus driver has been placed on unpaid leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
"You have all those students lives in your hands and it's a great privilege driving them to school every day so being intoxicated, I don't think that is a good move at all," said senior Semion Richards Sampson.
Torres was able to post bail and is scheduled to be back in court next month.


text:
If you buy cFos Personal Net today, you get a lifetime license: All updates are already included in the price. Simply download a new version, install it over the old version - done!
Save your time of constantly searching for other cFos Personal Net versions.
With our original unmodified versions your Internet connection is fastest!
Modified versions can also contain viruses, Trojan horses and backdoors.
We depend on your support. Without your money we can not develop cFos Personal Net further.


text:
Initial weekly Wisconsin jobless claims drop below 8K
MADISON, WI (AP) — Initial unemployment claims in Wisconsin have dropped to their lowest level since 2007.
Gov. Scott Walker's administration said Thursday that initial claims for Wisconsin unemployment insurance have fallen below 8,000 for five consecutive weeks. Wisconsin has not had five straight weeks with initial claims below 8,000 since 2005.
Wisconsin weekly initial claims first dipped below 8,000 in the week ending July 20, 2013. That's the first time they've been less than 8,000 since September 2007.
The number has remained below 8,000 through the week ending Aug. 17. It's the first time Wisconsin has seen five straight weeks with initial claims below 8,000 since 2005 and only the second time since 2000.
Department of Workforce Development Secretary Reggie Newson says in a statement it's another sign of Wisconsin's improving economy.


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The banh mi from Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches are so delicious that weathered street gentlemen wake up from their pavement slumbers to come for lunch. This silly thought crossed my mind as I walked into the Vietnamese deli and saw the scruffiest man waiting in line for a sandwich. His straight-outta-Saigon get-up signaled that this place was gonna be good.
The Astronomer and I recently stopped into Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches to pick up some grub for our road trip up to The Bay. Danny of Kung Food Panda recommended it to us—it's his go-to place for fulfilling unruly banh mi cravings. Vehicular banh mi consumption is a messy affair, but dealing with a few stray crumbs is a small sacrifice for enjoying the most satisfying of sandwiches.
We picked up three sandwiches for the road, from left to right, banh mi bi (pork skin), banh mi thit nuong (grilled pork), and banh mi dac biet (cold cuts galore). Each sandwich was priced at $2.25.
Thus far in my quest for stellar banh mi in the San Gabriel Valley, I've been disappointed by the baguettes. Unlike the airy fairy, rice floured specimens in Vietnam, the ones I encountered at Ba Le French Sandwich & Bakery, Bánh Mì & Chè Cali, and Bánh Mì Mỹ Tho were super-sized and thick.
I was pleased like you wouldn't believe when I bit into Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches' baguette. It provided excellent support, a pleasant crisp, and not too much fluff as to overwhelm the fixins. I appreciated how the baguette was substantial without being heavy. Bravo!
Of the trio of banh mi, The Astronomer and I adored the bi the most. The stringy bits of pork skin were well-seasoned and melded terrifically with the bread and pickled vegetables.
On our way out the door, the woman behind the counter gifted The Astronomer and me a long and lean baguette. Perhaps there was a "buy three sandwiches, get one baguette free" deal that we were unaware of. Or maybe the woman was just being nice.
A few days later, before loading up our car and departing for Los Angeles, we asked my aunt and uncle whom we were staying with in Redwood City for the name of a good place to grab banh mi for the road. "Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches," they responded. Fancy that! It turns out that Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches is a chain four locations strong. There are two outlets in Little Saigon, in addition to the ones in San Gabriel and San Jose.
The prices in San Jose were 25 cents higher than at the San Gabriel branch, but fortunately, the bread and fixins were identical. This time around, we ordered another bi because it was our favorite, a xiu mai (meatballs), and a bi chay (vegetarian bi). All three were great.
I also picked up a wonderful snack called bánh dày kẹp chả, which was comprised of a thick slice of fried pork forcemeat sandwiched between two intensely sticky tapioca cakes. The cakes are so gooey and thick that choking is a real possibility, so do be careful.
With good tunes and even better eats, we were home in L.A. in no time.
Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches
718 East Valley Boulevard
San Gabriel, CA 91776
Phone: 626-288-6475
Saigon's Bakery & Sandwiches
953 Mclaughlin Avenue
San Jose, CA 95122
Phone: 408-271-9744


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The $2,500 Tata Nano is the cheapest car in the world, but as Avinash Rajagopal of Change Observer tells us, its low price tag may irreparably damage Indian society. — Ed.
The Tata Nano has arrived in the United States. The original plan was to ship it here, but at 1332 pounds, the little Indian car turned out to be light enough to fly. It traveled in airborne style to New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, where it was on display.
The world's cheapest car has had a long journey, and it has generated attention and controversy every inch of the way. In 2003, when Indian business magnate Ratan Tata announced his intention to develop a car that would sell for Rs.100,000 (about $2,000), he caused a furor. Other car manufacturers simply refused to believe him. Environmentalists saw it as a small car with a big footprint: At such a low price, cars would flood Indian cities. As Tata's dream approached reality, however, support for the Nano grew. The car was unveiled at New Delhi's Auto Expo in 2008. Leading environmental research groups in India continued to denounce the Nano, but public opinion swelled in its favor.
Standing today on a low gray platform in the Cooper-Hewitt's Great Hall, the Nano looks rather pleased with itself. Designed by Tata Motors's Girish Wagh with input from Justin Norek, of the Italian consulting firm Trilix, the Nano's body is compact and muscular, its face equipped with a sly smile. The jaunty sunshine yellow glows in the wood-paneled hall, and a door has been opened to reveal interiors that can comfortably seat a family of five. As people walk by, the word "cute" is distinctly audible. It is a car with international appeal, and Tata Motors has already announced plans to sell a version of the Nano in Europe by 2011.
In capturing the world's imagination, the Nano has become a point of national pride for Indians. Prashanth Aare, who teaches at a business school in the city of Hyderabad, says his seven-year-old daughter no longer likes sitting in his new Nano. "She gets irritated because people keep coming up to touch the car," he says. "Then they want to ask questions about the car's performance and mileage." Within a few months of its launch, the Nano had 203,000 Indian orders. More than half of these cars have already been delivered, and Tata began its second booking period early this month. "Soon, the Nano will be as common as scooters," Aare says wistfully.
Two-wheelers, specifically scooters and motorcycles, are pervasive on Indian roads because cars have largely been out of the financial reach of the country's middle class. The Nano, at a price that competes with most second-hand cars in India, is aimed at changing that. Indeed, the Cooper-Hewitt praises the Nano for providing safer transportation, empowering its users and "changing the way they live and work." But increased safety and empowerment aren't the only implications of replacing two-wheelers with Nanos. India's cities are already notoriously gridlocked. Residents of smaller cities, where cars are an aspirational buy, account for more than 50 percent of the Nano's purchasers. But their roads are simply not wide enough to face an onslaught of cars. Even in the larger cities, traffic tangles and the resulting emissions resist any kind of solution.
Addressing shareholders in 2008, Tata explained that the Nano could hardly be held responsible for worsening Indian traffic. Eighty million two-wheelers are driven on Indian roads today, a figure that dwarfs the country's 14.5 million cars. Even if a million Nanos were sold over the next five years, they wouldn't represent a substantial increase in the total number of cars. However, it now appears that, in those five years, the Nano will not be the only cheap car on Indian roads. Renault-Nissan was the first to emulate the Nano model, announcing in 2007 plans to produce a $3,000 car in three years. Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai have all followed suit, and most of these companies are eyeing India as a manufacturing hub for small cars, which can then be introduced to other developing markets, such as Russia and Latin America.
"The problem is not just the Nano, but all cars," says Anumita Roy Choudhury, associate director at New Delhi's Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). "As Urban Planners, we should send out a policy message by not strengthening car-centric infrastructure, and by investing in public transport," she adds. But what kind of public transport should they be investing in? In recent times, growing cities such as Hyderabad and Bangalore shifted focus away from road infrastructure and invested heavily in underground metro systems. In hoping that a strong alternative public transport will take pressure off the roads, they seem to be ignoring what Chowdhury calls "the middle-class aspiration" — people will still want to buy cars. The Nano seems to have ensured that the solution for traffic control will have to be found above ground.
Ahmedabad, home turf for the Nano, seems to have found one response. In October of last year, the city launched its Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), a network of high-speed buses operating in corridors specially created for them on the city's arterial roads. Over 18,000 people now use it daily, and this number is set to grow. The team that developed the system recently went to Washington, D. C. to receive the 2010 Sustainable Transport Award. M. P. Ranjan, senior professor at India's National Institute of Design, is jubilant at the project's early success: "Property values along the corridor have shot up, people are responding with their wallets! Very promising. The Tata Nano has indeed come to town and the city is responding, thanks to some local vision."
Vision is certainly what policymakers will need. While the Nano smiled benignly in the Cooper-Hewitt, lapping up all the accolades, it has wrought a revolution on Indian roads, sending urban planners scrambling for responses. The answers they find will have implications for the rest of the developing world, and by extension, for the future of the planet.
Avinash Rajagopal studied industrial design at India's National Institute of Design. He consulted on industrial design and visual merchandising projects with leading manufacturers and NGOs before returning to NID as a research associate and visiting faculty. He wrote this article on the Nano for Change Observer — a channel of Design Observer devoted to the many dimensions of design for social innovation.
Photo Credit: SAM PANTHAKY/AFP, Cyrus Mobedji and Meghal Arya


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For the first 49 years of their history, the Texas Rangers and their predecessors in Washington, D.C., ranked among the worst franchises in all of sports. They went 35 years without sniffing the postseason. They won three division titles in four years in the '90s … and won exactly one playoff game.
Finally, after a half-century in the wilderness, the Rangers broke through in 2010, knocking off the two best teams in the American League and making their first World Series. Now the major league roster is loaded with young talent, there's plenty left on the farm, they're well stocked with bright coaches, scouts, and talent evaluators, and they have a shot to get back to the World Series again this year.
That's just the beginning. The Rangers are primed to become a baseball superpower. The biggest reason why has little to do with anything happening on the field.
From the start of baseball's existence, the way to make money owning a baseball team was to pack the ballpark. Still, for the first 100-plus years, the revenue streams derived from attendance, parking, and concessions were relatively modest.
That all started to change in 1992. That year, the Baltimore Orioles opened Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The roster that year included Randy Milligan at first base, Billy Ripken at second, Leo Gomez at third, Mike Devereaux and Joe Orsulak in the outfield, plus one of the worst seasons of Cal Ripken's career. Yet the O's drew 3.6 million fans to watch that third-place team, the second-highest attendance total in the league. Camden Yards was the pioneer in stadium retro chic, incorporating an old warehouse into the background, setting up a money-minting pedestrian plaza beyond the outfield walls, and lining the upper reaches of the ballpark with the swankiest in cash-cow luxury boxes. The success of Baltimore's new stadium (following the unveiling of new parks for the Jays and White Sox) set off a baseball building boom, with every team clamoring for a new park in a desperate attempt to keep up with the Joneses and stay financially viable.
Blackmailing taxpayers into spending hundreds of millions of dollars for a new stadium remains en vogue for opportunistic owners, just as ramming rotten deals through remains a favorite pastime of elected officials. But the new way to break the bank is less politically charged: Sign a monster TV deal.
Which is just what the Rangers have done. The Rangers' broadcast deal with Fox Sports Southwest takes effect after the 2014 season. Total value of the contract: $1.6 billion.1 If that sounds like a lot of dough, it should. Teams are notoriously secretive about their revenue streams, and the particulars of TV deals are no exception. But based on the reports that have surfaced on other clubs, the Rangers' $80 million annual take from the Fox deal could top every other team's local contract, save for the Yankees and Red Sox. And while the Yankees and Red Sox own huge stakes in their own regional sports networks,2 the Rangers' deal is by far the largest ever inked with an independent RSN.
"On this scale, yes, it blows everything else out of the water," said Vince Gennaro, author of Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball. "When you're talking those kinds of dollars, it makes you appreciate how teams can not be tethered to their physical market and their live gate. It fundamentally changes the Rangers' economics."
That the deal happened at all seems both inevitable and impossible.
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington counts nearly 6.4 million residents, making it the fourth-largest metro market in the country, and one of the fastest-growing. Of the top six franchise values cited in Forbes' 2011 baseball valuations package, five hail from the five largest metro areas in America; the sixth franchise is the Red Sox, who pull from all of New England while building a nation of fans, and feature one of baseball's most celebrated histories. The biggest cities, predictably, draw from the biggest population bases in filling the stadium and building TV and radio audiences.
But it took far longer for the Rangers to strike gold than it should have. For most of the franchise's existence, it's been a big-market ballclub with a small-market mindset. It was more than just the losing. After running up bigger payrolls in the late '90s (and not coincidentally, three division titles in four years from 1996 to 1999), the Rangers took the biggest plunge in their history, as well as the game's history,3 signing Alex Rodriguez to a 10-year, $252 million contract. Texas carried that contract through three fantastically productive seasons. When the team failed to win, A-Rod got the blame, with critics conveniently ignoring awful concurrent deals doled out to the likes of Chan Ho Park, as well as a spending environment that roiled several other teams' payrolls, too, including the Rockies' $172 million duo of Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle. Rather than gradually pull back, the Rangers cut their payroll nearly in half for the 2004 season, shipping A-Rod to the Yankees and chopping as many other high-priced vets as they could. They wallowed in the lower half of MLB payrolls through the rest of the decade, with Tom Hicks' financial troubles and disappointing revenue streams suppressing salaries.
Hicks' money woes crested in 2009. Overleveraged with holdings ranging from the Dallas Stars to a half-stake in Liverpool F.C. to numerous real estate holdings in a terrible market for real estate, the Rangers owner announced he was putting the team up for sale. By January 2010, Hicks thought he had a deal to sell the team to a group headed by Nolan Ryan and sports attorney Chuck Greenberg. But the deal fell through when one of the main lenders to Hicks Sports Group objected to the sale, saying there wouldn't be enough money to pay back HSG's debts. The sale was finally pushed to bankruptcy court, where Greenberg and Ryan bid against Mark Cuban in a public auction, and won.
When the Greenberg/Ryan group first approached Hicks about a sale, it considered starting a regional sports network that would include the Rangers as its star attraction. But as Gennaro notes, it can take years to successfully set up and launch an RSN.
"You look at all options that you have," said Ryan, who took over as owner, president, and CEO of the Rangers this year with Greenberg's departure. "But because we were going through the bankruptcy and sale process, we weren't in position to explore [building an RSN] at that time. Even though obviously there was always that potential."
Even if the goal of an RSN fell short, Plan B happened in a hurry. Ryan and Greenberg won the auction on August 4 of last year. Seven weeks later, the Rangers had a deal with Fox. A month after that, they were in the World Series.
The deal doesn't kick in for 3½ more years, and Ryan says the team doesn't want to spend future money. "We're operating in a prudent way, in the best interests of the organization," he said.
But the team's actions suggest more aggressive measures. The Rangers received an undisclosed up-front bonus for inking the deal, which they applied toward making a run at re-signing Cliff Lee. Though that gambit failed, they still hiked their Opening Day payroll by 42 percent compared to 2010 levels, to $92.1 million. Then, when several other contenders stayed relatively quiet at this year's trade deadline, the Rangers nabbed two of the best relievers on the market in Mike Adams and Koji Uehara.
The more distant future looks even brighter. Building an optimal 25-man roster has become such a sexy topic of conversation that we get to see Brad Pitt act it out in a couple weeks' time on the big screen. Every article, blog post, and talk-radio hit fixates on how to fix the bullpen, how to structure the lineup, which player to sign, which player to trade. The Rangers have done a masterful job on those fronts, to be sure. Plenty of teams pay lip service to building a strong farm system, but Texas made it happen. By trading Mark Teixeira to Atlanta for five premium prospects in 2007, Jon Daniels announced to the baseball world that the Rangers were shifting gears; four years later, ex-Braves prospects Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, and Matt Harrison are all key Rangers contributors. Five months later, Daniels made a challenge trade of sorts, dealing talented young pitcher Edinson Volquez and a prospect to the Reds for Josh Hamilton, a move that netted a future MVP. They groomed homegrown prospects Derek Holland and Alexi Ogando into valuable starters; converted C.J. Wilson from very good reliever into a near-Cy Young caliber ace; signed Colby Lewis dirt-cheap from Japan and got a no. 2 starter out of it; outfoxed the Yankees at last year's deadline to land Cliff Lee, who propelled them to the World Series; and got Mike Napoli and his light-tower power out of a Vernon Wells trade that initially had nothing to do with them. If any GM would like to take a trade back, it might be Daniels and his giveaway of Adrian Gonzalez to the Padres for Adam Eaton, Akinori Otsuka, a prospect, and some magic beans. But by and large, the Rangers are riding a five-year winning streak of player acquisition and player development.
Still, each of these decisions pales compared to the impact that $80 million a year in revenue will have on the Rangers' chances. As any Mets or Dodgers fan of recent vintage can tell you, money doesn't guarantee success. But it sure as hell helps. If the Rangers are still being run by Daniels and his staff of bright lieutenants, if their coaches and instructors are still ballsy and creative enough to try new things such as rethinking how we train pitchers, if Jurickson Profar and a next wave of blue-chippers crashes the big league roster in style … and they have an extra $80 million a year to play with? We might have to pencil the Rangers into the playoffs nearly every season, the same way we do for the Yankees and Red Sox.
Except … there's a catch. In much the same way the Indians, Rockies, Tigers, Phillies, and scores of other teams landed lucrative stadium deals after the Orioles got theirs, other teams will surely be on the hunt for big, new TV deals. Before the shit totally hit the fan in L.A., Frank McCourt explored launching not one, but two regional sports networks that would run Dodgers games, one in English, one in Spanish. Under his projections, the Dodgers would have gone from $41 million in 2013, the final year of the team's current pact with Fox, to a staggering $158 million in 2014, and $235 million in 2018 — for the hypothetical English-language RSN alone. If McCourt opted not to build, he informed us he could also sell the TV rights, supposedly to Fox, supposedly for $3 billion over 17 years.
Those numbers might seem hard to believe coming from McCourt at a time when he's fighting the whole world to keep his grip on the Dodgers. But that doesn't mean there isn't a grain of truth in there somewhere. As onerous as it can be for a team to set up its own regional sports network, the Yankees and Red Sox have shown the immense profits waiting to be had. For teams like Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, it might be a case of the poor getting poorer, while the rich gain a chance to get richer. But where six or seven years ago maybe 10 teams could have realistically built their own RSNs, Gennaro estimates that 20 or more could do it today.
The Fox and Comcast regional networks know this all too well. In the same way that hinting of a move to another city secured huge government payouts for new stadiums in the past, a team that makes the slightest peep about building its own RSN could trigger a bidding war between competing cable networks.
"It's not just the ballclub's rights that are at stake, but rather the entire list of key programming properties for the independent network," Gennaro said. "Fox Sports Southwest was not only in jeopardy of losing the Rangers, but also their other sports programming, as a Rangers-based RSN would have been a full-fledged competitor with Fox Sports Southwest for the Mavericks and Stars. Keeping the Rangers from having their own network is a major strategic play that gives Fox Sports Southwest the upper hand against both Comcast SportsNet Dallas and the emergence of any future competitor for years to come."
The same goes for other teams and other regional TV networks. Which means that the Rangers hold an advantage, but they won't have it forever. For all of Ryan's emphasis on prudence, his team could lose some of its edge before Year 1 of its new deal even begins.
The 2011 season has yet to be decided. But if the Rangers fall short again, that'll make 50 years without a championship. When Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, and possibly CC Sabathia become available this offseason, you could hardly blame the Rangers if they tapped into that $80 million a year a little early, and punched prudence in the face.
An earlier version of this story included a footnote stating that Alex Rodriguez had signed the two largest contracts in all of sports. It has been amended to recognize Samuel Eto'o's recent contract with Russian soccer club Anzhi Makhachkala that eclipsed these numbers.


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Deep Drawable Steels: Part One
Thermo-Mechanical Treatment (TMT) of Non-Ferrous Alloys: Part One
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Overview of Total Materia database 12th January 2022
Overview of Total Materia database 13th January 2022
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The advantages of aluminum-lithium alloys are numerous and include improved weldability, reduced density, and an improved modulus of elasticity and precipitation hardening.
When considering the stringent requirements of the aerospace industry however, certain properties still require improvement including overall strength and fracture toughness.
Table 1 lists the chemical composition of various Al–Li alloys that have been industrially produced over the past thirty years. The forerunner Al–Li alloy to be developed and used was the Al–Mg–Li–Zr alloy 1420. In this alloy, the beneficial effect of 50 wt.% Mg addition on solid solution strengthening and on improved weldability was combined with the advantages of reduced density, enhanced modulus and precipitation hardening provided by 2 wt.% Li addition. A trace addition of almost 01 wt.% Zr was made to control recrystallization and grain growth. Alloy 1420 was used in the MIG-29 aircraft fuselage in the form of welded structures in the early 1980's and subsequently applied to passenger aircrafts.
However, the strength and fracture toughness of alloy 1420 were not adequate to meet the demands of modern aircraft, even in terms of specific properties. The reasons for poor fracture toughness, apart from those attributable to impurities, were related to shearing of the main strengthening phase δ' (Al3Li) which led to planar slip – an aspect discussed in detail in the next section. Further research was therefore, directed towards compositions that promised additional non-shearable precipitates that would reduce the tendency for planar slip and lead to further hardening of the alloys.
As a result of the above, alloys such as AA 8090, AA 2090, AA 2091, 1441, 1460 were developed around the world. In addition to the δ' precipitate, these alloys contained either one or both of the T1(Al2CuLi) and S (Al2CuMg) precipitate, that served to improve fracture toughness of these alloys.
Al–Li alloys have undergone several more changes in composition in the last ten years. First, the Li content of some of the alloys was reduced to < 2 wt.%. One such alloy, Weldalite-049 (AA2095), was developed specially for welded fuel tank applications. This alloy contained higher Cu compared to other Al–Li based alloys and derived its strength mainly from the T1 phase. In this alloy, Li helped improve the specific modulus.
The other alloy with lower Li content was the Russian sheet alloy 1441. Reduction in Li (< 2 wt.%) and Zr (=0.10 wt.%) content, combined with controlled rolling, allowed sheets to have fine equiaxed grain morphology, controlled texture and improved in-plane isotropy of properties.
More recent compositional changes have mainly focused on trace element additions like
Ag, Ce, Y and Sc. Of these, Sc addition has been the most successful in microstructure refinement and improved microstructural stability at high temperatures. Some of the Sc-modified variants of alloy 1420 are produced commercially in Russia and used widely for welded applications.
The objective of Novitović's O. et al paper was to study the precipitation mechanism of Al-Li alloy (8091) at strengthening maximum (peak hardness) applying quantitative microstructural analysis. Also, the identification of precipitates was one of the aims of this paper. Al-Li alloy (8091) with chemical composition 2.40 Cu, 2.0 Mg, 0.70 Zr, 1.15 Li (mass %) was solution treated at 540°C for 30 min, water-quenched and continuously heated in oil at different heating rates (0.05 and 0.1°C/min), from room temperature to 190°C.
According to previous experiments it was well documented that by aging of the supersaturated Al-Li (8091) solid solution, the maximum value of hardness (peak hardness) was achieved at this temperature. Reaching 190°C at pre-determined continuous heating, samples were water-quenched then cooled in liquid nitrogen in order in to prevent natural aging. Holding time at 190°C was 700 and 50min for samples heated at rates of 0.05 and 0.1oC/min, respectively.
Samples with dimensions 10x10x1mm were thinned by emery paper until the foil with a thickness of between 0.1 and 0.08mm was obtained. The disks with a diameter of 3mm punched from this foil were electrochemically polished. The polishing was performed at room temperature in the "Jet-pol" apparatus using a mixture of 10% HClO4 and 90% ethanol, under the following conditions: voltage – 14V, current – 20mA, time of polishing – approximatelly 60s. TEM "JEM 100C–JEOL"used for microstructural examination was operated at 100kV.
A Vickers hardness with load of 10 kgf was applied to measure hardness of heat treated samples.
Quantitative microstructural analysis was carried out by a semi-automatic device for picture analysis with automatic data processing, using microphotographs produced by light and TEM. Structural parameters which best define processes and features were measured. They are primarily the parameters which characterize precipitated particles, i.e. the particle size, the volume fraction and the numerical density, as well as the distance between the particles.
Precipitation in the Al-Li (8091) alloy was studied during heating (0.05 and 0.1°C/min) from room temperature to peak hardness (190°C). Size, shape, density, distribution and other characteristics of precipitates were determined applying the method of quantitative metallographic analysis.
Precipitate identification performed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed the presence of strengthening phases formed during heating to 190°C: δ' (Al3Li), S (Al2CuMg), and β' (Al3Zr).
Very fine δ' particles rather elliptic than spherical in shape together with lath shaped S phase may be seen in samples heated with both heating rates. Also, dislocation loops of various diameters are present in Al-matrix. The size of the δ' particles are approximately 26% larger during the faster cooling rate.
With the lower heating rate, a higher hardness was obtained than in the case when the higher heating rate was applied. Higher values of hardness may be ascribed to the smaller size of δ' particles and their homogeneous and dense distribution in the Al matrix.
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