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I want to ask if there is a situation to know the order of GARCH(p, q) from the result. For example, in the case of AR(p), one can know the value of p by plotting pacf(). In case of MA(q), one can know the value of q by plotting acf().
Is there any similar situation to know the value of p and q in GARCH(p, q) models?
May be using Engels Arch Effect test.


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One of the moderators of "I Love Cross Stitch" yahoo group taught a class for making a flat fold. The class was really fun and I hope that Maeri will teach another class in future. She did a great job. Everything I learned will be very useful for other projects as well. All by all it meant a lot of fun to follow the lessons and to watch the flat folds of the others grow.
Because of me so much playing around with this new blog it took me a while to stop goofing around and sit down to finish the flat fold off. Which I did today. Then I wanted to have a bow on top of it. Can't be that difficult I thought, got some ribbon out and realized that it might be handy to read a "how to do" first. Which I did ...and of course I tried to do it my own way. After couple of trials it worked out fine. And I sew it on top of the flat fold. Problem was, it did NOT look good. So I removed it, and added instead a simple ribbon. That looked better. As you can see, sometimes you can have the most fancy ideas, and in the end something more simple does look heaps better. I'll keep the first bow anyway thoug...might come in handy for something else.
Here are 2 pictures of the flat fold. In the first picture you can see the bow I took off laying in front of it. That's my first bow ever...next to simple bows made on presents of course.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Flat fold
One of the moderators of "I Love Cross Stitch" yahoo group taught a class for making a flat fold. The class was really fun and I hope that Maeri will teach another class in future. She did a great job. Everything I learned will be very useful for other projects as well. All by all it meant a lot of fun to follow the lessons and to watch the flat folds of the others grow.
Posted by Gabi at 8:49 PM 10 comments
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Queen of the Needle
Tomorrow evening I'll start "Queen of the Needle" from Just Nan. The plan is to stitch couple of days this one and then to return to my other big project (Alpine Season Garden) When I purchased the chart it was meant to be stitched as a SAL with my friends from "I love Cross Stitch" - but that didn't turn out as I wished. I ordered hand dyed fabric, which took ages to arrive...and I had to send it back. Was the wrong color and had a stain too. Took again ages until it arrived. But it was worth the wait. It's a lovely opalescent hand painted Cashel linen from Sugar Maples in Canada. I think the color is called "Shimmering Powderpuff" It's such a pity that Mindy from Sugar Maples stopped her business. She made so beautiful fabrics.
The SAL has already finished, but that doesn't matter. This little sampler will get a place at the wall right next to my stitching chair. It has such a nice verse ...that alone is already a reason for me to stitch it.
I am Queen of the Needle
And Boss of the Floss
etc etc
Posted by Gabi at 11:17 PM 5 comments
Labels: Just Nan, Queen of the Needle, Sampler
Hawaiian Mandala
One of my favorite designers is Martina Weber from Chatelaine Designs. At the moment I'm stitching 2 of her designs. The Hawaiian Garden Mandala get released in 12 parts. Normally the new part gets released begin of each month. Because of taking a vacation Martina released this month the part for August earlier. This evening I finished it - and it will now get rolled up until begin of September.
Posted by Gabi at 11:07 PM 7 comments
Labels: Chatelaine Designs, Hawaiian Mandala, Martina Weber
Magnet Exchange
Today I got an email from Vanessa stating that she received her magnet. Which means I can publish the picture. This was from an exchange run by my favorite yahoo group (I Love Cross Stitch) and my partner is Vanessa. I stitched for her part of a Jill Oxton Design over 1 on 25ct Lugana. The border is stitched with Dinky Dye Silk.
Posted by Gabi at 12:52 PM 5 comments
Labels: dinky dye, exchange, Jill Oxton, magnet
It's all in the name
The birth of a new blog...sheesh. Somehow I seemed one of the few not having a blog, and the main reason was simply I couldn't think of a name. Not that I'm totally thrilled with the name I gave it in the end...but at least I don't have to try and think of a name. Took me a while to come up with this. Not that I am having a lack of fantasy, but there are moments when my brain goes totally blank. Thinking of a name for a blog was one of these famous moment. Asking my daughters was not really any help either. Things came up like: IloveMelanie.blogspot....or IloveSaskiamore.blogspot..nottrue.blogspot. - Teenagers are so helpful. Finally they came up with "Mother Needle" and "Needle Devil" I politely thanked them for their help, complimented them out of the room and stared again at the monitor. "Lady of the Floss came up in my mind....and that was that.
Posted by Gabi at 12:40 PM 2 comments

subset: commoncrawl


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This traditionally sculpted sleigh bed is magnificent. Painstakingly detailed, the elegant burl and cherry veneers are showcased at their finest with the grape leaf and rope carvings adorning both headboard and footboard. The sleigh shape is classic and elegant, one of cozy comfort that will warm the atmosphere of your master suite and create the perfect eye-catching center. The bed features "Just-Right Mattress Height" bed slats that adjust six inches to accommodate various mattress thicknesses. Shown here with the high profile footboard, the frame is also available in a low-profile footboard option. Available in queen, king, and California king sizes, you are sure to love the splendor this bed has to offer.Bed frame measures four inches from bottom of side rails to floor.
The Napa Queen-Size Sleigh Bed with High Profile Footboard by Aspenhome at AHFA in the area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
The Napa Collection presents elegant, old world styling for master suites and executive home offices. Enrich your home interior with the exotic, marble-look ash burl panel designs, highlighted grape leaf motif carvings and twisted rope moulded case borders featured throughout the Napa collection. The collection offers a wide selection of desk styles and storage accommodations to suit a variety of home office needs, any of which makes a handsome accompaniment to the leather upholstered, adjustable height office chair complete with nailhead trim and a caster base. The bedroom collection encourages similar curatorial selection by offering ornately styled sleigh beds in queen, king and California king sizes, all available with or without storage drawers, as well as a selection of dresser and mirror storage combinations. Create a luxuriously traditional and powerful style for your home office and master suite with the Napa collection.
The Napa collection is a great option if you are looking for Traditional furniture in the area.
These images are representative of this group as a whole and may differ from this item.
Browse other items in the Napa collection from AHFA in the area.
This item has been tagged as: Bed, Bedroom Furniture, Twin Size Bed, Full Size Bed, Queen Size Bed, King Size Bed, California King Size Bed, Bookcase Bed, Book Case Bed, Canopy Bed, Bed with Canopy, Captain's Bed, Daybed, Headboard and Footboard Bed, Headboard, Footboard, Headboard & Footboard, Pier Bed, Poster Bed, Sleigh Bed, Upholstered Bed, Wall Unit Bed, Double Bed, Day Bed, Storage Bed, Home Furnishings, Furniture, Bed frame, Furnishing For Bedroom, Bedroom Furniture Set
Nothing on this page may be copied or reproduced without explicit permission.


text: UFDC Home | Help | RSS Group Title: Spanish Colonial St. Augustine. Images. Flags. Title: "Castile y Leon" Flag of Spain, Flags CITATION PAGE IMAGE ZOOMABLE Full Citation STANDARD VIEW MARC VIEW Permanent Link: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00066948/00001 Material Information Title: "Castile y Leon" Flag of Spain, Flags Series Title: Spanish Colonial St. Augustine. Images. Flags. Physical Description: Photograph Creator: Martin, A. L. L. Subjects Subject: Saint Augustine (Fla.) ( lcsh )Colonies -- Spain -- America Temporal Coverage: Spanish Colonial Period ( 1594 - 1920 ) Spatial Coverage: North America -- United States of America -- Florida -- Saint Johns County -- Saint Augustine -- Historic city Notes Funding: Funded by a grant from the Florida Humanities Council Record Information Bibliographic ID: UF00066948 Volume ID: VID00001 Source Institution: University of Florida Holding Location: University of Florida Rights Management: Board of Trustees of the University of Florida on behalf of authors and contributors. All rights reserved. Contact Us | Permissions | Preferences | Technical Aspects | Statistics | Internal | Privacy Policy © 2004 - 2010 University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries.All rights reserved. Acceptable Use, Copyright, and Disclaimer Statement Last updated October 10, 2010 - - mvs


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Contact Us
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For the most accurate technical information regarding features, specifications, installation and operation of your LG product, please refer to the Owner's Manual and other documents available for this product.
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TeeJet TriggerJet® Spray Gun - 1/4" Hose BarbItem # 171415
In stock.
An economical spray gun for your low-pressure spray jobs
TeeJet; TriggerJet® spray guns have a 21"L aluminum extension wand, providing the extra reach required in the nursery, greenhouse and landscaping industries. Lightweight design is ideal for use with backpack, canister or other low-pressure sprayers. Trigger lock allows gun to remain in an open position for continuous flow. Polypropylene strainer located inside handle prevents clogging. Includes an X18 spray tip. 1/4" hose barb.
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Running Wild
{LaRok Luxe, Wild Thing Moto Jacket, $468 Shopbop}
Animal prints are all over the place right now! I myself am considering investing in a faux leopard print fur jacket (too out there? I think I might have to go for it!) I stumbled upon this feature on Elle Decor about animal print in interiors, and I must say I am a huge fan. Bringing the outside in, I like! Adds a little spice and whimsy to any room, especially a traditional space. Don't be afraid to add a touch of "wild" to your space. Whether it be in a big (armchair, headboard) or small way (throw pillow, accent fabrics) let your wild side out!


text:
2015 National Conference
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New Orleans, LA
Discounted Round Trip Airport Transportation $35 per person
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Safe, Convenient and Economical
Airport Shuttle is the convenient option to renting a car. No stress from driving a rental car in a strange city.
Airport Shuttle delivers you stress-free every time.


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Lunch Catering - Event Catering - Party Catering - Party Planning - Corporate Catering - Wedding Catering - King Cakes
When selecting a caterer for your next corporate or private event you want to know the food is the very best, the décor is creative and your guests will be suitably impressed. Perhaps more than anything you want to be assured all the details have been taken care of and everything will come off without a hitch. You want a caterer and event planner with an impeccable track record and years of experience with both small and large, complex and detailed special events. At Cannata's Catering we understand consistent excellence in creativity and performance is the true key to our success and the reason why so many of our clients are repeat clients. We have simply been the very best for over three decades. Contact one of our event designers to find out why.
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Cell Phone Forensics
From ForensicsWiki
- If on, switch it off. If off, leave off.
- Note only under exceptional circumstances should the handset be left switched on and in any case every precaution to prevent the handset connecting with the Communication Service Provider should be made. Consider use of a Faraday Bay (Shielded Bag).
- Instead of switching off, it may be better to just pop the battery. Phones run a different part of their program when they are turned off. You may wish to avoid having this part of the program run.
- Collect and preserve other surrounding and related devices. Be especially careful to collect the power charger. The phone's battery will only last a certain amount of time. When it dies, much of the data on the device may go too!
- Plug the phone in, preferably in the evidence room, as soon as possible.
- Retain search warrant (if necessary - LE).
- Return device to forensic lab if able.
- Use forensically sound tools for processing.
Expand on as to what to collect:
- Carrier,
- Manufacturer,
- Model Number,
- Color, and
- Other information related to Cell Phone and SIM Card...
- Research the Cell Phone for technical specifications. Visit PhoneScoop.com or GSMArena.com for more information.
- Research the Cell Phone for forensic information. Visit Phone-Forensics.com or SmartPhoneForensics.com for more information.


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Getting into the playoffs is a pretty cool deal, especially when getting there means ending an eight-year dry spell between postseason appearances. It's cool to Galax coach Mark Dixon for a different reason. It means progress is being made.
"I'm just thrilled for our kids to get to play in front of big crowds and in games that mean something," said Dixon, the Maroon Tide's first-year head coach who admitted that when the season started, reaching the playoffs seemed to him a long shot. "I'm really happy for our seniors to get to play in a postseason game. If you'd have asked me at the beginning of the year I wouldn't have said 'playoffs.' I didn't think that was reasonable. I was hoping for us to be competitive, and I can't think of a game where we didn't compete."
Finishing above .500 in the regular season for the fist time since 2002, the Maroon Tide (7-3) will shoot for the opportunity to compete for at least another week when it and Rural Retreat (4-6) clash in the Region C Division 1 quarterfinals Friday at GHS.
The extra time added on to the season will be a reward for months of what Dixon has called 'a grind.'
"The guys are working hard and we've gained some ground, and they're starting to see the results of the day to day grind that we've been through," he said.
"I was worried at the beginning of the year because of everybody telling me about all the people we've got back, all the talent, all this and all that, and I just didn't see it. As the year has gone on I'm seeing more and more what they're capable of, so I'm thrilled for them, that they're playing like they are."
One of the region's premier D1 programs and a mainstay in the postseason for years, Rural Retreat turned around an 0-4 start with four straight wins before falling in consecutive weeks to the Hogoheegee District's big boys, George Wythe and Chilhowie. Facing a veer option team will be something new to the Maroon Tide.
"They look like they can run the ball with the trap and option," Dixon said. "You can tell they've been doing it a while."
Having not been opposite the Indians in person yet, Dixon sees snippets of others on Galax's schedule in the Rural Retreat scheme.
"It's kind of a hybrid for us," he said. "There are some things they do defensively that remind me of Carroll and some things they do offensively – they trap really good like Carroll – but the option game we haven't seen. Some of it does remind me of Craig County."
Led by quarterback Zayne Williams and runningback Travis Anderson, Rural Retreat's running game is made more potent by a capable passing attack, as Williams is around 1,000 yards for the year, with more than 700 yards and 10 touchdowns landing in the hands of Travis Foster.
Eight of Rural Retreat's 10 regular season opponents are still playing this week, so gauging the Indians' strength has been a little difficult.
"It's hard because some of the teams they've played, I don't know how good they are," Dixon said. "It's hard to evaluate what I'm seeing. In high school a guy can struggle one week and against us be great, and I realize he just struggled because the guy he was playing against was really good. There have been games where we'd start out running one way and the guy we're running at ends up destroying us."
Galax enters the postseason having won five of its last six games, the only setback a 20-16 defeat at 8-2 Fort Chiswell.
The Indians and the Maroon Tide have only met three times previously from 1996-98, with Rural Retreat taking the first two meetings.
Region C Division 1 first round
Rural Retreat (4-6) at Galax (7-3)
Friday, 7:30, Galax High School
Radio: WWWJ 1360AM
Internet: www.wwwj1360.com
Last week
Rural Retreat lost to Chilhowie 37-13
Galax defeated Narrows 41-0
Last meeting
1998 (Galax won 32-22)
Last Rural Retreat win
1997 (38-0)
How they advanced
Rural Retreat advances as an at-large team after finishing third in the Hogoheegee District. The No. 6 seed Indians rebounded from an 0-4 start with four straight wins before ending the regular season with back-to-back losses.
Galax advances as an at-large team, finishing in a three-way tie for the Mountain Empire championship, and will make its first playoff appearance since 2002. The No. 3-seed Maroon Tide had its most successful regular season since a 9-1 campaign in 2001.
Common opponents
Fort Chiswell
Rural Retreat lost 41-19 Aug. 27
Galax lost 20-16 Oct. 15
Grayson County
Rural Retreat lost 55-20 Sept. 11
Galax won 23-14 Oct. 8
Galax won 45-0 Aug. 27
Rural Retreat won 49-28 Oct. 22
The season
Rural Retreat Galax
L to Ft. Chiswell 41-19 D Northwood 45-0
L to Floyd Co. 48-20 D Alleghany NC 35-0
L to Grayson Co. 55-20 L to EastMont 38-26
L to Marion 27-14 L to Radford 27-21
Open D Craig Co. 30-21
D Glenvar 27-20 Open
D Patrick Henry 35-14 D Grayson Co. 23-14
D Holston 40-6 L to Ft. Chiswell 20-16
D Northwood 49-28 D Covington 34-6
L to Geo. Wythe 31-20 D Bland Co. 32-7
L to Chilhowie 37-13 D Narrows 41-0
The series (since 1970)
1996–Rural Retreat 50-0
1997–Rural Retreat 38-0
1998–Galax 32-22
Rural Retreat leads 2-1
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Only passable as a thriller, this efficient potboiler has some good characterizations, okay acting,
and a truly ruthless attitude unusual for 1955 screen fare. In what might be his best role, a very
young Robert Wagner has a field day as a diabolical killer with a way around every obstacle on his
path to riches.
The trailer for A Kiss Before Dying actually compares the show to
A Place in the Sun, the famous story of a
young man who lets the American dream run away with his soul. Bud Corliss is a
completely cynical version of the same character, a man who will do anything it takes to get
what he wants, including committing two ghastly killings. And pretty-boy Wagner leaves us with
no doubt that he's capable of such deeds - he broods and schemes in between condescending scenes
with his sweet mother. She's played by Mary Astor, who of course was one of the screen's most
famous femme fatales in The Maltese Falcon 16 years earlier.
This was either Joanne Woodward's first or second film, and she's so obviously set up to be
murdered in the first part of the story, that we identify strongly with her. She handles the
role of an inconveniently pregnant woman with a lot of dignity, needing support but never whining. The
structure of the movie eerily predates Psycho, except of course, there a leading star was
Capable Virginia Leith has her reasonable share of talent, but even though she gets the bulk of this
show to herself, her career didn't take off like Joanne's. After a few reasonable parts, she wound up in
The Brain that Wouldn't Die, a
career killer if there ever was one - even though she was excellent in it.
Interesting director Gerd Oswald, later known as one of the better contributors to the
Outer Limits TV series, uses the CinemaScope
screen well, and directs with a sure and economical hand.
The plotting is a tad pat, but it lets everyone act in a reasonably intelligent way. Leith conducts
her own Vera Miles-like investigation into her sister's death. Only a rather wooden Jeffrey Hunter
is left hanging around the periphery, to finally step in with some bad news near the end. George
Macready has an atypical role as a cold father who turns out to be fairly nice. A Kiss Before Dying
is a conservative's reworking of A Place in the Sun - this time, nothing at all is wrong
with society: all fault lies with a socially ambitious demon/killer.
Coming through well in a small part is a very young Robert Quarry, who would later
find his own little corner of A.I.P. fame in a pair of Count Yorga vampire movies. His manner and
appearance are a bit reminiscent of young Christopher Lee.
MGM's DVD of A Kiss Before Dying is mostly spotless. A few exterior scenes in the middle have a
strange pulsing of blue that bleeds through some of the blacks, that's a bit distracting for a minute
or so. I'm not sure where the film was shot - Phoenix? - but it's a big desert city with
palm trees and a stately college. 1
Cameraman Lucien Ballard makes good use of the 'Scope
frame in the exteriors, but his garish night lighting is even better. Many setups look like the
glossy, trashy covers of '50s crime novels. The sound is clear on this one, but appears to dip
in volume at the midpoint of the picture - I had to boost the level a couple of times during
the show. Nelson Riddle's jazzy orchestrations sound great, even though a title tune makes what's
obvious in the show, even more obvious.
The trailer has a nonstop narration hyping the movie, and ends by giving away the key shock scene,
so don't watch it before the feature!
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
A Kiss Before Dying rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Very Good
Sound: Good
Supplements: trailer
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: November 25, 2002
1. An Email, 11.26.02: "Hi Glenn, This film was shot right here in Tucson, home of the
University of Arizona. The building from which Robert Wagner tosses poor Joanne Woodward is
now the Bank One building, on the corner of Congress and Stone streets. I love your website!"
- Richard McQuillan Return
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The most egregious liar I ever knew was someone I never suspected until the day that, suddenly and irrevocably, I did. Twelve years ago, a young man named Stephen Glass began writing for The New Republic, where I was an editor. He quickly established himself as someone who was always onto an amusingly outlandish story—like the time he met some Young Republican types at a convention, gathered them around a hotel-room minibar, then, with guileless ferocity, captured their boorishness in print. I liked Steve; most of us who worked with him did. A baby-faced guy from suburban Chicago, he padded around the office in his socks. Before going on an errand, Steve would ask if I wanted a muffin or a sandwich; he always noticed a new scarf or a clever turn of phrase, and asked after a colleague's baby or spouse. When he met with editors to talk about his latest reporting triumph, he was self-effacing and sincere. He'd look us in the eye, wait for us to press him for details, and then, without fidgeting or mumbling, supply them.
One day, the magazine published an article by Steve about a teen-ager so diabolically gifted at hacking into corporate computer networks that C.E.O.s paid him huge sums just to stop messing with them. A reporter for the online edition of Forbes was assigned to chase down the story. You can see how Steve's journalism career unravelled if you watch the movie "Shattered Glass": Forbes challenged the story's veracity, and Steve—after denying the charges, concocting a fake Web site, and enlisting his brother to pose as a victimized C.E.O.—finally confessed that he'd made up the whole thing. Editors and reporters at the magazine investigated, and found that Steve had been inventing stories for at least a year. The magazine disavowed twenty-seven articles.
After Steve's unmasking, my colleagues and I felt ashamed of our gullibility. But maybe we shouldn't have. Human beings are terrible lie detectors. In academic studies, subjects asked to distinguish truth from lies answer correctly, on average, fifty-four per cent of the time. They are better at guessing when they are being told the truth than when they are being lied to, accurately classifying only forty-seven per cent of lies, according to a recent meta-analysis of some two hundred deception studies, published by Bella DePaulo, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Charles Bond, Jr., of Texas Christian University. Subjects are often led astray by an erroneous sense of how a liar behaves. "People hold a stereotype of the liar—as tormented, anxious, and conscience-stricken," DePaulo and Bond write. (The idea that a liar's anxiety will inevitably become manifest can be found as far back as the ancient Greeks, Demosthenes in particular.) In fact, many liars experience what deception researchers call "duping delight."
Aldert Vrij, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth, in England, argues that there is no such thing as "typical" deceptive behavior—"nothing as obvious as Pinocchio's growing nose." When people tell complicated lies, they frequently pause longer and more often, and speak more slowly; but if the lie is simple, or highly polished, they tend to do the opposite. Clumsy deceivers are sometimes visibly agitated, but, over all, liars are less likely to blink, to move their hands and feet, or to make elaborate gestures—perhaps they deliberately inhibit their movements. As DePaulo says, "To be a good liar, you don't need to know what behaviors really separate liars from truthtellers, but what behaviors people think separate them."
A liar's testimony is often more persuasive than a truthteller's. Liars are more likely to tell a story in chronological order, whereas honest people often present accounts in an improvised jumble. Similarly, according to DePaulo and Bond, subjects who spontaneously corrected themselves, or said that there were details that they couldn't recall, were more likely to be truthful than those who did not—though, in the real world, memory lapses arouse suspicion.
People who are afraid of being disbelieved, even when they are telling the truth, may well look more nervous than people who are lying. This is bad news for the falsely accused, especially given that influential manuals of interrogation reinforce the myth of the twitchy liar. "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" (1986), by Fred Inbau, John Reid, and Joseph Buckley, claims that shifts in posture and nervous "grooming gestures," such as "straightening hair" and "picking lint from clothing," often signal lying. David Zulawski and Douglas Wicklander's "Practical Aspects of Interview and Interrogation" (1992) asserts that a liar's movements tend to be "jerky and abrupt" and his hands "cold and clammy." Bunching Kleenex in a sweaty hand is another damning sign—one more reason for a sweaty-palmed, Kleenex-bunching person like me to hope that she's never interrogated.
Maureen O'Sullivan, a deception researcher at the University of San Francisco, studies why humans are so bad at recognizing lies. Many people, she says, base assessments of truthfulness on irrelevant factors, such as personality or appearance. "Baby-faced, non-weird, and extroverted people are more likely to be judged truthful," she says. (Maybe this explains my trust in Steve Glass.) People are also blinkered by the "truthfulness bias": the vast majority of questions we ask of other people—the time, the price of the breakfast special—are answered honestly, and truth is therefore our default expectation. Then, there's the "learning-curve problem." We don't have a refined idea of what a successful lie looks and sounds like, since we almost never receive feedback on the fibs that we've been told; the co-worker who, at the corporate retreat, assured you that she loved your presentation doesn't usually reveal later that she hated it. As O'Sullivan puts it, "By definition, the most convincing lies go undetected."
Maybe it's because we're such poor lie detectors that we have kept alive the dream of a foolproof lie-detecting machine. This February, at a conference on deception research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Steven Hyman, a psychiatrist and the provost of Harvard, spoke of "the incredible hunger to have some test that separates truth from deception—in some sense, the science be damned."
This hunger has kept the polygraph, for example, in widespread use. The federal government still performs tens of thousands of polygraph tests a year—even though an exhaustive 2003 National Academy of Sciences report concluded that research on the polygraph's efficacy was inadequate, and that when it was used to investigate a specific incident after the fact it performed "well above chance, though well below perfection." Polygraph advocates cite accuracy estimates of ninety per cent—which sounds impressive until you think of the people whose lives might be ruined by a machine that fails one out of ten times. The polygraph was judged thoroughly unreliable as a screening tool; its accuracy in "distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers" was deemed "insufficient to justify reliance on its use." And its success in criminal investigations can be credited, in no small part, to the intimidation factor. People who believe that they are in the presence of an infallible machine sometimes confess, and this is counted as an achievement of the polygraph. (According to law-enforcement lore, the police have used copy machines in much the same way: They tell a suspect to place his hand on a "truth machine"—a copier in which the paper has "LIE " printed on it. When the photocopy emerges, it shows the suspect's hand with "LIE " stamped on it.)
Over the past two decades, inventors have attempted to supplant the polygraph with new technologies: voice-stress analysis; thermal imaging of the face; and, most recently and spectacularly, brain imaging. Though these methods remain in an embryonic stage of development, they have already been greeted with considerable enthusiasm, especially in America. Private companies are eager to replace traditional modes of ascertaining the truth—such as the jury system—with a machine that can be patented and sold. And law-enforcement agencies yearn to overcome the problem of suspects who often remain maddeningly opaque, even in the face of sustained interrogation. Although one immediate result of the September 11th attacks was the revival of an older, and even more controversial, form of interrogation—torture—the war on terror has also inflamed the desire for a mind-reading machine.
Not long ago, I met with an entrepreneur named Joel Huizenga, who has started a company, based in San Diego, called No Lie MRI. Most methods of lie detection look at the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. The polygraph, for instance, is essentially an instrument for measuring stress. Heart and respiration rates, blood volume, and galvanic skin response—a proxy for palm sweat—are represented as tracings on graph paper or on a screen, which fluctuate with every heartbeat or breath. The method that Huizenga is marketing, which employs a form of body scanning known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, promises to look inside the brain. "Once you jump behind the skull, there's no hiding," Huizenga told me.
Functional MRI technology, invented in the early nineties, has been used primarily as a diagnostic tool for identifying neurological disorders and for mapping the brain. Unlike MRIs, which capture a static image, an fMRI makes a series of scans that show changes in the flow of oxygenated blood preceding neural events. The brain needs oxygen to perform mental tasks, so a rise in the level of oxygenated blood in one part of the brain can indicate cognitive activity there. (Blood has different magnetic properties when it is oxygenated, which is why it is helpful to have a machine that is essentially a big magnet.) Brain-scan lie detection is predicated on the idea that lying requires more cognitive effort, and therefore more oxygenated blood, than truthtelling.
Brain scanning promises to show us directly what the polygraph showed us obliquely. Huizenga expects his company to be a force for justice, exonerating customers who are, as he put it, "good people trying to push back the cruel world that is indicting them unfairly." Brain scans already have clout in the courtroom; during death-penalty hearings, judges often allow images suggesting neurological impairment to be introduced as mitigating evidence. In theory, an improved method of lie detection could have as profound an impact as DNA evidence, which has freed more than a hundred wrongly accused people since its introduction, in the late eighties. If Huizenga has perfected such a technology, he's onto something big.
At Huizenga's suggestion, we met at a restaurant called the Rusty Pelican, on the Pacific Coast Highway, in Newport Beach. A television screen on one wall showed a surfing contest; Huizenga, who is fifty-three, with dirty-blond hair in a boyish cut, is a surfer himself. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado, a master's degree in biology from Stony Brook, and an M.B.A. from the University of Rochester. No Lie is Huizenga's second startup. The first, ISCHEM Corporation, uses body scanning to look for plaque in people's arteries. Before that, he worked for Pantox, a company that offers blood tests to gauge a person's antioxidant levels.
After we sat down, Huizenga recounted the origins of No Lie. A few years ago, he came across an item in the Times about some tantalizing research conducted by Daniel Langleben, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. Subjects were placed inside an fMRI machine and told to make some true statements and some false ones. Brain scans taken while the subjects were lying frequently showed a significantly increased level of activity in three discrete areas of the cerebral cortex. Langleben suggested that "intentional deception" could be "anatomically localized" by fMRI scanning. Huizenga immediately saw a business opportunity. "I jumped on it," he told me. "If I wasn't here sitting in front of you, somebody else would be."
The Web site for No Lie claims that its technology, which is based on the Penn protocol, "represents the first and only direct measure of truth verification and lie detection in human history!" No Lie just started offering tests commercially, and has charged about a dozen clients approximately ten thousand dollars apiece for an examination. (No Lie sends customers to an independent imaging center in Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles, to insure that "quality testing occurs according to standardized test protocols.") Some of these initial clients are involved in civil and criminal cases; the first person to use the service, Harvey Nathan, was accused in 2003 of deliberately setting fire to a deli that he owns in South Carolina. A judge dismissed the charges, but Nathan wanted to bring suit against his insurance company, and he thought that documented evidence of his innocence would further his cause. So in December he flew to California and took No Lie's test. He passed. Nathan said, "If I hadn't, I would have jumped from the seventeenth floor of the hotel where I was staying. How could I have gone back to South Carolina and said, 'Oh that machine must not have worked right'? I believed in it then and I believe in it now." Nathan's exam was filmed for the Discovery Channel, which may soon launch a reality series centering on brain-scanning lie detection.
Several companies have expressed interest in No Lie's services, Huizenga told me. (He would not name them.) He said that he will be able to accommodate corporate clients once he has signed deals with other scanning facilities; he is in talks with imaging centers in a dozen cities, including New York and Chicago. No Lie also plans to open a branch in Switzerland later this year.
Huizenga has been criticized for his company's name, but he said, "It's not about being dignified—it's about being remembered." He believes that the market for fMRI-based lie detection will one day exceed that of the polygraph industry, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Investment analysts say that it is too soon to judge if Huizenga's optimism is warranted, but No Lie has attracted some prominent backing. One of its prime investors is Alex Hart, the former C.E.O. of MasterCard International, who is also serving as a management consultant. And it has a "scientific board" consisting of four paid advisers, among them Terrence Sejnowski, the director of the Crick-Jacobs Center for theoretical and computational biology at the Salk Institute. In an e-mail, Sejnowski explained that he offers counsel on "advanced signal processing and machine-learning techniques that can help improve the analysis of the data and the accuracy of the performance." He said of No Lie, "The demand is there, and to succeed as a company the new technology only needs to be better than existing approaches."
Huizenga speaks of his company's goals in blunt terms. "What do people lie about?" he asked me. "Sex, power, and money—probably in that order." (The company's Web site recommends No Lie's services for "risk reduction in dating," "trust issues in interpersonal relationships," and "issues concerning the underlying topics of sex, power, and money.") "Parents say, 'Yes, this is perfect for adolescents,' " he went on. "People who are dating say, 'Yes, this is great for dating, because people never tell you the truth.' "
He said that his company receives dozens of inquiries a week: from divorcing men accused of child abuse; from women wanting to prove their fidelity to jealous spouses or boyfriends; from people representing governments in Africa and the former Soviet republics; from "the Chinese police department." He said that he understood why governments were interested in lie-detection technology. "Look at Joe Stalin," he said. "Joe wanted power, he wanted to be on top. Well, it's hard to murder massive numbers of opponents. People in our government, and in others', need more effective ways of weeding out those who aren't their puppets." Some potential foreign clients had explained to him, he said, that in societies that lacked "civilization, there is not trust, and lie detection could help build that trust." (He wasn't sure about that—he was "mulling it over.") Huizenga said that the United States government was "interested" in the kind of technology offered by No Lie; the company has hired Joel S. Lisker, a former F.B.I. agent, to be its "sales liaison for the federal government." (Lisker declined to be interviewed, saying that his government contacts were "confidential.")
The Pentagon has supported research into high-tech lie detection, including the use of fMRI. The major scientific papers in the field were funded, in part, by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops new technologies for military use, and by the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute, which trains lie-detection experts at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. (The Polygraph Institute underwent a name change in January—it's now the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment—apparently in deference to new technologies such as fMRI.) Last June, the A.C.L.U. filed several Freedom of Information Act requests in an attempt to learn more about the government's involvement with the technology. Chris Calabrese, an A.C.L.U. lawyer, said that the C.I.A. would neither "confirm nor deny" that it is investigating fMRI applications; the Pentagon produced PowerPoint presentations identifying brain scans as a promising new technology for lie detection. Calabrese went on, "We were motivated by the fact that there are companies trying to sell this technology to the government. This Administration has a history of using questionable techniques of truth verification."
Many scholars also think that Huizenga's effort is premature. Steven Hyman, the Harvard professor, told me that No Lie was "foolish." But the history of lie-detection machines suggests that it would be equally foolish to assume that a few scholarly critics can forestall the adoption of such a seductive new technology. "People are drawn to it," Huizenga said, smiling. "It's a magnetic concept."
In comic books of the nineteen-forties, Wonder Woman, the sexy Amazon superhero, wields a golden "lasso of truth." Anybody she captures is rendered temporarily incapable of lying. Like the golden lasso, the polygraph, its inventors believed, compelled the body to reveal the mind's secrets. But the connection between the lasso and the lie detector is even more direct than that: Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston, was also a key figure in the development of the polygraph. Marston, like other pioneers of lie detection, believed that the conscious mind could be circumvented, and the truth uncovered, through the measurement of bodily signals.
This was not a new idea. In 1730, Daniel Defoe published "An Effectual Scheme for the Immediate Preventing of Street Robberies and Suppressing All Other Disorders of the Night," in which he proposed an alternative to physical coercion: "Guilt carries fear always about with it, there is a tremor in the blood of a thief, that, if attended to, would effectually discover him; and if charged as a suspicious fellow, on that suspicion only I would feel his pulse."
In the late nineteenth century, the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso invented his own version of a lie detector, based on the physiology of emotion. A suspect was told to plunge his hand into a tank filled with water, and the subject's pulse would cause the level of liquid to rise and fall slightly; the greater the fluctuation, the more dishonest the subject was judged to be.
Lombroso's student Angelo Mosso, a physiologist, noticed that shifts in emotion were often detectable in fair-skinned people in the flushing or blanching of their faces. Based on this observation, he designed a bed that rested on a fulcrum. If a suspect reclining on it told a lie, Mosso hypothesized, resulting changes in blood flow would alter the distribution of weight on the bed, unbalancing it. The device, known as Mosso's cradle, apparently never made it past the prototype.
William Moulton Marston was born in 1893, in Boston. He attended Harvard, where he worked in the lab of Hugo Münsterberg, a German émigré psychologist, who had been tinkering with an apparatus that registered responses to emotions, such as horror and tenderness, through graphical tracing of pulse rates. One student volunteer was Gertrude Stein. (She later wrote of the experience in the third person: "Strange fancies begin to crowd upon her, she feels that the silent pen is writing on and on forever.")
In 1917, Marston published a paper arguing that systolic blood pressure could be monitored to detect deception. As Ken Alder, a history professor at Northwestern, notes in his recent book, "The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession," Münsterberg and Marston's line of inquiry caught the imagination of police detectives, reporters, and law-enforcement reformers across the country, who saw a lie-detecting machine as an alternative not only to the brutal interrogation known as the third degree but also to the jury system. In 1911, an article in the Times predicted a future in which "there will be no jury, no horde of detectives and witnesses, no charges and countercharges, and no attorney for the defense. These impediments of our courts will be unnecessary. The State will merely submit all suspects in a case to the tests of scientific instruments."__
John Larson, a police officer in Berkeley, California, who also had a doctorate in physiology, expanded on Marston's work. He built an unwieldy device, the "cardio-pneumo-psychograph," which used a standard cuff to measure blood pressure, and a rubber hose wrapped around the subject's chest to measure his breathing. Subjects were told to answer yes-or-no questions; their physiological responses were recorded by styluses that scratched black recording paper on revolving drums.
In 1921, as Alder writes, Larson had his first big chance to test his device. He was seeking to identify a thief at a residence hall for female students at Berkeley. Larson gave several suspects a six-minute exam, in which he asked various questions: "How much is thirty times forty?" "Will you graduate this year?" "Do you dance?" "Did you steal the money?" The result foretold the way in which a polygraph would often "work": as a goad to confession. A student nurse confessed to the crime—a few days after she'd stormed out during the exam.
In the early twenties, another member of the Berkeley police force, Leonarde Keeler, increased the number of physical signs that the lie detector monitored. His portable machine recorded pulse rate, blood pressure, respiration, and "electrodermal response"—again, palm sweat. Today's lie detector looks much like Keeler's eighty-year-old invention. And it bears the same name: the polygraph.
Polygraphs never caught on in Europe. But here their advent coincided with the Prohibition-era crime wave; with a new fascination with the unconscious (this was also the era of experimentation with so-called truth serums); and with the wave of technological innovation that had brought Americans electricity, radios, telephones, and cars. The lie detector quickly insinuated itself into American law enforcement: at the end of the thirties, a survey of thirteen city police departments showed that they had given polygraphs to nearly nine thousand suspects.
In 1923, Marston tried without success to get a polygraph test introduced as evidence in the Washington, D.C., murder trial of James Alphonso Frye. In its ruling, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declared that a new scientific method had to have won "general acceptance" from experts before judges could give it credence. Since this decision, the polygraph has been kept out of most courtrooms, but there is an important exception: about half the states allow a defendant to take the test, generally on the understanding that the charges will be dropped if he passes and the results may be entered as evidence if he fails.
The polygraph became widely used in government and in business, often with dubious results. In the fifties, the State Department deployed the lie detector to help purge suspected homosexuals. As late as the seventies, a quarter of American corporations used the polygraph on their employees. Although Congress banned most such tests when it passed the Polygraph Protection Act, in 1988, the federal government still uses the polygraph for security screenings—despite high-profile mistakes. The polygraph failed to cast suspicion on Aldrich Ames, the C.I.A. agent who spied for the Soviets, and wrongly implicated Wen Ho Lee, the Department of Energy scientist, as an agent of the Chinese government.
One excellent way to gauge the polygraph's effectiveness would be to compare it with an equally intimidating fake machine, just as a drug is compared with a placebo. But, strangely, no such experiment has ever been performed. In 1917, the year that Marston published his first paper on lie detection, his research encountered strong skepticism. John F. Shepard, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, wrote a review of Marston's research. Though the physical changes that the machine measured were "an index of activity," Shepard wrote, the same results "would be caused by so many different circumstances, anything demanding equal activity (intelligence or emotional)." The same criticism holds true today. All the physiological responses measured by the polygraph have causes other than lying, vary greatly among individuals, and can be affected by conscious effort. Breathing is particularly easy to regulate. Advice on how to beat the lie detector is a cottage industry. "Deception Detection: Winning the Polygraph Game" (1991) warns potential subjects, "Don't complain about a dry mouth. An examiner will interpret this as fear of being found out and will press you even harder." (Many people do get dry-mouthed when they're nervous—which is apparently why, during the Inquisition, a suspect was sometimes made to swallow a piece of bread and cheese: if it stuck in his throat, he was deemed guilty.) Other well-known "countermeasures" include taking a mild sedative; using mental imagery to calm yourself; and biting your tongue to make yourself seem anxious in response to random questions.
Why, then, is the polygraph still used? Perhaps the most vexing thing about the device is that, for all its flaws, it's not pure hokum: a racing pulse and an increased heart rate can indicate guilt. Every liar has felt an involuntary flutter, at least once. Yet there are enough exceptions to insure that the polygraph will identify some innocent people as guilty and some guilty people as innocent.
At the Cambridge conference, Jed S. Rakoff, a United States district judge in New York, told a story about a polygraph and a false confession. Days after September 11th, an Egyptian graduate student named Abdallah Higazy came to the attention of the F.B.I. Higazy had been staying at the Millennium Hotel near Ground Zero on the day of the attacks. A hotel security guard claimed that he had found a pilot's radio in Higazy's room. Higazy said that it wasn't his, and when he appeared before Rakoff he asked to be given a polygraph. As Rakoff recalled, "Higazy very much believed in them and thought it would exonerate him." During a four-hour interrogation by an F.B.I. polygrapher, Higazy first repeated that he knew nothing about the radio, and then said that maybe it was his. He was charged with lying to the F.B.I. and went to prison. Within a month, a pilot stopped by the hotel to ask about a radio that he had accidentally left there. The security guard who found the radio admitted that it hadn't been in Higazy's room; he was prosecuted and pled guilty. Higazy was exonerated, and a subsequent investigation revealed that he had felt dizzy and ill during the examination, probably out of nervousness. But when Higazy asked the polygrapher if anyone had ever become ill during a polygraph test he was told that "it had not happened to anyone who told the truth."
To date, there have been only a dozen or so peer-reviewed studies that attempt to catch lies with fMRI technology, and most of them involved fewer than twenty people. Nevertheless, the idea has inspired a torrent of media attention, because scientific studies involving brain scans dazzle people, and because mind reading by machine is a beloved science-fiction trope, revived most recently in movies like "Minority Report" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Many journalistic accounts of the new technology—accompanied by colorful bitmapped images of the brain in action—resemble science fiction themselves. In January, the Financial Times proclaimed, "For the first time in history, it is becoming possible to read someone else's mind with the power of science." A CNBC report, accompanied by the Eurythmics song "Would I Lie to You?," showed its reporter entering an fMRI machine, described as a "sure-fire way to identify a liar." In March, a cover story in the Times Magazine predicted transformations of the legal system in response to brain imaging; its author, Jeffrey Rosen, suggested that there was a widespread "fear" among legal scholars that "the use of brain-scanning technology as a kind of super mind-reading device will threaten our privacy and mental freedom." Philadelphia has declared "the end of the lie," and a Wired article, titled "Don't Even Think About Lying," proclaimed that fMRI is "poised to transform the security industry, the judicial system, and our fundamental notions of privacy." Such talk has made brain-scan lie detection sound as solid as DNA evidence—which it most definitely is not.
Paul Bloom, a cognitive psychologist at Yale, believes that brain imaging has a beguiling appeal beyond its actual power to explain mental and emotional states. "Psychologists can be heard grousing that the only way to publish in Science or Nature is with pretty color pictures of the brain," he wrote in an essay for the magazine Seed. "Critical funding decisions, precious column inches, tenure posts, science credibility, and the popular imagination have all been influenced by fMRI's seductive but deceptive grasp on our attentions." Indeed, in the past decade, Nature alone has published nearly a hundred articles involving fMRI scans. The technology is a remarkable tool for exploring the brain, and may one day help scientists understand much more about cognition and emotion. But enthusiasm for brain scans leads people to overestimate the accuracy with which they can pinpoint the sources of complex things like love or altruism, let alone explain them.
Brain scans enthrall us, in part, because they seem more like "real" science than those elaborate deductive experiments that so many psychologists perform. In the same way that an X-ray confirms a bone fissure, a brain scan seems to offer an objective measure of mental activity. And, as Bloom writes, fMRI research "has all the trappings of work with great lab-cred: big, expensive, and potentially dangerous machines, hospitals and medical centers, and a lot of people in white coats."
Deena Skolnick Weisberg, a graduate student at Yale, has conducted a clever study, to be published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, which points to the outsized glamour of brain-scan research. She and her colleagues provided three groups—neuroscientists, neuroscience students, and ordinary adults—with explanations for common psychological phenomena (such as the tendency to assume that other people know the same things we do). Some of these explanations were crafted to be bad. Weisberg found that all three groups were adept at identifying the bad explanations, except when she inserted the words "Brain scans indicate." Then the students and the regular adults became notably less discerning. Weisberg and her colleagues conclude, "People seem all too ready to accept explanations that allude to neuroscience."
Some bioethicists have been particularly credulous, assuming that MRI mind reading is virtually a done deal, and arguing that there is a need for a whole new field: "neuroethics." Judy Illes and Eric Racine, bioethicists at Stanford, write that fMRI, by laying bare the brain's secrets, may "fundamentally alter the dynamics between personal identity, responsibility, and free will." A recent article in The American Journal of Bioethics asserts that brain-scan lie detection may "force a reëxamination of the very idea of privacy, which up until now could not reliably penetrate the individual's cranium."
Legal scholars, for their part, have started debating the constitutionality of using brain-imaging evidence in court. At a recent meeting of a National Academy of Sciences committee on lie detection, in Washington, D.C., Hank Greely, a Stanford law professor, said, "When we make speculative leaps like these . . . it increases, sometimes in detrimental ways, the belief that the technology works." In the rush of companies like No Lie to market brain scanning, and in the rush of scholars to judge the propriety of using the technology, relatively few people have asked whether fMRIs can actually do what they either hope or fear they can do.
Functional MRI is not the first digital-age breakthrough that was supposed to supersede the polygraph. First, there was "brain fingerprinting," which is based on the idea that the brain releases a recognizable electric signal when processing a memory. The technique used EEG sensors to try to determine whether a suspect retained memories related to a crime—an image of, say, a murder weapon. In 2001, Time named Lawrence Farwell, the developer of brain fingerprinting, one of a hundred innovators who "may be the Picassos or the Einsteins of the 21st century." But researchers have since noted a big drawback: it's impossible to distinguish between brain signals produced by actual memories and those produced by imagined memories—as in a made-up alibi.
After September 11th, another technology was widely touted: thermal imaging, an approach based on the finding that the area around the eyes can heat up when people lie. The developers of this method—Ioannis Pavlidis, James Levine, and Norman Eberhardt—published journal articles that had titles like "Seeing Through the Face of Deception" and were accompanied by dramatic thermal images. But the increased blood flow that raises the temperature around the eyes is just another mark of stress. Any law-enforcement agency that used the technique to spot potential terrorists would also pick up a lot of jangly, harmless travellers.
Daniel Langleben, the Penn psychiatrist whose research underpins No Lie, began exploring this potential new use for MRIs in the late nineties. Langleben, who is forty-five, has spent most of his career studying the brains of heroin addicts and hyperactive boys. He developed a side interest in lying partly because his research agenda made him think about impulse control, and partly because his patients often lied to him. Five years ago, Langleben and a group of Penn colleagues published the study on brain scanning and lie detection that attracted Huizenga's attention. In the experiment, which was written up in Neuroimage, each of twenty-three subjects was offered an envelope containing a twenty-dollar bill and a playing card—the five of clubs. They were told that they could keep the money if they could conceal the card's identity when they were asked about it inside an MRI machine. The subjects pushed a button to indicate yes or no as images of playing cards flashed on a screen in front of them. After Langleben assembled the data, he concluded that lying seemed to involve more cognitive effort than truthtelling, and that three areas of the brain generally became more active during acts of deception: the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with heightened attention and error monitoring; the dorsal lateral prefontal cortex, which is involved in behavioral control; and the parietal cortex, which helps process sensory input. Three years later, Langleben and his colleagues published another study, again involving concealed playing cards, which suggested that lying could be differentiated from truthtelling in individuals as well as in groups. The fMRI's accuracy rate for distinguishing truth from lies was seventy-seven per cent.
Andrew Kozel and Mark George, then at the Medical University of South Carolina, were doing similar work at the time; in 2005, they published a study of fMRI lie detection in which thirty people were instructed to enter a room and take either a watch or a ring that had been placed there. Then, inside a scanner, they were asked to lie about which object they had taken but to answer truthfully to neutral questions, such as "Do you like chocolate?" The researchers distinguished truthful from deceptive responses in ninety per cent of the cases. (Curiously, Kozel's team found that liars had heightened activity in different areas of the brain than Langleben did.)
Langleben and Kozel weren't capturing a single, crisp image of the brain processing a lie; an fMRI's record of a split-second event is considered unreliable. Instead, they asked a subject to repeat his answer dozens of times while the researchers took brain scans every couple of seconds. A computer then counted the number of "voxels" (the 3-D version of pixels) in the brain image that reflected a relatively high level of oxygenated blood, and used algorithms to determine whether this elevated activity mapped onto specific regions of the brain.
One problem of fMRI lie detection is that the machines, which cost about three million dollars each, are notoriously finicky. Technicians say that the scanners often have "bad days," in which they can produce garbage data. And a subject who squirms too much in the scanner can invalidate the results. (Even moving your tongue in your mouth can cause a problem.) The results for four of the twenty-three subjects in Langleben's first study had to be thrown out because the subjects had fidgeted.
The Langleben studies also had a major flaw in their design: the concealed playing card came up only occasionally on the screen, so the increased brain activity that the scans showed could have been a result not of deception but of heightened attention to the salient card. Imagine that you're the research subject: You're lying on your back, trying to hold still, probably bored, maybe half asleep, looking at hundreds of cards that don't concern you. Then, at last, up pops the five of clubs—and your brain sparks with recognition.
Nearly all the volunteers for Langleben's studies were Penn students or members of the academic community. There were no sociopaths or psychopaths; no one on antidepressants or other psychiatric medication; no one addicted to alcohol or drugs; no one with a criminal record; no one mentally retarded. These allegedly seminal studies look exclusively at unproblematic, intelligent people who were instructed to lie about trivial matters in which they had little stake. An incentive of twenty dollars can hardly be compared with, say, your freedom, reputation, children, or marriage—any or all of which might be at risk in an actual lie-detection scenario.
The word "lie" is so broad that it's hard to imagine that any test, even one that probes the brain, could detect all forms of deceit: small, polite lies; big, brazen, self-aggrandizing lies; lies to protect or enchant our children; lies that we don't really acknowledge to ourselves as lies; complicated alibis that we spend days rehearsing. Certainly, it's hard to imagine that all these lies will bear the identical neural signature. In their degrees of sophistication and detail, their moral weight, their emotional valence, lies are as varied as the people who tell them. As Montaigne wrote, "The reverse side of the truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits."
Langleben acknowledges that his research is not quite the breakthrough that the media hype has suggested. "There are many questions that need to be looked into before we know whether this will work as lie detection," he told me. "Can you do this with somebody who has an I.Q. of ninety-five? Can you do it with somebody who's fifty or older? Somebody who's brain-injured? What kinds of real crimes could you ask about? What about countermeasures? What about people with delusions?"
Nevertheless, the University of Pennsylvania licensed the pending patents on his research to No Lie in 2003, in exchange for an equity position in the company. Langleben didn't protest. As he explained to me, "It's good for your résumé. We're encouraged to have, as part of our portfolio, industry collaborations." He went on, "I was trying to be a good boy. I had an idea. I went to the Center of Technology Transfer and asked them, 'Do you like this?' They said, 'Yeah, we like that.' "
Steven Laken is the C.E.O. of Cephos, a Boston-based company that is developing a lie-detection product based on Kozel's watch-and-ring study. (It has an exclusive licensing agreement for pending patents that the Medical University of South Carolina applied for in 2002.) Cephos is proceeding more cautiously than No Lie. Laken's company is still conducting studies with Kozel, the latest of which involve more than a hundred people. (The sample pool is again young, healthy, and free of criminal records and psychological problems.) Cephos won't be offering fMRIs commercially until the results of those studies are in; Laken predicts that this will happen within a year. At the National Academy of Sciences committee meeting, he said, "I can say we're not at ninety-per-cent accuracy. And I have said, if we were not going to get to ninety per cent, we're not going to sell this product." (Nobody involved in fMRI lie detection seems troubled by a ten-per-cent error rate.)
In March, I went to a suburb of Boston to meet Laken. He is thirty-five years old and has a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular medicine from Johns Hopkins. Nine years ago, he identified a genetic mutation that can lead to colorectal cancer. He has a more conservative temperament than Joel Huizenga does, and he told me he thinks that spousal-fidelity cases are "sleazy." But he sees a huge potential market for what he calls a "truth verifier"—a service for people looking to exonerate themselves. "There are some thirty-five million criminal and civil cases filed in the U.S. every year," Laken said. "About twenty million are criminal cases. So let's just say that you never even do a criminal case—well, that still leaves roughly fifteen million for us to go after. Some you exclude, but you end up with several million cases that are high stakes: two people arguing about things that are important." Laken also thinks that fMRI lie detection could help the government elicit information, and confessions, from terrorist suspects, without physical coercion.
He calmly dismissed the suggestion that the application of fMRI lie detection is premature. "I've heard it said, 'This technology can't work because it hasn't been tested on psychopaths, and it hasn't been tested on children, and it certainly hasn't been tested on psychopathic children,' " he said. "If that were the standard, there'd never be any medicine."
Laken and I spoke while driving to Framingham, Massachusetts, to visit an MRI testing center run by Shields, a company that operates twenty-two such facilities in the state. Laken was working on a deal with Shields to use their scanners. For Shields, it would be a smart move, Laken said, because customers would pay up front for the scan—there would be no insurance companies to contend with. (Cephos and Shields have since made an official arrangement.) Laken believes that Cephos will prosper primarily through referrals: lawyers will function as middlemen, ordering an fMRI for a client, much as a doctor orders an MRI for a patient.
We pulled into the parking lot, where a sign identifies Shields as "the MRI provider for the 3-X World Champion New England Patriots." Inside, John Cannillo, an imaging specialist at Shields, led us into a room to observe a woman undergoing an MRI exam. She lay on a platform that slid into a white tubular scanner, which hummed like a giant tuning fork.
During a brain scan, the patient wears a copper head coil, in order to enhance the magnetic field around the skull. The magnet is so powerful that you have to remove any metal objects, or you will feel a tugging sensation. If a person has metal in his body—for instance, shrapnel, or the gold grillwork that some hip-hop fans have bonded to their teeth—it can pose a danger or invalidate the results. At the N.A.S. meeting in Washington, one scientist wryly commented, "It could become a whole new industry—criminals having implants put in to avoid scanning."
A Shields technician instructed the woman in the scanner from the other side of a glass divide. "Take a breath in, and hold it, hold it," he said. Such exercises help minimize a patient's movements.
As we watched, Laken admitted that "the kinks" haven't been worked out of fMRI lie detection. "We make mistakes," he said of his company. "We don't know why we make mistakes. We may never know why. We hope we can get better." Some bioethicists and journalists may worry about the far-off threat to "cognitive freedom," but the real threat is simpler and more immediate: the commercial introduction of high-tech "truth verifiers" that may work no better than polygraphs but seem more impressive and scientific. Polygraphs, after all, are not administered by licensed medical professionals.
Nancy Kanwisher, a cognitive scientist at M.I.T., relies a great deal on MRI technology. In 1997, she identified an area near the bottom of the brain that is specifically involved in perceiving faces. She has become a pointed critic of the rush to commercialize brain imaging for lie detection, and believes that it's an exaggeration even to say that research into the subject is "preliminary." The tests that have been done, she argues, don't really look at lying. "Making a false response when instructed to do so is not a lie," she says. The ninety-per-cent "accuracy" ascribed to fMRI lie detection refers to a scenario so artificial that it is nearly meaningless. To know whether the technology works, she believes, "you'd have to test it on people whose guilt or innocence hasn't yet been determined, who believe the scan will reveal their guilt or innocence, and whose guilt or innocence can be established by other means afterward." In other words, you'd have to run a legal version of a clinical trial, using real suspects instead of volunteers.
Langleben believes that Kanwisher is too pessimistic. He suggested that researchers could recruit people who had been convicted of a crime in the past and get them to lie retrospectively about it. Or maybe test subjects could steal a "bagel or something" from a convenience store (the researchers could work out an agreement with the store in advance) and then lie about it. But even these studies don't approximate the real-world scenarios Kanwisher is talking about.
She points out that the various brain regions that appear to be significantly active during lying are "famous for being activated in a wide range of different conditions—for almost any cognitive task that is more difficult than an easier task." She therefore believes that fMRI lie detection would be vulnerable to countermeasures—performing arithmetic in your head, reciting poetry—that involve concerted cognitive effort. Moreover, the regions that allegedly make up the brain's "lying module" aren't that small. Even Laken admitted as much. As he put it, "Saying 'You have activation in the anterior cingulate' is like saying 'You have activation in Massachusetts.' "
Kanwisher's complaint suggests that fMRI technology, when used cavalierly, harks back to two pseudosciences of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: physiognomy and phrenology. Physiognomy held that a person's character was manifest in his facial features; phrenology held that truth lay in the bumps on one's skull. In 1807, Hegel published a critique of physiognomy and phrenology in "The Phenomenology of Spirit." In that work, as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre writes, Hegel observes that "the rules that we use in everyday life in interpreting facial expression are highly fallible." (A friend who frowns throughout your piano recital might explain that he was actually fuming over an argument with his wife.) Much of what Hegel had to say about physiognomy applies to modern attempts at mind reading. Hegel quotes the scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who, in characterizing physiognomy, remarked, "If anyone said, 'You act, certainly, like an honest man, but I can see from your face you are forcing yourself to do so, and are a rogue at heart,' without a doubt every brave fellow to the end of time when accosted in that fashion will retort with a box on the ear." This response is correct, Hegel argues, because it "refutes the fundamental assumption of such a 'science' of conjecture—that the reality of a man is his face, etc. The true being of man is, on the contrary, his act; individuality is real in the deed." In a similar vein, one might question the core presumption of fMRI—that the reality of man is his brain.
Elizabeth Phelps, a prominent cognitive neuroscientist at N.Y.U., who studies emotion and the brain, questions another basic assumption behind all lie-detection schemes—that telling a falsehood creates conflict within the liar. With the polygraph, the assumption is that the conflict is emotional: the liar feels guilty or anxious, and these feelings produce a measurable physiological response. With brain imaging, the assumption is that the conflict is cognitive: the liar has to work a little harder to make up a story, or even to stop himself from telling the truth. Neither is necessarily right. "Sociopaths don't feel the same conflict when they lie," Phelps says. "The regions of the brain that might be involved if you have to inhibit a response may not be the same when you're a sociopath, or autistic, or maybe just strange. Whether it's an emotional or a cognitive conflict you're supposed to be exhibiting, there's no reason to assume that your response wouldn't vary depending on what your personal tendencies are—on who you are."
When I talked to Huizenga, the No Lie C.E.O., a few months after I had met him in California, he was unperturbed about the skepticism that he was encountering from psychologists. "In science, when you go out a little further than other people, it can be hard," he said. "The top people understand, but the middle layer don't know what you're talking about."
Huizenga told me that he was trying to get fMRI evidence admitted into a California court for a capital case that he was working on. (He would not go into the case's details.) Given courts' skepticism toward the polygraph, Huizenga's success is far from certain. Then again we are in a technology-besotted age that rivals the twenties, when Marston popularized lie detection. And we live in a time when there is an understandable hunger for effective ways to expose evildoers, and when concerns about privacy have been nudged aside by our desire for security and certainty. "Brain scans indicate": what a powerful phrase. One can easily imagine judges being impressed by these pixellated images, which appear so often in scientific journals and in the newspaper. Indeed, if fMRI lie detection is successfully marketed as a service that lawyers steer their clients to, then a refusal even to take such a test could one day be cause for suspicion.
Steven Hyman, the Harvard psychiatrist, is surprised that companies like No Lie have eluded government oversight. "Think of a medical test," he said. "Before it would be approved for wide use, it would have to be shown to have acceptable accuracy among the populations in whom it would be deployed. The published data on the use of fMRI for lie detection uses highly artificial tests, which are not even convincing models of lying, in very structured laboratory settings. There are no convincing data that they could be used accurately to screen a person in the real world." But, in the end, that might not matter. "Pseudo-colored pictures of a person's brain lighting up are undoubtedly more persuasive than a pattern of squiggles produced by a polygraph," he said. "That could be a big problem if the goal is to get to the truth."
Laken, meanwhile, thinks that people who find themselves in a jam, and who are desperate to exonerate themselves, simply have to educate themselves as consumers. "People have said that fMRI tests are unethical and immoral," he said. "And the question is, Why is it unethical and immoral if somebody wants to spend their money on a test, as long as they understand what it is they're getting into? We've never said the test was perfect. We've never said we can guarantee that this is admissible in court and that's it—you're scot-free." Later that day, I looked again at the Cephos Web site. It contained a bolder proclamation. "The objective measure of truth and deception that Cephos offers," it said, "will help protect the innocent and convict the guilty." ♦


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Prices for wheat futures rise on latest news of Russian troops in Ukraine.
The latest fighting in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could put a Black Sea port at risk. According to news reports, Ukrainian forces are taking positions around Mariupol, a city that is also home of one of the country's ports. Established in the 1600s, Mariupol has served as a port for centuries, exporting wheat and coal for centuries. Approximately 500,000 people live there.
Prior to the unrest, Mariupol handled 3 percent of the 5 million metric tons of grain exported each month by Ukraine. The country is expected to produce 22 million metric tons of wheat this year for export and domestic use, according to the USDA-NASS, which has forecast big wheat crops for Russia and Ukraine this year.
But with Russian forces entering southern Ukraine, the port's ability to ship that grain may be in question. Earlier this year, Russia took control of another Ukrainian port--Sevastopol, which is located on the Crimean Peninsula. Sevastopol was responsible for exporting 5 percent of Ukraine's grain.
Not surprisingly, wheat price have been on the move.As of early afternoon, the price for September wheat had jumped 12.4 cents to $5.596. December wheat also moved up, increasing 13.2 cents to $5.754.
Are traders overreacting?
"The reaction [from the markets] has been very emotional," noted Steve Mercer, vice president of communications for U.S. Wheat Associates in Arlington, Va., who says Ukraine moves the majority of its grain from Odessa and Nikolayev, both on the country's western side. "But the volume in and out [of Ukraine] has not changed very much. It appears to be operating at a normal pace."
Can Beijing Halt the Impact of the One-Child Rule?
Cattle Producers can add Revenue through Cost-effective Calf Management


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Buying pressures and short-lived pullbacks are still the two most dominant themes on Wall Street since major equity indexes began their bull run on November 16 of last year. With economic data releases largely coming in better-than-expected over the past few months, investors have had few reasons to take profits amid the rallies; the S&P 500 Index is inching closer and closer to all-time highs near the 1,576 level while the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues its ascent into previously uncharted territory [Download 101 ETF Lessons Every Financial Advisor Should Learn].
The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD, A) is on our radar today as this fund could swing wildly in either direction as investors digest the latest monthly employment report on the home front. Analysts are expecting for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 7.7% while nonfarm payrolls are expected to drop down to 190,000 compared to last month's figure of 236,000.
Chart Analysis
While equities have been surging, gold prices have been sinking for the past few months; since peaking in October of 2012, GLD has been stuck in a dismal downtrend (red line), consistently making lower-highs and lower-lows. What's noteworthy is that this ETF has been flirting with a major support level (blue line) in recent weeks, which has enticed contrarian buyers looking to establish a long position in the yellow metal. GLD managed to rebound off the $150 level in late February of 2013; however, bargain buyers have been left empty handed as this ETF failed to re-establish support above the 200-day moving average (yellow line) and is once again testing the same support level [see How To Swing Trade ETFs].
Click to Enlarge
From a long-term perspective, GLD looks like a bargain at current levels; however, we advise conservative investors to hold off on jumping in long until this ETF establishes definitive support above $150 or even $160 a share, depending on individual risk preferences [see How To Take Profits And Cut Losses When Trading ETFs].
If the latest employment report misses expectations, investors could pile into the safe havens; in terms of upside, GLD has near-term resistance around the $156 level. On the other hand, upbeat economic data can inspire further selling pressures in the gold market; in terms of downside, GLD has major support around $150 a share. As always, investors of all experience levels are advised to use stop-loss orders and practice disciplined profit-taking techniques.
Follow me on Twitter @SBojinov
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
Click here to read the original article on ETFdb.com.
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The beginning of the the week has kicked off and I already feel like I'm 10 days behind! Ephraim's been sick so I have been waiting on him hand and foot to make sure he gets well. That's my baby, geez I hope I don't make him a Mama's boy I HATE Mama's boys!! Sooooooo needy and rely on their mom for everything, HATE 'EM!
Thanks for keeping me going,


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Welcome to The Merry Christmas Challenge!
We are a Christmas challenge blog
Ch# 16 Add Buttons
*Must be Christmas
*Link directly to your project post
*Limit Link-Ups to Once per Day
*No Backlinking to older projects
*Top Picks posted with next challenge
We cannot always comment on every entry, but we try.
We'd love you to be a Follower of our blog.
Looking forward to seeing your Christmas project!


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Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) tours include:
• Tour of terminal and concourses
• Walk through security checkpoint area*
Minimum age: Third Grade
Group size: Minimum 15, maximum 30, including all teachers and chaperones
Tour times: Twice a month; 10:30 – about 11:30, on Mondays or Fridays. Tours may be scheduled after business hours based on staff availability.
Contact: Community Relations Administrator, 741-2726
Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (JAXEX) tours include:
• Visit flight school, observation area and control tower*
• Presentation by JAA staff
Minimum age: First Grade
Maximum group size: 30, including teachers and chaperones
Tour times: Twice a month, based on staff availability
Contact: JAXEX Airport Manager, 641.7666
Cecil Airport tours include:
Airfield tour of various tenants including: Airport Rescue & Fire Fighting (ARFF), Flightstar Aircraft Services, Florida State College of Jacksonville, Navy Fleet Readiness Center Southeast, Coast Guard, and Army National Guard.
Minimum age: Middle or high school students
Maximum group size: 40
Tour times: Twice a month, flexible times
Contact: Our tour schedule is full until Spring 2016. Please check back then.
Herlong Recreational Airport tours include:
• Tour of the Fixed Base Operator Terminal
• Demonstration of fire fighting equipment*
• Presentation on flight by tenant flight schools/clubs, including sitting in an airplane*
Minimum age: None. Tour may be customized to the children's ages and purpose of the visit
Maximum group size: 20, including teachers and chaperones
Tour times: Twice a month; flexible hours
Contact: Herlong Airport Manager, 783-2805
*Availability depends on operational needs.


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The April 2013 issue of ETF Edge, the premium monthly ETF Newsletter, is now available to ETFdb Pro subscribers. This issue includes a look back at another green month on Wall Street, highlighting new ETF launches, checking in on sector performances and pricing multiples, as well as looking under the hood of a truly innovative equity ETF. With the ETFdb Pro subscription, you also get access to more than 50 all-ETF model portfolios, including both retirement-focused and more tactical-themed strategies [a free sample of the Emerging & Frontier Markets ETFdb Portfolio is available to all ETFdb readers].
Be sure to also check out the 2013 ETFdb Portfolio, as well as our popular Monthly Dividend ETFdb Portfolio.
Here's a look at what's inside this month's ETF Edge:
- Coming and Going: In this section, we highlight the investment thesis behind each new ETP that launched in March of 2013.
- ETF Spotlight: In this segment we highlight an ETF that is flying under the radars of most investors, but which may present an intriguing investment option in the current environment; this edition focuses on a different kind of currency ETF from PIMCO.
- Sector & Region Outlook: In this section, we take a look at pricing multiples across the U.S. economy and around the world, pointing out some noteworthy developments.
- Inside The ETFdb 60 Index: We take a look at the biggest gainers and losers in our all-ETF index from the past month.
- Now Is The Season To: This month we cover sector rotation ETFs, designed for investors who want to favorably position their portfolios no matter what the prevailing market environment may hold in store.
- ETF Performance Database: Year-to-date performance and expense data for all 1,400+ U.S.-listed ETFs, organized by ETFdb Category.
Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
Click here to read the original article on ETFdb.com.
Read more posts on ETF Database »


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Man pleads not guilty in deadly Lodi crash
DUI Laws & Info - POSTED: 2014/02/02 18:48
DUI Laws & Info - POSTED: 2014/02/02 18:48
A man has pleaded not guilty to murder, driving under the influence and other charges in a car crash in Central California that killed five members of a family, including a pregnant woman.
The Record of Stockton reports that 28-year-old Ryan Morales entered the plea in San Joaquin County Superior Court on Monday.
Authorities say Morales was driving at freeway speeds in a residential area in Lodi on Oct. 22 when he crashed into a pickup. Five of the pickup's occupants died.
Authorities say Morales had been drinking apple-flavored vodka with his father. A preliminary analysis allegedly showed his blood alcohol count was 2 ½ times the state's limit.
Authorities say they sought a murder charge against Morales because he acted with complete disregard for human life.


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Thanks guys for all your responses on what I should do to my damn hair!
I am getting a cut and a swish blow dry after work today. With any luck I should come out of the salon bouncing like a golden retriever and not sulking like a Cyrus – Billy Ray Cyrus that is, Circa 1991.
Your chosen hair for me (it seems) is:
Its very nice. My hair is a little overly layered and every time I get a fringe I regret it so much. And there's something about a bob and a fringe that reminds me of 4 year olds starting Nursery. But let's do it. I'll let the stylist decide.
I'll show you my transformation later!
p.s. So many of you hate The Moss! Why?


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Press Release: Statement by the IMF and the EC on Joint Discussions on a New Economic Program for Romania
July 31, 2013Press Release No. 13/286
July 31, 2013
Staff teams from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission (EC), and the World Bank visited Bucharest during July 17–31. The mission has reached a staff-level agreement with the authorities on an economic program that could be supported by a 24-months Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with the IMF, subject to approval by IMF Management and the Executive Board, and Balance of Payments (BoP) assistance from the European Union, subject to approval by the EU Economic and Financial Committee. Proposed access would total EUR 4billion, equally split between the IMF and the EU. The authorities intend to treat the arrangements as precautionary.
Romania's economic recovery is expected to strengthen. After strong exports in the first part of the year, we now forecast real GDP to grow around 2 to 2¼ percent in 2013-14 with greater contributions from investment and domestic demand in 2014. The current account deficit is expected to continue to narrow, to around 2 to 2½ percent of GDP, and inflation is set to come down further, entering the central bank's target band before end-2013.
A new economic program would build on the achievements of the previous programs that reduced large external and fiscal imbalances and advanced structural reforms, including the introduction of a new regulatory and pricing framework in the energy sector. In particular, the government seeks to (i) safeguard sound public finances, (ii) continue monetary and financial sector policies that preserve buffers and increase the resilience against external shocks, and (iii) reduce bottlenecks to potential growth through structural reforms.
To achieve these objectives, the program will focus on the following key areas. The authorities will proceed with gradual fiscal consolidation, with the aim of reaching a 2013 deficit target of 2.3 percent of GDP in cash terms and 2.4 percent of GDP in European System of Accounts (ESA) terms and achieving a structural deficit of not more than 1 percent of GDP by 2015. Fiscal policy will be underpinned by institutional reforms, including measures to foster medium-term planning, strengthen administrative capacity, accelerate the absorption of EU funds, strengthen tax administration and fiscal governance, and better control arrears. The authorities also plan to advance the health care reform agenda, which is crucial to improve the quality of health services, raise efficiency of spending, and ensure financial sustainability. Other structural reforms would focus on reforming inefficient state-owned enterprises and fostering investment and efficiency in the energy and transportation sectors, which are key to enhancing Romania's competitiveness and boosting long-term growth. Financial sector policies will seek to strengthen bank balance sheets, in particular, by addressing the banks' sizable non-performing loans, so as to support credit growth and the economic recovery.
For more information on Romania's Stand-By Arrangements, please see the following links:
Romania and the IMF: http://www.imf.org/external/country/ROU/index.htm.
Key documents are also available in Romanian: http://www.fmi.ro/
For more details on Romania and on the EC's Balance of Payments assistance, please see the following links:
|Media Relations
|E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
|Phone: 202-623-7100


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I thought I'd dress extra bright for my outing with Dad, he embarrasses so easily these days.
Check out the back.
Peetee loved it too.
I think this is the best picture I have of my Dad and I.
We are all crazy for our dogs in this family.
It's Monday and yesterday doesn't matter so let's just be in this moment! Have a great day everyone!