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New 'Smart Pill' Raises Ethical Questions
November 15, 2017
Where does patient adherence technology go in a post smart-pill era?
Yesterday's press release about Proteus' $450 Million digital smart pill approval made the major papers.
WSJ and NYT both offered in depth analysis of technology and user experience challenges. CNN, later in the day, noted that neither Proteus nor Otsuka were willing to comment. Oracle, who hosts the data platform, wasn't even mentioned.
Interestingly, both original Big Pharma investors and sponsors of this technology are holding back, with neither Novartis nor Otsuka in a hurry to launch any drugs (not even the newly approved Smart Pill version of Abilify - https://www.abilify.com). The patient target group chosen to put through the FDA approval process (Schizophrenia) always seemed like an unfortunate choice.
The negative criticism was entirely predictable and isn't surprising, because of a variety of factors:
- User concern with data security. I don't know a single person who is keen on swallowing a computer chip and wear a monitoring receiver on their body 24/7. Electronic ankle bracelet anyone? Proteus' response to this makes no sense "the device stays inside the body and the data is stored in the patch". Yes, my credit card stays in my wallet, too. But it's of no use until I take it out to pay for something. The smart pill data has to go somewhere, and if it just stays inside the patient's body, then there is no point having it at all.
- Proteus states that the chip contains no more Silicon (Si) than a banana. That's fine, perhaps, but who eats up to 3 or 4 bananas a day? Si is not completely inert, and even if it's a trace mineral used by the body, too much of a good thing can be bad. The banana analogy is alarming, at best. According to WebMd it could contribute to kidney stones, and its safety as a medicinal compound is unknown. It advises pregnant and breast feeding women to avoid intake of supplemental Si.
- Proteus attempts to address non adherent (forgetful) patients. But it uses a very big hammer to hit a small mosquito by requiring a) a patient to wear a patch in the correct location, b) to make sure the patch is connected to their smartphone via Bluetooth, c) to make sure the smartphone is within reach and also connected to internet via WIFI or 3G/LTE link, d) to swallow the smart pill and not be concerned if there is no confirmation of the pill having been ingested for up to two hours, or indeed perhaps not being detected at all. So we are targeting poorly adherent patients with an overwhelming technology burden. That's the opposite of smart. The biggest technology hurdle here is the battery running out of juice. And it warns that the ingestion event might not even be detected by that patch at all.
- Tolerance of the patch. The patch is just like any other medical patch (pain or birthcontrol patches, for instance). A good proportion of the population experiences contact dermatitis. Proteus' instructions are to change location of the patch each week when starting a new one. How many weeks would a patient put up with this? That's a question that likely has been answered anyway: not too long. One of the main issues of adherence drop off is persistence, meaning patients stop being adherent after some time. The patch seems to just aggravate this issue, not solve it.
- It doesn't do what it is designed to do. Proteus' smart pill does NOT address the intended purpose of the technology which is to improve adherence. Indeed, the FDA has directed Proteus to specifically say so on their device label. The fact is, adherence measurement does not equal adherence improvement; unless the measurement data are used in a specific way to coach patients about their adherence pattern.
- Nobody has addressed cost, but there is a requirement to re-apply for a drug application each time a Proteus smart chip is combined with an existing drug. This costs time and money. In clinical trials, where adherence is of paramount significance, the combination of chip and pill might cause unacceptable delays and possibly then force the drug company to go to market with a chip inside every pill whether they want to or not. This would explain why no actual clinical trial seems to have included this chip in its research protocol. Clinical research involves careful study of side effects. Adding guaranteed side effects by using medical adhesive for the detection patch does not help matters.
There have been effective adherence measurement devices in the market for 30 years. MEMS by Aardex is a smart cap for medicine bottles and has been used in hundreds of studies. eCAP by Information Mediary Corp. is a similar, more modern version of this, and has been in use for over 10 years. Med-ic, also by Information Mediary Corp., is a smart chip inserted in medication packaging to record and transmit medication event histories. In all cases where the chip is part of the packaging, rather than inserted into the actual medication, FDA does not require complicated, lengthy and expensive approvals. The technology has been used by hundreds of thousands of patients over more than two decades. It is robust, affordable and easy to deploy.
What makes package-based adherence monitoring the sensible choice for researchers and clinicians alike is the fact that it can be innocuous to the patient. The patient has to do absolutely nothing, except to take their medicine as usual. The argument of the smart-pill advocates that removal of medication does not prove ingestion is correct. However, it has been shown to be highly correlated.
What is required to drive adherence measurement technologies forward is user adoption. Some pharma and clinical trials teams have waited for the magic smart pill in favor of adopting simpler smart packaging devices. Now that day of reckoning has arrived with Proteus' FDA approval. The magic has been exposed as just an expensive technology play.
Again, the basic premise that adherence measurement does not in and by itself lead to adherence improvements means that pharmaceutical brand and research teams need to get back to basics. Yes, collect adherence data, but then use it diligently to shape and apply adherence coaching and patient management strategies.
Perhaps to Novartis and Otsuka, their investments in Proteus amount to rounding errors, but instead of a smart pill, they swallowed a bitter one. Oracle has been keeping a very low profile, despite being an early investor. Yesterday was their Juicero moment perhaps.
One positive outcome is for certain - the Proteus experiment has brought the importance of patient adherence to the forefront of discussion once again. Luckily, sensible technologies already exist to collect adherence data, in the form of smart packaging from leading vendors such as Aardex (Westrock) and Information Mediary Corp.
Non Adherence: The Elephant in the Room
by Allan Wilson, MD PhD
If Hippocrates1 knew that patients are non-compliant with their treatment and nearly every clinician since would agree, why does the "elephant in the room" continue to be ignored?
A clinical trial is simply an exercise in optimizing a signal-to-noise ratio. The signal is the desired clinical effect;the noise everything else that obscures the signal. Poor patient compliance is a major source of noise that can now be measured and controlled to increase the accuracy of a trial.
Drugs don't work in patients who don't take them. - C.Everett Koop, Surgeon-General
Why are trials not all monitoring compliance, as suggested by Bradley Efron in 1998? The short answer is that trial planners focus on the initial cost of electronic compliance monitors (ECMs) such as IMC's Med-ic® and Proteus' Discover®and overlook the tremendous ROI they provide by accelerating trial fulfillment.
At some point, perhaps not in the far future,it will seem as wrong to run a clinical trial without compliance measurement as without randomization. - B. Efron, Statistics In Medicine, 1998(17), 249.
Compliance data are even more important for adaptive trials due to the increased number of decision points increasing the probability of a Type I error, and the smaller signals' vulnerability to being obscured by noncompliance (and other) sources of noise.
Pray, Mister Babbage, if you put the wrong figures into the machine, will the right answers come out? - Charles Babbage, Polymath, 1864
In addition to providing more accurate data, ECM is a powerful tool for monitoring subjects' medication-taking behaviour during a clinical trial and providing data to increase the power of the design. This results in cost savings due to the ability of smaller sample sizes to show statistical significance (drug effectiveness) and earlier regulatory approval with longer time on patent protection. With a well-designed blister package equipped with an electronic compliance monitor and good subject education, poor patient compliance can be changed from a liability to an asset with enormous return on investment.
[1] Hippocrates of Cos, Decorum, XIV
Compliance data are used in a number of ways:
- To screen patients for compliance characteristics prior to enrolling them in a trial.
- To motivate subjects to be more compliant as they progress through a trial. It can be shown that increasing compliance by x% allows for a reduction of the trial's N by 2x% without changing the study's power. Fewer subjects means faster regulatory approval and longer patent protection. Hence the large ROI.
- To assess subjects' compliance post hoc. Data mining can throw light on many aspects of subject behaviour and can be tailored to the interests of the sponsor. In one trial it was found that 40 percent of subjects deblistered their medication, something that would have otherwise gone undetected. The problem was solved by developing a more user-friendly format. Another trial showed no significant difference between treatment groups by the primary outcome analyses. The subjects were stratified post hoc according to their compliance and the drug was highly effective for those subjects who actually took it as prescribed.
- ECM can serve as a REMS (Risk Estimation and Mitigation Strategy) for trials where noncompliance can have more serious consequences than those associated with simple data inaccuracy. Opioids, for example,can result in fatal overdose when taken to excess, and these drugs are often diverted for sale on the street. ECM detects the deblistering that might suggest such activities and allows the investigator to intervene.
- ECM can detect subtle medication-related bias effects that can lead to erroneous conclusions about drug efficacy. And which would otherwise go undetected.
For details about why Pharma finds value in ECM, please refer to our ROI calculator at http://www.informationmediary.com/roi/roi-calculator
New Research Paradigm:
Apple's Tim Cook wants to stand Clinical Research on its head and, if anyone can disrupt Clinical Research, it is probably Apple. Med-ic smart blisters give the research team instant access to patient adherence data and the ability to coach patients to be compliant with their medication. The old argument about not wanting clinical trial subjects to be more compliant than those patients who will eventually use the medication in the real world is now officially relegated to the dustbin. Post hoc data "clean up" will one day soon be as irrelevant as dialling a rotary phone. Some Big Pharma research teams are already embracing compliance data; others are ready to jump in. Soon, clinical research will not be defensible without smart blisters, compliance data and full visibility. See www.med-ic.com for details.
The World's Most Accurate Low-Cost RFID Sensors
Information Mediary Corporation (IMC) manufactures a range of intelligent devices that includes the award-winning Med-ic® and eCap™ electronic compliance monitors (ECM©s). ECMs address the problem of poor patient compliance with prescribed medication by monitoring medication taking behavior in real time.
To complement its compliance-monitoring devices, IMC develops data systems, displays, and statistical analytical techniques to facilitate a wide variety of related applications. IMC also carries out R&D for custom applications involving the integration of electronics, sensors, printed sensor grids, NFC, RFID, Bluetooth and other technologies.
IMC has developed low-cost, single-chip RFID and NFC sensor technology, RFID readers, and printed electronics. Strict validation and adherence to GMP and ISO9001 processes ensure these products exceed pharmaceutical and logistics standards.
For further information, please see the following product descriptions.
The Med-ic® Electronic Compliance Monitor (ECM©) is a revolutionary solution to the problem of patient non-compliance with prescribed medication. Developed by smart packaging experts IMC, the Med-ic ECM tracks medication usage for any blister packaging format without active patient input.
eCAP™ is an extension of the Med-ic® smart package concept to the medication vial. In conjunction with Rexam, a global leader in the design and manufacturing of pharmacy vials, IMC's eCAP provides a flexible, dynamic, reliable and cost-effective compliance solution.
The CertiScan® RFID Reader and associated Software is IMC's proprietary, secure solution to downloading Med-ic® ECM© data. The compliance data captured by the reader are stored on a PC where they are displayed via an intuitive interface, allowing the clinician to interact knowledgeably with the patient around medication-taking behavior. CertiScan is compliant with 21 CFR Part 11.
IAP Labs is a division of Information Mediary Corporation and was formerly known as XINK Laboratories Ltd., which was acquired by Henkel (ex- National Starch) on June 1, 2006. IAP Labs is dedicated to the development of intelligent and active packaging technologies. IAP Labs Inc. provides development, prototyping, testing, and production of intelligent packaging, printed electronics, printed sensors, and pharmaceutical smart labels from its Ottawa-based facilities (IAPLabs.com).


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ATLANTA (AP) — Another round of snow and ice is expected to coat Atlanta and other parts of the Deep South this week.
Just two weeks ago, Atlanta and other Southern cities were paralyzed by a couple of inches of snow. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal apologized for the unpreparedness and created a task force to look into the problems.
A winter storm watch was issued for the Atlanta area. A spokesman for Mayor Kasim Reed says the city will begin treating priority roads and bridges Monday night. Forecasters say a snow, sleet and freezing rain will develop in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and possibly north Texas on Monday.
The weather will spread east into parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama and into the Atlanta area around Tuesday. Several inches of snow could accumulate.

subset: commoncrawl


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NEW from Korg & VOX | amPhones, Apache Basses & More
New Korg & VOX Products 2012
amPhones | Apache Bass | StompLab | & More...
Korg & VOX have gone all out this Fall delivering an absolute mass of brand new products.
From amps, guitars and effects pedals to headphones, synths and pianos.
VOX amPhones
amPhones from VOX are a brand new concept that we're sure a lot of you will be excited to learn about. Although at first glance you might see a series of pretty stylish, well built headphones, you're actually looking at headphones housing an amplifier.
amPhones feature built-in amPlug technology which allows you to obtain real guitar and bass sounds straight away. Connect your guitar/bass to your amPhones, or simply use them for listening to music. Whether you're practicing alone in your room, or listening to your portable audio player on the way to the studio, amPhones are what you need.
VOX AC4 C1 Limited Edition Guitar Amplifier
A DREAM COME TRUE | The Best of the AC30 Sounds for just £249.17
The new Limited Edition Vox AC4 C1 Guitar Amplifier offers everything you love about the AC30 Top Boost sound in this compact 4w 1x10" combo enclosure. The 2x 12AX7 Preamp tubes and EL84 Power amp tubes drive that quintessentially British rock tone from crystal clean to awesome rock.
This new custom colour variation of the AC4C1 features the traditional British Racing Green paint job. The classic Tygon grille cloth beautifully offsets the vivid green hue of these amplifiers. Perfect for low-key rehearsals and gigs.
Apache-I Travel Bass Guitar
The Apache-I Bass has all the gadgets and gizmos you could want: a 2-channel bass amplifier & speakers, dozens of drum patterns to play along with, even a convenient E-String tuner - all built right into the guitar itself.
The built-in amp offers two sound variations, Normal and Bright, with a gain control so you can generate a range of clean or fuzzy overdriven sounds. As well as the built-in amp, you can play through headphones or any external amp - and you can even connect your CD/MP3 player to the bass and jam along to your favourite tracks.
More Newbies...
See all new Korg & VOX Products HERE
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VOX amPhones AC30 Guitar Monitoring Headphones
amPhones feature built-in amPlug technology which allows you to obtain real guitar and bass sounds straight away. To realise this incredible idea, VOX teamed up with headphone experts Audio-Technica and created a headphone amp that uses a new reactor circuit based on the Valve Reactor technology featured in VOX amps, delivering incredibly dynamic amp sounds. …
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VOX StompLab 1B - Modeling Bass Effect Processors
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One of the most challenging aspects of teaching the history of women in Islamic Empires is getting the students to recognize the humanity of those they are studying. Because of the remote context of the history in time and place, students may have a difficult time feeling that they relate to the people they are learning about. However, this module deals with many issues that students today grapple with in their own society: questions of marriage, family, dress, and behavior are all relevant points of reference to their own emotional worlds, making the women of the Islamic empires easier for students to understand and to relate to.
Another challenge in teaching Islamic history in modern American classrooms is the fact that Islamic societies and cultures have been denigrated in popular media accounts and by many religious and secular organizations. Muslim women, in particular, have been singled out as benchmarks for Islamic societies and the way they are judged as either civilized or uncivilized by Westerners. Images of Muslim women as oppressed slaves of Islamic patriarchy, coupled with images of Muslim women as sexual objects, are common fixtures everywhere, from Oprah to Disneys Aladdin to Fox News. Thus, students should be exposed to more nuanced images of Muslim women, and, in particular, the balanced view of women found in the Quran and the Hadith.
Finally, it is important to remind students that the experiences of Muslim women in the world today are as diverse as those in history. Muslim is not a race or ethnic group, nor a nationality, although it is often referred to in that way in American discourse. Muslim women's history runs concurrent with the history being studied, that is, it is not stagnant. Orientalist discourse has presented the Islamic world as one unit, fixed in ancient times. Islamic history, both at its beginnings and up to the present day, is dynamic and variable. Thus, issues of race, class, gender, and historical specificity must be kept in mind when teaching about women in Islamic history.
Discussion Questions:
- What are the ramifications for allowing women to be valid reporters of the hadith? What does it tell us about the nature of gender relations during the time of the first umma? Do you think that influenced later roles for women, according to the sources you have studied? Why or why not?
- Compare and contrast the images of women and their equality with men in the eyes of God from the Quran with the poem mourning the death of Hasan ibn al-Firats daughter. How do you reconcile these differences in value of women? Explain, using comparisons with other societies you have studied, as well as various times and places in Islamic history.


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Joseph H. Abbott, 85
Joseph H. Abbott, 85, of Cranston, died Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009 in the evening at home.
Husband of the late Jean Abigail Gadwah Abbott, he was born in Providence, on July 3,
1923, to the late
Thomas A. Abbott and Catherine Jane Mohan.
He grew up in the South Providence and Olneyville neighborhoods of Providence during the Great Depression, the son of an Irish immigrant mother whose husband died from illness when her four children were still young. He graduated from Central High School and, in 1943, enlisted in the United States Navy.
He served with distinction throughout World War II on board the USS Dortch, a destroyer, which was instrumental in more than 30 operations in the Pacific Theatre, including the first and second battles of the Philippine Sea and the invasion of Okinawa. By the time of his honorable discharge in November 1945, he had received the World War II Victory Medal, the American Theatre Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Theatre Medal and the Philippine Liberation Medal. In the Navy, Joe earned a rate as a skilled craftsman, working to keep the ship mechanically able to perform its mission. He was also a member of the ship's swim rescue team that went out in a small boat to pick up downed aircraft crew.
His Navy years formed an important part of his life. He was proud of his military service, but he abhorred war and violence of any kind and never glorified the sacrifices he made for his country.
Upon his return to Providence, he wed Jean Abigail Gadwah and they had four daughters. Mr. Abbott used his skills as a metal-smith to found his own heating and air conditioning business, which he ran successfully in Providence until his retirement approximately 15 years ago.
He was a devout Catholic, who attended St. Paul's Church in Cranston and, in later years, St. Francis of Assisi Church in South Kingstown. Together with his wife, Jean, he was involved in social justice issues in the 1960s and 1970s, including efforts on behalf of migrant farm workers and the civil rights work of Dr. Martin Luther King and local community leaders. He was also involved in efforts to give the laity more of a role in the Catholic Church and found great spiritual nourishment in the Cursillo Movement.
He is survived by his daughters, Mary Jane Murphy of Jamestown, Shelia Abbott-Brogna of Wakefield, Kathleen Abbott Myers of Cranston, and Elizabeth Abbott of Wakefield, six grandchildren, three greatgrandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. His siblings, Vincent, Veronica and Adeline, predeceased him.
A funeral mass was celebrated on Feb. 21, at Saint Francis of Assisi Church in Wakefield. The concelebrants included Joe's nephew, and two other priests who were Joe's close friends.


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Shoulder and Elbow Care
The shoulder and elbow specialists at University of Chicago Medicine offer the complete range of non-surgical, minimally invasive (arthroscopic) and open surgery for teens, young adults and older adults. We treat conditions and illnesses related to:
- Rotator cuff injury or tear, impingement syndrome
- Shoulder and elbow arthritis
- Fractures, including those that do not heal (non-union) or heal incorrectly (malunion)
- Instability, separation or dislocation, labrum tears including SLAP tear (injury at the top of the labrum
- Shoulder muscle injury
- Nerve dysfunction
- Scapula winging, abnormal movement of the shoulder blade
- Frozen shoulder
- Tendonitis and bursitis
- Repetitive motion
Tailored Treatment
We design individual treatment plans tailored to each patient's needs and goals. And we maximize use of non-surgical options prior to considering surgery. When surgery is necessary, our orthopaedic surgeons offer innovative and advanced operative therapies for repair of shoulder and elbow conditions, both minimally invasive and open. We strive to help patients regain full function and to return to their daily activities as soon as possible.
Surgical Services
- Shoulder arthroscopy for rotator cuff, biceps, labrum tear and bone injury
- Revision surgery after prior operative treatment
- Total shoulder replacement
- Reverse shoulder replacement (when the patient has a rotator cuff tear, this procedure uses deltoid muscles to work and position the arm)
- Latarjet procedure (coracoid transfer for instability)
- Tendon transfers
We work closely with your physical or occupational therapist to maximize results for non-operative, pre-operative and post-operative treatment.
Shoulder and Elbow Care Team
Jovito Angeles, MD
Aravind Athiviraham, MD
Roderick Birnie, MD
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Daniel P. Mass, MD
Megan Conti Mica, MD
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More Information
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Apollo Design Technology MS-4226
Steel Gobo in "Almost Paisley"-Pattern Design
OUR PART #: MS-4226 Write the First Review.
Related Products
The Apollo Design Technology MS-4226 "Almost Paisley"-pattern gobo is one of numerous designs available from Apollo Design Technology. Along with stainless steel, this gobo is available in several other high-quality materials (all sold separately) including: Black & White glass, PrintScenic plastic, and PrintScenic glass (Note: PrintScenic gobos are for LED use only).
Gobos enhance design by creating great visuals on walls, floors, backdrops and other scenic elements. Gobos can even be used in place of scenery. The appearance of the image can be affected and/or enhanced through the use of color filters and the angle and focus of the light being used, allowing for additional design flexibility. Gobos are ideal for temporary projects like corporate events, meetings and exhibits.
Apollo metal gobos are made from an 8 mil stainless steel with a high quantity of nickel and chromium that result in durable patterns able to withstand high heat generated from both ellipsoidal and intelligent lights providing longer life and image quality.
Apollo Design manufactures gobo holders for use in some of the most popular lighting fixtures. However, given the incredibly wide range of fixtures available around the world, there are many instances where Apollo Design does not have a holder available. In that instance, you should contact the manufacturer of the specific fixture for their recommendations. Consult with your sales representative to determine what size gobo is required for your luminaire and whether one of Apollo Design's gobo holders will work.
WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
To be the first to review this item, click here.


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Award Ceremony of the 2013 UNESCO International José Martí Prize
On behalf of the Director-General, the Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, Pilar Alvarez Laso, will award the 2013 UNESCO International José Martí Prize to the Dominican monk "Frei Betto" during an official ceremony that will take place at La Habana, Cuba, in the framework of the Third International Conference on World Balance, organized by the Cuban Government, from 28 to 30 January 2013, at the Palacio de las Convenciones. This conference will also commemorate the 160th anniversary of birth of José Martí.
The designation of the Dominican monk Frei Betto as laureate of the 2013 UNESCO International José Martí Prize, by the UNESCO's Director-General, Irina Bokova, was recommended by an international jury, to pay tribute to his work as an educator, writer, and theologian; his opposition to all forms of discrimination, injustice and exclusion; and his promotion of a culture of peace and human rights.
The author of more than 50 books, Frei Betto was born Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo in Belo Horizonte (Brazil) in 1944. He joined the Dominican Order at the age of 20 while studying journalism. During the time of military dictatorship in Brazil, Frei Betto was imprisoned twice, once briefly in 1964 and again from 1969 to 1973.
The purpose of the UNESCO International José Martí Prize is to promote and reward an activity of outstanding merit in accordance with the ideals and spirit of José Martí. It was instituted in November 1994 by UNESCO Executive Board at the initiative of the Government of Cuba. In creating the Prize, the Members of the Executive Board recognized the universality and supreme value of the ideals of José Martí.
The Prize consists of a monetary award and a diploma. In 2013, it is awarded for the 6th time.


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Matthew Carlisle joined London based interior design and development management firm, Candy & Candy in 2001 and is Joint Creative Director.
Matthew has worked on all of Candy & Candy's significant projects including all private client properties and large scale developments. Most recently leading the design of the firm's new global headquarters in Westminster, four marketing suites in the UK and USA and the Middle East. In total his work spans 20 countries.
As Creative Director Matthew is also responsible for ensuring the Candy & Candy DNA of quality, creativity and attention to every last detail is apparent in all Candy & Candy projects.
Prior to joining Candy & Candy Matthew was responsible for executing a diverse range of residential, commercial, hospitality and retail design projects.


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Just yesterday I received audio CDs for Agamemnon and I am disappointed with the very first chorus. I was expecting something much more rhythmically unified. In the West, we are mostly used to even rhythms--jazz swing being the most prominent exception. But elsewhere in the world (Bulgaria, India), one finds uneven rhythms, ie rhythms where certain beats get counted longer; one cannot properly notate these rhythms in (mathematically) rational Western notation.
But given that the Agamemnon chorus has an Ancient Greek rhythm, I was fully prepared for an uneven rhythm. However, right off the bat, we get something that I am not sure is a rhythm at all. To count as a rhythm, things have to repeat. But here what we seem to have are certain beats extended, and others just dropped, leaving us wondering if there is any pattern at all. So for example: 1) At Μενέλαος, we get a slightly longer beat. What explains this? Perhaps just bad drumming? If so, they should have done another take because it immediately undercuts the (until this point successfully) built up tension. Indeed, throughout the first part of this first chorus, the time keeping is poor. Any musician is going to immediately notice it. 2) More significantly, at Ἀτρειδᾶν we loose the drum for a foot but then get a resumption on a different beat. This seems inexplicable to me. 18 feet in, it is not part of some repeating element. I don't know how any group of 12 people could keep track when beats are dropped and shifted like that.
I don't have the Agamemnon book yet (still in the mail) and I won't be able to get a hold of M. West's book on music until next week. But, as someone with a relatively strong musical background, I was hoping that the rhythms of the chorus would give me an easy way into the poetry of the Greek chorus, and that would give me an easy way into Greek poetry as a whole.
Can anybody here speak authoritatively about any of this? What do we know for sure? What do we know with certainty about all of this? Has anybody read West on rhythm? Supposedly his book is what Raeburn and Thomas are following. But West is not a musician. And now I am worried. Something somwhere seems to have gone terribly wrong at Ἀτρειδᾶν.


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The Carolina Panthers did not Thursday in their 14-9 loss to Philadelphia
Carolina's running game was fair. Cam Newton was off. Philadelphia's defensive line was better than Carolina's offensive line and Philadelphia's offensive line was better than Carolina's defensive line.
Had it not been for three first-half turnovers, the Eagles would have dominated. Philadelphia receivers often were open by several yards. A common phrase was "Second and three for the Eagles."
If you're a Panther fan, and you want something positive to take away from this one, you're on your own.


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NASCAR expands Chase field, includes elimination rounds
Charlotte, NC (SportsNetwork.com) - NASCAR unveiled on Thursday sweeping changes to its Chase for the Sprint Cup championship format in 2014, expanding the field of drivers/teams from 12 to 16 and including a series of elimination rounds to determine its champion.
Under the new format, a win during the 26-race regular season all but guarantees a berth in the 10-race Chase. After the regular season concludes on Sept. 6 at Richmond, 16 drivers/teams will qualify for what will now be called the "NASCAR Chase Grid."
"This new format rewards winning," NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France said during his annual state of the sport speech. "It elevates the importance of every race across the entire schedule. It ultimately rewards those drivers and teams who perform at the highest level when the championship is on the line. The new Chase will be thrilling and easy to understand. It will help drive our sport's competition to a whole new level."
The number of drivers in contention for the Sprint Cup Series championship will decrease after every three Chase races. The first three events in the playoffs (Chicagoland, New Hampshire and Dover) will be known as the "Challenger Round."
After Dover, the Chase field is trimmed to 12. Chase races 4-6 (Kansas, Charlotte and Talladega) will be referred to as the "Contender Round." The field will then be cut to eight for the "Eliminator Round," which will include Chase events 7-9 (Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix).
Just four drivers/teams will remain in the Chase when the series concludes its season on Nov. 16 at Homestead. The highest finishing driver among the final four in the last Chase race will win the Sprint Cup championship.
Bonus points for laps led will not apply in the season-finale at Homestead, so the official finishing position alone will decide the champion.
"The final event of the season will settle the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship," France said. "No math, no bonus points for leading laps, previous wins, it's going to be the first of four drivers to cross the finish line, and that will define the NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. You know what, that's as simple as it gets."
The top-15 drivers with the most wins over the first 26 races will become eligible for the Chase, provided they have finished in the top-30 in points and attempted to qualify for every race, except in rare instances. The 16th position in the Chase will go to the points leader after Richmond (race No. 26) if he or she does not have a victory.
In the event that there are 16 or more different winners after Richmond, the only winless driver who can earn a Chase spot would be the points leader. If there are fewer than 16 different winners following Richmond, the remaining Chase grid positions will go to those winless drivers highest in points.
Prior to the start of the Chase, all drivers will have their points adjusted to 2,000. NASCAR has used this points format to begin the Chase each season since 2011.
Those drivers who win at Chicagoland, New Hampshire and Dover during the Challenger Round will automatically advance to the Contender Round. The 12 drivers in the Contender Round will have their points reset to 3,000.
Any one of the 12 drivers in the Contender Round that wins at Kansas, Charlotte or Talladega is guaranteed of making it into the Eliminator Round. The points are reset to 4,000 for each of the eight drivers who qualify for the Eliminator Round.
The top-eight drivers will vie for the four positions available in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Round, also known as the Title Round, at Homestead. Any one of the eight drivers who scores the victory at Martinsville, Texas or Phoenix will advance to the final round. The top-four will have their points reset to 5,000 for Homestead.
NASCAR instituted the Chase for its premier series in 2004. The sanctioning body has spent the past several years discussing and planning a new playoff system, in hopes of improving competition, bettering television ratings and track attendance and attracting more race fans.
France said, "For more than three years, we've been contemplating ways to elevate the entire NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship format in the following ways. First, we've talked about putting greater emphasis on winning races, something our fans overwhelmingly want. Second, make competing and running for a championship much simpler and much simpler to understand. Third, expand opportunities for more drivers to compete for the championship while ultimately rewarding the most worthy, battle-tested champion.
"We've looked at a number of concepts through fan research, models and simulations and also maintained extensive dialogue with our drivers, teams, tracks, and all of our partners. We now have arrived at a format that makes every race matter more. It will promote compelling competition for wins all season long. Ultimately, it will reward a very worthy champion at the end of each season, with the best of the best winner-take-all showdown."
The Chase format is one of two major changes that NASCAR has announced this month for its upcoming season.
Last week, NASCAR revealed its new qualifying format for the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, making it similar to knockout qualifying used for Formula One and IndyCar Series road/street course races.
At NASCAR racetracks measuring 1.25 miles or longer, qualifying will consist of three rounds. Tracks measuring less than 1.25 miles will feature just two rounds.
"Our new qualifying format was something that we've talked about for several years," NASCAR president Mike Helton said. "I won't sit here and tell you that we wouldn't sit and watch Formula One qualifying, because we do. And did we pick up something off of that might be useful? Probably so. But ours is ours, and ours is the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series qualifying now."
Many drivers and teams posted their reaction to the revised Chase format after the announcement was made.
"Winning has always been important in @NASCAR @Sprint Cup but wow just became THE way to win championship! Exciting!" Four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon tweeted.
Stewart-Haas Racing posted on its Twitter account, "Emphasis on winning in 2014. No problem. SHR's driver lineup has 95 point-paying Sprint Cup wins among them."
"Looking fwd 2 @NASCAR new chase format. Emphasis on winning is GREAT! It's going to be critical 2 also win in the 1st 3 races of the #chase," tweeted Kurt Busch, who won the inaugural Chase in '04.
Jimmie Johnson won his sixth Sprint Cup championship last year, beating Matt Kenseth by 19 points. Kenseth finished second while Johnson placed ninth in the last race of the season at Homestead.
The 2014 Sprint Cup season begins with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 23. Johnson is the defending winner of that race.


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CAPE MAY, NJ - January 6, 2013 --A state judge has dismissed another indictment that accused a former southern New Jersey mayor of official misconduct.
The indictment handed up last summer marked the second time a Cape May County grand jury alleged Gary DeMarzo used public funds to pay personal legal and related expenses while serving as Wildwood's mayor.
But Superior Court Judge Albert Garofolo dismissed the latest indictment Friday.
The ruling comes several months after Garofolo dismissed a similar indictment, saying then that some evidence wasn't presented to the grand jury.
County Prosecutor Robert Taylor, who claims Garofolo has favored the defense, said he would appeal the latest dismissal ruling. Taylor has asked Garofolo to recuse himself but the judge refused, calling Taylor's claim of bias "frivolous."
DeMarzo has claimed the indictment was politically motivated.


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Securities Law Program Website
Nearly every major securities regulatory agency in Washington and many leading firms in the field participated in a CUA Law-SEC co-sponsored symposium on ways to increase diversity in securities law.
Helping Wall Street Look More Like Main Street
"It has saddened me for 16 years that so few people in the financial services industry look like me," said Todd Cranford (left), currently of counsel at Patton Boggs. Cranford, who has specialized in securities law and financial matters both on Capitol Hill and at the Securities and Exchange Commission, has had plenty of opportunities to notice the general lack of diversity in his field.
Partnering with the SEC, Catholic University's Securities Law Program has taken a big step forward in addressing the concerns of securities attorneys like Cranford.
Its March 4 panel discussion, "A Symposium to Enhance Diversity of Legal Employment within the Securities and Financial Services Industry," offered all D.C.-area law students the opportunity to learn from experts about what it takes to plan a successful career in securities law.
Nearly a dozen speakers took turns encouraging law students and minority law students in particular to consider practice in a field that one speaker said offered "an enormous amount of excitement."
Representatives from the SEC, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, and other members of the brokerage community from government agencies and prominent law firms discussed current legal opportunities in the securities field with an eye toward students' concerns.
What role does the push for diversity play in hiring? "Diversity is a business imperative," said Marlon Paz, special counsel to the director of training and markets at the SEC. The federal securities law policing agency tries cases all over the country, in front of juries of many different ethnic, racial and linguistic compositions. "I submit to you that the SEC [attorneys] better be able to speak to those juries as well," Paz noted.
Recent studies, such as one from Columbia University that garnered much attention in January, have charted some troubling trends for minority law students. Admissions are declining in many law schools and diversity hiring remains stagnant in the legal field in general.
"I am proud of this program because it represents the aims and values of our securities program and our law school," said Professor David Lipton, director of Catholic University's Securities Law Program and chief organizer of the symposium.
"Maybe we will not turn around that decline with tonight's program. But I would be happy if we start a trend that ends up with increased diversity in our profession, not a continued decrease."
"Maybe we will not turn around that decline with tonight's program. But I would be happy if we start a trend that ends up with increased diversity in our profession, not a continued decrease."
Securities law in particular has never exactly been a mosaic of humankind, observed Stephen Gannon (above), executive committee member of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
"The securities world doesn't look like America yet. I think we're tapping on the accelerator. I wish we could step a little bit harder," Gannon said.
Every speaker stressed that in the end, competence, skill, attitude and networking ability plays a larger role in landing a plum securities position than does skin color or last name. Panelists urged the students in attendance to remain flexible and keep in mind that there is more than one door into the field.
Mignon McLemore, assistant chief counsel at FINRA, flirted with earlier careers in medicine, banking and was an employee of the Secret Service before finding her path to securities law.
"Opportunity and preparation are the keys for working in this industry. My only advice is, there is no one way to do it," she said.
The speaking program concluded with brief remarks from SEC Commissioner Elisse B. Walter, appointed by President George W. Bush and for a period the agency's acting chairwoman.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Walter (above with Professor David Lipton) recalled that she was sometimes referred to as a "lawyerette" by her 1970s classmates. Things have changed, she conceded, but not enough. Like the preceding speakers, Walter called for more diversity in the securities regulatory field, but differences in perspective and viewpoint as well as bloodlines. "The market is composed of people that look and think much differently than ever before," said Walter.
After the speaking program, students from more than eight regional law schools had the opportunity to meet and mingle with representatives from 16 prominent D.C. law firms and agencies to learn more about careers in securities regulation.


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STOCKTON - Daisy Mejia visited her daughter's second-grade classroom last week and learned several facts about her girl's progress in school.
STOCKTON - Daisy Mejia visited her daughter's second-grade classroom last week and learned several facts about her girl's progress in school.
Mejia learned that her daughter, 6-year-old Raylan Yiftheg, can read 94 of the "high-frequency words" a child should be able to read by the end of first grade.
She learned that there are 149 such words her daughter should have been able to read before moving on to second grade. And she learned that by the end of this school year, Raylan ought to be able to read 254 high-frequency words - words such as "another," "different" and "special."
All around Harrison Elementary School second-grade teacher Wendy Fettke's classroom, parents were receiving similar data about their children's reading development.
This was the first of three 75-minute Academic Parent Teacher Team, or APTT, meetings that will be held this year at Harrison and at six other low-performing Stockton Unified K-8 sites that are implementing the first of three years of federal School Improvement Grant funding.
"(APTT meetings are) a repurposing of the traditional parent-teacher conference," said Lora Gonzalez of the nonprofit consultant WestEd, which is assisting Stockton Unified with its SIG grant implementation.
"It's very diagnostic, very prescriptive of the students. Parents are understanding exactly what their children need with the specific use of grade-level material."
The APTT approach was developed several years back by Maria Paredes, who heads WestEd's family-engagement efforts.
Its goal is to increase the engagement of parents in their children's education by giving them what Paredes calls the "know-how" to help them. The reasoning is that children need help from their parents when they are home because they spend nearly twice the waking hours there as they do at school.
"The school can only do so much," Gonzalez said.
Giving parents the tools to help their children is especially important at schools such as those in Stockton Unified, where the demographics are heavily weighted toward economically disadvantaged families and English learners, parent-engagement proponents say.
At the first APTT meetings, run by the classroom teachers, parents are given data about their children. They learn at what level their children are functioning, and they learn the level their children need to reach to be at grade level. Then, the parents are taught how to help their children learn the pivotal information they need to know.
"APTT has provided me with tools so I can work with my child 1-on-1 to benefit her academic success," said Vonda Turner, whose 6-year-old daughter, Starr Cruz, is in the first grade at Pittman, another of Stockton Unified's SIG schools. "I believe I'm her first, primary educator."
Though parent attendance at the APTT meetings is not mandatory, Pittman eighth-grade teacher Brandie Hagan said she was impressed by the turnout at her first session.
"I think our majority want to help," Hagan said. "They want what's best for their children. We ran out of chairs, and I have a big classroom."
Harrison, Pittman and Stockton Unified's other SIG schools - Fremont, Henry, Nightingale, Roosevelt and Taylor - are the first in California to employ APTT, Gonzalez said.
WestEd gathered data on APTT's effectiveness in Creighton School District in Phoenix during the 2011-12 school year. According to the data, students in classrooms using the method progressed in far greater numbers than those not using the approach.
In Fettke's classroom, she began by telling the 15 parents in the room - in English and Spanish - why their children need to learn the high-frequency words.
"It improves their comprehension, their understanding of what they read," she said.
Fettke displayed a graph showing - without revealing any names - the enormous gap between her highest- and lowest-achieving students. "We are asking for your help," Fettke said.
In each parent's folder was a sheet with the high-frequency words printed in large, bold type. The parents were handed scissors and began cutting them out, creating flashcards. Fettke asked the parents to use the flashcards to practice with their children.
"Are you going to practice every day?" she asked. "Is it 10 minutes a day? Is it three times a week for 20 minutes? What are you willing to do?"
Toward the end of last week's meeting, Fettke told the parents they would meet again in about 60 days. She asked them to look at the number of high-frequency words their children currently can read and set realistic goals for their children to reach by the next APTT get-together.
Mejia took a conservative approach in setting a goal for Raylan. She wrote on a sheet of paper that Raylan will know 110 of the words within 60 days, a gain of 16. But Mejia said she has faith that with her help, Raylan will learn many more than 16 words in 60 days, and that her daughter will be at the grade-level figure of 254 by the end of second grade.
"That's a lot," Mejia said. "It's a challenge. I just have to see how much she can do and push her in a good way."
Contact reporter Roger Phillips at (209) 546-8299 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/phillipsblog.


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Tasting Sessions
IL GUSTO the real-life sweet-shop for grown-up's - is hosting a deliciously special "Tasting Evenings" in following Stores. The events will be jam-packed with cookery tips, demonstrations, cocktail-making and lots of sampling!.
Event Calendar
Booking Form
Tasting Experience with a Glass of Bubbly for One or Two at IL GUSTO
Discover more about our products.
How to taste them, how to drink them, how to cook them… learn from an expert!


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Sagna happy with life at Arsenal
Bacary Sagna insists he is happy at Arsenal following speculation that he could be the next high-profile player to leave the Emirates Stadium.
Sagna is reported to be dismayed by the terms of the 12-month contract extension he has been offered, seeking an improvement on his £60,000-a-week wages and a longer deal.
The 29-year-old is adamant he wants to play a full role in Arsenal's season after seeing his career stall because of two broken legs over the past year.
"I'm very happy. I'm very happy to be back to football and to play for Arsenal," he told Arsenal Player.
"I'm looking forward to playing more games this season because I've been injured lately."
Sagna is one of four players who will miss Saturday's Barclays Premier League clash with West Brom because of injury.
The France right-back has a foot problem, while Lukas Podolski, Theo Walcott and Laurent Koscielny have been lost to hamstring, calf and thigh ailments.
Arsenal's busy treatment room is a major setback as manager Arsene Wenger plots an end to the club's worst start to a Premier League season which has left them 10th in the table, five points off fourth place.
The Gunners have at least qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League and Sagna believes their league form will also soon improve.
"It's a bit difficult at the moment because we wish we could win some games," Sagna added. "It's a tough month but we just need to stick together and get back to the basics and everything will be fine.
"We have quality players and a quality team. The fans support us until the end so we just have to push and try to win games."


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|Bienvenidos and Welcome. To enter our label competition, visit some international beer links, or see what's on tap at Albuquerque happy hours, stop by the CANTINA. Get involved with the sordid political activities taking place behind the closed doors of LA MOVIDA. In BIBLIOTECA you'll find reviews of brewpubs, breweries, bars, beers, and festivals. To make your own impressions, attend one of the tasting events listed at INFORMACION.
|Our host, the Real Beer Page
|Reviews by the Unabrewer
|¿Que es nuevo?
|Mapa sitio
Comments to New Mexico Virtual Brewpub


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Hi! I've been bf'ing DD since the day she was born. It's been a battle but it's also very rewarding. When she was about 2 1/2 mo I noticed a small lump in my right breast, and thought it prolly was a clogged duct. I did the usual: applied wet and dry heat, massaged the area, pumped to drain milk...etc. Days passed and there was no difference, it didn't go down. I was expecting the fever to come as I predicted mastitis would ensue, but nothing. Not even pain. It was worrysome, since it was also growing. I kept at it, and a month went by. Finally I decided to go to the doctor's, I had a sonomamogram done and it revealed a mass of 9cm X 8cm, more or less. By this point it hurt, I had experienced redness and some days I would feel feverish and all around bad. Because of Insurance issues I had to go to and fro from doctor's offices and finally the diagnostic was a galactocele (milk cyst) and breast abcess. When I went to get it treated, the liquid was so viscous it could not be aspirated, so I had an incision & drainage. Thankfully, it was nothing worse than this.
After the procedure, I felt pain, but it subsided. All that was left was for the incision to drain, which it did for around a week or so, on & off. I had to clean the wound twice a day and change dressings. There was no infection around the area but I was prescribed antibiotics just to be safe. They were bf safe. Had to wait 24 hrs to bf DD from the affected breast, due to the anesthesia, but after that, everything went back to normal, a lil soreness at the nipple, but nothing else.
I first encountered info on breast abcesses on kellymom http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/...t-abscess.html at this link. It was very helpful.
I'm sharing this with you because it is very uncommon for this to happen, but it does and there is very little info on it. Thankfully, every health-care provider I encountered was very supportive of bf and knowledgeable.
Hope it helps!!


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Phoenix International School of Law (non-ABA), because they invited me to an event where I could hear from a "Panel of Prestegious Florida Coastal School of Law Alumni". Seriously.
Pontificial Catholic Univ of Puerto Rico75% LSAT - 14125% LSAT - 134
Regent University in Virginia! They darkened my mailbox, unsolicited of course, with some of their sectarian fundamentalist trash one day--oh what a joy it was to be invited to join their law school/cult and help them undermine the foundation of secular democratic government...
I find it ironic that a school with such a restrictive set of rules calls themselves 'Liberty' University. I think one of the scariest parts of the rules is that associating with people consuming alcohol is as big a disciplinary infraction as racial harassment. 18 Reprimands + $250 Fine + 18 hours Disciplinary Community Service Association with those consuming alcohol Commission of a misdemeanor Entering a residence hall apartment or quad of the opposite sex or allowing the sameEntering bedroom of the opposite sex on/off campus or allowing the sameFailure to properly identify oneself Falsification of information on an official documentRacial harassment Sexual harassment (i.e., unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors or other conduct or comments of a sexual nature) Sexual misconduct and/or any state of undressThreat to do bodily harmVandalism (plus financial restitution)


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In the most recent episode of Cinemax's military adventure series "Strike Back," Section 20 soldiers Stonebridge and Scott advance on a militia that outnumbers them. And against the odds, they manage to send the militia scrambling.
That's not an unusual scenario for the special operatives soldiers upon which Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton base their characters, the actors have told me.
We've talked about the extensive training they receive from the show's military advisers, but it goes far beyond how to handle weapons. They're drilled heavily on military tactics as well, sometimes in live-fire situations.
"The first time that we did that in our training ... we put on bulletproof vests and our military adviser looked at us and said, 'You got live rounds, don't shoot each other. Make it look good,'" Winchester said, laughing. "So Sully and I were like, 'OK. Well there you go. Don't shoot me in the head, I guess, but anywhere in the torso is fine.'
"We just applied that to the show; we applied that to how Scott and Stonebridge move."
Those tactics (including something called pepper-potting he talks about below) became almost second nature to the actors, so much so that when director Paul Wilmshurst was setting up the Ep. 4 battle scene, he asked them what Scott and Stonebridge would do. The actors basically choreographed the battle themselves.
"It was one of my favorite bits in the whole season actually, because we were into the season enough to have a grasp of what we were doing again," Winchester said. "And it was the first time that a director let us kind of run free and do what we do."
Winchester talks more about how the battle was choreographed and filmed below, but before that check out the behind-the-scenes clip from Cinemax showing "How to Flip a Flaming Truck."
"Strike Back" airs new episodes each Friday at 9 p.m. CT on Cinemax.
Let's talk about battle choreography a bit. In the fourth episode this season, there's a battle with El Soldat's militia where Scott and Stonebridge push forward toward the militia, then retreat. Does production plan battles like that or do they say, "OK, well, you trained for this for a month, now do what you know?"
[Laughs.] Yes. In a nutshell, that's exactly what happens. We've done all this training and we have tactically in our heads an idea of how we move as our characters and also how we move as a two-man team, which is what it comes down to in the field. Unless we're out with Richmond or Baxter or other Section 20 operatives, Sully and I know how we move in the field.
That's the thing with the training that we did; we did live-fire tactical advances. We did live-fire tactical retreats. We did live-fire kill rooms. So Sully and I were stacking up on each other like you see in the show, but with real rounds in our guns and firing at targets together and trusting each other and changing mags and trusting each other--dropping and giving cover fire while the other one retreats. All this was happening for real.
So when we do it on set, the directors literally came up and said, "All right guys, here's the scenario. You're going to hit from your left flank or from 9 o'clock, how would you deal with that?" And Sully and I walk it through with our military advisor just to double check things and then we shoot it, and it's just as simple as that.
With that one in Episode 4 (or 14, depending on how you're counting), we got there and Paul Wilmshurst, our director, had said, "Would you guys take cover, would you guys do this?"
The thing about these guys being different [from regular soldiers], about them being special operatives, is they push forward. They take the attack to the attackers. So we said, "No, let's take the fight to them." So we created this whole scenario where we're getting hit from 9 o'clock and we turn to them; we tactically advance.
I don't know if you noticed but I drop down to a knee and I cover Sully as he moves forward, and he covers me as I move forward. And it's all about pepper-potting, they call it, and tactically moving forward. So you're covering your buddy.
You very well might get shot, but what happens is one of you is either in cover or one of you is laying down cover fire while the other one is moving forward or backward ...
The aggression that these guys--there is no off-switch unless every one of those guys attacking is down. Unless they're in a safe place they will not stop. That's the mindset of these guys; there is no "I'm done." There is no giving up; you go, you go, you go, you go, you go. We wanted that to be very much in the show.
At the beginning of Ep. 4, we push in on El Soldat's men. They're pushing forward, we're pushing forward; we're tactically advancing. There are grenades. ... So we had a ball. We choreographed it in like half an hour or 45 minutes and then we spent the rest of the day running around, sliding in the dirt, shooting guns, which was great. [Laughs.]
When you guys shoot a battle like that, are you able to do that in one take or do you stop and start a lot?
We do shoot it through wide, but it depends on the director, to tell you the truth. With Paul he would let us run the whole thing. So by the end of that day, we were just tanked because we ran that scene probably 10, 12 times from different angles and close-ups. And then once you get in tighter, you don't run the whole thing.
But that's the other thing about these; even when you're pretending, there's adrenaline. They talk about when you come under fire you get tunnel vision, you lose dexterity, and all this stuff is happening to us and we're just pretending. So I can't even imagine what it's like to be in an actual firefight, to be actually pepper-potting and moving forward into the fire of oncoming people. It's just crazy.
So you guys couldn't do this for real?
[Laughs.] No way. I don't think we could. We're getting better at making it look good, but there's certainly a big difference between making it look good and doing it for real. When you talk to our military guys or you sit down with the real deals, you just go, "I'm an actor; you're an actual SAS [British Special Air Service] guy."
I'll speak for myself; I don't think we would [make it in a real battle]. It's a mind-set; it's training. It's years and years and years of professionalism and soldiering and being in the real thing.
Want more? Discuss this article and others on Show Patrol's Facebook page.


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RYE, N.Y. -- Eleven-year-old Daniel Pellegrini, who had been bullied at school, found his remedy in a song from the Broadway show, "Dear Evan Hansen."
The Rye Middle School student said "Waving Through a Window," which he first heard on the radio, spoke to him so much that he chose to perform it at the annual "Rye's Got Talent" event Saturday, March 11 at Rye Country Day School.
Though he didn't win -- he did win the hearts and minds of the audience who gave him a standing ovation, along with lots of waving. Pellegrini's story had been broadcast on CBS News after a friend who is a singing coach heard the story of his struggle and shared it with a CBS Producer.
Now, the Westchester sixth grader has turned into a local star. Most importantly, he's reconciled with the students who made him feel bad initially.
Mom Laura said it's been an amazing experience that has taught her son resilience and the power of communication.
Another nice outcome: The family has been contacted by the "Dear Evan Hansen" cast -- they even tweeted him to "break a leg" in the middle of his performance -- and have invited them to see the Broadway show in person. Dare we say a duet is in Pellegrini's future?
Go HERE to see the CBS clip.
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Our Highlights from ARCOmadrid 2014
Wendy Navarro and Carlos Vallejo
João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva have been collaborating since 2001 to make what they call "poetic philosophical fictions." Most of their works take the form of sculpture, installation, and short film featuring amateur actors and low-tech effects; their pieces demonstrate an ongoing interest in the paranormal, the inexplicable, illusion, and the complexity in the production of images. An early series titled "DeParamnésia" (2001-02) engaged with subjects related to perception, the unconscious, and déjà vu. Their practice has since become more research-based. For example, their latest works expand upon Abissologia, a term coined by the French author René Daumal, which describes the science of the abyss.
Portuguese, 1979 and 1977, Lisbon, Portugal, based in Lisbon, Portugal
Our Highlights from ARCOmadrid 2014
Wendy Navarro and Carlos Vallejo
My Highlights from ARCOmadrid
María de Corral
My Highlights from ARCOmadrid
Tobias Ostrander


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CHICAGO – Ryan Sweeney credited his teammates with helping him have one of his best days at the ballpark.
Sweeney had a career-high six RBIs, including a three-run homer, and the Cubs routed the Houston Astros, 14-6, on Sunday.
The center fielder drove in runs in each of his first four at-bats, capping the stretch with his longball to right-center. He also had two doubles and a run-scoring grounder in the second inning.
"Anytime you're scoring 14 runs with 16 hits, it's contagious," said Sweeney, who started in place of the injured David DeJesus. "Everybody hit the ball great today and it was fun to watch."
Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo added a two-run home run and finished 3 for 3 with four runs scored and four RBIs. The Cubs scored their most runs and had their most hits (16) this season. All nine starters reached base for the Cubs.
"We have to give ourselves opportunities and eventually, somebody is going to come through," Rizzo said. "So we just have to keep giving ourselves opportunities."
The Cubs' outburst helped erase a pair of errors from shortstop Starlin Castro, who now leads the majors with 14 errors this season. Castro has also struggled at the plate, with just 13 hits in his past 98 at-bats.
"The whole thing is not going real well right now, so hopefully this day off can recharge him and get things going in Milwaukee," Cubs manager Dale Sveum said about Castro.
Starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija (5-7) won his second straight, with five strikeouts and no walks. It was his first start without yielding a walk this season.
"Anytime I don't walk somebody, usually the outcome is in the positive side of things," Samardzija said. "I attacked the zone, had a couple of three-ball counts, just wanted to stay there and not give any freebies up and just let our defense work."
Houston pitcher Jordan Lyles (4-2) lost for the first time since May 12.
"We got him to throw a lot of pitches and his velocity started going down," Sweeney said. "We made him throw more and get away from his strength (the fastball) and make him throw more off-speed pitches and we hit him."
Houston first baseman Chris Carter finished with a career-high three doubles among his four hits. He drove in two runs and scored twice.
"It was good to see him drive the ball the other way," Astros manager Bo Porter said. "He's been doing that this last week or so and it's coming together."
Chicago pulled away in the fifth inning with consecutive hits by Alfonso Soriano, Rizzo and Sweeney. Each scored to give Chicago an 8-3 lead. Soriano hit his first triple of the season and Rizzo then hit a looping single to shallow center field. Sweeney's double sent Houston center fielder Justin Maxwell sprinting toward the warning track and the ball bounced off his glove. Rizzo beat the relay throw to home plate. Second baseman Darwin Barney added a two-out RBI single to score Sweeney.
Jose Altuve tried sparking an Astros rally for the second straight day, this time leading off the fourth with a single. Jason Castro followed with a double and Altuve scored on J.D. Martinez's groundout.
Carter had a run-scoring double to center field and Castro scored on Starlin Castro's first error, a wild throw on a routine grounder by Matt Dominguez.
Chicago jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning. Samardzija started the inning with a single and the Cubs loaded the bases on an error by shortstop Marwin Gonzalez and a walk. Nate Schierholtz hit a two-run single to get the scoring started. Rizzo followed with a sacrifice fly to right field and Sweeney doubled in two more runs.
NOTES: The Cubs are expected to make a roster move, possibly adding a position player, before Tuesday's game against the Brewers. The Cubs currently have 13 pitchers in the majors. . Sveum watched the Chicago Blackhawks' victory over the Boston Bruins in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Saturday night. He said if he could live another life he would be a hockey player. "It's such a true sport," Sveum said. "You can't do anything but play hard the whole game. It's OK to be physical. It's OK to fight." . Houston center fielder Maxwell hit in the leadoff position for the first time this season.


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Simple & Sweet || carbon8 soundcrafting
Simple & Sweet is a whimsical and cute track that is simple, clean, and to the point. If you are looking for a great backing track for your next big commercial, documentary, reality tv show, or blog, then this is the track for you. Featuring piano, glockenspiel, and marimba, this track gives out plenty of earthy, folk indie vibes, while keeping it nice and simple, JUST THE WAY YOU WANT IT!
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- Elegant And Complete a short audio logo featuring synth pads and vibraphone
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The rising Mississippi River is impacting communities in southern Illinois.
The water has already closed one business, closed roads, and is affecting houses in Thebes, Illinois.
Neil Day, owner of Thebes Landing Campground, says the waters have covered his land.
Everyone has vacated the campground and Day was forced to close. He is planning on reopening in 10 days after the water recedes.
Several streets in Thebes are already covered with water including Second Street.
The water is so deep for one homeowner that he travels to his home by boat.
THEBES, IL (KFVS) - Copyright 2013 KFVS. All rights reserved.


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SAN ANTONIO (AP) Manu Ginobili and Gary Neal scored 11 points apiece and the San Antonio Spurs beat Italy's Montepaschi Siena 106-77 in their preseason opener Saturday night.
Tim Duncan and Tony Parker added nine points each. They started along with Boris Diaw, Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, the same starting lineup the Spurs used down the stretch last season.
Bobby Brown scored 20 points for Siena.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich spread out minutes on a roster that is almost identical to the one that collapsed during the Western Conference finals following a 20-game winning streak.
Among the newcomers trying to make the cut is center Eddy Curry. He didn't get off the bench until the fourth quarter and scored seven points.


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Nationwide Business Insurance in Toledo, Ohio From BERNARD J HEINL
Cover your business with commercial insurance from Nationwide.
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While there are common risk factors based on industry and location, every Toledo company has slightly different risk management needs. This is where Bernie J Heinl and the experts at BERNARD J HEINL can really make a difference. Let's talk about what gains your company has already made and where it's headed next. From there, we can help customize a policy and billing schedule that will put your company in a better position. Give us a call at (419) 841-9036. We can set up your policy over the phone or schedule a time to talk in person.
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Pacific Rim Rice Pudding
Rice is gently simmered with coconut milk, ginger and star anise to create a delicious comfort food dessert with a new flavor twist.
1 1⁄2 cups short-grain rice
2 cups coconut milk
1 1⁄2 cups whole milk
1⁄2 cup sugar
4 star anise
Salt, a pinch
2 tbsp. chopped crystallized ginger
1 cup heavy cream
1⁄2 cup pineapple juice
2 cups cut-up tropical fruits (kiwi, papaya, pineapple, and kumquats)
4 baked phyllo pastry cups (about 4 in. diameter)
Toasted coconut chips, for garnish
1. In a large saucepan, combine rice, coconut milk, whole milk, sugar, star anise, and salt. Bring to a boil. Gently simmer, uncovered, 25 min., stirring occasionally, until creamy and rice is tender. Remove pan from heat and stir in ginger. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Whip heavy cream and fold into rice pudding. Cover and chill until ready for service.
3. In skillet, reduce pineapple juice until syrupy. Stir in tropical fruits and remove from heat.
4. Per order, scoop pudding into a phyllo cup. Top with tropical fruits and garnish with coconut chips.


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Chocolate Matzo Crunch
If you only make one thing for Passover, this is it. Chocolate Matzo Crunch is delicious, so easy and makes a great gift. If you decide not to make your own, not to worry, you can buy our Matzel Toff!! Gift Set, which is part of our Passover Gifts and Passover Desserts "menu."
Recipe: Chocolate Matzo Crunch
Skill Level: Low, ok for kids 10+
Delish Level: Highest Possible
6 unsalted plain matzos
8 oz. unsalted butter or margarine (2 sticks)
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup good quality semi sweet chocolate, chopped or chocolate chips
Pinch of Sea Salt
-Combine milk, dark, white or combination
-Add toasted, slivered nuts of your choice such as peanuts or almonds
Preheat oven to 375
Line 2 baking sheets (or one large) first with foil and then with parchment paper.
Arrange matzo on baking sheets so that all of the space is filled in. You can break some of the pieces in order to fill in any spaces. (as in image at left)
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine butter and brown sugar. Stir constantly until the contents come to a boil (2-3 minutes). Boil for another 3 minutes, still stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour over matzo to completely cover it.
Immediately place baking sheet in oven and reduce the heat to 350. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on it to be sure it does not burn. You are looking for a deep golden color.
Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate and nuts (if using them). Let cool for 5 minutes, then spread chocolate and a pinch of sea salt (and nuts if using) over the matzo. The spreading need not be uniform, but there all of the matzo should be covered (as in image at right).
Before cooled, break matzo into smaller pieces; not smaller than 2 inches x 2 inches. Place cookie sheet with matzo in freezer to set, approximately 1 hour. If your freezer is not large enough, carefully place parchment paper with matzo on it, in freezer.
Remove from freezer and allow candy to become room temperature. You will need to pull apart the pieces as they may have become stuck together. Package in cello bags, in a tin or on platter. Enjoy! If you prefer not to make this yourself, order some Matzel Toff!!


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Opinion: Life
A night with the gang
It was my third night at the parish welcoming a group of homeless men for a wonderful meal, which tonight was cooked up by a lovely couple whose chili, both a vegetarian and meat version, was outstanding. I am getting to know some of the men. They spend their days in a center in midtown New York where they can't spend the night. For… READ MORE >
Opinion: Life
An Easter Homecoming for Jimmy
Easter marks the dawning of a new and eternal day. The Church commemorates the Resurrection day of Christ as an octave; eight days of rejoicing as if it were a single day. The preface for the Eucharistic prayer in these days speaks in the present tense "on this Easter day". The Beatles sang of needing love eight days a week and of a longing… READ MORE >
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What people forget about the "Dominion settlement money" is that the settlement stipulated the money had to be used for energy-saving and renewable energy municipal projects.
Why is that important?
What people forget about the "Dominion settlement money" is that the settlement stipulated the money had to be used for energy-saving and renewable energy municipal projects.
Why is that important?
Well, mostly it's important because none of that money would have hired a firefighter, patched a pothole, caught a drug dealer or knocked as much as a nickel off your water bill.
At best, the money might have been used for something like solar panels on the high school, something that wouldn't make you feel much better if you live on, say, Jencks Street and "home invasion" is one of the things you worry about at night.
Don't mistake what I'm saying. I think Fall River should have filled out all the requisite paperwork on time and gotten what most people now seem to think of as "our share" of the money, and I think someone needs to be punished for blowing the deadline.
Applying for money is Fall River does. If we fail at THAT, who are we?
We apply for grants, aid, settlements, assistance of all kinds. We apply for that stuff like poor folks apply for welfare. And we do it because Fall River is to Massachusetts what Sunset Hill is to Fall River.
Don't feel insulted, though. New Bedford isn't really doing any better and neither is Lawrence and a number of other cities in the Commonwealth.
The worst thing about the Dominion settlement flap is that the loss of "our share" is not what's wrong with the city's finances. It's not even particularly symptomatic.
The Dominion settlement is a lottery hit, it's money you find in the street. It's one-time cash.
Fall River, by and large, doesn't have a problem hitting the grant lottery. We blew this one but we'll probably get the next grant, if only because most grants are based on need and, if there's one thing we have, it's need.
What we stink at is achieving self-sufficiency. What we can't do is ever get to the point where we can get up off our knees and stop begging for welfare money.
What we can't do is competently administer the money we do have. Instead, we borrow money for unnecessary parks, we hand out raises, we continue to cultivate the "hire your cousin" culture and we wait for "our share" of anything free being handed out by anyone, anywhere.
The "Dominion settlement" mess at Government Center is the perfect "scandal" for your Uncle Frank.
We all have an Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank hasn't been employed full time for maybe seven or eight years, but he goes to political "times" and he can call at least two city councilors by their first names. In the fall, you can see Frank up by the President Avenue rotary, standing REAL close to the candidate, holding a sign.
If you don't think you're family has an Uncle Frank, it's because you ARE Uncle Frank.
When talking politics, Frank begins his sentences with, "What they should do..." and, of course, "I'll tell you what they're gonna do..."
Yeah, Frank is an insider and he loves things like the "Dominion settlement scandal," because it's easy to talk about in a way that ongoing, painstaking financial management isn't.
Why Fall River can't have a fire department without federal help is a better question than why we didn't get $800,000 in one time pocket money. I told you we are good at getting grants and we are. The feds gave us MILLIONS to run our fire department, a lottery hit, one time money, and we spent it and we never even thought about what we'd do when the grant ran out.
Steady, responsible, careful management of money paid to the city by the residents and property owners of the city creates a city that attracts businesses and can retain its working class. Grants don't do that and settlement money doesn't do that and you can't do that with "anti-poverty initiatives."
No business ever located in a city because city government had a good record of attracting anti-poverty grants. Businesses like to locate in cities where the tax rate and the number of cops and firefighters all remain relatively steady for periods as long as five years.
The Scandal of the Month gives Uncle Frank something to talk about at the dinner table, but the Scandal of the Month will be forgotten by the next election, when Uncle Frank will be out holding a sign.
Probably for an incumbent.
Marc Munroe Dion is a reporter and columnist for The Herald News. Email email@example.com.


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BeefJack writes: "Metacritic have finally allowed users to review Duke Nukem Forever – over four days after the game was released outside North America. After the negative user reactions on the site to Dragon Age II and Portal 2, were Metacritic trying to avoid the controversy of another organised backlash from the public against a game that's dividing opinion to say the least before it hit US stores?"
Meta User Reviews are worthless. You get reviews like, "DIS GAME IZ OFF DA CHAINZZZ 10/10", or "Game looks gay as hell 1/10" Every game has these idiot reviews, from Halo, to Uncharted to Metroid. Meta User Reviews shouldn't ever receive any credibility.
Duke Nukem Forever is basically a huge kidney stone that the game industry has finally passed and now it will not cause us all constant minor pain and we can forget about it. This is not a game release so much as an exorcism.
Now we need to get Colonial Marines, BIA:Furious Four, and Borderlands 2 out and then we can pretend that none of this ever happened.


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NHIAA Football: Latimore, Pinkerton roll over LondonderryBy ROGER BROWN
New Hampshire Union Leader
September 29. 2013 1:08AM
DERRY - Pinkerton Academy of Derry opened its season with a loss to Bedford, but the Astros have been building momentum since then.
Pinkerton extended its Division I winning streak to three games by beating rival Londonderry, 35-14, Saturday night as part of Mack Plaque weekend.
Pinkerton fed Londonderry a heavy dose of senior running back Manny Latimore, who scored three touchdowns in the victory. Latimore rushed for two first-half touchdowns, and returned the second half kickoff 95 yards for his third TD.
"We've stabilized the quarterback position," Pinkerton coach Brian O'Reilly said. "We've settled on Jack (Hanaway). We made a couple changes in our offensive personnel after the Bedford game that has solidified our blocking, and our young kids are getting better all the time.
"Defensively, our secondary has come along and doing a nice job."
The Astros received a rushing touchdown from fullback Matt Madden, and one from Hanaway. The Astros led 7-0 after one quarter, 14-0 at halftime and 28-7 entering the fourth.
Pinkerton has also beaten Manchester Central and Salem during its current winning streak. Londonderry, which was 2-0 at one point, dropped to 2-2.
After Latimore's kickoff return helped Pinkerton build a 21-0 lead, Londonderry answered when Jon Young scored on a 75-yard run with 11:22 to play in the third.
Pinkerton regained a 21-point lead when Madden crashed into the end zone from 2 yards away and Kyle Cantalupo added the point-after kick with 3:46 remaining in the third.
After Londonderry made it 28-14 on a 9-yard TD pass from quarterback Aaron Gaudet to Eric Fairweather and Justin Olin's PAT with 6:57 to play, Pinkerton answered on a 14-yard TD run by Hanaway with 2:07 left.
The game featured teams that were both in this week's Union Leader/WGIR/WMUR Power Poll. Pinkerton was No. 5, and Londonderry was part of a three-way tie at No. 10.
Things won't get any easier for the Lancers next weekend, when they will play at unbeaten Concord (4-0). Pinkerton can extend its winning streak to four games when it plays at Manchester Memorial (1-3) on Saturday.


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Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010 is a data analysis tool that lets end users load, model, and explore data—without direct involvement or assistance from IT. In this article, I walk you through the key capabilities of PowerPivot to facilitate analysis of the US Federal Government's historical debt. Specifically, I use PowerPivot to
- load data tables from multiple sources
- manage relationships between data tables
- use the new Data Access Expression (DAX) functions to perform lookups among related tables and create calculated columns
- create a pivot table and pivot chart
- create calculated measures
If you want to follow along, you'll need Excel 2010 and PowerPivot for Excel, which you can download from www.powerpivot.com. You can download the sample projects using the Download the Code Here button at the top of the article page.
Loading Data
Open the USGovtData_SQLMag_v0.xlsx workbook in Excel 2010 and select the USHistoricalDebt worksheet. The tblUSHistoricalDebt table in this worksheet was sourced from the US Treasury and represents the US Federal Government's historical annual debt from fiscal year 1790 through 2010; monthly debt information is available from September 2007. In the Excel ribbon, click the PowerPivot tab, select the USHistoricalDebt worksheet, and click inside the tblUSHistoricalDebt table. Then, click the Create Linked Table button located in the PowerPivot tab. The PowerPivot window will open with the tblUSHistoricalDebt table loaded, as shown in Figure 1. (Note that I have adjusted the formatting of the Date and Amount columns in Figure 1.)
In the PowerPivot window, click the From Database-From Access button located in the Get External Data section of the Home tab. (Note that if you're running Windows XP, the PowerPivot window doesn't have a ribbon; instead, a set of menu items is exposed. The functionality and available options are still the same, but you'll need to adapt my instructions a bit to select the appropriate menu items.) In the Table Import Wizard window, select the USGDP.accdb Access database, click Open, click Next, and make sure the default option Select from a list of tables and views to choose the data to import is selected. Then, select all three tables and click Finish. The Table Import Wizard will show the results of the import, as shown in Figure 2. Click the Details link (located in the Data Preparation row) to see how the two foreign key relationships from the database are also detected and imported. Then you can close the wizard.
The Date, USHistoricalCPI, and USHistoricalGDP tables are now loaded into PowerPivot. The Date table, as the name implies, is used for time-based analysis and calculations. USHistoricalCPI contains Consumer Price Index (CPI, CPI-U) data from 1790 to present and can be used to adjust dollar amounts for inflation. USHistoricalGDP contains Gross Domestic Product (GDP) information for the US economy. (GDP data is often used as a basic measure of a country's economic performance.)
Managing Relationships Between Data Tables
To analyze data from multiple sources, it's important to establish relationships among tables. With the PowerPivot window still open, select the Design tab in the ribbon and click Manage Relationships; the two foreign key relationships from the database are listed, as Figure 3 shows.
USHistoricalCPI and USHistoricalGDP are both related to the Date table; you'll also want to create a relationship between tblUSHistoricalDebt and Date. In the Manage Relationships window, click Create to create a relationship between tblUSHistoricalDebt and the Date table based on the IdDate column, as Figure 4 shows.
Note that PowerPivot also has the ability to automatically create relationships between tables. When analyzing data in a pivot table, PowerPivot detects if unrelated tables are used at the same time and presents the user with the option of creating a relationship between the tables.
Using DAX to Create Calculated Columns
The tblUSHistoricalDebt table represents US debt in terms of current dollars; because we have data that spans more than 200 years, we'll want to account for inflation for accurate comparisons across time. In economic analysis, it's common to pick a given year as a basis for calculations. For example, the GDPAmount_2005_Billions column in the USHistoricalGDP table represents GDP in terms of 2005 dollars. Our goal, then, is to express US debt in terms of 2005 dollars as well.
The USHistoricalCPI table contains a CPI value (CPI-U) we can use to adjust for inflation. Using the September 2005 CPI-U value of 198.8 as the basis, the formula for adjusting a given year's dollar amount to 2005 dollars is Year Amount x (198.8 / CPI-U for the year). (I chose September because it's currently the last month of the US government's fiscal year.)
PowerPivot introduces a new formula language called Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) that extends the data manipulation capabilities of Excel. The DAX syntax is similar to Excel formulas, providing a combination of functions, operators, and values. We'll use DAX to create a calculated column representing US debt in terms of 2005 dollars.
In the PowerPivot window, select the tblUSHistoricalDebt table and click the Add Column column header. In the formula area, enter the following:
=CALCULATE( MIN(USHistoricalCPI\\[CPI-U\\]) ).
An in-depth explanation of this formula is outside the scope of this article. At a high level, the formula returns the lowest (i.e., MIN) matching CPI-U value from the USHistoricalCPI table based on the fact that tblUSHistoricalDebt and USHistoricalCPI are indirectly related via their shared relationship to the Date table. Double-click the CalculatedColumn1 column header and rename the column CPI-U, as shown in Figure 5.
We now have a CPI-U value for each row. When we eventually create a pivot table and chart for analysis, we don't need the end user to see this duplicate CPI-U value because CPI-U is already part of the USHistoricalCPI table, so you'll want to right-click the CPI-U column header and select Hide Columns-From Pivot Table.
Next, add another calculated column to the tblUSHistoricalDebt table by clicking the Add Column column header. Enter the following formula:
=tblUSHistoricalDebt\\[Amount\\] * (198.8/tblUSHistoricalDebt\\[CPI-U\\])
Then, rename the column Amount_2005. I recommend, when typing this formula, you try clicking (instead of typing the name of) the referenced columns.
Creating a Pivot Table and Pivot Chart
Close the PowerPivot window and save your workbook. In the PowerPivot tab, click the PivotTable-Chart and Table (Vertical) button. Accept the default option of inserting the pivot table into a new worksheet. You'll see that two worksheets are inserted into the workbook: Sheet1 and Data for Sheet1 Chart 1. The Data for Sheet1 Chart 1 worksheet stores data for, and lets you manipulate, the pivot chart independent of the pivot table. Select the pivot table in Sheet1, and, in the PowerPivot Field List, drag the tblUSHistoricalDebt Amount field to the Values list box. Drag Century, Decade_Desc, and CalendarYear from the Date table into the Row Labels list box. Your pivot table should now look similar to Figure 6.
Note that in my pivot table, the Summary (i.e., aggregation) of the Amount value has been changed from the default Sum option to Maximum. (I accomplished this by clicking the Amount column in the Values list box of the PowerPivot Field List, selecting the Summarize By menu item, and selecting Max). Also, in the pivot table itself, the Amount column has been formatted as currency by editing the Value Field settings. (Right-click the Amount column header in the pivot table and select the Value Field Settings menu item.) Finally, I collapsed the Decade_Desc field for the time being to hide all of the years.
Let's stop here and look at the numbers. In the 1790s, the United States had a national debt of $83 million. (For the curious history buff, expand the decade 1830-3; the year 1834 represents the United States' closest attempt at becoming debt free.) The debt jumped to $2.7 billion in the 1860s (financing the Civil War), to $27 billion in the 1910s (World War I), and to more than $40 billion in the 1930s (because of the Great Depression and subsequent government programs). World War II pushed the debt to more than $260 billion in the 1940s, where it remained at a slow but steady increase until the 1970s. From 1970 to October 2009, the debt has increased to nearly $12 trillion. (Expand the decade 2000-0 to see how our debt has nearly doubled in the past 10 years.) Looking at these numbers, it would appear the US debt is increasing at an exponential rate.
Now, let's place these numbers on the chart for a graphical representation. Click inside the (currently blank) chart and then, in the PowerPivot Field List, drag the tblUSHistoricalDebt Amount field to the Values list box (and as before, change the summary to Maximum). Then, drag the Decade_Desc field from the Date table into the Row Labels list box. The chart visually confirms the alarming rise in the national debt.
The next step in our analysis is to look at the debt in terms of 2005 dollars (i.e., to adjust for inflation). To do so, add the Amount_2005 field to both the pivot table and chart, making sure you change the summary aggregation to Maximum. Even with inflation factored out of our analysis, the rise in our debt (especially in the past 40 years) is dramatic. With that said, the rise in the US debt might not be so problematic if the size of our economy were also growing at a similar (or more rapid) pace.
Creating Calculated Measures
Add the GDPAmount_2005_Billions field to the pivot table and change the summary aggregation to Maximum. As the name implies, GDP is expressed in billions (and in 2005 dollars). To keeps things consistent, let's convert the US debt into billions as well. In the PowerPivot tab, click the New Measure button. In the Measure Settings window, enter the following values:
Table Name: tblUSHistoricalDebt
Measure Name: Amount_2005_Billions
Formula: = tblUSHistoricalDebt\\[Maximum of Amount_2005\\] / 1000000000
After you click OK, a new field (i.e., a new measure) is added to both the PowerPivot Field List and to the pivot table. Visually comparing the debt amounts to the GDP amounts over time is a bit of work, so we'll add a second calculated measure to express the debt as a percentage of the GDP. Click the New Measure button again and enter the following values:
Table name: tblUSHistoricalDebt
Measure Name: DebtAsPercentageOfGDP
Formula: =if( ISBLANK(USHistoricalGDP\\[Maximum of GDPAmount_2005_Billions\\] ), BLANK(), tblUSHistoricalDebt\\[Amount_2005_Billions\\]/ USHistoricalGDP\\[Maximum of GDPAmount_2005_Billions\\] )
I added this new measure to my pivot chart, as well as Amount_2005_Billions and Maximum of GDPAmount_2005_Billions. I then made a series of customizations to the chart, including
- customizing the series chart types by right-clicking a value in the chart legend and selecting the Change Series Chart Type menu item
- creating a secondary axis for DebtAsPercentageofGDP by right-clicking the value in the chart legend and selecting the Format Data Series menu item
- adding data labels to the DebtAsPercentageofGDP series by right-clicking the series in the chart and selecting the Add Data Labels menu item
- filtering the chart to display data from 1900 to present by clicking the Decade_Desc filter in the chart and selecting the desired decades; alternatively, you can add a Report Filter or take advantage of the new Slicers feature to filter data by century.
The resulting pivot chart is shown in Figure 7. Unfortunately, the chart confirms that our national debt is growing faster than our GDP (i.e., debt was 39 percent of our GDP in the 1970s and is now 82 percent of our GDP).
Sharing PowerPivot Data via SharePoint
We've loaded, modeled, and analyzed data—without leaving Excel. Eventually, you might want to share your analysis with others (who might or might not have Excel 2010). With SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2, it's possible to publish Excel workbooks (with PowerPivot data) to a SharePoint document library. Other users can then view the workbooks in a browser via Excel Services. And because a PowerPivot data model is actually an in-memory version of SQL Server Analysis Services, our published workbook becomes a data source that other applications (e.g., SQL Server Reporting Services, PerformancePoint Services) can consume.


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FORT HOOD, Texas, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A military jury Friday convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan of premeditated murder and premeditated attempted murder in the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, massacre.
The jury of 13 officers found Hasan guilty during the second day of deliberations.
Hasan was found guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage, making him eligible for the death penalty, CNN reported.
Before the verdict Col. Tara Osborn, the military judge, ordered those in the courtroom to remain calm, CNN said.
The panel ended deliberations Thursday after asking the presiding judge two questions. They requested a read-back of testimony from Mark Todd, a police officer who responded to the shootings, and asked to see a map of buildings at Fort Hood, the network said.
Hasan, who acted as his own attorney but did not offer a defense, was left paralyzed from the waist down when wounded during the attack.
Hasan also declined to make a statement during closing arguments.
Prosecutors told the panel the evidence showed Hasan intended to kill as many soldiers as possible as part of a jihadist attack.
"There is no doubt, as I said in the beginning, the accused is the shooter," Col. Steven Henricks told the panel.
"The only question for you is ... is this a premeditated design to kill?"
Osborn barred Hasan from putting on the defense he wanted -- that he acted to prevent more killing in an illegal war in Afghanistan.