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I recently presented a lecture at the CompuGroup Medical (CGM) User Group Conference entitled Ten Major Trends Facing the Healthcare Industry in Ambulatory Care on a Five-year Horizon. You can view a PDF of my lecture here. I made reference to this lecture in a blog note about how the future of healthcare was inextricably bound to information technology (see: Future of Healthcare Changes Inextricably Bound to Information Technology). Here is a slightly modified list of the ten megatrends that I presented in Las Vegas:
- Big Medicine continues to dominate healthcare delivery.
- Healthcare payers demand cost reductions.
- The configuration. design, and purpose of hospitals is changing (e.g., bedless hospitals).
- Telemedicine is rapidly becoming the new normal.
- The majority of physicians are becoming health system employees.
- Sicker patients are gravitating to ambulatory care and telemedicine settings.
- Consumerism is driving the decentralization of healthcare.
- Wearable devices and home mini-labs are gaining broad acceptance.
- Precision medicine is maturing as a medical discipline.
- Health networks connect providers, patients, and consumers.
I would now like to extend some of my comments about the growth of telemedicine. The cost of healthcare as a percentage of the GDP continues to grow at an unsupportable rate. For me, the best way to deliver care to an increasing number of patients at a reasonable cost is with telemedicine. Such an approach will allow a rapid expansion of the scale of healthcare without rigid investments in bricks-and-mortar facilities. I also believe that sicker patients, as noted in the list above, will gravitate to ambulatory care settings as bedless hospitals are built with more sophisticated capacity to manage virtual care visits. This is trend is analogous to the trajectory of outpatient surgery over the last decade, offering increasingly complex procedures.
The replacement of in-person ambulatory visits with virtual ones will usher in a major transformation of healthcare. I suspect that some older physicians may not feel comfortable with this change. Most younger physicians will immediately relate to virtual care because they use technology such as FaceTime on a daily basis. I am seeing almost daily advertisements from large health systems about the availability of telemedicine visits as an option. Here's a quote from a recent article on this topic (see: Telemedicine Statistics Show Big Growth Potential):
Insurers have jumped on the bandwagon and have begun to partner with telemedicine providers for a number of their health plans. According to Workforce's January article, "Insurers Connecting to Telemedicine" Aflac added teleservices to its group critical-illness plans last November. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association partnered with provider American Well in 2014 as did Anthem Inc. to offer telemedicine services to approximately 3.5 millions of its members. It's expected that more health plans will rollout teleservices in pilot programs or targeted geographic areas in 2016.


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By the time most Koreans graduate they're great in mathematics, grammar, history, and basically everything that's fact based and doesn't require a lot of advanced critical thinking. Not that these subjects shouldn't require critical thinking, they just don't in Korea. A typical Korean student would have no trouble defining a whole host of scientific vocabulary, but ask them to design a creative experiment to test something they've never thought about before and they'll be stumped. So, as far as standardized test taking goes , Koreans rock.
In the case of milder disabilities, where the students actually are sent to school, the treatment they receive from other teachers and students is deplorable. They are regularly mocked, bullied, teased, yelled at, and generally treated like a problem and a nuisance by students and faculty alike. Now, this is only what I've seen from my personal experience, but having talked to dozens of teachers in all areas of the country, this seems to be pretty standard.
I did my best to support these kids for the 40 minutes I saw them every week, and I was fortunate to work with one coteacher who very like-minded, but as far as I saw, everyone else in our school treated these kids like animals. It was by far the most depressing aspect of working in this system.
Anyway, let's move on to something happier...
Forget your umbrella? No problem, you can have theirs, or they'll walk you to the nearest store under their umbrella to keep you dry. Lost? Don't worry about it, they'll walk you 20 minutes out of their way to show you where to go. Short on cash? No big deal, they'll just give you whatever you're trying to buy (aside from that new 50" plasma TV).
But in general, Koreans are incredibly friendly, hospitable, love foreigners, and are more than happy to help you find whatever you're looking for.
They've also get some pretty delicious and incredibly disgusting sea food options as well, if that's your bag. I did have the chance to eat a live octopus while here. It was squirmy.
So if you get the chance, definitely check out a Korean restaurant. Turns out there's even a few decent ones here in KC!
I had some of the most amazing times of my life here, and I met some wonderful people, including the most incredible girl ever, Ms. Kendra Moran. It's been sad to say goodbye to the country and the people, but alas, it's time for a new adventure...And so, I'll see you in Colombia this fall!
Oh, I almost forgot... if you enjoyed the previous "bandit' movies, here are the final two from my time at AllieJam hagwon:
The Time Bandit
The Mondey Bandit

subset: commoncrawl


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Unlike traditional meringues, which are crisp all the way through, these are still chewy on the inside, like mini pavlovasbut with white chocolate chips and plenty of peppermint. For an elegant touch, dip the edges in melted dark chocolate.
How to Make It
Preheat oven to 250°. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a deep bowl with a mixer, using whisk attachment if you have one, just until soft peaks form. Add vanilla and salt. With motor running and mixer on high speed, pour in 1 tbsp. sugar and beat 10 to 15 seconds, then repeat until all sugar has been added. Scrape inside of bowl and beat another 15 seconds. At this point, meringue should form straight peaks when beaters are lifted. Fold in chocolate chips and 1/3 cup candies with a flexible spatula.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, using a bit of meringue at corners as glue. Using a soup spoon, drop meringue in rounded 1-tbsp. portions slightly apart onto sheets, scraping off with another spoon. Sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tbsp. candies.
Bake until meringues feel dry and set when touched but are still pale, 30 to 35 minutes, switching pan positions halfway through. Turn off oven, open door, and let cookies stand about 10 minutes. Let cool on pans.
Make ahead: Up to 2 days, stored airtight.
Note: Nutritional analysis is per cookie.


text: Social Worker – Assessment – Walton-On-Thames July 30, 2020 Role: Social Worker Location: Surrey Type: Contract Ref: 161 Job Description Social Worker – Assessment – Walton-On-Thames Role: Social Worker Location: Surrey Team: Childrens Services Pay: Up to £42 per hour Contract: Full Time Locum Our Local Authority client in Surrey is currently looking for a Social Worker to join their Assessment team in Children's Services. This local authority need experienced practitioners to deal with complex cases and you will be dealing with a busy caseload. As a Social Worker in the Assessment team in Surrey, you will need to have at least 1 year post qualifying experience in a similar team or have completed an ASYE. To be considered as a Social Worker for this role in Surrey you will also need: HCPC Registration Social Work Qualification Recent DBS Check You will be completing initial assessments and preparing court statements. There is a duty rota in place which you will be a part of, and you will be expected to sometimes work unsociable hours as the job requires. As an agency, Sheldon Phillips will provide you with: A dedicated Recruitment Consultant to personalise your job search Market leading rates of pay Access to a CPD training fund If you are interested in the role as a Social Worker within the Assessment team in Surrey, contact Jamie Trick on 01635 226350. Share this! ShareMore


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Pattern Photos
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Streams in the Sand
Been trying to get more exercise. The best place to do that
is the beach of course. (I feel like we are wasting the beautiful
place we live when we don't spend enough time on the beach.)
This week has been particularly fun because the low tides have
been extremely low and at a good time in the afternoon to get
there after the heat and for the good evening light.
I'm starting to experiment with an underwater housing for my camera and I'll get some of the shots from that online in the next couple of days. But there was something interesting going on that did not require any special equipment. The tide was so low, that ground water or just extra sea water was flowing from the sand for about four feet up from the water line. That slow flow lined most of the beach with these beautiful patterns.


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One of the challenges with writing a book (unlike doing agile, iterative development of a product) is that getting feedback is early and often is difficult.
I would love to hear your personal views on the book so that I can refine and improve the message and help more people, more easily.
If you'd like to share your expertise and opinions with me then please complete the survey below (or click the button for a pop-up version). If you don't have much time, there is a general feedback form at the bottom of this page.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to help me and book grow.


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Korara was built in 1962 by Snow Waters to a design by naval architect, John E. Powell, UK. The 37'6″ design is for a 'sport- fishing' motorboat which can cruise at a good speed in the rough conditions of the English Channel without slowing.
She is a very practical boat with an extremely well built kauri carvel hull. Zoom zoom comes from a 120hp Ford diesel that sees her cruises at 8 knots using very little diesel. While she probably can sail without the engine, her owner has never tried. She has a main stored on the boom under a brand new cover (beige, not shown) and a couple of headsails which have never been out. The main works excellently as designed, to steady her in a sea.
Some specs:
• There are two large plastic fuel tanks in a walk around engine room with about 5ft headroom. Engine room even has its own porcelain hand basin!
• Her propeller and rudder are bronze, the rudder being supported by a large, beautifully cast solid bronze shoe.
• Sleeping is via – 5 singles and 1 double berth.
• Decks are double (possibly triple) diagonally laid with no leaks and no movement save for the odd small seam crack.
• Coamings are all varnished teak including skylight, hinged 2 ways and removable all on bronze fittings, over the aft double cabin.
• Interior is in excellent condition, with all solid teak mouldings. Floorboards are teak and all wear areas are very thick teak (staircases, steps, handles etc)
• Gas stove / grill / oven is used very little. Water in 3 basins is fed from a header tank which is topped up by manual pump from a large stainless underfloor tank.
Korara is a special boat that has been fortunate to have been owned by a very talented & passionate woody. This owner is asking a very reasonable price – $75k ono, I hope a good buyer steps up soon & buys her, she deserve to be passed onto someone who will continue to appreciate her & care for her.
I'm not always a fan of the high gloss varnish coamings but Korara would look like a million dollars if you did the Uroxsys (Awlwood MA ) varnish treatment on her 😉
I very rarely post trademe links but I like the owners & I like the boat – so here you go – buy it.


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Strains of Caenorhabditis elegans mutant for clk-1 exhibit a 20-40% increase in mean lifespan. clk-1 encodes a mitochondrial protein thought to be either an enzyme or regulatory molecule acting within the ubiquinone biosynthesis pathway. Here CLK-1 is shown to be related to the ubiquinol oxidase, alternative oxidase, and belong to the functionally diverse di-iron-carboxylate protein family which includes bacterioferritin and methane mono-oxygenase.
Insertions or deletions (indels) of amino acids residues have been recognized as an important source of genetic and structural divergence between paralogous Bcl-2 family members. However, these signature sequences have not so far been extensively investigated amongst orthologous Bcl-2 family proteins. Bcl2l10 is an antiapoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family that has evolved rapidly throughout the vertebrate lineage and which shows conserved abundant expression in eggs and oocytes.
Macroautophagy is a self-cannibalistic process that enables cells to adapt to various stresses and maintain energy homeostasis. Additionally, autophagy is an important route for turnover of misfolded proteins and damaged organelles, with important implications in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Resveratrol and spermidine are able to induce autophagy by affecting deacetylases and acetylases, respectively, and have been found to extend the life-span of model organisms.
Mutations in the fused in sarcoma/translated in liposarcoma gene (FUS/TLS, FUS) have been identified in sporadic and familial forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). FUS is an RNA-binding protein that is normally localized in the nucleus, but is mislocalized to the cytoplasm in ALS, and comprises cytoplasmic inclusions in ALS-affected areas. However, it is still unknown whether the neurodegeneration that occurs in ALS is caused by the loss of FUS nuclear function, or by the gain of toxic function due to cytoplasmic FUS aggregation.
The human malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax is responsible for 25-40% of the approximately 515 million annual cases of malaria worldwide. Although seldom fatal, the parasite elicits severe and incapacitating clinical symptoms and often causes relapses months after a primary infection has cleared. Despite its importance as a major human pathogen, P. vivax is little studied because it cannot be propagated continuously in the laboratory except in non-human primates. We sequenced the genome of P.
Keap1 is a BTB-Kelch substrate adaptor protein that regulates steady-state levels of Nrf2, a bZIP transcription factor, in response to oxidative stress. We have determined the structure of the Kelch domain of Keap1 bound to a 16-mer peptide from Nrf2 containing a highly conserved DxETGE motif. The Nrf2 peptide contains two short antiparallel beta-strands connected by two overlapping type I beta-turns stabilized by the aspartate and threonine residues.
Keap1 is a BTB-Kelch substrate adaptor protein for a Cul3-dependent ubiquitin ligase complex that functions as a sensor for thiol-reactive chemopreventive compounds and oxidative stress. Inhibition of Keap1-dependent ubiquitination of the bZIP transcription factor Nrf2 enables Nrf2 to activate a cyto-protective transcriptional program that counters the damaging effects of oxidative stress. In this report we have identified a member of the phosphoglycerate mutase family, PGAM5, as a novel substrate for Keap1.
© The Chopra Library for Integrative Studies & Whole Health is a program of the Chopra Library for Integrative Studies & Whole Health LLC, which is a Chopra Foundation Initiative and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity.
Please review the privacy policy of the Chopra Library for Integrative Studies & Whole Health


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The latest news about our housing situation is that nothing has moved forward. We are being held up by the buyer of our house still not having an answer from her bank on a mortgage commitment. While we can continue to hope and pray that it will work out and extend the deadline, there is a real risk that we will lose the house we are trying to buy if the seller of that house doesn't also agree to extend. We decided late last week to extend one more time on the mortgage commitment till this Friday and even if that happens, we will most likely have to delay the closing as well (since we still have not heard anything as of today).
No matter what happens, Revel and I both know that it is in God's hands.
We'll update again once we have some new news.


text: Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the US military's use of its largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan. The US military on Thursday dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast, also known as an MOAB or the "Mother Of All Bombs". It was released from a US military aircraft over Nangarhar province on a suspected stronghold of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) branch in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's defence ministry says it wiped out ISIL tunnels, killed as many as 36 ISIL fighters, and did not cause any civilians deaths. Al Jazeera's Whitney Hurst reports. Asia Afghanistan War & Conflict


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Visit the shop
Flaming Tulip Candle Lantern
Candle lanterns are favorites among my customers. They glow with the light of a lit candle, casting patterns through the pierced walls onto nearby surfaces. This is my abstract rendering of many tulips in partial bloom winding their way around this hand thrown piece. Made with high fire stoneware, this pottery will give you many years of enjoyment. They one this reminiscent of beautiful tulips blooming around the globe.
I suggest a small votive candle holder for easy removal of spent candle wax.
Gathering Light Candle Lantern
Gathering Light is a pierced candle lantern with a sculpted rim. It is hand thrown on a potters wheel using high fire stoneware then carefully cut to produce the intricate patterns that grace this piece. Stoneware pottery is vary durable and will give the owner many years of satisfaction.
Height: 6.5 inches. Colors: White (shown here), aqua blue, sea green or lavender. I suggest a small votive candle holder for easy removal of spent candle wax.
Living Free candle lantern
Living Free incised candle lantern with sculpted rim.
Height: 6.5 inches Colors: White, aqua blue, sea green (shown here) or lavender


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Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Crafty Creations Fairytales and fables......
14 comments:
Fantastic card, Claire! I love your frog. Great shape at the top, like the frogs little heads with eyes ;)ReplyDelete
Great card, fun image.ReplyDelete
oh love this frog hun he is brilliant,great design and detail too hugs cheryl xxxReplyDelete
This image was the one grativated to because it is such a cute frog! love that you made tis an easel card! I definitely want to stay in more and create but the dark days of winter aren't so good for the light. I totally know what you mean about the pix! lovely card Claire! have a great week!ReplyDelete
Hi Clare wow this is something else, I love the image and that martha stewart punch needs to be in my craft room by the looks of it. hugs chris xxReplyDelete
Awesome card! I just love that frog.ReplyDelete
Hi Clare what a stunning card love that image is gorgeous and youve created a fabulous card with it. With love and hugs ShirleyxxxReplyDelete
Wonderfully creative card Claire, great sentiment compliments it all so well!ReplyDelete
Keryn x
That's a fabulous and unique creation, I only did one easel card so far, maybe I should do another one, thanks for the inspiration!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous4 November 2010 at 02:01
Fantastic easel card, Claire!! I love the punched edge, and great sentiment!ReplyDelete
Oh Claire - this is fantastic!!! I love that you chose the cute frog! You are such an amazing artist!ReplyDelete
Wow, great card!!!!!ReplyDelete
Sweet greetings,
Saskia :)
Your titchy card is very cute, Claire. You'd never know it was small looking at the photo. It's so lovely and bright and very "you".ReplyDelete
Thanks for your sticky thoughts!!
Hugs Lisax
it's toadily cute Claire...LOVE your lil border...looks like a row of frog mouth and eyes!! lolReplyDelete
I sincerely hope your Dad has improved dramatically and is feeling better! bx


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The 1960s television series 'The Prisoner' warned against asking questions when living in The Village. 'Questions, a Burden to Others', followed by the ever-so slightly patronising companion message 'Answers, a Prison for Oneself'. Nobody wants you to ask questions, is the message – and you will not like any answers that you get. Perhaps they saw it as 'Divisive'?
'Divisive' has become a very popular word in the press recently, in reference to referenda: it is supposed to indicate that asking a referendum question is a bad thing, because it 'divides' people. The usage seems to me to be desperately trying to ignore that any democratic process – whether referendum or election – becomes therefore intrinsically 'divisive'. There is a reason why they ring a 'Division bell' in Westminster to signal MPs to go to their division lobby to vote for or against a resolution. Should they rename it something less 'choicey'? Something that sounds less – dare I say it? – 'separatist'? If democracy was not divisive, then that would be because everyone thought the same….and therefore there would be no reason to check which was the preferred option for any given question. So, in that sense, 'divisive' though asking a question may be, it is also kind of intrinsic to the idea of democracy in the first place…otherwise people are just being dictated to. (We might guess that the individuals that ran The Village were more in favour of the latter – rather than the former – option of government.)
Therefore, the treatment by politicians and the press of 'Divisiveness' as incredibly unusual in a democracy, and something that people need to be protected from, needs closer examination. Political elections are HIGHLY 'Divisive' – and the fact that they happen pretty much annually, whether for local councils, Holyrood, Westminster or to the European Parliament – suggests that society somehow manages to recover and continue on, no matter how 'divisive' – or 'choice-ive' – multiple parties on a ballot paper are. So are the dangers of being 'Divisive' more unique to the clearly terrible phenomenon of a referendum, rather than an election, then? Astonishingly, Switzerland – which had 31 referenda between 1995 and 2005, to answer 103 questions – has not collapsed into internecine violence and anarchy as a result of this 'division' in its political culture. It seems that asking questions is not so dangerous after all.
One thing that the prospective referendum certainly seems to have been 'Divisive' about, is the response of the political parties. At their conference in Perth on Saturday, the Scottish LibDems said they would oppose a second independence referendum – just as Nick Clegg (former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-party leader) said that Westminster should not block one. The leaders of the political parties opposing the SNP in Holyrood have faired little better: the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has gone on record saying that she opposed a second independence referendum, but that Westminster should not block it. In September 2015, the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said that she would allow Scottish Labour MSPs to have a free vote on a second independence referendum, even permitting them to campaign for independence. However, since then she has moved from her position, saying in July 2016 in the wake of the EU Referendum (The Guardian on 7th July) that it would be "categorically wrong" for the UK Government to refuse a second independence referendum, and now saying that she will oppose such a referendum. And – to top it all – the UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Saturday that it would be "fine" for there to be a second Scottish independence referendum. He changed his position again this morning, just before Nicola's announcement from Bute House – but not before a Labour supporter had started a Twitter poll on whether or not Corbyn was right to approve of the referendum, and 89% of the votes cast said 'Yes, he was'. So the latest statement from Jeremy is that Scottish Labour will vote to block the referendum in Holyrood, but UK Labour will not vote to block it in Westminster. All clear, then? All this from the party that brought you the new Twitter hashtag of #unitescotlandnotdivide with zero sense of irony.
'Divisive' – the word was even used by No.10 Downing Street today, straight after Nicola Sturgeon's announcement, when the Prime Minister's Office said that an independence referendum would be 'Divisive'. This would presumably be 'Divisive' in a similar way to BrExit, except that BrExit gets more and more 'Divisive' as it continues, steering harder towards an antiquated imperialistic world-view, and away from the liberal state that people once thought the UK was…even going so far as for Theresa May to threaten to take devolved areas back from Holyrood.
In this regard, Theresa May seems to have been keen to be as provocative as possible and make people in Scotland feel divided from the UK's decision-making, even if she does not want them to vote for independence so that Scotland is actually away from the UK. That single odd action by Theresa May at the Scottish Conservative conference a couple of weeks ago – talking about taking powers back from the Scottish Parliament, for some new devolved settlement – exemplifies how unnecessary it was for Westminster to be facing the prospect of another Scottish independence referendum again, especially so soon. All of this is happening as a result of the UK Government's mismanagement not so much of the 2014 Referendum, as of the aftermath of the Referendum: from Cameron's English Votes for English Laws on the morning of the 19th September 2014 (rendering Scottish MPs second-class members of the Westminster parliament, hot on the heels of promises that the Union was a partnership of equals), on to the homeopathic treatment of the Smith Commission to make the promised 'Vow' an irrelevance. All this, just at the time they should have been endeavouring to woo people back, to make them feel valued as part of the Union – as JK Rowling opined in her advocacy of a 'No' vote: "I doubt whether we will ever have been more popular, or in a better position to dictate terms, than if we vote to stay." But no: on it went, with the disappointing response to the differential EU referendum result for Scotland…it has all been botched by an indifferent Westminster government, who did not seem to realise that there was ever a 'peace' to win, once the first campaign was finished and won.
So 'wooing' (rough or otherwise) was the path not chosen by the UK Government. Instead, the message of 'gotcha, suckers' was writ large. They were so confident that such an SNP mandate was a one-off circumstance that would not be repeated, that they could be as boorish and triumphalist as they wanted about their victory, secure in the knowledge of the inevitable collapse in support for the Scottish National Party now they had lost the September 2014 Referendum. This was clearly the end of the SNP, and the end of aspirations for an independent Scotland.
Well, not so much. We arrived today at the First Minister's residence in Bute House for a morning press conference called at short notice. A series of recent polls showing increased support for Scottish independence (one even exceeding 50%) and the campaign had not even had the starting pistol fired. At the end of the First Minister's announcement to the press that she was going to ask the Scottish Parliament to pass legislation for a second referendum on Scottish independence, a fundraiser was launched to raise a million pounds for the referendum campaign in 100 days. In seven hours, it had raised over a hundred thousand pounds (almost an hour after Wings Over Scotland's annual crowd-fundraiser had coincidentally hit the same figure following 14 days on Indiegogo).
As much as the rhetoric has been about 'Divisiveness' from the unionist parties run from London, it is the negative actions of those parties that have led to a uniting of Scots from different party backgrounds under a Yes banner. Far more so than when the last starting gun was fired, back in 2012, with support for Scottish independence on 28%. The answer this time may – or may not – be different, but the responsibility for the question being asked lies solely in London.
"A country denied the ability to run its own economy is blamed for being bankrupt by the authority which exercises those macro-economic powers over it. The British Treasury pulls our wings off then laughs when we can't fly." (Derek Bateman, former BBC Scotland broadcaster)
(Thanks to Chris Cairns of Cairnstoon for the above cartoon, first published 11/3/2017)
P.S. I would love to have said that Scotland might culturally be more comfortable with the idea of having referenda than many other areas of the UK, due to its tradition that the people – rather than parliament – are sovereign…but that might be giving a lot of people a little more credit for knowing more details of Scottish political history than might perhaps be realistic. Especially as I could not have claimed to have known this myself before the previous referendum occurred…. 🙂


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The number of monthly visitors to major newspaper web sites increased significantly during the recent election, and then appeared to decline according to this chart compiled by the Nieman Foundation, which promotes journalistic excellence.
But by concentrating on newspapers, the chart paints a misleading picture of digital competition to attract audiences interested in news.
The New York Times has the largest number of visitors in the Nieman chart, but its website ranked 5th among Internet news sites in October 2008 behind MSNBC, CNN, Yahoo News and AOL. The Times had about 20.3 million unique visitors that month, barely trailing AOL but far behind the other three sites. Yahoo News was in third place with 37.3 million unique visitors, so the Times would have needed 85 percent more visitors just to catch up.
I don't have access to data for the entire period listed in the Nieman chart, but the October 2008 figures are probably representative of the real online market for news. Large newspaper web sites compete with broadcasters such as Fox, ABC, NPR and the BBC, and with Internet only sites such as Topix, Google and Yahoo news, or the Huffington Post.
There is some evidence of how this really works in the chart, but it's not explained. In July 2007 The Times, NBC, and MSNBC announced a deal to share political coverage on the web. One goal was to increase each company's audience for news.
Apparently, it worked. The Nieman chart shows a sharp increase in visitors to the Times site over the next three months. The increase resulted in a substantial lead over its nearest newspaper rivals that persisted through December of 2008.
Meanwhile, the October 2008 data shows election coverage by two of the Times' longtime print rivals -- The Washington Post and USA Today -- produced substantial increases in visitors to their web sites. But neither came close to matching The Times and its partners on the web.
The chart posted by Nieman reflects a wider mindset in the newspaper part of the journalism industry that just won't go away. The mindset is mistaken -- this is a different market, with different rules and different competitors, and it should always be talked about that way.


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Steve Harvey Tells Why He FEARS FOR HIS LIFE & It's Not For Reasons U May Think
The past 15 months or so have been pretty tough on Family Feud host/radio personality, Steve Harvey.
First he pissed off Miss Universe pageant fans and became the talk of the internet when he jacked up the announcement of the winner in December of 2015. He mistakenly announced Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutiérrez, before realizing Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach, was the real winner.
Then he damn near got his black card revoked earlier this year (January 2017) after meeting with Donald Trump in what was seemingly Trump's desperate attempt to use Harvey as a photo op just before his Presidential inauguration. Harvey pissed off millions of Black people that day, as well as many other non-Trump supporters of other races and he's yet to live that one down.
Fast forward to today and Harvey is now saying in a new interview with Cigar Aficionado, that he fears for his life and the life of his family. You'd think it was because of the Trump meet up and his expressed outrage he showed toward his fans for giving him backlash afterwards, but nope, Harvey says the real threat is over that infamous Miss Universe mix-up. He says he's taken major steps to protect himself and his family.
Personally, I didn't know people would care about the Miss Universe mix-up THAT much after over a year. But hell, I don't really even know why the pageant is still relevant at all anyway, so maybe I'm the wrong person to make that assessment. Anywho, check out what Steve revealed in his interview below:
Steve On Increased Security After Death Threats
Via US Weekly: "I live on a dead-end street — and it got real when things started coming over the gate. Empty boxes with bows and pictures of bombs," he recalled. "And these with death threats on social media that would pop up from fake IP addresses. I wound up with 24-hour armed security at my house. I have two armed guards there full-time to this day."
Harvey Reveals What Angry Colombian Fans Did Him After The Pageant
"The next morning, there was this massive crowd, all around my car outside the hotel—all these Colombians giving me hell. My Twitter and Instagram blew up and I got called every name in the book. I got cussed out in Spanish so bad that I know profanity in Spanish now."
Harvey's Still Glad He Met With Trump
In that same interview, Harvey made sure to address the backlash he received over his Trump meeting and he has no regrets:
"I'm glad I did [meet with Trump]," he said. "You have to take a seat at the table when you're invited. If you're not at the table, you can't refuse the menu, or suggest what you should be eating. I walked away feeling like I had just talked with a man who genuinely wants to make a difference in this area."
Thoughts ILOSM fam?'


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Its with great excitement that I announce that the Live it. Do it EASTER paleo chocolate recipe eBook is here!
61 pretty pages and 40 real food chocolate recipes; things from chocolatey breakfast ideas to really sweet treats all in time for Easter. I'm excited because it is choca-block full of delicious pictures and fun with my family and recipes that I hope with blow your taste sensations out of water. I was you to enjoy this easter full of tasty treats and fun with you family! I want you to have your cake and eat it too. Thats why I wanted to share with you my favourite chocolate recipes that won't sacrifice your health; so theres no refined sugar, no grains, no gluten, no dairy and absolutely no crap in any of the recipes. Just simple, real food that full of fun!
Along with the beautifully presented recipes, you will find 10 tops tips to keeping it real this easter and some whole food inspiration to get you started! I love sharing my passion for whole foods with all of you and I am head over heals in love with this gem I can bring to you! I know your going to love it and for a limited time I it is available for no more than you would pay for a coffee. $5!
To purchase go to: https://www.liveitdoit.com.au/p/ebooks.html
Want to have a sneak peak? Here are a few recipe pics that you will find in the eBook and some raving reviews from a few awesome bloggers…
"I am a self confessed choc-a-holic and quite possibly a sugar addict too (I'm trying to kick the habit I really am). This book was music to my ears – chocolate without all the nasties. I've already made the brownies and the mousse – oh and the raw caramel slice. SOOOOOO GOOD!!" … Mrs D plus 3
"The book layout is great, with each page being accompanied with beautiful pictures of Cassandra, her family and the beautiful food she has created. Note to self: Don't look through the book in the middle of the night and you're hungry! You will find yourself scrounging through your cupboards wondering if you can scrape together enough ingredients to give a recipe a whirl!" … Musings of the misguided blog
"If your looking for a healthier alternative check it out! This book helps you cut out sugar and additives that are used in modern processed foods and instead using natural ingredients like nuts and seeds. They are great way to incorporate healthy foods into snacks that kids may not necessarily want to eat or know are good for them"… Little Opinions Blog
To purchase go to: https://www.liveitdoit.com.au/p/ebooks.html


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Bad Golfers Having Fun Since 1993
The Hacker's started just like any other fun day of golf with friends on a fall day in 1993 at Pine Forest Golf course in Bastrop, Texas. Four teams of players and some friendly competition later and the Hacker's tournament was born. The official name of the tournament is the "Semi-Annual Hacker's Invitational" and over the years has grown into a premiere event for value and fun for the golfer. The added experience of the event being an invitational is that by the end of the day, everyone is friends with everyone!
The Desire to Make a Difference
In 2003, perennial Hacker's Ryan and David Hamm lost their mother Carolyn to breast cancer in a tragic and sudden way. Their loss was felt by many friends and family as Carolyn was very well liked in the community and had been a second mother to many of David and Ryan's friends.
In 2009 two more Hacker's, Ken and Rick Gutshall, lost their wife and mother Ann to breast cancer after a very tough battle. Their loss was also felt by many friends and family as Ann was a regular attendee at football games, BBQ's, parties, and most things that are fun as she really liked to have fun. Ann was also a second mother to many of Rick and Ken's friends.
I have personally organized each and every Hacker's since 1993 with one goal in mind: To produce a day of fun and golf that has outstanding value. In June of 2010, the goal was augmented with an equally as important goal: To honor the memory of these two very special women who were near and dear to myself and others. We can not think of a better way to honor these women by contributing in our own way to charity with the very strong desire to not make our memorial list of women any longer than it already is.
Hope to see you at the next event,


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Woodlake offers two championship golf courses, the Ellis Maples and the Arnold Palmer. Our sister course is Pinehurst's famous Carolina just 15 minutes away. Our Centerpiece is a 1200 acre spring-fed lake offering members boating, swimming, fishing and water skiing. A 25 meter pool overlooks the lake and our clubhouse facilities and tennis are within easy walking or biking distance of any portion of Woodlake.
"It is a golf course designed with the average player in mind, but good players won't find a pushover. The well groomed condition of the course enhances the design and complements the roll of the land. Golfers experience left to right, short shots, long shots, uphill and downhill holes. And the quick bent grass green will keep you honest."
Described as "Pine Valley on steroids" and "golf's rock and roll thrill ride", Tobacco Road Golf Club is certainly unique. Carving his way through an old sand quarry, Mike Strantz created one of the most celebrated and talked about courses in the world. Consistently rated amongst the nation's best, Tobacco Road is the one course that leaves you and your golfing friends begging for more. The scene is so breath-taking you will want to bring along your camera to forever capture the greatness of "The Road". Playing at a length of 6500 yards from the Ripper tees, Tobacco Road was rated as high as second in slope in the Carolinas to the famed Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.
The Pit Golf Links opened in 1985 to rave reviews and has been styled "one of the most remarkable courses anywhere." Its phenomenal reputation has attracted enthusiastic golfers from all over the world. The Pit is currently ranked 4.5 Starsby Golf Digest and at one time ranked in the Top 50 Courses in America open to the public by Golf Digest, and by both Golf Digest and Golfweek as one of North Carolina's Ten Best.
The Carolina features eighteen holes of finely crafted tradition. Its design is woven into the fabric of the area's native sandy soil, longleaf pines and natural habitat, creating an exciting, new golf experience for players of all skill levels.
Talamore Golf Partners hired architect Rees Jones to bring his considerable talents back to Village of Pinehurst in order to design a course that would be visually striking and exceptionally enjoyable. The result was a 7,020 yard course that was ranked in the top five new courses in America upon its opening in 1992 by Golf Digest.
Seven Lakes Country Club golf course, designed by Peter Tufts III in 1976, presents a true Sandhills experience. Awarded a FOUR STAR rating by Golf Digest, the contoured fairways wind through longleaf pines and are bordered by a landscape of azaleas, magnolias and dogwoods.
The course is built on the highest piece of land in Lee County, which gives each hole rolling terrain and a view all its own. The large bent-grass greens are elevated and protected by large bunkers, while allowing bump and run shots into the open fronts of the greens.
Pinewild Country Club of Pinehurst is situated in the heartland of American golf. Here, golf is more than a pastime. It's a way of life. Located just one mile from the quaint and historic Village of Pinehurst, this gated club offers its residents a gracious and private lifestyle, with spacious homesites and pristine views surrounded by three of the most beautiful golf courses found anywhere in the world, one of which was designed by the legendary Gary Player.
Immerse yourself in the finest golf experience at Pinehurst and follow in the footsteps of golf legends. Eight renowned golf courses. The Championship Pinehurst No. 2 experience. A Top 100-ranked Golf Academy. All at a location so revered, so storied and so incredible that it continues to make history every day.
Legendary in his golf achievements and golf course designs alike, Jack Nicklaus constructed a masterpiece set amidst the long leaf pines of Southern Pines. This 18-hole championship layout features classic Jack Nicklaus architecture: wide fairways, lush course conditions and undulating putting surfaces that test your mind and your true golfing ability.
Both Pine Needles & Mid Pines offer you championship venues with a long history in the golfing world. "Donald Ross lived in the Pinehurst area while they were being built and supervised their construction, which makes them very unique," says Graham Gilmore, Director of Golf at the two resorts.
Longleaf Golf& Country Club is an 18-hole Dan Maples designed course that offers every golfer an exceptional experience. Located off of historic Midland Road in Southern Pines, Longleaf Golf& Country Club has been called the 'Most playable course in the Sandhills' by Ron Witten from Golf Digest.
Little River is widely know for its fine greens all year round and first class customer service. The Dan Maples designed course incorporates unique terrain and natural features, including nearly 200 feet of elevation changes. The par 72 championship golf course offers full sets of tees for golfers of all skill levels, measuring from 4,850 to 7,018 yards.
Legacy Golf links offers a full range of services and products for your event. With group photographs, longest drive and putting contests, personalized prizes and meal options, your day will be as large or as small as needed. Cart signs, rule sheets and scorecards, complete with players ' names, are prepared for every tournament. Signage featuring tournament sponsors can be displayed throughout the course and the entire facility.
Hyland Golf Club is often referred to as "the player's" course for its playability, affordability and excellent conditions. This unique Tom Jackson design is a North Carolina Sandhills must play golf experience. Enjoy rolling terrain set amidst longleaf pines, and a great test of golf!
The rolling hills, soft sandy soils, and plentiful lakes enabled Hall of Fame architect Gene Hamm to design 36 beautiful holes. A traditional layout where most of the trouble is in plain sight provides a playable challenge for all levels of golfers. Both the East and West courses greet golfers with green fairways year round, strategically located bunkers and towering long leaf pines.
This classic Sandhills layout has also been ranked in GOLFWEEK'sTop 50 Courses for five consecutive years and has hosted the PGA Tour Q-School.
The property that is the Country Club of Whispering Pines has a unique feature.diversity. The East course and its length combined with the subtle terrain changes, gives "Golf Courses of The Sandhills" another gem in their arsenal of great designs. The East course will make you hit every club in your bag, and if you wish to try it from the back tees, its impressive length has not been affected even by the new equipment changes.
Carolina Lakes Golf Club, located in the historic Sandshills of NC, offers an extremely fun golf experience that winds through majestic pines and rolling terrain. Considered by many as the most enjoyable course in the Sandhills area , Carolina Lakes prides itself in offering excellent conditions, a fair test of golf and great service.
We've been around since 1970. So we're everything a mature course should be. But we're also young at heart. In fact, exstensive restoration of this classic Frank Hicks/Russell Breeder design was completed in mid-1997. The result is the best of both worlds; a rolling, well-conditioned, tree-lined course close to the core of the Sandhills...with the modern touches and the challenge you need...but without the crowding or high green fees. From our amply-sized practice facility...to the clubhouse and 19th hole lounge... to sculpted, fully-irrigated fairways bordered by acres of sand, water and jack-pine.
The Beacon Ridge course is a par 72, 6494 yard championship golf course featuring rolling fairways and splendid greens and recently was awarded Golf Digest's coveted Four-Star Rating. The Beacon Ridge clubhouse, a Mt. Vernon style manor,overlooking the Beacon Ridge course layout, features spaciously comfortable facilities and a gracious, relaxed style.
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Drugs Channel
Topics & Medications
Related Channels
What Is Bosentan Used For?
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) may be treated with bosentan. This medicine is used for treating this form of high blood pressure in adults only. It works by preventing the blood vessels from constricting (narrowing). Bosentan can help relieve PAH symptoms, such as fatigue, shortness of breath, and swelling. It can also help increase daily physical activity.
An Overview of Uses for Bosentan
Bosentan (Tracleer®) is a prescription medication approved for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). It belongs to a group of medicines known as endothelin receptor antagonists.
Understanding Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
PAH is a serious condition in which there is abnormally high blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries, the blood vessels that carry deoxygenated blood (blood without oxygen) to the lungs where the blood picks up oxygen. The oxygenated blood is then delivered to the rest of the body.
PAH begins when the pulmonary arteries become narrowed, which can happen for a variety of reasons. When the blood vessels become narrow, it makes it harder for the blood to flow through them. As a result, pressure inside the arteries increases, and the heart is forced to work harder to pump the blood through the vessels to the lungs. This puts strain on the heart. As the heart gets more and more strained, it enlarges, weakens, and eventually fails.
Symptoms of PAH begin to occur when the resistance caused by the narrowed arteries cannot be overcome and blood does not sufficiently flow through the lungs to the rest of the body. The stress on the heart also leads to symptoms. Common symptoms of the condition include:
- Shortness of breath, especially when exercising (though eventually this can occur at rest)
- Dizziness or fainting spells
- Fatigue
- Swelling in the legs and ankles
- Chest pain
- A fast heartbeat.
One way healthcare providers assess the severity of PAH is by determining how much the symptoms limit everyday activities. They then use this information to categorize a person into one of four "functional classes."
Because the system for classifying PAH severity was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the categories are often referred to as WHO Classes I through IV. Interestingly, the system was adapted from a similar system developed by the New York Heart Association (NYHA) for classifying heart failure severity.
There are four functional classes. A person will move up through the classes as their disease worsens and may move down if they respond to treatment. The four classes are as follows:
- Class I -- No limitation: There are no symptoms with exercise or at rest
- Class II -- Slight limitation: Ordinary activities cause some symptoms, but there are still no symptoms at rest
- Class III -- Marked limitation: Symptoms occur even with less-than-normal activity
- Class IV -- More severe limitation: Symptoms occur with any activity and at rest.
PAH is a progressive condition, which means it gets worse over time. Unfortunately, there is currently no cure. Instead, various treatments can be used to help relieve symptoms, improve physical functioning, and slow down disease progression. For example, diuretics may be used to reduce swelling in the legs and ankles, or oxygen may be needed to help relieve shortness of breath.
Bosentan is one of several treatments that can improve symptoms and slow down worsening of PAH. More specifically, in clinical studies, people who took this drug were able to walk farther over a six-minute period than people who did not take it (the six-minute walk test is a commonly used test to assess how much a person's PAH symptoms are limiting their ability to exercise). The medication also slows down how quickly the condition and symptoms get worse.
Clinical studies included people with functional Class II through IV PAH. In the studies, bosentan did not improve walking distance in people with functional Class II symptoms. It did, however, slow down the worsening of symptoms in people with functional Class II PAH. If you have functional Class II PAH, your healthcare provider can talk to you about the risks and benefits of starting bosentan or delaying treatment until your symptoms get worse.
List of references (click here)
Tracleer [package insert]. South San Francisco, CA: Actelion Pharmaceuticals US, Inc.; 2012 October.
Bosentan. Drug Facts and Comparisons. Drug Facts and Comparisons 4.0 [online]. 2013. Available from Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Accessed May 31, 2013.
Bosentan. In DRUGDEX System. Thomson Reuters (Healthcare), Inc. Available at: http://www.thomsonhc.com. Accessed May 31, 2013.
Tracleer Web site. Available at: http://www.tracleer.com/. Accessed May 31, 2013.
Written by/reviewed by: Susan Lakey, PharmD, MPH, BCPP
Last reviewed by: Kristi Monson, PharmD


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Meet Our Team
At Rejuvenate Medical Spa, we are happy to announce the latest addition to Dr. Elmaraghy's team, Eve Hrubik. Eve is our new Manager and Medical Esthetician at Rejuvenate Medical Spa and comes with nearly 20 years of experience in the aesthetic and medical spa industry.
"I once read a great article in The Boston Globe Magazine by Judith Gaines on the aesthetic industry that really hit a chord with me. She noted: "Looking good is a sign of virtue. The body… has become not only a window into the soul but an expression of it." My mother taught me the importance of having a healthy self-worth and what it takes to be a well-rounded and beautiful person, from the inside and out. I feel that being a medical esthetician is an emotionally rewarding profession because we are often sharing our knowledge about the services and options available in the industry to help other people achieve their aesthetic goals. I welcome you in for a chat, let's talk about it, and I'm here to guide you- one step at a time. Making people look good, makes me feel good." -Eve
Meet Our Team
Spend some time getting to know the friendly staff at Rejuvenate Medical Spa. Another way to find out more is to simply make an appointment and get started! You can visit our office directly, request an appointment electronically, and find out which treatment options are best suited for you!
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(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog October 2015, reposted to this blog with permission.)
In today's Guardian G2 section there's an article all about "How we made... Fireman Sam".
Creator Dave Jones says he deliberately based one of the characters in Fireman Sam on Coronation Street's Hilda Ogden. And as you can see from our picture above, the similarities are all there!
Dave Jones says: "The idea was for me to write the storylines, and I didn't envisage
beyond 10 episodes. Then I realised that if I wrapped it around a strong
cast of civilian characters, the series could have the feel of a soap
"The naughty boy, Norman, was unashamedly derived from Dennis the Menace.
The touchstone for Dilys Price was Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street, a
nosy old lady."
Follow the Bluenose CorrieBlog on Twitter and Facebook


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So you booked your first interpreting job but you are not very familiar with the vocabulary related to the subject-matter…
1- Open word, go to table and create a table with three columns (see below): the first one should be for your source language, the second one for your target language and the final one for your notes/comments.
On the top of the page, in bold, write the name of the conference, the date of the event and which language direction you will be working in.
To add more rows, put your curser in the last field of your table and just keep hitting the tab button. You may also put your curser to the end of a line and hit enter, or return.
I find it very useful to add page numbers and the "date modified" information on each page. Even though I always staple my glossary, I'd rather be safe than sorry if they were to fall and scatter all around the booth. The "date modified" info just helps me keep track of when I last updated the document. To add these items to your glossary, go to insert-> add "date and time", and then insert -> "page numbers".
2-Once your document is set up, go to any search engine and type "glossary" + the field that you will be interpreting for, say for instance "pet food". This will help you find a list of words that are often used in that field. Once you have this list, add the unknown or difficult words into your glossary and then go find the translations online.
One of my personal favorites is Linguee.com. It searches the web for exemples of the term or sentence that have already translated on the web. Most languages are available on this website. Wordreference.com is also a great online dictionary, also available in most languages.
If you do not already have some dictionaries bookmarked in your web browser, then go ahead and create a folder in your toolbar dedicated exclusively to your online dictionaries so that they are all in one place. This will help you save time while doing your research. Go to bookmarks->bookmark manager-> create new folder-> name it "Dictionaries".
In addition to the online glossaries, it might be worth visiting some websites within that field. So for a conference on animal food, I would go and visit: Purina, Natural Choice, Science Diet, Fancy Feast etc. and just read some of their pages to see if I find any words worth noting in my glossary.
3-When you feel good about your document, select the entire table (highlight it), go to table-> click sort and select "sort by column 1". This way it will be in alphabetical order.
Et voila!
Please feel free to share your own tips in the comments section below.
PS: My instructions are based off a MAC computer, I apologize if they do not match up exactly with all systems.


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NOTE: This entry was first published in the Aug. 20 issue of the Daily Herald Business Ledger.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel may be touting his emerging downtown tech center, but the small Lake County village of Volo can lay claim to its own up-and-coming international technology hub.
Nestled in a former country school building not far from the famed Volo Bog is Atom AMPD, a small company that is finding international success with an all-in-one operating system designed for small to medium sized businesses.
The heart of the company's business is the Atom OS, a Linux-based operating platform that combines key business software such as firewall, anti-virus, spam filter, access control and VoIP capabilities. The advantage of the system is that, where other companies may require thousands of dollars worth of servers and other hardware, the Atom OS is contained in a 2 gigabyte USB "Kwick Key" that can be plugged into existing hardware and become operational in a little as 15 minutes.
Atom AMPD CEO Dan Field sees his product as an economical and "green" alternative to the "big box" companies that sell similar business applications. (Field would not name names, but think Silicon Valley to get an idea who the big box companies are.)
Field, an entrepreneur who, in addition to Atom AMPD, is chairman of three other companies, noted the idea for Atom OS came from what he saw as a wasteful practice from other companies selling hardware and software to clients that needed to be replaced every few years.
"One thing I don't like about the big box companies is that they sell shares," he said. "When you buy shares, you need to buy the hardware too. Then when you need to upgrade, you need to buy the new hardware, too. Usually it's on a 2 to 3 year cycle."
When the hardware is replaced, then the company has to deal with either reselling or recycling the old equipment.
"By having a USB key, people have a choice. They can use their existing servers or get a new box," he said. "Once they buy the license to the key, they own it. When we update the process, you just pay for the updates."
Since the system is primarily software, Field said businesses can see a total cost of ownership savings of as much as 70 percent, as the need for additional hardware, IT support and additional licensing is reduced. That, he added, has made Atom OS attractive to governments and school districts who are operating on limited or reduced budgets.
Christopher Beyne, director of business development, said in addition to the cost savings, Kwick Key's portability and ease of use has gotten attention from a wide array of businesses that traditionally network among a number of offices or remote locations, from medical facilities to insurance and real estate agencies.
But the company scored a major victory in June, when it entered into a licensing agreement with SunFAS in China. Under this agreement, SunFAS will use Atom OS in a product it will market in China under the name Sky OA3. Although the deal is expected to be finalized in September, Field said the system is already being implemented in a network of 600 driving schools in that country.
Field said the China deal was reached with help from Atom AMPD Chairman Tim Williams, who had developed a relationship with companies in Asia during his tenure with Motorola in the 1990s. Field also had established a global business network as well, and he believes it was the trust the two developed during their careers were vital in getting their small company to establish such a big deal.
"We've dealt a lot with trust and working on a handshake," he said. "And in this case, both sides have come up to the plate very well."
Field sees the China deal opening more doors in the region to Atom AMPD, possibly expanding the company into Vietnam and Singapore.
"The government is trying to build out infrastructure and they're looking for the right solution to the problems. That's where we're stepping up," he said. "We're looking to be the edge device that some of the other projects will work through to get information back to the various companies, offices and government."
Asia isn't the only area where Atom AMPD has extended to. In addition to dealings in Canada and Europe (the Atom OS firewall was successfully tested at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and played a role in the 2012 London games), they've established a similar licensing deal in Latin America, where their operating system is being sold through a reseller.
Having Atom OS sold under a different name doesn't bother Field, joking that Atom AMPD will become "one of those big companies you never hear of."
"We don't mind being the Oz behind the curtain," he said. "The nice part is that we're working with companies that can get some great ideas back to us that will help us build out our product platform."
Feedback from their clients is key to improving their product, Field and Beyne stress. Atom AMPD has its own test lab where system and updates are run through the paces before shipping, so repairs are minimal at best.
"We don't believe in the big box methods of letting your clients test out your product and telling you what the problems are," Field said. "Quirks happen, but we have a system where we can fix it before the client gets it."
What they have developed, they say, is less of a product and more of a disruptive technology.
"IT people do not like us," Beyne said. "They see us as attack on their budget. They don't need as much money to run their network or have the equipment in there, so their budgets will be reduced.
"Our approach is to go to the business officials as say "here is what you can save,'" he added.
Field simply notes: "It does a lot for not much money."


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Research Areas
Primary Storage
Includes Storage SAN Arrays, NAS, and other purpose-built, on-premises primary storage devices. Also included are key value-added storage technologies such as Flash, NVMe, Storage Class Memory and other relevant Storage Acceleration technologies.
In this category, Taneja Group analysts cover all form and manner of storage arrays, modular and monolithic, enterprise or SMB, large and small, general purpose or specialized. All emerging key strategic components that make up the primary storage systems are covered, soup-to-nuts. We look at specific storage acceleration technologies in a range of form factors, and assess how vendors and users can best take advantage of them to improve performance for specific types of use cases and workloads. We pay special attention to newly emerging technologies such as Storage Class Memory, and assess how they will work and interact with existing infrastructures and impact primary storage capabilities going forward.
High Capacity SSDs are Driving the Shift to the All Flash Data Center
All Flash Arrays (AFAs) have had an impressive run of growth. From less than 5% of total array revenue in 2011, they're expected to approach 50% of total revenue by the end of 2016, roughly a 60% CAGR. This isn't surprising, really. Even though they've historically cost more on a $$/GB level (the gap is rapidly narrowing), they offer large advantages over hybrid and HDD-based arrays in every other area.
The most obvious advantage that SSDs have over HDDs is in performance. With no moving parts to slow them down, they can be over a thousand times faster than HDDs by some measures. Using them to eliminate storage bottlenecks, CIOs can squeeze more utility out of their servers. The high performance of SSD's has allowed storage vendors to implement storage capacity optimization techniques such as thin deduplication within AFAs. Breathtaking performance combined with affordable capacity optimization has been the major driving force behind AFA market gains to date.
While people are generally aware that SSDs outperform HDDs by a large margin, they usually have less visibility into the other advantages that they bring to the table. SSDs are also superior to HDDs in the areas of reliability (and thus warranty), power consumption, cooling requirements and physical footprint. As we'll see, these TCO advantages allow users to run at significantly lower OPEX levels when switching to AFAs from traditional, HDD-based arrays.
When looking at the total cost envelope, factoring in their superior performance, AFAs are already the intelligent purchase decision, particularly for Tier 1 mission critical workloads. Now, a new generation of high capacity SSDs is coming and it's poised to accelerate the AFA takeover. We believe the Flash revolution in storage that started in 2011will outpace even the most optimistic forecast in 2016 easily eclipsing the 50% of total revenue predicted for external arrays. Let's take a look at how and why.
Hybrid Storage Accelerates IT Cloud Transformation: Customers find Microsoft Azure StorSimple
After conducting a number of in-depth field interviews with real world Microsoft Azure StorSimple users, we've discovered that the real StorSimple story is all about helping people transition smoothly from on-premises storage to an on-premises/cloud hybrid model. From there, it helps both IT and the business accelerate broader adoption of cloud-centric hybrid IT architecture. StorSimple not only simplifies on-premises storage challenges with fully integrated automated cloud-tiering and data protection (providing elastic capacity and cloud burstability), but also optimizes distributed file sharing and application storage (with cloud-based DR, centralized management, and extensibility).
However, it's easy to talk about features – what a product does and how it does it. These are important things to know and we'll highlight several key capabilities in this report. But the real proof of the successful product pudding is this: what do actual customers say? What are their challenges, their hopes, their needs? And how did their storage decisions serve those needs?
To answer these questions, we took an in-depth look at StorSimple through a customer lens. Real-life enterprise customers told us about their original journeys to StorSimple, and how Microsoft is helping them to move on more fully to the cloud. Ultimately, we noted five highly-valued critical advantages of StorSimple: native data protection and disaster recovery, deployment and management simplicity across multiple locations, a high return on investment, and a dynamic storage environment that unifies files and applications across the enterprise.
The Mainstream Adoption of All-Flash Storage: HPE Customers Show How Everyone Can Leverage Flash
Flash storage offers higher performance, lower power consumption, decreased footprint and increased reliability over spinning media. It would be the rare IT shop today that doesn't have some flash acceleration deployed in performance hot spots. But many IT folks are still on the sidelines watching and waiting for the right time to jump into a bigger adoption of flash-based shared storage.
When will flash costs (CAPEX) drop to make it affordable to switch – and for which workloads does all-flash make sense? How much better does it need to be to overcome the pain and cost (OPEX) of adopting and migrating to a whole new storage solution? How much more complex and costly is it to run a mixed storage environment with some all-flash, some tiered, and some capacity arrays?
In this insightful field report we've interviewed a half dozen real-world IT storage groups who faced those challenges, and with HPE 3PAR StoreServ have been able to easily transition important performance-sensitive workloads to all-flash storage. By staying within the 3PAR StoreServ family for their larger storage needs, they've been able to steer a clear, cost-effective and rewarding course to flash performance.
In each interview, we explore how they executed their transition from HDD to hybrid to all-flash under their real world IT initiatives that included consolidation, data center transformation, and performance acceleration. We'll learn about the particular business values they are each successfully producing, and we will present some recommendations for others making all-flash storage decisions.
Improving Business Mobility to Transform Workforce Effectiveness and the Customer Experience
The truly mobile business. Practically every company we speak to would like to achieve it. In its ultimate incarnation, business mobility enables users to cost-effectively and securely access apps, information and other users on demand, from any device, wherever they happen to be. Platforms, systems and protocols become transparent, even invisible, enabling users across vast distances to innovate without boundaries, collaboratively solve business problems, and engage more effectively with customers. Though relatively few firms are this far along in their business mobility initiatives, many companies are already reaping the benefits of a more versatile and productive workforce, along with increased deployment flexibility and lower management and support costs. Over time, firms often extend these initiatives beyond their own workforce, enabling them to serve customers more effectively and build new revenue streams.
However, for some companies we speak with, business mobility remains an elusive goal. As these organizations tend to learn the hard way, building a truly mobile business requires not just the right technology and capabilities, but also the business processes and management platform to unlock their full potential. To learn more about the paths companies take toward business mobility—and what makes some more successful than others—Taneja Group asked nearly 1,200 buyers and practitioners to tell us the challenges they face and capabilities/products they are adopting on the road to creating a more mobile business. A growing number of these organizations—spanning from large and small enterprises to midsize companies across a range of geographies and industries—are now experiencing benefits such as improved workforce effectiveness, reduced costs and new revenue growth from their business mobility initiatives.
In this paper, you will learn—based on our study findings and VMware customer experience—how you can benefit by following a proven path to improve business mobility for your workforce and customers.
Dell Storage Center Achieves Greater than Five Nines Availability at Mid-Range Cost
Dell Storage SC Series achieved a five nines (5 9s) availability rating years ago. Now the SC Series is displaying 5 9s and greater with technologies that are moving availability even farther up the scale. This is a big achievement based on real, measurable field data: the only numbers that really count.
Not every piece of data requires 5 9s capability. However, critical Tier 1 applications do need it. Outage costs vary by industry but easily total millions of dollars per hour in highly regulated and data-intensive industries. Some of the organizations in these verticals are enterprises, but many more are mid-sized businesses with exceptionally mission-critical data stores.
Consider such applications as e-commerce systems. Online customers are notorious for abandoning shopping carts even when the application is running smoothly. Downing an e-commerce system can easily cost millions of dollars in lost sales over a few days or hours, not to mention a loss of reputation. Other mission-critical applications that must be available include OLTP, CRM or even email systems.
Web applications present another HA mission. SaaS providers with sales support or finance software can hardly afford downtime. Streaming sites with subscribers also lose large amounts of future revenue if they go down. Many customers will ask for refunds or cancel their subscriptions and never return.
However, most highly available 5 9s systems have large purchase prices and high ongoing expenses. Many small enterprise and mid-sized business cannot afford these high-priced systems or the staff that goes with them. They know they need availability and try to save money and time by buying cheaper systems with 4 9s availability or lower. Their philosophy is that these systems are good enough. And they are good enough for general storage, but not for data whose unavailability quickly spirals up into the millions of dollars. Buying less than 5 9s in this type of environment is a false economy.
Still, even the risk of sub-par availability doesn't raise the money that a business needs for high-end availability systems. This is where the story gets very interesting. Dell Storage SC Series offers 5 9s and higher availability – and it does it at a mid-range cost. Dell does not sacrifice high availability architecture for a lower CAPEX and OPEX but also provides dynamic scalability, management simplicity, redundant storage, space-saving snapshots and automatic tiering. Thanks to the architecture behind Dell Storage SC Series, Dell has achieved a unique position in the high availability stakes.
Abstract: Taneja Group Multi-Client Study on Storage Acceleration and Performance Technologies
Storage performance technology – solid state or high-scale storage designed for high performance – has long been a tricky and fragmented market. While the market for flash-based storage has been growing steadily over the past few years, it still represents well under 10% of total installed capacity in the enterprise. A variety of storage acceleration solutions—based in the array, server and network—are now available, and yet many enterprise buyers are still poorly educated about these options and how best to address the performance needs of their business-critical apps.
Taneja Group's latest multi-client sponsored research study addresses the relatively young and rapidly evolving market for storage acceleration and performance solutions in the enterprise. This study provides vendor sponsors with key insights into the current uptake and usage of storage acceleration and performance technologies, along with user-perceived value of key features and capabilities. The study findings will help vendors understand how to overcome sales and deployment barriers, improve and sharpen the positioning of their products/solutions, and determine where they should invest going forward, based on the technologies and use cases that will be most important to enterprise buyers over the next 2-3 years.
The 70-page research report features results from 694 completed online surveys, plus in-depth discussions with 9 selected enterprise participants. The study respondents – primarily senior IT and infrastructure managers – come from a broad range of enterprise-level organizations and industries, providing a highly representative sample of customers in the sweet spot for storage acceleration solutions.
The report begins with a description of the market landscape, which provides our perspectives on how the storage performance market has developed and where it is headed. This leads into an in-depth analysis and discussion of survey findings, including a profile of the respondents themselves. We then identify and explore several key customer populations that rose to the surface in our analysis. Understanding these different types of buyers and users is more important than ever, as we find that the market is quite fragmented, with a number of contrasting populations looking at performance from distinctly different perspectives. By studying these populations and what makes them tick, vendors will be able to assess and optimize product and marketing strategies for different classes of customers, while honing their competitive differentiation.
This Taneja Group research report was provided to our primary research sponsors in early September 2015, and is now generally available for purchase by other vendors. If you have an interest in learning more about the market and how you can make your acceleration offerings stand out, please contact Jeff Byrne (firstname.lastname@example.com) or Mike Matchett (firstname.lastname@example.com) at Taneja Group to put the insights in this report to work for you.


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Need a great vocal sound? Work with a great producer!!August 8, 2006
The heart of any great song is a great vocal sound. With Antares's Vocal Producer, we've combined its world-renowned Auto-Tune Pitch Correction and TEC-Award-winning Microphone Modeler technologies with state-of-the-art vocal processing modules to give you everything you need to create stunning vocal tracks in any musical style.
Live or in the studio, the AVP lets you instantly select from a large library of sounds. From gorgeously mellow to seriously twisted, we've included factory presets for a wide variety of vocal styles as well as an interface that makes it easy to create your own signature sounds. (And given the power and flexibility of the AVP's processing modules, we've even included a selection of presets for instrumental and percussion tracks.)
Antares's also have a software version but for a limited time you can buy the hardware unit for less than the price of the software!


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Excerpt from the Introduction of The Bible Church
This book presupposes that the Bible is the infallible revelation of God's mind and will for man as such, it is further presupposed that it is a perfectly reliable guide in all matters of faith, church government, and discipline. On this vitally important point we agree with John Calvin and the great reformers in the sixteenth century, particularly in regard to their belief that the Bible is superior to human reason and disputation: and therefore that it needs no defense. We are no less challenged today than the reformers were in their day, and the apostles before them in the first century. We are contending against the same errors and spiritual darkness in our efforts to restore the Bible church in these last days, and to fulfill its mission in the world. The weight of the arguments made in this book in regard to the Bible church depend almost entirely on the Scripture references cited. Accordingly, the reader will not be able to give this book a fair hearing without taking seriously the Scripture references, and prayerfully meditating upon them. We encourage the reader therefore to take time to look up the Scriptures and, like the noble Bereans in Acts 17.10, "[receive] the word with all readiness of mind, and [search] the scriptures . . . [to see] whether [these] things be so." We suspect, however, that a great many today will be like the man who, after passionately arguing with another man about a certain point of theology, was asked if he studied the Bible. He replied, "No, but I've heard a lot about it." God has gifted His church with the Bible; and there is no better witness to the reliability and truth of the Holy Scriptures than the Holy Spirit and the witness of our Lord Himself. Jesus supported His teachings and based His entire message on the trustworthiness of God's written Word.
Author: Wade H. Phillips


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