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In spite of all the sexy corsets and badass gunplay on display "Sucker Punch," if you still think of Vanessa Hudgens as her sweet "High School Musical" character, surprise: she's OK with that.
"I was so infamously known for 'High School Musical' and playing Gabrielle and I think she was a really impacting character," Hudgens tells PopcornBiz. "She was somebody that even I would look up to. So when you see someone like that and you get so used to it, that's all you can see. For some people, if that's how they want to keep thinking of me I'm totally OK with that because I think she's a great character. I feel like I am who I am. I am turning into a woman and people will see that with this movie, so I'm like, 'Just wait.'"
Hudgens, 22, also reveals that, despite her recent slate of non-musical acting gigs, singing and dancing will always be a key element in her career plans. "That's what made me interested in doing what I do to begin with," she explains. "It's in my veins. It's who I am. I'm singing every day, constantly. It's just something that's comforting to me. I love the way that you can tell stories through music. It's just such an escape, and such a happy get away that I feel that I try to live through."
U.S. & World
Even as the celebrity weeklies track every up and down of her personal life, Hudgens says she enjoys a peaceful balance. "I would say that I'm very, very content and very, very happy," she says. "I think that people can make problems for themselves regardless of where you are in your personal life or in your career. But I feel I've been working on trying to just be content and just trying to be happy. I think that yoga helps me a lot and kept sane physically and mentally, and I feel that through all the work that I've done and the people that I've met I've grown to be able to just be really comfortable in who I am. And I couldn't be happier about it."
One would have to be comfortable with themselves to gear up in the often skimpy and skintight "Sucker Punch" costumes she sports. "My fighting costume was basically a leotard made of rubber that was so skin tight that every time I zipped it up I had to suck in everything that I had," she laughs. "Before I came in to 'Sucker Punch,' I actually put on a little weight for the character before and then I realized that I had to wear these skimpy costumes and so I was like, 'It's hustle time! It's go time!' It's definitely bulked me, up but I love it. I love when a woman is cut up and you can tell that she's in shape."
"The corsets, the whole wardrobe, was quite restricting," she says. "But it's fun because I love fashion and it's a way of expressing yourself, and I got to express myself in ways that I could never do outside of the film."
"Sucker Punch" opens everywhere today.


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GSA welcomes test results on energy-saving building technologies.
The General Services Administration released two reports Wednesday with encouraging test results on energy-saving technological innovations that could be applied widely in federal buildings.
As part of its Green Proving Ground program and to comply with President Obama's executive order on improving sustainability, the agency worked with the Energy Department's National Laboratories to test new designs in responsive work-space lighting systems and power plug load control.
"This innovative program is another example of GSA leading the way for the federal government," said Dorothy Robyn, newly installed as commissioner of the agency's Public Buildings Service. "By testing the effectiveness of these technologies, GSA is finding new ways that federal buildings across the nation can save both energy and taxpayer dollars."
The workstation lighting study, conducted in five diversified federal buildings in California and Nevada, showed energy savings from 27 percent to 63 percent over baseline conditions and normal use. Lighting, GSA said in a press release, accounts for 39 percent of electricity costs in office buildings.
The study on plug-in devices whose power is controlled according to a schedule found that the strips trimmed plug loads at workstations by 26 percent and in kitchens and printer rooms by nearly 50 percent. Plug loads account for about 25 percent of electricity consumed in office buildings.
GSA also announced that it will test and evaluate 12 additional emerging sustainable building technologies, among them wireless lighting controls, LED luminaires, glazing retrofit coatings, wireless pneumatic thermostats, solar thermal collectors and water-saving landscape irrigation systems. The goals are to reduce operational costs in federal buildings and help industry introduce new technologies and practices to the marketplace.
(Image via popocorn/Shutterstock.com)
NEXT STORY: New federal contracting jobs site launches

subset: commoncrawl


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All eyes on J. Lo now.
Randy Jackson and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will return for another season as "American Idol" judges, according to reports.
Fox suits confirmed to E! News and EW.com Wednesday that Jackson, the veteran "Idol" judge, and season 10 newbie/charmer Tyler were a lock for the gig.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
Their decision doesn't come as much of a surprise, in contrast to last season when "Idol" watchers spent months speculating who would replace outgoing judges Ellen DeGeneres, Simon Cowell and Kara DioGuardi.
Tyler had reportedly signed a multi-season contract to appear on the Fox hit, while Jackson recently said on "Lopez Tonight" he expected all three judges would return for season 11, according to EW.
That would include Jennifer Lopez, who reportedly scored $12 million for one season on "Idol." But Lopez made headlines earlier this month after saying she was "on the fence" about returning to the judge's panel.
"I had an amazing time doing it and I loved it, but I have a lot of other things happening, and it's going to come down to making a choice of really what I want to do for the next year," she told BBC Radio.
Since her "Idol" debut, Lopez has been on a global talent hunt with hubby Marc Anthony for their own Latin competition show "Q'Viva," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Lopez told the BBC she was not at the "breaking point of 'You have to make a decision right now.'"


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DRM-Plus, Or How Eidos Is Treating Anyone With A Jail-Broken iPad Like A Criminal
from the everyone's-a-pirate dept
You know the DRM story already. Game publisher creates game, has everything needed to release it, then slaps on some annoying digital rights mechanism. Often times the DRM is pointless, getting cracked quickly, all while either annoying customers or creating major headaches. When it works perfectly, anyone who pirated the game will either be unable to play it at all (pending a crack), or they'll be subject to more creative annoyances, my favorite still being Ubisoft's vuvuzelas. All in all, DRM is futility in motion. But at least it's usually an honest attempt to punish software pirates.
That's why we may have to come up with a new term, like DRM-Plus, for what Eidos has done with their latest Deus Ex game. Released for iOS, the game works exactly as described...unless you've jail-broken your iPad or iPhone, in which case you can't fire the guns within the game.
Encountered by Redditor KipEnyan and verified by several user reviews in the app store, jailbroken players starting up the first mobile installment of the Deus Ex series are treated to a few cutscenes and a movement tutorial before running into the message above. It comes up during the game's shooting tutorial, and while one would assume players could still stealth through the game, I'm not sure they can progress beyond that point without tranquilizing those guards.Worse yet, customers (customers!) have been indicating that there is absolutely zero warning that the game won't function within the listing in the app store. In other words, people plunked down their money for the game, intending to play it on their iDevice, which is perfectly legally jail-broken, only to find out that Eidos has capriciously decided that their devices indicate they're pirates.
Mind you, this isn't pirates running into this issue. While I am sure there are some shady players attempting to get The Fall to run on their jailbroken iPads and iPhones, there are plenty of honest folks who dropped $6.99 on the game, only to have it treat them like pirates.
Very, very few publishers do this. Why? Because it is probably the best indication that a company has attained peak levels of dick-ish-ness this side of owning a Hummer H2. Sorry, Eidos, but not only is jail-breaking an iPad legal, it's a growing trend. To go out of your way to piss these people off is an incredibly efficient way to mount enough ill will to torpedo what sounds like an otherwise amazing game.
Filed Under: drm, ios, ipads, jailbreaking
Companies: eidos


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Electrical Stimulation for Recovery of Hand Function in Chronic Stroke Survivors
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00891319
Recruitment Status : Completed
First Posted : May 1, 2009
Results First Posted : November 6, 2017
Last Update Posted : November 6, 2017
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- Study Results
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|Stroke Hemiparesis Hemiplegia
|Device: Electrical stimulator
|Not Applicable
Hemiparesis of the upper limb is one of the most serious and most common impairments resulting from stroke. Approximately 75% of the over 750,000 strokes that occur annually in the United States cause some degree of upper extremity paralysis. Approximately 65% of stroke survivors still cannot use their affected hand to assist with activities of daily living 6 months after their stroke. The impact of upper extremity impairments on disability and health is great, yet there are relatively few rehabilitation interventions designed to restore function to the impaired upper limb. Therefore, our long-term objective is to develop upper extremity rehabilitation therapies that are effective at restoring arm and hand function, that are applicable across a wide range of impairment severity, and that are readily implemented in the present healthcare environment.
The purpose of this study is to estimate the efficacy of Contralataterally Controlled Functional Electrical Stimulation (CCFES) in reducing upper extremity impairment and activity limitation in chronic upper extremity hemiplegia. CCFES is a rehabilitation intervention in which neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) is applied to the finger and thumb extensor muscles of the paretic upper limb to open the hand. The stroke survivor controls the stimulation intensity, and consequent degree of hand opening, by modulating the degree of opening of the contralateral unimpaired hand, which is detected by an instrumented glove. Thus, volitional opening of the unaffected hand produces stimulated opening of the affected hand. The stimulation paradigm is used to assist the stroke survivor in practicing functional tasks with their affected hand. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial in which chronic stroke survivors (>6 months post-stroke) will be randomly assigned to receive 12 weeks of CCFES or cyclic NMES, an intervention that provides electrical stimulation of the hand extensors, but with preprogrammed timing and intensity. Randomization will be stratified on two levels of baseline hand impairment defined by the degree of voluntary finger extension present. Assessments of upper extremity impairment and activity limitation will be made every 3 weeks during the treatment period and every 2 months during a 6-month follow-up period.
This study is the first randomized controlled trial of CCFES in chronic upper extremity hemiplegia. Ultimately, the information learned in this study will serve to accelerate the development of treatments for reducing post-stroke disability.
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Actual Enrollment :
|80 participants
|Intervention Model:
|Parallel Assignment
|Single (Outcomes Assessor)
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|Contralaterally Controlled FES for Chronic Arm/Hand Hemiplegia: Single-Site RCT
|Study Start Date :
|January 2009
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|May 2015
|Actual Study Completion Date :
|May 2015
Experimental: CCFES
CCFES - Contralaterally Controlled Functional Electrical Stimulation
Device: Electrical stimulator
• 12-week intervention
Active Comparator: cNMES
cNMES - Cyclic NeuroMuscular Electrical Stimulation
Device: Electrical stimulator
• 12-week intervention
- Change in Box and Block Test Score at 6 Mo Post-Treatment [ Time Frame: 2 timepoints: Prior to treatment, and 6 months after completion of treatment. ]
The Box and Blocks test counts how many times the participant can pick up 1 block at t time, move it over a partition, and release it in a target area within 60 seconds.
The minimum score is 0. There is no maximum score. The average score of healthy individuals within the age range of this study ranges from 70 to 79.
Higher scores are considered to be a better outcome. For each individual, the score prior to treatment was subtracted from the score at 6 months after completion of treatment. Then for each treatment group, these change scores were averaged.
- Change in Arm Motor Abilities Test Score at 6-Month Post-Treatment [ Time Frame: 2 timepoints: Prior to treatment, and 6 months after completion of treatment. ]
The Arm Motor Abilities Test assesses the participant's ability to execute specific upper limb tasks and does not allow for compensation with the unimpaired side. The test consists of 9 compound tasks composed of 1 to 3 component tasks, each of which is rated on a 0 - 5 ordinal scale: 0, no attempt to use affected limb; 1, attempt to use affected limb but it does not participate functionally; 2, affected limb is used only as a helper or stabilizer; 3, affected limb is used slowly or within synergy patterns; 4, almost normal use of affected limb; 5, normal use. The final score is the average of all component task scores across all 9 compound tasks.
The minimum score is 0; maximum score is 5. Higher scores are considered to be a better outcome. For each individual, the score prior to treatment was subtracted from the score at 6 months after completion of treatment. Then for each treatment group, these change scores were averaged.
- Change in Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer Score at 6-Months Post-Treatment [ Time Frame: 2 timepoints: Prior to treatment, and 6 months after completion of treatment. ]
The Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer (UEFM) Assessment is a measure of upper limb motor impairment. Participants are asked to attempt to perform a list of very specific movements of the arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, and hand that take into account synergy patterns, isolated strength, coordination, and hypertonia. Each movement attempt is graded on a 3-point ordinal scale (0, cannot perform; 1, perform partially; and 2, perform fully) and these subscores are summed to provide a maximum score of 66, minimum score of 0.
Higher scores are considered to be a better outcome. For each individual, the score prior to treatment was subtracted from the score at 6 months after completion of treatment. Then for each treatment group, these change scores were averaged.
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 80 Years (Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Age 18-80
- > 6 months of first hemorrhagic or nonhemorrhagic stroke
- Able to recall 2 of 3 items after 30 minutes
- MRC ≤ 4 for finger extensors on paretic side
- Able to follow 3-stage commands
- Functional movement of shoulder and elbow (e.g., can reach ¾ hand-to- mouth movement) of paretic side
- Caregiver available to assist with device and compliance if needed
- Skin intact on hemiparetic arm
- Medically stable
- Surface NMES trial opens hand without pain
- Full volitional hand opening/closing of contralateral hand
- Upper extremity hand section of FMA < 11/14
- Able to hear and respond to stimulator/cue box auditory cues
- Completed occupational therapy (no concomitant OT)
Exclusion Criteria:
- Lack of functional PROM of the wrist or fingers of affected side
- Severe shoulder or hand pain (unable to position hand in the workspace without pain)
- Uncontrolled seizure disorder
- Insensate forearm and/or hand
- Uncompensated hemi-neglect (extinguishing to double simultaneous stimulation)
- Edema of the affected forearm and/or hand
- History of cardiac arrhythmias with hemodynamic instability
- Cardiac pacemaker or other implanted electronic system
- Pregnant
- IM Botox injections in any UE muscle in the last 3 months
- Parkinson's disease, SCI, TBI, or MS
- Ipsilateral motor neuron lesion
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00891319
|United States, Ohio
|MetroHealth Medical Center
|Cleveland, Ohio, United States, 44109
|Principal Investigator:
|Jayme S. Knutson, PhD
|Case Western Reserve University
Publications automatically indexed to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier (NCT Number):
|Responsible Party:
|Jayme Knutson, Assistant Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, MetroHealth Medical Center
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
R01HD059814 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
R01HD059814 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
|First Posted:
|May 1, 2009 Key Record Dates
|Results First Posted:
|November 6, 2017
|Last Update Posted:
|November 6, 2017
|Last Verified:
|October 2017
|Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement:
|Plan to Share IPD:
|Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product:
electrical stimulation
Cerebrovascular Disorders
Brain Diseases
Central Nervous System Diseases
Nervous System Diseases
Vascular Diseases
Cardiovascular Diseases
Neurologic Manifestations
Signs and Symptoms


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Farmers in Missouri and across the Midwest are suffering through a historic drought leaving behind scorched pastures and dried-up ponds. NBC's Jay Gray reports.
"Normally they begin in July and go through the middle of August, but this year they started in June. So we've had an extraordinary amount of heat and lack of water."
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack designated all of Missouri's 114 counties as disaster areas, enabling farmers to access federal assistance, in mid-July. As much as 93 percent of the state is suffering through extreme drought conditions.
David Franscka said it's the worst his family has seen in more than 50 years of dairy farming.
Paying more for feed than getting for milk
"This year, with the intense heat we've had and the lack of rain, we've had only two measurable rains since April 30," said Franscka.
NBC's Jay Gray reports from a dairy farm in Bolivar, Mo., where farmers are struggling to pay sky-high hay and feed prices for their livestock, spurred on by the drought.
Ponds have dried up, forcing his family to haul as much as 8,000 gallons of water each day to the cattle herd. Pastures aren't producing any hay or grass for grazing either, leaving many farmers, like Franscka, with no choice but to buy feed – which right now costs more than the milk he's producing.
"'We've spent in excess of $150,000 over the last three months just on the added costs," he said. "Anytime you're getting less for your milk than you're paying for your feed – it's not going to come out."
"That's what's discouraging, knowing you're going in the hole everyday money-wise," he said. "But you have to keep hoping and holding on, thinking it's going to change."
Some smaller farms have been forced to close down – selling-off their cattle for slaughter.
Drought conditions plague much of the United States after a summer of scorching temperatures and a lack of rain. The dryness is affecting America's farmland, threatening crops like soybean and corn.
Franscka said he's sold 60 out of the 1,000 head of cattle he had at the start of the summer – to help pay the bills and keep the milk flowing until the rain does.
"You persevere day to day, and just try to do what you can do today to make it till tomorrow. Just keep praying to the good Lord that he's going to send some rain," he said.
It's a prayer that continues to echo across Missouri, and the entire Midwest.
As the drought continues, ranchers worry for the future especially now that the total number of cattle in the U.S. is already the smallest in 60 years. NBC's Kristen Dahlgren reports.
More coverage of the drought:
Drought sends Mississippi into 'uncharted territory'
'Best year ever' for some farmers outside drought region
Drought expected to take toll at checkout
Americans tell their story of #Drought2012
In drought-stricken Wisconsin, farmers helping farmers
Emergency well drilling brings relief to farmers stricken by drought
Have you been affected by the worst drought in more than 50 years? Share your photos with us on Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter with the tag #Drought2012. You can also upload your photos in the box below.


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Through interdisciplinary, nonpartisan and rigorous academic research, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University promotes better debate and more informed decisions about how to resolve the current housing crisis and other crucial housing, land use and urban policy issues.
The Center was founded in 1995 as a joint research center of the New York University School of Law and the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. It is dedicated to leveraging the talented faculty and students of the university to provide objective academic and empirical research on land use, real estate, housing and urban policy issues in the United States, with a particular focus on New York City. It promotes candid discussions among policymakers, practitioners and researchers about critical issues and has become the premier thought leader about New York City's housing and neighborhoods.
The Center is committed to training the next generation of leaders in housing and land use research and policy. In 1997, the Furman Center spearheaded a unique interdisciplinary post-doctoral fellowship program to train economists, planners and lawyers for academic and research careers.
In 2002, the Center won a major federal grant to design and implement an online information system to make New York City housing and demographic data accessible for anyone to use—almost a decade before governments worldwide would launch their own "open data" portals. Most recently, in 2010, the Center founded the Institute for Affordable Housing Policy to support policymakers seeking to more effectively provide housing to low-income households.
The MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions arrives as the Center transitions from a research institution focused almost solely on New York City to one with national research capabilities. This transformation will enable the Center to collect data in multiple cities and to address a broader set of policy challenges, which will help to make its research more applicable on a national scale.
The Center will use its $1 million award to create an endowment that will allow it to partner with scholars across the country to expand the Center's research methods and geographic reach. In addition, it will use the award to improve its communications and data management capabilities. These steps will help the Center grow from a highly respected regional research organization to a national resource for policymakers and the public.
Grantee Profile: Learn more about the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University


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Appraisal Real Estate Experts Serving Manitoba
Change State | Show all Manitoba experts
Find an Appraisal Real Estate Expert
Experts who evaluate the worth of land, residential and commercial buildings and houses, as well as the natural resources. Market and rental studies, as well as assessment for condemnation, damage and estate and property taxes. Appraisal Real Estate experts serve as expert witnesses and forensic consultants in Manitoba legal matters, and provide expert reports and testimony for judges, attorneys, lawyers, law firms, insurance companies and government agencies in Federal and state court trials and arbitrations in Manitoba.
The listings below are of Appraisal Real Estate experts serving Manitoba.
Expert ListingsMCS Associates
Norman Katz
Tustin, CA
Natl banking, financial services, real estate & insurance consulting/expert witness group. Expertise in: Appraisal, Lending/Finance, Damages analysis and Valuations/Economics of Commercial, Residential, Industrial, Land, Construction & Development
Forster Realty Advisors
Eric Forster
Beverly Hills, CA
Eric Forster is the Managing Principal of Forster Realty Advisors. With more than 35 years in the industry, he has become a recognized expert in the areas of real estate and mortgage fraud, brokerage standards and practices, RESPA, TILA and HOEPA violations, as well as escrow practices . He was Co-Chair of the Real Estate Experts subcommittee of the American Bar Association from 2009- 2012.
Valbridge Property Advisors l Atlanta
Jeffrey T. Miller, MAI, AI-GRS, CCIM, ASA
Atlanta, GA
Jeff has extensive experience in providing valuations for litigation support including damages, defense against damages, and expert witness services for all levels of court. Jeff has valued a broad range of property types throughout the United States, and has managed valuation projects in North America, United Kingdom, Asia, and the Caribbean. Assignments have been completed for a variety of purposes including lending support, bankruptcy proceedings, litigation, and acquisition/disposition. Jeff has qualified as an expert witness in numerous courts in the State of Georgia and in Federal Court.
BTI Appraisal
Ben Tunnell, ASA
Los Angeles, CA
Since 1974 BTI has been providing expert appraisals on all types of Real Estate, Machinery, Equipment, Personal Property, Intangibles and Businesses for arbitration, mediation and litigation on a national basis. Uses include insurance coverage, eminent domain, construction defects, estate/gift taxes, dissolutions and economic damages. Our full time staff of certified appraisers can address projects of all sizes and locations. Our reports have passed the rigorous scrutiny of both state and federal courts as well as the IRS.
Maurice Robinson & Associates LLC
Maurice Robinson
Manhattan Beach, CA
Expert testimony, consultation, and support for Hotel and Real Estate Industry business issues: Damage Calculations; Litigation Strategy; Appraisals; Workouts; Economic, Financial, and Investment Analysis; Market Demand Feasibility studies.
Austin Valuation Consultants Ltd.
Rudy R. Robinson, III, MAI
Austin, TX
Expert Witness with 40 years experience in Property Damage Studies of Construction Defects; Mold, Ground Water, and Soils Contamination; Eminent Domain; Ad Valorem Taxation; MAI. Licensed Broker.


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17 Best Images About Exterior Paint Colors On Pinterest …
Exterior Paint Colors For A Brown Roof,exterior paint colors for a brown roof,17 Best images about Exterior paint colors on Pinterest …
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image exterior paint colors for a brown roof description :
post title : Exterior Paint Colors For A Brown Roof
post date : April 23, 2018
author : Kira Lindgren
image source : www.pinterest.com/gajen/exterior-paint-colors/
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Planning a nautical wedding? Looking for the perfect navy blue accent to complement your wedding gown? We spotted this navy blue dress sash at Nia Person Bridal and love its stunning freshwater pearls and rhinestones. And, you can re-wear this sash after the wedding, too, with your favorite special occasion dress.
Navy Blue Dress Sash
Want to snag a navy blue dress sash like this one? Interested in more colors? Check out the handmade wedding collection at Nia Person Bridal and tell 'em Emmaline Bride sent you!


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Raleigh TCOYD Conference & Health Fair
The Taking Control of Your Diabetes Conference and Health Fair will take place on May 22.
John Buse, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine Director, Diabetes Care Center Chief, Division of Endocrinology Executive Associate Dean for Clinical Research, is a co-director of the conference.
The conference will feature:
- Top physicians, diabetes educators, foot specialists
- Health Fair showcasing state-of-the-art technologies and advances in diabetes care
- Variety of afternoon workshop topics
- Opportunities to speak one-on-one with diabetes care experts
- Physical activities for everyone
- Healthy snack & sit down banquet lunch provided
Please click here for more information and to register.
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Filed under: Diabetes


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Click each policy to the left to read them in full.
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*Tytex is the data controller of your data. Read more about our privacy policy here: Privacy policy.


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[Skip to content]
The South West Observatory (SWO) works towards this vision by drawing together research, resources and analysis from its network of individuals and organisations working across policy themes and from different local areas in the South West. We do this to build a clearer understanding of the issues affecting people living and working in this part of the country to support and inform policy and decision makers.
SWO is a jointly-owned intelligence resource, enabling better decision making by:
** Upcoming Introductory Statistics Training - Thursday 27 June 2013 (Taunton) ** Find out more & book now
Since 2004, SWO has drawn together expertise from across its modules and academia to produce the State of the South West report. The report describes recent trends and highlights key challenges and issues faced by this part of the country. Over the years, the publication has proved a valuable way to understand the make-up of the region, and has provided a snapshot that also allows comparison over time.
The State of the South West has to-date been published in a three year cycle, it is updated annually online and a What's Changed? document is usually produced in year three. The State of the South West 2010 was published in March 2010. In May of the same year, the election of the Coalition Government started a process of significant Public Sector reform. A key theme of the Coalition's Programme for Government was a move away from regionalism to localism. This has led to the loss of a number of organisations and working arrangements, and the emergence of new structures aimed at driving local growth and priorities. In view of the widespread nature of the reform underway, we have chosen to produce a slightly different publication this year: The Changing State of the South West. As well as assessing and highlighting key regional information about their topics, we asked contributors to comment on the policy context relevant to their sector, and (where possible) on what might happen next in this rapidly changing policy environment.
With widespread change in all areas impacting on the work we do or the way we do it, understanding and applying evidence has never been more important. We hope that you find the Changing State of the South West 2012 a useful publication in informing your opinions and decisions and that it contributes to the shared understanding of the South West that SWO seeks to promote.
Click on the chart below to find out more.
The South West Observatory (Core Unit) is a Social Enterprise and company limited by guarantee. Company Number .


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Seeing New England, my recent blog, replaces Flowers From My Area. Flowers did quite well, and I was surprised at the number of hits, but I was limited as to what I could post. Seeing New England will incorporate historic sites, along with scenic shots and flowers. If you wish to see the blog, please Follow me. Thanks. Seeing New England.
My blog has been changed to make it more appealing for those who have New England ancestors and want to see the area through photos. Things I'll include are typical white New England churches, libraries showing their genealogical collection, historical societies, cemeteries, war memorials, in general, anything to do with history.
For four years I've blogged mostly about my personal genealogy in New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire), New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. I still will, can't forget my own roots.
Please check out the labels on the right side for articles. The header tabs at the top are a work in progress.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Those Places Thursday -- Home of Joshua L. Chamberlain
Home of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Brunswick, Maine
Brunswick, Maine
On Tuesday, I posted his cemetery stone.
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I am learning to use the IIS Rewrite module and some of the "features" listed in the page is confusing me. It would be great if somebody could explain them to me and give a first hand account of when you would use the feature.
Thanks a lot!
Rewriting within the content of specific HTML tags
Access to server variables and HTTP headers
Rewriting of server variables and HTTP request headers
What are the "server variables" and when would you redefine or define them?
Rewriting of HTTP response headers
HtmlEncode function
Why would you use an HTMLEncode in the server?
Reverse proxy rule template
Support for IIS kernel-mode and user-mode output caching
Failed Request Tracing support


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Monster Cereals Fruit Brute, Yummy Mummy Rise from the Dead
Some things just won't stay dead.
Just ask General Mills Inc., which is bringing back two beloved cereals from the 80's and 90's as part of its Monster line of breakfast munchies.
In a bit of marketing savvy, the Minneapolis company is reviving super-sweet Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy in time for Halloween after killing them off for good in the early 1990s. Fans could just die of happiness.


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Pure DWTS Random Talk On Mel B, Brooke Burke, Corky Ballas, Madonna, And The Super Bowl
Just some random reportings today on things related to dancing and Dancing With The Stars!!
First up, join us in congratulating Spice Girl and Season 5, 2nd place winner Mel B as she has been signed on to co-host the Australian Version of Dancing With The Stars. Below is a take from Adelaide Now with a quote from Mel B confident that she can pull the job off. We wish her much luck!
"To have the opportunity to host Dancing with the Stars is great, as I know exactly what the contestants will be going through," she said.
"To be honest, I'm just really looking forward to this year. I feel like it's going to be my Aussie, Sydney year. I also hope to get my (Spice) girls out here.
"Emma (Bunton) and Victoria (Beckham) have new babies. As a group we've only been here two days, so we never got to really experience it and I've been telling them how fabulous it is out here."
Speaking of co-hosting, there has been some chatter here, around the internet at various places, and at twitter about Brooke Burke possibly not co-hosting next season's Dancing With The Stars since she tweeted about some disappointing "crazy Hollywood Industry" news which hit her hard this past week. The tweets lead many to believe it had something to do with her losing her co-hosting job. Well, with two tweets similar to the first tweet below within 8 hours apart yesterday along with Tom Bergeron addressing her as his "partner" in reply, I think it's safe to say her job is safe?? Then again, who knows? The Hollywood Industry is indeed "crazy". Look what happened with Steve Jones, Nicole Scherzinger, and Paula Abdul on the X Factor this week. Never did I think they'd be let go in such a fashion and so soon. 😯
i just read the #DWTS new cast rumors! seriously I know NOTHING! @Tom_Bergeron don't b holding back on me.We will announce end of this month
— Brooke Burke-Charvet (@brookeburke) February 5, 2012
@brookeburke I not b holding back on DWTS new cast info, partner. I CAN reveal that producers will be species specific. #moredancinghumans
— Tom Bergeron (@Tom_Bergeron) February 4, 2012
Moving on! Give it up to Dancing pro Corky Ballas!! He's been recently helping Olympic ice skating hopefuls Maia and Alex Shibutani on their choreography since last year's world championships in which they finished third in just their first season as senior skaters. Below are some takes from ESPN. Be sure to read the link in full as they write about how costume designer Randall Christensen helped them with their costumes as well.
The Shibutani siblings got in touch with Corky Ballas through their agent, using the Yamaguchi connection, and headed to Los Angeles to begin working with him after the worlds last summer.
"But we are the first skaters he's worked with in a while," Alex, 20, said. "Obviously with his background, his son, Mark, and Derek and Julianne, we were honored to work with him. He's such a fun guy to work with. It was an intensive boot camp-style Latin training with him. He's kept up with our performances. He thought we could use a breath of fresh air."
The coaches had high praise for the Shibutanis' performance.
"It was awesome, awesome," Zueva said. "All the changes worked really well. Most Latin dance movement is very sharp off ice, but it totally disappears on the floor because the surface is different. [Ballas] found them the best movement on ice."
They worked with Ballas again in Detroit after the ISU Grand Prix Final, where they finished fifth. Alex said they have gotten "really comfortable" with the Latin style, a break from their usual, more classical style.
"The new program is much more exciting and a much stronger vehicle for us," Alex said.
Lastly, if you are a fan to dancing in general and huge dance productions, be sure to tune into the Super Bowl halftime tonight. According to the New York Post, Madonna will be dancing, performing and singing 3 classics: Vogue , Ray Of Light with Holiday mixed in it, Like A Prayer , and her new, hot single Give Me All Your Luvin from her new MDNA album . I wanted to give this a special mention since number one, I'm a huge fan 🙂 and, number two, Madonna did a Salsa in challenging Dancing With The Stars rumored contender Victor Cruise at a press conference on Thursday, and number three, Nappytabs has been helping with the production of it. As you know they've helped with choreography on Dancing With The Stars among many other dancing accomplishments in their career. They are also currently helping Derek Hough with his new movie Cobu3D. Below are some tweets Tabitha shared about rehearsals.
What a feeling rehearsin on the field. Indy is so alive with energy too. I think u all gonna love the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Miss my Napz
— Napoleon and Tabitha (@NAPPYTABS) February 3, 2012
Tab says "touchdown…. This is my house". Last day of rehearsals on the field at #SUPERBOWL pic.twitter.com/uwZxFvSP
— Napoleon and Tabitha (@NAPPYTABS) February 4, 2012
Yes, can you tell I'm excited? 🙂 Be sure to let us know your thoughts and here's to a fun Super Bowl Holiday!! xxx
UPDATE: According to Madonna website Madonnarama, the Ray of Light and Holiday Mash-up has been replaced by Music(ft. LMFAO – "Party Rock Anthem/Sexy and I Know It" Remix). Also, there will be an
"Open Your Heart/Express Yourself" interlude to transition from Give me all your Luvin' to Like a Prayer. Madonna has tried to keep the final setlist a secret as long as she could.


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Attn: Velvet Revolution's Newest Election Integrity Work and Calls for Action Now at ProtectOurElections.org
Velvet Revolution is gradually updating our websites. For the time being, this site is not being updated. Instead, we're using one of our sister sites, Protect Our Elections, for our election integrity work. Visit us there or on Facebook today!


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The navabi Collection
The new season collection from our premium, in-house label introduces elegant, trend-orientated designs that will slot perfectly into your pre standing wardrobe. From soft, enveloping knits, relaxed tailoring and day-to-night dresses, the range is explored in an autunmal colour palette, boosted with a dash of brights and eye-catching patterns.
The bold and the beautiful
Exquistely crafted and easy-to-wear, each silhouette is feminine and cut to fall elegantly over your figure. Cosy, chunky knitwear is rendered in earthy tones of warm rust and rich camel that will transition you perfectly into the cooler months. Statement prints are our fashion forte and this season doesn't disappoint. Animal print has been given a 2019 update with a lively leopard and chain intertwined pattern cut into louche shirts, meanwhile botanical florals take centre stage on the collection's hero dress.
Around-the-clock appeal
We know the navabi woman leads a busy life and needs a wardrobe that reflects that. The collection's luxe seperates are designed to be worn interchangeably, as well as effortlessly take you from work meeting to weekend away.


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The EM1001 is a programmable Ethernet board that is similar in features to the EM1000 module. But while the EM1000 is a module that requires assembly onto a host board, this EM1001 is a self-sufficient board.
The board has a 10/100Base-T Ethernet port (RJ45 connector and magnetics built in), four serial ports, on-board Flash drive, EEPROM and an RTC. A backup supercapacitor is available as an option which you can select below. This board also can control the GA1000 WiFi add-on module, which also can be selected below.
This board also can support an external LCD, keypad, buzzer, and many other peripheral components. It has 54 I/O lines with 5V tolerance. The power circuit includes a 12V-to-3.3V switching regulator. There also are three LEDs and an MD button.
The EM1001 is a universal module that can serve as a central building block of control equipment, data terminals, safety and security systems, etc. Its firmware, called TiOS (Tibbo Operating System), features a virtual machine that executes your application written in Tibbo BASIC and/or Tibbo C.
The EM1001 has no pre-defined functionality whatsoever programmability in Tibbo BASIC means that you can create your own unique EM1001 application. The board is powerful enough to be the "heart" of your system not just a networking peripheral.
The TiOS firmware of the EM1001 can be upgraded through the module's serial port 0 or Ethernet port. Serial upgrades are facilitated by a Monitor a fixed "service" firmware inside the EM1001. The Monitor cannot be upgraded. Network upgrades rely on the application firmware itself there is a self-upgrade algorithm.


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No Results
There are currently no vehicles in your selected criteria.
* Spread over the term
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Chase Vans Ltd is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Finance Subject to status. Other offers may be available but cannot be used in conjunction with this offer. We work with a number of carefully selected credit providers who may be able to offer you finance for your purchase. We are only able to offer finance products from these providers. Postal Address: Solomons Lane, Waltham Chase, Southampton, Hampshire, SO32 2LY.


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Posts Tagged Ossos
The Films of Pedro Costa
As the erroneously-maligned 1980s drew to a close, an unheralded revolution was only just beginning. Deep in the outermost fringes of the arthouse circuit, there emerged O sangue (1989) – a feature which plays like an overeager cinephile's fever dream. Its director appears to perceive the act of homage as paramount (the spirits of Bresson, Nicholas Ray and The Night of the Hunter are unavoidable), whilst his aesthetic strives to emulate the misanthropic weight of a classic noir; a gloomy, evocative score doing much to complement the attempt. Perhaps the most luxuriously photographed effort of its decade (so breathtaking is its beauty that the work seems almost polychromatic, despite being filmed in black-and-white), this meandering, enigmatic depiction of disenfranchised youth ultimately suffers from the reverence of cinema over subject. Though wondrous to look at, the film remains too consumed by its plethoric romanticism to fulfil its commitments to Lisbon's forgotten adolescents – O sangue ends up sidelining its characters' struggles in a manner reminiscent of the wider society that appears oblivious to their existence. At this early stage in his career, its director Pedro Costa can be deemed only a proficient poseur.
Nevertheless, in spite of his debut's limitations, the seeds for Costa's future upheavals have already been sown. O sangue may be glaringly anomalous in his oeuvre (its veneration of surface sheen would prove uncharacteristic, whilst the film's opening, discomfiting slap to our protagonist's face marks the only act of outright kineticism that the director has indulged in to date), but it initiates a series of concerns and motifs that would be explored more thoroughly in the ensuing years. Definitive themes are already visible: social maladjustment; emotional deracination; traumatising histories, both personal and political. Especially pertinent is his presentation of the makeshift family: a group of impoverished individuals forming bonds of protection, guided by the misleading ideal of "safety in numbers". Given that O sangue's primary achievements are technical however, its ramifications upon the director's output naturally follow suit. Costa's jarring pre-eminence of close-ups begins here, with characters that stare directly back into their audience, as if to condemn our own collusion in their invisibility. The sterility of a modern, urban world is exposed and its latent inequalities excoriated as shots of intimidating, high-rise apartment blocks are contrasted against the ramshackle homes of the downtrodden (no filmmaker uses architecture more creatively, with frames often segmented multiple times over to punctuate the concealed incarceration that's synonymous with these habitats). Above all else, O sangue is crucial for inaugurating its director's ability to locate grace in the unlikeliest of settings; his unparalleled compositions managing to invest the ugly and/or mundane with an elegance that's as redemptive as it is remarkable. (At this stage in his career, Pedro Costa may well be a poseur – but he's one with vast reserves of potential, just waiting to be fully realised.)
By the time of Casa de lava (1994), Costa has made the first of his quantum leaps forward. Never again would he make the mistake of abandoning his characters in pursuit of pictorial bliss – from here on, the director is on a quest for truth, searching for an aesthetic that would do justice to the marginalised subjects whom only he considers worthy of immortality. Still, the allure of his cinematic heroes is yet to be curbed, but where O sangue struck predominantly derivative notes, Casa de lava seems only inspired in its tributes. Conceiving the film as a loose remake of Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie, Costa relocates his action to the island of Fogo, Cape Verde, and borrows the basic outline of the earlier story: a Western nurse finds herself transported to a distinctly un-Western society in order to care for an incapacitated (in our case, comatose) patient. This template aside, Casa de lava draws its power entirely from its own director's stylings. Gone are Tourneur's chiaroscuro hallucinations, replaced here with spectacular long-shots of Fogo's volcanic landscapes and intimate snapshots of its inhabitants. Costa nurtures his burgeoning taste for ethnofiction: at times, the film seems to detach itself entirely from the constraints of narrative and uninhibitedly wanders into the surrounding community; a documentarian's portraiture of a lost civilisation. As insatiable as this impulse for observational research is, the director remains dedicated to his reinterpretation of the classic text. His heroine is thus moulded into an entitled imperialist in a culture that she completely fails to comprehend ("Speak Portuguese!"): her condescension towards the native islanders astounding, her inability to grasp their customs revealing, and her myopic view of her own self-worth sickening. Costa scrutinises the unbalanced relationship between the colonialist and the colonised, sparing ample time for the latter in an attempted redress. Yet the director is astute enough to recognise his own status as an intrusive profiteer in this scenario and, therefore, his own inadequacies in depicting the local mores. His masterstroke is to counteract with a series of tactful elisions that sanctify the manifold mysteries of his environment, whilst simultaneously demythologising its innate exoticism – Casa de lava subsequently becomes a haunted 'prison film', with Fogo the jailhouse from which all its residents wish to escape. "Not even the dead rest here." (At this stage in his career, Pedro Costa has already established himself as the cinema's foremost poet of cultural displacement.)
Ossos (1997) offers another seismic shift (ostensibly to the left) as the director returns to Lisbon, and specifically the ghettos of Fontainhas – the destination to which Casa de lava's immigrants-in-waiting are invariably headed, and a location from which he himself hasn't exited since. Fuelled by his experience of deprivation in Cape Verde, Costa decides to raise awareness of the poverty in his own backyard to staggering effect. As always, the director relies upon close-ups and ellipses as means of expression, but his Ossos finds itself more frequently susceptible to elongated takes than its elder siblings and, significantly, it redirects our gaze towards acts of narrative potency that the cogitative filmmaker of yore would have excised. Thus, we now squirm as a young father marches into the city with his newborn child in a bin-bag (the intent: to exploit the baby as a begging tool), and we gasp in horror as his teenage (ex-?)lover attempts to asphyxiate both herself and the very same child by opening the valve of a gas cylinder – the infant's resultant wheezing frightening in its authenticity. O sangue's affectations seem light years away as Costa charts the mental and physical dilapidation inside Fontainhas with unembellished verisimilitude, forcing us to glare at the individuals from whom we'd ordinarily turn away. That's not to say that Ossos is lacking in either formal ingenuity or positivity in content, however. Indeed, the film introduces one of the key innovations in its director's move towards a new, slow(er) cinema: the density of soundscapes. Costa's fertile aural backgrounds contradict the solitude and destitution within his foregrounds: children playing, adults brawling, police sirens blaring – the vibrant rhythms of the outside world are audible and cogent, alerting the viewer to the sheer strength of the neighbourhood's off-screen's presence. Accordingly, a sort of diasporic vitality materialises, stabilising the bottomless despair of the film's characters and neutering any readings that pass judgement upon Fontainhas itself. For all their woes, Costa's delinquents retain a fierce sense of dignity and pride, which translates into a community whose resilience the director deems worthy of admiration, in spite of its numerous, neverending problems. (At this stage in his career, Pedro Costa has become cinema's most eloquent champion of the disenfranchised.)
With In Vanda's Room (2000), Costa takes the realism of Ossos to its logical extreme, and at last fulfils his promise of obliterating the behemoth that is the narrative cinema. This remains the most decisive of the director's breaks with his past. Although Ossos took strides towards a deeper understanding of its locale and its residents, it exposed a filmmaker who wasn't entirely at ease in his settings: much like in Casa de lava before it, Costa again uses a nurse from his own social class to function as his vantage point into an alien planet. In Vanda's Room dispenses with this tactic and discards all traditional cinematic tools alongside it. Filming on digital video, the director uses the freedoms afforded by the new format to completely immerse himself in Fontainhas, now recast as a grimy purgatory in the process of being demolished by an unseen authority. Here is where the fusion of documentary and fiction becomes blurred to the point of appearing seamless, with Costa fixing his gaze upon the locals (many of them seen previously in Ossos, including the titular Vanda) and punctiliously weaving the minutiae of their day-to-day activities into a stream of loose vignettes that refuse exposition. In almost everyone's case, those activities are bound to a cycle of substance abuse that's impossible to repel. As the march of oncoming bulldozers amplifies with each passing hour, Fontainhas – or, at least, the director's conception of it – finds itself overwhelmed by a network of hopeless addicts, and neither Costa nor his 'characters' withhold the details of their dependencies: broken needles, mangled veins, crack-induced spluttering – everything is laid bare before our eyes in a hyperreal opiate haze; the most poignant scene in the director's entire oeuvre featuring Vanda and a possible lover discussing the effects of their addictions upon their respective healths, aware that they're headed towards self-destruction but incapable of emancipating themselves from their fates. For once, Costa also indulges in the politicisation of his work. Characters express discontent at their marginalisation ("It's the life we're forced to live.") and rant against the state of their nation ("Our country is the poorest, the most pathetic of all."), but the director's criticisms aren't always so vociferous. In one instance, Vanda steals a discarded model boat, declaring the scrap "an antique!" to her ageing mother with childlike enthusiasm, only to then wonder out loud: "Don't you think I could get at least 5,000 for it?" – Costa recording the fact that it's here, on the peripheries of capitalism, where commodification is at its most toxic. Surely the most morally potent of all the director's features (the implications of looking away from the screen aren't lost on the viewer), In Vanda's Room is a breathtakingly claustrophobic memoir of social subterraneanism at the dawn of a new millennium; a film that cultivates a shared intimacy between audience and text which ends up redefining the very experience of spectatorship in the cinema. (At this stage in his career, Pedro Costa is his generation's most innovative purveyor of filmic realism.)
Finally, we reach Colossal Youth (2006). To this point, the director's filmography has offered the perfect auteurist case study – each effort building upon the last, developing and refining his cinema with the goal of attaining an honest transparency that will appropriately serve the anguished souls within his frames. Colossal Youth attains that goal. This is the apotheosis of a two-decade journey; the monument that seals its maker's place in the pantheon. It borrows heavily from his previous offerings: the faces and the sounds, the mysteries and the languor, the distant yet palpable empathy. The delineation between reality and fiction continues to be inscrutable (DV is now established as the format of choice), whilst the political inclinations of In Vanda's Room are now given centre stage. More than Casa de lava, this is Costa's "zombie movie", boasting an utterly passive protagonist (Ventura) who roams the streets of Lisbon in search of blood (his offspring) – shuffling languidly from place to place, arms dangling down the sides of his lanky build; a doomed sleepwalker. To accommodate Ventura's taste for impermanence, the director's scope becomes both broader and more complex: drug addiction remains a fact of life, but the local government's social regeneration policies offer a reprieve from this bleakness – and yet it's these very same policies that destroy the celebrated unity within Fontainhas, dispersing its former slum-dwellers into a complex of formidable condominiums whose geometric splendour chills with its glacial afterglow. It's this officially-licensed disintegration of community that provokes Ventura's amblings; our vagabond/patriarch intruding upon nearly every scene as he searches in vain for the 'family' that was so coldly stolen from him. Costa uses this first-generation immigrant's experiences to deconstruct the understanding of 'home' and decompress the concept of 'time'. Colossal Youth thereby exists in a fluid state of perpetual limbo, vacillating between past and present, Cape Verde and Portugal, squalor and affluence; an anthology of unfulfilled life, complete with digressive memories, immobilised dreams and unreliable oral histories. The director's humanism is now at its zenith, and as he walks alongside his aimless zombie he consistently transforms the allegedly mundane into high art – daring us to question his motivations as he immortalises his protagonist's existential crisis with shots of mesmeric grandeur. This, too, becomes the tale of Costa's ontogeny: his role has progressed from that of mere director to that of an alchemist extraordinaire, capturing unremarkable stories from undesirable individuals and moulding them into dilemmas of monumental gravitas. His is a universe that has come to demand radical modes of perception and reception, but it's one that offers enormous rewards for such pliancy. Only in Colossal Youth – a virtual fugue state on film – can the act of a (possible) son chopping an apple for his (possible) father seem genuinely revelatory; the greatest gesture of tenderness that mankind is capable of. Now, with the film's omniscient, epiphanic power in his armoury, the revolution is complete. There can be no more denials: at this stage in his career, Pedro Costa must only be saluted – for it is he, by a considerable distance, who is the most important filmmaker working today.


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Who is this guy?
Each year during VBS, the kids raise for money for a certain missionary/church/cause, etc. This year's project was Clearview Church (our new church in Texas), and we raised $1,200. Brian promised if they raised $500, he would paint his head like the Texas state flag. Do not ask me where he gets these ideas. So today was the Sunday he headed to church looking like this. By the way, if you want to see our page, click here.
I know I haven't talked about Texas or our work there much on the blog. It is mostly because just as we were gearing up for moving, changing jobs, etc., I was diagnosed with cancer and so our plans to move to Texas have felt kind of like a distant dream. Our plan is still to move to Texas and be a part of the church plant outside Dallas, but not until Summer 2012. Brian has been very busy this summer building the website and working with Randall (our pastor) to plan preview services gearing up for our launch this fall. Today in Texas they are holding a commissioning service for the Wright family and the other families who will be helping with the church. While I feel sad to not be there, I also feel so grateful to be in Tennessee and to have another year here. Is it strange that I can feel both sad and content at the same time?
And on a not-so-fun note, instead of getting to attend church this morning, I'm stuck at home. Not only did I not sleep for the second night a row, but I woke up with a sore throat. And much more serious than that, I have a painful knot underneath one of my surgery incisions. It is in the exact same place as one of the infected areas from several weeks ago, and I'm quite concerned that the infection is back. I'll definitely be calling the doctor first thing tomorrow morning. I would appreciate prayers that this knot goes away and is not an infection. In the meantime, I'm at home alone enjoying listening to this album.


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The company where I work has a semi-regular, informal book club (for nerds – which we are). Recently, my supervisor has been giving talks on some papers which describe extensions of the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling method. While I felt like I had a reasonable-enough high-level understanding, I didn't feel like I knew the specifics well enough. If I had to do something where I'd have to make an Author-Recipient Topic Model [pdf], for example, I'd be lost (unless I found an existing R package, or so). I didn't feel like I knew enough about the background probability, or about how to make a computer do anything given a model description and a bunch of data. So I started investigating things at this level, and presented what I had. There's still plenty of gaps and uncertainty in my understanding, but I thought it'd be good to get notes together before I got too distracted by other things… So, the main goal with LDA is that you're given a collection of documents (i.e., a corpus), and you'd like to determine a collection of topics that are represented in the documents (and in which proportion for each document), as well as the words which comprise each topic. You don't know the topics ahead of time, and aim to just determine them based on the words you see in the document. There's other approaches for accomplishing this, besides LDA; the most common seems to be Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), which is very much like Principal Component Analysis (PCA), relying on the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the so-called "term-document matrix". But that's all the topic of another day. Today, we're sticking with LDA, which is a more probability-based approach. In this post, I'll build up to LDA, starting with much similar models and questions. It's been a while since I had a probability class, so I started with basics…
Suppose you've got a weighted coin, which has a probability of coming up heads. You flip the coin times, and obtain heads. What can you say about ? Well, the probability of obtaining heads is given by:
One way we can try to say something about is to ask which value of maximizes this expression. Calculus teachers, rejoice! Since the binomial coefficient in the front is constant with respect to , we can drop it, and simply try to maximize . Many students will, naturally, dive right in and differentiate this with product and chain rules. Students who have seen the tricks before (or are especially perceptive) will realize that the expression is maximized when its log is maximized, since log is monotonically increasing. So we aim to maximize , for . This derivative is easy to calculate, and has a single 0, at , which can be verified to be a local/absolute maximum.
So, that's nice. And a lot of work to determine what everybody probably already knows. If you've got a biased coin that you flip 100 times, and obtain 75 heads and 25 tails, your guess probably should be that the sides are weighted 3 to 1 (i.e., that ). Knowing that it's all random to an extent, though, we aren't certain of our answer. What we're really like to know is the probability that is 0.75, versus, say, 0.72 (which could also certainly have generated the observed data).
Well, this is what Bayes' Theorem is for (or, at least, this is an application of it). We just calculated , and want to, instead, calculate . Bayes tells us we can do this via
The denominator is the same as (I'll write 's below to either reduce or compound notational confusion, depending on your viewpoint). Substituting our expression for , above, and cancelling the resulting binomial coefficients, we obtain
But there's still unknown expressions in there! We still need to know , in order to find . That's sorta frustrating. We could pick any probability distribution for , how to we decide which to pick? Well, an easy choice would be the uniform distribution, because then we can just put 1 in the expression above in a few places, and obtain
The denominator there has no s in it, and so is "just" a normalization constant (more on this in a moment). That is, is basically given by , once you divide by the integral of that expression over the domain (the interval from 0 to 1) so that you've got a probability distribution. The distribution we've obtained is called the Beta distribution, with parameters and (the "plus 1s" might become more sensible in a moment). With our 75 out of 100 example from before, this distribution is as follows:
The mode (not the mean) for this distribution is exactly what we calculated before, 75/100.
Now, something somewhat interesting just happened, without our trying much. We didn't really have many good guesses for what the distribution of , so we just picked the uniform distribution. It turns out that the uniform distribution is a special case of the Beta distribution, namely . What's noteworthy, if you're into that sort of thing, is that we started with a "prior" guess for the distribution of of a certain form, , and then we updated our beliefs about based on the data (the number of heads and tails flipped), and ended up with a "posterior" distribution for of the same "form", . This is sort of a happy accident, if you're required to do this sort of Bayesian analysis by hand, apparently. It makes it easy to update again, if we flip the coin some more times. Suppose we flip several more times and see heads and tails. Well, we'd use our latest beliefs about , namely that it came from , and then update that information as before. All that happened before was that we added the number of heads to the first parameter of the Beta distribution, and the number of tails to the second parameter, so we'd do that again, obtaining ). In fact, there's no reason we'd have to cluster our flips into groups – with each flip we could update our Beta distribution parameters by simply adding 1 to the first parameter for a head, and to the second parameter for a tail. Oh, and the more formal description for what's going on here, besides "happy accident", is that the Beta distribution is the conjugate prior for the Binomial distribution.
This also suggests that we didn't have to start with the uniform distribution, , to have this happy accident occur. We could start with any , and then after observing heads and tails, we'd update our beliefs and say that came from . So maybe there's a better choice for those initial parameters, and ? In a very real sense, which we've already seen with this updating procedure, these parameters are our prior belief about the coin. If we've never flipped the coin at all, we'd sorta want to say that and are 0, but the parameters of the Beta distribution are required to be positive. So we'd say we don't really know, and choose a "weekly informative" prior, say 0.001 for both and . The point of choosing such a small prior is that it lets the data have a strong governance on the shape of the distribution we get once we update our beliefs having seen some data. This is because is very similar to if and are small (relative to an ).
If you'd like to play around with actually running some code (and who doesn't?), below is some R code I threw together. It simulates a sequence of flips of a weighted coin, and plots the progression of updates to our belief about as we run through the flips.
coinWeights <- c(.65,.35) prior <- c(1,1) numFlips <- 10 flips <- sample(1:2, numFlips, prob=coinWeights, replace=TRUE) print(flips) betaDist <- function(alphaBeta) { function(x) { dbeta(x, alphaBeta[1], alphaBeta[2]) } } colors <- rainbow(numFlips) plot(betaDist(prior), xlim=c(0,1), ylim=c(0,5), xlab="", ylab="") for (n in 1:numFlips) { prior[flips[n]] <- prior[flips[n]] + 1 func <- betaDist(prior) curve(func, from=0, to=1, add=TRUE, col=colors[n]) } legend("topleft", legend=c("prior",paste("flip",c("H","T")[flips])), col=c("#000000",colors), lwd=1)
I ran it once, obtaining the following plot: So that's fun. You might play with that code to get a sense of how choosing bad priors will make it take a while (many coin flips) before the posterior distribution matches the actual coin. Before moving on to more complicated models, I'd like to mention that calling the denominator we obtained when we applied Bayes' Theorem, above, "just" a normalizing constant, above, is a dis-service. The denominator is a function of the parameters and , as is called the Beta function. Right off the bat, Calculus teachers can again rejoice at the integral determining :
That integral's doable by hand, and, unfortunately, an example of an exam question Calculus teachers probably would wet their pants over. But, better than simple tricks where goofy looking integrals "happen" to be related to circles (where did come from, there, anyway?), we also have
is the analytic extension of to the complex plane (our binomial coefficients from before seem to have been wrapped up into the normalizing constant, ). While I'm sure there's no shortage of places you could read more about either the Beta or Gamma functions, I must say that I was enthralled with Artin's book on the Gamma function. Delightful. Ok, moving on.
Let's take a moment to slightly alter our notation, making it easy to extend to more dimensions (number of sides on the coin/die). Let's write and for the probability of obtaining a head or tail on a single flip, respectively. Similarly, let's write and for the number of observed heads and tails, respectively, with still the total number of flips. Just to double-check if you're following, our original probability of obtaining this data from the parameter can now be written
It's probably now relatively easy to see how to generalize this. Suppose there are possible outcomes of our "coin" (/die/…), and that the probability of rolling side is given by (letting ). Suppose we roll our die times, obtaining side a total of times (and letting . Given just the sequence of rolls (and the number of sides), what can we say about ? The multi-dimensional generalization of the Beta distribution is the Dirichlet distribution. It takes parameters and is defined over the points having and (i.e., lies on the hyper-triangle (simplex) spanned by the canonical unit vectors in -dimensional space). Its density function is
As before, we can treat as "just" a normalization constant. One useful thing about the Dirichlet distribution is that it's defined over a particular subset of -dimensional space – namely, the subset where the coordinates sum to 1 and are all positive. So if we draw a sample from , then can be thought of a discrete probability distribution defined on a set of size . More in line with the die example, a sample from gives us weights for the sides of our die. The Beta distribution had the nice updating property described above – if we thought the parameters where and and then we observed heads and tails, our new belief about the weight of the coin is described by parameters with values and . The Dirichlet distribution updates just as nicely: If we previous thought the parameters were (a vector of length ), and then we observed counts ( the number of times we rolled side ), then our new parameters are simply . One of my goals, coming in to this learning project, was to actually figure out how to use OpenBUGS to do Bayesian analysis. Instead of doing the algebra by hand above to determine the posterior distributions (update our beliefs after we see some data), we're supposed to be able to code up some model and provide it, with the data, to OpenBUGS, and have it return something like the answer. More specifically, BUGS, the Bayesian inference Using Gibbs Sampler, runs a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm (presumably Gibbs sampling, based on the acronym), and returns to us draws from the posterior distribution. So even if we don't know the analytic expression for the posterior, we can let OpenBUGS generate for us as many samples from the posterior as we'd like, and we can then address questions about the posterior distribution (e..g, what is the mean?) by way of the samples. I'd love, of course, to dig in to the mechanics of all this, but in the process of preparing my talk I found that another guy at work was already a few steps ahead of me down that road. So I'm going to let him tell me about it, which I very much look forward to. For now, my goal will simply be to figure out how to get OpenBUGS to answer the same question we've already done analytically in the case of a coin (): Given the sequence of rolls, what can it tell me about ? To start, let's return to our apparently simple die-rolling procedure. What we have is a "generative model" for producing a data set. Specifically, we run through the following steps:
- Choose a distribution of weights for sides of our die, by picking from .
- For each of iterations,
- Roll the die, recording the side, , a sample from the categorical distribution .
Having written what's going on in this manner, we're basically right at a description of the model in the BUGS language. What we've just written would get translated as:
model { phi[1:V] ~ ddirich(beta[]) for (n in 1:N) { w[n] ~ dcat(phi[]) } }
(Your mileage may vary with ddirich versus ddirch.) However, this model isn't quite complete enough. We haven't said anything about in this model, but it certainly isn't data we'll be feeding in to the model (that'd be , the sequence of rolls). This is where I fall back on "wave the wand" – there's still a fair amount of magic, for me, built into the priors when working with Bayesian inference. I'll need to learn more about this, but for now, I'll tell BUGS to use weakly informative priors (like we did with the coin). The complete model, then, is described to BUGS as:
model { phi[1:V] ~ ddirich(beta[]) for (n in 1:N) { w[n] ~ dcat(phi[]) } for (v in 1:V) { beta[v] <- 0.001 } }
But how does BUGS know what "V" and "N" and "w[n]" are? Well, we have to feed it the data. For this, I'll let the R package rbugs do the hard work. I'll work with relatively familiar R objects (which still surprise and frustrate me regularly), and let rbugs translate to and from OpenBUGS for me. The model above needs to be saved in a file, say 'die.txt'. We can then use the following R code to play with this model and generate some pictures for us:
library(rbugs) # talk to OpenBUGS library(coda) # MCMC utilities (mostly unused below) library(gtools) # gives us ddirichlet # set up parameters # args <- strsplit("100 c(.7,.3) 1 5000 1000 .001", " ")[[1]] args <- commandArgs(trailingOnly = TRUE) # die parameters n.rolls <- as.integer(args[1]) # 100 pre.phi <- eval(parse(text=args[2])) # c(.7,.3) n.sides <- length(pre.phi) # 2 (calculated) # mcmc parameters n.chains <- as.integer(args[3]) # 1 n.iter <- as.integer(args[4]) # 5000 n.burnin <- as.integer(args[5]) # 1000 default.beta <- as.numeric(args[6]) # .001 # generate data rolls <- sample(1:n.sides, n.rolls, prob = pre.phi, replace=TRUE) # precalculate right answers post.beta <- default.beta + tabulate(rolls) post.phi.marginal <- cbind(post.beta, sum(post.beta)-post.beta) # phi[s] is Beta(beta[s]-1, sum(beta)-2) post.phi.mean <- post.beta / sum(post.beta) post.phi.mode <- (post.beta-1) / (sum(post.beta)-2) post.phi.max <- apply(cbind(post.phi.mode, post.phi.marginal), 1, function(r) { dbeta(r[1], r[2], r[3]) }) # set up data to pass to bugs die.data <- list( V = n.sides, N = n.rolls, w = rolls ) # generate initial values. rbugs doesn't seem to handle empty initial values well inits <- function() { list(beta = rep(default.beta, n.sides)) } # parameters to be saved, to compare with our algebraic calculations above parameters <- c("phi") # give us some samples! (make sure you have a directory 'tmp' under the pwd) die.sim <- rbugs(die.data, inits, parameters, "die.txt", n.chains=n.chains, n.iter=n.iter, n.burnin=n.burnin, bugsWorkingDir="tmp", bugs="/usr/local/bin/OpenBUGS", cleanBugsWorkingDir=TRUE) # coda provides some utilities for if you know enough about mcmc, which i don't die.mcmc <- rbugs2coda(die.sim) # die.mcmc is a list, with length = n.chains # die.mcmc[[n]] has dimension c((n.iter-n.burnin), # variables) base.filename = paste(args, collapse="_") # save some stuff, in case you feel like poking at it save(die.mcmc, args, rolls, file=paste(base.filename, 'RData', sep='.')) # set up some drawing utilities colors <- rainbow(n.sides) xlim <- c(-.05, max(c(pre.phi, max(post.phi.mean)))+.1) ylim <- c(-.05, 1.05) draw.mean.line <- function(x, y, col, lty) { lines(c(x,x), ylim, col=col, lty=lty) text(x, y, col=col, labels=sprintf("%.03f", x)) } draw.samples.density <- function(chains, varname, col, lty) { samples <- chains[[1]][,varname] den <- density(samples) den$y <- den$y / max(den$y) lines(den, col=col, lty=lty) draw.mean.line(mean(samples), -.03, col, lty) } # draw the sample distributions, as well as the given distrbution png(paste(base.filename, 'png', sep='.'), width=1000, height=800) plot(NULL, xlim=xlim, ylim=ylim, xlab=NA, ylab=NA, main=base.filename) for (idx in 1:n.sides) { # actual draw.samples.density(die.mcmc, paste("phi[",idx,"]", sep=""), colors[idx], 1) # show the original chosen values for phi draw.mean.line(pre.phi[idx], 1.03, colors[idx], 4) # plot the algebraic answer, scaled to have max 1 curve(dbeta(x, post.phi.marginal[idx,1], post.phi.marginal[idx,2]) / post.phi.max[idx], lty=2, add=TRUE, from=0, to=xlim[2]) text(post.phi.mean[idx], .5+.1*(n.sides/2)-.1*(idx), labels=sprintf("%.03f",post.phi.mean[idx])) } legend("topleft", col=colors, lty=1, legend=paste("[",1:n.sides,"]",sep=""), title="phi") dev.off()
For grins, here's the output of one of my runs: Can you work out how many rolls there were for each of the sides? Having a script like this makes it pretty easy to investigate some questions:
- What happens if I have more rolls ()? Fewer?
- If I pick a bad prior (e.g., a with large values), what happens to the output? How can it be compensated for? To what extent?
- What about those iterations and burnin parameters? And just how does BUGS give us these samples anyway? Another day…
Basically there's a bunch of knobs to twiddle, and all sorts of fun can be had. But let's see if we can actually get closer to LDA, shall we?
Hierarchical Dice
Let's add a layer of indirection. Suppose we've got a collection of weighted dice ( of them), each with the same number of sides (still ), but each possibly weighted differently. Let's also suppose we've got a separate weighted die with faces. Let's call the die with sides the T-die, and the other dice will be the W-dice. Now instead of just rolling a single die repeatedly, we'll repeatedly (still times) do the following:
- Roll the T-die to decide which of the W-dice to roll.
- Roll the appropriate W-die, and record the result.
Given the sequence of rolls (where a '1' on one W-die is not distinguished from a '1' on another W-die), along with , can we determine the weights of the T-die and W-dice? Naturally, we should expect that this will go better when is relatively large. Perhaps someday I'll come back and fill in the algebra here, but for now let's just see what we need to do in order to get OpenBUGS to help us out again. First off, we don't know the weights of the T-die, and we want it to help us learn those. Let's say they are , or more concisely the vector . As before, this is a discrete probability distribution, and we've seen that a sample from a Dirichlet gives us such a beast. So it seems sensible to suppose that is chosen from some , for some hyper-parameter (a -dimensional vector). As before, we'll feed in weakly informative priors. Next up, we have the weights of the sides on each of the W-dice. Before, we only had one such die, and the weights of its sides were . So let's stick with for these weights, but now it must become a matrix – specifically, it has to be a matrix. Each row in this matrix is, again, a probability distribution, so we'll assume is chosen from some , where is a single -dimensional vector. All together, then, the model looks like:
model { theta[1:K] ~ ddirich(alpha[]) for (k in 1:K) { phi[k,1:V] ~ ddirich(beta[]) } for (n in 1:N) { z[n] ~ dcat(theta[]) w[n] ~ dcat(phi[z[n],]) } for (k in 1:K) { alpha[k] <- .1 } for (v in 1:V) { beta[v] <- .001 } }
There's enough parameters around that I haven't bothered trying to make a nice clear picture of the outputs of this. The changes necessary to simply run the thing, beginning with the R code above, are pretty minimal – take in a couple extra parameters, generate samples via the two-step process, and figure out what you'd like to do with the outputs, and you're set. Of course, I haven't worked out the algebraically correct answers here… But we're now knocking on the door of
Instead of only having a single T-die, suppose you've got several (, say). After your rolls using your first T-die, and their tabulation to , from before, you decide to repeat the process with the second T-die (roll it times, each time rolling the appropriate W-die and recording the answer), and then go through it all again with the third T-die, and so on. Each time you use the same set of W-dice… Ok, the dice viewpoint has gotten stretched far too thin. Who would have that many weighted dice, and be interested in all those rolls anyway? Let's translate over to document collections. Suppose you've got a collection of documents (a "corpus", in the parlance of our time), each with words (for notational convenience, there's no reason they all really need to have the same length). Suppose, moreover, that each document is actually a blend of any of topics, and that each document pertains to each topic in different proportions (weights of your T-dice). Finally, suppose each topic is represented by any of words (finally, for "vocabulary"!), and that the different topics have different weights for the words (your W-dice all had potentially different weights for their sides, but all had the same number of sides). Given only the word sequences for the documents, the job of LDA is to uncover the topic distribution for each document (the weights of the sides of the associated T-die) as well as the word frequency distributions corresponding to each topic (the weights of the various W-dice). But really, this is only a step or two harder than uncovering the weights of a biased coin, which we began with. There's sort of an assumption floating around in here that the order of words in documents doesn't much matter. The brief look I had the original LDA paper [pdf] has me thinking that this has nice theoretical consequences concerning the form of the model for generating documents. Basically, under our assumption that documents are generated by repeatedly picking a topic (rolling a T-die) and then picking a word based on the word weights for that topic (rolling the appropriate W-die), the parameters have to be as described as in the following BUGS model:
model { for (k in 1:K) { phi[k,1:V] ~ ddirich(beta[]) # weights of W-die k } for (d in 1:M) { theta[d,1:K] ~ ddirich(alpha[]) # weights of T-die d for (n in 1:N) { z[d,n] ~ dcat(theta[d,]) # the n-th T-die roll for document d (choose a topic) w[d,n] ~ dcat(phi[z[d,n],]) # the n-th W-die roll for document d (choose a word from topic z[d,n]) } } }
I took the priors out, above; mostly I still feel like they're a gap in my understanding. But whatever, good enough. It's natural at this point to wonder how you'd take the word order into account anyway; I haven't looked into it much, but there's at least one paper [pdf] on the subject. One might also wonder how to to determine the number of topics if that constant () isn't given to you with the word count tabulations. Again, this has been addressed [pdf], though I haven't dug into it a whole lot. And let's not forget, let's not forget, that I still have basically no idea how or why Gibbs sampling (and/or other MCMC methods – Metropolis-Hastings, I'm looking at you) works. Finally, I was honestly a little surprised to find that the OpenBUGS model above, and the R script I coded up to use it, took something like 8 hours on sample data I generated to throw at it (maybe 1000 words, 3 documents, 2 topics, or so). I then looked at the lda package in R, manipulated my sample data so I could feed it to that, and got answers out in about a second. Clearly there's something else going on there. My investigations so far have me thinking the difference is probably described in this paper, but it, along with everything else I've just mentioned, is still in the "todo" pile. So, more questions than answers, though I feel like I answered a few questions for myself in all of this. It's probably some sort of life lesson that learning one thing just opens up the doors for not knowing a whole bunch more, or something. Hopefully I'll keep chipping away on these or related topics (or, at least, something interesting). And maybe I'll just find the energy to write about it, to help point out all the things I don't understand. Anyway, thanks for coming with me on this. Sorry it took me so long, and left so many questions. In addition to the links above, I found this paper helpful/interesting.
Update 2015071: Corrected variable of integration in formula for $\Gamma(z)$, thanks to comment by Joel Nothman.


text:
SANFORD, Maine (WMTW/CNN) - A couple is outraged after an assistant school principal used the N-word against their biracial son. They say the official used the racial slur while trying to reprimand their 9-year-old.
The school says the educator was trying to teach the boy a lesson about bullying.
"He's going to remember this for the rest of his life that his principal called him this at school," said Jessica Gouin, the boy's mom.
Gouin said her son came home from his elementary school and told his parents that the assistant principal called him the N-word.
His dad immediately called the school.
In a meeting, the assistant principal apologized for her word choice.
"She said, 'Yes, I know I'm wrong. I did call your son a n*****, and I wasn't thinking about the consequences at the time or what it would do to your child,'" said Neil Jarett, the boy's dad.
The school said it happened after the boy was sent to the principal's office for bullying another student.
That's where the assistant principal asked him, "If I called you [expletive] how would you feel?"
Matthew Nelson, the superintendent, said the assistant principal was trying to show the student how words can hurt.
"We're trying to make an example and we failed in terms of being able to do that. But there was no malice intended. It wasn't intentional in terms of that," Nelson said.
The boy's parents say their son was targeted.
"There's no way that would cross her mind if she wasn't really looking at him that way," Jarett said.
Nelson said the assistant principal will undergo additional training, but the boy's parents are worried that lack of repercussions mean this could happen again.
"They're just going to brush off and keep it that way and maybe a couple years down the line, it's going to be the same thing. It may not be my kid but someone else's kid," Jarett said.
Copyright 2019 WMTW, Hearst via CNN. All rights reserved.


text:
We've evolved past the point of shouldering giant boomboxes for something a bit more portable. Now the party can follow you in a more stylish way—Rebecca Minkoff and Stellé Audio's fly new clutches aren't really clutches at all. Rather, they're Bluetooth speakers.
Best part? They don't even look like speakers. The silver studded purses come in pink, green, and royal blue. There are also a couple of pebbled metal versions that come in blue, teal, and silver. Each bag costs $400. And you can fake people out—it looks like you're reaching for lipstick, but really you're about to put on some trap music and jam the hell out. [Stellé via GeekSugar]


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B and C – 1-1/4" high x 5-1/2" wide
D and E – 1-1/4" wide x 3-1/2 high
F and H – ¾" wide x 3-1/2" high
AA – ½" wide x 6" high
BB – 1-3/4" high x 5-1/2" wide
CC and EE – 1-3/4" wide x 4-1/4" high
From the right hand side, measure in 2-5/8" and make a dot at that measurement. Using your ruler, draw a diagonal line connecting the dot at the top to the bottom on the right on side.
Now, for those special blocks that fit into the bottom right side of my houses, I used my EQ software and BlockBase that goes with it.
Here are a couple of links where you can make 6" x 6" (6-1/2" x 6-1/2" unfinished) blocks:
My next post will show you how to assemble the block.


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Now showing items 1-3 of 3
Modifiable causes of premature death in middle-age in Western Europe: Results from the EPIC cohort study
(Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2016-06-14)
Background
 Life expectancy is increasing in Europe, yet a substantial proportion of adults still die prematurely before the age of 70 years. We sought to estimate the joint and relative contributions of tobacco smoking, hypertension, obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol and poor diet towards risk of premature death.
 Methods
 We analysed data from 264,906 European adults from the ...
Fiber intake modulates the association of alcohol intake with breast cancer
(Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2016-09-06)
Alcohol intake has been related to an increased risk of breast cancer (BC) while dietary fiber intake has been inversely associated to BC risk. A beneficial effect of fibers on ethanol carcinogenesis through their impact on estrogen levels is still controversial. We investigated the role of dietary fiber as a modifying factor of the association of alcohol and BC using data from the European Prospective ...
Pre-diagnostic meat and fibre intakes in relation to colorectal cancer survival in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition
(Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2016-05-19)