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Tarot Readings for You for January 30, 2015 Friday©
GUIDANCE Mass consciousness strongly but subtly influences members to conform to its profile, within reason. Today we look at the mechanisms within us (gut, heart, instinct, conscience, etc.) that keep us conforming to the specs of groups we are in – the ones we chose and the ones that chose us. We feel in our bones where that line is. And we feel just how far we can venture when we cross that line, and still be full-fledged members. We also have that feeling in the bones about how far we can venture to depart from the group. Even talk is policed by the mass consciousness entities: 'Not mentioned in polite company' is where the enforcement shows. The fact we feel awkward when others 'go too far' tells us where that line is. We silently and secretly assess one another's performance re membership: And this secret assessment is one of those forbidden things to mention. Because the fact we are assessing reminds us that it is we who are enforcing.
Are YOU here for the first time? Come in!
People love this place! Our site is divided into four sections: Guidance, Tarot Readings, Learn Tarot by Observation, and Learn Tarot by Pictures.
If you just want your daily look ahead, Guidance and Tarot Readings are all you need. 'Guidance' (above) is a summary of what the cards are telling visitors to be aware of this day.
'Group Tarot Cards Reading' (just below this) is the actual word-for-word messages from the pictures of the three cards you see – to everyone. These readings are about you and the people around you. They are about today and the days around it. So, go ahead and pick the sentences you feel are yours and decide whether to encourage or reject them for yourself.
Did you come here for your predictions? – You are done now – See you tomorrow. The family of commenters here would love for you to join in (the very last thing, at the bottom).
Page of Cups – Four of Pentacles – Moon
"Tell the visitors here something useful and meaningful to them."
Headings [So you can choose which belongs to you]
Tarot Readings: Dirty Secrets (Four of Pentacles and Moon)
Tarot Readings: What Are You Hiding? (Page of Cups and Four of Pentacles)
Tarot Readings: Could Be Wrong (Page of Cups and Moon)
Tarot Readings: Bad Feelings (Four of Pentacles and Moon)
Tarot Readings: Dirty Secrets (Four of Pentacles and Moon)
Keeping quiet about a foolish mistake.
Curious about a skeleton in the closet.
It's a dirty secret, and will (you) keep it?
Not admitting I'm addicted; why should I?
Suppressing my curiosity about the scandal.
Tarot Readings: What Are You Hiding? (Page of Cups and Four of Pentacles)
Suffering in silence, aren't you?
I suspect a hidden defect.
Why is the dangerous road unmarked?
Is it dirty money?
Can you be both cheap and greedy?
Tarot Readings: Could Be Wrong (Page of Cups and Moon)
I don't want to admit I'm wrong so I'm looking awkward.
I feel deeply about things I could be wrong about.
I think it's (my) fault, but (I'm) not admitting it.
Can I really keep myself from evildoing?
May be a sin by omission?
If it's so cheap, there could be something wrong with it.
It's questionable, it's wrong, and I'm not getting involved.
It's wrong to ask such personal questions.
Tarot Readings: Bad Feelings (Four of Pentacles and Moon)
This is personal: I wonder if I'm on the dark side, the wrong path.
A very strange inspiration is festering deep within.
Do I look funny? – I am suppressing freaking out.
In my deepest soul, I suspect I am doing wrong.
It is a crazy scene – it is a bad scene – I don't wanna talk about it.
I'm warped and I'm weird and I'm in my shell.
You have a funny feeling in your gut that something's very wrong.
I don't know why I feel so bad deep down inside.
Now, Part Two,
Do you want to know a little, or a lot, about how this Tarot Verbatim™ thing works? If so,
*Go to Learn Tarot by Observing section below. This tells about the combined meanings of the three cards in the pictures in the Tarot Readings. It explains how these cards get together in your mind to make the messages. HERE ARE PHRASES FOR ALL THREE 2-CARD COMBINATIONS is a stream-of-consciousness bridge to your subconscious if you use it regularly – people report.
*Go to Learn Tarot by Pictures. It is what each of the cards, by itself, has to say. It shows you how that illustration makes that card's meanings in today's Spread. All the words of each Tarot card reading you see here are a phrase-by-phrase translation of the scene pictured on those cards: no filler, no psychic impressions, no spirit guide. Word-for-word Tarot Verbatim™.
You can put all this together and intuitively see yourself how Tarot Verbatim™ works.
This is a group reading, with no Questioner and no Question to limit what the cards say, so there's more variety – even contradictions – than a personal reading would give you. Also, pronouns are flexible: If the sentence feels like it's yours, and it says 'he,' but you're a 'she,' well, it's yours.
*AND if you write names of any two cards into the Google search bar, it will give you meanings of those!
Page of Cups – Four of Pentacles – Moon
………………….…………………… Strange bedfellows, these. Page of Cups and Moon both mean, and both are, strange. Four of Pentacles and Moon both mean, and both are, hidden. Page of Cups asks questions and Four of Pentacles is secrets. Moon can be an ominous, dark occult influence, and Four of Pentacles has something to hide deep down inside him. We have no action card, so we don't have stories today, but a lot of speculation and rumination.
………………………….. Page of Cups is the fellow wearing women's clothes who carries a fish around in a cup. When this card is the first Self card in a Celtic Cross spread, it is telling the reader: 'This doesn't make sense, but it is correct, okay?' First, Page of Cups means any form of the word 'question,' and it puts your sentence into question form very often. Some words for Page of Cups are: questionable, weird, strange, curious, goofball, silly, awkward, maybe, suspect (verb), somehow, no idea, I suppose – and questions like 'What if' and 'Why?' and any other question.
Some other things Page of Cups means are: humor, joke, funny, funny-looking; a person who is goofy or confused; a cross-dresser, gay or bisexual, usually a male.
………………………….. Four of Pentacles' illustration brings up several trunks of meanings. He sits outside of town, hugging himself and his money, staring straight ahead. He is not giving, not talking and it looks like he's not welcome in town.
One trunk of meanings is the 'not talking.' His body language is saying that. Quite a few phrases arise from this.
One trunk of meanings is about secrecy, privacy, 'deep down inside' feelings, gut feelings, being blocked or 'in my shell.' Deeply felt and not expressed: Put those under Four of Pentacles' umbrella. It can be a 'my lips are sealed,' it can just be private, it can be keeping a guilty secret … any kind of silence – even 'suffering in silence.'
One trunk of meanings is about the money. This card is referred to in old Tarot books as the miser. So you have words like cheap and stingy. It is also about the budget, about being short of money. This 'short' meaning expands to being short of, deficient in, not enough, less than, isn't good enough, didn't get enough, not as much, etc.
One trunk of meanings is about 'holding onto' or holding. He is hugging himself, so a hug is Four of Pentacles territory.
One trunk of meanings is restraining oneself – 'Don't let myself' and 'Not going to admit' or 'Keep myself from.'
One trunk of meanings picks up on the 'out of town' factor. It translates literally that way, whether the out-of-town activity is illicit or just located there – even if it is a direction when you ask 'Where is' about anything (often a lost animal).
One trunk of meanings expands on the out of town thing to mean being left out, shut out, estranged from, blackballed, etc. Four of Pentacles can mean 'in the closet' about something.
Four of Pentacles and Moon suggest scandal, and keeping it secret.
..………………………. Moon is one of those cards you would just as soon not see in your spread. In excellent company, it can mean The Muse – that type of inspiration or being in the zone – and it can mean dream. It can pick up on the canines and answer a question regarding dogs or wild animals, for instance – or the moon itself. Other than that, Moon is usually bad news, since it means bad and worse and worst case scenario, and the road to hell, and dark-side occultism, not to mention evil itself in any plane. It is dirt and toxins and pollution and serious sickness (even malignancies and growths).
Today it is in company that calls attention to its dark nature: Page of Pentacles questions it, and Four of Pentacles is concealing it … something suspect, something to hide, they say. But neither of its companion Tarot citizens here activates anything: We are only thinking, feeling, and wondering about Moonish things.
Let's face it: Some things you keep to yourself, and so does everyone else. 'Not mentioned in polite company' is a good rule: Things that, mentioned, make for awkwardness, include topics that are too personal, that are confessions of violating norms, and that are just plain weird – among others. Everyone has private thoughts that are outlandish: Did you know that? – everyone. That's why we don't freely talk about religion, politics, race or gender in 'mixed company.' But temptations, the awful things we know we did, our dreams of power, and our deep contempt for some things other people accept … those are other, more specific, examples of the hush-hush zone. We all signed an unwritten treaty about this when we were born into the human race.
resonates with your subconscious awareness!
……….…………. Page of Cups and Four of Pentacles x..
……….………… Page of Cups and Moon x..
………..…………Four of Pentacles and Moon x..
Page of Cups …….. Here's this guy dressed like a girl, with this funny hat, carrying a fish around in a cup, his back to the big waves behind the seawall he stands upon. (The waves in Rider Waite are an indication of either/or emotional instability, or an unstable situation.) Is this goofy, or what? Page of Cups means inappropriate and dumb – things like that – and is an invitation to put his sentence into question form.
Four of Pentacles …………. Here's a guy sitting outside of town holding onto his money, staring straight ahead, hugging himself. This illustration applies several ways. It is about withholding and holding onto, and about internal processes – gut level – often translating 'deep down.' It means privacy and guarding privacy, and it means 'secret' and keeping anything secret. It means not telling, not divulging, not talking, and 'shut up.' It means stifling, suppressing or blocking feelings or anything else. It means 'insufficient,' not enough, not very, and not much. It is being low key, quiet, keeping to yourself. It is about not having enough, or not spending enough, money: budget, thrifty, cheap, saving money, broke, stingy, holding onto the money, "Don't spend" or 'not worth it' or not paid what you're worth,' as in 'underpaid.' Sometimes it's a hug. Watch for it in medical questions; it means internal there too.
Moon …………. Moon is widely called 'worst card in the deck' despite the fact that many of its bad meanings are fairly tame. Its reputation is based on the illustration. Moon is 'The Left-hand Path,' of occultism. Those two towers are markers of the entrance to hell on the road to hell (I don't know the story, aim to find it somewhere. I think its from mythology, not Christianity.). (Ace of Pentacles is 'The Right-hand Path,' or right path.) So Moon supports black magic and demonic themes. The dog and coyote consorting, and the lobster going on a land journey both express the out-of-control crazy side of things.
Moon means 'wrong' a lot. Moon is serious illness including malignancies; insanity; twisted, warped, hurtful, hateful, spiteful, malicious.
However, Moon can simply mean dream (as well as nightmare, of course). It can mean inspiration – The Muse, for instance. It can just describe a bad day – you know, a 'day from hell.'
Illustrations from the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck®, known also as the Rider Tarot and the Waite Tarot, reproduced by permission of U. S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA. Copyright ©1971 by U. S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction prohibited. The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck® is a registered trademark of U. S. Games Systems, Inc.
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subset: commoncrawl


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If the rotational vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) were to achieve optimal retinal image stabilization during head rotations in three-dimensional space, it must turn the eye around the same axis as the head, with equal velocity but in the opposite direction. This optimal VOR strategy implies that the position of the eye in the orbit must not affect the VOR. However, if the VOR were to follow Listing's law, then the slow-phase eye rotation axis should tilt as a function of current eye position. We trained animals to fixate visual targets placed straight ahead or 20° up, down, left or right while being oscillated in yaw, pitch, and roll at 0.5–4 Hz, either with or without a full-field visual background. Our main result was that the visually assisted VOR of normal monkeys invariantly rotated the eye around the same axis as the head during yaw, pitch, and roll (optimal VOR). In the absence of a visual background, eccentric eye positions evoked small axis tilts of slow phases in normal animals. Under the same visual condition, a prominent effect of eye position was found during roll but not during pitch or yaw in animals with low torsional and vertical gains following plugging of the vertical semicircular canals. This result was in accordance with a model incorporating a specific compromise between an optimal VOR and a VOR that perfectly obeys Listing's law. We conclude that the visually assisted VOR of the normal monkey optimally stabilizes foveal as well as peripheral retinal images. The finding of optimal VOR performance challenges a dominant role of plant mechanics and supports the notion of noncommutative operations in the oculomotor control system.
Stabilization of the entire retinal image requires that the three-dimensional (3D) rotational vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) spins the eye around the same axis as the head and in the opposite direction, independent of eye position (optimal VORstrategy). To determine whether the VOR actually follows this strategy, the effect of eye position on VOR slow phases has been studied in humans during active or passive rotations in yaw, pitch, and roll with various frequencies and illuminations (Misslisch 1995;Misslisch et al. 1994, 1996;Solomon et al. 1997; Thurtell et al. 1999; Tweed et al. 1994). The findings showed that the eye rotation axis tilted with the gaze line during yaw or pitch and opposite to the gaze line during roll. This pattern has been interpreted as a specific compromise between perfect retinal image stabilization and perfect compliance with Listing's law (partial Listing VOR strategy).
Listing's law is a kinematic constraint that holds during saccades and fixations (e.g., Ferman et al. 1987;Minken et al. 1993; Tweed and Vilis 1990), smooth pursuit (Haslwanter et al. 1991;Tweed et al. 1992), and, more generally, during VOR fast phases (Hess and Angelaki 1997). Listing's law implies a particular relation between eye position and eye velocity that is relevant for understanding its possible role in the VOR: when the eye is in a given position, then the eye velocity vector must lie in a head-fixed plane, the velocity plane associated with that position. The velocity planes for different eye positions differ by half the change in gaze direction (half-angle rule). The unique eye position for which the gaze line is orthogonal to its associated velocity plane is called primary position, its velocity plane Listing's plane (Tweed and Vilis 1990; Von Helmholtz 1863, 1867).
Figure 1 illustrates the theoretical predictions of optimal VOR and partial Listing VOR strategies during pitch (top panel) and roll (bottom panel) head rotation for a 20° left gaze direction. Velocity vectors are plotted in Listing's coordinates, i.e., Listing's plane (LP) aligns with they-axis and primary gaze direction (gaze line when the eye is in primary position) with the x-axis of the coordinate system. A VOR that perfectly follows Listing's law predicts eye velocity vectors to lie in the velocity plane (VP) which, according to the half-angle rule, is tilted by (20/2)° in the direction of gaze. The optimal VOR strategy requires an eye velocity that is equal and opposite to head velocity and independent of gaze direction, i.e., completely violates Listing's law (see Ωoptand Ωhead in Fig. 1). The parallel projection Listing VOR model yields a velocity vector that stabilizes the foveal image and is found by projecting the optimal VOR vector parallel to the gaze line onto VP. Any vector with its tip along the dotted lines (and its origin in the center of the coordinate system) represents such a VOR response, each with a particular degree of compliance with Listing's law as quantified by a Listing factor (LL): the unique velocity vector that lies in VP (LL = 1) corresponds to a Listing factor of one (full compliance). The optimal VOR velocity vector (LL = 0) corresponds to a Listing factor of zero (no compliance). All vectors in between (along the dotted line) represent Listing factors ranging from 1 to 0, depending on the distance of their tips from VP. For example, a half-Listing VOR (LL = 0.5) lies halfway in between the responses denoted by LL = 1 and LL = 0. Previous studies have shown that the human VOR follows this parallel projection half-Listing strategy (Misslisch 1995; Misslisch et al. 1996).
Another possible compromise between optimal VOR and Listing VOR is theorthogonal projection model, where the velocity vector is found by projecting the optimal vector on VP and orthogonal to it. Any vector with its tip along the dashed lines represents such a VOR response. Again, the degree of compliance with Listing's law (eye position–dependent tilt of the VOR response) can be characterized by a Listing factor. As will be shown in this study, the orthogonal projection model accounts for the direction of VOR responses in monkeys with low torsional gains (due to plugging of their vertical semicircular canals; see Figs. 4 and 6). Note that both Listing's law models predict VOR responses that tilt in the direction of gaze during pitch (and yaw, not shown) and opposite to gaze during roll head rotations. The functional significance of the two compromise strategies will be considered in the discussion(see also ).
The performance of the VOR and its possible dependence on eye position has implications for two general problems in oculomotor control. First, the recent discovery of soft rectus muscle pulleys that restrict the path of extraocular muscles (Demer et al. 1995, 1997; Miller and Demer 1997; Miller et al. 1993) has revived the long standing debate on whether or not Listing's law can be attributed to mechanical properties of the oculomotor plant rather than to neural control systems. As a recent example, Thurtell et al. (1999) studied high acceleration active and passive yaw head rotations in humans and found eye position–dependent VOR responses in directions predicted by Listing's law. The authors concluded that the eye position dependence is probably due to the effect of fibromuscular pulleys on the paths of the rectus muscles. This supports the earlier proposal of Raphan (1997), who claimed that a commutative VOR model, when implementing the action of extraocular muscle pulleys, can account for the half-Listing behavior described in humans (Misslisch et al. 1994).
Second, in a comprehensive modeling work, Smith and Crawford (1998) demonstrated the necessity of noncommutativeoperations in the brain circuits underlying the VOR. Their computer simulations demonstrated that any commutative VOR model predicts nonoptimal VOR responses with slow phase rotation axes that deviate from the axis of head rotation, a behavior that results in a severe degradation of vision. Moreover, this finding was independent of the mechanical properties of the oculomotor plant, i.e., whether the effect of fibromuscular pulleys was incorporated in the model or not. Smith and Crawford concluded that an internal multiplicative processing of eye position and head velocity signals was required to account for the noncommutative properties of 3D rotations and to produce optimal VOR responses that allow a stable image on the entire retina. Additional evidence for noncommutative operations in the brain was reported by Tweed et al. (1999), who found the predicted (noncommutative) VOR responses after two sequences of head rotations around the same axes but in reversed order.
A detailed quantitative study on the influence of eye position on the monkey rotational VOR has not been performed so far. Observations made in nontrained monkeys suggested no systematic effect (Crawford and Vilis 1991). The aim of this study was to characterize the monkey VOR in a condition where the animals were trained to fixate eccentric targets, with or without a visual background, while being oscillated at various frequencies in yaw, pitch, and roll. We found that when full-field vision was present, monkeys showed optimal VOR behavior in all three dimensions. When visual and/or vestibular inputs were reduced, eye position–dependent VOR responses in accordance with the orthogonal projection model were found during roll but not during pitch or yaw. Preliminary results have been published in abstract form (Misslisch and Hess 1998).
Animal preparation
Five juvenile rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta;abbreviated JU, SU, RO, JE, and TW) were chronically prepared with skull bolts for head restraint. Dual search coils were implanted on one eye under the conjunctiva at about 4 mm from the limbus corneae (Hess 1990). In two animals (JE and TW), all anterior and posterior semicircular canals were plugged about 1 yr before participating in this study. All surgical procedures were performed under sterile conditions, with the monkeys in deep anesthesia. After surgery, animals were treated with antibiotics and analgesics. All procedures were in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and the Veterinary Office of the Canton of Zürich approved the protocol.
Recording, calibration, and representation of 3D eye position and velocity
3D eye positions were measured with the magnetic search coil technique (Robinson 1963) using an Eye Position Meter 3000 (Skalar, Delft, The Netherlands). A coil mounted on a cubic frame of 0.3-m side length generated a horizontal and vertical magnetic field (20 kHz, phase and space quadrature). The output of the dual search coil corresponded to the horizontal and vertical angular orientation of two sensitivity vectors, one pointing roughly in the direction of the visual axis and the other approximately perpendicular to that. The four coil voltages, as well as the head position and velocity signals and a signal from a photodiode indicating illumination inside the sphere, were digitized at a rate of 833 Hz (Cambridge Electronic Design, model 1401plus) and stored on the hard disk of a microcomputer for off-line analysis.
3D eye position was calibrated as described in detail elsewhere (Hess et al. 1992). In short, the magnitude of the two coil sensitivity vectors as well as the angle between them was computed in an in vitro procedure. On each experimental day, the monkeys repeatedly fixated three light-emitting diodes (LEDs) placed at straight ahead and 20° up or 20° down. The measured voltages were used in combination with the parameters determined in vitro to compute the 3D orientation of the search coil on the eye. As a control of the quality of eye position recording, monkeys were made to fixate visual targets in the laboratory for about 90 s before each experiment. Then, a Listing's plane was computed for the complete data set including saccadic and fixation intervals as described elsewhere (Hess et al. 1992).
Three-dimensional eye positions were expressed as rotation vectors, where the eye's orientation when looking straight ahead was chosen as reference position (Haustein 1989; Hess et al. 1992). The eye angular velocity vector Ω was computed as described in Hepp (1990). Eye position and eye velocity vectors were expressed using a head-fixed, right-handed coordinate system with the x-, y-, andz-axes pointing along the nasooccipital, interaural, and longitudinal head axis, respectively. Positive directions of the coordinate axes represented clockwise, downward and leftward components (as seen from the subject's point of view) of eye position and eye velocity.
Training, experimental setup, and protocols
The monkeys were seated in a primate chair and secured with shoulder and lap belts. The head was restrained in an upright position (lateral semicircular canals elevated by about 15° anteriorly). The primate chair was then secured inside the inner frame of a vestibular rotator with three motor-driven axes (Acutronic, Jona, Switzerland). The rotator was surrounded by a lightproof sphere of 0.8-m radius to guarantee experiments with or without a full-field visual background. The profile and onset of sinusoidal chair rotation (frequency, amplitude) was chosen and controlled via computer.
All animals were pretrained to fixate LEDs using water rewards. The quality of fixation was controlled with behavioral windows. Animals were usually trained 3 or 4 days per week with free water access during the other days.
The effect of eye position on the monkey VOR was tested for different frequencies of sinusoidal yaw, pitch, and roll chair rotation (0.5, 1, 2, and 4 Hz; amplitude ±18, 5, 1.5, and 0.5°; peak velocity: 56.6, 31.4, 18.9, and 12.6°/s). Due to technical constraints, animals with plugged vertical semicircular canals were tested only at 0.5 Hz (TW) and 1.0 Hz (TW and JE). The target LEDs were on during the whole 4-s test period. The illumination inside the sphere was either on (SU and JU) or not (all animals) so that the numerous, randomly placed and different-sized (between 2 and 17 cm diam at 0.9 m distance, corresponding to a visual angle covered by the disks between 1.3 and 10.8°) black disks against a white background were either visible or not. An experiment started with the selection of a type of chair rotation (yaw, pitch, or roll). A computer program then randomly picked the first target, located either straight ahead or 20° eccentric (for yaw: up, center, down; for pitch: left, center, right; for roll: up, down, center, left, right). The current combination (head rotation, target) was signaled to a second computer, which set and controlled the behavioral reward window on-line. After the main computer initiated data recording, the vestibular rotator started moving if the monkey had kept proper fixation for 500–800 ms. The monkey was required to keep its gaze on the earth-stationary target while being rotated for 4 s. The animals were rewarded with water after the rotator had come to a stop. Trials were aborted when the monkey's eye position exceeded the behavioral window. The computer program selected each combination of chair rotation and target location until 10 successful repetitions were obtained. For a given frequency and illumination condition, the total number of trials was 110 (3 times 10 during yaw, 3 times 10 during pitch, and 5 times 10 during roll).
Data analysis
Digitized 3D eye velocity and eye position data were desaccaded with a semi-automatic computer program using thresholds for the second derivative of 3D eye velocity (jerk). Falsely placed or missing markers were identified and corrected interactively. Data were then cut such that the first (last) sample corresponded to the onset (offset) of vestibular stimulation. A sinusoidal function was fitted (in the least-squares sense) to the chair velocity, yielding an estimate of frequency and amplitude of 3D head rotation. These head velocity data,Ω Head, were combined with the data representing 3D eye position, E, to model slow-phase eye velocity, Ω, following a multivariable function fitting approach as used in a previous study (Misslisch et al. 1994; Press et al. 1988). To quantify how eye position E influences the VOR responses for a given head velocity Ω Head, we assumed that angular eye velocity Ω was not only a linear function of head velocity but also depended linearly on eye position as follows Equation 1
where Ω s is ocular drift velocity, [G] is a 3 × 3 gain matrix, and [B] is a 3 × 3 × 3 array representing the influence of eye position for a given head velocity (for more details seeappendix of Misslisch et al. 1994). In practice, we rearranged the three input vectorsΩ s, Ω Head, and E in this linear equation by defining a 3 × 13generalized gain matrix [C], which is applied to the following 13 × 1 input vector Q (written in transposed form for convenience) Equation 2where, for example, Ω Head_V is the vertical component of head velocity andΩ Head_T E H is the product of the torsional component of head velocity and the horizontal component of eye position. Note that the first element inQ represents a possible velocity drift, whereas the other elements are given by the particular stimulus condition of each experiment. A fitting algorithm then computed the 3 by 13 generalized gain matrix [C] such that [C]Qyielded the best response in the sense of minimal least-squared errors to eye velocity Ω. To compare VOR responses for a given combination of head rotation and eye position, we used the computed matrix [C]. Given Ω Head andE, the torsional, vertical, and horizontal components of eye velocity Ω were determined by computing the vectorQ as a function of Ω Head andE (Eq. 2 ) and applying the matrix [C] to the vector Q (Eq. 1 ). This method allowed an accurate characterization of the data (see black lines in Figs. 2−4 for examples of best-fit VOR responses derived from the computed generalized gain matrices).
Concepts of optimal VOR and eye position dependence
Unfortunately, different notions of gaze dependence have been used in previous VOR studies due to the fact that researchers did not always carefully distinguish between angular velocity Ω and coordinate velocity v. Here, we define the VOR as optimal if it achieves a perfectly stable image of the visual world on the entire retina, with VOR angular velocity being equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to angular head velocity (independent of current eye position). The concept of angular velocity is a kinematic property describing rigid body motion independent of the particular coordinates used (Goldstein 1980). Accordingly, eye angular velocity represents the motion of the eye from one position to another where its axis coincides with the axis of rotation and its length represents the speed of rotation. Thus if one aims to examine the effect of eye position on VOR slow phases, one has to analyze angular eye velocity with the eye in various positions. This issue cannot be addressed by representing eye velocity as coordinate velocity, for example as time derivative of the Fick angles, since this time derivative will depend on eye position for elementary kinematic reasons leading to results whose physiological interpretation is dubious (for the mathematical concepts involved in 3D kinematics see, e.g., Haslwanter 1995; Tweed 1997;Tweed and Vilis 1987, 1990).
The main observations of this study can be summarized as follows. First, when testing normal animals under "natural" conditions, i.e., with the animal fixating a target against a structured background, the visually assisted VOR optimally compensated for the head rotation: the eyes were driven in the opposite direction as the head, at the same speed and around the same axis. The fact that the slow phase rotation axis was not affected by the current position of the eye was invariably found in both animals tested in this condition. Second, when normal monkeys were tested while fixating a target in an otherwise dark environment, small eye position–dependent tilts of the slow-phase axis were observed in directions predicted by Listing's law. Third, in monkeys with low vertical and torsional VOR gains after plugging of the vertical semicircular canals, prominent eye position–dependent tilts were observed during roll, but not during pitch and yaw head rotations.
Optimal VOR responses in the presence of full-field vision
Figure 2 illustrates that the visually assisted VOR in normal monkeys was not influenced by eye position. Representative eye angular velocity vectors (gray dots) are plotted during four cycles of sinusoidal whole-body rotations at 1 Hz (± 5°; peak velocity 31°/s) in yaw (Fig. 2 A), pitch (Fig. 2 B), and roll (Fig. 2, C and D). In these examples, the (normal) animal was fixating visual targets placed either at 20° up, center and 20° down (Fig. 2, A and C) or 20° left, center and 20° right (Fig. 2, B and D). A structured background was visible throughout the experiment. The tips of the eye velocity vectors are seen from the subject's right side so that horizontal velocity is plotted versus torsional velocity in magnetic field coordinates (Fig. 2, A and C), or from above the subject, i.e., vertical velocity is plotted versus torsional velocity (Fig. 2, B and D; see cartoon monkey heads). Slow-phase responses derived from the computed generalized gain matrices (heavy black lines, see methods) are plotted on top of the data (gray lines). Dashed arrows denote the direction of the gaze line, dashed planes indicate the velocity planes, i.e., the planes that would contain the slow-phase velocity vectors if the VOR would perfectly follow Listing's law.
When the monkey was rotated in yaw while fixating the center target (middle panel in Fig. 2 A), the slow-phase velocity vectors perfectly aligned with the axis of rotation (ordinate), i.e., the eye rotation axis was parallel to the head rotation axis (according to the right-hand rule, vectors lying along the positive/negative ordinate denote leftward/rightward eye rotation). Thus when looking straight ahead the orientation of the slow-phase axes was consistent with the optimal VOR strategy. More interestingly, the direction of yaw VOR responses remained optimal for eccentric gaze directions. For example, if gaze was 20° up (left panel in Fig. 2 A) or 20° down (right panel in Fig.2 A) VOR velocity vectors were still aligned with the head rotation axis. Recall that the half-angle rule (Listing's law) predicts that the axis of eye rotation must tilt by half the angle of gaze eccentricity, i.e., by 10° (dashed plane tilted backward/forward when gaze is 20° up/20° down), a prediction not matched by the data. Thus eye position does not influence the axis of eye rotation during yaw head rotation.
Analogous results were obtained when the animal was rotated in pitch and roll (Fig. 2, B–D). In all cases, the velocity vectors were aligned with the axis of head rotation (ordinate in Fig.2 B, abscissa in Fig. 2, C and D), i.e., the eye rotation axis was completely independent of eye position.
Minor deviations from optimal VOR responses in the absence of full-field vision
When peripheral vision was eliminated, the axis of slow phases showed minor eye position–dependent deviations from the optimal VOR responses. Figure 3 shows examples of VOR velocity vectors (gray dots) for the same animal, the same rotational stimuli (plotted in the same format) as in Fig. 2, but this time collected in a condition without a visible structured background. In the yaw case and when looking straight ahead, the axis of the best-fit VOR response (solid black line) tilted slightly back from perfect alignment with the head rotation axis (ordinate). When looking 20° up (dashed arrow in Fig. 3 A, left panel), the VOR's rotation axis tilted further back (by 1.6°) and when looking 20° down (Fig. 3 A, right panel) the axis tilted slightly forward (by 1.6°). Thus VOR responses tilted slightly in the directions predicted by Listing's law (dashed planes).
Minor eye position–dependent tilts of the slow-phase rotation axis were also observed during pitch head rotations (Fig. 3 B), but in this example the axis tilted slightly opposite to the direction of gaze (to the right by 2.1° when gaze is 20° left and to the left by 1.8° when gaze is 20° right). In other words, the VOR rotation axis tilted slightly in directions violating the predictions of Listing's law.
The tilt of the VOR rotation axis was generally larger during roll head rotations and in directions that were opposite to the change in gaze, in agreement with the predictions of Listing's law. In this example, when gaze changed in elevation (Fig. 3 C) the best-fit VOR rotation axis tilted by 4.3° down (gaze 20° up) and by 4.4° up (gaze 20° down). When gaze changed in azimuth the rotation axis tilted by 6.7° right (gaze 20° left) and 6.8° left (gaze 20° right).
Large deviations from optimal roll VOR responses in animals with low torsional gain
Animals whose vertical semicircular canals have been plugged showed low vertical and even lower torsional gains in combination with eye position–dependent tilts of the eye rotation axis during roll but not during pitch head rotations. Figure 4illustrates an example of prominent tilts of slow-phase axes during four cycles of sinusoidal roll (1 Hz, ± 5°, peak velocity 31°/s, no visual background). In Fig. 4 A, the animal was fixating targets located either at straight ahead (middle panels) or at 20° up (left panel) or 20° down (right panel). The cartoon heads indicate that slow-phase velocity vectors are viewed from the subject's right side (top panels) and from above the subject (bottom panels). Thus the top panels plot the horizontal component of eye angular velocity versus the torsional component. As in Figs. 2 and 3, VOR responses determined from the best-fit generalized gain matrices (black lines) are plotted on top of the velocity vectors (gray dots). When gaze was straight ahead, the velocity vectors were tilted slightly down (due to the fact that in this animal the Listing's plane was tilted slightly up with respect to the magnetic field coordinates). Relative to this orientation, the vectors tilt much further down when gaze was 20° up (left panel) and further up when gaze was 20° down (right panel). That is, VOR responses showed substantial tilts in directions predicted by Listing's law (dashed lines). Plotting the vertical component of slow-phase velocity against the torsional component revealed that the direction of VOR responses was limited to the plane of gaze changes and did not change in thex-y plane, i.e., did not tilt left- or rightward (bottom panels, Fig. 4 A).
Similar results were obtained when the monkey fixated targets at 20° left or 20° right (Fig. 4 B). Here, the angular velocity vector tilted prominently to the right (relative to its orientation at center gaze) when gaze was 20° left and to the left when gaze was 20° right (Fig. 4 B, top panels). In this case, the orientation of the eye rotation axis in the x-z plane was not affected by the change in gaze direction (Fig. 4 B,bottom panels).
Influence of frequency of head rotation and visual background
The effect of eye position on individual slow phases was quantified as described in methods, ultimately yielding the tilt angles of the VOR rotation axis, relative to their orientation during center gaze, for each stimulus combination (yaw with gaze 20° up/down, pitch with gaze 20° left/right, roll with gaze 20° up/down and roll with gaze 20° left/right). Each combination of vestibular stimulation and gaze direction was repeated 10 times. Because the eye velocity vectors for a given head rotation (e.g., yaw) showed symmetrical tilt angles for the two gaze directions (e.g., yaw: 20° up/down; see Figs. 2 and 3), the relative tilt angles of the 20 corresponding values were averaged.
Figure 5 summarizes the means ± SD of the tilt angles collected in normal animals during yaw (○), pitch (□), and roll (left- and rightward pointing triangle for 20° up/down and 20° left/right gaze directions) as a function of head rotational frequency. Figure 5, A and B, shows data obtained with (JU and SU) and without (JU, SU, and RO) a visual background, i.e., with or without full-field vision. Positive tilt angles were defined to indicate a tilt of the eye rotation axis in the direction predicted by a VOR, which qualitatively obeys Listing's law, i.e., inthe direction of gaze during yaw and pitch and opposite to the direction of gaze during roll (Fig. 1, Misslisch et al. 1994; Tweed et al. 1994).
The optimal VOR strategy predicts that eye angular velocity is always parallel to head angular velocity despite changes in gaze direction so that the computed tilt angles should be zero in all examined conditions. If the VOR would fully obey Listing's law, tilt angles of 10.0° would be expected during yaw or pitch and tilt angles of 80.0° during roll (20° eccentric gaze). Smaller angles would be predicted if Listing's law was onlypartially followed (see Figs. 1 and6−8). For example, if the monkey VOR would show the same eye position–dependent pattern of axis tilts as found in humans, i.e., half-follow Listing's law, one would expect tilt angles of about 5.0° during yaw or pitch and tilt angles of 9.4° (orthogonal projection model) and 17.9° (parallel projection model) during roll (Fig. 1).
Two main observations can be made from inspecting Fig. 5. First, when normal animals were tested against a full-field visual background (Fig.5 A), tilt angles were close to zero for all rotational frequencies. This indicates that the responses of the visually assisted VOR agree with the predictions of the optimal VOR strategy. Second, when normal animals were tested without visual background (Fig.5 B), a weak dependence of the direction of VOR responses on eye position was found. In this condition, slow phases were somewhat more influenced by eccentric gaze direction during roll as compared with yaw or pitch, especially at higher frequencies of head rotation. Note that the tilt angles obtained during roll were always positive, i.e., the eye rotation axis invariantly tilted in the direction predicted by Listing's law (opposite to gaze). During yaw and pitch, the small tilt angles were usually largest at the lowest frequency of 0.5 Hz and generally decreased to values close to zero at higher frequencies.
Thus VOR responses in normal monkeys were not influenced by the direction of gaze when tested in a relatively natural condition, i.e., during head rotations while viewing a target of interest against a structured visual background. When information from the retinal periphery was eliminated, VOR responses showed small deviations from perfect alignment with the head rotation axis. As shown in Fig. 4, even larger misalignments were seen in animals with plugged vertical semicircular canals during roll. In what follows, we shall describe that the tilt of slow-phase axes, and therefore the adherence to one of the competing predictions of the optimal VOR versus the partial Listing VOR strategies, was related to the strength of the VOR response (gain) during roll, but not during pitch or yaw head rotations.
Orientation of roll VOR axis as a function of torsional gain
Figure 6 shows the mean relative tilt angles of the slow phase rotation axis (±SD) during roll head rotation as a function of torsional gain. As mentioned before, tilt angles for 20° eccentric eye positions are computed relative to their orientation during center gaze. Each symbol denotes the average of 40 measurements obtained at one frequency of torsional head rotation, i.e., 10 repeated measurements of slow-phase tilt for each of the four eccentric gaze directions (20° up, down, right, left). Positive tilt angles denote that the slow-phase axis during roll head rotation tilts in the direction predicted by Listing's law, i.e., opposite to gaze. In this and the subsequent two figures, the following data are shown: for two normal animals (SU and JU), data were obtained at all frequencies and for both visual conditions: without visual background (filled symbols in Figs. 6-8) or with visual background (empty symbols in Figs. 6-8). In the remaining animals, data were collected without a visual background: in the third normal monkey (RO) at all frequencies and in the monkeys with plugged vertical semicircular canals (stars) at 1.0 Hz (JE) or at 0.5 and 1.0 Hz (TW), respectively.
For comparison, the predictions of different VOR strategies are plotted: optimal VOR (black solid line), parallel projection model (black dotted line), and orthogonal projection model (black dashed line). The ordinate on the right side represents the Listing factor associated with the computed tilt angles as predicted by the orthogonal projection model (the one that actually fits the roll data under conditions with reduced visual and vestibular inputs). This factor denotes which tilt angle had to be expected for a 20° eccentric gaze if the VOR would follow Listing's law by the degree shown on the scale. If the Listing factor is zero, the eye rotation axis during roll should tilt by zero degrees, corresponding to the optimal VOR strategy. This factor of Listing's law adherence is linked with torsional VOR gain by a nonlinear relation, i.e., it increases with decreasing torsional gain ( , Fig. FA1). Note that a torsional gain of unity (optimal VOR) goes along with a Listing factor of zero.
Figure 6 A compares VOR responses obtained in normal animals with or without a visible structured background. In the presence of full-field vision (empty symbols) the tilt angles of the eye rotation axis clustered around zero; i.e., under this condition the VOR rotates the eye around the same axis as the head (cf. Figs. 2 and5 A). The corresponding torsional gains were close to unity, indicating that the visually assisted roll VOR counterrotates the eye with about the same speed as the head. The combination of these two findings implies that the visually assisted VOR during roll head rotations optimally stabilizes the retinal image in normal animals. When tested without a visual background (filled symbols), normal animals (SU, JU, and RO) showed torsional gains between about 0.7 and 0.85 and tilt angles of a few degrees. Note, however, that on average the eye rotation axis invariantly tilted in the direction consistent with Listing's law (positive angles).
Figure 6 B illustrates that in animals with plugged semicircular canals (JE and TW) torsional gains were very low, ranging from 0.2 to 0.5, and the corresponding tilt angles were quite large, ranging between about 12 and 32° (note the different scales for abscissa and ordinates: gray shaded area in Fig.6 B corresponds to the range used in Fig. 6 A). Interestingly, the tilt angles from normal and plugged canal animals collected without visual background lay close to the curve predicted by the orthogonal projection model (black dashed curve). To quantify the relation between data and model prediction, we computed a Listing's law function that best fitted the entire data set, characterizing the tilt angle γ as a function of the torsional gain and the projection angle (for details see , Fig. FA1). Note that the fitted curve (solid gray line) lay very close to the orthogonal projection function (dashed black line) and clearly deviated from the parallel projection function (dotted black line). For example, if one sets the Listing's factor to 0.5, corresponding to a VOR that half follows Listing's law, then the following tilt angles γ are derived from the data and the two model predictions: data fit, 10.2°; orthogonal projection model, 9.4°; parallel projection model, 17.9°. Very similar results were obtained for the data fits when restricting the fit on separate data sets: all data for normal animals only equal 11.0°; data for plugged animals without visual background: γ = 10.1°; data for normal animals without visual background equal 11.0°. Thus the orthogonal projection model adequately described the eye position–dependent VOR axis tilts that emerged when torsional gain decreased due to a reduction of visual and/or vestibular inputs.
Orientation of pitch and yaw VOR axis as a function of vertical and horizontal gain
Figure 7 shows the average relative tilt angles of the VOR rotation axis (±SD) during pitch head rotations with eccentric gaze as a function of vertical gain. To illustrate the theoretical predictions, the same line style conventions were used as in Fig. 6: optimal VOR strategy (black solid line), orthogonal projection model (dashed line), and parallel projection model (dotted line). Again, the ordinate on the right side represents the Listing factor associated with the orthogonal projection model. A Listing factor of one indicates full compliance with Listing's law and predicts that when gaze was 20° left or right the eye rotation axis should tilt by 10° (half-angle rule), and in the direction of gaze.
As in the roll case, tilt angles determined for the condition where full-field vision was present were very close to zero (open symbols), and vertical gains were close to unity, indicating optimal performance of the visually assisted VOR during pitch head rotations.
When no structured background was present, the vertical gain of normal animals was still larger than 0.9, and the tilt angles (filled symbols) clustered around zero, with minor positive (in the direction of gaze) and negative (opposite to the direction of gaze) values. Animals with their vertical canals plugged (stars) showed even lower vertical gains, ranging from about 0.5 to 0.8 and tilt angles near zero. That is, despite the low response gains, slow-phase axes in these animals were well aligned with the pitch axis, in accordance with the optimal VOR strategy.
A regression analysis performed on the pooled data (normal animals for both visual conditions and plugged animals for the no-background condition; gray line in Fig. 7) verified that tilt angles and vertical gain were not correlated (r = 0.1023, n= 23, P = 0.05, 2-sided). No significant correlation between tilt of the eye rotation axis and vertical gain was found when applying the regression analysis on separate data sets (normal monkeys, pooled for both visual conditions; normal monkeys, one visual condition; plugged monkeys).
Figure 8 summarizes the relation between averaged relative tilt angles of the VOR rotation axis (±SD) during yaw head rotations with eccentric gaze as a function of horizontal gain. Data were denoted by the same symbols as in Figs. 6 and 7, and the same line style conventions were used to plot the predictions of the different VOR models. As in the pitch case, the optimal VOR predicts tilt angles of 0°, whereas a pure Listing VOR predicts relative tilt angles of 10° (gaze 20° up/down).
Horizontal head rotation evoked optimal VOR responses in the presence of full-field vision. That is, horizontal gain was close to unity, and the averaged tilt angles of the slow-phase eye rotation axis were near zero. As in the pitch case, when the VOR was tested by presenting a target without a visible background, slightly smaller gain values were observed, but the tilt angles were still close to zero. Animals with plugged vertical canals, tested without visual background, showed horizontal gains that did not differ from those obtained in the normal animals for the same condition. With one exception, mean tilt angles were very small and scattered around zero. The regression line fitted on the pooled data (gray solid line) as a function of horizontal gain showed no significant correlation between relative tilt angles and horizontal gain (r = 0.3279, n = 23,P = 0.05, 2-sided). Further, no correlation between axis tilts and horizontal gain was observed when applying the regression analysis on separate data sets.
It is important to note that the absence of eye rotation axis tilts during yaw and pitch head rotations while animals fixated an eccentric point target cannot be attributed to the contribution of the smooth pursuit system. On the contrary, because smooth pursuit obeys Listing's law, one would expect that the eye rotation axis tilts half as far as the gaze line, i.e., by 10°. In contrast, our data show tilt angles near zero, indicating that smooth pursuit did not contribute to the measured eye rotation.
The main result of this study is that the visually assisted VOR in the rhesus monkey invariantly rotates the eye around the same axis as the head (i.e., optimally stabilizes the entire retinal image), independent of the current position of the eye. Deviations from this optimal VOR behavior were found during roll head rotations when the visual and vestibular inputs were reduced, being most prominent for vestibular-deficient animals with low torsional gains. In the following we will consider the implications of these results for the role of vision in human and nonhuman primates, for oculomotor control models, and for the intrinsic coordinate system of the monkey VOR.
Role of vision on monkey and human VOR strategies
Crawford and Vilis (1991) reported that monkey slow-phase velocity axes did not consistently depend on eye position when tested during head rotations at 0.5 Hz in a lighted visual environment. We found that VOR eye rotation axes during yaw and pitch (at 0.5 Hz) and during roll (at all frequencies) without a visual background did show small but consistent tilts in directions predicted by Listing's law (Figs. 3 and 5 B). However, this effect became negligible when animals were tested with a structured visual background (Figs. 2 and 5 A, empty symbols in Figs. 6-8) corroborating Crawford and Vilis's (1991) observations. The finding that the visibility of a structured background cancels the weak influence of eye position on normal monkey VOR disagrees with findings in human studies (Misslisch 1995; Misslisch et al. 1994,1996; Solomon et al. 1997; Tweed et al. 1994). Regardless of whether humans imagined targets in complete darkness or fixated visible targets on a structured visual background, the eye position–dependent VOR rotation axis tilts were almost indistinguishable (Misslisch 1995). Why does full-field vision apparently alter the VOR strategy in monkeys but not in humans?
One possibility is that the different VOR strategies reflect a difference in the relative importance of central and peripheral vision in human and nonhuman primates. In fact, earlier studies found cortical magnification factor curves, which indicated that human visual areas have a greater emphasis on foveal vision than observed in macaques (Sereno et al. 1995; Tolhurst and Ling 1988). More recent studies, however, seem to challenge this notion (Horton and Hocking 1997; Sereno 1998). Yet, the functional differences between monkey and human VOR favor the earlier reports of differences in nonfoveal versus foveal vision. Namely, our monkey data showed that the stimulation of the retinal periphery reduced the small deviations from optimal VOR performance observed when there were no peripheral stimuli, indicating that stabilization of peripheral retinal images is an important task of the monkey VOR. In comparison, humans showed the parallel projection version of a half-Listing VOR (Fig. 1), which reduced the optical flow over the fovea at the expense of an increased image slip over more peripheral retinal parts (Misslisch 1995; Tweed et al. 1994) (see also below, Fig.FA2). Remarkably, this behavior was found even in darkness when there was no optical flow (Misslisch 1995; Misslisch et al. 1994). Because the observed VOR responses could not be explained by the effect of ocular plant mechanics (Misslisch et al. 1994), it has been suggested that the brain combines information on head rotation (vestibular organs) with eye position signals (efference copy and/or proprioception) to compute the direction of VOR responses that would reduce the optical flow over the fovea in a lighted environment (Tweed et al. 1994) (see also arguments on noncommutative operations below).
Optimal VOR strategy and current models of oculomotor control
The finding of optimal VOR performance in monkeys is significant for clarifying two controversial problems in 3D oculomotor control, i.e., the existence of noncommutative neural operations and the consequences of oculomotor plant mechanics.
To account for the fundamental noncommutative properties of 3D rotations in the saccadic system, Tweed and Vilis (1987)proposed a multiplicative interaction between 3D eye position and eye velocity signals upstream from the neural integrator. Recent work claimed that this noncommutative multiplicative step may not be needed in the brain stem circuits generating saccades and possibly VOR slow phases (Quaia and Optican 1998; Raphan 1997, 1998) if one assumes an oculomotor plant equipped with the recently discovered fibromuscular pulleys (Demer et al. 1995, 1997; Miller and Demer 1997; Miller et al. 1993). In contrast, Smith and Crawford (1998) concluded from their simulation studies that an optimal VOR strategy is incompatible with any commutative VOR models (Raphan 1997) and that this result was independent of the mechanical properties of the plant (i.e., whether the effects of fibromuscular pulleys were included in the simulation of the plant or not). The role of muscle pulleys has also been discussed in a recent investigation on the human yaw VOR, which confirmed that slow-phase axes tilt when varying vertical eye position (Thurtell et al. 1999).
Along with the results of the Smith and Crawford study (Smith and Crawford 1998), the simplest interpretation of our data are to assume neuronal control mechanisms rather than mechanical plant properties to account for the different VOR strategies that accomplish the different visual needs in humans and monkeys. One problem with the argument that the plant mechanics provide Listing's law during saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements (Miller and Demer 1997) is that the deviations of VOR eye movements from the Listing's law behavior would have to be interpreted as an incomplete neural compensation of the mechanically set default behavior. This kind of reasoning, however, could not explain the differential effects of eye position on VOR responses during roll (large axis tilts) and pitch (minor axis tilts) when visual and vestibular inputs are impaired (cf. data of plugged animals denoted by stars in Figs. 6 and 7).
Listing's law and coordinate system of the VOR
The main finding of this study is that the visually assisted VOR in normal monkeys functions in head-fixed coordinates and is independent of the current gaze direction (optimal VOR strategy). Previous investigations have shown that the orientation of the semicircular canals in the head represents the sensory coordinate system for rotational vestibular information processing (Blanks et al. 1985; Reisine et al. 1988). Moreover, the pulling directions of the extraocular muscles as well as the on-directions of their motoneurons align approximately with those of the semicircular canals (Miller and Robins 1987;Suzuki et al. 1999). Neurons in the rostral interstitial nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus showed directional coding in the head-fixed coordinates defined by Listing's law (Crawford and Vilis 1992; Hepp et al. 1994; Vilis et al. 1989). And finally, the vertical-torsional integrator in the interstitial nucleus of Cajal also seems to operate in Listing's coordinates (Crawford 1994). Taken together, this suggests that both sensory and motor brain structures in the monkey use head-fixed coordinate systems that may simplify sensorimotor transformations and facilitate accurate VOR eye movements at short latency.
When rotating normal monkeys during roll without a visual background, we found that torsional gain decreased and slow-phase axes tilted slightly in the directions predicted by the Listing models (Figs. 3 and5 B). Monkeys with reduced torsional and vertical gains following plugging of the vertical semicircular canals showed large eye position–dependent tilts of the axis of slow-phase velocity during roll but not during pitch head rotations (Figs. 4, 6, and 7). The relative importance of optimal VOR versus partial Listing's law strategies during roll appeared to depend on the torsional gain: if torsional gain decreased, a dependence of the VOR rotation axis on eye position emerged—in a manner that was remarkably consistent with the orthogonal projection model. The functional significance of this strategy could be to reduce deviations from visuomotor constraints imposed by Listing's law, i.e., to restrict torsional eye velocity. The fact that VOR in normal monkeys completely ignores Listing's law makes this explanation improbable, however. A more likely reason relates to the geometric fact that during roll head rotation the optical flow over the fovea strongly depends on the gaze direction (Tweed et al. 1994). For example, a counterclockwise head rotation with the subject looking straight ahead induces a clockwise optical flow, with a stable foveal center and increasing clockwise flow velocities in the eccentric retinal regions. If the subject looks 20° left (see bottom panel in Fig. 1), targets around the fovea have a predominantly upward motion component relative to the head (purely upward at the center of the fovea). Thus efficient tracking of targets in that condition demands that the eye rotates upward in addition to the compensatory counterclockwise rotation. In other words, the VOR rotation axis should move rightward, a requirement matched by the data (Fig. 4 B). Even though this strategy of tilting the eye rotation axis as predicted by the orthogonal projection model cannot perfectly stabilize the retinal image it improves foveal and perifoveal image stabilization. Perfect stabilization of the fovea, at the expense of the retinal periphery, is achieved by tilting the eye rotation axis according to the parallel projection strategy. This strategy was found in normal human subjects and requires much larger axis tilts than the orthogonal projection strategy (e.g., Misslisch 1995; Misslisch et al. 1994; Tweed et al. 1994). The moderate axis tilts found in plugged-canal monkeys were consistent with the orthogonal projection model. It can be shown that this strategy considerably reduces the optical flow over foveal and off-foveal regions, compared with a low-gain roll VOR with a nontilting rotation axis (for details see , Fig. FA2).
Under natural visual conditions, normal monkeys choose the unique VOR angular velocity vector that provides a stable image on the entire retina: opposite in direction (and of equal size) than head velocity. When visual and/or vestibular inputs are reduced, eye position–dependent responses in directions predicted by Listing's law appear during roll but not pitch or yaw head rotations. The finding of optimal yaw, pitch, and roll VOR behavior in normal monkeys may be related to the greater significance of peripheral relative to central vision in nonhuman as compared with human primates. The demonstration of optimal VOR behavior in the monkey also supports the notion of noncommutative operations in the oculomotor system and questions a dominant role of plant mechanics.
We thank B. Disler and A. Züger for excellent technical assistance.
This work was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant 31-47 287.96.
Address for reprint requests: H. Misslisch, Dept. of Neurology, University of Zurich, Frauenklinikstr. 26, CH-8091 Zurich, Switzerland.
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
- Copyright © 2000 The American Physiological Society
Tilt angles, Listing factor, and VOR models
To compare the experimentally determined tilt angles of VOR responses, we fitted an angle β to the data describing the tilt of eye velocity (angle γ) as a function of torsional gain (k,see Fig. FA1) Equation A1This equation is obtained by eliminating the unknownq in the two relations tan(γ) =q/k and tan(β) = q/1 −k. The orthogonal projection model is satisfied if β = α/2, whereas the parallel projection model is fulfilled if β = α.
To quantify the degree of compliance with the orthogonal projection model (Listing factor LL), we measured the length P of the vector difference between the normalized optimal VOR eye velocity vector (Ω opt) and the normalized measured eye velocity vector (Ω exp) as a function of the torsional gain (k; i.e., the projection of the vectorΩ exp onto the x-axis). In the orthogonal projection model (β = α/2), full compliance with Listing's law (half-angle rule) would yield a maximal, gaze-dependent torsional gain of k L = sin2(α/2) (Fig. FA1). Any further increase in torsional gain k would decrease the Listing's law factor (LL = p*) as follows
Equation A2where p max is the maximal orthogonal deviation of eye velocity from VP for a torsional VOR with unity gain [p max = cos(α/2); see Fig. FA1]. If the Listing factor p* = 0 the roll VOR implements the optimal VOR strategy (k = 1, γ = 0). If p* = 1 the roll VOR follows a perfect Listing's law strategy (k = k L, γ = π/2 − α/2). In the latter case, torsional gain decreases to zero as gaze approaches the x-axis (α = 0).
Retinal image stabilization and VOR models
The consequences of the partial Listing VOR models for gaze stabilization during roll head rotations can be quantified by thefoveal gain, G fovea, defined as the ratio of image velocity over the fovea (when gaze deviates from the head's roll axis) and VOR-induced velocity of the gaze line. The foveal gain depends on gaze eccentricity α as follows
Equation A3As in Eq. A1, the roll gain kis defined as k = (Ωexp/Ωopt) cos γ. Alternatively, k can be expressed as a function of axis tilt γ and projection angle β. That is, k = −sin(β) cos(γ)/sin(γ − β). The second expression on the right hand side of Eq. A3 is obtained by substituting the relation (Eq. A1) for tan (γ) in Eq. A2. In the parallel projection model (stars in Fig. FA2),G fovea is unity since the projection line is parallel to the gaze line, i.e., β = α [so that cot (α) tan (β) = 1]. As a consequence, foveal gain becomes independent of gaze direction and tilt angle γ. Note that the limiting value of the roll gain k for a decreasing axis tilt γ depends on how the axis tilt changes as a function of gaze eccentricity α.
Figure FA2 (left panel) shows that if the VOR follows the projection model (filled symbols) the foveal gain is considerably enhanced over a range of gaze eccentricities. For example, a tilt of the rotation axis of γ = 8.3°/17.2° would increase foveal gain from 0.38/0.38 (average torsional gain in 3 monkeys with plugged vertical semicircular canals for an axis tilt γ = 0, open symbols in Fig. FA2, cf. stars in Fig. 6) to 0.69/0.67 when gaze is 10°/20° eccentric. Thus a comparable foveal gaze enhancement requires increasingly larger axis tilts when gaze becomes more eccentric. Note that Ωexp/Ωopt = 0.38 is kept constant, reflecting the assumption that the vestibular signals are constant and independent of the gaze direction. Figure FA2(right panel) shows the result of using Eq.A2 to compute the change in meridional gain,G merid, defined as the gain at different eccentricities along a meridian through the fovea. In the simulation shown, gaze direction is 20° left. For the parallel projection model (stars), G merid is ideal at the fovea and increases or decreases in the retinal periphery, producing additional retinal image slip off the fovea. For the orthogonal projection model (filled symbols),G merid is ideal 10° right from the fovea and also shows an increase or decrease at other retinal eccentricities.


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Police quiz man over 2013 axe murder of Basil McAfee
A 36-year-old man has been arrested by detectives investigating an axe murder in Belfast nearly three years ago.
Basil McAfee (50) was found dead at his home on Henderson Avenue in the north of the city in December 2013. He had been the victim of a frenzied knife and axe attack, police said at the time.
The suspect was detained in Belfast. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Montgomery said he was being questioned by detectives from serious crime branch at Musgrave station in the city.
Mr McAfee was last seen alive at an off-licence in north Belfast on the evening of December 19 2013. His mother found him dead in the living room of his property. Items including money had also been stolen.
To date, five men and two women have been arrested in connection with the killing, but no one has been charged.
Belfast Telegraph


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The Chapin Replacement Poly Cone Nozzle for Backpack Sprayers (6-8139) is a device that manipulates the direction of a fluid flow as it comes out from the chamber or pipe of backpack sprayers. It provides an immediate replacement in case of loss or damage of the nozzle part of the sprayer. It features a durable poly construction for long lasting efficiency. Once purchased, product consists of 1 part, brass nozzle and poly nozzle body with Viton o-ring.
This part goes with this sprayer:
SureSpray Backpack Sprayer - 4G/15.1L - Model #61700 UPC #023883617004
|For use in:
|Chapin backpack sprayer 61700 model.
|4 x 1 x 5.5
|Material / Construction:
|Poly construction
|Parts Included:
|1 part, brass nozzle and poly nozzle body with Viton o-ring.
|Shipping Weight:
|0.50 lbs
|Manufactured By:
|Chapin (Mfg. Number: 6-8139)
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text: I found this website which offers free US phone number (you can even choose the city), they make money by incoming calls. I have not tried this as I dont work with AC or CPA or CL postings. If this works than it can save a lot of hassles in getting registered for International users. I hope it helps a few people.


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Hello! We have added support for savegames from the current Stardew Valley beta. Some time ago we added the Brazilian Portuguese language option to the site as well as Spanish and English, but we're keen to include other languages, so if you're prepared to help translate the site into your language please let us know in on reddit or via email to email@example.com. We've also fixed a bug with sign ups, so apologies if you were affected by that! Thanks!
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Took 0.12721 s | privacy policy | source at GitHub
All Stardew Valley assets copyright Concerned Ape


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Type: Bug
Status: Closed
Priority: Major
Resolution: Fixed
Affects Version/s: 1.6.0
Fix Version/s: 1.7.0
Component/s: Sinks+Sources
Currently every time Async Hbase Sink calls HBaseSink.shutdown, there is FD leak due to HBaseSink using CustomChannelFactory where releaseExternalResources() is overridden to a No-op. Need to replace this with a standard NioClientSocketChannelFactory, that releases external resources properly
- All
- Comments
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- Transitions
I don't see how this fixes the issue. Tracing the releaseExternalResources calls only shows a bunch of buffers being cleared up. It is nice to clear up memory, but where are the sockets or FDs being closed/nulled out? I don't see that anywhere in the releaseExternalResources call chain.
Attaching a patch that tests the FD leak. Consistently been able to reproduce the FD leak w/o the patch and with the patch the leaks do not happen. releaseExternalResources shuts down the executors which seems to impact the release of the sockets.
http://netty.io/3.6/api/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/NioClientSocketChannelFactory.html mentions that
"All the related resources such as Selector are also released when the boss and worker threads are released. "
Commit 38f0b316ddcc834c6249c7179c4c1d23ab445a84 in flume's branch refs/heads/trunk from Hari Shreedharan
[ https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf?p=flume.git;h=38f0b31 ]
FLUME-2738. Fix file descriptor leak in AsyncHBaseSink when HBase cluster goes down.
(Johny Rufus via Hari)
Commit 90e13ab8becf763258883d13637e34fe34342561 in flume's branch refs/heads/flume-1.7 from Hari Shreedharan
[ https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf?p=flume.git;h=90e13ab ]
FLUME-2738. Fix file descriptor leak in AsyncHBaseSink when HBase cluster goes down.
(Johny Rufus via Hari)
Committed! Thanks Johny Rufus!
UNSTABLE: Integrated in Flume-trunk-hbase-1 #110 (See https://builds.apache.org/job/Flume-trunk-hbase-1/110/)
FLUME-2738. Fix file descriptor leak in AsyncHBaseSink when HBase cluster goes down. (hshreedharan: http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flume/repo?p=flume.git&a=commit&h=38f0b316ddcc834c6249c7179c4c1d23ab445a84)
- flume-ng-sinks/flume-ng-hbase-sink/src/test/java/org/apache/flume/sink/hbase/TestAsyncHBaseSink.java
- flume-ng-sinks/flume-ng-hbase-sink/src/main/java/org/apache/flume/sink/hbase/AsyncHBaseSink.java


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When he's not whipping up one-liners for the Late Show with David Letterman 's nightly Top Ten list (or tweeting), TV writer Steve Young posts quips and self-proclaimed "mediocre photos" on his behind-the-scenes blog, CelebriGum.
Young writes on his blog:
"In the foreground of each shot is a wad of old gum I noticed on the window ledge. There may be better paparazzi photos on the internet, but this is the only place you'll find the juxtaposition of celebrities and hardened gum."
Apparently the Harvard Lampoon alum and former Simpsons scribe is a man of his word. The pics, taken from a second-floor window in the Ed Sullivan Theater, are nothing short of a waste of a perfectly capable smartphone camera, but Young at least proves his writing skills with the accompanying captions.
Check out a few of Young's despicable photos and their respective captions below, and see the rest here.
Ed Helms, Thursday, April 7, 2011: CelebriGum is pleased to feature its first backpack-wearing celebrity! Mr. Helms is charmingly unpretentious. However, the increasingly heavy backpacks carried by today's celebrities can lead to back pain and poor posture, according to the American Celebrity Chiropractic Association. Celebrities are encouraged to follow these backpack guidelines:
* Be sure your backpack weighs no more than 10% of your celebrity body weight.
* Choose a backpack with wide, padded straps, and always wear both straps when traveling to talk show appearances, award shows, and gala premieres.
* If the backpack is too heavy, talk to your manager or agent about which Emmys or Oscars, large stacks of cash, or other celebrity items could be left at home.
Be safe, Ed! A reminder from your friends at CelebriGum.
Willie Nelson, Monday, April 11, 2011: You may notice that the gum seems unusually giddy. That's because when Willie opened the door to exit his tour bus, twenty yards downwind the gum got a contact high.
Amy Poehler, Friday, March 18, 2011: In her excitement over arriving at the Late Show, the delightful Ms. Poehler accidentally left her Show & Tell item in the car. She ended up just describing the severed human hand she'd purchased at a morgue rummage sale.
Natalie Portman, Tuesday, December 28, 2010: Wonderful news, Natalie! Congratulations to the only CelebriGum celebrity who's currently known to be pregnant, other than Barbara Walters!


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Judge Denies Insurer's Motion For Summary Judgment In Hailstorm Coverage Dispute
(Order available. Document #51-151105-008R.)
In January 2008, Eric and Camille Lafollette's home sustained hail damage and they sought coverage under a homeowners insurance policy issued...
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So, this is sort of an awkward question, but as someone without a PS3 who is sort of curious about the game: is the basic idea behind it the same as the book Earth Abides, but with zombies?
For those of you who haven't read it, Earth Abides is this great post-apocalyptic novel by George R. Stewart from the 1950's about what happens when a plague decimates most of the Earth's human population. For 2/3 of the book it's sort of a standard adventure novel - one that isn't even very well written, to be honest- but manages to be utterly memorable by the end. Totes worth reading if you haven't, is what I'm saying.
The reason I bring it up is some of the things I've been hearing about The Last of Us sound thematically similar to what made Earth Abides so great (and I mean the ending to the book specifically , not the initial plague stuff), and I'm wondering if there's a connection there, maybe similar to how Spec Ops: The Line was connected to Heart of Darkness (but with less blatant self-promotion).
If anyone actually knows what I'm talking about, I'd prefer a non-spoilery answer, despite the fact that I'll likely never end up playing this because consoles. Otherwise just ignore me I guess. kthnxbye.


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GEORGE Osborne has thrown down the gauntlet to Ed Balls over benefit reforms
that come into force today.
The Chancellor has demanded his Labour shadow publicly reveal which of the
cuts his party would reverse.
The challenge came as figures proved reforms targeting shirkers ARE
working — with more than 800,000 people on incapacity benefit dropping their
claims when invited for a medical assessment.
In a letter to Mr Balls, Treasury Economic Secretary Sajid Javid demanded he
spell out Labour's plans for reducing public spending. He said: "We are
delivering on our promise to make work pay even in these tough times.
"Since you became shadow Chancellor, Labour have opposed every single saving
we are making to live within our means.
"Your only policy is more borrowing, more debt. More of how you got us in this
mess in the first place."
Labour will today step up its campaign against cuts in housing benefit for
those who have spare rooms — describing it as a "bedroom tax".
Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne called it "wicked." He added;
"Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will be hit by a vicious tax
they cannot escape."
But Tory chairman Grant Shapps insisted: "It is wrong to leave people out in
the cold with effectively no roof over their heads because the taxpayer is
paying for rooms which aren't in use."
Mr Shapps also hit back at church leaders who claim Britain's poorest will pay
a "disproportionate price" under the benefits shake-up.
He said a system that discouraged people from finding a job because they were
better off on benefits was bad for society.
Mr Shapps added: "There's nothing as cruel as a welfare system that traps
people into that system."
New figures show 878,300 people on incapacity benefits stopped claiming
when told to have a medical assessment.
Many were getting handouts for headaches or sprains.
Another 837,000 who took a test were found fit for work. Just 232,000, one in
eight of those tested, were deemed too ill to work.
Will you fare well?
HERE is our guide to the Government's new benefit and tax changes:
TODAY: The top rate of income tax will be cut from 50p to 45p for
people earning over £150,000.
Council Tax Benefit will be replaced by localised support schemes, with
central funding cut by ten per cent.
Housing benefit will be cut by 14 per cent for those with one extra bedroom
and 25 per cent for two or more. It is dubbed the "bedroom tax" by Labour.
Corporation Tax will be cut from 24 to 23 per cent for almost 40,000 firms.
Air passenger duty on flights of between 2,001 and 4,000 miles rises from £65
to £67 in economy.
APRIL 6: The higher rate 40p tax band threshold falls to £41,450.
Most working age benefits and tax credits will be hiked by one per cent —
below the cost of living.
Over-65s' £10,500 tax-free allowance is frozen in what is dubbed a "granny
Child benefit will be frozen at £20.30 a week for a first child and £13.40 for
each additional sibling.
APRIL 8: Disability Living Allowance will start being replaced by
Personal Independence Payments.


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Nothing says autumn like something made with pumpkin and apple. On the first day of the 2014 edition of Home Made Challenge, which coincides with October Unprocessed, in two separate conversations the topic of doughnuts came up. And whenever doughnuts peek into the cluttered confines of my mind they tend to grow roots and stay in my mind until I have satisfied my craving.
Countdown to Home Made Challenge!October 1st, 2015
Top posts this week…
On the menu…
Ingredients…almond Almond Milk Apple Apricot Avocado Balsamic vinegar Banana barley Beer Beet Berries Black bean Black beans Blueberry Brie Brussel Sprout Butter Butternut squash Béchamel Carrot Celery seed Chai spice Cheddar Cherry Chickpeas Chocolate Cilantro Coconut Corn Cream cheese Dill Egg Feta cheese Hazelnut Honey kidney beans Lemon Lime Maple Matcha Meat Milk Mint Mushroom Nut Nuts Oat onion Orange Oreos Ottawa Pineapple Portabello Potato Praline pumpkin Quinoa Radish Red Pepper Rhubarb Salads Spinach Strawberries Tahini Tofu Tomato tomatoes Walnut Yellow Squash Zucchini zuchinni


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Via our friends at Spaceship Away and Downthetubes we have learned of a new comics festival, which should be of interest to many Eagle Times readers and fans of Eagle and 'Dan Dare'. The festival will be held at the De Havilland campus of the University of Hertfordshire at Hatfield, Herts. from Thursday 22nd – Sunday 25th April 2010.
According to the Press Release, UniComics "will feature a varied programme of ticketed and non-ticketed events suitable for just about everyone". The festival "comprises a selection of author/illustrator lectures, schools and family events, film presentations and screenings, open mic sessions, theatre performances, art workshops and panel discussions."
It is a panel discussion on 25th April that will be of most interest to Eagle and 'Dan Dare' fans, viz:
Sunday 25th April, 6pm - 8pm: Weekly British Spirit - Sixty Years of the Eagle and Dan DareOn April 14th, 1950, a new boys' comic called the Eagle vigorously introduced some wonder in to the drudgery of post-war Britain and, with its star strip 'Dan Dare: Pilot of The Future', showcased a profoundly alluring fantasy of a strong and vital Britain in then far-flung 1997 that boldly led the way in the exploration of outer space. One of the most successful comics in British history, at its height, the Eagle remarkably sold just under a million copies a week. In celebration of the 60th anniversary of both this landmark, much-beloved title and its highly-memorable flagship character, UniComics presents a panel discussion to explore what is considered to be one of the high watermarks of British Comics history. The panel includes Pat Mills (founder of 2000AD), Nick Jones (founding editor of Titan Book's Dan Dare library), Dr. Will Brooker (Kingston University) and Gary Erskine (artist, Virgin Comics' Dan Dare). Hosted by Danny Graydon.Tickets are priced £10 (full) £8 (concessions), £5 (students and children).
More information at the Unicomics website or download a pdf of the Programme
UniComics is presented by the University of Hertfordshire in collaboration with Laydeez do Comics, Herts County Council (Libraries), the St Albans Children's Book Group, the Hertfordshire Film Consortium and Danny Graydon (Film and Comics Journalist).


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Enjoy watching the new Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 (Superveloce).
You will be shocked by the power of its V12 Engine (yes, V12, and 750 hp! Can you imagine this car's performance?), and you will love its modern and progressive design.
Tag Archives: Motors
Definitions of HORSEPOWER and ENGINE DISPLACEMENT
When talking about cars many people are often confused about what the words "horsepower" and "engine displacement" mean. That's why today we are going to explain these two technical terms, which are actually simpler than you think.
HORSEPOWER (hp) is a unit of measurement of power (the rate at which work is done). In other words it's the common measurement of an engine's output. By pure definition, one horsepower is the power needed to lift 550 pounds one foot off the ground in exactly one second. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. The most common horsepower is 1 hp = 746 watts. This means that to convert from horsepower to watts, we have to multiply by 746. To convert from watts to horsepower, we will multiply by 0.00134. There's no magic number for ideal horsepower, as other variables like vehicle weight, aerodynamics, and gearing all play supporting roles in the car's overall performance.
ENGINE DISPLACEMENT is a measure of the volume in an internal combustion engine. Though not directly proportional to total power produced, it typically correlates strongly with output power. As cylinders move within an engine, they do work by displacing a certain volume of air. All internal combustion engines have a certain volume displaced by cylinders. In other words, it's the volume swept by all the pistons inside the cylinders of a reciprocating engine in a single movement from top dead centre (TDC) to bottom dead centre (BDC). It is commonly specified in cubic centimetres (cc or cm3), litres (l), or (mainly in North America) cubic inches (CID). Engine displacement does not include the total volume of the combustion chamber. Resources:


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[Poll] Shinhwa Beats EXO as Boy Group Fans Would Spend Big Bucks on at an Auction
Last week, we asked you which boy group you′d spend big bucks on at an auction, given the opportunity, and the results are in!After taking your votes for a little over a week, Shinhwa took the win with 38.8 percent of votes, while EXO followed in a close second place with 35.9 percent of votes.
BTS finished in third place with 11.3 percent of votes, while Big Bang, GOT7 and CNBLUE rounded out the poll with 8.5 percent, 4.2 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.
This week, we want to know which winter song you have on repeat, so vote now!


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Stress is a reaction to any stimulus that disturbs the mental of physical state of the body. A stressful event can trigger hormones like adrenaline and cortisols in the body. Stress can be quite harmful for the body and can be one of the reasons for several heart and life threatening diseases. Acute stress is tolerable and keeps one active and alert. However, chronic stress is not considered good for the body. There are several reasons for chronic stress. Unhealthy lifestyle and unhealthy diet can contribute to chronic stress. Therefore, taking a healthy diet can help to relieve stress in an effective manner. A healthy diet not only relieves stress but also helps to alleviate mood and fight depression.
Including the following foods in the diet can help to relieve stress, manage it and even prevent it. In addition, these foods also help to counteract the damaging effects of stress on the body.• Bananas: Bananas are full of potassium which is a mineral that helps to relieve tension. Bananas are rich in tryptophan which is an amino acid which helps in the production of serotonin which is the feel good hormone and melatonin which is the sleep hormone. The consumption of bananas pacifies and soothes the mind and thus relieves stress.
• Broccoli and spinach: Broccoli and spinach are green vegetables which are full of vitamins that replenish the body in times of stress. Both these vegetables are rich in magnesium which is a mineral that helps to reduce the stress levels by keeping the mind and the body in a calm state. Both spinach and broccoli are rich in B-complex vitamins which help in relieving stress. These vegetables are rich especially in folic acid that reduces anxiety and panic and thus they help to relieve stress and depression.
• Milk and yogurt: Milk and yogurt contain calcium and B complex vitamins that are essential for bone health and for maintaining healthy nerves. Milk and yogurt also contain tryptophan which is a mood stabilizer amino acid. These foods help to calm the mind and relieve stress.• Fish: Fish is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids that help to keep adrenaline levels in control. This further helps to prevent heart diseases that are associated with stress. Fish also contains B vitamins especially B6 and B12 that help in the production of serotonin which is a feel good chemical. Fish also contains choline which is a great memory booster and thus helps to prevent stress.• Oranges: Oranges are very rich in Vitamin C which is an anti-oxidant that fights radicals that cause cell damage and even lead to stress. The body does not produce Vitamin C naturally and so food rich in Vitamin C must be included in the diet. Oranges are great stress boosters and even improve the mood. The consumption of oranges ensures that the immune system functions in a better manner under stress.• Turkey and chicken: Both turkey and chicken are rich in tryptophan which is an amino acid that calms the mind and the body thus helping to reduce stress. Turkey is also a rich source of proteins that stabilize blood sugar levels which in turn relieves stress. • Blueberries: Blueberries are full on anti-oxidants especially Vitamin C which relives stress significantly. The anti-oxidants in blueberries fight free radicals that cause oxidative stress and damage of the cells. The consumption of blueberries also helps the body to fight the damaging effects of stress.• Nuts: Nuts are perhaps the best stress relievers that one can consume. Nuts contain tryptophan which stimulates the production of serotonin or the feel happy chemical in the brain and thus nuts help to relieve stress. Nuts also contain B vitamins, Vitamin E, magnesium and zinc. B vitamins and magnesium help to calm the nerves and thus boost ones mood and relieve stress. Zinc fights the negative and damaging effects of stress on the body. Vitamin E is an anti-oxidant which fights free radicals related to stress.• Dried apricots: Dried apricots are rich in magnesium which is a natural stress reliever. Magnesium helps to relax muscles of the body and so relieves stress. Dried apricots also provide the body with Vitamin C which fights free radicals that cause stress and heart diseases.To know more about stress management, click here.
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Hanging hooks, ceiling or wall mounted, are made of polished stainless steel
Each hanging unit consists of a stainless steel base, a polyester cord and an anchor.
The base allows pulling and shortening the cord to the appropriate length, and the shape of the hook implies its possible function (hanging a pot, a towel or a scarf).
stainless steel
polyester cord


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The Short Faced Tumbler of England has a just claim to being one of the very oldest breeds of fancy pigeons. Their history can go back over three hundred years. Willughby, the noted naturalist in his 'Ornithology' of 1676 briefly mentions that 'Tumblers are small and of diverse colours'.
Almonds came into public favour at a very early period for they were already an established variety before the first Pigeon Society of which any record in England is known was formed in London in 1720. In John Moore's book of 1735, 'The Columbarian', he writes; 'The Tumbler is a very small pigeon, short bodied, full breasted, thin necked, very short and spindle beaked, and a round button head, short legs; the iris of the eye of a bright pearl colour'. At the time of Moore, the breed was three coloured, called Almond or Ermine.
In 1764, the Columbarian Society published a standard for the breed. The breed has the honour of being the first single breed to have a book published about it in March 1802, a Treatise on 'An Art of Breeding and Managing the Almond Tumbler', believed to have been written by W P Windus.
In 1800, a Club for Almonds, Mottle, Balds and Beards was formed. Mr Bellamy, a noted Almond breeder and Sir John Sebright were founder members. J C Lyell in his book of 1881 suggested that the breed was developed from a cross with the Goolee, which at that time was said to 'bear a remarkable resemblance in type to the short Faced Tumbler', but there was no authentic record to confirm this idea.
There was a report in 'The Field' of 19 October 1872, of an address given by Mr Jayne to the National Peristeronic Society when he was President. His subject was 'The Almond Tumbler', and he said '. . . I should admire it as a purely English manufactured pigeon'. He also referred to his friend the late Mr Harry Edward Money, past Chairman of the City Columbarian Society, as being the only one who knew the make-up of the breed, which consisted of thirty-two crosses from which the breed was produced.
We must not get the idea of a vast number of different breeds being used in these early days; I would suggest that perhaps it took some 32 matings to produce the breed to its type at that time. Certainly the Mookee was in England by 1676 so there is no reason why the Goolee should not have been present and also used as a cross. The drawings in Eaton's book and the coloured plates in Fulton's which devotes much space to that breed, suggest type has not changed very much over the past one hundred years. Many will accept the birth of the breed in 1886 when our present Short Face Tumbler Club was founded.


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What's art without sacrifice? That's what a dozen gifted ballet dancers, who have been admitted to the esteemed American Ballet Academy, are about to find out. From Nicholas Hytner, the acclaimed director of The Madness of King George comes Center Stage, a drama about a tight-knit group of dancers who must sacrifice personal pleasures and train religiously in preparation for a recital to determine which of them will be asked to join the very select and prestigious American Ballet Academy. The film features a talented ensemble of real-life professional dancers, including Amanda Schull, Zoë Saldana, Ethan Stiefel, Sascha Radetsky and Shakiem Evans, along with veteran actors Peter Gallagher (sex, lies and videotape), Debra Monk (NYPD Blue), Eion Bailey (Fight Club) and Donna Murphy (The Astronaut's Wife).
Asset Details
- Genre
- Certificate 12
Suitable for 12 years and over.
- Run Time
1 hour 53 minutes
- Released
Viewing options
- Watch online
PC, Mac, Chromecast, iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, Windows phones and tablets, Xbox smart TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players.
- Find out more
- Download
Download on iOS 8+, Android 4.0+ and Windows 8.1+ in app. Includes rentals.
- Find out more


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President-elect Barack Obama and First Lady-elect Michelle Obama sat down with Barbara Walters Wednesday night for a Barbara Walters Special.
The interview covered an economic bailout for the auto industry and banks, and Barack Obama's greatest fear and other important topics.
I'm very proud of this family, extremely motivated and classy (among other great things)