text:
SSR LLC is a differentiated investment research boutique built to provide an essential, yet missing, element of research: the weighting of sub-sectors within broad industrial categories.
Using healthcare as an example, the relative performance of one drug stock versus another, or one health insurer versus another, offers relatively little alpha, especially as the companies in key healthcare sub-sectors become larger through consolidation – and thus more similar to one another.
In contrast, the choice of whether to under- or over-weight a given sub-sector within the broader healthcare portfolio – e.g. large cap drugs v. biotech, health insurers v. PBMs, med devices v. commodity hospital supplies or even hospitals v. generic drugs is a (series of) decision(s) with much greater impact on portfolio alpha.
Likewise technology; choosing one handset maker versus another is of course important, but the decision of whether to be in service providers v. handsets, or even content generators v. content aggregators, is far more important.
By simultaneously maintaining both a broad view of our industries, and a fundamentally detailed view of the sub-sectors that make up these industries, we offer guidance on portfolio composition that we believe is both highly impactful, and otherwise unavailable.


text:
Senate Hearing on Obama's Fracking Panel Excludes External Testimony, Glosses Over Threats
Carol Linnitt | October 4, 2011
By Carol Linnitt • Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - 14:54
When President Obama decided to include unconventional gas as a central pillar in his "Blueprint for a Clean Energy Future" he must have had an idea that this was going to create controversy. Some would say that a clean energy future and fracked gas are, to put it lightly, at odds with one another. Perhaps that is why the President directed his Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to form a special advisory board to investigate the growing number of scientists, doctors, independent experts, environmental NGOs, and media outlets - DeSmogBlog included - concerned that fracking for unconventional gas threatens public health, the environment and the global climate.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Fibromyalgia Health Center
Fibromyalgia Patients May Process Pain Differently
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Nov. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Brain scans reveal that people with fibromyalgia are not as able to prepare for pain as healthy people, and they are less likely to respond to the promise of pain relief.
This altered brain processing could explain why people with the mysterious chronic ailment feel pain more intensely and don't respond as well to narcotic painkillers, the researchers said. Their findings are published in the Nov. 5 issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
People without fibromyalgia can mentally alleviate some types of pain that people experience, explained Dr. Lynn Webster, president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. "For people with fibromyalgia, that capability seems to be dampened if not eliminated," Webster said. "They may not be able to respond the same way to medications or our intrinsic [natural] mechanisms for dealing with pain."
No one knows what causes fibromyalgia, which involves widespread joint and muscle pain. The disorder affects 3.4 percent of women and 0.5 percent of men in the United States, according to the study. Older women are most likely to suffer from fibromyalgia, which affects more than 7 percent of women aged 60 to 79.
Researchers conducted this study using 31 patients with fibromyalgia and 14 healthy people.
The study authors used an MRI to scan each participant's brain as a blood pressure cuff painfully squeezed the patient's calf, said study author Dr. Marco Loggia, from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Doctors tailored the pressure provided by the cuff so that everyone with or without fibromyalgia would rate their pain between 40 to 50 on a scale of 100.
"It gives a very deep, muscular type of pain," Loggia said. "It's closer to the clinical pain that a patient with fibromyalgia experiences."
Patients also received a visual cue that told them when the cuff would begin squeezing their calf and when the cuff would release its grip, allowing researchers to see how the brain would respond to anticipation of both pain and relief.


text:
BLODGETT - Earl Rice "Junior" Wade, 76, died at 8 a.m. Aug. 3, 2007, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston.
Born Sept. 23, 1930, in Luxora, Ark., to the late Rice William and Anne Lucille Reynolds Wade, he had worked at Fabick Equipment Co. for over 44 years. He was a veteran of the Missouri National Guard, where he served as Sgt. 1st Class for over 13 years with the 140th 35th Infantry Division. He had earned expert medal awards for Carbine, Rifle, Rocket Launcher, Machine Gun and Driver. He was a member of Blodgett Church of Christ. He was a longtime proud member of the National Rifle Association.
On Nov. 22, 1957, at Blodgett, he married Anna Turney, who survives of the home.
Other survivors include: two sons and daughters-in-law, Tim and Becky Wade and Aaron and Kelly Wade of Blodgett; one daughter and son-in-law Mary and Ken Harbin of Paducah, Ky.; four sisters, Christine Rice and Molly Evans of Blodgett, Peggi Byrd of Sikeston and Judy Leeming of Mountain View; four grandchildren, Taylor and Jordan Harbin of Paducah and Blake Wade and Katherine Anne Wade of Blodgett.
He was preceded in death by two brothers, Kelles Wade and Charlie Wade; and one sisters, Mary Lucille Wade. Visitation is from 5-8 p.m. Monday at Blanchard Funeral Chapel in Sikeston, where funeral services will be conducted at 2 p.m. Tuesday. His nephew, Rusty Rice, minister of Blodgett Church of Christ, Lowell Blasingame, minister of the Church of Christ in Grenada, Miss. and Cloyce Sutton of Blytheville, Ark. will officiate.
Burial will follow in the Blodgett Cemetery with full military honors conducted by the Missouri Military Honors Program.
- - -
Memorial contributions
may be made to:
St. Jude Children's Hospital
501 St. Jude Place
Memphis, TN 38105
Paid obituary


text:
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text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Jun 27, 2006
|Filing date
|Aug 31, 2004
|Priority date
|Mar 24, 1999
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Michael J. O'Connor, David A. Ferrera, Matthew Connors
|Original Assignee
|Micrus Corporation
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (107), Non-Patent Citations (19), Referenced by (25), Classifications (17), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/813,119, filed Mar. 19, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,887,235, which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 09/275,485 filed Mar. 24, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,531.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to interventional medical devices, and more particularly concerns a heating catheter having variable stiffness for enhanced performance of the catheter shaft when used with or without a guide catheter, as a part of a therapeutic system or for delivery of medical devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional minimally invasive catheter based therapies typically require guide wires that are one to two meters long extending through a longitudinal lumen in the catheter, and that are torqueable and pushable at the proximal end, yet soft and flexible at the distal end. Many such guidewires are made of stainless steel or the like, and are ground to tapers which provide the desired bending properties along the guidewire. Recently, numerous minimally invasive sensing and actuation procedures have been developed which benefit from the qualities of fiber optics to deliver optical light or power to the distal tip of the fiber optic. However, conventional fiber optic technology has not been easily adaptable to such applications, particularly when the fiber optic must also act as a guidewire, either within a catheter or as a stand-alone device, since fiber optics, when used alone, are not very torqueable, pushable or resilient when compared to guide wires made from a variety of other, more rigid, materials. Also, small diameter fiber optics are quite "floppy", while larger diameter fibers can be too stiff to maneuver through sharp bends, and the use of fiber optics as guidewires or pushers within catheters can thus be difficult and quite technique sensitive.
An abdominoscope is known that includes a tubular sheath having a series of strips separated by longitudinal slots, and an elongate, steerable, flexible medical implement is also known that has a tubular body with a controllable steering region formed from flexible steering ribbons made of flexible materials, such as Nitinol, spring steel, nylon, or other plastic material. In addition, a steerable medical probe is also known that has a torque tube with spaced apart slots to impart additional flexibility to the torque tube, with a thin-walled connecting portion serving as a rib or backbone. However, there remains a need for a way of creating variable stiffness along a heating catheter, other than a fiber optic for example, without a decrease in the torquability and pushability of the heating catheter shaft.
It would also be desirable to provide a heating catheter shaft with variable stiffness to allow such heating catheters to be more pushable at the proximal end and more trackable at the distal end, and to make the use of heating catheters in catheter-based therapies more straightforward and less technique sensitive. The present invention addresses these and numerous other needs.
Briefly, and in general terms, the present invention provides for a variable stiffness heating catheter shaft formed from a heating catheter and a reinforcing tube over at least a portion of the heating catheter, with apertures being formed around the surface of the reinforcing tube and extending in a direction between the proximal and distal ends of the heating catheter, to provide variable stiffness to the heating catheter shaft. Typically, such a heating catheter shaft can be formed from one or more electrically conductive members or the like which alone have physical characteristics that are undesirable for guidewires or pusher devices. By use of the invention, a variable stiffness heating catheter shaft can be made which is more pushable at the proximal end and more trackable at the distal end, with the capability to provide a wide range of predictable variations in stiffness and other structural parameters over the length of the shaft. A variable stiffness heating catheter constructed according to the invention can be used in conjunction with a guide catheter or as a flow directed, stand alone catheter.
By using the construction according to the invention, coating or heat shrinking a heat shrinkable material on the outside diameter of the heating catheter shaft will improve tracking of the device, and a taper can also be ground onto the heating catheter shaft to yield a shaft with a stiffer, more manageable, proximal end and a softer, more maneuverable, distal tip. The variable stiffness heating catheter advantageously can also thus be constructed from a minimum number of components, with the apertures in the reinforcing tube eliminating the need for a braid or transitional sections from the stiffer proximal zone to the softer distal zone.
The invention accordingly provides in a presently preferred embodiment for a variable stiffness heating catheter for use in vascular interventional therapy, such as for use within a tortuous, small diameter vessel such as those found in the vasculature of the brain. The variable stiffness heating catheter comprises at least one electrically conductive member having a proximal end and a distal end, a reinforcing tube attached to the at least one electrically conductive member, with the at least one electrically conductive member extending through the reinforcing tube, and the reinforcing tube having a surface defining a plurality of apertures extending in a direction between said proximal and distal ends of said heating catheter, and at least one coaxial outer layer of a polymer, metal, or both provided over at least a portion of the reinforcing tube and the at least one electrically conductive member, for providing desired variations in stiffness along at least a portion of the length of the shaft. In a presently preferred embodiment, the one or more electrically conductive members can be a pair of such electrically conductive wires. The reinforcing tube is preferably a metal tube, such as a hypo tube, and can be formed of stainless steel or an alloy of nickel and titanium, for example.
In one presently preferred embodiment, the apertures can be formed as longitudinal, axial slits, slots, channels, or grooves in the surface of the reinforcing tube, and in an alternate preferred embodiment, the apertures can be formed as helical or radial slits, slots, channels, or grooves in the surface of the reinforcing tube, providing variable stiffness to the heating catheter. The outer surface of the reinforcing tube can also be formed to be tapered at the point where the apertures are formed in the reinforcing tube, particularly at a distal portion of the heating catheter, to provide a heating catheter that is torqueable and pushable at the proximal end, yet soft and flexible at the distal end. Alternatively, the apertures can be formed transversely in the surface of the reinforcing tube in an area where such a configuration will produce desired results.
The one or more coaxial layers can be formed of heat shrink polymeric material, such as polyethylene, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyetherethylketone (PEEK), polyphenylenesulfide (PPS), or any of a variety of other polymers which can be fabricated into a structure and necked or shrunk over a shaft, or can be formed of metal. While the invention can effectively use tubes which are placed over the exterior of the heating catheter shaft and then heat shrunk or bonded by adhesive to the heating catheter shaft, it is also contemplated that the heating catheter shaft can be reinforced by other longitudinally extending additional structures with varying cross sections for certain specific applications.
The heat shrink tubing is placed on the heating catheter shaft, and then heat can be applied to the heat shrink tubing, resulting in shrinkage of the heat shrink tubing to encapsulate the heating catheter shaft. The structure formed by the apertures in the surface of the reinforcing tube, in combination with the distal taper of the reinforcing tube and outer coaxial sheath, allows the proximal part of the composite shaft to be relatively stiff, and the distal tip to be flexible and soft. A variety of other techniques can be used within the scope of the invention to accomplish the variable stiffness of the heating catheter.
These and other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings, which illustrate by way of example the features of the invention.
Modern interventional medical procedures have relied on ever smaller and more flexible devices to reach areas requiring treatment which were previously inaccessible to conventional devices, such as by the placement of vasoocclusive devices in tiny areas of damaged vasculature such as aneurysms or ruptures in arteries in the brain. Some devices to treat such areas use optical fibers to carry light energy to remote locations at the distal end of the heating catheter, but certain limitations have been found in currently available optical fibers for those purposes.
For example, conventional heating catheter technology has not been easily adaptable to catheter based imaging, treatments such as "thrombolyzing" blood or cutting tissue, or to the delivery of therapeutic agents, such as timed release agents, or embolics, since optical fibers, when used as a stand alone structural device, are not very torqueable, pushable or resilient. Small diameter optical fibers of the type most useful for such therapies frequently can become too floppy, while larger diameter fibers can be too stiff to maneuver through sharp bends, and for these reasons, the use of optical fibers as stand alone guidewires or catheters can be difficult and technique sensitive. Also, since there are practical limits to the diameter of the fiber for specific applications, the use of reinforced guide catheters with longitudinal lumens through which the heating catheter passes can place important restrictions on how small such an assembly can be. Further, if the heating catheter is to be used with both a guidewire and a guiding catheter, there are limits imposed on the techniques that can be employed because of the necessarily larger diameter of such an assembly to accommodate the requirements of the two different shafts within the catheter.
As is illustrated in the drawings, which are provided for the purposes of illustration and not by way of limitation, one preferred embodiment of the invention illustrated in
Alternatively, as is illustrated in
Referring to
In another presently preferred embodiment, illustrated in
In another presently preferred embodiment, illustrated in
In a further aspect of the invention illustrated in
As described above, at least one coaxial outer covering or sheath 24 is also provided over at least a portion of the heating catheter and the reinforcing tube, for providing desired variations in stiffness along at least a portion of the length of the shaft. Such an outer sheath is currently preferably a heat shrink polymer, such as polyethylene, PTFE, PEEK, PET or PPS, for example, although other similar heat shrink polymers may also be suitable. Alternatively, the outer sheath can be a metal tube, such as a metal tube formed from a nickel titanium alloy, for example, that can be bonded adhesively over the outer surface of the heating catheter, such as by cyanoacrylate adhesive.
The one or more coaxial layers can be formed of heat shrink polymeric material, such as polyethylene, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyetherethylketone (PEEK, also known as polyaryletherketone), polyphenylenesulfide (PPS), or any of a variety of other polymers which can be fabricated into a structure and necked or shrunk over a shaft, or can be formed of metal. While the invention can effectively use tubes which are placed over the exterior of the heating catheter shaft and then heat shrunk or bonded by adhesive to the heating catheter shaft, it is also contemplated that the shaft can be reinforced by other longitudinally extending additional structures with varying cross sections for certain specific applications.
The heat shrink tubing is placed on the heating catheter shaft, and then heat can be applied to the heat shrink tubing, resulting in shrinkage of the heat shrink tubing to encapsulate the heating catheter shaft. The structure formed by the apertures in the surface of the reinforcing tube, in combination with the distal taper of the reinforcing tube and outer coaxial sheath, allows the proximal part of the composite shaft to be relatively stiff, and the distal tip to be flexible and soft. A variety of other techniques can be used within the scope of the invention to accomplish the variable stiffness of the heating catheter shaft.
For neurovascular use, the overall length of a heating catheter pusher can be, for example, from 100 to 300 cm, with the outer diameter being less than about 1 French (0.0135 inch). For peripheral use, the overall length of the catheter can be, for example, from 100 to 300 cm, with the outer diameter of the distal 25 to 45 cm being less than about 5 French (0.063 inch), and the outer diameter of the proximal 100 cm being less than about 6 French (0.075 inch). For cardiovascular use, the overall length of the catheter can be, for example, from 150 to 175 cm, with the outer diameter of the distal 25 cm being less than about 3 French (0.038 inch), and the outer diameter of the proximal 100 cm being less than about 4 French (0.050 inch). These dimensions are approximate, and in practical terms, depend upon sizes of shrink tubing that are commercially available.
In practice, heating catheter shafts used for micro-coil delivery and the like are approximately 0.003 to approximately 0.014 inches in diameter, with the outer buffer comprising a layer of approximately 0.0005 to 0.002 inches in thickness of a polymer over a thin layer of cladding used to limit the dissipation of light out of the shaft. In one presently preferred embodiment, the outer buffer can be centerless ground to provide a variable thickness characteristic and the heating catheter shaft can be manufactured with a thicker than normal buffer to facilitate grinding of the buffer to provide a desired bending stiffiess either with or without additional layers of stiffening polymers over the outer surface of the heating catheter shaft.
In one example of the method of manufacturing the variable stiffness heating catheter of the invention, the shaft can be assembled by sliding and centering a polyethylene coaxial heat shrink tube, which can be, for example, 200 cm in length, over a heating catheter, which can be, for example, 205 cm long. The ends of the heating catheter are then clamped, and tension is applied to keep the heating catheter taut. The proximal end of the polyethylene heat shrink tube is placed into the working area of a heat gun, although other means of controllably heating the heat shrink polymeric sheath may be used. The temperature of the polyethylene heat shrink tube is heated to approximately 650 F, and the rest of the heat shrink tube is heated by sliding the heat gun along the axis of the heat shrink tube at about three inches per second, for example, until the heat gun has traveled the length of the polymeric material and the polyethylene has encapsulated the heating catheter shaft. This method is repeated for 150 cm and 100 cm lengths of polymeric tubing, and any further heat shrink tubing to be used for varying the stiffness of the heating catheter, until the outside diameter of the shaft is built up to the desired dimensions to yield the desired degrees of stiffness.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that a variety of polymers, including those filled with reinforcing fibers or other material may be used to reinforce a heating catheter so that it can be more effectively used as a pusher within a catheter lumen or as a free therapeutic member. For example, the characteristics of the materials to be used may be optimized by use of abutting adjacent covers of different materials against one another longitudinally in end to end fashion to thus provide a constant outer diameter. In such a construction, the outer sheath is joined by heat and/or pressure or adhering bonded sections surrounding specific portions of the heating catheter, to provide a smooth overall exterior to the finished composite shaft.
It will be apparent from the foregoing that while particular forms of the invention have been illustrated and described, various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, some of the various techniques of the invention can be advantageously combined for certain applications, while others are effectively met by only one aspect of the embodiments discussed. Accordingly, it is not intended that the invention be limited, except as by the appended claims.
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|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 4
|Nov 27, 2013
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 8
|Jan 7, 2014
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Year of fee payment: 8
|Jan 7, 2014
|Surcharge for late payment
Year of fee payment: 7


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JUN 05, 2013 - Just Jared
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After its rocky road getting to Chinese cinemas, Django Unchained has only made $2.5 million since early May – The Hollywood Reporter Jaden Smith reflects back on his days at the Cartier store – Huffington Post Check out Dianna Agron's The Family trailer – Just Jared Jr Breaking Bad releases an eerie new poster – [...]
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Film connection
Regarding your poignant story "Pittsburghers Reach Out to Italian Quake Victims" (Nov. 15), I'd like to add another Pittsburgh connection. In September, four students from Italy's Abruzza region enrolled at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' School of Film, Photography and Digital Media for the semester. They were studying film and video at L'Accademia dell' Immagine in L'Aquila before the earthquake devastated their school and were invited to continue their film studies elsewhere during the school's rebuilding.
The University of Pittsburgh spearheaded the effort to help these students, and UPMC covered their tuition needs. The university found support for the students' housing, and Pittsburgh Filmmakers accepted them into four classes each at our school. Each is also enrolled in one class at Pitt.
These four talented, personable students have added a great deal to the educational fabric at Filmmakers. We are honored to play a part in helping them, and we look forward to their future endeavors as filmmakers.
Director of Education
Pittsburgh Filmmakers


text:
U.S. offers $5 million reward for drug kingpin Caro Quintero
MEXICO CITY — The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was convicted in the murder of a U.S. anti-narcotics agent in 1985, but vanished in August after a Mexican court freed him from prison on a technicality.
Caro Quintero, 61, once one of Mexico's most powerful drug kingpins, was last seen walking out of a medium security prison in the state of Jalisco around 2 a.m. on Aug. 9 after serving 28 years of a 40-year sentence. An appeals court granted him freedom after controversially ruling that his federal case should have been handled in a state venue.


text:
daherlihy wrote:If members want to continue posting in a disruptive manner, be it sarcastic or otherwise, further actions will be taken.
Can't we all just get along and be a community?!
vern231181 wrote:I'm curious as to why so many people are complaining about FIFA 14?
Do any of you actually play the game for 'REAL'. In other words, not sat on your sofa with a controller in your hand.
FIFA 14 is the closest virtual representation of the 'beautiful' game to date.
Are those complaining prefer an 'Arcadey' game of football as opposed to a 'Simulation' as this is year it's far more of a simulation.
I know this game isn't flawless and there's numerous threads to confirm this.
One of the biggest complaints especially on Next-gen is the 'Lobbed Through Ball' which to be fair can be exploited by some gamers but there is a solution to this 'flaw' just play with manual player selection and as soon as you anticipate the 'Lobbed Through Ball' coming (it is easy to spot) then start sprinting back with the manually selected defender.
People are too quick to point out it's faults but don't realise that with a bit of patience and skill, these so called 'issues' can be counteracted by more intelligent play.
Baswaldo_lopesz wrote:
vern231181 wrote:I'm curious as to why so many people are complaining about FIFA 14?
Do any of you actually play the game for 'REAL'. In other words, not sat on your sofa with a controller in your hand.
FIFA 14 is the closest virtual representation of the 'beautiful' game to date.
Are those complaining prefer an 'Arcadey' game of football as opposed to a 'Simulation' as this is year it's far more of a simulation.
as a genuine skiller( genuine skiller not RS shaker) which to proves that the cream will always rise to the top, as they say.
vern231181 wrote:I'm curious as to why so many people are complaining about FIFA 14?
Do any of you actually play the game for 'REAL'. In other words, not sat on your sofa with a controller in your hand.
FIFA 14 is the closest virtual representation of the 'beautiful' game to date.
Are those complaining prefer an 'Arcadey' game of football as opposed to a 'Simulation' as this is year it's far more of a simulation.
Calm_Down_Jeez wrote:Many disagree w/ you. SO MANY things are wrong w/ this game. Don't become a fifa apologist please.
http://news.futhead.com/posts/xaors-cave/26000-xaors-cave-lets-talk-balance-part-1 AND
"t's been over three weeks since the release of FIFA 14, and with the release of the second patch - which included numerous changes intended to improve balance - it's time to review just that. I can sum up my feelings on balance easily - FIFA 14 doesn't have a good balance, and it is seriously jeopardising my enjoyment of the game. In a two parter, I'm going to talk about balance in general, FIFA 14's balance, and what needs to be done to get us out of the rut we've been in for far too long.
For all of the substantial improvements EA have brought to FIFA this year, it simply hasn't summed to a better experience than what we had with FIFA 13. That isn't said to praise FIFA 13's balance - to the contrary, the balance has been poor since at least FIFA 09 - but to highlight my feelings that the quality of the balance right now is severely below poor. That sense of things contrasts greatly with that of an EA developer, Gilliard Lopes who tweeted the following prior to the second patch's release:
"Balancing: the game is very well tuned already, but we are improving it even more based on feedback incl. headers and finesse shots"
Whether or not this represents the general feeling amongst EA developers - Gilliard's twitter page disclaims that his tweets express his opinions, not those of his employer - it's still very interesting. To me, the idea that FIFA 14 is 'very well tuned' is hard to swallow, and the patch, meant to improve it 'even more' hasn't made that much of a difference.
Before I get into the major issues with FIFA 14's balance, there are a few things worth saying. Firstly, I play primarily online on Seasons, Co-Op Seasons, and in Clubs. What I feel about this game derives primarily from my experience of those three modes, and I respect that the game plays very differently in other environments - against friends locally, against the CPU and so on. Secondly, I'm sure some people's opinions differ dramatically to mine - balance is a fairly subjective issue - but I have seen a lot more complaints about balance this year than usual, so hopefully I can go some way to explain that.
Finally, I'd like to ground this discussion by defining balance. Balance is variously defined by gamers, it has very different meanings for different genres of games, and there is no true definition to refer to. When I'm looking at FIFA 14's balance, I'm looking at it from three broad perspectives - strategy, skill, and realism.
For me, strategic balance is really about three things: providing a variety of viable strategies, ensuring that no particular strategy is dominant, and hopefully crafting an experience where strategy is very much a game in itself - we should be heavily considering the way our opponent plays and attempting to outwit them with better strategy, not playing every game in a similar manner.
The skill balance is a totally different concept. It's about how much of the game is under user control - so we aren't passengers in the experience, and about ensuring that there is a good balance between risk and reward, as well as between difficulty and effectiveness. In a nutshell, achieving a good skill balance is all about ensuring that the game is "easy to play", but "hard to master".
Finally, the realism perspective is one which is crucial for a sports simulation. We are, presumably, all football fans and therefore we all have a fair bit of experience watching the game being played. When we play FIFA, we want to be noticing the very same phenomena, and it will always be difficult for us to accept things happening in the game which are blatantly unrealistic. Regardless of how well the balance may hold up in the first two respects, we play FIFA because we want a game which acts as an extension to the sport we love.
Now these three perspectives are distinct. A game can do well in one area but not in another. You could have a game which was well balanced strategically but in a way which had little to do with real football (the reverse isn't so true - a truly realistic football simulation would have emergent strategic qualities). Similarly, you could have a very realistic simulation which wasn't enjoyable to play because the player's level of control was minimal.
So that's how I'm looking at balance - and in my mind this definition is broad enough to explain all of the major issues with balance. So how does this all apply to FIFA 14? Well, for the remainder of this article I'm going to talk about strategic balance, leaving the skill and realism balance 'til part 2. I apologise to anyone who read the demo review I wrote a few weeks back: some of this will seem like repetition.
It is incredibly noticeable that, when you're playing online, most players have a very repetitive style of play and that furthermore, most players play the game in exactly the same way. FIFA 14's gameplay is balanced such that there is one general strategy which is both easier to pull off and more effective than any other. More or less, it can be summed up as: defend deep, press hard, attack fast.
In terms of attacking, it's all about the counter. Get the ball with your defenders or keeper, and fire the ball forwards to an attacker. If the pass is successful, you'll likely be in a fair bit of space with one or two attackers. From there, initiate a run via the player-run-trigger or a one-two, and try a throughball. If the throughball comes off, move towards goal. If you have more than one player goalside of the defence, pass across. If not, attempt a finesse shot.
That all sounds like an oversimplification, but it really isn't. That pretty accurately sums up a lot of the players online who do this for a large proportion of the game to great effect. It works for one simple reason - the two points in the attack which could go wrong don't go wrong nearly enough. The pass from the defence to attack is often guaranteed because there is almost always at least one attacker in so much space they won't be challenged for the ball. The throughball, or ball over the top, is not only "good enough" far too often, but is often inch perfect, beautifully rolling into the path of the attacker, not even causing them to break stride.
Two issues - passing accuracy and defensive AI - are culpable for the over-effectiveness of this strategy. Assisted passes, particularly airborne ones, are still far too accurate in FIFA, and everyone knows it. It's very hard, on this evidence, to remember that EA implemented Pro Passing in FIFA 11 to solve the very issues that are so prevalent four years later.
As for the defensive AI, it fails in its lackadaisical marking, it's ability to cover, and it's ability to play a decent offside trap. EA have improved the defensive AI this year, but it hasn't proven to be enough. I hope they'll continue with it next year, and if they do, improving the AI of the actual defenders - the center backs and full backs - should be the focus. Deeper intelligence, allowing them to cope better with turnovers in possession, and greater cohesion, allowing them to work as a team to cover runs and to play an offside trap, is crucial.
In terms of defensive strategy, I said that it tends to revolve around defending deep and pressing hard, even if it does sound like a contradiction of sorts. Generally speaking, the telltale signs of this strategy are a defensive mentality and formation (like those with two defensive midfielders). With a deep, packed defence, you can rely on the defensive AI to the point where you can almost let it do the work for itself. That's where the pressing comes in - by constantly pressing the ball carrier with the midfielders, you can make it incredibly hard for your opponent to play, while not having to worry about the gaps you might be leaving behind. Simply run a player at the ball carrier at all times - you'll gain back possession in no time. Low risk - high reward.
The effectiveness of pressing is such that it becomes nearly impossible to play around and through the packed defence, and this is all about tackling mechanics. Like passing, FIFA's tackling mechanics have been a sorespot for a long time. They were justifiably complained about during the legacy defending period where players defended by holding two buttons and watching their players turn into homing missiles, and it is equally justifiable to complain about the mechanics in tactical defending with the overly automated contain function, and the flagrantly overpowered auto-tackles.
The major issue with auto-tackles is that they are far, far too accurate. Consider how often you actually see an auto-tackle miss, consider how often the auto-tackle causes a foul, consider how often an auto-tackle actually causes you to get beaten - practically never, right? That's the issue in a nutshell. FIFA's defenders auto-tackle at a sizable radius and with impossibly good reaction speeds. They will quite regularly snap the ball away from you as if they absolutely knew what you were about to do, and where the ball was about to go. What this leads to is a situation where tackling is almost all about proximity, and where people are hugely encouraged to run straight towards the ballcarrier without a great deal of thought.
Personally, even though we had a significant defensive revamp with FIFA 12 and Tactical Defending, I'd be hoping for another with FIFA 15. The tackling is one problem with defending which could probably be solved within the current paradigm, but there are many more issues in terms of how we control the defence that deserve a look in too (I will follow this comment up in future - been meaning to do so for ages).
The most important thing about the effectiveness of the attacking and defensive strategies (counterattacking & defending deep + pressing hard) is how well they complement each other. The very fact that you can attack so successfully with just two or three players, and that you can go from defensive to attack without needing to go through the midfield, means that attacking is no harder if you're defending with seven men than it would be otherwise. Best of all, the more your opponent pushes forwards to try and pin you back, the easier it becomes to counter them. In comparison to real life, in precisely the situation where one team would be dominating possession because the other was struggling to get it away, those defense-to-attack pinpoint passes make all the difference.
The sheer dominance of this way of playing makes for a game which simply isn't that enjoyable to play and certainly isn't that realistic. It's incredibly tedious to play a game where you know exactly what your opponent is going to do, but one where you can't actually do much to prevent it. A few times a match, any half decent player will be able to produce a golden chance if they construct every attack around two passes. It's a hit & hope approach where the hope can be replaced with confidence.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone plays like this, nor that anyone plays like this 100% of the time - but it is an increasingly large number of people doing it for an increasingly large proportion of each match. When you think about it, that's really sad, because FIFA's current balance reduces the hugely tactical game that is football to a shallow farce. It's sadder still that the dominant strategy is one that rarely produces good football. FIFA has been oriented around end-to-end counter and pressure since FIFA 09, and it's now surely time for a change.
It won't be easy. The strategic balance issues are underpinned by major gameplay mechanics like tackling, passing, and defensive AI, and so tweaks simply won't cut it. But that doesn't change the fact that strategic balance should be a top gameplay priority for EA going forward. Instead of making changes and hoping things fall into place, EA have got to start designing changes with the absolute intent of shifting the balance towards more thoughtful football - the first step towards this is recognising that there is a problem in the first place.
I don't know what I was high on when I decided this would be a two-part series, it is now very much a three parter. In the first article, I spent some time defining balance on the basis of three different perspectives - strategy, skill, and realism - and spent the remaining words criticising the balance from the strategic point of view, concluding that FIFA's strategic balance left it vulnerable to exploitation, and that it ultimately encouraged players to play an impatient, end-to-end, high pressure style. In this one, I'm going at it from a different perspective entirely, and looking at the importance of skill (or lack thereof) in FIFA 14.
Previously, I defined a concept of balance from a skill perspective. I wrote that achieving a good balance in this regard was about giving the user adequate control over events such that they feel responsible for the results, as well as ensuring that there is a good balance between both risk and reward as well as difficulty and effectiveness. At its essence, skill balance is about fairness, and about having a game which may be easy to play, but is still hard to master.
This type of balance is one required by pretty much all games - and games which fail to achieve it tend to be both unsatisfying and frustrating. Succeeding isn't worth it if you don't feel like your actions were the reason, and failure at the hands of injustice is both upsetting and anger inducing. Unfortunately, this is pretty much exactly the experience I have in FIFA's multiplayer, and from what I see others write, I know I'm not the only one. As for the whys, it's a pretty long list of things really, but I'll pick on just three: aerial battles, assistance, and automation.
There have been fairly major complaints about aerial play, headers, crossing, and corners for a while now - and generally the complaint is simply that these ways of scoring are too easy and hence: "headers are overpowered". This issue has come to a head (!) this year with headed goals being more prevalent than ever, so much so that EA attempted to reduce the effectiveness of heading with the second patch.
They were right too - far too many goals were being scored from headers - but the problems go far deeper than frequency. For me, the aerial battle mechanics are seriously problematic even if EA manage to tune the number of headers down to a realistic level, and that's simply due to how little influence we, as the attacker or defender, have over the results of an aerial battle. There are so many factors that matter with headers that are simply out of our control - player attributes, the keeper, switching, randomised error - very little is left up to us.
It's no surprise then that the general feeling after conceding a header is one of a short list: "It chose the wrong player", "My player wasn't locked into the path of the ball", "My player didn't jump"... you know the rest. Aerial play is a lottery - a lottery where you can push the odds one way or t'other but a lottery all the same - and that is never going to be satisfying in a competitive game. When games are won and lost on the basis of something like that, it degrades the experience immensely. It sounds almost like a whine, but it's absolutely true: it's just not fair.
The issue is that fixing this isn't a matter of tuning how many headers go in. EA could nerf them further to the point where headed goals became extremely rare, but that would also serve to reduce the variety in goals still further. This is why I talk about balance from different perspectives - too many goals being scored from headers causes a strategic imbalance - but the skill imbalance remains regardless.
So that's the problem - what about the solution? In my mind there are two major issues - the first is that the AI/CPU has far too big a part in what happens - we need far more consistency. The player switching needs to be better than it currently is at choosing the right player, and there needs to be a cast iron guarantee that the player it switches to is going to try and get to that ball such that you can head it. The second side of the issue is that we need to be able to actually dictate what happens to a far greater degree than right now.
I feel like I have a fairly solid understanding of FIFA's mechanics in most areas - but when it comes to aerial battles I'm so often entirely befuddled by the outcomes in terms of who jumps and who wins - and I'm also very unsure as to how much control we have over the way our player positions himself/jostles for the header - when you think about it, we have very little time to actually make any kind of difference because the ball is in the air for such a short period. In that period we have to react to the auto-switch, potentially have to switch again, jostle for position and try and aim a header. It is kind of nuts when you consider that this has to be done in a second or so.
When I bring up issues in the articles I write, I usually try propose a reasonable solution. Here, though I can certainly name some of things which need to change, but I'm not sure I can think of a particularly good way of making us a more real part of the aerial battle. I know a lot of people - including myself at one time - pinned a lot of hopes on EA removing the limitation on aerial battles to one player per team, which is finally happening in the next-gen release, but I'm no longer so sure this will actually fix the problem. It will help - but will it make aerial play part of FIFA which is engaging, or fair? I have my doubts - but it is all the same a necessary step.
The one saving grace with aerial play is that it is only a relatively small fraction of football - and so long as headers aren't too easy it will be something you'll have to deal with every now and again, and not all the time. The same cannot be said for the other two topics I'm going to mention now - assistance and automation.
Together, these factors make for an experience where we are either forced to, or rewarded for, 'ceding control to the CPU and to the AI. Taken to the extreme, FIFA 14 is a game where every pass, shot, cross, save, tackle and interception is dictated as much by a piece of AI as it is the user. It goes deeper still, when you consider that with contain, a large proportion of defensive movement is also no longer down to us. We may still retain some control over when our players decide to do things, but it's little more than that sometimes.
Now don't get me wrong, assistance and automation both have a place in FIFA, but it is practically undeniable that both go too far. I'll be entirely honest and say without the freedom manual offers, I'm not sure I would bother playing anymore. With the next-generation looming, I have a further fear - will there be a large enough manual community to sustain the online?
Yet, I must accept that I am in a minority as a manual player. It would appear that most FIFA players don't have any issue with assisted, nor with the level of automation in FIFA. It would appear that, for most people, they don't want a game which is challenging, nor one which offers enough freedom to express themselves, nor one which particularly rewards ability. This is the view of FIFA players that many take, and it's certainly the view of the media, and to an extent it's must also be the view of EA.
It is though a pretty cynical view, and it's one that perhaps optimistically, I do not share. Indeed, many casual gamers may never try manual, and may not have any issue with assisted, automated FIFA, but if they do put the time in to make a proper appraisal, I think it would be incredible just how many would forgo the comfort and ease of assisted. I have quite a bit of first hand experience with this as a manual evangelist - I have turned at least five of my 'real-life' friends into manual players - some of whom certainly don't fit the 'hardcore gamer' archetype. I'm not saying that everyone who tries manual will fall in love with it - I'm not stupid enough to extrapolate from my anecdote to the entire world - but I would imagine for each 10 people that give manual a proper try, at least three will see how much it adds to FIFA and want to stick with it. Unfortunately, the game EA has created not only fails to encourage people to try manual, but also makes manual a lot harder to enjoy than it really should be. All the same, it is, and has been throughout this generation, one of the best features FIFA has.
It's really rather simple - EA have to act on this soon. It is clear that that will not happen this year, but it should happen for the next. FIFA needs a full overhaul to assisted (and to semi-assisted) - an overhaul which addresses the numerous balance issues created by assisted (like lobbed through balls), and an overhaul which will offer quite a bit more control to the person on the pad. That's step one, step two is to end the legacy of FIFA as a game which caters first and foremost to a single audience by delivering a football-lite experience.
In some senses, FIFA is a game which can be highly customised to one's taste. Between the game-speed setting, the sliders, and the assistance settings, we can create a wide array of different experiences. Online, there is no such possibility to customise, and hence however well FIFA can play offline with everything set just right, the online is too often an embarrassingly shallow football experience.
There are two possibilities for how this can be resolved - EA can continue to try and satisfy everyone with the same game, or EA can bite the bullet and split their game up to satisfy an increasingly fractured community. One thing is for sure, whatever they've been trying to do for the last four of five years isn't working. Can you make one game for such a wide audience? Maybe - but you probably have to start with a solid simulation. A decent analogy can be found in Gran Turismo and Forza, games which have highly realistic simulations of driving, but find reasonably wide appeal via their assists. They build a simulation, then worry about accessibility - with FIFA it is clearly the other way around.
Personally, I think the answer is obvious, EA should create a number of gameplay variants that can be used online. Start with two - normal, and hardcore - and work from there. On hardcore, slow the gamespeed, lengthen the matches, restrict the assistance, etc. It's very much a case of "build it and people will come" - so long as the choice is visible, and so long as it is available across all major modes. FIFA is one of the most popular video games in the world - it should be easy to sustain such a split.
That just leaves automation. I listed earlier a variety of areas in this game which are controlled primarily by the CPU. Passing, shooting and crossing mechanics are more to do with assistance, but the level of automation with tackling, interceptions, and with contain is another matter entirely. To an extent, this is one of the major factors I talked about in the previous article about strategic balance, in essence saying that, due in part to the overly automated and ridiculously accurate tackling, FIFA's entire defensive game was rigged towards those who spend a good deal of their time sprinting at the ballcarrier.
In defence, automation really is the name of the game. As FIFA players, you are rewarded not for really learning how to defend but for learning how to best exploit the automation you are given. By sprinting in, you can take advantage of how quickly your defender will lock onto any loose ball, and how easily he will make perfect tackles regardless of the attacker's movement, but on the other hand by using contain you can make yourself almost unsurpassable as your defender will mirror the attacker with no perceptible delay. All the skill with defending can be summed up as knowing when to hold the right trigger, when when to hold the contain button.
I feel, ultimately, that one issue dominates all the others when it comes to automation - it's reaction speed. This means that however well you try to jockey without using contain, and however well you try to time your manual tackles, you are always going to be at a massive disadvantage because, believe it or not, there is a delay of a few tenths of the second when you react to something, and you aren't always going to press manual tackle at the perfect moment.
The basic solution is to build a delay into the AI's decisions. Right now, they seem to react instantaneously to most events. To take one example of how it ought to be, let's consider one of the most regular points at which the AI has to react to something in the game - when locking into the path of the ball. From what I can tell, the AI seems to do this immediately - as soon as the ball is kicked they seem to know exactly where it is going to go and exactly what direction they need to move to intercept it. Ideally, they should always have a picture of the world which is slightly behind - it should take a few tenths every time the ball changes direction for them to realise where it is going.
You can get much deeper into this, and into the realm of anticipation, such that in some situations would be reacted to by players far faster than others, but in general this is what we need to see happen. More broadly, I'm not against automation, but I am entirely against automation in areas which I should be able to control just fine on my own. I am also entirely against any automation which is consistently perfect.
Appraising FIFA's balance in terms of skill and control is easy - it's practically non existent, and frankly I struggle to think of a game which gets it so wrong. In some cases, this is due to gameplay elements which are incredibly random - aerial play, deflections, rebounds, goalkeeper parries, etc., and in some cases it is due to mechanics which flat out reward users allowing the AI to do the work, like assistance and contain. Together, these make for a game which isn't especially satisfying to win, but is especially frustrating to lose, a game which doesn't particularly reward skill so much as it rewards a willingness to exploit, and a game which most certainly lives by the maxim of "Easy to Play" but in no way lives up to that of "Hard to Master".
In the final part (well, it should be the final part), I want to talk a bit about realism, but mostly I want to tie things together and draw some conclusions. Hopefully will have that out in a fortnight or so. Thanks for reading - and if you have anything to add, or anything to criticise, please don't hesitate to comment.
vern231181 wrote:I'm curious as to why so many people are complaining about FIFA 14?
Do any of you actually play the game for 'REAL'. In other words, not sat on your sofa with a controller in your hand.
FIFA 14 is the closest virtual representation of the 'beautiful' game to date.
Are those complaining prefer an 'Arcadey' game of football as opposed to a 'Simulation' as this is year it's far more of a simulation.
I know this game isn't flawless and there's numerous threads to confirm this.
One of the biggest complaints especially on Next-gen is the 'Lobbed Through Ball' which to be fair can be exploited by some gamers but there is a solution to this 'flaw' just play with manual player selection and as soon as you anticipate the 'Lobbed Through Ball' coming (it is easy to spot) then start sprinting back with the manually selected defender.
People are too quick to point out it's faults but don't realise that with a bit of patience and skill, these so called 'issues' can be counteracted by more intelligent play.
The ONLY major issue I have with FIFA this year and it appears to be teething problems on the NExt-gen consoles is the fact that I'm yet to play a game in any Online game mode as the matchmaking server is broken!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 27/12/2013 03:29:19
Muffled wrote:Well don't you all think that if lobbed through ball is rendered less effective, it would make fifa 14 even better?
FIFA 13 captures all the drama and unpredictability of real-world soccer, and is driven by five game-changing innovations which revolutionize artificial intelligence, dribbling, ball control and phy...
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Although Dial's initial role will be as a plug, and that role is needed with the 49ers defense - his athleticism may allow the 49ers to do some creative things with him coming off the end position. He will know his role, but my bet is that the 49ers will try and stretch him before determining whether he is a one trick pony or not.
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The proposed project would comply with the terms of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (CVRWQCB) enforcement order by constructing a pipeline to convey wastewater flows from the community of Applegate to the county's Sewer Maintenance District No. 1 (SMD 1) service area, and by closing the existing Applegate WTP. In addition, Placer County has received federal funding for the Proposed Project, and ICF is assisting with regulatory compliance for the NEPA, the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).
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The re-energized focus on Long Island Sound's story is obvious in the colorfully redesigned main hall, which has been renamed Newman's Own Hall in celebration of a $1.2 million grant from Newman's Own Foundation."
– The Norwalk Citizen
By Dave Sigworth, publicist of The Maritime Aquarium So here we are in winter and, though it hasn't happened yet, someone soon will call The Maritime Aquarium with great alarm to report a seal on a beach. Or to tell … Continue reading


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From AFX comes the FX-95 911, a street helmet that pays tribute to 9/11. Only 911 helmets will be made. Each limited-edition lid is numbered, and comes with a carrying bag and certificate of authenticity. A portion of proceeds from sales will be donated to the Tuesday's Children charity. The helmet is available in sizes XS through XXL.
Contact: Parts Unlimited, 800-369-1000, www.parts-unlimited.com.


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FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2005 file photo, fashion model Sara Ziff has makeup applied before she was to walk the runway for a presentation of the spring collection of Nanette Lepore in New York. Ziff, who began her decade-long career at age 14, has created the Model Alliance, to improve the working conditions of models and convince the industry to take more care with its young. The alliance was launched Monday, Feb. 6, 2012, ahead of New York Fashion Week and has the support of the powerful Council of Fashion Designers of America. (AP Photo/Jennifer Szymaszek, File)


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Had the pleasure of having a few of the youth hunt program participants out yesterday for some Sea Ducking. Great day
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Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art
by John Keats
Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art Resources
This website contains texts of Keats poems and letters, images of his manuscripts, images of the poet and his family and friends, and much other useful information. Highly recommended by Shmoop.
Your one-stop information shop for all things John Keats.
It's always good to hear several different readings of a poem.
This isn't "Bright Star," but it gives a window into Keats's incredible artistry. The person reading the poem is a poet himself, the American writer Stanley Plumly.
Once again, it isn't "Bright Star," but this great poem shows you Keats's range. This time, the poem is being read by the American scholar and critic Helen Vendler.
This portrait of Keats was made by his friend, Joseph Severn, in 1819.
This is a plaster cast of Keats's face made while he was alive.
This is a plaster cast of Keats's face made shortly after his death.
Historical Documents
This is a copy of the poem that Keats wrote out himself.
In addition to being one of the greatest English poets, John Keats was also one of the greatest English letter writers. You can read a selection of his letters to friends and family here.
This book, first published in 1979, remains one of the classic biographies of Keats. We at Shmoop highly recommend it.
This book by the American literary critic Helen Vendler contains a chapter on the development of Keats as an artist. The chapter focuses on Keats's use of the sonnet form – the same form as "Bright Star."
This book explores in detail what are often considered Keats's greatest poems, the series of "Odes" he wrote towards the end of his brief life.
Movies and TV
This recent film focuses on the love story between John Keats and his fiancée, Fanny Brawne.
This film is based on another poem by John Keats. You can read the poem here, and learn more about the movie through the above link.


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Web Services Martin Hall, Room 214
Dan DemmonsDirector of Web Architecture, Design & firstname.lastname@example.com
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CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
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HTML or XHTML should be presented and displayed in a web browser.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language — HTML is a tag-based markup language used to create web pages. Every site on the internet uses HTML in some form
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FTP: File Transfer Protocol — FTP is a commonly used protocol for transferring files from one computer to another over a network.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol — HTTP is a communications protocol used for transferring data available on the Web.
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SSH: Secure Shell — SSH is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged over a secure channel between two computers.
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer — SSL is a cryptographic protocol used for encrypting sensitive data while being sent through the Internet.
508: Section 508
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requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information
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W3C: World Wide Web Consortium — The W3C is the international standards organization for the Web.
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IP: Internet Protocol — IP is a protocol for transferring data across a packet-switched network.
SLD: Second-Level Domain — SLD is a domain directly below the TLD. For example. In "solosignal.com", "solosignal" is the SLD and ".com" is the TLD.
TLD: Top-Level Domain — TLD is the last part of any Internet domain name. For example: .com, .net, and .org are all TLDs.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator — URLs are the addresses used to request files through the Web.
WWW: World Wide Web — The WWW is the network of interlinked hypertext documents available through the Internet.
What does it mean to be a Catholic and Dominican college? We invite you to explore this question and the distinctive mission of Providence College.
About Providence College's Catholic and Dominican Identity


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Details displayedAdditional information about the measurements, e.g. room dimensions or angles, is available at the touch of a button.
Please choose what you are looking for, select your country, then click on [Proceed] to get your nearest Leica Geosystems contact:
*) US-Version with a typ. accuracy ± 1,5 mm (± 0.06 in)
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Definition of maltose in English:
noun[mass noun] Chemistry
A sugar produced by the breakdown of starch, e.g. by enzymes found in malt and saliva. It is a disaccharide consisting of two linked glucose units.
Example sentences
- Several physiologically important disaccharides are sucrose, lactose and maltose.
- Systems for sensing specific sugars, such as galactose or maltose, or specific amino acids, such as histidine or proline, also are present.
- But up to two thirds of it can be replaced by other sugars, including maltose and sucrose.
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Definition of evanish in English:
verb[no object] rare
Vanish or die away: like the rainbow's lovely form evanishing amid the storm
More example sentences
- At last the path evanishes from view.
- A satellite, seen from the earth, ought to change its colour, and at last evanish in violet.
- The kangaroo immediately adjourned, and evanished below the horizon.
Middle English: from Old French evaniss-, lengthened stem of the verb evanir 'vanish', from Latin evanescere 'die away'.
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Combining the strategy of chess with the random play of cards, players in Chards select a suit (spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs) and attempt to maneuver their kings, queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns, archers, jacks, jokers, dukes, and wizards (for a touch of magic).
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Although the UK's largest annual photo products expo was dealt a major blow just weeks before when Canon announced it was pulling out, as they say the show goes on the controversial news doesn't seem to have dented visitor enthusiasm. The statistics will eventually tell if the rest of the show is just as unaffected and it will be interesting to see how 2011's numbers shape up against last year's record 37,000+ attendees.
(Above) the Westcott lighting stand drew a lot of attention with its studio lighting seminars
This year we have put together an 11 minute tour of the show on video. Look out for the return of Pentax, including the 645D medium format camera, some interesting lenses from Samyang, and the European debut of a new high speed video and stills camera from JVC:
Finally, we're always on the look out for a real show personality at events like this and Bob Schmidt, one of the founders of Hoodman, makers of a wide range of camera accessories, came up trumps with a demo of the latest Hoodman product - a special spectacle frame designed purely with photographers in mind:
Did you go to the show this year? Tell us about your experience at the show on the DPNow discussion forum!
Discuss this story:
DPNow Focus on Imaging 2011 show video reportsHere is a summary or excerpt from an article that has just been published on DPNow:
Each year we no... (more)
Ian Re: Focus on Imaging 2011 show video reportsOne thing that was pleasing to see (and covered in my video) was the return of Pentax, complete with... (more)
Graham_of_Rainham Re: Focus on Imaging 2011 show video reportsOne thing I spotted in the video at 8:53 was a Phottix Hector remote live view. As this is somethin... (more)
Ian Re: Focus on Imaging 2011 show video reports
Yes, I actually mis-narrated that as I'm more familiar with Phottix as a remote flash trigger compa... (more)


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Hello all,
(This question has been asked on the Tile Plus forums, but I am posting here for additional perspective as that forum is visibly only to people that have purchased that plugin.)
Are there any themes or ways of using a theme to display an entries data on single line? Trying to make a print-friendly version that has one entry per row. Example:
John Doe email@example.com (o) 212-555-1234 (m) 212-555-4321
Jane Doe email@example.com (o) 212-555-5678 (m) 212-555-8765
Thank you.


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Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
A Cold Treachery (2005)
by Charles Todd
No current Talk conversations about this book.
Title: A Cold Treachery (Inspector Rutledge #7)
Author: Charles Todd
Pages: 556 (large type edition)
Year: 2005
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Inspector Ian Rutledge has just finished a case and is in the area when help is requested nearby. He is sent to investigate the murder of a family at their kitchen table. No signs of resistance are seen, but one family member is missing. All the men in the small village are mustered to search the cold, desolate area of northern England for the boy. As the days pass, the mission turns from rescue to recovery in the minds of the men. No 10-year-old boy could survive the cold as well as being without food and water. As there are no witnesses, Ian begins methodically questioning other people who knew the victims.
At the hotel where Ian sets up his headquarters, there is a pretty, young woman in a wheelchair that catches Ian's attention as a man, not an inspector. Nothing romantic happens in this story, but maybe in the next one? Ian is stymied as he has multiple people pointing their fingers at multiple suspects without any hard evidence of guilt. If only the boy were around, maybe he saw something! As time passes, the local chief constable becomes more and more unhappy with Inspector Rutledge and his lack of results. Can Ian find the guilty party before he is replaced? Who could commit such a heinous crime?
There was a great twist at the end of the story that I didn't see coming! There is lots of tension mounting throughout the story. I did think that the search for the little boy went on too long and that his fate should have been revealed sooner. The internal conversations that take place between Ian and Hamish I find so very interesting. They add so much depth to the character of Ian and to the overall story. This is still a very good mystery and definitely worth reading. I am thoroughly enjoying this series and can't wait to read book eight next!
My rating is 4 stars.
Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility. Other reviews can be read at http://seekingwithallyurheart.blogspot.com/. Also follow me on Twitter @lcjohnson1988, FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/lisa.johnson.75457
Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge is by far the most entertaining of any mystery series I'm reading. The character development is top notch. The stories are captive to the final page
I've been reading the Inspector Rutledge series since its inception and always enjoy a new one. What I remember best about this one (five years later) is the setting -- a hard Northern England winter.
I do so wish that "Charles Todd" would knock it off with the sentence fragments trailing dots . . .
Reading Frances Brody's second Kate Shackleton novel prompted me to return to the Inspector Rutledge mysteries by Charles Todd, as both are set just after the First World War. I still enjoy these detective stories, but there is definitely a formula, as with all enduring series - for once, I would like Inspector Rutledge to visit a town or a city (the case in Preston referred to in this story would have been interesting), to challenge or simply escape the village mentality of the rural crime scenes he is constantly being dispatched to!
'December 1919. The North of England'
Although Old Bowels is slightly more reluctant to send Rutledge this time, considering the success rate of his recent investigations (see novels 1-6!), the haunted Inspector is already on scene in 'The North' when the Yard is called in to investigate a mass murder in the Lakes. The Elcotts, a farming family with four young children, are found shot to death in their isolated farmhouse in the middle of a blizzard. The small valley community is shocked, with no clues to explain the brutality or identify the murderer - unless they can find 10 year old Josh Robinson, who has somehow escaped his family's fate. Search parties are sent out into the bleak, snow-covered fells of the surrounding landscape, but by the time Rutledge arrives, hope of finding the boy alive is dwindling. Without a witness to the crime, the Inspector must rely on the motives of those closest to the family, including an ex-husband, a jealous brother, and a sister looking for someone to blame. 'Greed. Jealousy. Revenge. The land - the lover - the wife ...' The more Rutledge delves into secret lives, the more like a soap opera the story becomes!
The murderer is fairly obvious after the first few chapters, I have to say, but I enjoyed watching Rutledge gather the clues and struggle with his temper all the same. And despite Todd's frequent stereotypical references to 'the North' and its Bronte-esque inhabitants (those who aren't on the lam from London, anyway), the wintry weather and harsh scenery of the mountains contribute a dark and oppressive atmosphere to the story. Evocative and exciting.
Traditional mystery lovers who prefer their whodunits enriched with psychological insight will heartily embrace Todd's seventh Inspector Rutledge novel (after 2002's A Fearsome Doubt )...As with its predecessors, this novel is imbued with tragic sadness, and Rutledge's struggle with his own demons serves as a moving counterpoint to the searing pain of other characters trapped by circumstances or emotions beyond their control. Perhaps this superb effort will bring Todd an audience to match the deserved critical acclaim he has received.
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English (1)
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0553586610, Mass Market Paperback)Integral to most crime tales is the unearthing of concealed and unfavorable facts about suspected malefactors. But the mother-son duo who write under the nom de plume "Charles Todd" are particularly adept, in their historical novels featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, at exploiting painful secrets as tools in developing both character and plot. It's rare, in a Todd tale, that even the innocent should escape unscathed. The authors demonstrate their skills once more in A Cold Treachery, which sends the shell-shocked and lonely Rutledge to probe the winter massacre of a sheep-farming family in northern England, at the same time as he searches for the missing and only witness to that chilling savagery.
"It was beyond comprehension," we're told of the December 1919 violence, near the rustic Lake District town of Urskdale, that left Gerald and Grace Elcott and three of their progeny shot to death. A fourth child, 10-year-old Josh Robinson, is nowhere to be found. He's thought to have fled from the scene, only to have perished in a recent blizzard. Coming off the grim proceedings recalled in A Fearsome Doubt, Rutledge--shackled as always to the nattering ghost of Hamish MacLeod, a Scotsman he'd ordered executed on a World War I battlefield--must determine whether the murderer was a passing stranger, or a local who'd previously concealed his or her aptitude for barbarity--and might kill again. Gerald Elcott's less-successful brother, Paul, has ample motive (he's next in line to inherit their clan's farm), as does Grace's sister, Janet Ashton, who just happens to arrive in Urskdale with a gun in hand (supposedly to protect her sibling from Paul's anger). Yet there's another, more frightening possibility--that Josh, Gerald's stepson, upset by the breakup of his parents, committed these atrocities. Desperate for clues, and with his impatient superior threatening to replace him on this case, Rutledge still can't claim to know who, or what, was behind the carnage.
After their disappointing standalone, The Murder Stone, it's a relief to see the Todd pair return to the "gloomy, defeated and exhausted" postwar England of Ian Rutledge, where no end of dire dramas appear to lurk. Like its half-dozen predecessors, stretching back to A Test of Wills, A Cold Treachery satisfies with its copious period details, characters traumatized by fate and failures, and a bedeviled young protagonist who must solve other people's problems before his own. And even as Hamish seems here to slip further into the background, there's finally the prospect of Rutledge finding companionship of a more corporeal sort. --J. Kingston Pierce
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:12:32 -0400)
"Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, where he'd lost much of his soul - and his sanity - but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale." "Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle. Was the killer someone the young family knew and trusted? When the victims are tallied the local police are in for another shock: One of the Elcott's children, a boy named Josh, is missing." "Now the Inspector must race to uncover a murderer and to save a child before he's silenced by the merciless elements - or the even colder hands of a killer. Haunted and goaded by the soldier-ghost of his own tortured war past, Rutledge will discover the tragedy of war that splintered one marriage - and pulled together another.". "Love, jealousy, greed, revenge - or was it some twisted combination of all of them? Any one could lead a man or woman to murder. What had the Elcotts done to ignite their killer's rage? With time running out, Rutledge knows all too well that such a cold-blooded murderer could be hiding somewhere in the blinding snow...preparing to strike again."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)
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Brad Pitt's 'World War Z' a zombie epicJune 13, 2013
Photo: Paramount Pictures 2013
A battle is being waged for the heart and soul of the zombie population. On one side are traditional fans who like their zombies passive, lumbering and in a permanent state of distraction, their skin drained of color.
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