text:
What does a GMSK D-STAR stream actually look like?
It may sound hard to believe but, these days, writing a GMSK receiver is in principe not that hard. All you need to do are these for 4 steps:
- Capture audio from the radio via the audio-device of the computer
- GMSK demodulate the audio and turn it into a train of bits
- Extract the raw D-STAR stream from that unordered stream of bits
- Process some parts of this D-STAR stream for error-correction, descrambling, deinterleaving
The end result: a .dvtool file containing a D-STAR stream.
Easy no?
The reason I wrote "these days" in the sentence above has to do with an evolution on the radio-amateur world that has changed it quite dramatically the last couple of years: open source software. Up to -say- one or two years ago, if you where interested in writing this kind of software (for an end-user application or just to learn more about it) you had to write everything herself. You had to understand everything about all these different aspects, including some quite complicated things, like low-level DSP code for GMSK modulation and demodulation, Forward error correction algorithms). These days, that is not the case anymore.
The importance of open source software
There are currently at least two different open-source software projects that implement at least part of a GMSK modem: the PC based pcrepeatercontroler project of Jonathan, G4KLX and the DVPRTR project around Jan, DO1FJN, Torsten, DG1HT and DH2YBE who target a "controller-board" based solution. The interesting part about open source software is its license: the so-called "GPL v2″ license. That software license is specifically designed, not only to allow people to reuse programming code written by somebody else in their own projects, but also to learn from it and even to modify it to ones own use.
What does this mean? Well, it means that you do not have to know everything about everything anymore. You can just use existing code, as written by somebody else, and start from there on.
Open source is much more then "free" software. By using open source, software and hardware designs become a way to learn. You can just take some project that already works, look how it works, learn from it, think about it, modify it to try out some ideas and even merge your code back into the original project.
Of course, it requires a bit of programmaing skills, but more then half of the work has already been done. This code provides a very solid based to get started and experiment with this or work out your own ideas. This is what this project is about: allow people to learn what a gmsk modem actually does and to allow people to experiment with it.
The Basics of GMSK and D-STAR streams
Now, before starting to program anything, the first step is to understand it. For D-STAR, this turns out one of the more difficult hurdles to take. Information about D-STAR is scattered over multiple documents, from different sources, written by different people. Its very easy for somebody new to D-STAR to get overwelmed by all these texts, especially as most of these documents about D-STAR on the internet are not even relevent to building a GMSK receiver.
In this mountain of information, there is one single "D-STAR specification" (the "shogen" document, a mere 11 pages) that described the radio level interface of D-STAR. The problem is that it written for people already experienced with this kind of technology. For somebody who is new to this matter, it looks -from one side- quite overwelming and -on the other size- not containing that much usefull information. We will try to provide this information in a more structured way.
Now, there are multiple ways one can describe a D-STAR radio stream: using pure dry specifications, as maths, what is looks like as a radio-frequency signal. The appoach taken in this article is by asking a simple question: "what does a D-STAR stream look like for a computer program that needs to decode it". The goal of this exercise it to give some insight into what a GMSK audio-stream actually is, how it is structured and -based on that- how does one go about writing software to decode it. It does this by reducing certain "magical" parts of the programming code (especially the DSP code to do GMSK demodulation, error-correction and scrambling) to a "magical box". We will gracefully skip over this code in this article.
The programming code for this GMSK receiver application can be found here.
In the end, believe it or not, it actually turns out that understanding a D-STAR stream isn't so difficult to all.
10 basic facts
If you search the internet for specifications about D-STAR, you will come across some words and terms that -for people who know digital communication- are common knowledge. These words provide certain basic information that one should be aware of. So, if you bare with me, here are the "10 basic facts about GMSK and D-STAR you should know and understand":
- Digital: D-STAR is a digital communication system. This means that speech is not transmitted as a varying analog signal (like FM, AM or SSB) but converted to and transmitted as a serie of 0s and 1s ("bits").
- GMSK: Althou we want to transmit speech as a serie of digital 0s and 1s, we still need to do this using analog radio-equipement. For that reason, the bits are converted into "tones" so it can be transmitted over an analog radio. This is the reason why, if you tune a analog FM radio to the frequency of a D-STAR repeater, a D-STAR signal will sound like "buzzing noises". There exist a number of such "modulation" systems: FSK, PSK, ASK. The system used by D-STAR is GMSK, a system related to PSK.
- FM modulated: as all HAMs should know, transporting a analog signal with a radio can be done using a number of different modulation technologies: AM, SSB or FM. Just like certain other digital technologies (notebly packetradio and APRS), GMSK uses FM modulation. This explains why it is possible to use a normal FM-transceiver to send and receive GMSK signals.
- 9k6 data port: One of the things where a GMSK modem differs from a normal FM voice communication (and from packet-radio and APRS), is that it uses the "9k6″ dataport to the radio, instead of the normal "microphone/speaker" ports. That port is different from the other ports on a FM transceiver that is bypassed the "emphasis/deemphasis" circuit of a FM radio. These circuits modify the audio in a way which would change the gmsk "tones" and therefore also change the bits they carry. Hence, to avoid this, a gmsk modem is connected to the 9k6 port of a FM transceiver.
- 4800: that is the number of bits per second that are send by a D-STAR radio. These bits can be divided into 3 groups: 2400 bits/second "voice" information, 1200 bits/second "forward error correction" bits, used to protect the voice-information from transmission-errors and correct them if possible, and 1200 bits/second "slow data".
- structured: althou when listening to a gmsk stream one wouldn't say it, the bits in a gmsk stream do have a fixed predefined structure. In short, it consists of a header-frame of 328 bits that contain such information like the callsign of the sender and any number of data-frames of 12 octets each that containing digital voice and slow-data.
- Syncronisation: in addition to the structure mentioned above, a D-STAR GMSK stream also contains some special bitsequences that are needed for syncronisation. These are needed so that the receiver listens for bits at exactly the exact time that the transmitter has sended them. Syncronisation bits are used to mark the beginning of the stream (hence located in front of the D-STAR configuration frame), to mark that a stream has ended and also every 21 frames (i.e. every 420 milliseconds) to keep the receiver "in tempo" with the sender.
- 20ms: A voice communication -which can take up to minutes- cannot be processed at one go by a digital voice system. It is cut into pieces of 20 milliseconds each. This allows the voice to be processed by the "vocoder" (see one below) and converted into 9 octets (6 octets voice data + 3 octets error-correction). These 9 octets, plus 3 octets of "slow-data" make up the 12 octets that go into every dataframe (see one above).
- AMBE: 20 ms of unprocessed voice information normally takes up 160 octets. To fit it into the 6 octets of voice-data that D-STAR can carry, it needed to converted by a so-called "codec" (coder/decoder) or "vocoder" (short for "voice coder"). The vocoder used by D-STAR is called "AMBE".
- DVdongle: The GMSK receiver software does not deal with the AMBE vocoder. It just dumps the received stream onto a local file and does not process the voice stream in any way. Software that DO want to encode or decode audio uses an external device for this (called the "DVdongle") as the software that does the conversion from or to the AMBE format is not public and can only be bought in the form of a IC.
Hardware setup
Software is all nice but, in the end, hardware is always needed to get the received audio into the computer board running the GMSK modem. In this example, the setup is very limited:
(click on photo for more details)
These are the hardware components that are used:
- A FM tranceiver with a 9k6 data-port (in this case, a Yaesu FT-857D)
- Any kind of computing-device, either a "PC" class computer or developement board (in this photo, I used the pandaboard, but this can also run on less powerfull like the mini2440 also visible in the photo)
- Any audio input device, either the native audio-in port of the computer / developement board, or an external USB fob. In this case, this device was used as these are known to work well. They have been tested quite thoughtly by the people of the freestar D-STAR network in Canada.
- A cable connection the audio input device with the radio. In some cases, a capacitor is needed between the transceiver and the dongle to block the DC component. However, on the Yaesu FT-857D, there already is a capacitor located on the 9k6 port of the radio so there is no capacitor on the connection cable.
Note that in this setup, the connection between the radio and the USB audiofob are just two wired that are soldered together and hang freely in the air. This would -of course- not be something you would do in a operational enviroment as this would pick up all kind of RF interference from all kind of sources (like the two development boards and a laptop located closeby).
From an software-development point of view, as programs have to be able to deal with interference and biterrors, this "bad" interface actually helps to make the code more robust. A more complete interface circuit can be here, as provided by Ramesh, VA3UV.
Step 1: capturing and analysing an audio-stream
As mentioned above, this article looks at a GMSK D-STAR stream, as seen by an computer application that needs to decode it.
Sample 1:
So, the first step is … to do the same thing and listen what the gmsk decoder receives from the radio. Click below to listen to audio sample 1 (6 seconds):
So what do we hear? … Nothing? … Not really. We DO hear someting: noise!
This is a first interesting fact. When receiving audio from the 9k6 audio receive port of a radio, there is no "squelch" function. The reason for that is very simple: the 9k6 "port of a tranceiver is position BEFORE the FM discriminator while the audio "squelch" function is located completely at the end of the audio reception circuit.
Sample 2:
Next, audio sample 2 (16 seconds). Click below:
As one can hear, this audio-sample contains two gmsk burst, surrounded by noise. As the saying goes "a picture shows more then a thousand words", this is the actual visual dump of this audio-file, as generated by the audio editor Audicity.
So, again, we have the same things:
- Two "bulb" of GMSK streams
- Surrounded by noise when nothing is being received.
Another interesting fact is the audio-level of the received noise, when no FM signal is being received, is actually higher then there is a valid signal entering the FM receiver circuit.
A close-up of the beginning of the stream
Let's make a close ups of one of the gmsk bursts in the stream. As shown on the timescale, this is the beginning of the 2nd gmsk burst. See image below:
Visually, it is very easy to distinguish three different parts.
- Up to marker 7.985, no signal is being received, so the radio is picking up noise.
- Between 7.990 and 8.105, we see a very regular pattern
- From 8.195 onwards, this pattern becomes much more varied.
The explanation for this can be found in the 6th and 7th "basic fact" mentioned above. A D-STAR stream is not just a random stream of bits, it has a fixed structure. In particular, in front of the D-STAR stream itself, there is a fixed "syncronisation pattern" which marks the start of the stream. This patterns is not only fixed, it's also very regular.
Another nice element in this audio-sample is the small "hick up" just at the beginning of the syncronisation pattern (around timestamp 7.990). The reason for it is currently not completely clear and discussions in our local radio-club center around either the behaviour of the VFO PLL circuit of the FM receiver and the effect of capacitors in the audio-ports of the receiver and the USB audiofob.
Demodulated signal of the beginning of a stream
Now, as a good journalist, one needs to have at least two independant sources to trust a story. So what does it actually look like when we GMSK demodulate this audio-stream? As the "gmsk receiver" has an option "-dd" (dump more), it is possible to see what the program actually sees coming in.
The process that creates this bittrain goes like this:
- The application captures an audio sample every 1/48000 second
- The value of that sample is send to the "gmsk demodulate function" (one of the "magical" pieces of code) which turns this into a "0″ or a "1″
- As we are sampling 48,000 samples per second but the gmsk signal only runs at 4,800 bits per second (one tenth of the sampling rate), some additional code is needed to take care of this. Again, we will concider this code is a "magic box" that we will accept "as it".
So, back to the audio-sample. Let's GMSK demodulate it and see what we get. First up, demodulation of the noise. This is the result:
00111000 10011100 00000010 00001000 00110111 11011111 00000000 10000001 00000000 00101101 10011111 10111111 11000001 11010010 01111010 01100001 00101000 00110100 00000000 01110100 10011010 00110000 00011000 10011011 00011101 10000111 10000111 11100111 10100011 11110101 11100000 11110000 11100110 11000001 01111101 10100001 (...)
(Note that the grouping of the bits in groups of 8 is just to make things a bit more readable, it has no special meaning).
Conclussion: as noise is in fact nothing else then a bunch or random voltage levels, turning this into a bitstream of 0s and 1s just produces a random string of 0s and 1s. OK, so far, nothing world shocking.
But then, a bit further, things do get more interesting.
(...) 10000110 00010000 00000001 00010111 11010110 10010100 00111111 10100111 00100011 00111101 00111100 10111111 11101000 10000001 11111101 11101010 11101101 10111111 00010000 11101011 11110000 00000000 11111110 10000000 00001000 11000001 01111100 11111000 10111101 11111111 11111100 00011111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 11011101 01111101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 01010101 010 ... 11101 10010100 00
As we can see, at a certain moment, a fixed patterns starts to emerge: first all "1″ and then a repetitions of "1010″. Let's look in the specification what this means. See page 3 of the "shogen" document:
2.1 Wireless Communication Packet 2.1.1 Frame structure of a packet: The explanation of the data frame structure the Radio Header follows. (1) Bit Syn. (Bit synchronization): Repeated standard 64-bit synchronization pattern (for GMSK 1010). (...)
So, what we are seeing here, is the beginning of a D-STAR stream: at first, the receiver and the gmsk needed some time to syncronise themselfs, but after about 20 ms, the fixed "1010″ appears.
This is not only exactly as the specifications say how it should be, it also corresponds nicely with the audio-sample. As every line in the bitdump above corresponds to 20 ms, the whole process of syncronisation takes about 120 ms (6 lines) which is also shown in the dump of the audio file. Additional proof found!
So, what's next? Well, let's again have a look at the specification:
2.1 Wireless Communication Packet 2.1.1 Frame structure of a packet: The explanation of the data frame structure the Radio Header follows. (...) (2) Frame Syn. (Frame synchronization) : 15bit pattern (111011001010000). (...)
Looking again at the bitdump, this 15 bit "frame sync" patterhn is exactly what we see at the end!!!
This "frame sync" bitpattern is nothing else then a marker in the frame-structure saying "here stops the bit syncronisation and starts the next part: the D-STAR header frame".
The D-STAR header
As the specification says, the parts following the frame syn pattern is the D-STAR header frame. Let's have a look at the output of the GMSK demodulator. It returns this information:
HEADER DUMP: FLAG1: 00 - FLAG2: 00 - FLAG3: 00 RPT 2: DIRECT RPT 1: DIRECT YOUR : CQCQCQ MY : ON1ARF /KRIS Check sum = E441 (OK)
As one might see, this is just the same information that one has to fill in into a D-STAR transceiver, plus 3 "flag" octets and a 2 octet checksum.
Based on this, one would say that the header would have a length of 328 bits (41 octets * 8), however that is not the case. The header is no less then 660 bits. To understand the reason for this, we will have a look at the (simplified) source-code of the gmsk decoder.
In the programming code processing the 660 bits received after the frame-sync sequence, we find this:
scramble(radioheaderbuffer_in,radioheaderbuffer_temp1); deinterleave(radioheaderbuffer_temp1,radioheaderbuffer_temp2); length=FECdecoder(radioheaderbuffer_temp3,radioheaderbuffer_out);
The received header bits are processed by 3 different functions: scrambling, deinterleaving and FECdecoding. Explaining the reason for this is however more easy if we look at what happens at the opposite side, at the transmitter. Overthere, we see the same processes, but in reverse order: first FECencoding, then interleaving and finally scrambling.
As is explained below, these three processes are there to make the transmission of the header more robust, i.e. to make them better capable to deal with packet loss.
Step 0: adding two bits
The very first step in this process is a bit strange. Before processing, two bits (containing 0) are added at the end of the 328 bits of the header. These bits do actually not have any particalur use (hence "step 0″), They do increase the header-size from 328 to 330 bits.
Step 1: FEC
The first real step in processing the header on the sender side is "FECencoding". FEC means "Forward Error Correction" and it does just as its name implies. It makes a stream better able to deal with errors, even BEFORE transmitting it.
The idea is very simple. By adding bits to the stream that is being send, when bits get corrupted during the transmission, the receiver (actually the FECdecoding algorithm in the receiver software) can use these additional "error correction" bits to correct the faulty ones. How FEC really works internally is something will we gracefull pass over in this article.
What is interesting to know is that the particular system used in the D-STAR header creates one additional bit for every data bit; hence doubling the size of the header from 330 to 660 bits.
Step 2: interleaving
The second step is a process called "interleaving", which is just a fancy word for "juggling bits around". This means that you complety change the order in which the bits are transmitted. If the header would be only 4 bits, instead of sending the bits as "1 – 2 – 3 – 4″, they would be send as "1 – 3 – 2 – 4″. This may look like a very odd thing to do, but there actually is a very good reason for this. It is related to the Forward Error Correction mechanism described above.
As mentioned above, the FEC algorith tries to make a stream more robust by adding error-correction bits to the stream. However, these error-correction bits are located just next the data-bit. In our 4-bit header example, bits 1 and 2 form one FEC pair and so would bits 3 and 4.
Now, all these 4 bits are send sequencially. image that, during transmission, there is a interference pulse that not only wipes out bit 1 but also bit 2, both bits of the FEC pair will be corrupted and the FEC system will not able to correct this. This is where the "interleaving" system comes it. By spreading out the 660 bits of the header, this makes it less vulnerable to these kind of "impulse noise" interference. The bits of the FEC pair are located much more appart.
Programming-wize, interleaving is very easy to implement with just a plain lookup table.
Step 3: scrambling
Althou the name might indicate otherwize, scrambling has nothing to do with encryption. This process -also known as randomizing- is related to how datacommunications systems keep themselfs syncronised.
GMSK demodulation use the timing of the transitions from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 0 to keep the receiving GMSK demodulation process in sync with the sender. These exact timestamps are used as markers to avoid the GMSK receiver losing sync. For that reason, long sequences of all-0 or all-1 are something that need to be avoided.
What the scrambling-process does is convert a bit-sequence into another (predetermined) sequence, making these all-0′s and all-1′s less lickely. Luckely, there are open source software-modules to implement scrambling so we do not need to worry to much about it.
Note the the scrambling-process on the server side is exactly the same in the receiver. There does not exist a seperate "unscrambling" function.
So, to summarize:
- The D-STAR header frame contains the information like callsigns, that are needed for routing a D-STAR stream.
- To make it less prone to transmission errors, three processes are applied to it, resulting in a structure that is twice its original size
- Luckely, there exist open source software for these functions, so we can just concider this as a "magical black box"
- At 4800 bits per second, ransmitting the header takes 137.5 ms.
Finally, voice
Let's look at the specification what is next. Page 5 provides the answer: a sequence of the voice and slow-data information.
The structure of this part of the stream is very simple. Every 20 ms, there 96 bits (12 octets) are send:
- 72 bits (9 octets) of AMBE encoded voice
- 24 bits (3 octets) of slow-data
Looking at the bitstream dump, there is not that much to see at first sight:
11011111 11010000 00011000 00011001 11100110 10010100 10110111 11111111 10011101 10101010 10110100 01101000 01111101 01010000 01100000 00011111 10100100 11011100 10001001 01100010 10100111 00001100 00100000 10000011 01011111 10010001 01010000 00000011 10100100 11111100 10011111 11100000 10100101 10011100 00111000 11100011 (...)
Every line (containing 12 octets) represents 20 ms. The left 9 octets contain the digital voice + FEC. The right 3 octets contain slow-data.
Concerning slow data, two things need to be noted:
- The 3 octets of slow data of the first frame and every 21 consequative frame do not contain slow-data. Instead, they contain a fixed pattern (10101010 10110100 01101000), as seen in the example above. This pattern is an additional syncronisation pattern that is used to keep the receiver in sync with the sender. This will be explained more in detail in a later article.
- The slow-data found in the other frames are processed by the same scrambling process as used on the header frame. Again, the goal is to avoid long all-1 and all-0 sequences that would risk upsetting the syncronisation of the GMSK demodulator.
The end
After the header of the voice stream and the actual voice and slow-data frames, we arrive at the last part of the stream: the end.
One of the advantages of a digital telecommunication stream is that you can actually mark the end of a stream INSIDE the stream. You do not have to depend on some carrier dropping away. By saying "the stream stops here", this allows the stream to be terminated much more correct.
Again, let's look at the specification and see what it says. At page 6 of the document, we read this:
"The last data frame, which requires a means of terminating the transmission, is a unique synchronizing signal (32 bit + 15bit "000100110101111" + "0", making 48 bits) as defined by the modulation type.".
Hum! Interesting wording!
Looking at the simplified source-code, we see that this "unique syncronisation signal" is equivalent to the following bitpattern:
- The last 3 octets of a frame contain the pattern "10101010 10101010 10101010″
- The first 3 octets of the next frame contain the pattern 10101010 00010011 01011110″
Again, we look at the output of the gmsk receiver program, and we see this:
Now, if you look at this carefully, you see that the pattern does not completly match. The 10th octet of the last full frame should contain "10101010″ but it contains something else. However, that pattern is still correctly seen as a valid "END" marker by the functions that have to detect an end of a stream.
The reason is that these functions are coded in such a way that it can deal with small errors. In this case, it allows up to 3 bit errors. If this would not be done, a single biterror in the transmission of the "end" marker would risk the receiver completely missing the end of the stream.
The picture below shows this pattern, as it was received by the board:
The end-sequence pattern can be found between timestamp 11.844 and 11.850 (with the 16-times "01″ nicely showing up). And it even shows why the beginning of this patterns was incorrectly decoded: there seams to be some drift on the signal.
This shows one of main difficulties with programming a GMSK receiver: making it work correctly, even if the stream contains biterrors. But that is a subject that will discussed in a later article.
This finished this article on the structure of a D-STAR stream. I hope that it has been a little bit instructive.
If you have any questions or remarks, discussions about this subject can be best done on the gmsk_dv_modem group on yahoo. Feel free to drop by!
Kristoff – ON1ARF


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A man was rescued this morning from a boat after it struck the south jetties in Charleston Harbor, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials. The 21-foot, center-console vessel struck the jetties around 8:45 a.m., officials said. Only one person was on board and he was picked up by rescue workers. The man had a small gash on his head and is receiving medical attention, officials said. The boat remains on the jetties and it's the owner's responsibility to have it removed, according to authorities. The U.S. Coast Guard, Charleston County Rescue Squad and the Charleston County Sheriff's Office performed the rescue.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Woman steals car with 2 children in back seatUPDATED 5:19 PM CDT Apr 29, 2013
Two children were found safe after a woman's car was stolen outside of a Kansas City, Kan., gas station Monday morning.
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Sunday Shark Bytes
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When did you last check your spam folder?
I've been getting numerous emails recently such as 'why aren't I receiving my comment notification emails', 'I haven't received the emails for my student's login details' and 'why haven't you responded to my email.'
Unfortunately, gmail users are being caught out by legitimate emails being sent to spam and since by default gmail now hides the spam folder they aren't realising.
Here's my advice:
- Change your gmail spam folder to show
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How to change your gmail spam folder setting
By default the spam folder is now located underneath the More drop down menu.
To always have your spam folder display you can either:
1. Drag your spam label out of the More area and into your main menu
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Final Thoughts
Looking for more tips on using email?
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Make sure when emailing from an education email account you include an alternative email address such as gmail or hotmail.
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Author Affiliations: Departments of Psychiatry (Drs McKee and O'Malley), Epidemiology and Public Health (Drs Falba and Sindelar), and Internal Medicine (Dr O'Connor), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn. Dr Falba is now with the Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC.
Screening for alcohol use in primary care settings is recommended by clinical care guidelines but is not adhered to as strongly as screening for smoking. It has been proposed that smoking status could be used to enhance the identification of alcohol misuse in primary care and other medical settings, but national data are lacking. Our objective was to investigate smoking status as a clinical indicator for alcohol misuse in a national sample of US adults, following clinical care guidelines for the assessment of these behaviors.
Analyses are based on a sample of 42 374 US adults from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (Wave I, 2001-2002). Odds ratios (ORs), 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and test characteristics (sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and positive likelihood ratio of smoking behavior [daily, occasional, or former]) were determined for the detection of hazardous drinking behavior and alcohol-related diagnoses, assessed by the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-IV.
Daily, occasional, and ex-smokers were more likely than never smokers to be hazardous drinkers (OR, 3.23 [95% CI, 3.02-3.46]; OR, 5.33 [95% CI, 4.70-6.04]; OR, 1.19 [95% CI, 1.10-1.28], respectively). Daily and occasional smokers were more likely to meet criteria for alcohol diagnoses (OR, 3.52 [95% CI, 3.19-3.90] and OR, 5.39 [95% CI, 4.60-6.31], respectively). For the detection of hazardous drinking by current smoking (occasional smokers + daily smokers), sensitivity was 42.5%; specificity, 81.9%; positive predictive value, 45.3% (vs population rate of 26.1%); and positive likelihood ratio, 2.34. For the detection of alcohol diagnoses by current smoking, sensitivity was 51.4%; specificity, 78.0%; positive predictive value, 17.8% (vs population rate of 8.5%); and positive likelihood ratio, 2.33.
Occasional and daily smokers were at heightened risk for hazardous drinking and alcohol use diagnoses. Smoking status can be used as a clinical indicator for alcohol misuse and as a reminder for alcohol screening in general.
The current National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) Clinician's Guide, Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much,1 not only recommends screening for alcohol use disorders but also advocates screening for less severe "at risk" or hazardous drinking. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)2 recommends screening for alcohol misuse (which includes hazardous drinking, alcohol abuse, and alcohol dependence) and has assigned a grade-B recommendation for screening and brief interventions for hazardous alcohol consumption in primary care settings. Even though screening3- 6 and brief interventions7,8 provided in primary care settings are effective, clinicians have low rates of adherence to the guidelines for screening for alcohol misuse.9,10 Using a national sample, Edlund et al11 estimate that only 30% of individuals who had a primary care visit reported being screened for an alcohol or drug use problem. In contrast, physicians are much more likely to screen and apply brief interventions to address smoking behavior.12,13 Studies of physician and patient reports and medical record reviews find that the majority of primary care patients are screened for smoking status (81%).14 Smoking status is more likely to be recorded in the medical chart than is drinking behavior.15,16 Studies of medical patients suggest that smoking status and alcohol misuse are highly associated, such that current smoking status may be used to help identify problem drinkers.17- 21 In a sample of German medical patients, the rate of daily smoking was 47.1% in those with alcohol misuse, compared with 18.4% in the general population.20 In a sample of medical and dental patients, the rate of hazardous drinking was 20.3% in current smokers and 11.7% in current nonsmokers.21
The National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; Wave I, 2001-2002)22 provides a unique opportunity to investigate the sensitivity and specificity of smoking status as an indicator of alcohol misuse among US adults following clinical care guidelines for the assessment of these behaviors. Current and prior smoking behavior (daily, occasional, or former smoker) was assessed rather than nicotine dependence to be consistent with clinical care guidelines for screening of smoking status in primary care settings.23,24 Drinking behavior was assessed according to NIAAA screening guidelines, which recommend first assessing current drinking status and then hazardous drinking status, followed by alcohol use diagnoses. Thus, the goals of this study were to use the NESARC database to answer the following questions: (1) Can smoking status (daily, occasional, or former) be used to detect alcohol misuse (hazardous drinking and alcohol-related diagnoses)? And (2) Is smoking status differentially related to alcohol misuse?
The NESARC study (Wave I, 2001-2002) was conducted by the NIAAA. The data were collected by personal interviews with 43 093 civilian, noninstitutionalized adults (age, ≥18 years) residing in the United States. The response rate was reported to be 81% and was calculated by multiplying the household response rate (89%), person response rate (93%), and sample frame response rate (99%).22 African Americans, Hispanics, and adults aged 18 to 24 years were oversampled. In our analyses, the data were weighted to account for oversampling and to adjust for nonresponse. The weighted data were further adjusted to be representative of the US civilian population using the 2000 decennial census. Further details of the sampling, purpose, and weighting have been published elsewhere.22
Current (anytime within the past 12 months) smoking and drinking behavior and alcohol diagnostic criteria were assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorders and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule–DSM-IV [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition] Version (AUDADIS-IV).25 The AUDADIS-IV has demonstrated both reliability and validity for the assessment of smoking and drinking behavior and alcohol use disorders.26- 28
In the present study, the NESARC data were coded into the following categories for past 12-month cigarette use29:
Daily: someone who at the time of the survey was smoking cigarettes at least once per day.
Occasional: someone who currently smokes cigarettes but not every day.
Ex-smoker: a nonuser who has previously been a daily or occasional smoker.
Never smoker: a nonuser who has never used any tobacco product.
Smoking status was assessed with the following variables: "tobacco use status" (current user, ex-user, or lifetime nonuser), "cigarette smoking status" (smoked in the past 12 months or smoked prior to the last 12 months), and "usual frequency when smoked." As defined, these variables were designed to replicate the smoking status information that is typically collected by health care providers in primary care and other medical settings and are recommended by clinical care guidelines.23,24
The NIAAA guidelines,1 which define hazardous drinkers as those exceeding sex-specific weekly limits (men, >14 drinks per week; women, >7 drinks per week) or exceeding daily drinking limits (men, ≥5 drinks per day; women, ≥4 drinks per day at least once in the past year) were used to define hazardous drinking. Current drinking in the NESARC was defined as "drank at least 1 alcoholic drink in the last 12 months." To determine whether weekly quantity limits were exceeded, we converted the variable "average daily volume of ethanol intake" (see NESARC data notes for calculation30) to weekly number of drinks consumed (using a standard of 0.6 oz [17.0 g] of ethanol per drink).31 To determine whether daily criteria were exceeded, frequency of binge drinking was assessed with the variable of "how often an individual consumed 5 or more (for men) or 4 or more drinks (for women) of any alcohol in the last 12 months." Frequencies of binge drinking were converted to days per week using the midpoints of the categorical responses. These criteria for hazardous drinking are easily assessed in primary care settings.
The AUDADIS-IV uses DSM-IV 32 criteria to determine alcohol diagnoses. In health care settings, DSM-IV criteria are the standard by which alcohol abuse and dependence are diagnosed. A diagnosis of alcohol dependence requires 3 or more of the following events in the past year: tolerance; withdrawal; drinking more or longer than intended; persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control alcohol use; a great deal of time spent obtaining alcohol, using it, or recovering from its effect; important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of alcohol; and continued use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem caused or exacerbated by alcohol. A diagnosis of alcohol abuse requires 1 or more of the following events in the past year: recurrent use resulting in failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home; recurrent use in physically hazardous situations; recurrent alcohol-related legal problems; and continued use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by alcohol. Individuals who met criteria for either alcohol abuse or dependence were categorized as having an alcohol diagnosis.
Absolute and relative frequencies of alcohol misuse by smoking status were calculated both with and without sample weights for each of the 3 outcomes (hazardous drinkers vs all others, hazardous drinkers vs nonhazardous drinkers, and those with an alcohol diagnosis vs all others). Logistic regressions were used to analyze the statistical significance of differences in alcohol misuse rates by daily, occasional, and former smokers relative to never smokers. Using these regression results, we determined an ordering of smoking status risk for the following evaluation of smoking status as a clinical indicator for each of the alcohol misuse outcomes. Occasional smokers represented the highest risk level, followed by current smokers (occasional + daily), current or prior smokers (occasional + daily + former), and last, all subjects (occasional+ daily + former + never). Specificity, sensitivity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and positive likelihood ratio (LR+) statistics were calculated for successively lower levels of smoking risk. Sensitivity was calculated as the proportion of individuals with alcohol misuse who were at a particular smoking risk level (ie, rate of true positives). Specificity was calculated as the proportion of individuals without alcohol misuse, who were not at that particular smoking risk level (ie, rate of true negatives). Positive predictive value was calculated as the probability that the individual misused alcohol given that a particular level of smoking risk was met. Conversely, NPV was calculated as the probability that a person did not misuse alcohol given that the individual was not at that level of smoking risk. The LR+ was calculated as the ratio of the chance of alcohol misuse in individuals who were at a particular smoking risk level relative to those who did not meet criteria for alcohol misuse. Positive likelihood ratio is a method of converting the pretest probability (ie, population prevalence for alcohol misuse) into posttest probabilities.33 All estimates, standard errors, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were generated by STATA version 9.1 (StataCorp, College Station, Tex) using survey commands to account for the complex sampling design of the NESARC data.
The population prevalence of hazardous drinking and alcohol diagnoses were 26.1% and 8.5%, respectively. Current drinkers made up 65.5% of the population, and their rate of hazardous drinking was 39.9%. Prevalence rates for the smoking status categories were 20.6% for daily smokers, 3.9% for occasional smokers, 19.5% for former smokers, and 56.0% for never smokers.
Table 1 presents smoking status by NIAAA criteria for hazardous drinking for the full sample. Daily (odds ratio [OR], 3.23; 95% CI, 3.02-3.46), occasional (OR, 5.33; 95% CI, 4.70-6.04), and ex-smokers (OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.10-1.28) compared with never smokers were more likely to exceed the daily (≥5 drinks per day for men and ≥4 drinks per day for women at least once in the past year) or weekly drinking limits (>14 drinks per week for men and >7 drinks per week for women). Furthermore, occasional smokers (with daily smokers as the reference group) had the greatest odds of being a hazardous drinker (OR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.45-1.88). A similar pattern was found for the presence of alcohol diagnoses and for hazardous drinking among the subset of drinkers. There was 1 exception. Former smokers were not more likely than never smokers to have an alcohol diagnosis or to meet criteria for hazardous drinking (vs nonhazardous drinkers).
Table 2 presents test characteristics for smoking status as a clinical indicator for presence of hazardous drinking and alcohol diagnoses. Across the levels of smoking risk (excluding never smokers), sensitivity was low to moderate (8.3%-59.0%), whereas specificity was moderate to high (61.3%-97.7%) for the prediction of hazardous drinking in the full sample. The PPV and LR+ indicated that smoking status provided added information for the presence of hazardous drinking in the full sample; PPV (35.0%-55.8%) and LR+ (1.52-3.57) were found to increase as smoking status risk increased. This pattern of results was also demonstrated for hazardous drinking in the drinkers subset (PPV, 47.6%-63.7%; LR+, 1.37-2.65) and for the presence of alcohol diagnoses (PPV, 12.4%-23.5%; LR+, 1.53-3.31).
Following clinical care guidelines for the assessment of smoking and drinking behaviors, we identified that current smokers were significantly more likely to be hazardous drinkers and to meet criteria for alcohol diagnoses compared with never smokers among US adults. Overall, test characteristic data highlight that smoking status signifies heightened risk for alcohol misuse. While specificity was moderate to high (range, 56.8%-97.7%), smoking status was generally not a sensitive indicator for alcohol misuse (range, 8.3%-64.5%). However, other indicators (ie, PPV and LR+) demonstrated that smoking status provided added benefit for the prediction of hazardous drinking and alcohol diagnoses. Among individuals with unknown drinking status (ie, full sample), 26.1% met criteria for hazardous drinking and 8.5% met criteria for an alcohol diagnosis. Among current smokers, these rates were 45.3% for hazardous drinking and 17.8% for an alcohol diagnosis. Among known drinkers, smoking status still provided added predictive power. The rate of hazardous drinking among drinkers was 39.9%, and in drinkers who were also current smokers, the rate was 58%.
To our knowledge, this study is the first to document that occasional, nondaily smoking confers the greatest risk associated with hazardous drinking (OR, 5.33; 95% CI, 4.70-6.04) and alcohol-related diagnoses (OR, 5.39; 95% CI, 4.60-6.31). Occasional smokers had a 55.8% probability of meeting criteria for hazardous drinking in the full sample and 63.7% probability in the subset of drinkers. In addition, occasional smoking was associated with an increased likelihood of meeting criteria for an alcohol diagnosis (LR+, 3.31; 95% CI, 3.00-3.73). In the current sample, occasional smokers represented 17% of current smokers, which is consistent with other population studies that have reported rates of nondaily smoking at 18% to 24% of current smokers.34- 36 It was typically assumed that these smokers were either transitioning in or out of daily use, but it has been demonstrated that many of these smokers have stable patterns of nondaily smoking.37,38 We suspect that nondaily smoking is more likely to occur while drinking heavily, but this has yet to be investigated in a national population. In samples of young adults, it has been found that intermittent smoking is most likely to occur during binge drinking.39 Alcohol and tobacco are thought to potentiate each other's reinforcing effects40,41 and amounts consumed.42 Laboratory-based investigations have shown that nicotine decreases subjective intoxication and attenuates the sedating properties of alcohol,43 potentially allowing for larger quantities to be consumed. Our results point to the importance of assessing binge drinking in nondaily smokers.
Overall, the addition of former smoker status to current smoker status represented little added benefit in the ability to predict alcohol misuse. Among current and former smokers, 35% were likely to meet criteria for hazardous drinking, and the likelihood of hazardous drinking was increased 1.52 times. Former smokers, compared with never smokers, had an increased risk for hazardous drinking (OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.10-1.28) in the full sample but not in the subset of drinkers, nor was there an increased risk for alcohol diagnoses in the full sample. This suggests that former smokers made up a larger percentage of nonhazardous drinkers. Given the cross-sectional nature of these data, however, we are unable to infer causality. It is possible that nonhazardous drinkers were more likely to be able to quit smoking. For example, alcohol use has been identified as a risk factor for poor smoking cessation outcome.44 It is also possible that smoking cessation was then followed by reductions in alcohol consumption.45
Clinical care guidelines recommend routine screening and brief intervention for alcohol and tobacco use in primary and other health care settings. However, smoking behavior is more often assessed than alcohol use.12- 16 Some have suggested that screening for smoking behavior be elevated to the status of a vital sign.46,47 In this regard, patients should be asked about their cigarette use to identify daily, occasional, or former smokers (eg, "Have you smoked any cigarettes in the past year?" If no, "Have you smoked prior to the last 12 months?"). Our data suggest that smoking status provides an added benefit as an indicator of alcohol misuse. While the sensitivity was low to moderate, information regarding potential alcohol misuse is gained at no additional cost and with no risk, since smoking status is already being assessed.
We are not suggesting that smoking status is a sufficient test of alcohol misuse. Its modest sensitivity is related to the fact that never smokers accounted for a sizeable proportion of those meeting criteria for hazardous drinking and alcohol diagnoses (approximately 40%). Our data highlight the importance of physicians adopting standard alcohol screening questions into their practice. The NIAAA1 suggests that screening methods for alcohol misuse can be as brief as a single question (How many times in the past year have you had ≥5 [for men] or ≥4 [for women] drinks in a day?). Identification of more than 1 binge episode in the past year has excellent sensitivity but lower specificity for an alcohol diagnosis.48
Smoking status can be used to help identify primary care patients at higher risk for alcohol misuse (ie, current smokers) and as a helpful mnemonic for alcohol screening in general. Smoking status and alcohol use should be assessed using the aforementioned clinically relevant questions. Better screening of alcohol use problems could lead to better assessment and intervention related to alcohol misuse. Brief interventions are particularly suitable for addressing problem drinking,7,8 but first, the risk for these problems must be identified. Identifying those with alcohol misuse is increasingly valuable as evidence accumulates that medications such as naltrexone49,50 can be effective treatments in primary care settings. The spectrum of problem drinking behaviors that are amenable to office-based treatment in primary care is expanding from nondependent hazardous drinking to alcohol dependence.50 Thus, improved screening approaches such as one that uses smoking behavior as a "trigger" to identify alcohol misuse become even more vital in promoting optimal patient management and outcomes.
Correspondence: Sherry A. McKee, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, Substance Abuse Center–CMHC, 34 Park St, Suite S-211, New Haven, CT 06519 (email@example.com).
Accepted for Publication: December 7, 2006.
Author Contributions: Drs Falba and McKee had full access to the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analyses. Study concept and design: McKee, Falba, Sindelar, and O'Malley. Analysis and interpretation of data: McKee, Falba, and O'Connor. Drafting of the manuscript: McKee and Falba. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: McKee, Falba, Sindelar, O'Malley, and O'Connor. Statistical analyses: McKee and Falba. Obtained funding: McKee and Sindelar. Administrative, technical, or material support. McKee, Sindelar, O'Malley, and O'Connor. Study supervision: McKee and Sindelar.
Financial Disclosure: During the period that the study was conducted, Dr O'Malley was a consultant for GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly, was the principal investigator on trials sponsored by OrthoMcNeill and Bristol Myers, received clinical supplies from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, and is an investigator for a trial that received clinical supplies from Sanofi-Aventis; Dr O'Malley is the inventor on patents held by Yale University for naltrexone and smoking cessation.
Funding/Support: This work was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (grant R03AA16267 [Dr McKee] and grants P50AA015632 and KO5AA014715 [Dr O'Malley] and by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (grant 039787 [Dr Sindelar]).
Role of the Sponsor: All study funding was from public grants for scientific research. The funding organizations had no role in the design of the study, analyses, and interpretation of data, or in the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
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Some games really don't require a whole lot of statistical analysis.
Syracuse's 93-65 defeat of Binghamton on Saturday is one of them.
The Orange was better in nearly every meaningful way: Better shooting, better outside shooting, superior offensive rebounding, a deeper bench and half as many turnovers. Binghamton did make it to the foul line more often, but that hardly mattered as Syracuse collected its ninth consecutive victory to open the season.
Here's a closer examination of the four factors, three of which tilt heavily to the Orange.
(.5 x 3FG + FGM) / FGA
Syracuse: .549 (13 3FGM, 33 FGM, 72 FGA)
Binghamton: .420 (6 3FGM, 19 FGM, 50 FGA)
Syracuse has the comfortable edge in this category, but the difference in the effective field goal percentage isn't the jarring number listed above. It is the actual field goals attempted that stands out.
It's a function in part of both turnovers and offensive rebounds, and both of those will be delved into shortly. But it also is a reflection of a heavier reliance on 3-pointers for the Orange, especially since four players hit multiple shots from beyond the arc on Saturday.
Syracuse: 12.3 percent (9 turnovers/73 possessions)
Binghamton: 25.0 percent (18 turnovers/72 possessions)
Again and again and again, this remains an incredible strength for the Orange. Binghamton's turnover percentage was actually lower than what Syracuse forced over its previous four games (three in the Maui Invitational and another against Indiana). Of course, there wasn't much incentive to be overly active on defense with a large lead, either.
The Orange had a 34-4 edge off turnovers, which means it got almost a basket for every takeaway. Scoring 34 points off 18 turnovers in any game is a remarkable feat.
Offensive rebounds / (Offensive rebounds + Opponent's defensive rebounds)
Syracuse: 47.7 percent (21 offensive rebounds, 23 Binghamton defensive rebounds)
Binghamton: 35.1 percent (13 offensive rebounds, 24 Syracuse defensive rebounds)
This is what's to be expected in this matchup, given the activity of the Syracuse frontcourt and the general talent disparity. If anything, Binghamton's offensive rebounding percentage is perfectly respectable and perhaps even a bit impressive under the circumstances.
Syracuse held a 28-13 second-chance points edge, reflecting its ability to create multiple opportunities for itself on offense.
FT attempted / FG attempted
Syracuse: .333 (24 free throws attempted/72 field goals attempted)
Binghamton: .640 (32 free throws attempted/50 field goals attempted)
Credit to the Bearcats for getting to the line about as often as they could. But ultimately, this category just didn't matter very much. The percentages skew as largely as they do toward Binghamton because of all the possessions the Bearcats wasted and all the extra chances Syracuse secured because of its offensive rebounding prowess.


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An Exquisite Collection of High Quality Prestige & Performance Vehicles
Welcome to A A Performance. We are one of the largest suppliers of quality used vehicles in the North West based in Bolton.
At AA Performance we pride ourselves on providing high quality vehicles and offering exceptional customer service. AA Performance is a family run business based in Bolton with over 30 years experience in the motor trade supplying new & used cars. All of our vehicles are handpicked and are supplied with full or long MOT's and undergo a stringent 128 point check, by our qualified technicians, prior to delivery. Customer satisfaction is central to our ethos and success. We take a great deal of pride in our client care and offer a range of after sales services. We welcome part exchanges and offer competitive finance packages, subject to status. Have your car valued and sold to us with money in your account within 30 minutes. Alternatively, after an inspection of your vehicle we can sell your car on your behalf, utilising all our resources, including finance, warranty and part exchange, providing you the customer a more attractive return. Repeat custom is central to our success. Our aim is to provide full customer satisfaction to the extent that AA Performance Ltd becomes the natural choice for all your motoring needs.
Thank you for all your help with the process of buying my car. Amazing service and no pushy salesmen in sight! Recommending you to all!


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Just recovering from my Capitol Hill Block party hangover… Only one new interesting listing today; for fans of Pioneer Square and exposed brick check out unit 2 at the Nord (312 1st Ave S). $375,000 for 779 square feet, 2 beds, 1 bath and a small atrium for a private "garden". Looks cute, but I'm curious how they cram all that into 779 square feet! Also no parking…
Actually, this listing at the Royal Crest has a beautiful pool and caught my eye too. Similar size as this unit at the Nord but only $200k, granted there is no exposed brick….
Current average appraisal:


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Hilarious is the attitude that these moves will guarantee a Cup. I've got news for you: many teams make deadline trades every season, and only one of them wins the Cup. The rest of them go golfing and lament that they gave up valuable assets for a rental who didn't win them anything.
Yes, hilarious. Because obviously I believe that putting a team on the ice GUARANTEES a cup win. You totally nailed what I was getting at, and accurately too. I was talking about filling a couple of glaring holes on an otherwise competitive team, and in doing so giving the Wings as good a chance at the cup as anyone else. Thanks for responding to my post in an obviously fair way.


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The Mnau [mnaw] Peninsula is a large offshoot of Ereláe which forms an interface between the Axunaic and Lenani-Littoral peoples. The Ediri mountains extend into the peninsula; to the west are broad river valleys, notably the Jakaye and the Šauki, while the east forms a littoral zone with many lakes and small rivers. The eastern coast is divided into the Namal to the north, and Barmund to the south.
Its climate is colder than that of Xengiman and less suited to irrigation, especially that of Almean oats. As a result the urban Wede:i culture never spread there; Mnau was populated by the De:iju, a Wede:i people who were largely hunter/gatherers.
Etymology: Old Skourene Melnali 'place that nurtures', Ax. Menal, X. Mnau, Ṭeôši Menäl; Tžuro Pelihi after Peligi; Ver. simply uses Čey.
Ancient history
With the Lenani-Littoral invasion of Skouras around -100, the Mei pressed into eastern Mnau. The Mei brought rye cultivation to Mnau. But the Skourenes followed; by 600 the Mei were restricted to the mountains.
Around 400 the Jei colonized the islands off the western coast, which were useful bases for their overseas trade; by 550 they were settling the area of Worčal and by 750, the mouth of the Šauki. When Axunai destroyed the Jeor empire, these areas were independent as Boriju. Timai's son Uliromez conquered the Šauki delta in 901; the emperor Čeba began the systematic conquest of the peninsula in 990. The conquered territory was named roz Čebevi 'Čeba's land'. The emperors encouraged settlement, largely with the aim of having a base for the conquest of Skouras; settlers were granted unprecedented liberties by imperial standards and had to adapt to a very different environment, factors which gave them an improvisational, individualistic spirit alien to imperial conformity.
The Skourene portion of the peninsula prospered; for some time in the 900s the predominant power in Skouras was the Muḍureg or Mudric Confederacy, which the Mnalun city of Kuḷiŋibor organized in order to meet the Axunemi threat. In the 1600s the city of Peligi similarly attempted to build unity against the Tžuro-- though it expended a good deal more energy fighting other Skourenes than it did against the Tžuro.
As Axunai weakened, the southern Mnalun provinces drifted into independence, organizing as the kingdom of Tädda (1406). Though ethnically Axunemi, Tädda adopted the market economy and senatorial government of the Skourenes. In 1628 the northern provinces rebelled, and organized as Ämünel.
Modern Čeiy
In 1741 Tädda and Ämünel united to form Čeiy. For centuries it was the most advanced nation in southern Ereláe, avoiding both the authoritarianism of the Axunemi and the divisiveness of the Skourenes. They developed the adversarial method as a means of establishing truth in religion, law, and science, and established the first university in Almea, the Šivines (1862).
The Gelyet, driven out of Xengiman, invaded Mnau in the 2500s and occupied most of the country. The Xurnese liberated the country, but soon overstayed their welcome. Resisting what they saw as ungrateful Čeiyu resistance, the Xurnese abolished the Senate. The Xurnese prime minister Bezu ma-Veon did support Čeiyu independence; when he was forced out the Čeiyu gave him sanctuary on the island of Šušumbör and widely accepted his cult of Bezuxau. Bezuxau terrorism helped re-establish Čeiy's independence (2840), but the price was continued dominance of Čeiyu politics. This was not resolved till the civil war of 2940-61, during which the winning northern side demolished the fortress of Šušumbör.
The southern coast of Mnau, Mešäriš, is largely ethnic Uṭandal (i.e. Skourene). It was liberated, and then occupied, by Luṭay, based in Jecuor. The Luṭair were a formidable military state-- though they had no other skills-- and pushed the Čeiyu back in the 3200s. In the 3300s, however, Čeiyu industrial power had grown too large for a small military despotate to resist. Čeiy conquered all of Mešäriš by 3365.
Part of the mountainous spine of the peninsula was long ruled by Gelyet overlords; in the 3100s the native landowners rebelled, creating the kingdom of Räntsüzôl.
The Uṭandal states
In the east, the Kurundasti Tej conquered all but the southern portion of Barmund. The Tžuro were not very interested in settling the cold, remote southern region, and when Tžuro power declined Čisra was able to depose its Tžuro governor (2204). The city now embarked on an attempt to unify the "Skourenes", now better called the Uṭandal, with the ultimate goal of liberating Skouras. By 2400 the Čisrans had unified almost the entire Uṭandal. In 2591 they began the assault on Skouras, only to find that there were no Skourenes to liberate; the locals were strong Jippirasti and considered themselves Tžuro. Čisra redirected its energy westward, conquering southern Čeiy as well as Jecuor; their empire was destroyed by the same Xurnese invasion that pushed out the Gelyet.
Čisra participated in the revolt against the Xurnese, and promoted a league, the Ḍaş Uṭandal, in place of its former empire. The League was strong in Mnau for centuries, but ultimately collapsed in the wake of a disastrous war with Luṭay (3154).
In modern times the eastern littoral is divided between Barmund in the south, Namal in the north, and Čisra, now reduced to controlling its peninsula plus the island of Minṭu.


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Food trucks came to WCVB Wednesday as part of a Sandy Hook fundraising effort.
Employees were encouraged to make a donation as they voted for their favorite food truck.
Baja Taco was one of the participating food trucks.
As was the Chubby Chic Pea
There were four trucks competing
The trucks competed by offering reduced sizes and prices for their food.
The Cod Squad food truck from Captain Marden.
The food truck from Compliments
Terri Beal from Captain Marden
WCVB-TV employees selected the Chubby Chic Pea as their favorite.
Avi Shemtov of the Chubby Chic Pea holds the certificate at the winner.
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Hey all, I'm just about finished up with college and all but certain that I DON'T want to fly for a major airline. I'm thinking that the 135 route is more to my liking when I have enought time built up. I would like to hear from some of the people out here that are, or have flown part 135 ops. Particularly the ones flying cargo in Falcons and Lears. While I'm at it, I'd like to hear about anybody flying for the fractionals. What are your experiences? Did you enjoy it? Would you do it again if you had to?
I know that most companies like Ameristar and USAJet fly the poo out of their crews. But as a result, they build a bunch of time fast. I also know that it's feast or famine. But the idea of going different places, and maybe flying some rich guy around in a modern business jet just apeals to me much more at this point.


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World's Oldest Man Passes Away at 113
War veteran and the world's oldest man Henry Allingham, whose remarkable life spanned three centuries and six monarchs - and who saw the sinking of the Titanic, the first Moon landing and the birth of his great-great-great- grandchild, passed away this weekend in his home in Britain at the age of 113.
Mr. Allingham was only briefly the world's oldest man, after the Japanese Tomoji Tanabe died in June of this year, also at the age of 113. Mr Tanabe was believed to have gotten to an old age on a diet of fish and milk and no alcohol, whereas Allingham had a different approach; once laughingly describing his secret to old age as being "cigarettes, whiskey and wild women."
Mr Allingham was a known figure in Britain, not only because of his age, but because of being one of three surviving British World War I veterans. The two still living veterans are Henry Patch, who is 111, and Claude Choules, 108.
Mr. Allingham was born in London in 1896. He lost his father and mother at a young age and was thus raised by his grandmother. He became a trainee maker of surgical instruments and worked in the motor trade as a motor mechanic. He then fought in World War II with his service including hunting zeppelins over the North Sea, serving on a Royal Navy ship that fought in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and fighting in the French Somme trenches. He has been widely remembered as an icon of a generation that made many sacrifices for their country and was praised for his war service by Queen Elizabeth of England and prime minister Gordon Brown.
Mr Allingham has seen an amazing five generations of Allingham childeren being born. He has five grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great grandchildren (some of which are on the picture of him and his family taken on his 111th birthday) and one great-great-great grandchild, according to news agencies. His wife, Dorothy, died in 1970.
The title of world's oldest living man will now most likely fall to American Walter Breuning, who was born in 1896. Guinness World Records will make a formal announcement as soon as the record has been verified.
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Rent Looseleaf for Child Development: An Introduction 13th edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by John Santrock. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
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Baumgartner 'very sad' to see wrestling dropped from Olympics
Bruce Baumgartner, a two-time Olympic wrestling champion and four-time medalist, has been deeply connected with the sport all of his adult life.
But Baumgartner had no advance warning when news broke this morning that the International Olympic Committee had voted out wrestling as one of its 25 core sports beginning in 2020.
"I was completely blindsided," said Baumgartner, now the athletic director at Edinboro University. "There's no doubt I was shocked. I'm very sad."
The decision, emerging from a preliminary, secret-ballot vote at the IOC's meeting in Switzerland, places Greco-Roman and men's and women's Freestyle wrestling on what the committee calls a "shortlist" of seven sports that will need to compete for one open spot in 2020.
Wrestling dates to the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896 and has long been considered synonymous with the Games.
Baumgartner said he's especially puzzled given that 71 countries fielded teams at last year's London Games, with wrestlers from 29 different countries earning medals.
"That's a pretty wide variety, (which) makes this very disappointing," Baumgartner said.
He wasn't alone, as the wrestling community at-large issued a strong and at times angry response to the news.
Former Olympic champion Dan Gable, in an interview with USA Today, called the decision "one of my worst nightmares." Penn State coach Cael Sanderson, who won a freestyle gold medal in 2004, said it's "a tragedy."
Both pledged to help lead efforts to restore wrestling's core status.
U.S. wrestler Jordan Burroughs, one of the stars of the London Games, tweeted: "It's not over yet. We will keep fighting to save the sport we love. Don't stop dreaming and don't stop believing."
Read more in Wednesday's Erie Times-News.


text: Toby Murray wrote: > If a systems is missing above that you think should be included, please > let me know. Mach > If you think there are distinctive features any current systems that > should be included in the list above, please let me know. My main > criterion for inclusion here is that a feature must affect the way > object-capability programmers might program in the system and the sorts > of things that can be expressed in the system. Operating systems usually provide low level primitives for interprocess communication that can then be used to build an object system on top of that. In addition, the kernel implements its own objects according to some conventions. This makes it difficult to give a single definitive answer, as kernel-implemented objects can behave significantly different from user-implemented objects, which also can cover quite a range of behaviour. A taxonomy for operating systems would thus ask for properties of the IPC system, and, also important, for properties of the resource management possibilities. Well, I can tell you that Mach supports synchronous and asynchronous message send and receive between threads and provides a full EQ? operation for all kernel-implemented objects. Thanks, Marcus


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TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- The University of Alabama's Creative Campus brought a bit of the magical world of the "Harry Potter" books back to the Capstone for the second annual Quidditch on the Quad event Sunday.A single-elimination tournament pitted 32 teams of students against each other in "muggle quidditch," a real-life intramural sport modified from the imagination of Potter author J.K. Rowling. Last week, 938 students from 82 teams representing organizations across campus competed in a preliminary round of games to move on to Sunday's tournament.
After more than five hours of matches on the Quad, a team of students from the First Baptist Church college ministry representing New Zealand took the title in overtime of the championship game over an independent team representing the Colonial United States of America.
Alexandra Tucci, a UA senior and Creative Campus intern who served as project lead for the event, brought quidditch to UA for the first time last year after learning about it from friends at Middlebury College, where the sport originated in 2005.
Sunday's "muggle quidditch" tournament had five fields marked on the east side of the Quad where co-ed teams battled it out in a hybrid game somewhere between handball and lacrosse mixed with an element of dodgeball.
Players in the "chaser" position swept down the field with a semi-deflated volleyball called the "quaffle" and tried to shoot it through three vertical hoops protected by a goalkeeper at their opponent's end of the field. While the "chasers" attempted to score, defensive players called "beaters" tried to temporarily knock them out of the game by hitting them with dodgeballs called "bludgers."
Away from the field, one "seeker" from each team sought to score points by catching the "snitch," a role played by a runner dressed in gold who could freely roam around with a sizable head start.Tucci said bringing the imaginary, magical event to campus has been very rewarding, but organizing Quidditch on the Quad has also presented its challenges.
"I guess the challenge is kind of the exciting part about it," Tucci said. "Because you're dealing with Quidditch, and it's an imaginary sport, it's very silly, but you have to take that silliness pretty seriously."
Nathan Vrazel, a freshman from Mobile, joined fellow students in the St. Francis of Assisi University Parish youth group to form a team representing Ireland. Vrazel said he has been a Potter fan for years and wanted to get involved with the sport because it gave him an opportunity to compete with his friends.
"I just loved these books growing up. It's part of my childhood and I've always been a big Harry Potter fan." Vrazel said. "Most people here are, pretty much, or else they wouldn't be out here. I just love sports and I figured I'd try something new."
Hayley Djuric, a freshman from Montgomery who played on the independent Colonial United States of America team, said her team was able to catch on to the rules quickly and develop a winning strategy by taking advantage of their players' athleticism.
"We didn't practice before we came out here, we're just all athletes kind of, so we just run around and try to tire the other team out," Djuric said after winning an Elite Eight match. "We've been dominating most of the teams we've played."
Hundreds of spectators including student supporters, families and senior citizens attended the event, which also featured activities like "potion making" demonstrations by the American Chemical Society.
"I never know what to expect, how many people will come," Tucci said. "But throughout the day, we've had lots of families coming and enjoying the children's activities we have set up. So there's been plenty of children coming by, and then elderly people, people from the community, and tons of students as well."
Money raised from T-shirt sales and registration fees will go to a Tuscaloosa County initiative that works to develop reading programs for students in area schools.
"This is sort of a celebration of the magic of literacy -- the idea that I can read this book, and you can read this book, and we can have this shared, common experience," Tucci said.
"To be able to celebrate J.K. Rowling's imagination in such a real way has been really exciting and I'm hoping the funds that well raise from this event will inspire students to read."
Related story: Teams compete in giggle-inducing quidditch matches on UA Quad


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2002-03 News Archives
June 11, 2003
Three Panthers voted ECAC All-N.E.
Six Panther spring sports standouts recognized
May 20, 2003
Sheridan named All-New England
Softball pitcher named 2nd Team All-America; Womens Lax player named Regional All-Star
May 11, 2003
Panthers win ECAC Women's Lax Championship
Panthers defeat Eastern Connecticut for championship, 12-7
May 10, 2003
PSC knocks out WNEC
Panthers to host Eastern Connecticut Sunday for championship
May 7, 2003
Panthers advance past Salve
Panthers upend Salve Regina, 16-9
May 5, 2003
PSC sweeps top LEC annual honors
Seven Panthers named All-LEC; PSU sweeps four major awards
May 5, 2003
PSC seeded #1 in ECAC Tourney
Top-seeded Panthers to meet Salve Regina
May 4, 2003
PSC captures LEC Championship
Katie Sheridan paces Panthers with record 10 goals
May 3, 2003
PSC downs KSC in LEC Semifinal
Panthers to host Eastern Connecticut Sunday for championship
May 2, 2003
LEC Tourney game postponed
Top-seeded Panthers will host Keene State Saturday in semifinal
May 1, 2003
Panthers set to host LEC Tournament
Panthers capture regular season title and earn top seed in LEC Tourney
April 28, 2003
LEC honors for two Panthers
Panthers receive Little East Conference Players of the Week in three sports
April 28, 2003
Panthers knock off Western Conn.
Panthers clinch Little East Conference regular season title
April 26, 2003
PSC-UMD game rained out
Rain wipes out Panther road contests
April 23, 2003
PSC defeats Colby-Sawyer
Panthers win for fifth time in last six outings
April 19, 2003
Panthers coast past RIC
Panthers remain unbeaten in Little East Conference play
April 17, 2003
PSC too much for Keene State
Sheridan and Brown lead Panthers with five goals apiece
April 14, 2003
LEC Honors for Sheridan/Villanueva
Sheridan/Villanueva earn weekly honor
April 12, 2003
Panthers defeat LEC favorites
Panthers knock off Little East Conference preseason favorites
April 12, 2003
Bowdoin nips PSC in OT
Panthers edged in sudden death by 17th-ranked Polar Bears
April 8, 2003
PSC coasts past USM
Panthers coast past Huskies in Little East Conference opener
April 6, 2003
Panthers can't play at BSC
Panther Lacrosse games moved to later in April
April 4, 2003
PSC Lacrosse games postponed
Panther Lacrosse games moved to later in April
March 31, 2003
PSC-Gordon game cancelled
Recent inclement weather wipes out Panther spring sports
March 31, 2003
LEC weekly honor for Sheridan
Panthers earn weekly honors in baseball, softball and womens lacrosse
March 27, 2003
PSC falls to Springfield
Strong second half leads Pride past Panthers
March 25, 2003
PSC picked 2nd in LEC poll
Defending LEC champs finish runner-up to ECSU in coaches' vote
March 25, 2003
Panthers edge Babson, 9-8
Matteson's goal wins it for Panthers; Villanueva strong in goal
March 20, 2003
Panthers edge CC in OT
Sheridans six goals leads Panthers
March 17, 2003
PSC dumps Whittier (Cal.)
Panthers even record at 1-1
March 8, 2003
Panthers fall in opener
Panthers edged by Stevens Tech, 13-11
March 5, 2003
PSC Season Preview
Panthers make season debut Saturday in New Jersey


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To the Editor.—
The implications of the abstract and title of "Bretylium Tosylate: Adverse Effects in Acute Myocardial Infarction" in the Archives (135:515-518, 1975), by Luomanmaki and associates, should not be allowed to stand without comment. Actually, the authors provided no evidence of any adverse effects of the drug in question; rather, they reported favorable effects. They found average peak levels of serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase and lactic dehydrogenase to be considerably lower in patients treated with bretylium than in patients treated with lidocaine, although their series was too small to give reliable statistical significance to the favorable effect of bretylium. They themselves say that their "data suggest that bretylium has therapeutic value in the prevention of major ventricular arrhythmias in acute myocardial infarction." No patient in their series on bretylium died while receiving treatment. One died 48 hours after the discontinuation of bretylium administration. Perhaps the most serious defect in
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Imagine buying a new thermometer and pulling it out the next time you pick up a virus.
It may say your temperature is the normal, healthy 98.6 degrees, but who's to say it knows what it's talking about?
That's where the advanced physiology class at West Texas A&M University comes in. Unlike pharmaceuticals, medical equipment often is not required to submit to any special testing to make sure it works. But if it doesn't, the results can be just as deadly.
So the WT advanced physiology students test medical equipment accuracy. Dr. Neal Latman, the assistant biology professor who teaches the class, said they might find a thermometer that is correct when your temperature is normal, but shows a negligible 99-degree temperature when you're really burning up at 108, or says you're safely at 97 degrees when you're hypothermic at 95.
"These instruments can kill people with misdiagnoses" Latman said. "A lot of the new thermometers on the market are almost that bad. One company gave us a blood pressure monitor that they sell for $500. It was just about like that."
Latman said the majority of the blood pressure monitors the classes have tested have failed. In fact, a lawyer contacted Latman for help on a case involving a man who had his blood pressure checked multiple times, and, though it was always normal, died of a heart attack.
"The sheep mentality of the Amarillo public, they see it on TV and they think it's the word of God and they buy it," said Marshall Dawkins, a graduate student in the class. "The federal government doesn't require (medical equipment suppliers) to meet or surpass that gold standard. These pieces of medical equipment don't have to go through those rigorous trials."
By testing the equipment, Latman said, the students in the class, most of whom are pre-medical students in one field or another, learn to be wary of the medical equipment they use, as well as how to test it themselves. And as they present their findings at conventions and in research papers, they are able to warn other medical professionals away from faulty equipment.
"It's just knowledge," Dawkins said. "And all knowledge is good. That will just make us better medical professionals."
But to gain that knowledge, the students need help - in the form of volunteers.
This semester the class is testing: several blood pressure monitors; a fatigue monitor that could help employers know when employees, in the aviation or medical field, for instance, are too tired to perform their job; and a nerve sensitivity monitor that could point to problems in diabetics in time to prevent amputations. To determine whether they work correctly, the students need 200-300 volunteers of any age and, in the case of the blood pressure monitors, with especially low or high blood pressure.
And what do the volunteers get in return?
"Personally, nothing, except the realization that they've helped improve the medical equipment and potentially saved someone's life," Latman said. "So that's something."
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Sprint Fan Vote Driver Caricatures
by NSSN Staff
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Sprint Showdown will be held on Friday night prior to the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the first time.
The race will precede the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at the 1.5-mile superspeedway and offers two drivers a final opportunity to qualify for the Sprint All-Star Race.
But when the Showdown is in the books Friday night, a third driver will still have an opportunity to make the All-Star Race field thanks to the annual Sprint Fan Vote.
SPEED SPORT content partner FoxSports.com takes an interesting look at the top contenders to win the fan vote through a series of unique caricatures of the drivers.
Posted by NSSN Staff on May 13 2014 Filed under Latest Headlines, NASCAR, Sprint Cup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


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by: Mike Parker
This was posted on the United Way of King County's website earlier today. It's a great look at Coach Mora & co. suiting up at Rainier Base Camp for their ascent up the mountain.
Highlight: Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke deadpanning "no" when asked by the cameraman if he's excited about the trip. "I'm ready for a nap," he says.
The crew is expected back down to a more breathable elevation sometime around 3:30 p.m. today. Hopefully everyone makes it back in one piece, and maybe Mora and Roger Goodell will emerge as new best friends when it's all over. (Hey, c'mon, all the bad ref and 10 a.m. kickoff-time jokes have already been told 82 times; I need to resort to wishful thinking now.)


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Browsing this Thread: 1 Anonymous Users
SW Florida Fishing
2006/11/7 8:32
From South West FL
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Let's just say that "it's on"! Tarpon are in thick and clients have had a blast site casting to "the silver king". Snook have been taking flies exceptionally well and the reds have been tricky but willing to eat if not spooked. On a charter the other day my clients actually caught more fish on the fly than with bait! I've received several PM's so far about fishing down here and look forward to receiving more. Tight Lines! - Capt. Matt
Posted on: 2007/5/3 10:50
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I have had to gain some shop space back and as such I decided to sell my sliding table. Anyone know where I could post an ad to sell this table. It works great, I just dont have the room for it.
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